Dear Readers:
Welcome to the Fall 2012 issue of Early Childhood Research & Practice, the first and only open-access, peer-reviewed, multilingual internet journal in early care and education.
We are pleased to report that ECRP continues to receive more than 1.5 million user visits annually from readers in more than 100 countries, including the United States. We continue our efforts to strengthen the quality of ECRP, which now has an acceptance rate of 11%.
The journal experienced some changes during 2012. We have welcomed Kevin Dolan, Ph.D., to the editorial staff. Dr. Dolan has a background in media and communications and considerable experience with academic journals, and he is essential to our operation. We also announce the retirement of ECRP’s longtime managing editor, Laurel Preece. Ms. Preece has been an insightful, thoughtful, solution-minded editor. Her eye for detail, her concern for quality, and her collegiality have served the journal well for many years. She is an invaluable colleague, and we will miss her.
Those of you who are classroom teachers, curriculum specialists, and teacher educators may be interested in our multimedia teacher resource titled Projects to Go. This 2-disc set includes the DVD “Rearview Mirror: Reflections on a Preschool Car Project” as well as a CD-ROM of selected ECRP articles (most in both English and Spanish) related to the Project Approach. See http://ecap.crc.illinois.edu/pubs.html#sale for more information.
In September 2012, ECRP uploaded Chinese translations of selected articles from the journal’s Spring 2011 issue. The Chinese translations are sponsored by the Yew Chung Education Foundation. (See http://ecrp.illinois.edu/chinese/v13n1-ch.html.)
The current issue (Volume 14, Number 2) includes seven articles providing a range of perspectives on topics related to the care and education of young children and the complex challenges early childhood professionals confront. The topics addressed include:
- The development and evaluation of strategies by which child care providers can address adequate pest management in their programs
- Early childhood professionals’ self-reported preferences for sources of new information and training materials and Internet resources
- The complexities of training caregivers for screening young children’s mental health
- The impact of sometimes conflicting priorities of campus-based infant-toddler programs and the potential effects of those priorities on children and families
- Parental hopes for their children and awareness of children’s developmental needs within a low-income population
- The variety of parental and teacher beliefs about kindergarten readiness and the preschool’s role in supporting it
- Issues encountered in providing culturally relevant training for “friend and family” child care providers who serve diverse families.
We hope that you find these articles useful, and we look forward to hearing from you about ways that ECRP can be even more useful to you.
Because ECRP is freely accessible, we are unable to accept journal subscriptions or advertising. However, the cost of journal production is about $37,000 per year, and we are totally dependent of donations.
So we urge you to help ECRP as much as you can with a tax-deductible donation.
Donations to ECRP are managed by the University of Illinois Foundation (UIF). For instructions, go to http://ecrp.illinois.edu/donation.html
Thank you,
Lilian G. Katz, editor
Jean A. Mendoza, associate editor
Susan Fowler, associate editor
Early Childhood Research & Practice (ECRP) is the first scholarly, peer-reviewed, bilingual (English-Spanish) open-access electronic journal in the field of early care and education. ECRP is sponsored by the Early Childhood and Parenting (ECAP) Collaborative at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The journal publishes research reports, literature reviews, essays, interviews, reflections, and commentary on emerging trends and issues by scholars and practitioners from around the world. Areas of emphasis include classroom practice, curriculum, ethics, teacher preparation, higher education, policy, and parent participation. Beginning with the Spring 2004 issue (Vol. 6, No. 1), ECRP is fully bilingual (English and Spanish). Chinese translations of selected articles are sponsored by the Yew Chung Education Foundation. ECRP is indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals.
Published biannually by the Early Childhood and Parenting (ECAP) Collaborative at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Children's Research Center, 51 Gerty Drive, Champaign, IL 61820-7469. Toll-free phone: 877-275-3227 (Formerly published by the ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.)
Last updated:
March 4, 2013
