This paper describes efforts to increase the quality in early care and education through targeted coaching. A collaborative including several community agencies and a university developed a framework of support for early care and education providers, using coaching as its foundational basis, called Coaching to Quality (CTQ). This paper provides a…

Using a qualitative research approach, this article explores teachers' roles in infants' play and its changing nature in an infant group care setting. Three infant teachers in a child care center were followed over three months. Observations, interviews, ongoing conversations, emails, and reflective notes were used as data sources. Findings…

Literacies are always learned in particular social places and spaces, and the nature of a site shapes the experiences people have of learning literacies there. This paper considers the experiences of staff in two contrasting workplaces: an early years centre, and an adult education college. Both are educational workplaces, and staff are engaged in…

Child care studies that have examined links between teachers' qualifications and children's outcomes often ignore teachers' and children's transitions between classrooms at a center throughout the day and only take into account head teacher qualifications. The objective of this investigation was to examine these traditional assumptions and to…

Objectives: This exploratory study obtained parent suggestions about messages and activities to guide parents to pack healthful sack lunches for preschool-aged children. Methods: A facilitator conducted group interviews using a modified nominal group technique with a convenience sample of parents who pack daily lunches for their children.…

Most qualitative studies in international education take place in a single site in a single nation. When studies are of more than one country, they most often use more quantitative than qualitative approaches. Beatrice and John Whiting conducted the most systematic of comparative cross-cultural studies of child rearing in their "Six…

Despite intentions to raise children in two home languages, non-Japanese bilingual homes may be encouraging the development of the societal language in children born in Japan. This article investigates: (1) the language use of two trilingual mothers with their developing trilingual children, and (2) how the mothers respond to their children's use…

The nature of professional development in early childhood education has recently been reconceptualised, with accompanying changes in policy and practice. This paper draws from teacher education literature to define the components of continuing professional development practices in the context of early childhood education practice. By relating…

Center-based child care and family child care are now part of the fabric of life in the United States. This trend report will review the available demographic information on the types of child care arrangements that parents are utilizing, the expenses related to these forms of care, and the structural characteristics of center-based care. Most of…

When the author was adviser to the Australian Minister for Education for writing the national Safe Schools Framework (2003), meetings were held with early-childhood care and education administrators from all state, Catholic and independent sectors. Their unexpected message was that educators were facing new problems, those of child sexual abuse in…

Safe learning spaces allow children to explore their environment in an open and inquiring way, whereas unsafe spaces constrain, frustrate and disengage children from experiencing the fullness of their learning spaces. This study explores how children make sense of safe and unsafe learning spaces, and how this understanding affects the ways they…

Considering how bad the economy was in 2009, North America's 50 largest for profit child care chains fared pretty well. In fact, about half of these organizations actually expanded their capacity in 2009--although the expansion was not spectacular, averaging just under 3%. About one-fourth of the organizations maintained their capacity and a…

Well-educated staff consists of multidimensional experts, and this staff is one of the strengths of the Finnish day-care system. The aim of this article is to clarify the development of the expertise of those early childhood educators who have qualified as kindergarten teachers. The data consisted of the early educators' stories (n = 80) of their…

Child-care settings provide numerous opportunities to promote healthy eating and physical activity behaviors among preschool children. The majority of U.S. children are placed in some form of non-parental care during their preschool years. While approximately 15 percent of preschool children are primarily cared for by their relatives, most…

In Pennsylvania, Family Day Care Homes (FDCH) are private residences used to care for up to six children in a 24 h period. These homes are often times the most affordable alternative to day care centers parents have in low-income communities. The aims of this study were to evaluate FDCH providers' knowledge of hazards and their understanding of…