Using a qualitative descriptive design, researchers describe andidentify similarities and differences in the professional preparation of infant-toddler care and education (ITCE) teachers at university based teacher education programmes in Hong Kong China, Aotearoa New Zealand, and the USA. Researchers overview the ITCE landscape, describe statutory regulations, and consider major documents and prevalent ideas influencing ITCE teacher education in their respective countries. Key findings are presented from each researcher’s analysis of the teacher education programmes at their own institutions and then summarised in descriptive narratives around four major themes: (1) country-specific values, (2) pedagogical elements, (3) curriculum focus, and (4) teaching practicum expectations. On the basis of a dialogic deliberative process, the three researchers then discuss the findings together by deliberating upon how culture in the forms of norms, values, prevailing beliefs, and expectations, appeared to–intentionally or unintentionally–shape the three different approaches to preparing students to become fully-qualified teachers of infants and toddlers. Copyright © 2023 TACTYC.

Researchers examined the cultural hybridization of Froebel’s principles of autonomy, play, and relationship-based care, which feature prominently in infant-toddler care and education in US, UK, New Zealand, and Hong Kong curriculum/pedagogical frameworks. How are these principles enacted worldwide? Methods: Reviewed data from researchers’ existing larger study that included video-cued, multi-vocal (teachers, families, and researchers) analyses, to identify examples of these principles in action in ‘day-in-the-life’ videos of one-year-olds in each country. Findings: The way Froebel’s principles were enacted differed in specific ways found connected to each country’s broader culture, with Hong Kong demonstrating this most distinctly. Significance: Widely endorsed Froebelian principles are adopted but hybridized to represent each country’s uniqueness and to contribute to transmission of cultural values and norms. Copyright © 2023 AERA.

Infants and toddlers (birth to age 3) learn what it means to be members of, and to belong to and be accepted by, their societies by adopting behaviors, attitudes, manners, and ways of thinking that are deeply rooted in what is valued in their culture. Infant and toddler teachers play a pivotal role as transmitters and maintainers of culture when they make decisions about the curriculum, engage in caregiving interactions, make pedagogical decisions, and use language. Cultural meanings ascribed to teachers’ practices in 1-year-old care in the United States and Hong Kong were examined using video data and transcripts of video-elicited focus group discussions. Three important areas in which cultural transmission differed between the United States and Hong Kong relate to: egalitarian versus hierarchical societal structure; individualism versus collectivism; and different goals for independence. Social learning theory and ecological systems theory framed this study and informed interpretation of results. Copyright © 2021 Taylor & Francis Inc.