TY - JOUR
AU1 - Bhatnagar, Joti
AU2 - White, Donna Romano
AB -  It is difficult to describe adequately the rapid growth of early childhood education and care in North America. According to Caldwell & Freyer (1982), in early 1981, approximately 50 percent of America’s children under the age of five years were in some type of child care facility. These authors predict that early childhood care will be more common than home care in ten years’ time. This rapid growth has been largely due to parental need rather than being based upon research and knowledge showing that early childhood settings provide optimal environments for growth and development of young children. Nonetheless, parental need has combined with parental demand for quality environments for their children and early childhood education is emerging as a profession which recognizes that care and education are inseparable terms in the discussion of young children. In order to provide early childhood educators with the systematic knowledge required to promote optimal social and cognitive growth in young children, it is necessary to expand research in early childhood education. As Kamii (1981) has argued, early childhood education must become more scientific. Kamii points out that education is and must remain an art, but an art based upon scientific knowledge. 
TI - Introduction
JF - Applied Psychology
DO - 10.1111/j.1464-0597.1985.tb01339.x
DA - 1985-10-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/wiley/introduction-ujjaTOK9BF
SP - 415
VL - 34
IS - 4
DP - DeepDyve
ER -