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This research-based text gives readers an overview of early childhood education and care, as well as a new awareness of the strengths, challenges, and concerns facing the system. Highly respected expert contributors give readers clear and concise historical background, illuminating data and findings on the current state of the field, and reflections and insights on future directions. Key areas covered include access to education and care programs, curriculum and program content, staff roles and compensation, specific initiatives, regulatory policy, and funding issues. Equally useful for preservice and in-service professionals, this essential text leaves readers with a thorough understanding of early childhood education and care in the United States.
This book captures information about early childhood education and care (ECEC) policies and practices in different countries and aims to question the degree to which these countries have managed to meet the needs of children, families, and the ECEC workforce. The book illustrates how different countries have adapted different strategies focusing on policy when it comes to quality ECEC. The goal of the book is twofold. First and foremost, it aims to present key findings and challenges for improving ECEC as a whole. Second, it aims to highlight problems and concerns which the field of ECEC faces, with respect to delivering high-quality care and education to all children. As neither “ECEC” nor “quality” are universal concepts – but are shaped by social-cultural values, as well as national, economic, and political contexts in which ECEC services are provided – this cross-country volume is extremely relevant for fully understanding issues in the field of ECEC. This book was originally published as a special issue of Early Child Development and Care.
High-quality early care and education for children from birth to kindergarten entry is critical to positive child development and has the potential to generate economic returns, which benefit not only children and their families but society at large. Despite the great promise of early care and education, it has been financed in such a way that high-quality early care and education have only been available to a fraction of the families needing and desiring it and does little to further develop the early-care-and-education (ECE) workforce. It is neither sustainable nor adequate to provide the quality of care and learning that children and families needâ€"a shortfall that further perpetuates and drives inequality. Transforming the Financing of Early Care and Education outlines a framework for a funding strategy that will provide reliable, accessible high-quality early care and education for young children from birth to kindergarten entry, including a highly qualified and adequately compensated workforce that is consistent with the vision outlined in the 2015 report, Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8: A Unifying Foundation. The recommendations of this report are based on essential features of child development and early learning, and on principles for high-quality professional practice at the levels of individual practitioners, practice environments, leadership, systems, policies, and resource allocation.
The essential resource to the issues surrounding childhood care and education with contributions from noted experts The Wiley Handbook of Early Childhood Care and Education is a comprehensive resource that offers a review of the historical aspects, best practices, and the future directions of the field. With contributions from noted experts in the field, the book contains 30 interdisciplinary essays that explore in-depth the central issues of early childhood care and education. The handbook presents a benchmark reference to the basic knowledge, effective approaches to use with young children, curriculum design, professional development, current policies, and other critical information. The expert contributors address the myriad complex policy and practice issues that are most relevant today. The essays provide insight into topics such as child development and diversity, the sociocultural process of child development, the importance of the home environment in the lives of young children, early childhood special education, teaching and learning literacy, and much more. This important resource: Presents a comprehensive synopsis of the major components of the field of early childhood care and education Contains contributions from leading scholars, researchers, and experts in the field Offers the foundational knowledge and practices for working with young children Puts the focus on how early childhood works and presents an understanding of culture as a foundational component of both child development and early childhood education Written for academic scholars, researchers, advocates, policymakers, and students of early childhood care and education, The Wiley Handbook of Early Childhood Care and Education is a comprehensive resource to the major issues for dealing with childhood care and education with contributions from noted scholars in the field.
This accessible and enaging work introduces current and future teachers, child care providers, and others interested in early childhood education to the importance for the early years in children's well-being and success. It summarizes their research on the value of high-quality services for young children, families, and society, showing why early education matters both today and into the future. Emphasizing the need to understand and respect young children's strengths and unique characteristics, the authors offer inspiration for working in the field, as well as addressing the realistic challenges of implementing developmentally appropriate care and education.
This timely book reveals how policies of childcare and early childhood education influence children’s circumstances and the daily lives of families with children. Examining how these policies are approached, it focuses particularly on the issues and pitfalls related to equal access.
Early childhood care and education (ECCE) settings offer an opportunity to provide children with a solid beginning in all areas of their development. The quality and efficacy of these settings depend largely on the individuals within the ECCE workforce. Policy makers need a complete picture of ECCE teachers and caregivers in order to tackle the persistent challenges facing this workforce. The IOM and the National Research Council hosted a workshop to describe the ECCE workforce and outline its parameters. Speakers explored issues in defining and describing the workforce, the marketplace of ECCE, the effects of the workforce on children, the contextual factors that shape the workforce, and opportunities for strengthening ECCE as a profession.
The public provision of early childhood education has developed at different rates across individual countries over the past two centuries. This book provides the historical background to explain how these national differences occurred, with particular reference to welfare and educational systems, to highlight how particular influences grew.
Early childhood education programs are expected to provide exemplary care for all children—poor and affluent, children of color and White children—while also adapting care to include children’s families and cultures. These two sets of expectations are often difficult for teachers and programs to meet. In this book, Carollee Howes shows how high-quality programs successfully adapt child development guidelines within cultural contexts, and why quality needs to be and can be measured in culturally specific ways. This important book: Closely examines ECE programs considered exemplary for low-income children of color. Shows how directors and teachers successfully use practices derived from their cultural communities to implement universal standards of child care. Identifies the commonalities in good early childhood programs that are shared across class, race, and ethnic communities. Offers best practices based on extensive assessments, interviews, and observations. “Will have immediate relevance for policy debates, for understanding the mechanisms of program effects, and for educators who wish to deepen their knowledge of practice.” —Robert C. Pianta, University of Virginia “I urge all higher education faculty, in-service teacher trainers, accreditation observers, researchers, text-book writers and policymakers of standards to read this book.” —From the Foreword by Louise Derman-Sparks
Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.