Home-Based Child Care Provider Education and Specialized Training: Associations With Caregiving Quality and Toddler Social-Emotional and Cognitive Outcomes

ABSTRACT

Research Findings: Although there has been considerable research on the associations between the qualifications of teachers in center-based settings and preschool-age children’s developmental outcomes, very little is known about the relationships between home provider qualifications and the developmental outcomes of toddlers who attend licensed family child care settings or unregulated family, friend, and neighbor care settings. Analyzing a sample of toddlers and their providers drawn from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort, we found positive relationships between home-based quality and higher education degree (defined as an associate’s degree or at least a bachelor’s degree), field of major, and coursework in early childhood education or a related field. However, provider qualifications were unrelated to children’s cognitive outcomes and related to a limited number of social-emotional outcomes. Practice or Policy: Our results suggest that as states consider the spectrum of supports needed for strengthening home-based child care in ways that facilitate responsive and developmentally supportive caregiving, strategies should include opportunities for home-based care providers to pursue higher education. A more nuanced analysis of the content and comprehensiveness of providers’ formal education is needed to better understand relationships between toddlers’ social and cognitive development and providers’ formal education.     

Who is Publishing Diverse Books Best?

Small independent publishers are frequently lauded as the bastions of diversity while the Big Five are vilified as the primary contributors to the overwhelming whiteness of book publishing—yet no statistical data has been offered to support either claim. Moreover, the overall percentages of authors of color have remained the same year after year (Low in Where is the diversity in publishing? The 2015 diversity baseline survey results. Lee and Low (blog), 2016). The following study is a comparison of the Big Five publishers and small independent publishers with respect to author diversity. As social media outlets are now claiming to change the landscape of publishing by making diverse books more accessible to readers, data was sourced from an independent, reader-driven list to determine which publishers—if any—are promoting authors of color and whether their books are making it into the hands of readers.     

Gender discourse about an ethic of care: nursery schoolteachers' perspectives

In this paper we will show some of the results of research which took place in the Principality of Asturias (Spain). Its purpose was finding out the gender discourses used by nursery teachers. Although we will not provide an exhaustive list of all the conclusions reached so far, we will put forward one of the aspects which has been developed throughout the investigation; that is, we will discuss some of our observations and hypotheses on the differences observed by the teachers in boys and girls' caring and supporting behaviours. In order to do so, we focus on the type of discourse related to the ethic of care. We consider it a tool which allows teachers to build a type of narrative in which boys and girls are presented as opposites, relational and different from one another.     

From dictatorship to democracy: history of education in Spain

In a book published in 1995 providing an overview on the state of the art in European educational historiography in Europe, Marie-Madeleine Compère referring to post-Franco Spain, emphasised the “dynamism” and “the capacity to mobilise” that had arisen among Spanish researchers by “any collective initiative.” Moving on, this article intends to clarify: a) to what extent Compère is right; and b) what caused the changes in the Spanish educational historiography during the last four decades. It also deals with some of the prevailing trends and issues facing this academic and scientific field today.     

Criterion‐related validity of two curriculum‐based measures of mathematical skill in relation to reading comprehension in secondary students

This study analyzed the relationship between benchmark scores from two curriculum‐based measurement probes in mathematics (M‐CBM) and student performance on a state‐mandated high‐stakes test. Participants were 298 students enrolled in grades 7 and 8 in a rural southeastern school. Specifically, we calculated the criterion‐related and predictive validity of benchmark scores from CBM probes measuring math computation and math reasoning skills. Results of this study suggest that math reasoning probes have strong concurrent and predictive validity. The study also provides evidence that calculation skills, while important, do not have strong predictive strength at the secondary level when a state math assessment is the criterion. When reading comprehension skill is taken into account, math reasoning scores explained the greatest amount of variance in the criterion measure. Computation scores explained less than 5% of the variance in the high‐stakes test, suggesting that it may have limitations as a universal screening measure for secondary students.     

Training and learning by using the Microwave Office program for designing high frequency and microwave circuits

This paper presents a detailed planning for a high frequency or microwaves laboratory based on microstrip techniques and also on the use of a CAE commercial software. In the second part of the article we justify the use of the so-called Microwave Office software because of its easy handling and learning, which make it, in the authors' opinion, a good tool for correct learning of the circuits with microstrip techniques and, therefore, of the proposed educational programme.