Defining teacher characteristics that are associated with effective teaching continues to be a challenging task for the field of early care and education. Much of the research examining classroom quality has focused solely on teacher characteristics such as education and experience; However, teachers' commitment to the field of early care and…

The current study examined professional caregivers' perceived and physiological stress, and associations with the quality of care they provide. Participants were 55 female caregivers from childcare homes and 46 female caregivers from childcare centers in the Netherlands. In both types of settings, equivalent measures and procedures were used. On…

Swedish leisure-time centres were formerly part of Swedish social and family policies but were transferred to an educational context in the 1990s. This transfer was accentuated by both the Education Act of 2010 and the new teacher training established in 2011, which also included education particularly directed for leisure-time centres. The…

This paper investigates the mechanisms by which a health-promotion intervention might influence the health-promoting behaviours of staff members working in early childhood centres. The intervention was an ecological health-promotion initiative that was implemented within four early childhood centres in South-East Queensland, Australia. In-depth,…

This article has emerged from a research and development project, The Baby Room, which was designed to examine how babies are cared for in daycare settings. Within the project, a form of professional development was created which designated a central space for dialogic encounter, primarily to enable the baby room practitioners who participated in…

Recently in Ireland attention has been placed on the importance of parental involvement in early childhood care and education settings as seen in the Síolta Quality Standards and Aistear Curriculum Framework. Yet there is little Irish empirical evidence on parental involvement in childcare settings; on the involvement models being used, or on the…

Many child care centers temporarily move children and teachers in and out of their assigned classrooms throughout the day. Such practices create frequent discontinuity in children's experiences in child care, including discontinuity in their peer and teacher relationships. This study examined the prevalence and patterns of teacher and child…

The field of early care and education as a whole is recognized as an optimistic profession, but it is stuck in a system that some feel is hopelessly malfunctioning. In a report by the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (2009), the total replacement needs for child care workers were 29.5% in 2006. Hiring and training new staff every year…

The importance of attention to children's emotions has been emphasised widely in early care and education research and policy. Enabling such attention has been seen as achieved primarily through attachment interactions with nursery staff. However, there is increasing awareness that facilitating such interactions in a way that is optimal for…

Family day-care (FDC) educators work autonomously to provide care and education for children of mixed ages, backgrounds and abilities. To meet the demands and opportunities of their work and regulatory requirements, educators need access to context-relevant and high quality information. No previous research has examined how and where these workers…

In collaboration with the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association (WECA), the Public Policy Forum surveyed 1,425 child care center directors, center employees, and family child care providers statewide. The survey was designed to provide a picture of the status of Wisconsin's child care workforce in terms of educational attainment, experience,…

The purpose of this study is to explore the playfulness of the teachers of infants and its relations to infants' emotional distress during the transitional time at a child care centre. The study used a qualitative case study. Two infant caregivers in a university-based child care centre participated in this study. For the three-month research…

The purpose of this study was to explore child care teachers' perceptions of their initial preservice and in-service training experiences. Eighteen child care teachers working in six for-profit centers were interviewed. Based on the participants' responses, the findings are organized in two themes. First, because many of them entered the field…

This article presents the key findings and discussion from a research project and subsequent report: "Involving young children in decision making: An exploration of practitioners' views". This research explored early childhood practitioners'--childcare workers, kindergarten, pre-primary and grade 1-2 teachers--views on decision making…

Child care teachers' experiences and their gendered understandings of their work were explored in this study. Two female child care teachers were interviewed individually and asked to describe their work as women's work. Analysis showed that teachers essentialized child care teaching, recognized the paradoxes of being a child care teacher,…