The quality of early childhood experiences is crucial to a child's development and educational success. Yet few early childhood education and care services in the world today offer a consistently high level of educational quality. In particular, educational quality depends on the context's characteristics. The aim of this study was therefore to…

The early care and education (ECE) sector in New Hampshire (NH) is a complex ecosystem that must account for families' needs and resources, the capacity and availability of the workforce, and the costs of providing services. This ecosystem is also bolstered (and constrained) by local, state, and federal policy. This series of primers, titled the…

The articles contained in this three-article dissertation carefully document characteristics of early childhood (EC) classrooms that could be beneficial to early learning and success. These articles use multiple regression, descriptive statistics, and multi-level modeling in their methodology and make recommendations for policy in the field of…

In recent years, Swedish preschool has been subjected to significant changes. As there is a lack of studies examining how teachers in music rhetorically position themselves within this context, the aim is to study subject positions that are constructed in conversations between preschool music teachers (PMTs) and to discuss these positions in…

The aim is to investigate early childhood mathematics in a preschool unit in Sweden. A mixed-method research approach and a case study research design were used. Three preschool staff members and 19 children were enrolled. Data were collected by means of observations and a focus group interview. Numerical and thematic analyses were conducted. The…

Early care and education (ECE) settings are influential in shaping children's early experiences. Informed by the Job Demands-Resources model, this study had two aims. First, we examined how ECE teachers' physical (i.e. muscular skeletal strain and infectious disease experience) and psychological (i.e. depression and job dissatisfaction) job strain…

Australian early childhood education and care [ECEC] has faced a series of change and reform since 2009, including the introduction and later revisions of key curriculum and qualify frameworks, increased qualifications, shifting theoretical knowledge and pedagogies, and challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, early childhood…

Physical classroom environments for young children and the quality of those environments have typically been studied by utilizing various rating scales. Research is limited on early childhood educators' perspectives and decision-making processes in striving to create optimal physical classroom environments during the school year. This qualitative…

In this article, we present the evaluation of a kindergarten teachers' professional development programme, 'Upgrading the quality of the pre-school environment' conducted by the participating teacher--thee programme is aimed at the improvement of the quality of Early Childhood Education and Care. The evaluation, which followed a mixed-method…

Administrators play a key role in establishing learning structures that impact student learning from the earliest developmental stages. Throughout the northeastern region of the United States, elementary schools continuously assess the quality of student-teacher interactions to evaluate students' developmental progress. The problem identified in…

"Research Findings:" This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of the Puhui early education services (PEES) policy in China from the triangulated perspectives of stakeholders using a developed and validated scale. First, applying a stratified cluster sampling method, the Puhui Early Education Services Policy Effectiveness Scale (PE)…

Internationally, professionalization has become a key policy strategy targeting quality improvement in early childhood education and care (ECEC), utilizing top-down managerial strategies including implementation of quality standards and increased workforce qualifications. Set against this backdrop, this study explored educators' accounts of their…

The quality of inclusion for young children with disabilities in early childhood learning environments has long been attributed to the effectiveness of the teachers within such settings. As the service delivery system has shifted toward more inclusive models, endeavors to improve preparation for inclusion have been marked by efforts to combine the…

The nearly 400 maintained nursery schools in England are schools for children aged 2-4 years. They hold a unique position in offering state-funded provision for this age group, outside of a primary school environment, and are disproportionately located in areas of disadvantage [EE. 2020. "Briefing Note: The Comprehensive Spending Review and…

High-quality early childhood education and care is of critical importance to children's optimal development and wellbeing, and to a nation's social and economic capital. Consequently, assessing and monitoring quality through regulatory mechanisms has become increasingly significant across the world. Yet, literature pertaining to the impact of…