Child care quality: centers and home settings that serve poor families

The effects of center-based care on early development, outside of carefully controlled demonstration programs, appear to be positive yet often modest for children from low-income families. But little is known about variation in the quality of centers and preschools found among low-income neighborhoods. Evidence also remains scarce on the observed quality of home-based care, the settings that most children attend and into which large infusions of federal dollars are now directed. This paper reports on the observed quality of 166 centers and 187 nonparental home settings (including family child care homes and kith or kin providers) serving children in five cities situated in California, Connecticut, or Florida. Centers displayed higher mean quality as gauged by provider education and the intensity of structured learning activities, compared to home-based settings, but did not consistently display more positive child–provider interactions. Great variability among centers and home-based settings was observed, including between-city differences. Second, we found that contextual neighborhood attributes accounted for the quality of providers selected more strongly than family-level selection factors. Mothers with stronger verbal abilities (PPVT scores) did select higher quality centers; those employed longer hours each week relied on kith and kin providers with lower education levels. Interrelationships among different quality measures are detailed. The policy implications of such wide disparities in center and home-based care quality are discussed, including how states could more carefully strengthen regulatory or quality improvement efforts.     

Child care licensing regulations and child care quality in four states

This study analyzed the child care rules and regulations from the four states that had previously been reviewed under the Child Care, Cost & Quality study. Child day care regulations for each of the states were analyzed through rubrics designed by the investigators in the domains of structure, operations, personnel, and context. A separate analysis was done comparing regulations for protecting the child versus regulations for enhancing child development. The four states were in general agreement in setting higher standards for child protection than for the enhancement of development. Such regulations support the image of child care programs being a “safe haven” rather than a “development enhancer.” The limited requirements for child care personnel and for community interaction also encourage that image. These minimum standards departed substantially from professional judgments about what is needed in child care settings. The authors proposed higher personnel standards, greater explicit emphasis on developmental enhancement, and more required interaction with parents and community contact.     

Child care and family processes: Bi-directional relations between child care quality,home environments,and maternal depression

The current study examined whether within-family changes in child care quality and quantity predicted subsequent changes in home environment quality and maternal depression across early childhood (6 to 54 months of age). Data were drawn from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (n = 1239; 77% White; 48% female; data collection from 1991 to 1996), and were analyzed using Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Models. Within-family increases in child care quality predicted modest increases in home environment quality (β = .13–.17). These effects were most robust from child age 6 to 15 months. Increases in child care quality produced small, statistically non-significant, reductions in depression. Time-specific increases in child care quantity were not consistently predictive of either outcome.     

Child care and low-income children's development: direct and moderated effects

A large literature has documented the influence of child care on young children's development, but few studies have examined low-income children in community care arrangements. Using data from Welfare, Children, and Families: A Three-City Study (N = 204), this study examined the influence of child care quality and the extent of care on low-income children's (ages 2-4 years) cognitive and socioemotional development over time. Higher levels of child care quality were modestly associated with improvements in children's socioemotional development, and extensive hours in child care were linked to increases in children's quantitative skills and decreases in behavior problems. Analyses suggest that child care quality may be particularly salient for subgroups of children from low-income families.     

Shedding further light on the effects of various types and quality of early child care on infant-mother attachment relationship: the Haifa Study of Early Child Care

The Haifa Study of Early Child Care recruited a large-scale sample (N = 758) that represented the full SES spectrum in Israel, to examine the unique contribution of various child-care-related correlates to infant attachment. After controlling for other potential contributing variables--including mother characteristics, mother-child interaction, mother-father relationship, infant characteristics and development, and the environment--this study found that center-care, in and of itself, adversely increased the likelihood of infants developing insecure attachment to their mothers as compared with infants who were either in maternal care, individual nonparental care with a relative, individual nonparental care with a paid caregiver, or family day-care. The results suggest that it is the poor quality of center-care and the high infant-caregiver ratio that accounted for this increased level of attachment insecurity among center-care infants.     

Public reflection within learning communities: an incessant type of professional development

This article is based on a study focusing on how structured learning communities can promote reflective awareness and professional development, through collaborative analysis of professional experience. As participant–observer, the researcher used recorded observations as well as individual participants’ reflective writing as data. Of importance is the fact that all seven participants argued that they developed professionally and started to dig deeper into their experiences as the five-month study progressed. They also pointed out that this type of professional development was immediately relevant to their present needs, and this was what motivated them to further engage in reflection as a tool for professional development. Aspects such as conflict and uncertainty in teacher learning, and how collaboration promotes further reflection will also be discussed.     

Child care quality matters: how conclusions may vary with context

Three studies examined associations between early child care and child outcomes among families different from those in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Early Child Care Research Network study. Results suggest that quality is an important influence on children's development and may be an important moderator of the amount of time in care. Thus, the generalizability of the NICHD findings may hinge on the context in which those results were obtained. These studies, conducted in three national contexts, with different regulatory climates, ranges of child care quality, and a diversity of family characteristics, suggest a need for more complete estimates of how both quality and quantity of child care may influence a range of young children's developmental outcomes.     

Professional learning communities among vocational school teachers: Profiles and relations with instructional quality

Although improving teachers' classroom strategies presents the primary goal of PLCs, empirical evidence is still scarce, mainly derived from case-study material and confined to (pre-) K12 settings. We use profiling techniques and a comparative design to examine (a) distinct configurations in which PLCs occur within vocational school departments, and (b) their relations to instructional quality. Multilevel latent profile analysis, based on teacher assessments of core PLC dimensions, reveals three configurations. Multilevel multiple group analysis of students’ instructional ratings shows that teachers from Advanced PLC departments create more authentic, application-oriented learning environments than teachers from other departments.     

Multiple learning communities: students,teachers, instructional designers,and researchers

Fostering a Community of Learners (FCL) exemplifies a class of pedagogical approaches aimed at having students become reasoners and sense‐makers in various content domains. While the pedagogical practices among these approaches vary to some degree, they tend to overlap in philosophy and general pedagogical style. Hence issues confronted by those attempting to implement FCL will be confronted by those hoping to implement similar activities. The three‐level commentary in this paper begins with specific reactions to the preceding papers, which focused on attempts to implement FCL in different content areas. It continues with a discussion of what counts in FCL: for example, is it a set of participant structures such as jigsawing, or a set of underlying principles? It concludes with a discussion of systemic issues that will be faced by any pedagogical approach focusing on having students engage in reasoning and sense‐making in the classroom.     

Lifelong learning to labour: apprenticeship,masculinity and communities of practice

This article presents an analysis of gender identity within the context of lifelong learning. Constructed specifically around individual experiences of occupational apprenticeship in English professional football, it draws on a re‐reading of data collected in the early 1990s to depict the way in which a group of young men were socialised into their new‐found occupational culture and how their identities were shaped by the heavily gendered routines of workplace practice. Framing apprenticeship as a holistic ‘learning’ experience, the article looks at how the legitimate peripheral participation of trainees in an established community of practice facilitated their adaptation to and assimilation of various skills, procedures and institutional norms via informal learning processes. Set against the historical development of apprenticeship in England, the article uses qualitative research findings to determine the extent to which apprenticeship within professional sport might facilitate the reproduction of stereotypical gender norms and values.     

Revisiting learning communities: innovations in theory and practice

Research on learning communities has been largely influenced by the sociocultural turn in educational scholarship approximately three decades ago. Here, we present a wider history of research and practice on learning communities as we revisit this highly generative and central topic in the learning sciences. Using this to frame our perspective, we examine several central themes in learning communities by comparing and contrasting four cutting-edge conceptions and innovations. We conclude by asking and providing preliminary answers to three key questions in scholarship on learning communities: (1) Where are the learning and instructional sciences going? (2) Where is education going? (3) Where is the world going? Altogether, this paper can serve as an orientation to the topic of learning communities as research and practice moves forward.     

Child abuse and neglect in American Indian communities

Child abuse and neglect have recently been found to occur among American Indians at rates comparable to other American population groups. Little is known about the clinical spectrum of Indian maltreatment, the psychodynamics and effective treatment modalities. Cultural misunderstanding, modernization, poverty, situational stress, poor parenting skills because of early break-up of Indian families, alcoholism, unusual perceptions of children, handicapped children, and divorce constitute factors associated with maltreatment in cases cited. Old solutions of removing children from families were largely inappropriate and ineffective and are being replaced by local efforts to develop foster homes, supportive family services, and legal procedures to protect children. Communication between agencies involved and mistrust of outsiders plus a lack of trained personnel and available community resources continue to pose major barriers to effective treatment and prevention efforts. Recent federal policies and laws clearly place the responsibility for child welfare in the hands of Indian tribes and tribal courts. The non-Indian health professional has an important but limited role in providing technical expertise and in aiding development of community resources, taking care to support but not usurp the emerging leadership of Indian people.     

The Child Care HOME Inventories: assessing the quality of family child care homes

Versions of the HOME Inventory for use in family child care homes are described. The Infant/Toddler version is designed for use when children are less than 3 years old; the Early Childhood version for children ages 3–6. Psychometric characteristics of the child care versions of HOME are similar to the psychometric characteristics found for the original HOME used to measure the family environment. Child Care HOME scores were strongly related to intensive observational measures of behavior among child care providers and to measures of physical and organizational aspects of the environment. Because the inventories take less time and training to administer than most current measures of family child care, they may provide a way for licensing workers and others responsible for maintaining quality in child care to obtain useful information about this widely used but minimally monitored form of non-parental care.     

Student attitudes toward learning,level of pre-knowledge and instruction type in a computer-simulation: effects on flow experiences and perceived learning outcomes

Attitudes toward learning (ATL) have been shown to influence students’ learning outcomes. However, there is a lack of knowledge about the ways in which the interaction between ATL, the learning situation, and the level of students’ prior knowledge influence affective reactions and conceptual change. In this study, a simulation of acid-base titrations was examined to assess the impact of instruction format, level of prior knowledge and students’ ATL on university-level students, with respect to flow experiences (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) and perceived conceptual change. Results show that the use of guiding instructions was correlated with a perceived conceptual change and high levels of “Challenge,” “Enjoyment,” and “Concentration,” but low sense of control during the exercise. Students who used the open instructions scored highly on the “Control flow” component, but their perceived learning score was lower than that for the students who used the guiding instructions. In neither case did students’ ATL or their pre-test results contribute strongly to students’ flow experiences or their perceived learning in the two different learning situations.     

The ups and downs of child care: Variations in child care quality and exposure across the early years

There is considerable policy interest in understanding the role of child care in children’s development. Yet little research has examined whether individual children experience changes in child care quality across their early years, and less has included children’s varying levels of exposure to care in analyses of child care trajectories. Using data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care, this study seeks to fill these gaps by studying the non-maternal care experiences of children whose mothers work at some point during their early years. We find that few of these children experience continuously high-quality care or continuously low-quality care. Instead, many children experience changes in child care quality. Children from low socioeconomic status families are more likely to experience low-quality care than children who are never poor, but children who are never poor are more likely to have child care histories that include both low- and high-quality care arrangements. We discuss the implications of our findings for studies of selection into low-quality child care arrangements and the effects of child care quality on children’s development.     

Orthographic facilitation in oral vocabulary learning: effects of language backgrounds and orthographic type

Reading and Writing - Two experiments investigated whether exposure to Chinese characters and pinyin would facilitate oral vocabulary learning for Chinese as a first (L1) and second (L2) language...