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The purpose of this study was to examine Hispanic families' perspectives on using a prepared kit to enhance their preschoolers' vocabulary development at home. Families enrolled in a public prekindergarten program were provided with a bilingual (English/Spanish) home literacy kit that included ways in which to engage their children in activities related to environmental print and conversations. Three Hispanic families participated in two interviews about home literacy activities--one before they received the home literacy kit and the other 2 weeks after the families received the kit. Results from the interviews indicated that (1) parents felt that their use of the activities in the kit promoted their young children's vocabulary development and (2) providing bilingual literacy kits positively affected families' home literacy experiences. These findings may inform future research on early home literacy practices, primarily those focused on vocabulary development, for Hispanic families.

In 1987, the National Association for the Education of Young Children published "Keeping Current in Child Care Research: An Annotated Bibliography," by Carollee Howes, which reviewed child care research through 1987. In 1999, the Center for Early Education and Development updated the original review to include studies from 1987 to 1999. This update was created for participants in the second Annual Minnesota Child Care Research conference: Welfare Reform and the Lives of Children. The update is organized in the same format as the original bibliography. The first four sections review research that continues to address questions raised in the 1970s: Will child care attendance be harmful to the child? What benefits do children receive from child care? Can child care serve as an effective intervention program in the short and long term? For example, included are recent data from the Abecedarian project, a longitudinal study begun in 1972 detailing the effectiveness of child care as an intervention for at-risk children. The next five sections of the update highlight studies that address research questions begun in the 1980s: What features distinguish high- from low-quality child care? What are the effects of age of entry, length of day, and total time in child care? What is the relation between family factors and child care? These sections include information from several well-known studies that have greatly influenced how we think about child care, such as the Cost, Quality, and Outcomes Study; the Florida Quality Improvement Study; and the National Child Care Staffing Study. Finally, new sections were created in the update for studies on family child care and on inclusive settings. These two areas have been studied extensively since 1987, with enough research to warrant separate sections for each. (HTH)

Texts and articles that put epistemological theories and methodologies to work in the context of qualitative research can stimulate scholarship in various ways such as through methodological innovations, transferability of theories and methods, interdisciplinarity, and transformative reflections across traditions and frameworks. Such methodological practices are particularly of use for educational researchers concerned with thinking about practices of pedagogy and curriculum in new ways. However, such manuscripts are sometimes hard to find and can easily become sedimented by layers of discipline-specific findings and insights. It is our intention to call for authors to put their methodologies to work and make their methodological insights more fore-grounded and accessible to audiences and readers with an interest in such writings. Furthermore, we illustrate some possible strategies for those interested in developing such pieces while at the same time troubling the notions of essentialism and directionality that can accompany such strategies and pedagogical efforts.

Challenging student behaviors are a prominent factor in the development of teacher stress and burnout. When classroom-based teachers of preschool children with disabilities were surveyed to identify their training needs in one North Carolina county, the most frequent request was how to address behavior challenges of preschool children with disabilities. This study examined how instructional support to teachers of preschool children with disabilities and challenging behaviors affected three teachers' classroom practices. The teachers received training and mentoring in classroom behavior management strategies and engaged in an online community of learners discussion group. Interviews and interactions from an online learning community were used to disclose whether the participants had implemented effective intervention strategies in their classrooms following the training. Teachers felt more competent in managing challenging behaviors after the online interaction with their colleagues. Teachers' online interactions were a highly effective way to impact teacher efficacy. Therefore, special education preschool programs should consider providing more opportunities for the teachers to build their own learning communities to interact and support one another.

Duoethnography, a new form of qualitative research, consists of two main components: (1) two or three participants who share a similar life experience and (2) a conversation among the individuals about their experience resulting in both a shared understanding of the similarities of the participants' views and the differences in the participants' life experiences. The paper begins with a review of the research on children as research participants: this includes both traditional and more child engaging perspectives, qualitative methods commonly used when researching children, reasons that children's perceptions are not considered accurate, and ethical issues related to conducting research with children. Two duoethnographies with children are presented; each is followed by a discussion of the methods used and problems encountered. The discussion focuses on the positive aspects of adult-child duoethnographies and suggests several alternatives to the adult-adult duoethnographic approach when conducting child duoethnographies. (Contains 3 notes and 1 figure.)

In this manuscript, we examine three layers of censorship related to the publication of qualitative research studies: (a) the global level of federal legislation and the definition of the "gold standard" of educational research, (b) the decline in the number of qualitative studies published in a top-tiered early childhood educational research journal after implementation of the Reading Excellence Act and No Child Left Behind, and (c) a local story of our experience in submitting a qualitative study for review. In the final section, we discuss the implications of these three levels of censorship. (Contains 1 note and 1 figure.)

Research Findings: This in-depth single case study explores the experiences of a single father with finding and maintaining child care for his son. This American middle-income, Caucasian father lives and works in Minnesota. Findings include difficulty locating and maintaining child care, dissatisfaction with child care quality, concerns about paying for care, and using grandparents as a secondary form of care. Practice or Policy: This article contributes to the literature because it is the only case study available about a father's involvement in child care and how single fathers engage with nonparental care. (Contains 6 footnotes.)

Sixteen Minnesota families with children with disabilities participated in a 2-year interview study of their care experiences. Findings show that families developed a network of care providers, struggled to pay additional costs for care, were not informed of community services and programs, and believed that their children received adequate child care. This study highlights the need to provide information to families and providers and to link services in both rural and urban communities.

This two-year descriptive study of purposefully selected Minnesota families included interviews with 94 children who either were currently enrolled in or had attended child care programs. Children from 1 to 18 years old recalled playmates, daily activities, schedules, discipline methods, special events, bullies, and characteristics of well-liked and unpopular staff members. Children drew pictures and wrote about activities, child care friends, and child care staff. Children enjoyed playing with friends, responsive and involved staff, and a range of indoor and outdoor activities. Children in all forms of care described widespread viewing of videos and use of video games. Younger children described storytelling, and some, but not all, school-age children had access to literacy activities and materials. This study contributes additional insights to the limited literature on children's perceptions of child care. (Contains 6 figures.)

Researchers conducted focus groups in three Minnesota Head Start programs that provide full-day services. The purpose of this descriptive study was to understand how these programs operated, the strengths and challenges of full-day Head Start programs, and how working parents and those on public assistance described these services. Findings include parents' satisfaction with various models of full-day services and parents' needs for extended hour care, transportation, information about full-day options, and child care assistance. Attributes of successful models include guaranteed fiscal support to programs, long-term partnerships with community programs, equipment, supplies, and renovation funds for child care programs, and Head Start mentoring and support personnel to work with family and center providers. Full-day models coupled with postsecondary training opportunities provide a viable means to help families obtain family self-sufficiency. Challenges and issues include concerns about the quality of some child care programs, inadequate fiscal and Head Start staff support for child care partners, and lack of understanding of the differences between Head Start and child care. These findings are important because Head Start agencies, recognizing the need for full-day services, are now developing and implementing these services, and the three programs provide several models, each with strengths, weaknesses, and issues. (Contains 2 tables.)

This paper presents definitions of child care quality from focus groups conducted to develop a research design to assess the quality of Minnesota's regulated child care system. Eleven individual interviews and 38 focus groups involving 333 people were held in communities throughout Minnesota between 1-11-00 and 6-14-00. The focus groups represented the various stake holders interested in child care quality including parents, legislators, child care staff and administrators, licensed and unlicensed family child care providers, family and center based child care licensors, child care resource and referral staff, and teacher educators. Beginning first with the traditional definition of child care quality (what is good for the child) and related quality indicators, the author presents Katz's (Multiple perspectives on the quality of early childhood programs) four dimensional definition of child care quality and the associated research investigating these dimensions. The similarities and differences in various stake holder groups' definitions of child care quality are then presented and compared with Love, Schocket, & Meckstroth's review of child care research. The paper ends with a discussion how stake holders' definitions of child care quality may inform researchers and policymakers about child care quality.

Despite Minnesota's reputation for quality child care, recent changes in legislation and the impact of changing needs have raised concerns about the quality of child care available in the state. This paper presents an overview of Minnesota's current child care system including structural indicators of program quality such as licensing standards, staff wages, turnover, educational level, and program accreditation. The current situation is characterized by high levels of staff turnover, low wages, low levels of program accreditation, and increasing numbers of variances for child care licenses, all of which are disadvantageous to providing high quality child care to Minnesota's children. Efforts to decrease turnover through higher salaries and increase staff educational levels through tuition vouchers are explored. We find that there are a number of ways in which states can support quality child care, but stricter licensing standards are not likely to be sufficient by themselves.

This article chronicles the author's journey of of writing short stories. Following an opening story, the author explains how she wrote short stories and field notes during her study of [...]

The process of research involves relationships and emotional pulls. These can be examined in terms of researchers' multiple community memberships, researchers' relationships with their mentors, and their relationships with people they are seeking to understand. This is shown by a case study of a Head Start program in the rural midwest. Such relationships are constantly shifting, both over time and according to the context. The production of manuscripts can involve setting one's own emotions to one side, and there is a case for allowing contact with those emotions.

Three families who immigrated from Oromia, Ethiopia to Minnesota participated in a two-year interview study on out-of-home child care. The Oromo immigrants' child care experiences had not been researched previously. In this study, parents provided information on their experiences with child care including: child care history, current child care, child care assistance, child care values and benefits, and projections for child care centers. Each family's experience is presented as a portraiture that includes child care history, beliefs, values, and expectations. The Oromo immigrants' experiences of child care and its connection with the families' assimilation/acculturation process are analyzed. Parents reported satisfaction with child care programs, believed that programs helped acculturate their children as well as provided educational opportunities for children, and they preferred staff and programs that understood Oromo culture and customs. However, they experienced discrimination and miscommunication with child care providers and with the Child Care Assistance Program. Understanding immigrants' expectations for child care will improve efforts to provide quality day care for children of immigrant families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of welfare reform and the impact of welfare reform on Head Start and low-income families was examined. Head Start families are largely impacted by welfare reform because at least half of the parents enrolled in Head Start have received welfare benefits (Turnel; Barbaro, & Schlank, 1990). However, the current body of literature does not address differences between half day and fill-day Head Start programs. Since child care settings, including Head Start, have the potential to help parents and children transition smoothly from welfare to work, the authors argue this is a critical area to study. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A correction to the article "I Want Child Care He's Gonna Be Happy In: A Case Study of a Father's Child Care Experiences" is presented.