The main goal of the present work was to introduce a new conceptual framework for quantifying and classifying the environment by imposing a structure for sequencing contextual influences that echoes the study of genes. According to Bronfenbrenner's Bioecological Model of Human Development (BMHD), children's developmental outcomes are the result of…

Children's time use is a complex developmental phenomenon in need of a more in-depth, detailed understanding. The present study aimed to provide a comprehensive description of children's everyday lives in middle childhood and examine how different portfolios and patterns of daily activities occurring at home, school, and community are influenced…

The Home Learning Environment (HLE) focuses on everyday learning habits in families to support the development of children's early cognitive competencies. A growing number of studies have assessed the HLE by using different conceptual approaches and various assessment methods, often focusing on either the home literacy environment or the home…

We develop a unified empirical framework for child development which nests the key features of two previously parallel research programs, the Child Development literature and the Education Production Function literature. Our framework allows for mis-measured cognitive and non-cognitive skills, classroom effects, parental influences, and…

Self-regulation facilitates healthy development and positive adaptation across the life course, and deficits are linked to negative health outcomes. Self-regulation development is thus an important target for universal prevention interventions in early childhood. A well-established research base addresses the significance of caregiver…

Children show marked improvements in executive functioning (EF) between 4 and 7 years of age. In many societies, this time period coincides with the start of formal school education, in which children are required to follow rules in a structured environment, drawing heavily on EF processes such as inhibitory control. This study aimed to…

This study provides an empirical investigation into the lives of kindergarten-aged left-behind children (LBC) who could not migrate with their parents in rural China. Two research questions are answered as follows: (1) What are the characteristics of the LBC in kindergarten and at home? and (2) How does family cultural capital influence the LBC's…

Guided by the ecological model of civic development, this study examined the extent to which the growth in children's self-control during middle childhood predicted their civic engagement at age 26 directly and indirectly via their prosociality at age 15. We used data from 1,042 children (50% female, 77% White) in the NICHD Study of Early Child…

This study investigated the direct relationship between home play opportunity and prospective school readiness, and the indirect relationships as mediated through object and social mastery motivation among Hong Kong Chinese kindergarten children. Participants were 106 local children (44.4% girls, mean age = 60.0 months) and their parents and…

In the Maltese context, the nation-wide roll-out of State kindergarten provision in the mid-70s and the rapid increase in childcare services for under three-year-olds over the last two decades were initiatives driven by efforts to entice women to the labour market. National research to determine short and long-term effects which these services…

Socio-emotional school behavior and learning are both fundamental aspects of children's development influenced by cognitive control processes named Executive Functions (EF). Yet, research on school-age children has often focused on the relationship between EF and learning skills overlooking that of EF and school behavior, which has usually been…

The early prediction of math difficulties (MD) is important as it facilitates timely support. MD are multifaceted, and several factors are involved in their manifestation. This makes the accurate early prediction of MD particularly challenging. In the present study, we aim to predict MD in Grade 6 with kindergarten-age (age 6) measures by applying…

For many years, researchers studied executive functions (EFs) in the laboratory with a focus on understanding an individual child's development and brain processes in a controlled environment. Building on this foundational research, there is a growing interest in EFs in the context of a child's dynamic, social world, and the contextual and…

As environmental education and sustainability education play a fundamental role in training citizens who are more aware of global change and more environmentally responsible, organic learning is a recommended alternative learning experience for young children. This article describes how one kindergarten class in South Korea applied organic…

Across geographically diverse samples, engagement in stimulating activities with young children is considered an important element of parenting that promotes cognitive, behavioral, and social-emotional development. Indicators of stimulation activities are often summed, based on the assumption that more stimulation is better and that different…