National Early Childhood Education Research Articles

Menanamkan Nilai Agama Dan Moral Dalam Pembiasaan Kegiatan Sholat Dhuha di TK Melati Aikmel, NTB

This study which aims to find out how important the practice of Duha prayer is in instilling religious, moral and discipline values in early childhood in accordance with the Child Development Achievement Standards (STPPA) contained in the Ministerial Regulation Education and Culture (PERMENDIKBUD) Number 137 of 2014 concerning National Early Childhood Education Standards. This activity involves children's ability to carry out religious activities by instilling religious values, morals and discipline. This research was carried out at Melati Aikmel Kindergarten with information obtained from the teaching staff at Melati Aikmel Kindergarten. The data collection methods used in this research are observation, interviews and documentation. From the results of the research that has been carried out, it is clear that instilling religious and moral values in early childhood through the habit of performing dhuha prayers in Melati Aikmel Kindergarten has an impact on the formation of children's character which can be seen from changes in children's behavior, namely: (1) children have a sense of gratitude, (2) children have a religious character, and (3) children are more disciplined with time.

An Examination of Educator Standards for Early Grade Teachers

ABSTRACT This study examines two longstanding but thinly evidenced claims regarding credentialing requirements for teachers in the early grades (pre-K, K, 1, 2, and 3): 1) that elementary education (ELED) educator standards, under which many U.S. early grade teachers are prepared, address early instructional practices less adequately than early childhood education (ECE) guidelines; and 2) that states’ ECE educator standards often inadequately address essential features of early instruction. Content analysis is used to examine how frequently state and national ECE and ELED educator standards referred to the following essential ECE terms: development, community, family, exceptionality, observation, play, relationships, adversity, and self-regulation. The results provide empirical support for the claims investigated here. Specifically, the data indicate that essential ECE terms are mentioned less often and insufficiently emphasized and/or omitted more often 1) by ELED than ECE educator standards and 2) by state-level than national-level ECE standards. For example, the results indicate that 17 states have ECE educator preparation standards that do not refer to play or adversity; and 27 states have ELED standards, for licenses that include the early grades, that do not mention play or self-regulation. Policy implications are discussed.

When to call home?: the intersection of race and gender and teacher communication with parents in first grade

ABSTRACT Previous research makes clear that racism can be a barrier to parental involvement in education. However, it is less clear how racism can facilitate parental involvement. This study uses national early childhood education data to gauge if racial/ethnic and gender disparities exist in teacher contact with parents/guardians. The study’s aims are to understand if and how race/ethnicity and gender shape teacher communication with parents/guardians, as well as if teacher-student racial matching matters. We find several racial/ethnic and gender disparities in teacher contact with parents/guardians about behavior problems, academic problems, and accomplishments. Our findings suggest that both Black boys and Black girls benefit from having a non-White teacher, although in different ways. Additionally, our findings indicate that Asian American students both benefit and are penalized by more favorable teacher perceptions. We discuss the utility of an intersectional approach for understanding teacher racial bias and student-teacher racial matching.

Positioning Children Citizens: Exploring Discourses in Early Childhood Curricula in China and Aotearoa New Zealand

Positioning young children as citizens, now rather than as citizens in waiting, is an emerging discourse in early childhood education internationally. Differing discourses related to young children and early childhood reveal various ideas of children as citizens, and what their citizenship status, practice and education can be. This paper analyses the national early childhood education (ECE) curricula of China and Aotearoa New Zealand for the purpose of understanding how children are constructed as citizens within such policy discourses. Discourse analysis is employed in this study as a methodological approach for understanding the subjectivities of young children and exploring the meanings of young children’s citizenship in both countries. Based on Foucault’s theory of governmentality, this paper ultimately argues that young children’s citizenship in contemporary ECE curricula in China and New Zealand is a largely neoliberal construction. However, emerging positionings shape differing possibilities for citizenship education for young children in each of these countries.

Jumpstart program efficacy: The impact of early childhood education advancement initiatives on low-income preschool children’s literacy, agency, and social relations

The Jumpstart program is a national early childhood education program focusing on supporting children’s language skills, literacy, and social-emotional development. The present study examined the i...

Young children’s citizenship membership and participation: comparing discourses in early childhood curricula of Australia, New Zealand and the United States

ABSTRACTRecognition of young children as citizens is relatively new in sociology, with translation emerging into education. Discourses of children and childhood shape ideas of young children as citizens and national discourses of citizenship frame what civic participation can be. The authors analysed national early childhood education curricula frameworks of Australia, New Zealand and the United States to understand how discourses authorise constructions of children as citizens and opportunities for young children’s civic participation. They sought to locate how children are positioned as citizens and what opportunities there are for young children’s citizenship participation in national early childhood curricula documents of Australia, New Zealand and the United States. Illustrative examples of children’s citizenship membership and participation from the three nations’ early childhood curricula were critically read to locate how prevalent discourses of children, childhood and citizenship in each nation define children as citizens and shape possibilities for citizenship participation for young children.

Reading the Map: Locating and Navigating the Academic Skills Development of Pre-Service Teachers

This article reports on an action research project that was implemented to strengthen preservice teachers’ academic skills and competencies in a Bachelor of Early Childhood Education course. Strategies identified as effective included mapping assessment tasks to State and National Early Childhood Education Curriculum and Standards Frameworks and Graduate Teacher Standards and against the skills needed to complete assessment tasks. Tools and resources were developed by lecturers to identify students’ existing skill levels and then scaffold the required competencies into course teaching. The critical reflections of lecturers on their professional learning through this process were found to be integral to successful outcomes for students.

The Australian Early Childhood Curriculum and a Cosmopolitan Imaginary

In our interconnected and interdependent world, national early childhood education and care (ECEC) policies can no longer be made or read independently from their global contexts. Policy statements often display a global awareness that construct notions about ‘the child’ as a ‘global citizen’, particular relations to others and certain prospects about the world. In this paper, we analyse the Australian Early Years Learning Framework: Belonging, Being and Becoming (EYLF) and associated documents to make explicit the particular child subjects, forms of belonging and prospects they produce. The multivocality and multiperspectivity of the EYLF enable parallel interpretations, which we utilise here and focus on two possible readings: first, an educational prospect that furthers neoliberal globalisation and modernist notions by fashioning ECEC as part of national and mostly economic projects, while the second reading identifies aspects of the EYLF that prefigure a new mode of learning that engages alternatively with our interdependent world through a ‘cosmopolitan ethics’ and ‘cosmopolitan solidarity’. Based upon our second reading, we utilise our ‘radical imagination’ to extend the cosmopolitan imaginary of the EYLF for pedagogical use.

The New South Wales Campaign for Improved Staff Ratios for Babies in Centre-Based ECEC (2002–2009): Influences on Politicians' Decisions

THIS ARTICLE PRESENTS FINDINGS from a case study investigation of a longstanding campaign in one Australian state to change the minimum regulated staff–child ratios for babies from one staff member for every five babies (1:5) to one staff member for every four (1:4). Using interviews with early childhood professionals and politicians, and document analysis of key policy texts, an ‘eventalization’ (Foucault, 1991) is generated to argue multiple ‘contingent events’ (Mills, 2003, p. 115) at the state, national and international level, enabled ratio campaign activists to intensively promote the 1:4 ratio. Simultaneously New South Wales politicians strategically aligned themselves with national early childhood education and care policy by approving 1:4. The article concludes with a discussion of the findings and implications for ECEC activists agitating for policy change in the future.

Inclusive Education Spirits and Contents Represented in 6th National Early Childhood Education Curriculum

Inclusive Education Spirits and Contents Represented in 6th National Early Childhood Education Curriculum

Early childhood education in Guyana

The problems of adequate housing for children's programs remain. Many teachers will not catch up with prevailing theories and practice in early childhood education in more technologically advanced countries for a while. Curriculum implementation at classroom level still needs much attention. The budget provided for early education keeps shrinking due to high inflation. Despite the problems, however, the introduction of a national early childhood education program was good for families who could not afford fee-paying schools for their children. “Going national” at the outset was problematic because of the number of issues that needed attention simultaneously. It however, removed the need for lobbying, which can be a long and arduous process before success is achieved. A national program of early childhood education also enabled nursery teachers to surmount many of the problems associated with their image as mere childminders and the low-liest on the rungs of the education ladder. For children, this program also performed an important socialisation and cognitive-developmental function and it forced parents to take another look at early childhood as a definite learning period in the life of the child.

Te Whaariki: New Zealand’s National Early Childhood Education Curriculum Guideline

Te Whaariki: He Whaariki Matuarangga mo nga Mokopuna o Aotearoa/Early Childhood Curriculum est le manuel du programme national d’education prescolaire en Nouvelle-Zelande/Aoteoroa. Publie en 1996 par le Ministere de l’Education, il est la premiere philosophie globale, complete et biculturelle. Te Whaariki est une fondation sur laquelle sont bases une grande variete de services a la petite enfance. Le nom provient de la langue Maori d’un mot signifiant “petit tapis”. Les principes, Jes plans et Jes objectifs du document, adaptes a la specificite de chaque centre, creent le programme dans lequel chaque enfant s’engage. Te Whaariki est propose aux enfants entre 0 et l’âge de l’entree a l’ecole (5 ans). Il met l’accent sur la connaissance, les aptitudes et les comportements que l’enfant amene avec lui. Le document met en valeur et reflete les cultures et Jes communautes auxquelles Jes enfants appartiennent. C’est a la fois l’enfant sensible et l’enfant actit. Te Whaariki: es un nuevo programa nacional que se ha desarrollado en Nueva Zelanda- Aoteoroa. Se ha desarrollado con el Ministerio de Educacion, para asegurar que a los ninos se les ensena en un ambiente que acepta y reconoce a Nueva Zelanda, como una Sociedad Multicultural El programa cubre todos los servicios para los infantes. El nombre viene de una palabra de madri “estera tejida” y facilita una ensena para la infancia desde pre-nacimiento hasta los cinco anos de edad. Esto refteja la cultura de varias comunidades y ensena a los ninos toda clase de abilidades.