Archived: National Research Center on Early Development and Learning Begins Work by Building Partnerships

A r c h i v e d I n f o r m a t i o n

Early Childhood Research Working Group - Fall 1996

National Research Center on Early Development and Learning Begins Work by Building Partnerships

Pam Winton
National Research Center on Early Development and Learning

The new National Research Center on Early Development and Learning (NCEDL), located at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is based on the premise that research activities be linked to the early childhood work being done by other groups and organizations. To that end, the Center has already taken the first steps to do just that. NCEDL is building partnerships--partnerships with other research and development centers and regional educational laboratories funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) and partnerships with consumers (e.g., parents, child care providers, teachers, and other consumers of research information.)

Partnerships With R&D Centers, Regional Educational Labs

NCEDL and the Southeastern Regional Vision for Education (SERVE), OERI's regional laboratory with a specialty area in early childhood education, will collaborate in the areas of quality child care definitions and models, professional development, strategies for creating linkages across agencies in communities, and early childhood policies. NCEDL and SERVE also are planning to hold a policy summit on welfare reform in the spring of 1997. For more information about the policy summit, contact James Gallagher, NCEDL, at (919)962-7373 or Nancy Livesay, SERVE, at (904)671-6076.
NCEDL and the National Center for Research on Education, Diversity, and Excellence at the University of California at Santa Cruz will collaborate on studies that investigate "why" questions asked by young children identified as "at risk" for educational failure because of limited-English proficiency and/or poverty. The studies focus on the nature of explanatory conversations at home and at school and on ways that parents and teachers can best encourage children's natural curiosity about scientific domains. Young children's "why" questions about events in the world indicate curiosity about scientific topics, and conversations that are initiated by such questions present a window on children's thinking as well as an opportunity for parents and teachers to encourage a positive attitude toward science discovery and explanation. Links between home and school will be explored in several school and home activity settings. For more information, please contact Maureen Callanan, University of California, at (408)459-3147 or Mary Ruth Coleman, NCEDL, at (919)962-7375.

Partnerships With Consumers

To ensure consumer participation in the research process, NCEDL is, and will continue, holding focus groups on issues related to early childhood development and is working with consumer project advisory boards (one will be established for each NCEDL project.) Recently, the policy strand of NCEDL convened a focus group made of resource and referral agency employees, child care providers, and consultants for state-level child care agencies to guide research on child care policies. A focus group also was held with families and service providers to discuss quality early intervention services fro infants and toddlers with disabilities. Conversations from both meetings are helping to define issues for further study and to develop measures related to child care policies.

NCEDL's 5-Year Goals

OERI's National Institute on Early Childhood Development and Education awarded a $13.7 million, 5-year cooperative agreement to the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill to establish a national center to improve and enhance the learning and development of America's young children. The Center--with collaborative sites at the University of Virginia, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and the University of California at Los Angeles--has been named the National Research Center on Early Development and Learning. Rhe Center's 5-year major goals include: (1) studying quality child care and intervention programs: (2) studying transitions during the early childhood years, with a special focus on the transition to kindergarten: (3) determining the effectiveness of early intervention and family support for children at risk for educational failure due to antisocial or behavioral problems, children at risk for illiteracy, and infants who fail to thrive: (4) reporting on child care, transitions, and ecologically based interventions using a model of ecological barriers interfering with policy implementation: and (5) developing a dynamic effective dissemination strategy to translate research into practice and systems change in multiple settings.

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