Leading Inclusion From The Inside Out

The first book to focus on providing Irish parents, early childhood teachers in early learning and care, primary and special school settings with practical and effective strategies for supporting the inclusion of all children at this critical phase of their education journey

Balancing timeless principles with emerging research, this book serves as an integrated growth experience that helps leaders understand how to harness their authentic, value-creating influence and elevate their impact. --

Child care environments have received extensive research attention by those interested in understanding how participating in nonparental child care might influence the children's development and learning. Throughout the United States (US Census Bureau, 2011) and Europe (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2006) a large number of young children are cared for outside of the home by non-parental adults. Young children’s nonparental care is commonly referred to as "child care,” and is provided to children whose ages range from birth to 12 years of age. The provision of child care services has become an increasingly important part of early childhood education. In fact, the United Nations Children's Fund (2019) states that a large majority of children worldwide spend at least some of their week in child care, such arrangements include center care, family child care, in-home child care, relative child care, and supplemental child care. Child care researchers have been conducting studies to understand how participating in nonparental child care might influence the children's development and learning outcomes. There are more than enough child care studies to make numerous major inferences. For example, research outcomes show that child care quality seems to be more influential than either the kind of child care or age of admission in determining the children’s development and learning. The adults’ child care affects the quality in child care. In the environment adults who are caring for the children have the opportunity to effectively assume both nurturing and instructional roles to help young children cultivate their social and cognitive abilities. The teachers’ effectiveness is related to their individual characteristics, such as formal education, specialized training, and the classroom environment. However, the majority of the studies show that both family and quality of child care have the most significant effects on the children’s development and learning. Therefore, the concept of child care has heavily influenced modern views. Researchers, scholars, and educators are beginning to understand the current foundations based on theoretical frameworks that contribute to the purposes of the child care in the United States and Europe. The contents of the child care volume reflect the major shifts in the views of these early childhood researchers, scholars, and educators in relation to research outcomes on child care, its historical roots, the role of child care in early childhood education, and its relationship to theory, research, and practice.

This book provides a roadmap for how police services can address incivility in the workplace and become more inclusive from the inside out. In the past few years policing has come under increased scrutiny due to a number of police-involved shootings and in-custody deaths, where systemic racism, the inability to effectively confront persons suffering from mental illness, and excessive use of force have been perceived by civil rights groups to play a significant factor. These deaths and the subsequent public outcry have led to various constituents questioning the legitimacy of the police. The book incorporates real stories of police officers and case studies of select police organizations. A look inside a number of these departments has identified an equal concern for incivility within the workplace in the form of gender and ethnic harassment and discrimination. The costs of workplace incivility can be significant as workplace victims are not only likely to decrease their work effort, quality of work, and their level of commitment to the organization, they are also likely to mistreat others in the workplace and to take their frustrations out on those they serve. While these costs have a significant impact for police organizations, incivility by police officers against members of the public can have a much greater impact in terms of eroding perceptions of police legitimacy. This book takes a unique approach in providing a model for police organizations to pursue in becoming more inclusive. To this end, this book will be very relevant for police practitioners, reform advisors, researchers, and graduate-level course in special topics.

This book proposes that the collective responsibility of teachers as classroom and school leaders working together to solve their own problems provides the fulcrum of school change. It makes the case that teachers and school leaders do not operate in a vacuum, but rather, they work within the larger context of policy and other social influences. Grubb and Tredway provide the building blocks of history, policy, and social analysis that are necessary if teachers are to be effective in the collective school a place where adults thrive as learners and are able to co-create joyful learning experiences for children and youth. By encouraging teachers to move out of the individual classroom and to think critically and institutionally about the schools they would like to work in, about their own responsibilities for creating such schools, about the range of policies from outside the school and how they can influence those policies rather than being subjected to them this book shows that a teacher s influence is not limited to the classroom and students, but can significantly shape and inform external policies and decisions."

The preschool period is a period in which children investigate and try to get to know their environment, are willing to communicate with their environment and begin to acquire the value judgments of the society they live in and the behaviors and habits appropriate to the cultural structure of that society. In this period when the foundations of personality are laid, the child needs conscious guidance in home, school, and social life. By providing appropriate educational opportunities in the early years, the development of children’s self-care, mind, language, social, emotional, and motor skills can be supported. In a preschool education institution that is well prepared in terms of physical conditions and educational programs, the children learn to establish friendships, cooperate, and develop their skills. Developing human potential to its highest limits is only possible with the opportunities provided in the early years. This book provides a comprehensive overview of preschool education. Chapters address such topics as the importance of literacy, pedagogical leadership, high-quality preschool education, and preschool improvement practices. They also discuss the role of theater in childhood education and community approaches to funding and support. Furthermore, the book examines childhood obesity; connecting home, school, and communities; childcare social enterprises; teacher quality and professional development; motor, cognitive, nutritional, metabolic, and epigenetic influences on early childhood; and instructional and interactional aspects of childhood education.

This book showcases the diverse nature of policy, provision and practice for special educational needs and disability (SEND) across different international settings. Situated across a backdrop of varied international policies relating to inclusion, the book offers insights into the rhetoric of SEND policy and practice across a range of settings to contribute to our understanding of SEND provision. It explores the complexities, concerns and challenges experienced by staff, pupils, parents and carers in contemporary education settings. Chapters draw on empirical research and are structured around four parts: special education needs and disability within policy; stakeholder perceptions and experiences of SEND provision; meeting the needs of SEND children; and moving towards inclusive practice. The volume will challenge thought, stimulate critique and provoke debate in the field of special educational needs both locally and globally and will be of interest to researchers and postgraduate students in the field of inclusive education, special needs education and comparative education.

The chapters in this book reflect on the major shifts in the views of early childhood thinkers and educators, who have contributed to contemporary theoretical frameworks pertaining to early childhood learning. The book also revisits and critically analyses the influence of developmental theories on early childhood education, starting in the 1890s with the work of G. Stanley Hall that established the close association of early childhood education and child development. Several chapters comprise critical examinations of the fundamental influence of thinkers such as Piaget, Vygotsky, Kohlberg, Adler, Pestalozzi, Froebel, and so on, on early childhood learning. The book also contends that these theoretical conceptions of child development have heavily influenced modern views of early childhood education. This book is a significant new contribution to early childhood learning, and will be a great resource for academics, researchers, and advanced students of Education, Public Policy, History of Education, Psychology, and Sociology. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Early Child Development and Care.