Classroom composition and quality in early childhood education

Abstract

Early childhood education quality has been internationally recognized an important condition for the reduction of social and economic inequalities and for the promotion of sustainable development. Therefore, the expansion of access to early childhood education and the provision of quality educational experiences for children are now political priorities. With the expansion of access, new challenges have emerged, associated with an increasing diversity of groups attending these educational contexts. Early childhood education teachers, in particular, face new challenges with regard to the management of more diverse groups, as they are primarily responsible for attending to the needs of all children and are expected to effectively differentiate their practice. With this project, we aimed to further the understanding regarding these challenges, by investigating the association between classroom composition and process quality in early childhood education settings. Literature on this subject is still scarce. With the intent to fill in some gaps in this literature, three studies were conducted: a systematic review of the literature about the association between classroom composition and quality in early childhood education settings; a quantitative study about the association between classroom sociocultural composition and quality; a qualitative study about early childhood education teachers' perceptions of challenges and opportunities associated with the composition of groups. In all, findings point to the importance of considering classroom composition as a structure feature, potentially associated with process quality in early childhood education settings. ; A qualidade da educação na primeira infância tem sido reconhecida internacionalmente como uma importante condição para a redução das desigualdades sociais e económicas e para um desenvolvimento mais sustentável. Por estes motivos, a expansão do acesso a estes contextos de educação e a provisão de experiências educativas de qualidade às crianças são, atualmente, ...