Assessments provide teachers with essential information regarding children's learning. Alternative education systems offer insight into ways that assessments can be redesigned to be developmentally appropriate to particular ages, including unique stances on what defines assessment, who should assess, and what should be assessed. We examined themes…

In response to the urgent need for teachers to be better equipped with strategies for responding to students who suffer the effects of complex trauma (CT), this inter-disciplinary study investigated the lived experiences of professionals (social workers, psychologists, criminal justice workers and community workers) working with school students…

Early childhood education builds the foundation for students' academic careers, but perhaps more importantly emphasizes developmentally appropriate practices that encourage social and emotional learning and prosocial behaviors. Similarly, humane education addresses students' capacity for empathy, compassion, and perspective-taking through…

Quality early childhood care and education (ECCE) is important for young children's holistic healthy development. As ECCE scales, contextually relevant and feasible measurement is needed to inform policy and programs on strengths and areas for improvement. However, few measures have been designed for use across diverse contexts. Drawing on…

This study examined the extent to which the quality of teacher-infant interactions varies across play and routine care activities. In addition, the effects of the quantity of adult involvement in the quality of teacher-infant interactions were investigated. Participants were teachers and infants from 90 infant classrooms in Portugal. Classrooms…

The concept of assemblage, drawing on the posthuman theorisations of Deleuze and Guattari, delineates a dynamic and new materialist approach to an event. In this approach, desires, material agency and (de)(re)territorialisation emerge as key concepts, and open ways to understand the school classroom in early childhood as a territory where lines of…

The Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS; Pianta et al., 2008) is a popular measure of teacher-child interactions. Despite its prominence, CLASS scores have fairly weak relations with various child outcomes (e.g., Zaslow et al., 2010). One potential reason for these findings could be systematic differences in observer severity. As such, the…

Early Care and Education (ECE) providers earn low wages, have limited access to employer sponsored health insurance, and are at higher risk for poor health (Lessard, 2020). Evidence shows that poor ECE teacher physical and mental health is associated with decreased ability to provide quality care for young children (Esquivel et al., 2016). One…

This study aims to assess the physical literacy environment in 30 early childhood classrooms servicing 4- to 6-year-old children. A high-quality literacy environment that includes a variety of materials and resources is an important part of children's emergent literacy, as research shows their use supports oral and written language development…

Adults' behaviour in interactions with children is assumed to influence children's playfulness. However, little is known about how the quality of teacher-child interaction in early childhood education and care affects the development of children's playfulness, although the interaction quality has been identified as a strong predictor of children's…

Whether schools help or hinder creativity is a topic of vibrant, international debate. Some contend that the focus on structure, rote learning and standardised assessments associated with formal education stifles children's creativity. Others argue that creativity, much like numeracy or literacy, is a skill that can be taught, and educational…

The physical activity (PA) of young children is critical to their future activity, health and development, however, little is known about how the organisation of early years foundation stage (EYFS) settings impacts upon children's PA. This study aimed to measure the PA of children in Nursery and Reception classes and to explore their PA according…

This study examined the effect of Vygotskian-based professional development on the CLASS Instructional Support Teacher Self-Assessment scores of preschool teachers in a rural setting. Specifically, it examined the efficacy of preschool teachers in their ability to provide instructional support to their students prior to participating in…

In this paper we elucidate ways the deeper interactional underpinnings of dialogic discourse are found in the deep characteristics of the local classroom community. We analyse how, over one school year, a teacher promoted development of shared community values in her classroom of seven and eight-year-olds in the United States. We elaborate on the…

Young children's communication is dependent upon caregivers' responsiveness to their behaviors; however, little is known about the responsiveness of toddler teachers to children in their classrooms. To increase teachers' responsiveness to children's behavior, a peer-coaching model was implemented in three Early Head Start classrooms. The…