Looking at Early Childhood Programs from a Global Perspective

Abstract

This book tells many stories about early childhood education in many countries. It started with an idea that evolved and expanded into more ideas about understanding early childhood education in a global setting. Another story is about how a set of basic guidelines for early childhood education became an assessment tool for self-evaluation of early childhood programs that have been used in various countries in different languages. A parallel story is how the guidelines were used to introduce quality early childhood programs in other countries. And, finally, the book tells stories about early childhood educators and very young children in diverse locations, speaking many languages, representing unique programs, and reflecting local cultures. This is the most important feature of the book—the children, the teachers, the families, and the different cultures. Nevertheless, the first step is to describe how an idea became an international early childhood collaboration among early childhood specialists representing individual countries.