Early childhood education and care (ECEC) has been found to be beneficial for the development of children below three years. However, many children do not attend ECEC facilities. Frequently, structural family characteristics (SFC), such as migration background, educational attainment and income, are used to explain differing probabilities of…

Due to an increasing number of children under the age of three attending early childhood education and care (ECEC), there is an increasing need for high-quality care settings. In addition to primary caregivers, ECEC teachers are important socializers of children's emotional development and may become children's attachment figures. Early preventive…

The development of social-emotional skills is crucial in early childhood. Behavior problems in early childhood are risk factors for difficulties throughout childhood and adolescence and beyond. Considering the importance of developing social and emotional skills during early childhood, this study introduced the Papilio-3to6 program into everyday…

Although observational instruments are considered to be the gold standard for measuring toddler childcare quality, large-scale studies often have to rely on interviews or questionnaires. However, it remains unclear whether such reports can serve as reliable indicators for childcare quality. The present study used the ITERS and FCCERS to examine…

In this article, Ajay Chaudry and Heather Sandstrom review research on child care and early education for children under age three. They describe the array of early care and education arrangements families use for infants and toddlers; how these patterns have changed in recent decades; and differences by family socioeconomic status, race, and…

The purpose of this study conducted in 36 infant-toddler centres ("Kinderkrippen") in the city of Munich in Bavaria/Germany was to explore structural characteristics of early child care and education and their effects on child care quality. Stepwise regressions and variance analysis (Manova) examined the relation between quality of care…