The infant school was a nineteenth-century innovation with British roots that quickly achieved an international reputation. This article contributes to the study of the transnational dissemination of the infant schools by examining the case of Swedish infant schools. Using theoretical concepts from the transnational history of education, this…

This article examines the practice of pretend Israel trips in Jewish early childhood education. Jewish early childhood educators who work in markedly different preschool settings, and who have differing beliefs about Israel and Israel education, nonetheless converge on a practice of pretend trips to Israel that remains remarkably stable across…

Geographic isolation of K-12 schools represents a unique challenge to schools with implications for school funding, staffing, resource acquisition, consolidation, transportation, and school choice among others. To date, little research has documented the extent of geographic isolation at a national scale or how it varies across school contexts.…

The Wonder Project was a collaborative early-years music and visual arts project developed in partnership with Traveller children and their mothers, involving artists, Fingal County Childcare Committee, Fingal Travellers' Organisation and the Arts Education Research Group in Trinity College Dublin. This qualitative study aimed to create an…

Given urgent need for culturally competent early childhood educators and the strategic encouragement by colleges for students to travel internationally, this analysis focuses on the question: What is the relationship between international experiences and preservice early childhood educators' cultural competence? More specifically, three questions…

This paper presents an analysis of how educators from Lithuania experienced the Norwegian ECEC during a short study trip. The research results are informed by the theory of Practice Architecture [7, 8] that describes educational practices using the concepts of "sayings," "doings," and "relatings." "Sayings"…

Exposing pre-service teachers to international professional experiences through a short-term visiting programme serves to challenge their understandings of good quality practice through disturbing assumptions and expectations previously formed through experiences in their own country/culture. Much of the research in international study focuses on…

This article discusses why researchers and educators might choose to seek children's perspectives. It also highlights some of the key considerations when seeing children as having the right to contribute to decisions that affect them. The article draws on findings from a study that used pedagogically oriented methods for researching three- and…

With the development and institution of the Common Core Standards, teachers must be prepared to integrate content areas such as social studies within the language arts curriculum. Teachers following the suggestions of the Common Core Standards should develop practical and meaningful strategies within their classrooms that encourage and support…

This paper explores the challenges of conducting systematic research, using our experiences of conducting a study to evaluate the effectiveness of ABRACADABRA, an online tool for early childhood literacy instruction as the contextual framework. By discussing how the research team resolved such perennial issues as high teacher turnover, low or…

The field of early care and education has come a long way in terms of culturally sensitive and anti-bias program implementation. The author has seen some amazing classrooms where talented teachers are embracing diversity, where children are learning to appreciate their own uniqueness and that of others, and everything about the program welcomes…

Mentoring early childhood education students who are preparing to attend and make presentations at a conference can be rewarding for all involved. Often, students present current research they have conducted or share specific expertise in areas such as lesson planning, learning materials, or fund-raising. Successful mentoring, leading to…

The 2011 Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, a joint conference with the Indiana Foreign Language Teachers Association, focused on trends, innovations, and national programs that are picking up steam as the first decade of the twenty-first century ends. Several innovations have the potential to unify world language…

During the past six months the author was fortunate to travel to Hungary three times. Although all three trips had different purposes, they had one thing in common: professional conversations between colleagues from Hungary and the United States. In this article, the author would like to provide a short overview of these visits, which resulted in…