童年体验的追忆与童年的本质及其消逝

童年对儿童的成长具有重要的意义.作为一种客观的时间经历,童年是不可能消逝的,童年的消逝在本质上是童年体验的消逝.对童年体验的追忆表明,童心、童真和童趣是童年体验的基础,童年在本质上是一种以童心、童真和童趣为基础的童年体验.保卫儿童的童年就意味着保卫儿童的童心、童真和童趣.     

美国《开端计划执行标准》评介

美国开端计划是由美国联邦政府制订并推行的一项主要针对处境不利学前儿童及其家庭的国家行动计划,作为扩大教育机会、保障教育公平的重要手段,为保证并促进其实施与质量,联邦政府自计划实施之初就为它制订了一套执行标准,并不断根据现实发展的需要对其进行修订.开端计划执行标准对开端计划涵盖的七种服务都作了详细具体的规定,其文本由标准概要、服务规划、社会服务标准、儿童健康和发展服务标准、个人教育项目服务标准、营养服务标准、家长参与服务标准、合作服务项目标准八大部分组成,并提供了多种运作方式供地方获权机构与授权办事处根据自身情况灵活选择与运用.此外,执行标准还强调组成包括政策理事会、政策委员会和家长委员会在内的开端计划治理机构,以加强对开端计划执行过程的监督与对其实施效果的监测和反馈,从而保证为处境不利儿童及其家庭提供高质量的多方面服务.     

未成年人贫困对个体健康、能力与就业的影响

未成年时期的贫困会影响个体的先天素质、营养摄取、生活环境及所能获得的医疗资源,不利于贫困个体的健康成长,会对其智力发育和受教育情况产生消极影响,并经由人力资本积累最终作用于个体成年后的身体健康、能力获得与劳动就业,使其在就业和生活中均处于弱势.国家与政府应加强未成年人贫困问题的研究,积极倡导社会抚养的理念,通过制定和实施完善的政策体系保障贫困未成年人的健康成长与发展.     

Helping Homeless Families Overcome Barriers to Successful Functioning

The author articulates key stressors in the lives of families who are homeless. These stresses often combine with barriers such as lack of job opportunities and/or insensitive professionals. Strategies for helping homeless families overcome these barriers and related issues are presented.     

Rationalising public support for private early childhood education and care: the case of Finland

ABSTRACT

In Finland, early childhood education and care (ECEC) is traditionally publicly provided. However, private ECEC provision has increased during the past decade, largely as a result of financial support from the public sector. Drawing on qualitative interviews with municipal decision-makers, this article identifies three frames within which publicly subsidised private ECEC provision and marketisation are rationalised: the pragmatic frame, the government frame and the choice frame. The results show that even though market logics and tendencies seem to have gained a strong foothold in local policies, there is a keen interest in universalism and maintaining public control over local ECEC provision.     

计算机与幼儿园课程的整合

本文主要探讨了计算机整合于幼儿园课程的几个问题，包括怎样理解计算机整合于幼儿因课程的含义，将计算机整合于幼儿因课程的意义，以及整合的具体方式，并对整合过程中遇到的问题如教师自身的计算机基础、软件在课程整合中的作用等问题进行了简要探讨。     

Early career teachers’ sense of professional agency in the classroom: associations with turnover intentions and perceived inadequacy in teacher–student interaction

Teachers’ capacity to learn intentionally and responsively in the classroom is particularly vulnerable during the first years in the profession. This study investigated the interrelations between early career teachers’ turnover intentions, perceived inadequacy in teacher–student interaction, and sense of professional agency in the classroom. The survey data were collected from 284 in-service teachers with not more than 5 years of experience and analysed by structural equation modelling (SEM). The results showed that the negative relation between turnover intentions and early career teachers’ sense of professional agency was completely mediated by perceived inadequacy in teacher–student interaction. The results indicate that experiences of insufficient abilities to solve pedagogically and socially challenging student situations have a crucial effect on early career teacher’s capacity for adaptive reflection and active transformation of instruction.     

Relating early childhood teachers’ working conditions and well-being to their turnover intentions

High turnover rates of early care and education teachers reduce the quality of education; unsatisfied teachers, suffering from stress or emotional exhaustion, are less equipped to promote children’s development and more likely to leave the classroom. We used data from a national survey of US early childhood educators (n?=?1129) to examine associations between teachers’ working conditions, well-being, and motivation with professional commitment and turnover intentions to move, leave, or remain. Multiple regression analyses revealed that more intrinsically motivated teachers were more likely to report intentions to move over leave, emotionally exhausted teachers were more likely to report intentions to leave, and lower teacher-reported working conditions predicted intentions to move or leave the field over staying. The results suggest that teachers’ well-being and perceived working conditions relate with their intentions to remain at their job or within the field and to their commitment to the profession.     

Child developmental impact of Pittsburgh’s Early Childhood Initiative (ECI) in high-risk communities: first-phase authentic evaluation research

The national debate surrounding the issue of school failure has renewed interest in the quality, efficacy, and outcomes of early childhood intervention programs that can promote early school success for children at developmental risk. Moreover, researchers and policymakers report the need to document developmentally-appropriate models for assessing and evaluating early childhood outcomes. We report on the first-phase results of Pittsburgh’s early childhood initiative (ECI). ECI is a privately-funded effort by a consortium composed of the business, corporate, foundation, and community sectors to implement high-quality early care and education options for children in high-risk neighborhoods. The overarching objective of ECI is to ensure early school success for high-risk children. Our Scaling Progress in Early Childhood Settings (SPECS) Evaluation Team implemented an authentic assessment and program evaluation strategy and an enhanced “constructed comparison group” statistical model to conduct longitudinal research on the child developmental impact of the ECI model. First-phase results on 155 high-risk children indicate that those who participated in high-quality ECI programs for the longest periods of time demonstrated patterns of progress that exceeded maturational expectations. Weekly collaborative consultation to teachers and caregivers by consultants about program quality using the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) standards as “best practice” benchmarks seemed to be associated with initial enhanced child outcomes and the particular impact of the ECI model.     

Understanding teachers’ motivation for and commitment to teaching: profiles of Chinese early career,early childhood teachers

ABSTRACT

To better understand the reasons underlying attrition and the teacher shortage, and to develop ways to attract and retain high-quality teachers in early childhood education, it is necessary to explore teacher motivation and commitment to teaching. Although previous research has investigated various aspects of teacher motivation and commitment to teaching, little attention has been paid to this in the context of early childhood teachers, especially early career teachers. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with 12 early career, early childhood teachers in mainland China, this study aims to examine early career early childhood teachers’ motivation to teach and commitment to teaching in the Chinese context. Four distinct types of early career, early childhood educators were identified: committed passionate, committed compromiser, undecided, and uncommitted. Each of these had unique motives for teaching and different levels of commitment to kindergarten teaching in mainland China. The four types of early career early childhood teachers identified in this study demonstrate the diversity and complexity of teaching motivation and commitment to teaching in the field of early childhood education. The findings from this study can provide implications for policy-makers and teacher educators to enhance novice teachers’ motivation and commitment to teaching in the early childhood context.