Early Educational Practices in Canada and the United States

Abstract

In this introduction, we provide an overview of the landscape of ECE in the United States and Canada and then discuss contested beliefs about practices and curriculum within ECE. In the United States and Canada, ECE policy and practice is the result of contentious debate in the political sphere over whether mothers should be working, whether “disadvantaged” children “deserve” or “require” early care, and whether the children of undocumented immigrants should receive human services, and in the professional sphere about whether ECE “belongs” to education, child development, or developmental science, whether child care is the same as education, and whether infants and toddlers are to be included in ECE. Perhaps, as a result, the quality of care and education provided in ECE programs is low, and the wages of ECE teachers and caregivers place them at the poverty level. We draw on our own work on attachment and parent involvement, the importance of play both for children’s learning and sense of belonging in school communities, and the critical role of teacher-child relationships to discuss how these debates influence the care and education provided for children.