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• Parents across cultures want to raise prosocial children who help others. • Raising helpful toddlers draws upon ethnographic, cross-cultural & laboratory data. • Parents report positive interaction & attributions, higher parenting self-efficacy. • Toddlers took more initiative to help in the family; parents described less stress. • Indigenous-heritage helping socialization suggests early education best practices. Helping other people benefits children and is fundamental to a functioning society. A novel training, Raising Helpful Toddlers (RHT), focuses on beneficial Indigenous heritage parent socialization practices previously described. RHT participants were thirty U.S. toddler parents/caregivers, aged 28–46, 26/4 female/male ratio; 73.3 % White, 13.3 % Asian, 6.7 % African or Black/African American, 3.3 % Asian and White, 3.3 % American Indian and Hispanic, and highly educated on average, with children aged 12 to 48 months. RHT consists of a 2-hour online training, followed up with daily logs and interviews to support the training while collecting qualitative data. Feasibility was indicated by high rates of parent recruitment, satisfaction, and use of RHT strategies. Average parenting self-efficacy increased at post-test, with a moderate to large effect size, according to a repeated-measures t -test, t(28)=3.792, p <.001, d = 0.58. Many parents reported improvements at post-test including less stress when doing chores and changed beliefs, actions, and speech. Results suggest that parenting practices described in Indigenous-heritage families can be beneficial across cultural contexts. Keywords: Indigenous, Parenting, Family, Intervention, Early Care, Early Education, Prosocial Behavior, Moral Development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Students' early learning gains from Pre-K often converge with similar students who did not attend Pre-K in early elementary school. • We find that skill heterogeneity does indeed moderate student learning gains over the kindergarten year, particularly for students who attended Pre-K. • We provide evidence that Pre-K attendees scoring higher at the beginning of kindergarten, relative to the average score in their classroom, made smaller achievement gains throughout their kindergarten year. • These findings have important implications for Pre-K effectiveness research and the educational environments that subsequently sustain or constrain Pre-K's longitudinal effects Students' gains from Pre-K converge with similar students who did not attend Pre-K in elementary school. One theory for convergence is that students who attend Pre-K enter kindergarten classrooms that are skill heterogeneous, and these students are positioned near the top of the classroom skill distribution. Kindergarten teachers, however, focus their instruction on students toward the bottom of the skill distribution, which generates observed convergence. We explore this theory by analyzing data from six rural school districts in North Carolina (N = 655, aged 4–6, 51 % female, 77 % non-White). We find mixed evidence in support of this hypothesis. Our measures of kindergarten classroom heterogeneity were inconsistently related to skill convergence based on both the outcome measure and the specific construction of the heterogeneity measure, but all significant associations were in the predicted direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Snapshot of school policies that may influence kindergarteners in America. • Examined associations between school policies and kindergartners' academic learning. • Readiness assessments, retention polices, and title I funds to serve kindergarteners are common. • These school policies are applied differently across schools in America. • School policies were not related to children's academic learning. The current study examined the prevalence and usage of three theoretically informed school-level policies, namely the use of readiness assessments, retention policies, and Title I funds in kindergarten classrooms across the United States. Using the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Class of 2011, we examined whether these school-level policies in kindergarten were related to children's academic learning both generally, and specifically for those who had attended pre-K. Results revealed that the use of kindergarten readiness assessments, kindergarten retention policies, and Title I funds in kindergarten were widespread across the nation. However, application and usage of these school-level policies were varied. Moreover, these school-level policies were generally not associated with children's academic learning broadly or differentially for those who had attended pre-K in the year before kindergarten. This study establishes a national snapshot of the kindergarten landscape in the United States and opens a door for future research to continue to explore how kindergarten specific school-level policies shape children's learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Experiences of match varied by child age and child race/ethnicity. • Black and Latinx children experienced less match (ages 1-3) than white children. • Latinx children who spoke non-English languages at home experienced more match. • White children who spoke non-English languages at home experienced less match. • Match was not predictive of parent or child outcomes in this sample. Recent examinations of racial/ethnic match within early education settings have found that child-provider racial/ethnic match is associated with positive outcomes for children. However, much of this work has concentrated on preschool, with a need for more research on younger children. This study explores racial/ethnic match between children and their providers (home visitors and center-based teachers) in a sample of children and families receiving Early Head Start services (N = 407) from ages 1 through 3 years in 2009-2012. More than half of children in the full sample experienced match all 3 years in the program (63%), with a higher percentage of children in the white subsample experiencing match all 3 years (79%), and a lower percentage of children in the Black (47%), and Latinx subsamples (53%). When considering the predictors of match experiences, regression analyses found that white children experienced statistically significantly more match compared to Black and Latinx children. Some predictors functioned differently within the subsamples. For example, white children whose home language was not English experienced less match over the 3 years compared to white children whose home language was English. However, Latinx children whose home language was not English experienced more match compared to Latinx children whose home language was English. Regression assessed the associations between match and child and parent outcomes, finding that child-provider racial/ethnic match was not associated with outcomes in this study. Findings suggest the importance of better understanding the predictors and outcomes of child and provider racial/ethnic match in programs for young children and highlight the need for additional research examining racial/ethnic match for young children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

· Student parents have diverse childcare needs. · Student parents' social networks are key in meeting their childcare needs. · Student parents benefit from access to on campus subsidized childcare. Affordable, accessible, and quality childcare is important for student parents in higher education who are raising children under the age of 5. With a growing student parent population (Noll et al., 2017), it is important to explore how student parents make decisions on childcare for their children, ages birth to 5, to support their pursuit of higher education. Limited research exists on student parents' childcare choices and the factors that inform their decisions. To identify how student parents choose childcare for their children, we conducted 36 in-depth interviews with student parents attending a 4 year university in the Western United States. We relied upon the accommodation model (Meyers & Jordan, 2006) to guide our research analysis as it allowed for a deeper understanding of the process and outcomes of childcare decision-making. Our findings demonstrate that student parents have diverse childcare needs. Student parents' choices are shaped by larger social forces, particularly family necessity, family financial resources, beliefs and aspirations, community context, and social networks. We provide recommendations for institutions of higher education, policymakers, and researchers to support the educational pursuits of student parents and provide childcare that best suits their needs and desires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Language-related pedagogical beliefs are related to process quality. • Child-centered beliefs correlate marginally with more stimulating interactions. • Teacher-directed beliefs correlate with a poorer emotional climate in the class. • Process quality is associated with the structural characteristics of the preschool. This study examines the pedagogical beliefs of 205 German preschool teachers regarding language education and the correlation between these beliefs and observed classroom quality, including aspects of sustained shared thinking and the emotional climate in teacher-child interactions. Pedagogical beliefs are measured via teacher-reports using a self-developed scale which distinguishes between 2 main dimensions according to the differentiation of strategies of language support in preschools: teacher-directed beliefs supporting additional language programs, including a strong focus on a promotion of specific aspects of language development and specific subgroups of children, and child-centered beliefs supporting language education embedded into daily routines. Classroom quality was measured through direct observations via high-inference rating scales (SSTEW, and CIS) with a specific focus on the SSTEW-subscales "supporting and extending language and communication," "supporting learning and critical thinking," and the CIS indicator "sensitivity in interaction" (subscales "sensitivity" and "harshness" combined). Structural equation modeling indicates a marginally significant positive association between child-centered beliefs supporting language education embedded into daily routines and the quality of specific language stimulation processes in the sense of sustained shared thinking. Teacher-directed beliefs supporting additional language programs correlated with a poorer emotional climate in teacher-child interactions. Implications for preschool teacher training and professional development are discussed based on these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Data drawn from the nationally representative ECLS-K: 2011. • Compared children of Hispanic immigrants to peers differing by ethnicity and immigration status. • Cognitive stimulation predicted reading and Approaches to Learning. • Center-based care, compared to other arrangement types, predicted school readiness. The present study estimated the independent and joint influence of early home and education contexts on three school readiness outcomes for children with Hispanic immigrant parents. These associations were compared to those for children whose parents differed by ethnicity and immigration status − children of non-Hispanic immigrants and children of Hispanic native-born parents − to determine if associations were distinct for children of Hispanic immigrants. Data were drawn from the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010–2011 (ECLS-K: 2011) (N ≈ 3480). Outcome measures at kindergarten entry included direct assessments of math and reading skills, as well as teacher reports of approaches to learning (ATL). Results indicated that parental provision of cognitive stimulation and center-based ECE both predicted outcomes among children of Hispanic immigrants and their peers, with some variation in patterns by developmental domain and subgroup. Specifically, participation in center-based care predicted math and reading scores for children of Hispanic immigrant and Hispanic native-born parents, but not children of non-Hispanic immigrants. Furthermore, center-based care participation predicted ATL scores more strongly for children of Hispanic immigrants than their peers. Some trend-level evidence of moderation of early home and education environments emerged, again with patterns varying by outcome and subgroup. Findings highlight the importance of policies that seek to enhance both the home and ECE environments for young children with Hispanic immigrant parents and their peers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Black girls' language, math, and social–emotional skills were examined between preschool and kindergarten. • Three profiles emerged called Consistent Learner, Struggling Learner, and Excelling Learner. • Family income, parenting, parental health status, parent–teacher communication, and child–teacher relationship predicted likelihood of being in the optimal transition profile. This study used pre-academic and socioemotional data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth (ECLS-B) Cohort to examine the profiles of Black girls' school readiness skills from preschool through kindergarten. In addition to examining profiles that emerged, analyses were conducted to determine whether family socio-economic status (SES), parenting, parental functioning, community social support, neighborhood quality, and early education experiences predicted the likelihood of being in a particular profile. Three profiles emerged: (1) Consistent Learner , (2) Struggling Learner , and (3) Excelling Learne r. There was heterogeneity within these prekindergarten-to-kindergarten learning profiles; however, a relatively large group showed low achievement and aggression during these early years. Family demographics, parenting, parental functioning, and early education experiences predicted likelihood of being in a particular profile. Implications of how to support Black girls' learning and adjustment from preschool through kindergarten are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • We introduce new family-centered measures of access for supply, cost and quality. • New access measures based on travel time include cross-boundary travel. • Areas designated as low access differ from conventional availability measures. • Families in Minnesota incur 36% higher costs to access highly rated child care. Abstract This study proposes new family-centered measures of access to early care and education (ECE) services with respect to quantity, cost, and quality and uses them to assess disparities in access across locations and socio-demographic groups in Minnesota. These measures are distance-based and use available geographic data to account for the fact that families can cross arbitrary administrative boundaries, such as census tract or ZIP code lines, and thus better reflect the real experiences of families than conventional area-based measures. Combining synthetic family locations simulated from Census demographic and geographic data and information on ECE provider locations, we calculate travel time between the locations of families with young children and ECE providers to measure families' access to providers of different types. The results yield a map of areas with low and high relative ECE access. The average family in Minnesota lives in a location where there are nearly two children for every nearby slot of licensed capacity, however, access to ECE supply varies considerably at the local level. The supply measure can also serve as a weight useful in computing family-centered measures of ECE quality and access costs, incorporating both prices and travel costs, to further characterize the local ECE market from the perspective of families. Improving the measures of variation in families' access to ECE quantity, cost, and quality is valuable as policymakers consider expansions to public supports for early learning and ECE entrepreneurs decide where to invest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early childhood classroom quality can be viewed from multiple perspectives—including parents, teachers, administrators, researchers, policymakers, and politicians. From the beginning of our work in the 1970s, we have defined and measured the quality of early learning environments with the Environment Rating Scales (ERS) from the perspective of the children in those environments. As quality definitions and measurement have changed through the decades since then, we have retained a focus on children's perspectives and have continued to revise the ERS to better capture aspects of caregiver–child interactions and particularly language interactions as research has shown these to be particularly important for children's development. We have maintained our view of the centrality of children's needs across a wide range of developmental and personal health and safety domains so that teachers, directors, home-based providers, technical assistance personnel, policymakers, researchers, and others interested in high quality programming have tools to guide their work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigated whether teacher beliefs (self-efficacy and attitudes) mediate the impact of professional background on child-centred educational practice. We specifically investigated whether teacher beliefs related to self (self-efficacy) are a stronger predictor of educational practice than teacher beliefs related to teaching approach (attitudes). A total of 265 professionals from different early education and care settings (i.e., centre-based daycare, family-based daycare, and educational playgroups) in Switzerland participated in the study. A self-report questionnaire was developed to assess professionals' self-efficacy, attitudes and educational practice in terms of child-centredness. The results confirm the factorial validity of the questionnaire. Self-efficacy positively predicted educational practice, while professionals' attitudes were not associated with educational practice. Further, the positive effect of domain-specific knowledge on educational practice was mediated by self-efficacy. Finally, family daycare providers reported lower self-efficacy and lower levels of child-centred educational practice than other professionals. The present study emphasises the role of professionals' self-efficacy in the context of delivering high-quality childcare and child-centred education in early childhood. The results suggest that promoting knowledge of teaching approaches may be a promising way to promote early childhood educators' child-centred educational practice through increasing their self-efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] Examined development of student–teacher relationships for kindergarten and 1st graders. [•] Boys and African American students had more conflicted relationships with teachers. [•] Children's behavior mediated the effect of gender, but not effects of ethnicity. [•] African American students and teachers had poorer relationships, regardless of behavior. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]