In this article, we engage with a question that has occupied the professional, policy, and popular discourse on education and socialization: are a child's development potential and outcomes contingent on innate abilities ("nature") or environment ("nurture") (Plomin, DeFries, & Fulker, 1988; Stiles, 2011; Tabery, 2014;…

This paper argues that the Trump phenomenon is not an anomaly but rather a predictable stage of the waning of US power. The United States has enjoyed military and economic dominance of the world since the early twentieth century when it gained control of the massive Third World colonial regions of the world. We must regard education as the human…

The study explores the representations of childhood in Greek language school textbooks for primary second graders within a broad chronological period, from 1934 to date. School textbooks are understood as social representations of social categories and social phenomena which Greek pupils are assumed to embed. Drawing from the "new sociology…

Early care and education in the United States is in crisis. The period between birth and kindergarten is a crucial time for a child's development. Yet vast racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities that begin early in children's lives contribute to starkly different long-term outcomes for adults. Compared to other advanced economies, child…

As schools become living sites of evidence-based practice, teachers increasingly accumulate large quantities of observations and records. In these times of an overabundance of documentation, there is a need to find the "unit of analysis" that determines the essence of what matters for assessment. In drawing upon cultural-historical…

This paper reviews the development of early childhood education and care (ECEC) in China. The historical context from 1900 is summarised, and then developments from the 1980s up to the present kindergarten expansion movement, starting in 2010, are covered in detail. The review shows that ECEC development in China has undergone great changes both…

The ongoing dilemma for those expected to improve schools is how to meet our society's basic aims for public education in ways that level the playing field. The dilemma is exacerbated by the need to do more with less. This brief approaches these matters in the context of three direct functions that are essential to school improvement: (1)…

Ferguson, Missouri, has been characterized as an archetype of structural inequality and segregation. Several questions guide this investigation of Ferguson and its surrounding region. How did policies, practices, and folkways help to create the conditions in Ferguson and the broader metropolitan region? The regional segregation regime's history…

The author invited some of his friends to give their views regarding key trends that will impact the early childhood world in the coming years. Chip Donohue, Director of Distance Learning, Erikson Institute, Chicago, Illinois, observed that the rapid pace of technology development and deployment has already changed, and will continue to change,…

Following political devolution in the late 1990s and the establishment of the governments for Wales and Scotland, the education systems of the four home countries of the UK have significantly diverged. Consequently, not only does that mean that education research in the UK has to be sensitive to such divergence, but that the divergence of policy…

As the focus on school improvement at a state education agency moves from mostly a compliance approach to playing a greater role in capacity building, the agency's leadership needs to rethink student and learning supports. That is the focus of this report. Given that almost half of the chief state school officers have assumed their position in the…

This volume explores whether the nation's early childhood programs are boosting child development and preparing children for schooling and proposes reforms that would improve the programs. The volume contains contrasting papers on the success of Head Start, Early Head Start, and home-visiting programs and on policies that would improve these three…

The purpose of this article is to examine contemporary transformations in early childhood education, in light of developments in policy, theory and practice, and to chart significant changes and continuities over the last 40 years. The Plowden Report had a significant impact on early childhood education, because it reified developmental theories,…

This article situates Reggio Emilia's municipally funded early childhood program within the city's cultural traditions of resistance and collaboration and considers what it is about this highly localized program that is appealing and useful to contemporary school reform initiatives. Five features of Reggio Emilia's approach to early education are…

Delineates the myths, mysteries, and distortions surrounding rites of passage for African American youth and investigates the educational implications of these rites. The initiation process is examined, and the importance of carefully resurrecting these rites of passage to the socialization of African American youth is discussed. (GR)