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…
Equity in Education Research Digest
In this first issue of our Research Digest, we highlight three different articles and two progress notes, that intersect in the area of education and public policies. For our Research in Progress notes, Mark Ariba describes work he did with Dr. Phil Triadafilopoulos...
Quantitative Analysis and Methods
More Money Is Not Enough: (Re)Considering Policy Proposals to Increase Federal Funding for Special Education
New policy proposals to increase funding for the American Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)—including recent efforts by the Biden-Harris administration to “fully fund” IDEA—bring a new sense of urgency to understanding how federal special education...
Unequal and Increasingly Unfair: How Federal Policy Creates Disparities in Special Education Funding
The formula used to allocate federal funding to US states for special education is one of IDEA's most critical components. The formula serves as the primary mechanism for dividing available federal dollars among states and represents policy makers’ intent to equalize...
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...
Intervention Creation and Testing
“It is almost impossible to get a spot when you need it”: Understanding parental knowledge and experiences of Canada’s new child care policy
Starting in 2021/2022, Canada implemented a new early childhood education and care (ECEC) policy, the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care (CWELCC). CWELCC aims to reduce the cost of child care to an average of $10CA/day. However, prior implementation of similar...
Assessing Educator Responsivity in Outdoor Early Childhood Education and Care Settings
Outdoor time is essential in early childhood education, yet quality assessments that are specifically focused on outdoor settings remain limited. Existing indoor measures primarily evaluate environment-level quality while neglecting educator-child interactions and the...
Both Me and My Daughter Would Cry Sometimes: Parents’ and Children’s Experiences with Home Education During the Early and Later COVID-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic led to unprecedented disruptions to children’s education across the globe, including abrupt transitions from in-person learning to learning from home. The current study investigates patterns of change in the educational challenges that 453...
Designing Effective Policy Responses
Understanding Unlicensed Early Childhood Education and Care Utilization in Canada
This study examined early childhood education and care (ECEC) utilization in Canada,
focusing on use of unlicensed home child care (HCC) from an equity perspective. Data from the 2011 cycle of the General Social Survey (GSS) were used. Across Canada, parent responses reveal that 16.6% of children between the age of 12 months and entry to school were in unlicensed HCC.
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.
Mailing Address
Department of Management
University of Toronto Scarborough
UTSC Instructional Centre
1095 Military Trail
Toronto, ON M1C 1A4
