The idea for this book arose from presentations delivered at two conferences in Tartu and in Tallinn in Estonia. These conferences brought together many professionals and researchers working in early education, many from Europe, and also Australia and the USA. This book, written by 37 authors, consists of chapters about the development of early childhood education, children's developing skills and the early childhood curriculum, and about the role of early childhood teachers. Further topics are the role of parents in early childhood education, and the work with children with special needs in the preschool. The book will be of interest to those interested in early childhood practice and policy.

The first volume in this Early Childhood Education and Care in the 21st Century: International Teaching, Family and Policy Perspectives miniseries provides a snapshot of early childhood education and care from 19 different countries around the world. The intention is to provide a description for the policy and provision for young children and their families in each of the unique contemporary contexts. The selection of countries includes every continent in the world to provide variety across cultures, socio-economic status, location, population and other unique factors. Some chapters also share the development and history of early childhood in their country, including economic and political transitions that lead to changes in early childhood provision and policy. The book provides essential takeaways for early childhood educators, researchers, early childhood organisations, policy makers and those interested to know more about early childhood education within an international perspective.

This book provides significant information regarding the policies and provisions for early childhood teacher education programs in universities in fourteen different countries. Early childhood education and care (ECEC) is expanding rapidly across the globe with unprecedented numbers of children attending EC centres, requiring the investment in educators to provide good quality ECEC. Yet, there is an inconsistent approach to early childhood teacher preparation and the quality of existing programs is not known. Each country’s contributing author/s is/are well known in their field for their in-depth knowledge of early childhood teacher education programs including content, structure, and professional experience that works within the scope of policy and registration agencies. The chapters address the current situation of staffing—shortage or oversupply—of early childhood teachers in their country. The book informs policy regarding content of early childhood teacher preparation programs and provides evidence of current courses across many under-represented countries throughout the world. It makes a significant contribution to understanding the environment for early childhood teacher programs.

The Handbook of International Perspectives on Early Childhood Education provides a groundbreaking compilation of research from an interdisciplinary group of distinguished experts in early childhood education (ECE), child development, cultural and cross-cultural research in the psychological sciences, etc. The chapters provide current overviews of ECE in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, Africa, Europe, the US, and Canada, and convey how ECE is multi-sectorial, multi-cultural, and multi-disciplinary, undergirded by such disciplines as neuroscience, psychological anthropology, cross-cultural human development, childhood studies, and political science.

We live in a world that is transitioning from focus on early childhood education within individual countries into a global perspective that considers how early childhood education is conducted in many diverse cultures and environments. The challenge on a global basis is how to develop programs in countries and environments that are different from a specifically western perspective. Economic, geographic, and cultural influences infuse early childhood programs around the world. In 1999, a group of educators representing 36 countries developed guidelines for establishing minimum standards for preschool programs. A purpose for developing the guidelines was to provide guidance for countries that wished to evaluate and improve their own programs. A second purpose was to help developing countries initiating preschools to have relevant information about quality programs. The later development of an assessment tool based on the Global Guidelines served as a vehicle to use the guidelines to assess a single program or multiple programs. The continuing work with these guidelines in many countries throughout the world since 2000 has resulted in the collection of information that reveals the uniqueness of programs in different countries.

Focusing on early childhood experiences and the factors at work, this title examines the expanding field of early childhood education and care, highlighting the critical issues to be aware of and how this can affect the child in later life.

There is a growing interest in understanding how early years care and education is organised and experienced internationally and many early years courses - from foundation degree and beyond - include an 'International Perspectives' module.