Schools play a key role in child and youth development as both social microcosms of the broader society and reciprocally influencing people and communities. As such, schools can function as a protective factor that promotes safety, motivation, relationships, and support for positive student outcomes. However, schools may also function as a risk…

Many American preschool children enter kindergarten without the emergent literacy skills needed to learn to read. To address this problem, this multicase qualitative study investigated the emergent literacy practices at Steiner Waldorf-inspired and Reggio Emilia-inspired schools. The research questions focused on how alternative preschool…

Discourses of children as deficient and deviant are common within the education system and shape the ways in which educators interact with and respond to children. To illustrate this, we conducted a critical discourse analysis of a provincial policy document that directs schools in the development of Codes of Conduct. Drawing on poststructural…

The main goals of the study were to replicate and measure the test-retest reliability of a previously used preschool working memory task, to analyze the relationship between working memory and school readiness above and beyond attention and an indicator of overall development, and to investigate these relationships for gender differences.…

In many decision situations, individuals must actively search information before they can make a satisfying choice. In such instances, individuals must be aware of the fact that not all information may be equally relevant for the choice at hand--thus, individuals should weight information by its respective relevance. We compared children's and…

The current future-focused, outcomes driven early childhood policy climate presents a danger that early years pedagogy will lose sight of the 'present' child. Increasingly policy support for early childhood education is built around an emphasis on preparing children for school and positioning it as a key element in enhancing society through…

The Digital Maps Metaphor (DMM) is suggested as a transdisciplinary research tool to overcome some of the challenges that are potentially inherent in research projects that involve multiple aims, objectives, knowledge claims, and methodologies. Based on the understanding of metaphors as embodied concepts, it is argued that the DMM can be used to…

J. J. Rousseau, thinker of the Age of Enlightenment, breaks a new ground in education with his work "Emile." In his novel, "Emile" is the name of the child he has grown up imaginatively. Rousseau, describing Emile's life and his relationship with his instructor from birth to adolescence, discusses teacher-student relationship,…

There is mounting evidence that information and communication technology (ICT) has the potential to support children's development and early learning when used effectively, appropriately, and intentionally. In an attempt to improve teachers' performance in integrating ICT into early learning, this study was designed to examine the effect of ICT…

Seeking the solution to the problems of contemporary man and approaching the social events through mythology is the other way to use the healing power of literature education. Having served as a guide for people in the past, mythology is the mirror of the past, which indicates the reasons and possible results of the events that have experienced…

The development of a child, especially a child with a disability, is conditional upon the initiation of rehabilitation measures immediately after the problem has been identified. The quality of the reaction is conditioned by the functioning of the therapeutic team. The main purpose of the research was the diagnosis of early support system for…

This article reexamines the intellectual history of the first public kindergartens, established in St Louis, Missouri, by William Torrey Harris and Elizabeth Blow in 1873. This piece argues that historians have overlooked a critical influence on the establishment of the first public kindergartens; namely, Harris and Blow's conviction that…

Previous work suggests that key factors for replicability, a necessary feature for theory building, include statistical power and appropriate research planning. These factors are examined by analyzing a collection of 12 standardized meta-analyses on language development between birth and 5 years. With a median effect size of Cohen's d = 0.45 and…

Since broadening the aesthetic experience for young children is an element of early childhood education, aesthetic education is important at this stage. By reading and analyzing related studies, this article aims to give preschool teachers a better understanding of the importance and purpose of aesthetic education in early childhood so young…

The main aim of this paper is to use a phenomenological approach (Merleau-Ponty, 1962. "Phenomenology of Perception." Evanston: Northwestern University Press; Merleau-Ponty. 1968. "The Visible and the Invisible: Followed by Working Notes." Evanston: Northern University Press) to contribute a new theoretical understanding of…