Dr. Jane Preston: Hi My name is Dr. Jane Preston.I'm a faculty member in the Faculty of Educationat the University of Prince Edward Island, in Canada.During this short video, I'd like to talk about an articlethat my colleagues and I wrote, entitled "Aboriginalearly childhood education in Canada: Issues of context".

This article was published through Sage,in one of their highly read journalscalled the Journal of Early Childhood Research.Just to provide you with a bit of background informationwith regard to this article, my colleagues and Irealized that although many provincial schoolsacross Canada were attempting to address and improve

the educational disparities between aboriginal andnon-aboriginal learners, we believethat a critical aspect of improving that educational gapwas through the provision of positive learner-filledexperiences for children under the age of nine.

Examples of such early childhood education programsinclude, child-care, daycares, family resource centers,family support programs, nurseries,preschool, head-start programs, preschool programs,kindergarten, and before and after school programsthat are provided for many public schools.

With that in mind, we conducted an extensive literature review.Within our article, we also incorporatedcultural compatibility theory, whichwe claimed involved the idea that when a child is immersedin an educational environment that is culturally

compatible with the values of the community,that child's learning prospects are going to be improved.So what are the key findings documented in the article?Well, from our research, we found that quality, aboriginal,early childhood education encompassed five main domains.

First of all, these programs neededto include aboriginal pedagogy.Second, these programs needed to promote aboriginal languageand culture.Third, these programs needed to be adequately staffedby qualified aboriginal teachers.The programs needed to empower parent

and community-membered voice knowledge wisdom.And lastly, in the case of kindergarten, qualityaboriginal, early childhood educationincluded opportunities for all day, five days a week,kindergarten schedules.Now this article had a high readership.

In fact, it was among the top 30 most-read articlesin the Journal of Early Childhood Research,and we believe this strong readershipis based on a number of key issues.First of all, --within the article--we provide a succinct overview many, many programsthroughout Canada.We also provide a table of those programs.

Second, --within the article-- wesupply well over 100 references.Therein, through this article, weoffer readers potential sources for their own readingand their own research.Another reason that we believe this article is very, verypopular is because what is presented in the article

isn't limited to a Canadian context.Within an international realm, aboriginal or otherwise knownas indigenous, early childhood educationis also extremely important and educational stakeholdersaround the globe are striving for ideason how to improve in this area.This article provides such ideas.

I'm going to close up now, and sayif you haven't already, read the article.And as you read it, critically evaluate the informationwe present.What ideas do you agree with?In contrast, what ideas do you thinkwe have not fully developed or discussed?

In particular, consider cultural compatibility theory,and how might this theory influence your own research.In conclusion, I wish you happy reading,and a life filled with learning.Thank you.