Over the past thirty years, there have been notable changes in child care ratios and group sizes. Child care ratios refer to the number of children one caregiver is responsible for, while group size refers to the total number of children in a classroom at an early care and education setting. The current analysis examines the current licensing…

The CLASS-PreK instrument is widely used to evaluate early childhood classrooms, but how classrooms using Montessori, the world's most common alternative education system, fare on CLASS is understudied. Because CLASS focuses largely on teacher-child interactions as the situs of learning, but in Montessori theory, child-environment interactions are…

Following a high-quality early care and pre-K experience, the kindergarten-through-third-grade years set the foundation upon which future learning builds; and strengthening this continuum creates opportunities for later success. Key components of a quality experience in K-3 include school readiness and transitions, kindergarten requirements,…

Worldwide, a large number of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers are enroled in formal non-parental early childhood education or care (ECEC). Theoretically, lower adult/child ratios (fewer children per adult) and smaller group sizes are hypothesised to be associated with positive child outcomes in ECEC. A lower adult/child ratio and a smaller…

This study examined several early childhood education and care (ECEC) factors and their relation to children's salivary cortisol slope and hair cortisol concentration (HCC). The study is part of the cross-sectional DAGIS study, conducted in 2015-2016, examining 66 preschools and 677 children aged 3-6 years in Finland. Two saliva samples from one…

A growing number of toddlers are attending childcare institutions as part of China's establishment of its infant-toddler childcare service system. However, there is limited empirical evidence available regarding the quality of these childcare services. The purpose of this study is to investigate the quality of teacher - child interactions in…

In this systematic review, the authors will examine the impact of adult/child ratio and group size on child development and well-being in formal nonparental early childhood education and care settings. Thus, the intervention is defined as any change to adult/child ratio and/or group size which has been reliably measured within an eligible setting.…

The purpose of this correlational, quantitative study was to determine if a relationship exists between school culture and student achievement in central Mississippi schools. Data from an online survey was collected from 397 certified teachers representing 10 central Mississippi elementary schools and attendance centers. The School Culture Survey…

Knowing that each student's academic success relies on his/her reading proficiency, schools must implement effective instructional reading models so that students can move from learning to read to reading to learn in the early years of development. The purpose of this inquiry was to evaluate the effectiveness of a kindergarten and first grade…

The equitable and effective deployment of teachers is critical to achieving quality education for all. However, the uneven distribution of teachers -- both across and within schools -- contributes to significant disparities in class sizes and learning conditions. Recognizing the critical role that teachers play in learning, the Government of…

Over the last two decades, the rapid growth of learner enrolments in schools in most countries, including South Africa, has brought many challenges, such as a high learner-educator ratio (LER). The purpose of the study reported on was to explore an LER policy that can enhance learner academic achievement in physical sciences. Effective learning…

The present study investigated how students' attitudes toward bullying were influenced simultaneously by personal and contextual factors in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taipei. Participants included 25,338 students (15-year-olds, from grade 7 to 12) and 663 schools from Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taipei drawn from the Program for…

The first year writing "jumbo" is a large enrollment composition course with ninety students and nine embedded writing mentors. The "jumbo" structure "emerged from an 'entanglement' of the institutional environment and intentional innovation" (Jaxon). Currently taught with a human rights focus, but with other…

Pandemic learning pods revealed teachers and other adults are highly interested in playing more varied roles in children's education. And some pod-like staffing arrangements may continue to exist and grow in out-of-school settings, such as after-school programs. But this report examines a different potential development: "is it possible that…

One way in which the practice of inclusion can be actualised in classrooms is through the use of consistent, appropriate differentiated instruction. What remains elusive, however, is insight into what teachers in different contexts think and believe about differentiation, how consistently they differentiate instruction and what challenges they…