SCHOOL OF EDUCATION: Early Childhood Education/Improving Professional Practice in Primary/Secondary Education

Despite the flourishing in recent years in applications of positive psychology in the field of education, there is a paucity of research investigating positive psychology interventions for preschool children. The present study examined the effects of a positive psychology-based intervention conducted in Israel on children’s subjective well-being, mental health and learning behaviors. Twelve preschool classrooms of 3–6.5 year-olds were randomly assigned to a positive psychology intervention condition or a wait-list control condition.

Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Cohort of 1998 (n = 15,070), this study used propensity scores to examine the short- and long-term academic and psychosocial benefits of preschool education for a diverse sample of middle-class children. Compared with children who attended informal care at age 4, preschool attendees consistently performed better on achievement tests from age 5 through early adolescence, but exhibited less optimal psychosocial skills. These negative behavioral effects of preschool were concentrated among children who attended preschool for 20 or more hours per week, but otherwise, there was little evidence of heterogeneity as a function of program type or child- and family characteristics.

The study investigated the predictive role of executive functions, language, initial reading and writing abilities, teacher’s perception of the students’ difficulties and family characteristics, evaluated in Early Childhood Education (ECE) (Jardim I and Jardim II), in relation to reading and writing performance in the first year of Elementary Education. A total of 71 children were monitored in a longitudinal manner from ECE up to the first year, and evaluated in Oral Language (OL), Executive Functions (EF), initial Reading and Writing skills in ECE and, in the first year, evaluated by means of Reading and Writing tests. Parents provided information on socioeconomic status (SES) and teachers indicated children with difficulties. After the data imputation process, regression tree analysis showed that OL skills and initials skills of reading and writing in ECE explained a mean of 43% of the reading variability in the first year.

This quasi-experimental, multi-method study examines whether participation in a preschool theatre-in-education (TIE) program can promote emergent literacy, theory of mind, and imaginative development. This research combines quantitative assessments of children’s narrative comprehension, narrative production, vocabulary development, false-belief understanding, and imagination skills with a qualitative descriptive analysis of the implementation of a theatre-in-education program to investigate the effect of a respected preschool TIE program on the development of 155 urban children enrolled in Head Start.

In many Western nations (an area of the world identified by Connell as the Global North), the early childhood sector has positioned itself within the education discourse. This positioning brings along with it the neo-liberal agenda in relation to education – i.e. that education’s key aim is the preparation of employable future employees (children as human capital). Along with this is the increasing imposition of employer-identified skills and knowledges on the curriculum in order to shape children, through education, into the ‘right’ attitudes, dispositions and knowledges. Thus, early childhood education has become increasingly subject to external accreditation, whereby services are evaluated based on their adherence to predetermined standards

Opportunities to play are critical for cognitive, academic, social-emotional, and physical development during early childhood, from birth to age 8. Yet, research over the past decade concludes that play is disappearing from early childhood education (ECE) in the United States. The problem is diminished opportunities for play in ECE can inhibit children’s developmental trajectories over a lifetime. At-risk youth have fewer safe places to play outside of school and are more prone to toxic stress that can derail development.

Despite persuasive research demonstrating the importance of play in early childhood education, there is a problematic trend in early childhood classrooms of increased academics and high-stakes test preparation, with less opportunity for play (Brashier & Norris, 2008; Lynch, 2015; Nicolopoulou, 2011). This sequential explanatory mixed method study was designed to examine the impact and experience of participating in facilitated research analysis with discussion-case application on early childhood pre-service teachers’ knowledge of and attitude towards the role and value of play in the classroom, as well as their self-confidence in promoting developmentally appropriate play opportunities in the classroom.