Preface

Licensing of Source Content

Wherever possible, source content with licenses that are compatible (either public domain or CC-BY) with license of this overall text (CC-BY) were used. But there is limited content, mostly images, that may have more restrictive licensing. To allow readers to effectively source content and determine licensing, footnotes were used liberally throughout this book. If you choose to use this content to remix or create a derivative, please check the licensing carefully.

Language Choices Throughout This Book

Language has power and word choice matters. Please see the following about some of the language choices made for this book.

Terminology

As source content for this book was compiled from hundreds of sources, terminology doesn’t always match up, even after efforts were made to provide consistency across the text.

You may notice there are several ways programs that provide care and education for young children are referred to in this book. In general, these all refer to programs in which children are cared for in groups by non-family members and are used interchangeably.

Early care and education programs

Early childhood education programs

Child care centers or child care programs

Out-of-home care

And at times, just programs or centers

The adults that care for children in these programs may be referred to as:

Early childhood educators or professionals

Teachers

Caregivers

Staff (although this term is often used when including other employees that may work in an early childhood education program outside of the classroom).

Gendered Language

At times you may notice that a child or adult is referred to with the pronoun they or them. This is to be more gender inclusive. Unless specifically stated, when children or adults are gendered, it is not to be exclusionary (and likely is due to the language used in the source content).

Family Structures and Forms

Throughout this book, the word families has been used in place of parents in most places. This is to be as inclusive as possible of the different family structures in which the adults responsible for caring for children may not fit the label of parents. When the source content used the word parents (referring specifically to the adults that are responsible for a child), efforts were made to also use the words caregivers or guardians to be inclusive of all families.

Person First Language

Because people are not the situations they encounter (such as poverty) or may experience (such as disabilities or medical conditions), person-first language is used. This is not intended to discount characteristics that may be part of a person’s identity but in an attempt to be respectful.

Special Features Throughout the Book

There are a few callout boxes throughout the chapters that help highlight information and offer you opportunities to think more about the content you’ve read. Here is a description of what each of these boxes is.