Explore:
Inequities in early childhood education and care (ECEC), formal education and youth training.
Test:
Novel solutions to known problems, collaborating with stakeholders.
Create:
Knowledge mobilization tools, including evidence-informed policy.
We draw on multidisciplinary insights from many fields, including economics, applied psychology and human development, and political science. We work with researchers across Canada and abroad to answer questions, develop interventions and mobilize information.
Featured Insight…
“It’s important to have windows so you can get sunlight”: Understanding children’s perceptions of quality in early childhood education and care settings
Across the globe young children are increasingly spending time in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings. Exposure to ECEC settings is associated with positive developmental outcomes when they are of high quality. Quality rating and improvement systems...
Quantitative Analysis and Methods
Will the Increased Investment in Early Childhood Education and Care in Canada Pay off? It Depends!
This article explores the potential impact of the increased investment in early childhood education and care (ECEC) in Canada. With a multi-billion-dollar investment committed to making high-quality care accessible, affordable, flexible, and inclusive for all...
School segregation matters
When rich and poor kids attend separate schools, inequality deepens. The reasons why school sorting happens, and how deep it goes, varies dramatically by province.
Does work-integrated learning provide a labour market advantage?
Proponents of “on-the-job” training say it provides a vital supplement to in-class learning. But does it really help graduates get jobs?
Intervention Creation and Testing
Conceptualizing and Operationalizing Creativity in Early Childhood Education and Care: A Scoping Review
Creativity has been identified as one of the most important skills of the 21st century. The development of creativity begins at an early age. Given that most children attend early childhood education and care (ECEC) during this critical developmental period, it is...
Beyond the mask: Decoding children’s mental health patterns amidst COVID-19 and the role of parenting
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a substantial impact on children and families worldwide. Children’s mental health has been at the forefront of pandemic research, with several observational studies documenting its decline. Limited person-centred research exists, however,...
Improving young children’s peer collaboration in early educational settings
Peer collaboration is a foundational skill that emerges in early childhood. Children spend significant time in early educational settings, making it an important setting where young children can learn how to collaborate with peers. However, research on how to support children’s collaboration effectively is limited and findings in this area have been inconsistent.
Designing Effective Policy Responses
Child care policy and child care burden
The policy feedback literature highlights that the design of public policies can affect recipients’ experience of those policies and programs. In this paper, we examine the largely unexplored distributional implications of market-based early childhood education and care (ECEC) services.
Charting the Rise of School Choice across Canadian Provinces
This article introduces and discusses the findings of the Canada School Choice Policy Index (CSCPI). This is the first index of its kind that measures the development of school choice policies across the Canadian provinces from 1980 to 2020 using eight unique indicators of choice.
School choice, policy feedback effects, and policy outcomes
Across OECD countries, education choice is proliferating as parents seek and governments permit choice both inside and outside public education systems. The movement of students out of the common public school, however, varies significantly across jurisdictions and sociodemographic characteristics such as race and class. This variation in individual decision making and macro policy outcomes directs us to theorise about the relationship between parental preferences, government responses, and policy outcomes.
Mailing Address
Department of Management
University of Toronto Scarborough
UTSC Instructional Centre
1095 Military Trail
Toronto, ON M1C 1A4
