The Education of Young Children: Research and Public Policy

ISBN: 978-0-9817854-2-4
Price: $38.00
228 pages 13 chapters

Published February 2009, Paperback

This book focuses on research and public policy as they relate to the contemporary areas of literacy, issues and trends, and international perspectives in early childhood education. Each of the thirteen chapters eloquently enables the reader to hear the voices of experts from Australia, Canada, China, Norway, England, and the United States of America as they clarify and refine the impact of research and public policy on the education of young children.

Judith Lynne McConnell-Farmer is Professor of Education and Director of the Early Childhood Education Program at Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas, USA, since 1994. She has a B.S in Elementary Education, specialty in Early Childhood Education from the University of Kansas; a M.A. in Elementary Education from the University of Virginia; and a M.Ed. and Ed.D. in Curriculum and Teaching, specialty in Early Childhood Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. For the past twenty-six years she has taught in higher education after devoting the previous ten years to teaching young children. Her publications include two books, numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals and several book chapters. She developed and directs Washburn University’s Transformational Experience in Jamaica, West Indies Program. Her consulting and/or speaking engagements include those in Australia, the Bahamas, Brazil, Canada, Jamaica, Nigeria, and the United Kingdom and she has lead educational delegations for People to People International to the Peoples Republic of China (twice), Cuba, The Czech Republic, Russia, and Spain.

Contributing Authors

Comfort B. Asanbe is an Assistant Professor of Psychology whose research interest includes assessment and psychological health of drug-exposed children. At the College of Staten Island/CUNY, Dr. Asanbe teaches psychopathology and child psychopathology courses, placing emphasis on the interplay between biological and environmental factors. She has published on the cognitive, behavioral, and emotional functioning of children with substance-abusing parents. Dr. Asanbe is a licensed psychologist who participates in the standardization of psychological tests.

Elizabeth Coates is an Associate Professor at the University of Warwick, England, where she directs the Early Childhood Studies Undergraduate Programme. Always interested in language development, for the past ten years her main area of research has been the examination of the relationship between young children’s drawings and any accompanying narrative as a factor in enhancing our understanding of children’s thinking and their responses to their social and cultural environment.

Pamela R. Cook is completing her Ph.D. in Educational Studies from the University of Windsor, in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. She is currently an Associate Instructor of Early Childhood Education at Ivy Tech Community College and also teaches graduate M.Ed. courses from Indiana Wesleyan University, both of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Her doctoral research was conducted in Belize, Central America, at a private children’s orphanage, operated through the Liberty Foundation, a registered charity of London, England. Pamela’s research interests include, institutionalised and international learning, non-traditional curricula and non-traditional learning environments.

Anne George is an Assistant Professor in the School of Education at Saint Xavier University. At Saint Xavier University, she teaches graduate- and undergraduate-level courses, primarily in the Early Childhood Education program. Her expertise is in the area of child development; Anne earned her Ph.D. in Family, Consumer and Human Development from Utah State University. Her research interests lie in factors affecting young children’s health and education from a cross-cultural perspective.

Pamela Godt graduated from Stanford University and earned her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Her doctoral dissertation received the International Reading Association’s "Outstanding Dissertation of the Year Award". She is a Literacy Professor at Western Illinois University, presenting frequently at national and international conferences. She is President of the Illinois College Instructors of Reading Professionals (CIRP), writes the Illinois Reading Council Journal’s “Leadership in Education” column, and plays the violin in orchestras.

David M. Lund received his Ph.D. in Literacy and Language in 1995 from Purdue University. He is currently teaching literacy, reading and technology courses at Southern Utah University in Cedar City, Utah. His passion is using technology to enhance literacy instruction and he has made numerous presentations at national and international conferences on this subject. He has been published in several national and international journals. Not only does he conduct research regarding the use of technology to enhance literacy, he uses it in all of the courses he teaches in order to help his students see the potential of new technologies as a tool for literacy instruction.

Cheryl McElvain is a Lecturer in the Interdisciplinary Education and Basic Teacher Credential programs at Santa Clara University where she teaches language acquisition, psycholinguistics, and literacy development classes. In 2005 she earned an Ed.D. in International and Multicultural Education with an emphasis in Second Language Acquisition from the University of San Francisco. Her current research interests include literacy instruction for underserved English language learners, and developing transactional learning communities among first and second-generation Mexican immigrants.

Hanfu Mi, is an Associate Professor and Coordinator of Literacy Education in the Department of Elementary Education and Reading of the State University of New York–Oneonta. Dr. Mi’s research interests include language acquisition and literacy development. He teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses in reading, literacy, and research methodology.

Bob Nagy teaches undergraduate and graduate finance and statistics courses at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. He was an executive in the banking and insurance industries before entering academia in 1988.

Elin Eriksen Odegaard received her PhD in Science of Education from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Her dissertation, Narrative Meaning-making in Preschool (2007) was based on her ethnographic study in a Norwegian preschool. Through narrative inquiry she thematised children’s agency and culture and multiple roles of teachers. Her scholarly interests include children’s citizenship, cultural formation, literacy and narrative analysis. She has published books and articles in the field of early childhood education. She is now working as a researcher at Centre of Educational Research, Bergen University College, in Norway.

Patricia Ragan is an Associate Professor in Education at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee in Infant and Child Development focusing on brain development and learning. She has published extensively, sat on numerous committees/task forces charged with finding ways to improve the quality of early childhood programming, and written and coordinated numerous grants in support of early childhood program restructuring, including a prestigious 3-year FIPSE grant.

Richard Schaal is the Director of the Institute for Learning Partnership at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. Mr. Schaal has been a principal, staff developer, grant writer and teacher for 38 years. His passion continues to be enhancing professional development for educators to improve academic achievement for all learners. He received his Master’s Degree from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater in Special Education and a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point in Psychology.

Janice Schroeder is an Assistant Professor at California State University, Fullerton. She teaches graduate students who are completing their Reading Specialist credential and directs two CSUF (California State University, Fullerton) Reading Centers for struggling and remedial readers (Pre-Kindergarten-Adult) attending to the influences of linguistic, social, cultural, physical, psychological, intellectual and educational factors on learning to read, and reading to learn. Her research interest is the planning and delivery of effective instruction (K-2) based on assessment (state standardized tests).

Glenda Shopen is a Lecturer in language and literacy education and applied linguistics in Australia. She is currently working in the Research Centre for Languages and Cultures at the University of South Australia where she teaches courses in language and culture. She has extensive experience working with Indigenous teachers and students in rural and remote community schools in Australia. Her research interest is in the prosaic of educational change.

Linda Tabers-Kwak received her Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies from Loyola University, in Chicago. Currently, an Associate Professor of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, she teaches and undertakes research on school-community partnerships. She is also the Local Evaluator for Greater Green Bay’s Even Start Family Literacy Program.

Wei-Jun Jean Yeung is a Professor of Sociology in National University of Singapore and a research professor of Sociology in New York University. She is a co-principal investigator of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, one of the longest running social science panel surveys. She is the secretary/treasurer for the section of Children and Youth of the American Sociological Association. She is affiliated with the National Poverty Center of the School of Public Policy and the Institute for Social Research in the University of Michigan, and the RAND Policy Research Corporation. Her current research and teaching focus on intergenerational studies, family and children’s well-being and policies, social inequality, and China’s socioeconomic and demographic transitions.