Traditionally, giftedness was perceived as a fixed trait, exclusively evaluated through cognitive testing. However, contemporary perspectives view it as a dynamic and socially constructed attribute reflected in many domains. As this paradigm-shift aligns with global movements emphasizing the importance of avoiding labelling students and enhancing…

The purpose of this paper is to emphasise the value of inducting and mentoring new practitioners in Early Childhood Education centres. Early Childhood Education centres are usually located in meaningful buildings. Centres care for more children than the family can provide for. They are usually divided into groups or classrooms of similarly aged…

This study was aimed at investigating the processes of socialisation and development of life skills of children from orphanages in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The study used a mixed-methods approach, including structured surveys for 200 orphanage graduates and in-depth interviews with 12 field specialists. This approach provided quantitative data…

Accelerating the Boys and Girls Clubs to continued learning and growing in their practices is one key to transforming the young boys and girls which they serve. The purpose of this study was to examine the affects that the Boys and Girls Clubs have had on the membership and to utilize the information learned to endorse the Clubs work going…

The Learn-Earn-Return approach is frequently promoted by coaches motivating entrepreneurs to give back in the third stage of life after their younger years of learning and earning. However, this article describes how the Thai Child Development Foundation (TCDF), a charity operating in rural Thailand, implements the Learn-Earn-Return focus…

This article embeds the study of character development within the two-decades-long research program framed by the Lerner and Lerner model of positive youth development. Character development involves attaining the feelings, thoughts, and skills needed to act coherently across time and place to serve self and others in mutually beneficial, positive…

Early childhood development (ECD) policies and programs are increasingly recognized as having a strong, positive impact at both the individual (e.g., learning, health, behavior) and societal (e.g., inclusion, social cohesion, earnings) levels. Yet, little attention is given to the lived experiences and working conditions of the workforce who…

The Doris Duke Fellowships for the Promotion of Child Well-Being were launched in 2010 to promote interdisciplinary learning and advance research that improves public policy and practice. The Doris Duke Fellowships Equity Study examined the perspectives of multiple key constituencies--academic and policy mentors, staff members, national advisory…

A number of states are considering policy proposals to update credential or degree requirements for early educators. Practitioners, policy experts, and researchers have expressed concern, however, that well-intentioned policies to raise educator qualifications without sufficient supports may have negative consequences for the adequacy; stability;…

There are multiple explanations for why many children do not have access to well-prepared pre-K teachers. The five programs profiled in this report show that it is possible to give pre-K teachers rich, research-based training that prepares them to work with young children. However, there is a scarcity of opportunities focused on the developmental…

Objectives: Technology-based outreach offers promise for providing support to a broad population of postpartum mothers while keeping costs low. However, research on the efficacy of this approach is scarce. We conducted a pre-registered randomized pilot trial of the effects of a novel technology based approach for supporting postpartum mothers --…

Three Australian Government commissioned reports from 2011-2017 convey a longstanding child development theory-practice gap in early childhood education. This study explores what informs mentors' discussions of theories of child development with early career preschool teachers. Grounded in Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, themes relate to…

This report asserts that every child--regardless of race, income, or opportunity--should have consistent access to high-quality learning experiences from birth and provides a roadmap toward change at scale, including the development of residency programs and improved compensation for the infant/toddler workforce.

Although text messaging interventions targeting parents of older students have shown promise for improving a variety of outcomes, evidence on text-based outreach and support for parents of young children is just emerging. We explore programmatic data from a text-based mentoring intervention designed to support postpartum mothers and promote…

Pre-service teachers depend on hands-on training to acquire the necessary practical skills to effectively work in the classroom. This is especially true for pre-service teachers in Early Childhood Education (ECE), who often rely on mentoring programs to learn to successfully work with children and influence their developmental outcomes. This study…