International Publication Features Mercy Professors’ Articles on Early Childhood Education and Care in a Cultural Context

Mercy College Associate Professors Elena Nitecki, Ph.D. and Helge Wasmuth, Ph.D. have both edited and authored articles in the internationally published book, “Globalization, Transformation, and Cultures in Early Childhood Education and Care: Reconceptualization and Comparison.”

The publication is a collection of articles authored by professors representing global universities and colleges who study how the discussions and terminology used in the field of early childhood education and care (ECEC) across cultures are vastly different, and how consideration of these differences in discourse and systems can better inform worldwide education practices.

The book features professors who are members of the Cultures of Early Childhood Education and Care (CECEC) International Research Network. They reside in Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, Iran and the United States, and Mercy is the sole United States-based college represented in the group. Nitecki and Wasmuth are founding members of CECEC.

The goal of the CECEC is to foster international research collaboration and develop frameworks for comparing early childhood education and care methods across cultures. The network was founded at the University of Education Schwäbisch Gmünd in the summer of 2017 and since then, members have undertaken common research activities and learned from each other. The book publication demonstrates the great process that CECEC has made in the past two years and is the result of intensive work, discussion and scientific reflection.

The book is envisioned to assist international scholars, and ECEC associations and groups, steer conversations about how to raise and educate children in a cultural context. It demonstrates that there is opportunity for innovation, expanded thought and diversity in the ECEC field.

Praise for the book has been widespread, and accolades state the collection “… [is] a fascinating exchange of intercultural ideas, practices and strategies, “…allows for more inclusive and balanced perspectives on the lives of young children and “… [is] powerfully generative and opens readers to complexity and richness found globally in childhood.”