Looking Forward: Research Recommendations for Early Childhood Curriculum

Session Type: Invited Speaker Session

Abstract

Drawing on the recent research report Looking Forward: Research Recommendations for Early Childhood Curriculum, this interactive session will highlight major issues and recommendations for a future-oriented agenda to advance early childhood curriculum and implementation. Funded by the Gates Foundation, it extends issues and recommendations in the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s (NASEM) 2024 landmark study A New Vision for High-Quality Preschool Curriculum and supports the NASEM report’s vision of preschool quality, access, and equity.

Predicated on proven findings that preschool curriculum is central to young children’s experiences in—and outcomes evoked from their engagement in early childhood program, the report centers research needed to advance rich, content-driven, and experientially engaging curriculum. It also acknowledges that to be optimally useful, future research will need to consider the changing demographic contexts for children, families, and the early childhood workforce; rapidly changing technological and methodological advances that are dramatically contouring research; and a changing and increasingly complicated programmatic and policy context. Given these realities, creating a forward-thinking, equity-centered research agenda is both a social imperative and a prudent strategy; it is an insurance policy that safeguards the future of preschool curriculum and the success of our nation’s youngest children. In considering methodological and technological innovations, the report provides concrete guidance regarding the essential content of an empirical agenda that will significantly advance the design, implementation, and evaluation of contemporary preschool curricula.

Sub Unit

• AERA Science and Policy Sessions

Chair

• Vivian L. Gadsden, University of Pennsylvania

Participants

• Andres Sebastian Bustamante, University of California - Irvine

• Caroline Ebanks, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Wintre Foxworth Johnson, University of Virginia

• Christine M. McWayne, Tufts University