Journal of Early Childhood Research

Many Western countries around the world have been reviewing policy and practice aimed at enhancing the quality and professional practice of early childhood education. The response has been to establish government-sanctioned curriculum frameworks based on current research and the dominant discourses of educational provision. The successful implementation of a curriculum framework relies not simply on the policy or regulatory practice, but on educators; their interpretation, knowledge and understanding of the framework; and their ability to apply it to their pedagogical practices. Australia too has introduced a new national learning framework, the Early Years Learning Framework, titled Belonging, Being and Becoming. ‘Being’ is central to the framework but what does it really mean? Our Being is part of who we are and yet is difficult to describe. This article aims to provide insights into the meaning and importance of Being in the context of early childhood education and care settings. It draws on Heidegger’s ontological explanation of the concept of Being and offers clarification on what it means to Be and why it is significant for early childhood educators and children.

Policymakers’ neoliberal education reforms have altered the landscape of publicly funded early education in the United States and across the globe. Practically speaking, these reforms expect early childhood teachers to prepare their students for success in elementary school and later life by providing them with a specific set of knowledge and skills. This creates a new set of challenges for early educators who strive to prepare their culturally and linguistically diverse students for school in a manner that addresses their individual, cultural, and sociopolitical needs. The study discussed in this article set out to examine how teachers who were identified as meeting their students’ various needs prepared them for success in elementary school. In doing so, it became apparent that these teachers struggled to define their practices as well as the construct of effective teaching in ways that went beyond policymakers’ neoliberal conception of the early education process. This article examines this tension and considers what is possible for teachers and the field of publicly funded early education in these highly structured neoliberal systems of governance.

Differences in emotion knowledge by children’s age, gender, and socioeconomic risk status, as well as associations of emotion knowledge with executive control, social competence, and early classroom adjustment, were investigated. On emotion knowledge, 4- and 5-year-olds scored higher than 3-year-olds, with girls showing this effect more strongly. Socioeconomic risk status and emotion knowledge were negatively related. Furthermore, executive control was found to contribute to variance in emotion knowledge. Even with age, gender, socioeconomic risk status, and executive control covaried, emotion knowledge contributed to variance in social competence. Given these covariates, it contributed only indirectly to classroom adjustment, via its contribution to social competence. Implications are discussed for practice and policy attention to emotion knowledge within social–emotional curricula and assessment, targeting the period between ages 3 and 4 years, as well as children living in poverty.

Gestures such as finger counting, pointing, and touching have been found to facilitate mathematical development in preschool and school-aged children. However, little is known about the types of mathematically related gestures used by parent–toddler dyads to facilitate early mathematics learning during the first 3 years of life. A total of 24 children (12 boys and 12 girls) between 18 and 25 months of age and their parents participated in a recorded 30-minute play session at home. After the play session, each child completed a task to ascertain his or her counting ability from one to five. Parents initiated significantly more instances of mathematically related gestures than did the children. In contrast, children responded with more gestures to mathematically related talk than did their parents. The most frequent types of gestures produced are collecting/grouping of items in an array, counting objects while enumerating, tapping/touching, holding up, and pointing at an item. A total of 13 children demonstrated some understanding of the five counting principles except the cardinality principle proposed by Gelman and Gallistel. Our findings suggest that parents use specific types of mathematically related gestures during play with their toddlers.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of Head Start on early literacy skills relevant to school readiness of English language learners compared to their peers. The comparisons of literacy outcomes were conducted between English language learners and non-English language learners when both groups participated and were not in Head Start. A total of 47 covariates were involved in propensity score analysis, and average treatment effects for the treated individuals were used to estimate the literacy outcome differences from the comparisons. The results indicated that early literacy outcomes of English language learners and non-English language learners were significantly different in recognizing alphabetic letters and rhyming words regardless of whether or not both English language learners and non-English language learners attend in Head Start. Being in Head Start did not contribute to reducing the gap between English language learners and non-English language learners. Finally, the limitations of this study and future directions for research and practice are discussed.

The Mathematical Development Beliefs Survey was developed to measure early childhood teachers’ beliefs about mathematics teaching and learning in the preschool classroom. This instrument was designed to measure beliefs concerning (a) age-appropriateness of mathematics instruction, (b) classroom locus of generation of mathematical knowledge (teacher vs child), (c) mathematical development as a primary goal of preschool education, and (d) confidence level in providing mathematics instruction. The reliability and validity of the instrument was examined through multiple phases of development, including two pilot studies and a final study with 346 pre- and in-service preschool teachers across three states. Methods included cognitive interviews with participants, literature reviews, and interviews with experts in the field, as well as statistical procedures such as analyses of variance between well-defined groups of in- and preservice teachers, correlations between measures of knowledge and beliefs, and confirmatory factor analysis. Reliability of the instrument was examined through the use of Cronbach’s alpha and item-total correlations. These statistical procedures provided very good to excellent support for both validity and reliability. Potential applications include informing development and evaluation of early childhood education teacher preparation programs and professional development interventions.

Eco(logical)-cultural Theory suggests that a daily routine results from individuals adapting cultural ideas to the constraints of a local context or ecology. Using Ecocultural Theory, this research examined family child care providers’ descriptions of daily activities and overall approach to understand cultural models. The results highlighted a predominant cultural model reflecting ideas of “natural” child development facilitated by a structured daily routine. However, an alternative model emphasizing flexibility, intimacy, and relationships was also present. The results suggest that we need to better understand the conditions under which certain models become widely appropriated and enacted.