- Email: [email protected]
The best of both worlds
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 31 (2010) 257–259
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology
Book review
The best of both worlds Oscar A. Barbarin, Barbara Hanna Wasik (Eds.), Handbook of child development & early education: Research to practice. Guilford, New York, 2009, ISBN: 97821260623230223 (cloth), 624 pp., $85 Can research on children's memory and executive function be incorporated into educational practices? Should we consider the role social and emotional development play in school readiness? Can the “best practices” of both the preschool period and early elementary grades be merged in a way to provide a smooth transition and cohesion across the age span of 3–8 years? Can developmental cognitive neuroscience inform pedagogy? Can research address early achievement gaps? My assessment while reading Barbarin and Wasik's Handbook of Child Development & Early Education: Research to Practice is a resounding “yes.” The editors and contributors address many of the questions, tensions, and controversies in contemporary early childhood education through the synthesis of research in developmental science. A powerful overall theme framed by the editors and echoed by the contributors is that science and education would be served well by more and better engagement; educators would more effectively support children's learning with better understanding of child development theory and research, and researchers would be more adept at defining and studying problems when informed by children in classrooms. This recommendation is more than abstract, however, as each chapter contains specific recommendations based on research evidence. The volume is organized into five sections focusing on: (1) theory, context, and processes of early education; (2) brain functioning and learning; (3) social and emotional development; (4) language and literacy; and (5) mathematics and science. The first section describes the goals and challenges of the national pre-kindergarten to third grade (P-3) movement, which is concerned with identifying the best ways to serve children across this age span. Curriculum tends to be guided by one set of assumptions about how children learn and develop for ages 3–5 and a different set of assumptions for ages 5–8 (the dividing line being kindergarten). Using research to inform pedagogy, it is evident that the child-centered orientation guiding the pre-k years that conceptualizes development as holistic and emphasizes the importance of play and discovery has much to offer early elementary education, while the content-focused orientation of the early elementary years can be used to enhance domain-specific learning in the pre-kindergarten years. A challenge to teacher preparation and professional development is to ensure that pedagogy is grounded in evidence about processes of early learning and development and to prepare educators to flexibly use both child-centered and content-centered strategies throughout the entire age span. Other challenges include generating ways to address the needs of children who are not currently well served in education, and addressing issues of standards, curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, and professional development. Barbarin and Miller (Chapter 1) propose that the contribution of the P-3 movement can be “…to unite the best practices of early doi:10.1016/j.appdev.2010.03.001
childhood and elementary education by bringing a developmental perspective to the content and instructional practices of early elementary education, and by specifying content and intentional pedagogy within the developmentally sensitive practices of early childhood experiences.” Components of a developmental perspective that can enhance education are described in the first section, including self-regulation, representation, memory, and attachment, and elaborated upon in subsequent sections, with suggestions for practice such as including play as a regular, intentionally planned activity that can be effectively used as an instructional tool throughout the P-3 period; promoting positive relationships and exploring effective ways to work with challenging children; and providing frequent opportunities for children to have extended and meaningful conversations with teachers and peers. Self-regulation predicts success in school and life, and therefore it is important to both assess and support children's self-regulation. Understanding how children learn is the crux of effective pedagogy. According to Fusaro and Nelson (Chapter 4), there is an agreement across disciplines that learning occurs via person–environment interactions, and the goal of neuroscientists is to understand how biological and environmental factors interact in typical and atypical developments. Developmental neuroscience can help to understand changes in children's behavior and skills. The distinction between “experienceexpectant” changes in brain function resulting from experience and “experience-dependent” changes illustrates this point. Experienceexpectant plasticity is common to all typically developing members of a species and occurs during a sensitive period. Examples include the development of binocular depth perception, processing of speech and facial expressions, and formation of attachment relationships. Experience-expectant is so named because of its ubiquity; all members of the species can expect to be exposed to experiences sufficient to catalyze the necessary neurological changes. Experience-dependent plasticity is unique to an individual and not limited to sensitive periods, and includes learning and memory. What we learn and remember depends on our unique experiences. Making the distinction between birds and insects might be considered experience-expectant, while knowing the names and habits of the birds and insects in your own ecosystem would be experience-dependent. These distinctions help to explain why learning language is relatively easy while literacy acquisition is relatively complex and requires direct instruction. The experienceexpectant exposure to an adequately stimulating verbal environment will enable brain networks to become specialized for processing language stimuli. Written language, however, is a relatively recent cultural development and the ability to acquire symbolic literacy skills has not been shaped by natural selection. Literacy development is an example of experience-dependent plasticity, in which instruction is required to master and coordinate multiple, complex skills. This complexity is reflected in the fact that a network of brain regions is activated during reading, although this appears to become more localized and
258
Book review
efficient with age (and presumably experience). The distinction between experience-expectant and experience-dependent plasticities can inform the design of curriculum to provide the kinds of experiences necessary to promote neurological development. Effective support of learning is also enhanced with the understanding that memory influences learning, prior knowledge (learning) influences memory, and these are related but distinct processes (Chapter 5). Bauer describes the role of consolidation — the postlearning process of stabilization and integration of a memory trace into long-term storage. Consolidation takes time and involves multiple components of neural network structures. Experiences are represented through activation of a distributed neural network, and “association areas” of the cortex bring the information together to form a more durable memory trace. Memories are stored in the same cortical areas that were activated in the perception and encoding of experience. Throughout the consolidation, memories are vulnerable to disruption, interference, and therefore forgetting. Consolidation may be more challenging for children because the neural structures and networks involved in memory trace construction are relatively immature. The educational implications are: (1) “repeat, with variation on the theme”; and (2) “link early, link often.” Repetition is important for consolidation because it keeps the neural network involved in the representation activating and reactivating long enough for consolidation to occur. Variations ensure that the memory trace has a strong core with multiple associations. Every act of retrieval of information is an opportunity to solidify and expand knowledge. Variation on lesson themes increases the number of associations to a memory trace and therefore the number of potential routes to retrieval. Bauer notes that this is consistent with Bruner's (1960) “spiral” curriculum in which basic concepts are revisited and built upon with increasing challenge and complexity over time. I would add that this is also consistent with the argument for more depth and less breadth recommended in the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Curriculum Focal Points. Children's remembering is also supported by specific maternal interactional styles, with children of “high elaborative” mothers outperforming their peers with “low elaborative” mothers; similarly, children with “high mnemonic” teachers outperformed peers with “low mnemonic” teachers (Chapter 6). Implications for enhanced memory and learning, therefore, extend beyond careful planning of revisiting content with increasing challenge and complexity to consideration of the conversational and social interactional style of adults. The importance of children's social and emotional development for success in school and life has received much attention in recent years, and is the focus of the third section of the volume. I was somewhat surprised that the work of the Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations of Early Learning (CSEFEL) and the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) was not more explicitly highlighted in this section, both because of the impact of their work and because the centers represent the kind of effective interfacing between developmental science and practice advocated in the volume. Nevertheless, the chapters in this section summarize research on components and processes of social and emotional development as well as educational applications. Thompson and Goodman (Chapter 8) outline several social and emotional skills that are considered components of school readiness: development of self and self-awareness, self-regulation, social and emotional understanding, empathy and caring, and initiative in learning. Research on the processes by which these skills develop in the context of relationships is synthesized and linked with research on neurobiological self-regulation. Self-regulation in particular has received increasing attention from researchers and practitioners because of its associations with school functioning. Self-regulation is holistic, involving biological, attentional, emotional, behavioral, and cognitive components (Chapter 9) that are hierarchical and interdependent. Implications for curricula are discussed. Memory and cognition are influenced by emotion, and the connections between social emotional competence and school success are becoming more evident;
however, there is a disconnection between the National Education Goals Panel (1997) that incorporated holistic components of school readiness, including social and emotional development, and state-level learning standards that strongly emphasize cognitive and language development while often neglecting emotional well-being and social competence. Perhaps this is another domain in which the P-3 movement can make a positive impact. Promoting positive peer relationships (Chapter 11) and social acceptance and respect for cultural diversity (Chapter 12) are critical goals of early education. Research and educational applications are reviewed as well as evaluation of carefully designed interventions to promote positive peer relationships: Second Step; Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS); and Raising Healthy Children (RHC). The importance of high quality relationships and support for social and emotional development is interwoven throughout the chapters focusing on curriculum content areas (language and literacy, math, and science). For example, Gordon Wells makes this explicit in the title of Chapter 13: “The Social Context of Language and Literacy Development.” Current research indicates that the quality of early childhood classrooms is highly variable; most do not provide strong support for intellectual development (e.g., LoCasale-Crouch et al., 2007). Developmental science research has identified characteristics of classrooms and behaviors of teachers that effectively teach language, literacy, mathematics, and science; there are obstacles to overcome, however, in the widespread implementation of these strategies. Language skills provide a critical foundation for children's conceptual understanding of the world, and cognitive science provides evidence about the importance of the quality of conversations between teachers and children. Interventions using the curriculum to change teachers' practices in the domain of language and literacy show promise for improving teachers' interactions and also for improving children's comprehension of complex syntax and vocabulary (Dickinson, Darro, Ngo, & D'Souza, Chapter 15). The authors noted that although there is a good deal of evidence documenting the kinds of experiences that support children's academic competence (e.g., classrooms rich in oral language opportunities, instructional conversations during formal and informal activities, scaffolding; Wasik & Newman, Chapter 14), much less is known about how to promote the kinds of experiences that are necessary. Contextual factors such as institutional support and teacher motivation also influence the effectiveness of interventions. A question of particular contemporary importance is whether young English Language Learners (ELLs) follow a developmental trajectory similar to their English speaking peers in literacy development. According to Amendum and Fitzgerald (Chapter 16), the two language groups (English & ELL) were similar on overall reading trajectories when examining multiple indicators. ELLs started much lower in phonological awareness than their English speaking peers and demonstrated a steep learning curve during the first year of intervention. The authors surmise that Latino students may benefit from more intensive support in this domain early on. A range of theories were utilized in Part V to organize research and effective applications in Mathematics and Science, including information-processing theory (Siegler, Chapter 19), Vygotsky's concept of semiotic mediation (Chapters 20 and 22), Piagetian theory (Chapter 21), and the “science of design” (Chapter 23). This is noteworthy because of the demonstrated utility of conceptually driven research and applications, and at a minimum it justifies all the time graduate students spend studying theory — it is much more than an academic exercise. There is ample evidence of the need to improve teaching of mathematics and science in early childhood. Ginsburg (Chapter 18) notes the achievement gap that appears early and persists throughout the educational system, deeming it a “shameful national failure” (p. 404). One of the challenges to overcome, according to Ginsburg, is widespread “fear and loathing” of mathematics among Americans (including teachers). Environment, play, teachable moments, projects, and curriculum can all enhance young children's mathematical development — but curriculum
Book review
is a particular challenge because studies of preschool classrooms indicate that mathematics education is minimal at best, even when teachers say that it is important and that they teach it. Curricula define scope and sequence, and evidence is mounting about the effectiveness of a variety of curricula. However, you will have to read the volume to find out whether playing board games (Siegler, Chapter 19) can improve preschoolers' number sense. Chapters 24 (Vosniadou) and 25 (Enfield & Rogers) debunk the myth that a hands-on discovery approach to science is sufficient. The discovery approach assumes that children will naturally discover a scientific explanation of phenomena based on their experiences. When discovery approaches are used children retain inaccurate conceptions. This is a problem because children's learning is influenced by their prior knowledge, and when misconceptions are allowed to persist they interfere with subsequent learning. When teachers follow a conceptual change approach (Vosniadou, Chapter 24), or implement practices based on developmental science (Enfield & Rogers, Chapter 25), children begin to construct more scientific conceptions. Insofar as handbooks aim to synthesize the current state of the field, describe how knowledge gained from research can be applied to enhance the well-being of people, identify gaps in the knowledge base,
259
and forecast the way forward, the Handbook of Child Development & Early Education succeeds. Researchers, graduate students, teacher preparation faculty, and administrators of educational systems would likely appreciate and benefit from what the Handbook has to offer. References Bruner, J. (1960). The process of education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. LoCasale-Crouch, J., Konold, T., Pianta, R., Howes, C., Burchinal, M., Bryant, D., et al. (2007). Observed classroom quality profiles in state-funded pre-kindergarten programs and associations with teacher, program, and classroom characteristics. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 22(1), 3−17.
Julia Torquati Department of Child, Youth and Family Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588-0236, United States E-mail address: [email protected]. 22 February 2010
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology
Book review
The best of both worlds Oscar A. Barbarin, Barbara Hanna Wasik (Eds.), Handbook of child development & early education: Research to practice. Guilford, New York, 2009, ISBN: 97821260623230223 (cloth), 624 pp., $85 Can research on children's memory and executive function be incorporated into educational practices? Should we consider the role social and emotional development play in school readiness? Can the “best practices” of both the preschool period and early elementary grades be merged in a way to provide a smooth transition and cohesion across the age span of 3–8 years? Can developmental cognitive neuroscience inform pedagogy? Can research address early achievement gaps? My assessment while reading Barbarin and Wasik's Handbook of Child Development & Early Education: Research to Practice is a resounding “yes.” The editors and contributors address many of the questions, tensions, and controversies in contemporary early childhood education through the synthesis of research in developmental science. A powerful overall theme framed by the editors and echoed by the contributors is that science and education would be served well by more and better engagement; educators would more effectively support children's learning with better understanding of child development theory and research, and researchers would be more adept at defining and studying problems when informed by children in classrooms. This recommendation is more than abstract, however, as each chapter contains specific recommendations based on research evidence. The volume is organized into five sections focusing on: (1) theory, context, and processes of early education; (2) brain functioning and learning; (3) social and emotional development; (4) language and literacy; and (5) mathematics and science. The first section describes the goals and challenges of the national pre-kindergarten to third grade (P-3) movement, which is concerned with identifying the best ways to serve children across this age span. Curriculum tends to be guided by one set of assumptions about how children learn and develop for ages 3–5 and a different set of assumptions for ages 5–8 (the dividing line being kindergarten). Using research to inform pedagogy, it is evident that the child-centered orientation guiding the pre-k years that conceptualizes development as holistic and emphasizes the importance of play and discovery has much to offer early elementary education, while the content-focused orientation of the early elementary years can be used to enhance domain-specific learning in the pre-kindergarten years. A challenge to teacher preparation and professional development is to ensure that pedagogy is grounded in evidence about processes of early learning and development and to prepare educators to flexibly use both child-centered and content-centered strategies throughout the entire age span. Other challenges include generating ways to address the needs of children who are not currently well served in education, and addressing issues of standards, curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, and professional development. Barbarin and Miller (Chapter 1) propose that the contribution of the P-3 movement can be “…to unite the best practices of early doi:10.1016/j.appdev.2010.03.001
childhood and elementary education by bringing a developmental perspective to the content and instructional practices of early elementary education, and by specifying content and intentional pedagogy within the developmentally sensitive practices of early childhood experiences.” Components of a developmental perspective that can enhance education are described in the first section, including self-regulation, representation, memory, and attachment, and elaborated upon in subsequent sections, with suggestions for practice such as including play as a regular, intentionally planned activity that can be effectively used as an instructional tool throughout the P-3 period; promoting positive relationships and exploring effective ways to work with challenging children; and providing frequent opportunities for children to have extended and meaningful conversations with teachers and peers. Self-regulation predicts success in school and life, and therefore it is important to both assess and support children's self-regulation. Understanding how children learn is the crux of effective pedagogy. According to Fusaro and Nelson (Chapter 4), there is an agreement across disciplines that learning occurs via person–environment interactions, and the goal of neuroscientists is to understand how biological and environmental factors interact in typical and atypical developments. Developmental neuroscience can help to understand changes in children's behavior and skills. The distinction between “experienceexpectant” changes in brain function resulting from experience and “experience-dependent” changes illustrates this point. Experienceexpectant plasticity is common to all typically developing members of a species and occurs during a sensitive period. Examples include the development of binocular depth perception, processing of speech and facial expressions, and formation of attachment relationships. Experience-expectant is so named because of its ubiquity; all members of the species can expect to be exposed to experiences sufficient to catalyze the necessary neurological changes. Experience-dependent plasticity is unique to an individual and not limited to sensitive periods, and includes learning and memory. What we learn and remember depends on our unique experiences. Making the distinction between birds and insects might be considered experience-expectant, while knowing the names and habits of the birds and insects in your own ecosystem would be experience-dependent. These distinctions help to explain why learning language is relatively easy while literacy acquisition is relatively complex and requires direct instruction. The experienceexpectant exposure to an adequately stimulating verbal environment will enable brain networks to become specialized for processing language stimuli. Written language, however, is a relatively recent cultural development and the ability to acquire symbolic literacy skills has not been shaped by natural selection. Literacy development is an example of experience-dependent plasticity, in which instruction is required to master and coordinate multiple, complex skills. This complexity is reflected in the fact that a network of brain regions is activated during reading, although this appears to become more localized and
258
Book review
efficient with age (and presumably experience). The distinction between experience-expectant and experience-dependent plasticities can inform the design of curriculum to provide the kinds of experiences necessary to promote neurological development. Effective support of learning is also enhanced with the understanding that memory influences learning, prior knowledge (learning) influences memory, and these are related but distinct processes (Chapter 5). Bauer describes the role of consolidation — the postlearning process of stabilization and integration of a memory trace into long-term storage. Consolidation takes time and involves multiple components of neural network structures. Experiences are represented through activation of a distributed neural network, and “association areas” of the cortex bring the information together to form a more durable memory trace. Memories are stored in the same cortical areas that were activated in the perception and encoding of experience. Throughout the consolidation, memories are vulnerable to disruption, interference, and therefore forgetting. Consolidation may be more challenging for children because the neural structures and networks involved in memory trace construction are relatively immature. The educational implications are: (1) “repeat, with variation on the theme”; and (2) “link early, link often.” Repetition is important for consolidation because it keeps the neural network involved in the representation activating and reactivating long enough for consolidation to occur. Variations ensure that the memory trace has a strong core with multiple associations. Every act of retrieval of information is an opportunity to solidify and expand knowledge. Variation on lesson themes increases the number of associations to a memory trace and therefore the number of potential routes to retrieval. Bauer notes that this is consistent with Bruner's (1960) “spiral” curriculum in which basic concepts are revisited and built upon with increasing challenge and complexity over time. I would add that this is also consistent with the argument for more depth and less breadth recommended in the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Curriculum Focal Points. Children's remembering is also supported by specific maternal interactional styles, with children of “high elaborative” mothers outperforming their peers with “low elaborative” mothers; similarly, children with “high mnemonic” teachers outperformed peers with “low mnemonic” teachers (Chapter 6). Implications for enhanced memory and learning, therefore, extend beyond careful planning of revisiting content with increasing challenge and complexity to consideration of the conversational and social interactional style of adults. The importance of children's social and emotional development for success in school and life has received much attention in recent years, and is the focus of the third section of the volume. I was somewhat surprised that the work of the Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations of Early Learning (CSEFEL) and the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) was not more explicitly highlighted in this section, both because of the impact of their work and because the centers represent the kind of effective interfacing between developmental science and practice advocated in the volume. Nevertheless, the chapters in this section summarize research on components and processes of social and emotional development as well as educational applications. Thompson and Goodman (Chapter 8) outline several social and emotional skills that are considered components of school readiness: development of self and self-awareness, self-regulation, social and emotional understanding, empathy and caring, and initiative in learning. Research on the processes by which these skills develop in the context of relationships is synthesized and linked with research on neurobiological self-regulation. Self-regulation in particular has received increasing attention from researchers and practitioners because of its associations with school functioning. Self-regulation is holistic, involving biological, attentional, emotional, behavioral, and cognitive components (Chapter 9) that are hierarchical and interdependent. Implications for curricula are discussed. Memory and cognition are influenced by emotion, and the connections between social emotional competence and school success are becoming more evident;
however, there is a disconnection between the National Education Goals Panel (1997) that incorporated holistic components of school readiness, including social and emotional development, and state-level learning standards that strongly emphasize cognitive and language development while often neglecting emotional well-being and social competence. Perhaps this is another domain in which the P-3 movement can make a positive impact. Promoting positive peer relationships (Chapter 11) and social acceptance and respect for cultural diversity (Chapter 12) are critical goals of early education. Research and educational applications are reviewed as well as evaluation of carefully designed interventions to promote positive peer relationships: Second Step; Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS); and Raising Healthy Children (RHC). The importance of high quality relationships and support for social and emotional development is interwoven throughout the chapters focusing on curriculum content areas (language and literacy, math, and science). For example, Gordon Wells makes this explicit in the title of Chapter 13: “The Social Context of Language and Literacy Development.” Current research indicates that the quality of early childhood classrooms is highly variable; most do not provide strong support for intellectual development (e.g., LoCasale-Crouch et al., 2007). Developmental science research has identified characteristics of classrooms and behaviors of teachers that effectively teach language, literacy, mathematics, and science; there are obstacles to overcome, however, in the widespread implementation of these strategies. Language skills provide a critical foundation for children's conceptual understanding of the world, and cognitive science provides evidence about the importance of the quality of conversations between teachers and children. Interventions using the curriculum to change teachers' practices in the domain of language and literacy show promise for improving teachers' interactions and also for improving children's comprehension of complex syntax and vocabulary (Dickinson, Darro, Ngo, & D'Souza, Chapter 15). The authors noted that although there is a good deal of evidence documenting the kinds of experiences that support children's academic competence (e.g., classrooms rich in oral language opportunities, instructional conversations during formal and informal activities, scaffolding; Wasik & Newman, Chapter 14), much less is known about how to promote the kinds of experiences that are necessary. Contextual factors such as institutional support and teacher motivation also influence the effectiveness of interventions. A question of particular contemporary importance is whether young English Language Learners (ELLs) follow a developmental trajectory similar to their English speaking peers in literacy development. According to Amendum and Fitzgerald (Chapter 16), the two language groups (English & ELL) were similar on overall reading trajectories when examining multiple indicators. ELLs started much lower in phonological awareness than their English speaking peers and demonstrated a steep learning curve during the first year of intervention. The authors surmise that Latino students may benefit from more intensive support in this domain early on. A range of theories were utilized in Part V to organize research and effective applications in Mathematics and Science, including information-processing theory (Siegler, Chapter 19), Vygotsky's concept of semiotic mediation (Chapters 20 and 22), Piagetian theory (Chapter 21), and the “science of design” (Chapter 23). This is noteworthy because of the demonstrated utility of conceptually driven research and applications, and at a minimum it justifies all the time graduate students spend studying theory — it is much more than an academic exercise. There is ample evidence of the need to improve teaching of mathematics and science in early childhood. Ginsburg (Chapter 18) notes the achievement gap that appears early and persists throughout the educational system, deeming it a “shameful national failure” (p. 404). One of the challenges to overcome, according to Ginsburg, is widespread “fear and loathing” of mathematics among Americans (including teachers). Environment, play, teachable moments, projects, and curriculum can all enhance young children's mathematical development — but curriculum
Book review
is a particular challenge because studies of preschool classrooms indicate that mathematics education is minimal at best, even when teachers say that it is important and that they teach it. Curricula define scope and sequence, and evidence is mounting about the effectiveness of a variety of curricula. However, you will have to read the volume to find out whether playing board games (Siegler, Chapter 19) can improve preschoolers' number sense. Chapters 24 (Vosniadou) and 25 (Enfield & Rogers) debunk the myth that a hands-on discovery approach to science is sufficient. The discovery approach assumes that children will naturally discover a scientific explanation of phenomena based on their experiences. When discovery approaches are used children retain inaccurate conceptions. This is a problem because children's learning is influenced by their prior knowledge, and when misconceptions are allowed to persist they interfere with subsequent learning. When teachers follow a conceptual change approach (Vosniadou, Chapter 24), or implement practices based on developmental science (Enfield & Rogers, Chapter 25), children begin to construct more scientific conceptions. Insofar as handbooks aim to synthesize the current state of the field, describe how knowledge gained from research can be applied to enhance the well-being of people, identify gaps in the knowledge base,
259
and forecast the way forward, the Handbook of Child Development & Early Education succeeds. Researchers, graduate students, teacher preparation faculty, and administrators of educational systems would likely appreciate and benefit from what the Handbook has to offer. References Bruner, J. (1960). The process of education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. LoCasale-Crouch, J., Konold, T., Pianta, R., Howes, C., Burchinal, M., Bryant, D., et al. (2007). Observed classroom quality profiles in state-funded pre-kindergarten programs and associations with teacher, program, and classroom characteristics. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 22(1), 3−17.
Julia Torquati Department of Child, Youth and Family Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588-0236, United States E-mail address: [email protected]. 22 February 2010