In China, the "2001 Kindergarten Education Guidelines (Trial)", or "New Outline", delineates what constitutes high-quality, developmentally appropriate practices in all early childhood education curriculum domains, including mathematics. The "New Outline" is known for advocating a child-centered, play-based approach…

This study investigated Hong Kong and German children's perceptions of play and learning and their relationships. Forty-eight children (24 German and 24 Chinese) playing and learning in the classroom were observed and videotaped for five consecutive days. They were interviewed 3 times about their kindergarten experiences by using free- and…

Noting that surprisingly little researcher attention has been directed toward teaming in early childhood education (ECE), the author conducted parallel case studies of two Head Start teacher teams in a single center. Drawing on interviews, extensive observational notes taken over the course of a school year, and teacher-generated metaphors, the…

This article draws on a model of reflection that involves creating meanings through repeated encounters with evocative objects. Responses to one such evocative object, a 20-second video clip of children playing in the fine sand area, illustrates the "turning toward" and then "turning away" from the object to engage with broader…

Traditionally, pedagogical research has been child centered, where materialities often have been considered as objects and tools. However, in recent posthuman research, attempts have been made to consider human materiality combinations to have impact on pedagogical activities in preschool, but to a large extent music as an issue has been…

The aim of this study was to investigate kindergartners' exploration of interactive causality during their play with a pair of toy sound blocks. Interactive causality refers to a type of causal pattern in which two entities interact to produce a causal force, as in particle attraction and symbiotic relationships. Despite being prevalent in nature,…

An increasing number of parents in China are enrolling their preschool children in after-school programs provided by private, for-profit early learning centers. This study used a qualitative approach to explore how teachers in these centers understood and implemented play and play-based curricula. Data were collected by examining the curriculum…

This study addressed questions about the function of children's various participation and regulation strategies in different instructional contexts and at different points in time in school. The developmental trajectories of kindergartners' academic participation and regulation strategy selection and use across the school year in teacher-directed…

This study explored issues of social inclusion for young children with disabilities through a systematic reanalysis of six preschool case studies focusing on strategies that teachers used in daily practice. Our analysis process entailed a reexamination of classroom observations and teacher inquiry data, focusing back and forth between the…

This study examined the mean duration of child attention across three teaching conditions (child choice, adult choice, or adult presentation) of 63 preschool-age children. A repeated-measures ANOVA was used to compare the means across the three teaching conditions, indicating a statistically significant difference between the teaching conditions.…

This qualitative case study explores the intersection of multimedia, bilingualism, and culturally responsive practices by examining the responses that children of Korean descent have to animated folktales and the discussions about traditional cultural values that they sparked. Data were collected over 5 months in a classroom for children of…

This study addressed questions about the relations among teacher instructional interactions, classroom environmental contexts, and students' subsequent self-regulated learning behaviors in upper elementary school. One hundred and six 4th- and 5th-grade students from five classrooms in two schools in two communities (one urban and one rural) in the…

This study investigates the relationship between internal teacher profiles and pre-K teacher-child interaction quality in the pre-K classroom. Two questions were addressed: (1) What internal profiles exist for pre-kindergarten (pre-K) teachers? and (2) Do internal profiles relate to observed structural and process quality in the pre-K classroom?…

It is believed children stand to benefit from a greater male teacher presence in early childhood education (ECE) where, internationally, the vast majority of ECE teachers are female. This study (N = 180) examines the relationship between children's social adaptation and the educational practices of 53 ECE teachers, 23 (44%) of which were male.…

The Project Approach has been promoted in Hong Kong kindergartens since the 1990s. However, the dynamic processes and underlying mechanisms involved in the teachers' implementation of this pedagogical method there have not yet been fully investigated. This case study of one typical kindergarten in Hong Kong documented how and why eight teachers…