In out-of-school care centres in Flanders, building warm and trusting relationships with parents is both an important aim and a huge frustration. Practitioners often struggle with their role towards parents and feel insufficiently trained to deal with increasing expectations about cooperation with parents. In this article we describe the results…

Purpose: Whilst an urgent need for collaboration is increasingly seen in education to better respond to socio-educational challenges, in practice, collaboration between primary school teachers and their partners is hampered by barriers. The aim of this study is to shed light on these barriers from a human resource management (HRM) angle, using the…

To increase quality licensed child care supply, the District of Columbia implemented Capital Quality, a quality rating and improvement system (QRIS) that includes coaching supports. Urban Institute researchers interviewed leaders who oversee coaches working to help child care facilities improve quality and conducted focus groups with coaches in…

Prekindergarten forms an important transition between home and formal learning in kindergarten, and prekindergarten teachers are essential contributors and influencers in their students' readiness into formal schooling. The problem addressed in this study was early childhood educators in one state in the southwestern United States are challenged…

Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) directors are crucial for sustainable quality ECCD centre management, leading to a focus on efficient 21st-century practices. Planning principles are essential for managing the complexity of early childhood education services. This paper aimed to explore how ECCD directors plan management activities in…

Purpose/Objectives: Interest in vegetarianism has increased in recent years. However, little is known of how this trend has impacted childcare foodservice operations. The purpose of this study was to explore the vegetarian menu substitution practices occurring within childcare centers and to describe the roles of nutrition professionals within…

Increasing amounts of screen time among young children has become a growing concern. Childcare centres maybe one important setting to intervene. This study aimed to examine the prevalence of screen time and screen time policies within childcare centres as well as the association between these policies and screen time among toddlers (19-35 months)…

Background: Universal Prekindergarten (UPK) programs often expand by offering Pre-K in both public schools and in community-based providers (CBOs). This approach gives families more options and allow UPK programs to increase access more quickly. However, little is known about which CBOs select into these systems. This is an important gap in the…

Whether high quantities of center-based care cause behavior problems is a controversial question. Studies using covariate adjustment for selection factors have detected relations between center care and behavior problems, but studies with stronger internal validity less often find such evidence. We examined whether within-child changes in hours in…

Social dimensions of the caregiving environment, like secure relationships to caregivers and high interactional classroom quality, are seen to directly or indirectly stimulate children's learning and development. However, little is known about the underlying processes, specifically with regard to the role of peers. To fill this gap we videotaped…

Research into leadership in early childhood education in Aotearoa New Zealand is in its infancy. At this early stage, distributed leadership has been identified as the most common style of leadership used in teacher-led early childhood education and care services. However, as a parent-led early childhood education service, Playcentre uses emergent…

For those experiencing them, educational transitions include not only the present time but are embedded within institutions that precede and extend beyond the individuals. This article explores how, as an institutional space, the early childhood education and care (ECEC) setting is (re)produced within young children's encounters with others during…

Communication and literacy development of young children is shaped by the nature of social and cultural relationships in everyday situations. Few studies, however, have explored early story experiences encountered by infants and toddlers in naturalistic settings. We argue that personal stories about everyday lived experiences are a vital context…

Job crafting offers an exciting way to understand how people engineer their jobs to create more meaningful work. Work is meaningful if workers perceive their work as significant and serving an important purpose. To examine how four early childhood educators individually and collaboratively craft their work, the study reported here examines data…

In South Africa, many children with extensive support needs--including children who require AAC--are accommodated in care centers rather than the public schooling system. Caregivers employed at these centers need training in order to support children's communication using augmentative and alternative methods. A total of 29 center-based caregivers…