Early years education is offered free to all three-year-olds in Northern Ireland, prior to starting primary school, and most parents take advantage of this offer for their children. An experience of early years education has been shown to considerably improve life chances and to be important in starting the process of building a shared society,…

In this paper we explore datafication through a specific kind of evaluative practice in Swedish early childhood education and care (ECEC): the creation of quality reports by individual preschools. A theoretical framework is developed based on Dahler-Larsen's descriptions of three 'evaluation imaginaries' (the modern, reflexive modernity and audit…

The purpose of this quantitative comparative study was to explore kindergarten teachers' perceptions of student readiness. The factors that impacted readiness when students entered kindergarten had not been clearly and consistently identified. The study extended research on factors associated with kindergarten student readiness and included…

Background/Context: Public prekindergarten (pre-K) is increasingly common in U.S. public schools. The policy decision to house pre-K classrooms in public schools places pre-K teachers in a "borderland of practice," where the separate worlds of the early childhood and K--12 systems collide. Borderland work has implications for pre-K…

Little research in education has focused on school neighborhoods. We employ a novel systematic social observation tool--the internet-based School Neighborhood Assessment Protocol (iSNAP)--within Google Street View to quantify the physical characteristics of 291 preschool communities in nine U.S. cities. We find low to moderate correlations (r =…

This study leverages six years of public prekindergarten (PreK) and kindergarten data (N = 22,469) from the Boston Public Schools (BPS) to examine enrollment in BPS PreK from 2012-2017 for students from different racial/ethnic, socioeconomic, and linguistic groups. The largest differences in enrollment emerged with respect to race and…

New York City's universal pre-kindergarten program, which increased full-day enrollment from 19,000 to almost 70,000 children, is ambitious in both scale and implementation speed. We provide new evidence on the distribution of pre-K quality in NYC by student race/ethnicity, and investigate the extent to which observed differences are associated…

This study leverages six years of public prekindergarten (pre-K) and kindergarten data (N = 22,469) from the Boston Public Schools (BPS) to examine enrollment in BPS pre-K from 2012-2017 for students from different racial/ethnic, socioeconomic, and linguistic groups. The largest differences in enrollment emerged with respect to race and…

This is the second in a series of briefs examining student access to Houston Independent School District (HISD) pre-kindergarten (pre-k) programs. The current study examined strategies for increasing access to pre-k in HISD, including the intended and unintended consequences of zoning pre-k using existing elementary school zones. We found that…

Pre-school ages, which is the period of rapid development of all developmental areas, is the stage in which children acquire visual perception ability and this ability acquisition process accelerates between the ages of three and seven. Visual perception that accelerates during childhood, is an important factor for academic and motor skills which…

Though economically disadvantaged students in the Houston Independent School District (HISD) have "greater" access to pre-kindergarten (pre-k) than their peers, English learner (EL) students do not. Equity in access to nearby pre-k would mean at-risk students, particularly those targeted for free public pre-k in Texas, would have greater…

The aim of this research is to examine the occupational burnout levels of preschool teachers' work in terms of working in the eastern and western parts of Turkey, voluntariness, gender, working location and age. In accordance with the general aim of the study, "Maslach Burnout Inventory" and "Personal Information Form"…

Distance and program characteristics drive parental pre-kindergarten (pre-k) choice. This study reflects the third in a series of briefs examining pre-k enrollment and access for students in the Houston Independent School District (HISD). The aims of this study are to identify characteristics that drive enrollment, understand where parents receive…

The study aimed to investigate factors influencing participation in pre-school education and its implications for quality-education. The descriptive survey research design was employed through stratified random sampling to collect pertinent information through questionnaires and observational checklists. The first finding was that 68.92% of the…

A high-quality pre-school education will improve the well-being of all children, especially those with special needs for support, will enhance their development, with respect of diversity and dignity. The article presents the results of an exploratory study on those aspects of the quality of pre-school education that are important for implementing…