ABSTRACT
The title of this chapter is somewhat of a misnomer, given that early childhood educators have devoted considerably more energy toward studying within culture rather than cross-national similarities and differences in early childhood education practices and outcomes (see volumes by Feeney, 1992; Hayden, 2000). With a shorter history, cross-national early childhood education research is more limited in its focus and scope (e.g., Lamb, Sternberg, Hwang, & Broberg, 1992; Olmsted & Weikart, 1995; Tietze, Cryer, Bairrao, Palacios, & Wetzel, 1996; Tobin, Wu, & Davidson, 1989). Noting this, we shape our chapter in more general terms around research that has been conducted within and across cultures. Coalescing hard data on different early childhood education models across cultures remains cumbersome, if not daunting. Despite the richness evident in the quantitative and qualitative accounts of early childhood education research in different cultures, there is tremendous variability in terms of the quality and rigor of the studies that contribute to this thin but growing literature.
