Undoubtedly, every young dancer aspires to be an expert technician and artistically dazzling. Working toward that end, a dancer is aware that he or she needs to spend many hours of practice in technique classes and on the stage. However, a dancer might not consider the fact that to become the best dancer possible, he or she needs equal abilities…

This "AERA Open" special topic takes stock of the current knowledge about scaled-up early childhood education (ECE) programs. Rapidly rising ECE participation rates in recent decades have coincided with wide variability in the types of programming available for young children. This expansion makes understanding heterogeneity in effects…

Accurately remembering how and when one's own learning occurs is an important metacognitive skill that matures during the early school years. In two studies, the impact of a delay on this ability was examined. In Study 1, 30 children in two age groups (4-year-olds and 5-year-olds) participated in two-staged learning events and were interviewed…

Purpose: The particular statistical approach researchers choose is intimately connected to the way they conceptualize their questions, which, in turn, can influence the conclusions they draw. One particularly salient area in which statistics influence our conclusions is in the context of atypical development. Traditional statistical approaches…

How do professionals in the field of sexuality education build a lasting career? Ever-changing policies from one administration to the next can add or eliminate funding for programs, shift the focus between science and ideology, and swing public support for or against effective curricula. At the 2017 National Sex Ed Conference, four experienced…

Individuals feel lonely when they perceive a discrepancy between their desired and their actually experienced quantity and quality of social relationships. Prior research has demonstrated the importance of loneliness for various health-related aspects. In the present article, we extend the existing literature on loneliness by investigating its…

Verbs are often uttered before the events they describe. By 2 years of age, toddlers can learn from such an encounter. Hearing a novel verb in transitive sentences (e.g. "The boy lorped the cat"), even with no visual referent present, they later map it to a causative meaning (e.g. "feed") (e.g. Yuan & Fisher, [Yuan, S.,…

Since the 1990s, colleges and universities throughout the United States have witnessed a substantial increase in student population demographics. In particular, upticks have been reported in the number of first-generation students enrolling in colleges and universities. There is evidence that first-generation college students often face…

Social and emotional learning has great potential to prevent social, emotional, and behavioral problems that children may experience and to contribute to their overall positive development (Greenberg et al., 2003). School-based, universal social and emotional learning programs have been shown to be effective for the general student population and…

This descriptive correlational study sought to measure the development of leadership life skills and the perceptions of youth-adult relationships by youth serving on the Louisiana 4-H State Leadership Boards. Members of the 2013-2014 Louisiana 4-H State Leadership Boards (N = 153) served as the population for the study. A total of 99 responses…

Raising and educating children is always about their future. We want to give them the knowledge and skills they need to be successful in the world of work, build positive relationships with other people and find personal happiness. To achieve this goal, we must ask ourselves: How will today's children live in 20 or 40 years? What kind of world…

Problem-based learning (PBL) offers a powerful approach to engage students in meaningful learning experiences by connecting classroom content to real-world challenges. This Spotlight explores how PBL can be implemented across K-12 to foster critical thinking, collaboration, and problem-solving skills. From preparing students for the workforce…

Dual language learner children (DLLs) benefit from early childhood education (ECE) and learning multiple languages, but research has predominantly focused on English monolingual children, with limited insight on the ECE and early development of DLLs. This study investigated whether DLLs' developmental assets assessed at pre-k entry (i.e. English…

This chapter focuses on how working-class educational developers bring unique sensibilities to their work that can be both advantageous and challenging.

This article proposes the existence of an "Isadora Effect": the propositions that motor development plays a primal role in brain development, and the first understanding of symbolic meaning among young children occurs from an understanding of movement and gesture. Anecdotal evidence for the past few decades has demonstrated that dance…