State-funded preschool is already offered in mixed-delivery settings in most states, meaning that along with public schools, children are also served in settings such as child care centers, Head Start agencies, and private schools. However, just 39% of 4-year-olds and 14% of 3-year-olds were enrolled in publicly-funded programs, such as…

Parents play a vital role in identifying children's needs for support and Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) features that support children's well-being. This study examined parental perspectives on features of ECEC that foster young children's well-being under and above the age of 3 years by interviewing 359 parents across nine European…

Children's early education experiences are rarely high quality when changes to policy and practice are knee jerk and made in response to politicised anger and frustration. Changes to education inspection systems deliver when they are grounded in evidence-informed practice. What matters is that the inspection process supports practitioners in…

In this brief, the authors explore how state-level decisions in New Hampshire and Vermont manifest in the early childhood education and care sector, through the lens of the interstate Upper Valley region. They demonstrate the significant differences in the reach and adequacy of child care financial assistance programs ("child care…

During the 2022 legislative session, the Maryland state legislature passed the Early Childhood Development -- Child Care Scholarship Program -- Alterations and Study bill (Ch. 525 HB995/SB920). This bill required the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) to complete a study on several key factors of the legislation on or before December 1,…

Central among a range of reforms and policy measures aimed at enhancing the quality and social cohesion of Norwegian early childhood education and care (ECEC) services is the 2017 "Framework Plan for Kindergartens." In this article, we investigate the policy formation process and how framework plan reform has been carried out by public…

This article sheds light on governance mechanisms at work when decentralised implementation of national educational and welfare policies encounters a heterogeneous sector of private service provider organisations. It illuminates how isomorphic pressure plays out at the interface between local governance and private providers' organisational…

For a century, America's early childhood policy has been premised on a myth. This falsehood--which dictates that child care and education are somehow separate and distinct--not only suboptimizes the most important window into all human development, but costs American taxpayers an untold fortune. It's time to think differently. Written in plain yet…

There are contrasting results of the association between center-based care attendance and child development, mainly related to how the time of entry and permanence in the program relates to developmental outcomes. Using latent class analysis in a nationally representative sample of Chilean children between 6 and 35 months old (n = 3,992), and…

With early childhood inhabiting a firm position on policy agendas, an emerging global consensus acknowledges the need for research into early childhood education and care (ECEC) systems. However, standardised approaches to comparison dominate the field. These studies tend to be grounded in methodological nationalism, assuming nation states as the…

Israel's early childhood education and care (ECEC) policy for ages 0-3 has evolved significantly, with the Ministry of Education now overseeing it. However, the policy still emphasizes settings over comprehensive child development, excluding centers with fewer than seven children, and many still need to be registered. This study examines Israel's…

The qualifications that early childhood (EC) teachers attain vary across the 50 states. This variance is likely associated with the differences in state-level childcare licensing policies governing the qualification attainment of EC teachers. This research explores the relationship between childcare licensing policy and the qualifications that EC…

The impact of population policy changes on the demand for educational resources has long been a central focus of scholarly inquiry. With the recent implementation of China's three-child policy, there arises the potential for shifts in preschool enrollment patterns, thereby influencing the demand for preschool educational resources. This study…

In this paper, we analyse mechanisms of exclusion in Norwegian daycare facilities for children ("Skolefritidsordning -- SFOs), which provide after-school care. Such mechanisms are analysed and discussed as unanticipated consequences of reform policy initiatives or simply as accepted trade-offs left to the SFO staff's discretion. The data are…

Australian early childhood education and care [ECEC] has faced a series of change and reform since 2009, including the introduction and later revisions of key curriculum and qualify frameworks, increased qualifications, shifting theoretical knowledge and pedagogies, and challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, early childhood…