Abstract

In 2008, 67% of the 4-year-old children in the United States were enrolled in some form of early childhood education center-based program (Planty et al., 2008), and the number continues to rise. Today’s preschoolers will soon begin their formal schooling years. In another 15 years, most of those children will be entering the country’s work force. The extension of public education into the prekindergarten years makes early childhood settings the first introduction for many children to the world of more formal learning and to doing so in a group setting. These early experiences are critical for establishing learning and dispositional patterns that may affect children’s interactions with classrooms for years to come. Over the years, however, no clear or coherent focus has emerged for the purpose of early childhood education; that is, whether there should be different purposes in caring for or educating young children than there are for older children.