Dramatic play is a typical activity that provides many benefits for preschool children's learning and development. This paper presents the findings of a mixed-method study that examined the level of preschool children's involvement in dramatic play and the connection between this involvement and the quality of the classroom environment. The study…

The Inclusive Classroom Profile (ICP) is a structured observation instrument. It has been developed to support high-quality early childhood inclusion of children with special educational needs and disabilities. The aim of this study is to examine the cultural validity of the instrument in Swedish preschools and to investigate its perceived…

The early childhood sector in Singapore has witnessed vast changes in the past two decades. One of the key policy aims is to improve classroom quality. To ensure a rigorous evaluation of the quality of early childhood environments in Singapore, it is important to determine whether commonly used assessments of quality are valid indicators across…

As one typical form of play, play center activities are commonly used in early childhood education programs in China. This study used the Activities Sub-scale of the Chinese Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (CECERS) to measure the quality of the play center activities in K2 (4-5 years old) classroom, which based on a stratified random…

Many studies have been conducted to identify the factors explaining individual differences in children's emotion understanding (capacity to comprehend the nature, causes and consequences of emotions in the self and others). These studies represent a significant advance in our comprehension of the origins of the child's capacity to understand…

This study examined the quality of early childhood education programs in two different quality rating and improvement systems, one in Turkey and the other in the state of North Carolina in the USA. The early childhood environment rating scale-revised edition" was used to evaluate the quality of early childhood classrooms, and the…

Emotional scaffolding by the teachers of kindergarten children facilitates children's emotional well-being and contributes to their achievements in school. Our aim was to analyze the association between emotional scaffolding, dialectical thinking support and classroom quality. We used the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS-R),…

International findings indicate only moderate childcare quality and results revealed significant differences between regions. So far, this difference cannot be explained by structural characteristics. Based on the National Study on Education, Learning and Upbringing in Early Childhood (NUBBEK) sample of 215 lead teachers, the influence of…

Research Findings: We investigated associations between the characteristics of directors, their practices in supervising educators, and the quality of classrooms in their centers. Directors from 71 randomly selected child care centers (106 classrooms) serving preschool-age children in Toronto, Canada, completed a questionnaire asking about their…

A quality preschool education plays a key role in achieving its objectives. To benefit from this effect of preschool education in a positive way, countries should investigate education systems and the educational methods and practices of other countries so as to understand the problems of education and the factors affecting it. This brings about…

This article aims to explore the conditions for children's language and literacy learning in 153 Swedish preschools with children one to five years. The Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS-3) is used to evaluate preschool quality, focusing on the subscale of Language and literacy activities. The study draws on Bronfenbrenner's…

This article examines the relationship between preschool quality and children's early development in a sample of over 7900 children enrolled in 578 preschools in rural Indonesia. Quality was measured by: (1) classroom observations using the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised (ECERS-R); (2) teacher characteristics; and (3) structural…

Researching quality in early childhood settings has been operationalized in many ways, within and across countries. Nevertheless, despite some consensus on what might constitute a universally recognized view of what is considered essential for young children's development, there are strong indicators that locally developed assessment tools are…

The Bulgarian Government has made a commitment to inclusive early childhood education and care (ECEC) systems for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). High-quality ECEC settings are more inclusive and responsive to children's individual learning needs. In partnership with UNICEF, the Ministry for Education established a…

Research has highlighted that children with Special Educational Needs (SEN) might be at risk of receiving less-than-outstanding experiences in settings typically rated as outstanding. There are still significant barriers to the implementation of high-quality inclusive practices in early years settings: inadequate preparation of early educators for…