This case study explores effective practices within a district's early care and education model. Interviews were conducted with eight parents of high-performing students and seven district ECE partners from Promise City. The results of this case study lead to the development of a model that comprises best practices within the (a) informal ECE…

Background: Early care and education (ECE) has lasting, positive effects on children's school readiness (Phillips et al., 2018; Yoshikawa et al., 2013). Over the past several decades, access to city or state-funded prekindergarten (pre-K) has increased considerably (Friedman-Krauss et al., 2023) with well-documented, positive impacts on child…

Transition to school is recurrently pointed out as key to children's immediate well-being at school start, as well as to their long-term educational endeavors. Aspirations towards continuity during transition is a common denominator across research, policy, and practice, in Denmark as well as internationally. This theoretical-conceptual paper…

The learning and development of educators in schools can take many forms. This paper is a critical reflection about the coaching and mentoring practices of the authors, set within the context of a state-wide transition to school initiative in Queensland, Australia. The paper describes the context of the initiative, the role of the authors,…

This study links county-level early care and education (ECE) program, economic, and demographic data to child-level data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study--Kindergarten Cohort of 2010-2011 to examine geographic variation in ECE program participation and provision. We find that public ECE programs, particularly Head Start, occupy a larger…

How can we use Friedrich Froebel's play theory in order to analyze ECEC, Early Childhood Education and Care? Wolfgang Klafki builds his theory of categorical "Bildung" on Froebel's play theory, which presupposes the interaction between child, adult and content, as in the didactic triangle. Froebel's play theory was lost in the hands of…

The main purpose of this article is to explore and develop a basic understanding of a new formulation of children's learning within ECEC policies in Norway. In the Nordic Countries, one question of importance is the shift in ECEC policy from a social-pedagogical approach and a holistic perspective on children's learning towards a heavier emphasis…

Early Childhood Education (ECE) programs are an important investment in Ohio's youngest learners. Ohio has worked to increase the availability of high-quality early learning programs for preschool children by providing the Early Childhood Education grants. Funded programs deliver high-quality, comprehensive learning environments focused on healthy…

As the early education coordinator for Prince George's County Public Schools, Judith P. Hoyer recognized the gaps in available services for low-income families. In the 1990s, she created a central location in Adelphi, Maryland, for early childhood services, thus fostering cooperation of governmental and private agencies around the needs of local…

This paper explores the concept of miniature students to interrogate the ways in which early childhood care and education systems in East Asian countries are being constructed. Experiences drawn from working in the Hong Kong education system and observations of teaching and researching in Hong Kong have enabled an analysis about the ways in which…

Research Findings: Using a sample of 568 students from 61 kindergarten classrooms whose primary caregivers completed a questionnaire describing their child's early childhood education and care (ECEC) by year from birth to pre-kindergarten, we identified seven pathways characterizing children's ECEC experiences using a latent class analysis. Once…

Despite substantial federal, state, and local investments in improving early care and education (ECE), we know little about whether ECE program quality has improved over time. The lack of data tracking the quality of publicly funded ECE programs at scale creates a substantial evidence gap for policymakers attempting to weigh the returns on, and…

Denmark has a tradition of kindergarten pedagogy focused on children's play, sociality and individual interests. Political emphasis on global competition, however, has led to reforms in early childhood education and care (ECEC) since 2004. Based on ethnographic fieldwork at three kindergartens, we analyse how the ECEC-reforms have affected the…

Expanded public subsidies for child care and prekindergarten command solid bipartisan support. According to recent polling, two-thirds of Republicans and nearly nine out of 10 Democrats would like to see Congress increase federal investment in early education. At the state level, public investment and student enrollment in prekindergarten…

Low academic achievements are predicted by early disadvantages. Because achievement gaps typically escalate with age, early efforts to prevent future academic disadvantages are called for. The current study examines whether exposure to structured pre-academic activities in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) play a compensatory role for the…