ABSTRACT
Early care and education (ECE) in Canada encompasses a range of programs and services for young children. The brief account of its 200-year history in Canada focuses on the motivations to provide services for children prior to compulsory school-starting age, with attention to institutional models rather than on family-based training and socialization. In Canada, regulated ECE services are under the purview of the public education system or of the provincial child care legislation. Trends in early childhood education and care from the 1960s to the present have followed three general themes: greater integration of services, broadening sources of ideas, and a renewed focus on play-based teaching and learning. There is a dearth of research on early education programs for Canadian Indigenous children and little has been written about evaluation of those programs. The goal of the federal government’s Aboriginal Head Start program is to support young Aboriginal children’s development using a focused approach involving families and communities.
