Policymakers, PD Specialists, and ECE Practitioners: Strategies for Collaboration

Abstract

This article details the findings from a qualitative study that explored the ways individuals who work with early childhood education (ECE) practitioners in professional development settings influenced those practitioners’ understandings of early childhood policy and early childhood systems. Defined as individuals who work in the professional development and early childhood policy, the professional development specialists in this study influenced ECE practitioners in ways that caused a shift in their thinking about ECE policy as well as their conceptualization of ECE systems.

Keywords:

• professional development
• early childhood education systems