The study assesses the effect of social and emotional learning (SEL) integrated in a literature class, named here "affective teaching," as compared to conventional teaching. Dependent variables include relationships, behavior, motivation to learn, and content knowledge. Participants were 36 teacher trainees in one college in Israel and…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the components and determinants of preschool teacher organisational citizenship behaviours (OCB), i.e. role behaviours that are discretionary, unrewarded and beyond formal-role expectations. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 12 Israeli kindergarten teachers and four supervisors participated in…

The article focuses on bilingual kindergartens in Germany and Israel offering education in both host (German or Hebrew) and immigrant (Russian) languages. The main questions are how teachers of bilingual kindergartens understand and explain the organizational and pedagogical principles of the kindergartens and how they negotiate home and host…

This article adds to the existing body of data that demonstrates how the use of in-depth case studies that include social episode analysis can deepen the teaching students' and researchers' understanding of the perceptions and skills needed for Classroom Management (CM). In this article, CM is defined as a meta-skill that integrates cognitive…

Early childhood educators are increasingly being called upon to deal with emotionally charged topics, which include natural and manmade disasters, war, terror, death, and other traumatic events. At our teachers college, we prepare students to deal with a challenging issue, memory of the Holocaust, through a series of activities and workshops…

This article presents a way in which the innovative Nature Therapy conceptual framework coupled with creative therapeutic methods can help children develop resilience and support their coping with uncertainty and stress. It refers to the Safe Place programme that took place in 110 Israeli kindergartens, helping over 6000 children after the Second…

This article describes a group of Druze preschool and kindergarten teachers from Northern Israel who participated in an in-service course in their community. The focus of the training experience was to improve the social climate of the classroom by implementing a life-world approach. Analysis of their reports shows that the children's meaningful…

This study investigated 10 Israeli preschool teachers' reasons for choosing their profession and their perceptions of the teacher's role. A narrative approach was chosen because teachers' narratives can reveal their practical knowledge and the meanings they ascribe to their teaching. Data were subjected to content analysis and linguistic analysis.…

This article describes preschool teachers' espoused mental models (EMMs) or, in other words, their naive understanding of young children's learning. Our research goal was to examine differences within the teachers' EMMs regarding the minds and learning of young children from different cultural backgrounds. The subjects included 18 preschool…

This paper describes the effect of a preschool hygiene intervention program on psychosocial measures of educators regarding handwashing and communicable pediatric disease. A cluster-randomized trial, with randomization at the level of the preschool, was run in 40 Jerusalem preschool classrooms. Eighty preschool educators participated. The program…

The young child's exposure to disaster and trauma through the media or in the social milieu poses a challenge for the early childhood educator who is faced with responding and educating in a developmentally appropriate manner. In the case of public commemoration of a national disaster, the classroom implications are seemingly unavoidable. This…

Teachers in general education are expected to cope with students with diverse needs. They might not always be ready or sufficiently supported to meet these challenges. The current study aims at identifying child, teacher and environmental barriers to inclusion. Specifically it addresses the importance of preschool teachers' attitudes as the human…

Poor nutrition is a major risk factor affecting proper development of children. However, there is limited knowledge about the way in which this subject is being integrated into professionals' work in early childhood education programs dealing with situations of children-at-risk. A study on this subject was conducted with 60 professionals who…

This study focused on a specific feature of preschool teacher talk, revoicing (a situation in which the teacher repeats, fully or partially, what the child said in the immediately preceding turn), within a specific interactional context, circle time, in order to gain a deeper understanding of the type of language mediation that occurs in this…

Societies can examine themselves and their values through examining their literature and the way they use literature in values education. This research investigated the values embodied in children's literature used by early childhood teachers in Israeli state schools. On the basis of questionnaires completed by 14 early childhood educators, and…