A cross-cultural study of parents' perceptions of early childhood programs

Cross-cultural studies in early childhood education assist in expanding perspectives and gaining increased understanding and appreciation of programs in other countries. Because both Sweden and the United States are interested in parent involvement in early childhood programs, a survey was conducted to assess parent's perceptions of these programs. Following a review of family life and early childhood education in Sweden and the United States are the specific components of the cross-cultural study. A stratified random sample of parents whose children were involved in early childhood programs was done in St. Louis County, MN, United States, and Kronobergs Lan, Småland, Sweden. In the first section of the five-part survey, parents indicated the degree to which they agreed or disagreed with statements about such areas as governmental support of children and families. Parents in Sweden felt more support of the government, whereas parents in the United States used early childhood programs as a support mechanism to increase their confidence. In the other four sections of the survey, parents rated the importance of various types of parental involvement and the importance of various materials, activities, and caregiver actions in their children's programs. In general, parents in Sweden valued informal contact and inner-directed creative materials and activities. Parents in the United States valued more confining activities such as rote counting, community-based experiences, and compliance with adult expectations. The influence of the macro-society on parents' perceptions as well as microsystem interactions and environments is evident in this study. As early childhood educators learn about and adapt new ideas to their own programs, the potential of cross-cultural studies becomes realized in improved opportunities for young children and their families.     

Early childhood education in India: History,trends, issues,and achievements

The changes in the social and economic structure of India have intensified the need for universal early childhood education. The formidable challenges before the Indian Government are: to provide high quality early childhood education programs; to preserve indigenous practices such as multilinguality, family/community involvement, participation of older children as caretakers of their younger siblings; and to provide early childhood education to all children despite serious financial constraints. This article presents a brief overview of the traditional childrearing practices in India, chronicles government initiatives in early childhood education, describes the range of programs available in India, and identifies goals that will shape the future of early childhood programs in India. Portions of this article will appear in Isenberg, J.P., & Jalongo, M.R. (Eds.). (1997, in press).Trends and issues in early childhood: Challenges, controversies, and insights. New York: Teachers College Press.     

对美国早期教育不公平现象的分析

美国早期教育的不公平现象至今依然存在,着重表现为早期教育可获得性不公平、早期教育项目质量不公平以及资金投入不公平等方面。早期教育不公平问题的产生有复杂的历史和文化原因。美国政府和学界一直致力于解决教育不公平问题。美国经验的启示是,要进一步加强对教育公平问题的科学研究,把教育公平问题作为深化早期教育改革与发展需要解决的核心问题来考虑,通过解决教育公平问题推动社会发展。     

More than a shortage of early childhood teachers: looking beyond the recruitment of university qualified teachers to promote quality early childhood education and care

In Australia and internationally, government policies aim to increase the supply of early childhood teachers and thus improve the quality of early childhood education and care services. In this paper, we suggest that such a policy-quality trajectory in Australia is not as straightforward as policy discourses suggest. From industrial relations and broader policy contexts, we argue that the early childhood profession is a profession on the margins and that this marginalisation complicates efforts to enhance numbers of early childhood teachers. Mindful of this marginalisation, we draw upon preliminary findings from a study exploring the motivations, beliefs and expectations of mature age postgraduate students to highlight practical issues pertaining to students and early childhood teacher education programs that further complicate policy drives to increase the supply of early childhood teachers. We propose that the success of such policy drives is dependent on a comprehensive addressing of the complexities raised in this paper.     

通过立法强化政府在学前教育事业发展中的职责——美国的经验及其对我国的启示

明确政府职责并予以立法保障对学前教育的发展至关重要。当今美国政府在学前教育事业发展中的职责呈现不断强化的趋势，主要体现在六个方面：各级政府对学前教育的重视史无前例；政府对学前教育的宏观调控不断加强；各级政府对学前教育的投入持续增加；大力提升学前教师资质要求与水平；联邦政府灵活调动州与地方政府积极性；重视政府各相关部门的协调合作等。我国学前教育事业的发展同样需要通过立法强化政府相应的职责。     

Diversity Competencies within Early Childhood Teacher Preparation: Innovative Practices and Future Directions

With classrooms becoming increasingly diverse due to children’s various cultural backgrounds and varying abilities, early childhood teacher education programs face the challenge of how best to prepare the workforce. Various initiatives have been implemented in teacher preparation programs to prepare early childhood educators to become competent in relating to all children and families. Infusing components of diversity into all courses and field experiences and engaging in community–university partnerships, as well as unifying early childhood education (ECE) and early childhood special education (ECSE) program components, are promising practices for the field. An examination and evaluation of these initiatives are discussed in this article, as well as future directions for research and practice.     

美国幼儿教育项目有效性的评价及启示:基于LPI研究报告

2019年1月,美国LPI发布了《幼儿教育有效性的实证性依据:对政策制定者的启示》,该报告分析了美国近期开展的21个幼儿教育项目及其评估报告,系统评价了不同幼儿教育项目的有效性。发现,高质量幼儿教育项目支持幼儿的有效性学习,其对幼儿参与者的影响具有持续性、多维性,并能带来一定的社会经济收益,但幼儿教育项目在实施过程中也存在研究对象不确定、其他因素对幼儿参与者的影响不明确等问题。借鉴LPI的研究成果,我国幼儿教育质量评价应从实际出发,改进幼儿教育质量评级政策,关注幼儿教育质量评级标准与工具的有效性,建立幼儿教育项目评价长效机制,不断提升我国幼儿教育质量评价的有效性。     

Quality and equity in early childhood care in Peru

The present study examines educational policy documents and programs on early childhood development and education in Peru. The author provides an evaluation of early childhood learning programs and their outcomes in different education centers in Peru. Health, nutrition, development, and participation are identified as key areas of concern. The study concludes with a reference to the importance of monitoring quality and equity in early childhood care.     

政府辅助幼儿教育责无旁贷

从上世纪80年代开始,我国有些地方出现了政府从幼儿教育中撤资或减少对幼儿教育的投资,或出租、变卖优质公立幼儿园的现象,理由是幼儿教育属于非义务教育,应该社会化。但这是否意味着地方政府应该减少对幼儿教育的投资呢?本文从经济学角度分析了幼儿教育的属性,提出幼儿教育作为一种准公共产品,只有采用市场和政府结合的供给方式才是最有效的,由此可以说政府辅助幼儿教育责无旁贷。     

美、英学前教育财政投入主要方式初探

美、英两国学前教育财政投入有三种共同的方式,即政府对学前教育机构进行财政投入、政府对大型学前教育项目直接进行财政投入、政府通过"教育券"和税费抵扣等方式补助学前儿童的家庭。较为灵活和多元的学前教育财政投入方式扩大了两国财政投入的受益面,也保障了其财政投入的有效性。     

Reading, Reasoning, and Literacy: Strategies for Early Childhood Education From the Analysis of Classroom Observations

Researchers have posited that children generally learn to read in environments that are trusting, comfortable, and offer small group or one-to-one adult support, all of which are characteristics of a high quality early childhood education program. This evaluation research study examines the Pre-Kindergarten Incentive Program, an early childhood demonstration program in Washington, DC designed to study several urban community-based sites. The authors facilitate a discourse on how all early childhood education programs can become high quality programs through standardized observations, evaluations, and constructive feedback. The article describes the demonstration program, highlights general findings from standardized classroom observations, discusses areas needing improvement, and presents strategies for addressing areas of challenge. It will reveal to early childhood educators how evaluation findings can improve teaching and learning techniques and environments in early childhood programs. The goal is to promote overall improvement in reading, reasoning, and literacy for children enrolled in early childhood programs and thereby better prepare them for kindergarten.     

Teacher training in early childhood education: The case of Ghana,West Africa

Abstract

Teacher training in early childhood education in Ghana, West Africa is more of a grassroots effort rather than a formal system that is fully supported financially by the Ministry of Education. Formal teacher‐training college or university‐based early childhood teacher training has yet to be realized for the thousands of teachers of children 3–5 years old in government or government‐supported primary schools. This work chronicles the past and present teacher‐training programs available in this country that reports approximately 4.3 million children in its population under the age of 6 years.     

当前我国学前教育管理体制面临的主要问题与挑战

学前教育管理体制在学前教育事业发展中起着领导、组织、协调、监控、保障、推动等重要作用,是保障学前教育事业健康发展的关键。当前我国学前教育管理体制存在着政府职责定位不清晰、职能转变不到位、各级政府与政府各部门间职权责划分不尽合理、管理机构和人员设置不健全等问题,已成为制约学前教育事业健康发展的体制性障碍。随着经济社会发展和宏观政策形势的变化,当前我国学前教育管理体制面临着前所未有的挑战,学前教育管理体制改革势在必行。     

University-based child development laboratory programs: Emerging issues and challenges

University-based child development laboratory programs have a long and rich history of significant contributions to the early childhood education field, yet many are being threatened by cutbacks and/or closures. This paper identifies emerging issues and challenges facing lab schools nationwide as they attempt to build support for their programs. Recommendations for strengthening the roles lab programs play in the early childhood field are outlined based on these issues and challenges.     

Wirksamkeit schulrelevanter Förderung in Kindertagesstätten

The present paper summarizes international and national research findings on the general and differential effectiveness of pedagogical work in early childhood education and care settings, evaluations of pilot projects on compensatory preschool education as well programs to support individual learning abilities. Based on these findings, the following conclusions are drawn: First, attending early childhood education and care settings at an early age (after the age of three) has a positive influence on the development of academic competences. Second, the effectiveness of these settings depends on the instructional quality, which could be considerably improved in Germany. Third, pilot projects on programs to support individual learning abilities could show that compensatory effects for disadvantaged groups of children exist, especially when they are interlinked with stimulating conditions in the family and at school. Fourth, effective training programs exist that can be implemented in early childhood education and care. However, a number of challenges need to be met before they can be successfully implemented.     

Service Learning and Early Childhood Education: Intersection of Developmentally Appropriate Practice and P.A.R.E.

ABSTRACT

Service learning (SL) is both a pedagogy and philosophy adopted by many early childhood teacher educators. Extant research suggests the incorporation of service-learning can be effective for facilitating preservice teacher learning of curriculum, pedagogy, approaches to diverse learners and families as well as establishing a professional identity. To guide the intentional adoption of SL and its assessment in early childhood teacher education programs, the authors present the Developmentally Appropriate Practice /P.A.R.E. model and illustrate how the model might be applied in a teacher education program. Challenges to incorporating service-learning in early childhood education programs and future areas of research are described.     

Searching for the Norm in a System of Absolutes: A Case Study of Standards-Based Accountability Reform in Pre-Kindergarten

Research Findings: The emergence of standards-based accountability reforms in early childhood education has created new challenges for the field. This article presents findings from a case study that explored how stakeholders in a large urban pre-kindergarten program struggled to implement an assessment tool that aligned the normative academic achievement expectations found among their teachers and administrators with the absolute measures of this construct found in their state policymakers' high-stakes standards-based accountability reforms. Analyzing the tension that emerged in this process of alignment highlights the challenges early educators face as they fold their child-centered programs into these larger high-stakes standards-based kindergarten through grade 12 education systems. Practice and Policy: The findings from this study illuminate the need for early childhood education programs to understand how high-stakes standards-based accountability reforms define student achievement. Furthermore, as early childhood programs and personnel address these reforms, their responses need to be explicit about how their assessment measures are connected to their normative conceptualizations of student achievement and what this means for the education of children in their programs.     

COLLABORATION AMONG EARLY CHILDHOOD TEACHERS AND FACULTY THROUGH A REGGIO INSPIRED LONG‐TERM PROJECT

To effectively teach young children, early childhood teachers must be prepared to collaborate with families of diverse backgrounds. Studying the unique cultural contexts of children and families in American early care and education programs and communities will offer early educators information needed to develop empathy for the families with whom they wish to partner. This study investigated the attitudes of Chinese graduate students in the United States toward American early care and education programs. Chinese graduate students are a unique and growing population of approximately 189,000, 40% of whom have at least one child attending American early care and education programs. Chinese graduate students’ educational expectations for their young children and reasons behind these expectations were also explored. Findings showed that participants’ views of American early care and education reflected Chinese culture and life experience. In terms of American education, these Chinese graduate students compared the American programs’ curricula to the Chinese national curriculum, a curriculum they successfully mastered. Implications for early childhood teacher education programs are discussed.     

Remove ‘care’ and stir: modernizing early childhood teacher education in Norway

ABSTRACT

There is growing concern within the field of education regarding how the implementation of national frameworks based on the European Qualifications Framework displaces tacit and less traditionally formalized knowledge from policy. This issue is particularly salient concerning national frameworks that regulate early childhood teacher education, in which knowledge and competencies about caring are crucial, though under-articulated. The proportion of under three-year olds who participate in government subsidized early childhood education and care programs in Norway has risen from 37% in 2000 to over 82% in 2016. Amidst this historic rise, the word ‘care’ was removed from Norway’s most recent National Framework for Early Childhood Teacher Education. Whilst policy analyses generally focus on the content of policy texts, in this article, I examine the circumstances surrounding the curious disappearance of text, namely the key concept of care. Combining a Foucauldian concern with discourse with Malabou’s concept of plasticity, this article reports on a plastic discourse analysis of the removal of care from the newest framework for early childhood teacher education in Norway.     

Aesthetic experience in a dynamic cycle: Implications for early childhood teachers and teacher educators

Abstract

This study describes early childhood teachers’ own beliefs and concepts of aesthetic experience in young children. The teachers involved in this study were directly engaged in preschools for 4 and 5 year‐olds where arts and aesthetic education are a primary consideration of their integrated curriculum. These teachers identified a variety of features of aesthetic experience in three dimensions, which develop in a dynamic, non‐linear cycle. This study suggests that early childhood teacher's awareness and knowledge of aesthetic experience is critical to support the high quality of young children's learning through the arts. It concludes with implications for both teacher education programs and early childhood teacher educators. © 2005 Published by Elsevier Inc.