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Posted on TVO Today.

Excerpt: "We'll be looking back at more than a decade of full-day kindergarten in Ontario. How well has it worked? Were the original concerns about it warranted? And has it accomplished its goals. With guests Jane Bertrand of OISE at the University of Toronto; the Toronto Star's Kristin Rushowy, and the University of Toronto's Elizabeth Dhuey."

Excerpt: "The Atkinson Centre at OISE/University of Toronto and Institute for Change Leaders hosted a Virtual Roundtable - Have your say about Canada’s new Early Learning and Child Care Legislation, on March 9, 2022. The event was in response to February 11 correspondence from the Federal Secretariat on Early Learning and Child Care seeking feedback on legislation to enshrine the principles of a Canada-wide child care system in law and support a lasting federal commitment over time. The following is a summary from the roundtable."

Posted on The Conversation.

Excerpt: "The early learning and care workforce is female dominated and racialized. It’s among the lowest-paid sectors even compared to other female-dominated jobs requiring similar education and experience.

When compared to male professions with similar education and training requirements, the wage gap is even more staggering, and shows how our society’s devaluation of labour related to educating and caring for young children is deeply gendered."

Excerpt: "In a recent study, Dr. Rossana Bisceglia and her colleagues wanted to see what factors affected mothers' ability to provide sensitive care to their children. The hypothesis was that both biological and environmental variables would impact mothers’ sensitivity, and that certain combinations of factors would be more detrimental to parenting than others."

Excerpt: "Research demonstrates that young children teach one another, showing individual differences in the amount of teaching they do and the strategies they use. There is a special teacher-learner relationship among siblings, in particular.... We developed a measure to capture teaching between siblings when the youngest child was age 3 and their older sibling between 4-8 years old..."

Excerpt: "In a study recently published in the journal of Developmental Psychology, psychologist Jean-Christophe Meunier and his colleagues at the �鶹��ý tested to see if playing favorites, as a family style, has negative consequences for all children in the family, rather than just the disfavored child."

Excerpt: "In a study recently published in Social Sciences and Medicine, PhD student Dillon Browne and psychologist Jennifer Jenkins sought to determine if being a disfavoured sibling can have negative consequences in terms of general health. Browne and Jenkins followed 501 families over a period of 18 months as part of an investigation called the Kids, Families, Places Study, led by Dr. Jenkins at the �鶹��ý..."

The report on full day early learning, envisioned family-friendly schools where, “…hours after the last bell has rung the school is still buzzing. Parents come and go, picking up children who have participated in extended programming. There are recreational, arts, and social activities and homework clubs for the children, and a concurrent parenting program is running.”

Early years programs are undergoing significant changes in Ontario. Full day kindergarten will be available to all 4-and 5-year-old children by 2014. School boards are required to secure extended day options where there is sufficient demand. Child care programs are repurposing to serve younger aged children and their families.

The Atkinson Centre joined Ryerson University, George Brown College, and the Child Care Resource and Research Unit in sponsoring a Symposium on "Pedagogical Leadership: Lead From Where You Stand" to discuss the recommendations for staffing Ontario's new Early Learning Programs and Child and Family Centre.

Robert Fairholm, a director of the Centre for Spatial Economics (CSE), brings his 20 years of experience in economic analysis, modeling and forecasting to quantify the benefits of new public spending on young children revealing some startling findings.

Excerpt: "If there was one thing the government could do right now for children and families in Ontario, what could that be? ....We have an opportunity to build a foundation for services for children and their families – but that means making a radical move toward something different and innovative. It means moving away from the rhetoric of business as usual, working within the silos that fit like an old sweater but are starting to smell a little mouldy."