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This paper explores legislative provision and pre-school education policy in England over the course of the twentieth century. The paper argues that there has been a significant ideational shift over this period, from a policy focus on nursery education for poor children to universal early childhood education. Not only have ideas changed but provision and funding have changed. Although there have been major revisions to legislative provision, there are elements of continuity as regards the institutions delivering early childhood education, particularly maintained nursery schools and nursery classes, but with layering of private-for-profit and not-for-profit institutions to 'fill the gap' in provision. At the same time, the central state has taken increasing control of publicly funded early childhood education through legislative provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

FosterCARE training is a behaviorally based, empirically supported program developed to provide foster parents with skills for interacting effectively with youth (aged 2–18) with trauma histories. In this paper, we suggest that the trauma-informed skills, wide age range, and focus on parent–child interactions inherent within the FosterCARE model could provide a promising foundation to serve LGBTQIA+ foster youth and their families. This article describes potential additions to the FosterCARE model and provides the rationale for the use of a FosterCARE-LGBTQIA+ module. Recommendations for the future pilot testing of the FosterCARE LGBTQIA+ module using an evidence-based framework are included, with limitations discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work is a part of 'baby studies' as a specific field of research. The aim of the paper is to explore how the directionality of the lines of wandering inform us about babies' sense-making and which kinds of lines of wandering children enact in day-care. The application of cartographic maps and participative observation are proposed as methodologies to trace the direction of babies as tension between materiality and individuation in day-care centres. Field work was carried out in two day-care centres in France and in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports findings in relation to one aspect of the 'I Go to School' research project carried out in South Australia which tracked children attending integrated pre-school/childcare centres as they made their transition to school. Eight centres participated in the study involving 347 children. In order to measure some of the outcomes of the children's participation in integrated early childhood programmes, parents and teachers completed questionnaires regarding some aspects of the children's cognitive and social development in the year the children turned four and then again in the term they started school at age five. The researchers were thus able to ascertain some of the changes that had occurred in the children's development during their participation in early childhood programmes. This paper reports on the comparison between parent and teacher judgements of particular aspects of the four-year-old children's cognitive development at one point in time. The analysis presented here compares the teacher and parent/carer judgements from a subsection of the Child Development Inventory). This comparison led to the conclusion that parent ratings of particular aspects of their four-year-old children's cognitive development were reliable and relatively consistent when compared with those of teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by perspectives from actor-network theory, this paper challenges key assumptions in evidence-based pedagogies. Through a multi-sited analysis of the evidence-based pedagogy 'Dialogic Reading' (DR) in the area of early childhood education and care in Denmark, the paper explores how DR is enacted as part of an assemblage of tests, research in the field of audiologopedics, classifications of reading disabilities, day care centres and the book as a 'nice experience'. It also explores how DR is organised in a local day care centre, hereby organising objects such as dolls, books, children and a mattress. As such, the paper shows how DR, as an evidence-based method, is established through concrete relations, rather than abstracted and universal principals. It argues that these relations stabilising DR are never enacted once and for all, but require continual work to be held together as a method that 'works'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A wealth of research evidences the positive impact of the outdoors for young children. Yet there is little relating to the experiences of babies and toddlers who attend daycare settings. This paper offers new knowledge about outdoor provision for under twos in the English context where there is a lack of explicit policy support for outdoor practice. Findings, captured through an online survey from Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) settings in one geographically diverse county, reveal a generally positive picture. This suggests that practice is ahead of research. However, the survey also highlights significant variability in outdoor provision. We suggest that, in the absence of a strong policy driver ECEC settings may be inadvertently laying the foundations for inequality of access to the outdoors. Furthermore, a lack of research evidence to inform practice may be contributing to an underdevelopment of the pedagogic value of outdoor environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the potential of the childcare centre as a child-rearing niche and is based on data collection and research carried out in childcare centres. The everyday experiences of infants were recorded on video over a period of eighteen months. These experiences were coded using a number of communicative language categories as well as by examining caregiver use of routines and provision of cultural artefacts. A detailed description of the infants in the particular developmental niche emerged. Extending this examination of everyday life for infants in a childcare centre, the paper explores the potential of the childcare centre as a context that supports the child's growth and development. A focus of analysis was the type of interactions the children experience with caregivers. Earlier studies revealed that incidences of joint attention, valued in the development literature, were minimal. This raises two questions. Do childcare staff who work with infants need special training in pre-verbal communication? Does the group care arrangement contain alternative forms of stimulation that make one-on-one interactions with adults less important? These two questions are explored using aspects of attachment and sociocultural theory to frame the discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infants come to know about the world and develop an understanding about themselves through multisenses. This qualitative case study aimed to explore how three infant head teachers engaged in and facilitated various multisensory play activities in their classrooms. Natural, in-class, non-participatory observations were conducted at a child care centre in the U.S. The findings of this study illustrated how the infant teachers in this study provided, promoted, and scaffolded multisensory experiences in their daily practices. The findings also highlighted that the infant teachers adapted sensory experiences to meet individual preferences, needs, interests, and changing developmental status of their infants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, increased complexity and persistent challenges induced governmental organizations to transform their ways of operating. Inherent to such transformations are shifts in approaches to leadership and organizational learning. However, adopting strategies that empower staff to take complex context-appropriate decisions has shown to be difficult. This paper aims to gain insight into empowering and disempowering leadership practices in complex transformation processes. Team leaders of a governmental organization participated in observing videos of weekly team meetings, noting positive and negative interactions between the peer-team leader and team members. Their observations were analyzed using the four dimensions of psychological empowerment. All team leaders showed empowering and disempowering practices within one case discussion. The findings illustrate in which contexts these practices are triggered. Results help to theoretically elucidate academic debates about the relationships between empowerment and control, differences between empowerment and laissez-faire and between empowering and destructive leadership in human service organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Specifically, this scholar told me that publishing this study was going to be difficult because my sample size was too small. To be clear, this study did not inconvenience parents to any significant degree; their participation consisted of signing a consent form, filling out a paper survey which took approximately 20 minutes, and then returning these materials in a sealed envelope at a later date. Too often, the cost to compensate participants, the time and resources it takes to collect data, and the energy needed to maintain these studies overwhelms the potential benefits for young scholars. [Extracted from the article]

Based on fieldwork conducted in two day care centres in Denmark, this paper explores knowledge and action as relational and intertwined phenomena in nursery teaching. Engaging with perspectives from actor network theory, emphasis is put on the socio-material distribution of knowing and acting. That is, how the nursery teacher becomes part of knowledge and action through an assemblage of various elements, such as packed lunches, children, noises, crumbs, another nursery teacher and a bucket. A notion of the sign is developed in which signs can be gestures, words or artefacts stabilised in a web of relations, hereby signalling the kinds of relations that are important to attend to. ‘Signing in’ is a way of becoming part of these relations. Against this background, this paper critically addresses ambitions to professionalise the field of early childhood education and care, questioning the divide between knowledge and action on which such initiatives are based. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Children and older adults are especially vulnerable to the negative effects of food insecurity. Intergenerational strategies often engage youth and elders in shared programming that supports each group's needs. With community partners, we established a community-based participatory action research (CBPAR) partnership to improve knowledge, access, and consumption related to healthy food at four child care centers in two states using intergenerational practices. The current paper represents work of a dedicated planning year (Year 1) to develop implementation and research plans for subsequent years of the 5-year grant. Work was guided by Israel and colleagues' CBPAR principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have been conducted to assess the effects of indoor air quality (IAQ) on human health. However, there is still a lack of studies available about the adverse health effects on children's respiratory health at Child Care Centers (CCC). The aim of this paper was to investigate the risk factors for respiratory symptoms and identify the root cause of IAQ problems at CCCs in Malaysia. The Modified American Thoracic Society and the Division of Lung Diseases (ATS-DLD-82) questionnaire was used to gather information from parents regarding their children's respiratory symptoms. The IAQ parameters measured were for air temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, respirable particles (PM2.5), viable bacteria and fungi count while the information on CCC characteristics and potential surrounding air pollutants were collected via a combination of area monitoring, inspection and interviews. Factors found to be significantly associated with persistent cough and/or cold were age, type of ventilation, location of CCC, floor area per child (<3.5 m2) and temperature. Children attending CCCs supplied by ACMV had the highest risk for prevalence of persistent productive cough [5.56 (CI: 2.20; 14.00)]. This study provided the baseline data on IAQ and possible factors that influenced indoor air contaminants, which could aid policy makers in formulating guidelines on IAQ for CCC in Malaysia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Community, Work & Family is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Studies of early childhood educators' perceptions of work intensity and complexity have shown that ensuring a good balance between workload and the time needed to complete the work is critical for work quality, work satisfaction, and staff retention. This article explores the possibilities of time-use data for making visible the diversity and complex patterns of early childhood work. Pen-and-paper time-use diaries were completed for one full day by 21 educators working in preschool and child care centers, generating a total of 168 hours of data. Diary entries were coded using the Taxonomy of Early Childhood Work to identify the types of activities performed, the time spent in each activity, and changes in work activities across the day. On average, educators worked an 8-hour day, of which 60% was spent in direct contact with children in intentional teaching, routine care and transition, "being with" children during play, and providing emotional support. Other activities included organizing the indoor/outdoor play areas, administration, planning/evaluation, professional learning, and staff breaks. The findings demonstrate the benefits of time-use methodology as a means of objectively identifying and quantifying the diversity, complexity, and intensity of early childhood educators' work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that in daycare centres in France, where children are cared for from four months to age three, the competence of female staff members is usually denied and unvalued vis à vis the expert opinions. The paper highlights empirical research on early childhood and gender, providing pragmatic access to children's languages of desire, a language mostly ignored. Incorporating the ideas of Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, the paper draws upon the conceptualization of Fernand Deligny who took care of autistic children in mapping what he called ‘lines of wandering’, an idea that shows how desire can become accessible. In the present ‘society of control’ which Deleuze analyses and which coexists with Foucault's discipline and biopower, such lines of flight enable the emergence of a new narrative for young children's desire, and for the competence of the female staff members in their departure from the highway of normalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws upon evidence from a three-year longitudinal study of young children drawing across home, pre-school and school. The study shows how the belief systems of significant adults and more able peers/siblings impact upon the child’s access to, use of and beliefs about drawing. Concentrating upon the children when in the Foundation Stage (aged between three and five), the paper highlights: the importance of the mother’s role in organizing the home space, the child’s time and his or her access to materials;gendered responses to an environment in which the mother is a constant presence in comparison with the limited presence of the father. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides and introduction in which the editor discusses various articles in the issue on topics including mealtimes in Swedish day care centers, the physical activities and aptitudes of children in day care, and play in Hong Kong and German kindergartens.

In most books and papers about the separation process of infants and young children, the focus is on the relationship between parents and children. In this Viennese research about toddlers’ transitions from home care to day care, the impact of relational experiences became increasingly evident in the way young children experience, and work through, separation. Against that background observational material is used to describe interactions between observed children and caregivers as well as interactions between the children and their peers. The paper also discusses ways in which peer relationships were helpful or not for toddlers struggling with primitive anxieties and other strong feelings. The paper goes on to consider young child observation used as a single-case research tool in order to develop a more general theory. It takes into account endeavours to develop a theory already undertaken by Esther Bick and in many subsequent publications where observational material is discussed. Methodological investigations of this issue, however, are rare. The authors argue that the acceptability of using the Tavistock Observation Model as a research tool is supported by discussing its methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper describes efforts to increase the quality in early care and education through targeted coaching. A collaborative including several community agencies and a university developed a framework of support for early care and education providers, using coaching as its foundational basis, called Coaching to Quality (CTQ). This paper provides a background on the regional need for increasing quality level of childcare centres, specific components and evolution of CTQ, and lessons learned or implications of the CTQ initiative. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The authors conducted a systematic review of impact evaluations of daycare interventions on the health, nutrition and development of children under five in low-income and middle-income countries. The review was limited to intervention studies controlling for potential self-selection of beneficiaries. Papers were excluded based on study scope, type and quality. Only six studies (conducted in Latin America) met the inclusion criteria. Large positive effects on child development were found. Because of the limited evidence, no conclusions can be drawn regarding the impact on child health and nutrition. More rigorously conducted studies on the impact of daycare programmes in developing countries are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Nurseries play a major role in the lives of many families. This paper argues for the value of psychoanalytic methods of observation as a research tool to explore young children’s interactions and emotional experience in nurseries. The paper reviews what has been learned already about early development using such methods. The second part of the paper illustrates observation data gathered using psychoanalytic methods in nursery research, through the observations of an 18-month-old boy. It uses these data to show the potential of the method in accessing what young children communicate about their nursery experience and in exploring current questions of nursery policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "Physical Activity at Daycare: Issues, Challenges and Perspectives," published in the previous issue, is presented.

The article covers one aspect of a current research project, 'Toddlers' Adjustment to Out-of-Home Care'. Financed by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), it is conducted at the University of Vienna, and is introduced in the present paper in much compressed form. The project operates with an interdisciplinary design, which includes Young Child Observation as a research tool. While data of 100 children are collected and analysed by the use of different research methods, 11 of these children have been observed during the first six months of day care. At the focus of the present paper stands a one-year-and-nine-month-old little boy named Valentine. The (anonymous) day care centre where he spends several hours of each day is distinguished by its modern architectural design, as well as the fact that the children are kept in 'mixed age groups' and taken care of with what is called an 'open group approach'. Within these given structures, the caregivers appear unable to provide Valentine with a feeling of security and comfort. Since he cannot gain the experience of being represented within the minds of the caregivers as a child who requires continual attention and care, he receives scant emotional support in his struggle to overcome the painful experience of being separated from his parents - an experience that soon swells up to a feeling of 'becoming lost'. The fact that the caregivers in Valentine's case (but in other cases as well) only to a limited extent perceive, understand, or in any desirable way consider the toddlers' painful feelings, points to a similar conclusion - an assumption of the existence of institutionalised defenses, whose significance should be taken into consideration if changes in this area are to be aspired to. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preschool provision in Northern Ireland is government funded and quality assured in all statutory sector settings (nursery schools and units) and in many voluntary/private sector settings (playgroups and daycare facilities). However, three unresolved policy issues continue to divide the sectors: the choices between a teacher or pedagogue role model, graduate or vocational level training, and a competency or reflective model of training. This paper aims to explore the reflections of a sample of students from both graduate and vocational early years training courses on the content and effectiveness of their training in order to inform the broader early years professionalism debate. The design of the research combines quantitative and qualitative approaches, with the data collection methods consisting of questionnaire survey (n = 282) and semi-structured interviews (n = 22). Findings reveal broad agreement on the part of students, literature and government policy on the essential elements of early years training content; however, weaknesses in all training courses are detected in regard to preparation for significant areas of professional practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I examine the Nordic model, i.e. a child-centred and holistic approach, in order to discuss Early Childhood Education (ECE) as a key policy instrument for fighting social inequality. Since 1999 it has been an important goal for the Danish government to ensure equal opportunities for all by starting with early intervention. This is especially relevant in Denmark, where >95% of all children attend day-care... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children attending early childhood education and care centres spend a lot of time fitting in with institutional routines. This paper uses ethnographic methods and sociocultural activity theory to describe and analyse the processes whereby young children in an early childhood centre collectively created meaning and interest during potentially boring routine mealtimes. The research explores the relationship between rules and children's playful activity. Using their imaginations children negotiated and played with and within the rules around 'eating-together' times. While physically constrained in chairs around tables children enjoyed the freedom of playing with word sounds and meanings. Children actively, collaboratively and at times subversively, created their peer community culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The regulatory environment in which long daycare centres are required to operate plays a key role in determining what early childhood professionals do and how they go about doing it. This paper reports findings from a state‐wide survey undertaken in New South Wales, Australia, which shows how early childhood professionals position themselves on four key aspects of the regulatory environment: the premises underlying regulatory requirements; its perceived support of them as professionals to provide quality care; how state regulations and the national accreditation system impact upon their daily practice; and the way these audit systems affect their professional esteem. Implications for job satisfaction are discussed. The paper concludes by asserting that regulatory requirements need to be evaluated in terms of their contribution to structural, process, contextual and work environment dimensions of quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents results of the research into perspectives of children with disabilities on the space within community-based services in Serbia. The concept of children's agency and participation is considered in the context of inclusion of children with disabilities in the evaluation of services. Using specially developed 'Me at the Centre' evaluation method, 20 children aged between 7 and 17 years receiving the home care, day-care centre and respite care services were interviewed in order to understand their perspectives on the services and the ways to improve them from the child perspective. The research results show that children with disabilities can make a significant contribution to the review and enhancement of community services designed for them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper was to demonstrate how genealogy can be used as a method for critical education research. As Foucault emphasized, genealogy is a method for identifying the way in which the individuals are subjectified through discourse. The genealogical analysis in the article defines two mayor tendencies in contemporary Danish pedagogy: individualization and structuralizing. The analyses also show an example of how the two tendencies are intermingled in the Danish law of learning plans in day care institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

National reforms introduced into the early childhood education and care sector across Australia have created a requirement for each service to appoint an ‘educational’ leader to provide curriculum direction to ensure that children achieve quality care and education to lead to positive outcomes. Leadership in the early childhood has often been contested and complex, but the addition of a new leadership for building pedagogy and practice has created additional complexities. This paper reports the findings of a small-scale qualitative research study investigating how a small number of educational leaders working in long day care settings in urban Australia perceive their role. The study identified that these educational leaders came to the position unwillingly and felt poorly prepared and supported to meet the challenges presented. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Social & Cultural Geography is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Child-care facilities that participate in the federally assisted Child and Adult Care Food Program are required to follow meal patterns that meet the nutrient needs for child growth and development. The purpose of this research is to use the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Nutrient Analysis Protocols to evaluate child-care menus in order to demonstrate their ease of use for menu planners in child-care centres. An interviewer was trained in using the USDA Nutrient Analysis Protocols to assess the menus at five child-care centres recruited for the pilot study. This paper concluded that the USDA Nutrient Analysis Protocols were fairly adaptable for use in child-care facilities. This article can be useful in demonstrating to menu planners that the USDA Nutrient Analysis Protocols are easy to use and provide a site-by-site comparison to ensure programme compliance with Dietary Reference Intakes for young children. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines early childhood education (ECE) by applying and developing relational-spatial perspectives on everyday life in educational institutions for young children. The aim is to investigate the dynamic process of construction of space and to illustrate with selected empirical episodes how this process occurs in ECE. Drawing on authors such as Soja and Bourdieu, the starting point for the analysis is that space is socially produced in everyday interactions in a process that intertwines the physical environment and concrete objects, personal interpretations of physical and cultural space, and cultural and collective views about space in ECE. We illustrate this process with ethnographic data from two day care centers. The analysis shows how children and educators engage in the process of constructing space from diverse positions and how the institutional context is embedded within this process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

How and why do advocates choose frames, and what are the effects of these choices? This study draws on two decades of data about the Center for the Child Care Workforce (CCW), an advocacy organization founded by feminist early childhood educators in 1977 to raise child care wages. It traces how contextual factors shape framing choices, and how framing choices shape advocacy goals and claims. Archival research and interview data reveal that discursive barriers led CCW to lobby for ensuring "quality" child care, a strategic choice that inadvertently prioritized professional educators' interests over those of other caregivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to explore if there is any alteration in social participation with peers assessed by parents amongst children with disabilities from 1999 to 2009 and discuss the results in light of the developments in disability policies during the last decades, and internal developments in education/welfare policies regarding children under compulsory school age. We address changes in levels of social participation of children with disabilities in daycare centres and examine changes in mechanisms leading to social participation with peers from 1999 to 2009. The analysis is based on cross-sectional data of two representative samples of disabled children 10 years apart. The main finding of this study is that disabled children have increased their social participation with peers in the period from 1999 to 2009. Gender, age and being in a segregated daycare setting, all had a significant impact on social participation with peers in 1999, but had lost their significance in 2009. The current study found that Norwegian daycare centres still have to be considered as social integrating institutions, even though in the period from 1999 to 2009, they have changed from being a care- and family-supportive service to become a pedagogical service preparing children for school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a study of learning experiences in peer conflicts among two- and three-year-olds in Dutch daycare centres. Data were collected from individual sampling of 96 children during their free play. As in earlier studies, the results we obtained showed that three-year-olds used fewer unilateral strategies and more bilateral strategies than did two-year-olds. Bilateral strategies increased the likelihood children would play together after the conflict, but decreased the likelihood one of them would win. Unilateral strategies increased the likelihood one of them would win the conflict, but the use of physical force decreased the likelihood they would play together afterwards. Teachers often focused on the (alleged) perpetrator of the conflict and on punishing the use of physical force. But they were seldom focused on helping to reconcile the opponents. This study suggests that the children's interest in peer relationships is a strong incentive to use bilateral strategies. Therefore, teachers should value and support peer relations rather than focusing on the perpetrators. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper looks at young children's creative thinking as inferred through observations of their activities. A total of 52 episodes of child-initiated and adult-initiated activities in 3- to 4-year-olds in an English Children's Centre were analysed using the Analysing Children's Creative Thinking (ACCT) Framework. Results showed that activities such as gardening and construction were as valuable for supporting creative thinking as ones traditionally associated with creativity, for example, music and painting. Outdoor play of all kinds and socio-dramatic play were particularly effective contexts. All adults played a significant role in facilitating children's initial engagement in activities, and at supporting their speculative thinking and use of prior knowledge. Teachers were often more successful than other adults in supporting the acquisition of new knowledge. Child-initiated activities featured the highest levels of involvement, and were associated with trying out and analysing ideas, flexibility and originality, imagining and hypothesising. This was particularly evident in group or pair play. Children were also more persistent in child-initiated activities. Evidence of risk-taking behaviour was low, although more apparent in child-initiated activities than adult-initiated activities, or activities in which adults were present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on one aspect of continuity – the caregiver–child relationship – within a larger global study of continuity in child care based at a university-affiliated child care center. Case studies are presented of two toddler boys, followed as they transitioned from their infant classroom to the preschool classroom at the age of approximately 2½ years. Data from caregiver notes, developmental progress reports, coded teacher interviews, Attachment Q-Sets, and the Pianta Student–Teacher Relationship Scale (STRS) were analyzed and integrated to form case profiles to reflect the children’s relationship experiences across the transition. Results are discussed in terms of individual differences in child behavior and caregiver perceptions, continuity and discontinuity factors in the transition experience, and implications for policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper describes the application of the observational method in the context of a nursery. It illustrates the value of the detailed observation of the baby's ways of relating to her carers and in so doing it highlights the unrivalled opportunity that psychoanalytic understanding brings to meet the carer's need to understand the emotional needs of the baby. This process is illustrated with the description of feeding and play situations of baby Iara and her ways of relating to members of staff during the morning and afternoon shifts. The discussion of this observation looks at projective identification as a form of relating and its consequences for the development of the self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contracting relationships vary in the extent to which they are complete and involve formal contract specification as well as the extent to which they are based on strong relationships and rely on cooperation and trust. Where a contracting arrangement falls on these two continuums constitutes what this paper refers to as "relationship design" and is likely to impact contractor performance. We use data from a survey of child-care centers and Head Start agencies in Ohio to examine the association between the design of contracting relationships and contractor performance. Contractor performance is assessed in two ways: an objective measure of violations identified by government inspectors and a perceptual self-rated measure of performance reported by the contracted service providers. Measures of relationship design are constructed using multiple survey items and are included in multivariate regression analyses while controlling for a variety of organizational characteristics. Findings suggest that contracts involving stronger relationships are positively associated with child-care center performance, and more complete contracts are negatively associated with performance when performance is measured using contractor self-reports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses trends in contemporary Danish early childhood education and care (ECEC). Data are sourced from various policy documents, along with material from ongoing research projects in which the authors are involved. It is claimed that contemporary policy on Danish day care services has a tendency to emphasize narrow curriculum improvements and standardized testing. The democratic dimensions are still relatively strong, but at the moment these dimensions are interpreted within a skills-and-testing framework, which is leading to a situation where the political masquerades as the technical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various topics within the issue on topics including emphasis on documentation of preschool children's learning in Sweden, day care settings in Denmark, and impact of popular culture on Australian young children.

This paper advances the analysis of multiculturalism by examining multiculturalism in a contextualized manner. To understand multiculturalism and assess its effects on the recognition of migrant children, researchers need to analyse multicultural practices in schools by taking into account the social mirrors resulting from different social and structural conditions, such as national ideologies and the ethos of reception. The analysis of multicultural policies in four different types of daycare centres enrolling migrant workers' children in Israel—community, Catholic, municipal, and those supported by private associations—points to three types of contextualized multicultural models: contextualized misrecognition, contextualized recognition, and de-contextualized recognition. By juxtaposing recognition or misrecognition appearing at the daycare level with legal and ideological social mirrors, multicultural patterns can acquire a different meaning. Municipal daycares with a few migrant children as well as daycares supported by private associations that adopt a 'blind-homogenizing' approach reflect an absence of recognition that is contextualized in the larger society. Community daycares adopting a survival approach, Catholic daycares applying a 'business as usual' approach, and municipal daycares enrolling a large number of migrant children adopting a multicultural approach reflect different degrees of cultural and religious recognition. However, when analysed in the larger local or national context, this recognition results in a de-contextualized recognition that suppresses the beneficial character of the multicultural education provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the language experiences of preverbal infants in Australian childcare centres with the aim of examining cultural regulation within the childcare context. Language is defined as a social and communicative act that is related to the development of voluntary action (Vygotsky 1962; Lock 1980; Leontiev 1994). The study uses naturalistic observations of language and communication as a method of recording infant experiences and analysing daily events, framing the childcare context as a developmental niche. The developmental niche is the interface between the self and culture. Knowledge is socially constructed and can be liberating or constraining. The infants in this research were gaining a conceptual knowledge of the social world of childcare as constructed within the Australian community. Their experiences reflected cultural attitudes towards infants... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses work, childcare, and earnings of mothers in the slums of Guatemala City and Accra. Similar factors affect decisions to work and to use formal daycare, but the importance of childcare varies with the role of the formal labour sector. In Guatemala, where formal sector work is important, higher prices for informal care increase formal daycare use. However, daycare prices and proximity to daycare centers do not significantly affect earnings in Guatemala City and Accra, respectively. Providing formal daycare may be more important to mothers' decision to work in cities where formal sector work dominates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How is culture co-constructed in the micro-level of everyday interactions in a daycare centre? What is the 'culture' being constructed, who are the constructors and how? This paper is based on a case study of interaction among two-year-old children. For the study, video recordings were made twice a month over a seven-month period in a daycare centre in Finland. In the recording sessions, the children were provided with some objects to play with. Four sessions were selected for qualitative analysis. During the first session, the children produced a counter-culture to the teacher's attempts to structure the situation. Gestures, postures, and verbalisations among the children emerged from initially random movements. The meaning and the functions of these postures, movements and sounds changed during the flow of actions. Some of the movements and verbalisations were re-established again and elaborated further in the following recording sessions. The constraints for actions were continuously negotiated nonverbally and verbally among the children and the adults. The wider institutional culture of early childhood education was not a passive frame somewhere outside the flow of actions, but it gained concreteness in the here-and-now situations. The adults' expectations and intentions were materialised in the initiations and in the arrangements of the setting and canalised the children's possibilities for actions. From this basis, the children co-constructed novel movements and meanings outside the adults' sphere of expectation. Comment la culture se co-construit-elle au micro-niveau des interactions quotidiennes dans un service d'accueil de la petite enfance? Quelle est cette 'culture' construite, qui sont les constructeurs et comment procedent-ils? L'article s'appuie sur une etude de cas portant sur les interactions entre enfants de deux ans. Pour cette etude, des enregistrements-videos ont ete effectues deux fois par mois pendant sept mois dans un service d'accueil, en Finlande. Lors de ces enregistrements, les enfants avaient des objets avec lesquels jouer. Quatre seances ont ete choisies pour l'analyse qualitative. Au cours de la premiere seance, les enfants ont produit une contre-culture aux tentatives de l'enseignante pour structurer la situation. Les gestes, postures et verbalisations des enfants ont emerge de leurs premieres conduites effectuees au hasard. La signification et les fonctions de ces postures, mouvements et sons se sont transformes au cours de leurs actions. Certains mouvements et verbalisations ont ete re-etablis et elabores plus avant, au cours des seances suivantes... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we discuss a study of cultural perspectives on peer conflicts in multicultural child care centres. On the level of child behaviour we did not find differences between native Dutch. Moroccan-Dutch and Antillean-Dutch children with regard to occurrence, duration and actions to solve peer conflicts. On the level of mother' opinions about interventions in peer conflicts of young children we did find more agreement than differences between the three cultural groups. On the level of images about cultural differences in parenting styles we found mutual negative stereotyping among the three cultural groups of mothers. Comparisons of their own childhood with current parenting behaviour showed that all mothers, irrespective of their cultural background, experience both continuity and adaptations to new life circumstances. Differences in style of discipline turned out to be the most critical issue in the comparisons between the generations and comparisons between the cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study has focused on the transition from day-care centre to school. Questionnaires were completed by staff at several day-care centres, at three schools recruiting pupils from these and by the parents of these children. Schools were asked what kind of information they thought it was important to receive from the other parties about children beginning school. Similarly, the pre school teachers and the parents were asked what kind of information they thought of as important to convey to the schools. All three groups of respondents reported broadly similar priorities regarding information, the highest being information about special needs, followed by information about social competence. The parents attached more importance to their children's development and cognitive characteristics than did the professionals, expressing most concern about insufficient challenges in school. The paper will give further results and in particular discuss how the parties see risk factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parental support has been an increasingly essential part of New Zealand early childhood (EC) education services over the last 20 years. This support has taken many shapes and forms over this time period, and has depended on the differing philosophies of the EC education services. What this support ‘looks like’ and how it is delivered is directly connected to the goals and aims of these services. This paper will discuss the results from a small qualitative study that looked at how three New Zealand EC centres—two kindergartens and one child care centre—supported family resilience; that is, the ability of an individual and family to ‘cope’ with and ‘recover’ from significant adversity or stress, in ways that are not only effective but may result in increased ability to ‘respond’ to and ‘protect’ their families from future adversity. From semi-structured interviews with teachers, parents, and family support services associated with each of the three centres, the concept of planned parent education programmes, as meaningful support, is re-examined in the light of the ideas of a ‘gossip’ or a ‘good yack’. This research was funded by the New Zealand Ministry of Social Development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]