Within developed countries child poverty is a social problem with significant negative effects. With a backdrop of austerity, the UK's first child poverty strategy was released in 2011. Pervaded by neo-liberal ideology this strategy identifies preschool services as key to remediating the negative effects of child poverty on children and families…

Collaborative goal setting among home visitors and family members is a mandate for Head Start's home-based program. Yet, a dearth of research is available for advancing evidence-based practices for setting and monitoring home visiting goals or for understanding how family characteristics or program features are associated with them. With the…

Parent-child acculturation discrepancy is a risk factor in the development of children in immigrant families. Using a longitudinal sample of Chinese immigrant families, the authors of the current study examined how unsupportive parenting and parent-child sense of alienation sequentially mediate the relationship between parent-child acculturation…

Fifteen-year-old adolescents (N = 109) in a longitudinal study of child development were recruited to examine differences in DNA methylation in relation to parent reports of adversity during the adolescents' infancy and preschool periods. Microarray technology applied to 28,000 cytosine-guanine dinucleotide sites within DNA derived from buccal…

The purpose of this study was to examine parental selection criteria and satisfaction with day care, knowledge about centre philosophy, teacher education and quality of the day-care environment. Parents ("n" = 261) and educators ("n" = 94) in 44 non-profit centres in three Canadian cities participated. Parent knowledge was…

As a society, are we investing enough in our youngest children? The BUILD Initiative's latest report, Early Learning Left Out, by CFPC director Charles Bruner, provides a clear answer that current investments fall far short. The report draws upon the most recent federal, state, and public school budget information--and what we know about effective…

Forest kindergartens are a new idea in the United States but have been around in Germany, Norway, and other European countries for decades. Forest "kindergartens" are preschools for children ages 3-6 and focus on being outdoors and learning through interacting with nature. Instead of building with blocks or doing puzzles at a table…

Scientific discoveries repeatedly confirmed the importance of brain growth during the first 5 years of child life. To support early childhood development, California voters passed Proposition 10 in 1998 to collect a 50 cent per pack tax on cigarettes and other tobacco products. Kern County Children and Families Commission (First 5 Kern) was…

First generation Appalachian female students are exposed to gender differences in roles and career choices that are modeled in the family. A case study approach was used to obtain qualitative data from five students at Eastern Kentucky University and their mothers regarding why these students chose to major in child development and early childhood…

The impact of social class backgrounds on young children's educational experiences has attracted increasing attention in early childhood research. However, few longitudinal studies related to social class and parental involvement in young children's education are available, especially in East Asian contexts. In this longitudinal qualitative study,…

This report documents the practices and outcomes of Alice Birney, a public K-8 Waldorf-Inspired School in Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD). This study highlights how such a school addresses students' academic, social, emotional, physical, and creative development. Birney students outperform similar students in SCUSD on several…

How the young children of immigrants experience their early school years may in large part determine their academic future and negatively affect their emotional, social, and mental development. Children benefit from a positive, supportive learning environment where their contributions are valued; many from immigrant families, however, experience…

The author offers the thesis that hunter-gatherers promoted, through cultural means, the playful side of their human nature and this made possible their egalitarian, nonautocratic, intensely cooperative ways of living. Hunter-gatherer bands, with their fluid membership, are likened to social-play groups, which people could freely join or leave.…

When entering the Blind Childrens Center (BCC), what a person might not realize is that four of the five visually impaired children in a classroom share the same diagnosis of Optic Nerve Hypoplasia (OHN). ONH is the leading cause of blindness and visual impairment in young children. It is important that these children participate in an inclusive…

Harmonizing relations between children and parents is one of the priority objectives of social-pedagogical activity whose purpose is to create conditions favorable to the successful development of the child and the strengthening of the family's upbringing potential. This is necessitated by the fact that the upbringing and other vital functions of…