Professional Development and Quality in Early Childhood Education: Comparative European Perspectives

This book provides a global overview of developments and discussion around the evaluation of quality of early childhood education environments, and the professional development of early childhood teachers, during the last decade. It reports on the Early Change project, a European-funded research project with the participation of six European countries: Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Portugal, and Romania; and offers an in-depth view on the perspectives of early childhood teachers regarding their professional development and the quality of early childhood education environment. Additionally, it discusses the policies and educational framework supporting the professional development of early childhood teachers across Europe. Finally, it proposes an alternative way to integrate the use of observational rating scales of early childhood education environments’ quality in teachers’ professional development. Presenting up-to-date scholarly research on global trends, this is an easily accessible, practical, yet scholarly source of information for researchers, policy makers and practitioners.

Athanasios Gregoriadis is an Assistant Professor in Early Years at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.
Vasilis Grammatikopoulos is an Assistant Professor in Educational Evaluation at the University of Crete, Greece.
Evridiki Zachopoulou is a Professor in the Department of Early Childhood Education at the Alexander Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki, Greece.