Ishimine, K: Quality and Early Childhood

The provision of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) has been of increasing interest to educational researchers as they investigate the relationship between children s developmental outcomes and ECEC quality. This book investigates the impact of childcare quality on children‘‘s social skills. Childcare centres can be seen as part of wider social networks in the community and with more children spending time in them, they play an increasingly important role in child socialization. A mixed methods was utilized to address the research problem. Childcare centres were assessed using the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale Revision: ECERS-R and the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale Extension: ECERS-E. The study provides strong evidence that childcare centre quality has an important role to play in the social development of young children. The findings will contribute to understandings of quality, social development and the impact of childcare centres for researchers and students in the early childhood educational field. The implications from the study should be especially useful to policy makers seeking to apply evidence-based policy in the field.