In this commentary, Sagi-Schwartz evaluates the article by Beckh and Becker-Stoll (2016) on attachment relationships with non-parental caregivers and how it may contribute to public child care. Beckh and Becker-Stoll first describe important background about research on early parent-child relationships, and how their nature and quality might…

Structural racism and class-based inequities help shape career and educational opportunities for women in the United States. As women make career and education gains, women of color (WOC) do not have access to the same level of opportunity. This report shares findings from interviews with parenting and unhoused WOC who attend the California State…

This Reflection on Practice is based upon a change in the undergraduate course "Family and Community Relations." Historically, this course has been taught on campus in a lecture format, as well as small and large group activities. However, during a spring semester at a midsized Midwestern University, it was altered to provide more direct…

In this commentary, Ahnert addresses the Beckh and Becker-Stoll's (2016) paper that characterized positive teacher-child relationships through high levels of closeness and low levels of conflict. Once teacher-child relationships are positively established, the children benefit the most in developmental domains which are considered typically weak…

The author reflects on the history of the Circle of Courage model in creating resilient children in a world where virtually all young people can be considered to be at risk. The author stresses that those people in the Reclaiming Youth movement are in the business of humanizing youth work and childcare. They continue to call adults back to the…

The close connection between the quality of provision for young children and professionalisation of the field has long been supported by international research. That the two are inseparable aspects of one picture is beginning to become accepted at European policy level, as evident in recent high level EU policy documents. This article explores the…

This article presents an interview with Barbara Thompson, the Director of the Office of Family Policy/Children and Youth in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. In the interview, Thompson talks about trends in military child care in the United States. She shares when the military got into the business of providing child care. She also talks…

This paper presents an interview with Dr. Alice Sterling Honig which took place in Syracuse, New York, in May 2009. Michele Jachim Barrett of Syracuse University conducted the interview using questions prepared by the editors of "ECRP." Dr. Honig is currently Professor Emerita at Syracuse University. Her work in early childhood development, care,…

This reflective essay describes the author's experiences as an observer in a behaviorist infant classroom. The author developed four categories of practice to describe what happened in the behaviorist infant room: (1) curricular focus on training typically developing infants to meet typical developmental milestones, (2) the use of highly…

In his testimony before the Joint Economic Committee of the United States Congress, the author discusses what he considers to be the underlying question concerning issues of early childhood education: How to invest in preschool programs so that they have a reasonable chance of being a success. The testimony takes the form of a series of questions…

In an intriguing account, the hypothesis is proposed that elevating effects of quantity of childcare on aggression might not, as other research has suggested, be dissipating over time, but instead be diffusing across groups of children. Paradoxically, this diffusion may also affect children with little or no experience with non-maternal care. If…

Recent advances in developmental science can teach us a great deal about the value of specific kinds of human interactions in the earliest years of life for the developing brain architecture. Animal experiments indicate that enriched environments with opportunity for frequent interaction and new experiences can help the animals' brains develop…

During a career spanning five decades, Edward Zigler has combined scholarly research with public service to promote national and state policies that are good for all children. Often called "the father of Head Start," he served on the planning committee for the program in 1965 and became the first director of the Office of Child…

Child Care Resource and Referral agencies (CCR&Rs) are one of the major vehicles in the United States for providing training to child care providers. The quality of care children receive in child care settings is due, in large part, to the effectiveness of the training child care providers receive from CCR&Rs and other community…

This article profiles Helen J. Post-Brown, director of Sunbeam Child Care Center in Fairmont and president of West Virginia Childcare Centers United, and explains how Post-Brown faced the obstacles when managing a child care business. In the fall of 1980, Post-Brown started Sunbeam as a small preschool with 12 children. Over the years, Sunbeam has…