ABSTRACT
The central theme running through this volume is the enhancement of children’s opportunities worldwide through early educational programs. Though this may appear to the uninitiated as a straightforward and uncontroversial issue, it is actually a topic of much debate. Various arenas of contention have emerged from the theory and research of recent decades, one of them being the complex question of whether and how early childhood enrichment works. The issues underlying this are the nature-nurture controversy (Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1993; Horowitz, 1993; Wachs, 1993) and the type of intervention, such as center-based vs. home-based; childfocused vs. parent-family focused, etc. (Seitz, 1990; Seitz & Provence, 1990; Yoshikawa, 1994; Zigler, Taussig, & Black, 1992).
