Culture and Child Development in Early Childhood Programs

Early childhood education programs are expected to provide exemplary care for all children—poor and affluent, children of color and White children—while also adapting care to include children’s families and cultures. These two sets of expectations are often difficult for teachers and programs to meet. In this book, Carollee Howes shows how high-quality programs successfully adapt child development guidelines within cultural contexts, and why quality needs to be and can be measured in culturally specific ways. This important book:

• Closely examines ECE programs considered exemplary for low-income children of color.
• Shows how directors and teachers successfully use practices derived from their cultural communities to implement universal standards of child care.
• Identifies the commonalities in good early childhood programs that are shared across class, race, and ethnic communities.
• Offers best practices based on extensive assessments, interviews, and observations.

Carollee Howes is Professor in Psychological Studies in Education and Director of the Center for Improving Child Care Quality at the University of California at Los Angeles. She is the co-author of A Matter of Trust: Connecting Teachers and Learners in the Early Childhood Classroom.

“Will have immediate relevance for policy debates, for understanding the mechanisms of program effects, and for educators who wish to deepen their knowledge of practice.”
—Robert C. Pianta, University of Virginia

“I urge all higher education faculty, in-service teacher trainers, accreditation observers, researchers, text-book writers and policymakers of standards to read this book.”
—From the Foreword by Louise Derman-Sparks