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The present study aimed to examining the association between work–family conflict and turnover intention by exploring the mediating effect of job satisfaction and the moderating effect of perceived organizational support on preschool teachers in China.

A survey of 827 preschool teachers was conducted, and the data were analyzed using correlation analysis, hierarchical linear regression and path analysis with a structural equation model.

The results revealed that work–family conflict was significantly and positively associated with preschool teachers' turnover intention. Job satisfaction partially mediated the relationship between work–family conflict and turnover intention, while perceived organizational support moderated the association between work–family conflict and job satisfaction, thus mitigating the negative impact of work–family conflict on job satisfaction.

These findings contribute to the understanding of turnover among preschool teachers and suggest the need to enhance perceived organizational support to promote job satisfaction and reduce turnover in this profession.

In 2012, the Israeli Ministry of Education and its Testing and Evaluation Department introduced a new tool to evaluate the quality of kindergarten teachers’ work. This paper aims to identify how kindergarten teachers perceive the new multiple domains performance tool.

The study applied a qualitative paradigm of data collection and analysis. Data collection consisted of semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted with 36 kindergarten teachers.

Findings indicated that most kindergarten teachers perceive their work plan and the kindergarten climate as the most important evaluation domains, while perceiving involving parents as the least important and even an unnecessary domain. One-third of them indicated that an innovation domain should be added. Also, the kindergarten teachers perceived the use of the KT-MDPT as both positive and negative.

There is a clear dearth in scholarly literature dealing with the evaluation of the quality of kindergarten teachers’ work. This study is the first to reveal Israeli kindergarten teachers' attitudes regarding this new tool for work quality evaluation.

The function of early childhood education (ECE) has shifted from mothering to nurturing child development in Hong Kong. Teaching in kindergartens seems to be more attractive to men nowadays. The purpose of this paper is to explore the issues of male participation in ECE through a case study of a local kindergarten.

A case study methodology was used in the research design and the data were collected through semi-structured interviews. The interviewees all came from a single, case study school, and included the kindergarten principal, head teacher, teachers, both Chinese and foreign nationals, and parents.

The findings of the study indicated that most of the school staff support hiring male teachers in kindergartens and perceive that male teachers play an important role in educating young children. On the other hand, the views of parents who participated in the study were divided. This reflects gender bias on the part of parents.

Minimal research on male participation in kindergartens has been conducted in Hong Kong. The findings of the study shed some light on the issues of male participation in ECE in a Chinese context. It is argued that overcoming the low participation of male teachers in ECE will require changes in deeply rooted institutional and management practices. From a wider perspective, providing better career prospects and improving the professional status of kindergarten teachers will attract more men to teach in kindergartens.

The kindergarten curriculum in mainland China has evolved through four periods and the current reform began in the end of 1980s. The reform aimed to transform kindergarten practice by shaping ideologies including respect for individual child, active learning, and play-based integrated curriculum. This review of research literatures shows that compared with the practice before the reform, many kindergarten teachers organize classrooms in learning centers, provide more play materials, pay time, and freedom for free play, and pay more attention to individuals. But indoor space organized in rice-seedling-bed model, teacher-led group instruction and teacher-controlled interactions are still often observed after three decades of reform efforts; there still exist great variations among kindergartens of different sponsoring bodies and in different regions. The problems resulted from the innate deficiencies of the top-down and value-priority reform, the conflicts between the advocated value and the traditional Chinese culture with emphasis on Ming-Fen, testing, and the value of children for the whole family and nation, and the unequal distribution of public resources decided by the educational institutions. Therefore, the curriculum reform is not a separate endeavor from other social changes, but a comprehensive and systematic change. To guarantee the success of the curriculum reform, the Chinese society needs cultural transformation and institutional reconstruction.

The purpose of this current study is to follow the development of preservice kindergarten teachers during the practicum phase of their teacher education studies in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic and following the first period of lockdown.

The sample included 38 preservice kindergarten teachers in their third and final year of studies who worked in kindergartens as student teachers. Data were collected using reflective journals written by the participants during their studies, after returning to work following the first lockdown. The author analyzed the data using the life-story narrative method.

The analysis identified four different types of early education preservice teachers based on their ability to cope with the shift in work conditions. The discussion offers insight into participants’ ability to effectively implement the professional tools they had acquired in the program and during the practicum.

Limitations include reliance on data from reflective journals, which may be missing details that would have been collected face-to-face. The study has important implications for the functioning of kindergarten teachers in times of crisis, which should be taken into account in the design of the teachers’ training programs.

The effect of the pandemic on the quality of the preservice kindergarten teachers’ training process, and its implications for functioning in other types of crises are discussed.

Developmental science and school research identify children’s transition to kindergarten as a sensitive period with significant implications for formal school success. In this chapter, we present evidence that a successful transition to kindergarten requires more than ensuring that children have requisite competencies. Instead, we present an ecological model that conceptualizes smooth transitions from pre-kindergarten to kindergarten as a function of linkages between systems, such as connections between schools and families and between pre-kindergarten and kindergarten teachers and classrooms, especially those made prior to kindergarten entry. This chapter provides an overview of research on and best practices for effective pre-kindergarten to kindergarten transitions that support children’s development and school readiness. Evidence for the ecological framework supporting this critical transition is provided, including how transition and alignment practices are associated with optimal outcomes for children. Promising practices from the field that promote alignment between pre-kindergarten and kindergarten experiences are also addressed. Additionally, we present several case studies detailing the ways in which different localities have used empirically supported transition practices to support children’s early school success. Finally, we conclude with thoughts regarding future directions for transition and alignment work in early childhood.

In Australia as elsewhere, kindergarten or pre-school teachers’ work has almost escaped historians’ attention. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the lives and work of approximately 60 women who graduated from the Adelaide Kindergarten Training College (KTC) between 1908 and 1917, which is during the leadership of its foundation principal, Lillian de Lissa.

The paper is a feminist analysis and uses conventional archival sources.

The KTC was a site of higher education that offered middle class women an intellectual as well as practical education, focusing on liberal arts, progressive pedagogies and social reform. More than half of the graduates initially worked as teachers, their destinations reflecting the fragmented field of early childhood education. Whether married or single, many remained connected with progressive education and social reform, exercising their pedagogical and administrative skills in their workplaces, homes and civic activities. In so doing, they were not only leaders of children but also makers of society.

The paper highlights the links between the kindergarten movement and reforms in girls’ secondary and higher education, and repositions the KTC as site of intellectual education for women. In turn, KTC graduates committed to progressive education and social reform in the interwar years.

The current study examines the ways preschool teachers handle parents' WhatsApp groups. The study explores the associations between professional capital, perception of the application, and communication patterns with the parents utilizing WhatsApp, an instant message application.

A group of 214 Israeli preschool teachers were sampled using a survey questionnaire. The independent variables were two components of professional capital: (1) human capital, measured by tenure and income and (2) social capital, measured by the type of locality and the teacher's place of residence, in or outside the kindergarten's neighborhood. The dependent variable was the general perception of the app and the decisional capital manifested in the pattern of engagement with the pupils' parents.

In general, preschool teachers welcome the app, especially its ability to send pictures, while they disapprove of the constant intrusion it causes. Tenured and high-income teachers tended to restrict sharing a WhatsApp group with parents. Joining a group with parents was common among private, low-income, and non-tenured young teachers. In terms of social capital, teachers who lived and worked in a communal settlement differed from their city colleagues. Teachers in such communities expressed a much more positive perception of the WhatsApp application, in comparison with teachers from urban areas.

The results demonstrate the importance of professional capital in monitoring daily routine, communication, and emotions. The findings support the social constructivist approach, holding that technology affords a variety of uses and are integrated into the existing social structure.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the components and determinants of preschool teacher organisational citizenship behaviours (OCB), i.e. role behaviours that are discretionary, unrewarded and beyond formal‐role expectations.

A total of 12 Israeli kindergarten teachers and four supervisors participated in semi‐structured interviews during 2008‐2009.

It was found that preschool teacher OCB appears in professional (e.g. instructional innovations, diverse teaching methods, helping colleagues) and in inter‐personal (e.g. the children, the parents, the local community) arenas. Likewise, both personal and organisational determinants may account for the occurrence of this behaviour in preschool teaching.

It is recommended that education districts and superintendents facilitate preschool teacher OCB by promoting greater job autonomy for kindergarten teachers and forms of participative leadership among their supervisors.

Understanding preschool teacher OCB may fill in gaps in the theoretical knowledge about the nature of OCB among a group of employees that tends to work at small educational settings and has a limited scope of interactions with co‐workers and superiors.

Aims primarily to examine how stressful kindergarten principals as leaders and managers of their schools found their work to be, and if such job stress was related to negative emotions and job satisfaction. The secondary aim was to explore if social support from a close friend could reduce and buffer job stress. Seventy‐seven kindergarten principals in Hong Kong responded to a questionnaire containing the variables of interest. The results showed that the principals found their work to be moderately stressful. However, emotional and informational support from a close friend had beneficial impacts on stress.