Shareen Abramson is a professor of early childhood education at California State University, Fresno. She is the director of the Joyce M. Huggins Early Education Center and coordinator of the early childhood graduate program. She received a Ph.D. in early childhood education from Peabody College for Teachers, Vanderbilt University.

Steven Banks received his doctorate from the University of Tennessee in educational psychology and teaches educational psychology, research, and statistics at Marshall University. He has conducted various evaluation projects for grant programs, including a Head Start transition project, and coauthored Educational Psychology: For Teachers in Training with C. Thompson (West Publishing).

Sallee Beneke is an instructor in the Department of Early Childhood Education and the director of the Early Childhood Education Center at Illinois Valley Community College in Oglesby, Illinois (http://www.ivcc.edu/daycare/ Editor's note: This url has changed:http://www.ivcc.edu/ecec.aspx?id=4972). She has previously worked as a master teacher, pre-kindergarten at-risk teacher, early childhood special education teacher, and day care director. She is author of Rearview Mirror: Reflections on a Preschool Car Project and coauthor of Windows on Learning and Teacher Materials for Windows on Learning with Judy Helm and Kathy Steinheimer.

Tess Bennett is on the faculty at Eastern Illinois University in the Department of Early Childhood, Elementary, and Middle Education. She has 30 years of experience in the field of early childhood education and early childhood special education. Her research includes studies of inclusionary settings, Head Start and the educational experiences it provides, the Project Approach, as well as other topics related to early childhood education. From 1992 through 1993, she held a Fulbright Scholar Award to study social support and families of children with disabilities in Norway. She is a private consultant working with Head Start, Early Head Start, and public schools nationally.

Navaz Peshotan Bhavnagri is an associate professor of early childhood education at Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan. She has served the field of early childhood education for 38 years, of which 30 have been in higher education and the remaining working with young children. She has diverse work experiences in the United States and India. She is an author and coauthor of several articles and chapters on topics such as parent-peer linkages, parent-child relationships, home-school-community relationships, parenting stress of African American mothers, culture and infancy, cross-cultural child development, portfolio assessments, program evaluations, and children’s literature. She has served on publication committees of Early Childhood Research Quarterly, Early Education and Development, Early Childhood Research & Practice, and Childhood Education.

Toni S. Bickart was a primary-grade teacher and a teacher mentor, and she presents workshops for teachers and parents around the country. She is an author of five books for teachers and parents as well as a publication on literacy for the U.S. Department of Education. She is a senior associate at Teaching Strategies, Inc., and has a master’s degree in social work from Columbia University.

Daungvan Bunnag, a native of Thailand, received her bachelor’s degree in education in 1996 from Chulalongkorn University, where she majored in early childhood education. After obtaining her M.S. in education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she continued to pursue her doctoral degree. For her dissertation, she plans to investigate the influences of culture on early childhood education programs, specifically those that affect Western principles once introduced to an Eastern society such as Thailand. During her years at the University of Illinois, she also has had many opportunities to explore her interest in Dr. Montessori and her methods. The work presented here is a portion of her research on teachers’ adaptations within Montessori classrooms.

Sylvia C. Chard is professor of early childhood education at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. She is coauthor with Lilian G. Katz of Engaging Children’s Minds: The Project Approach and co-director with Lilian Katz of the annual summer institute of the same name. Dr. Chard is also the author of two practical guides to the Project Approach published by Scholastic in 1998. She is director of the Child Study Center at the University of Alberta, a laboratory school with children from preschool to grade 3 where project work is an important part of the program. Sylvia Chard teaches workshops and courses around the world on the Project Approach and promotes teachers sharing their experiences by means of a Web site: http://www.project-approach.com.

Dong Hwa Choi is an assistant professor in the Elementary and Early Childhood Education Department at Indiana State University. She finished her Ph.D. at the University of Missouri–Kansas City. She is interested in how children develop their social skills and emotional intelligence.

Astrid A. Cisneros is a preschool educator in Mexico. She holds a bachelor’s degree in kindergarten education and another bachelor’s on learning disabilities. Her research interests are in early literacy, especially on the use of constructivist teaching to teach reading and writing to young children, teacher action research, and teacher education. During the past eight years, she has been selected for a national award for teaching excellence.

Edith J. Cisneros-Cohernour is an associate professor of law and education at the Universidad Autonoma de Yucatan and a doctoral candidate in education at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests are in evaluation and professional and organizational development. Especially interested in program, personnel, and curriculum evaluation and development, she has a strong interest in the ethical aspects of research and the study of effective teaching for multicultural children. In addition to a Fulbright Fellowship, she has received research grants from LASPAU, the Tinker Foundation, and the Center of Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of Illinois.

Ann-Marie Clark received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Lilian Katz was her advisor. She holds an A.A. from Stephens College, B.S. from the University of Missouri-Columbia, and an M.A. in education from the University of Kentucky. She served as a special education teacher for 21 years in Missouri and Kentucky in inner-city, suburban, and rural settings. She has been a research assistant at the ERIC/EECE Clearinghouse, staff writer for the National Parent Information Network, and a research assistant for an action research project in the Champaign, Illinois, public schools. Her research interests include mentoring teachers as they adopt the Project Approach.

Bev Clark, Ed.D., is the director of early childhood for the Lincoln Unified School District. She has more than 20 years of experience in Lincoln as a parent, aide, teacher, project coordinator, and director. Bev is responsible for bringing an Even Start native language (Khmer) preschool and seven state preschool programs to Lincoln, and through academic mentoring and after-school learning grants, the school day and school year have been redefined to expand services to children in the district. Bev was awarded a Title VII doctoral fellowship. Her thesis is a longitudinal study of first- and second-language acquisition.

Lorraine DeJong has been a member of the faculty in the Department of Education at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, since 1995. She received her Ph.D. in child development from Florida State University in 1997. Before coming to Furman, Lorraine was a public school teacher in Florida where she taught courses in child development for over 15 years. One of her most memorable teaching positions was acting as director of an early childhood program serving infant children of teenage parents for Leon County Schools in Tallahassee, Florida.

Darlene DeMarie is an associate professor of educational psychology at the University of South Florida in Tampa. She completed a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the University of Florida (UF) and master’s degrees in psychology (UF) and reading supervision (Ohio University). She co-founded and co-directed Muskingum College’s Early Childhood Summer Training Institute (ECSTI) and served as faculty administrator of the college’s Center for Child Development for 11 years. She also taught first grade, second grade, and elementary/junior high students with learning disabilities/behavior disorders. Her current research focuses on children’s strategies for learning and children’s experiences as reflected in their photography.

Diane Trister Dodge has been a leader in the field of early childhood education for over 35 years, directing local and national programs. She is an author of The Creative Curriculum for Early Childhood as well as numerous other books for parents and teachers. Diane is the founder and president of Teaching Strategies, Inc., a company that seeks to improve the quality of early chidhood programs by developing curriculum and providing staff development services. She holds a master’s degree in early childhood education from the Bank Street College of Education. Diane is a well-known speaker and trainer.

Ellen Dodge has been a speech, language, and communication teacher for 16 years. She facilitates children’s acquisition of communication skills necessary for social and academic success. She has published five books in the area of communication and presents workshops nationally. She received her bachelor’s degree in speech-language pathology from SMU, and her M.Ed. from Southwest Texas State University.

Tom Drummond is an instructor in early childhood education at North Seattle Community College in Seattle, Washington. He has been examining the essentials of learning and teaching with videotape and audio recording for 30 years. Through collaborative inquiry into the events of teaching, he has developed ways for helping teachers discover for themselves the complexities of becoming effective facilitators of children’s development. His videotape and collaborative activities have proved effective in helping early childhood teachers and caregivers improve both the quality of their professional practice and the experiences of children.

Barbara Dulik has 27 years of teaching experience in the elementary grades and as the founding director/teacher of the Early Learning Center at the Phillips Brooks School in Menlo Park, California. Her focus has always been on the importance of kindness, curiosity about the world around us, and the confidence to take chances and make mistakes. She has B.A. and M.A. degrees in elementary education from Stanford University. She attended the Winter Study Program in Reggio Emilia in February 1999.

Mary Jane Elliott, M.A., teaches 4-year-olds at the Hong Kong International School and is the current grade-level leader. Mary Jane has conducted numerous workshops on the Project Approach with teachers in the United States, Malaysia, and Hong Kong. She worked as an educational consultant in Taiwan and China. On three different occasions, she presented reflections on classroom experience with project work at NAEYC national conferences. An article focusing on highlights of project work was published in Young Children. Mary Jane is on the executive council of OMEP-Hong Kong and is actively engaged in promoting high-quality early childhood education.

Nancy File is an assistant professor of early childhood education at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Her research interests focus on how teachers perceive their classroom roles with young children and interact to mediate their learning, and teacher preparation and professional development.

Lucia French received her Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the University of Illinois in 1980, studying with Ann Brown and I. McVicar Hunt. Post-doctoral study at CUNY with Katherine Nelson followed. Dr. French joined the University of Rochester faculty in 1983. Her basic research focuses on the relations between language and cognition during the preschool years. When Eastman Kodak invited Dr. French to develop a demonstration preschool program and curriculum to support school readiness, she shifted her focus to applied research and to the possibilities that educational environments offer for supporting early development.

Kathleen W. Glaser is principal of Hollywood Elementary School, which has an enrollment of 670 students in grades kindergarten to 5 and is located in St. Mary’s County, Maryland. She recently received the Washington Post’s Distinguished Educational Leadership Award and serves on the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Bay Schools Project advisory panel. Ms. Glaser has been a classroom teacher, resource teacher, staff developer, instructor for college courses in early childhood education, as well as an elementary principal for 17 years.

Mary Jo Graham completed her undergraduate work in child development at Michigan State University and received her doctorate in curriculum and instruction from Ohio University. She has taught in preschool and primary classrooms, supervised child care centers and resource and referral services, and developed a curriculum for child care apprentices prior to joining Marshall University, where she teaches early childhood courses.

Dominic Gullo is professor of early childhood education at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. He is interested in the relationship between preschool experiences and children’s social and academic competence in kindergarten and primary grades. He consults nationally with school districts in early childhood education and assessment and serves on numerous national boards. Dom is the author of three books and two curricula, and has published widely in academic journals.

Jeanne Helm is assistant professor in child care and education at Richland Community College, Decatur, Illinois. Jeanne has a B.S. in education and a master’s degree in early childhood education from Illinois State University. Jeanne has 20 years’ experience in teaching the preschool child. She is a popular trainer and speaker in local child care centers and preschools, known for her fast-paced, practical, and participatory programs. Jeanne has worked with child care directors, teachers, and administrators—all with a common focus of child advocacy and education.

Anne Hunt currently teaches kindergarten at Park St. School in Fredericton. She has returned to the classroom after seven years at the Early Childhood Centre at the University of New Brunswick, where she was coordinator of the Initiative ’91 teacher edu-cation program for kindergarten teachers. Most recently she was co-director of the Parenting for a Literate Community Project, where she took the lead with the children’s program. Her writing and research interests include links between theory and practice, early literacy development, and home-school connections.

Gera Jacobs is an associate professor of early childhood at the University of South Dakota. She has a master’s degree in early childhood special education and a doctorate in curriculum and instruction. She has worked for many years as a preschool teacher, kindergarten teacher, and elementary school teacher. She taught early childhood special education courses on two Native American reservations and currently teaches early childhood courses and supervises student teachers and practicum students at the University of South Dakota. She is involved in several early childhood organizations and serves as president of the South Dakota Association for the Education of Young Children.

Tamar Jacobson was born in Zimbabwe and traveled to Israel to become a kindergarten teacher with the Israeli Ministry of Education. In 1997, she completed a doctorate in early childhood education at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Currently, Tamar is director of the University at Buffalo Child Care Centers and adjunct faculty at SUNY at Buffalo. Dr. Jacobson is a member of the Professional Development Panel of NAEYC, co-president-elect of NYSAEYC, and presents extensively at regional, state, and national levels about appropriate practice, staff development, infants and toddlers, early childhood environments, and anti-bias curriculum.

Riyo Kadota is a doctoral candidate in early childhood education as an advisee of Dr. Bernard Spodek at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is a native of Osaka, Japan, and came to the university to explore her interests in the nature of young children, teachers, schools, and communities through early childhood education in the United States. She has been working for the Great Lakes Quality Improvement Center for Disabilities for two years, conducting training and technical training needs assessment studies and developing research with Dr. Tess Bennett. Currently, she is working on her dissertation. The focus of her study is inclusion in Head Start programs in the Midwest regions.

Catherine M. Kearn graduated from Alverno College, Milwaukee, with a B.A. in elementary education and then taught elementary school for 13 years. She returned to school for nursery/preschool certification, then completed a master’s in child care administration. Dr. Kearn has worked as an early childhood teacher, director, and administrator while also teaching teachers for a total of 27 years. She recently sold her center in order to spend more time advocating for children and to study for a doctorate in leadership for service and education. She recently completed her doctorate at Cardinal Stritch University. She is active in a number of state child care organizations.

Carol R. Keyes is a professor of education at Pace University and an early childhood consultant to the public schools. She began her career as a parent and then teacher/director in a cooperative nursery school. A founding member of the National Coalition for Campus Children’s Centers, Inc., she was one of its early presidents. At Pace, Dr. Keyes has served as the chairperson of early childhood education and director of the Child Study Centers. Her scholarly work has focused on campus children’s programs, children’s transitions, teachers as researchers, and parent/teacher partnerships.

Sue Krolikowski is a doctoral student in early childhood education at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. She previously taught kindergarten and Title I reading in the Detroit public schools, and she has presented at national conferences. She is the author of “Building Bridges to Reading,” a paper presented at an annual convention of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). She was also one of eight national winners of an essay contest about using trade books with children that was sponsored by NCTE and the Children’s Book Council.

Jon Kulhanek has been an early childhood educator for 16 years. His focus is on the development of programs that value creativity, intrinsic motivation, and social collaboration within an emergent curriculum. He has a bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture and master’s of education in early childhood from the University of Minnesota. He attended the Winter Study Program in Reggio Emilia in 1999.

Betty Liebovich is a doctoral student in curriculum and instruction at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She holds an M.S. in human and community resources emphasizing child and family studies from the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point, and a B.A. in women’s studies emphasizing child and family studies from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She has been a teacher of kindergarten and preschool, an owner/operator of a family child care facility, and an administrator for Head Start. At the University of Illinois, she has served as an instructor for classes in rhetoric and parent involvement, and as a teaching assistant in the University Primary School.

Barbara Lowenthal is a professor of early childhood special education at Northeastern Illinois University. Her areas of expertise are in early special childhood education and learning disabilities. Dr. Lowenthal has coauthored two textbooks titled Attention Deficit Disorders: Assessment and Teaching and Preschool Children: At Risk and with Disabilities. She is a coauthor of a chapter in the World Book on attention deficit disorders and of an online presentation titled “Ask the Experts” sponsored by the Learning Disabilities Association. Dr. Lowenthal has published a number of articles in reference journals and presented widely in her areas of expertise.

Janey Marquez has a bachelor’s in child development and has taken postgraduate classes at Pacific Oaks College in Pasadena. She has taught in Head Start, child care, and a high school vocational program. She has been an assistant director and a Head Start center director. Ms. Marquez currently is a child development manager with Southwest Human Development Head Start in Phoenix, AZ. After attending Project Approach training, she has developed and presented training there and in the community in emergent curriculum and the Project Approach. She has been following Gloria McGinty’s development as a teacher for six years.

Gloria McGinty has been a teacher with Southwest Head Start for 12 years. She has an A.A.S. in early childhood education and a CDA, and she is working on her bachelor’s degree. Ms. McGinty currently works in a partnership between Head Start and Phoenix College, which brings Head Start and the community college together to strengthen the collaboration between home and school. A visit to her classroom by Lilian Katz and a brief exchange about how she applied the children’s interest into her curriculum sparked a change that is still in process. Today Gloria says, “In a sense, my students became the teachers and I, the student.”

Jean Mendoza is a mother and doctoral student in early childhood education at the University of Illinois. She has been teaching children for more than 20 years. She teaches children’s literature at the University of Illinois in the College of Education. Her scholarship is informed by her experiences as a parent and educator.

Andrea Michaelson holds a bachelor of science degree in environmental design from Art Center College of Design and a teacher certification for early childhood education from UCLA extension. Her prior study of architecture combined with extensive study in environmental, product, and graphic design have enabled her to offer a range of experiences to her classroom specifically suited to their curriculum, which help them to realize their learning goals. Ms. Michaelson has visited Reggio Emilia, attended many conferences, and done extensive research on early childhood practices. Ms. Michaelson has worked closely with Lisa Rosenthal at Seeds University Elementary School in designing curriculum for 5- to 7-year-olds.

Robert P. Moreno, Ph.D., is currently an assistant professor of applied human development in the Department of Human and Community Development at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He received his B.A. in psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles, and his Ph.D. in child and adolescent development in the School of Education from Stanford University. He has also served as an Illinois Cooperative Extension Service state specialist. His research examines familial influences on children’s learning and academic achievement among Latinos and low-income families. He is currently a National Academy of Education/Spencer Fellow.

Pamela Nuttal Nason is a professor of early childhood education and curriculum theory at the University of New Brunswick. Her research centers upon the relationship between maternal thought and practice and professional thought and practice, particularly as it pertains to the development of literate communities. Most recently, she was co-director of the UNB Parenting for a Literate Community project for Health Canada and took the lead in the parent education component.

Debbie Noyes is an assistant professor of early childhood education at Greenville College in Greenville, Illinois. She received a master’s degree in early childhood education from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville and is currently a doctoral student at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Debbie previously taught first grade and pre-kindergarten. She has given many presentations on emergent literacy and the Project Approach. She was part of the group presentations on the Project Approach with Lilian Katz and Sylvia Chard at the NAEYC conferences in 1996 and 1998.

Barbara Parris is acting principal of Erdiston Teachers’ Training College in Barbados. She holds a B.A. from the University of the West Indies and an M.Ed. in educational administration from the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education/University of Toronto. Mrs. Parris assumed the substantive post of deputy principal of the College in 1996, after having served as head of the business studies department of a secondary school. She is currently pursuing doctoral studies at the University of the West Indies, Barbados campus.

Karen L. Peterson is professor and coordinator of the Human Development Program at Washington State University Vancouver. Her Ph.D. in child development is from Iowa State University (1980), with M.S. and B.S. degrees from Texas Woman’s University. Her professional interests include early childhood education (history, theory, and curriculum), teacher preparation, and higher education. Her experience with children has included full-day child care, Head Start, and university demonstration schools. The idea for “the invisible mentor” developed in response to observations of colleagues and friends attending the National Association for the Education of Young Children national meetings during the past 15 years.

Patricia Ragan, Ph.D., is a member of the faculty in the Professional Program in Education at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay, where she serves as the early childhood coordinator. She completed her Ph.D. in infant and child development and has worked with children in public school classrooms, early intervention programs, and Head Start. She has served on several local and state advisory committees/task forces on early childhood, and she has written and coordinated numerous grants to support teaching and learning. Dr. Ragan is currently the program manager for a 3-year FIPSE grant to restructure early childhood teacher preparation.

James Raths graduated with a doctorate in research, evaluation, and statistics from New York University. He has since served on the faculties of a number of universities including the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, University of Maryland, University of Illinois, University of Vermont, and the University of Delaware. His research interests include the study of teaching and teacher education. For many years, Raths has been an executive editor of the Journal of Educational Research. Currently, along with his assignments as professor of education in the School of Education at the University of Delaware, he is working with the Teacher Education Accreditation Council as a member of its staff.

Debbie Reese, Ph.D., studied with Lilian Katz at the University of Illinois. Her research is on children’s literature with a focus on representations of Native Americans in children’s picture books. Reese has written for the ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education, and her work has appeared in Early Child Development and Care, The Horn Book, School Library Journal, and Rethinking Schools. She contributed a chapter to A World of Babies, the acclaimed book on parenting across cultures, published by Cambridge University Press. An award-winning teacher, she teaches children’s literature at the University of Illinois. Reese, a Pueblo Indian from New Mexico, has taught in elementary schools in Oklahoma and New Mexico.

Lisa Rosenthal has been teaching 5- to 7-year-olds (K/1) for the past four years at Seeds University Elementary School (UES). This laboratory school on the UCLA campus is connected directly to the university’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. Prior to her experience at UES, she worked with 4-year-olds in a preschool whose program was inspired by the preschools in Reggio Emilia. Ms. Rosenthal was able to travel to Italy to observe and study those schools firsthand. She is currently working on a research project with UCLA professor of education Dr. Fred Erickson on documenting and communicating methodology.

Dianne Rothenberg is co-director of the ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education (ERIC/EECE), director of the Reading Pathfinder Project, PARENTS AskERIC, and the National Parent Information Network, and owner of several national electronic discussion lists in the areas of early, elementary, and middle level education. Ms. Rothenberg has authored a number of journal articles, book chapters, and conference papers on topics related to full-text information online, information technology, and early childhood education, and is the former editor of two nationally marketed newsletters: MicroNotes on Children and Computers and Public Library Watch. Ms. Rothenberg has been involved in online educational networking since the early 1980s. Ms. Rothenberg’s research interests include information services for parents, obsolescence of the published literature, and the uses of information technology in education.

Claudia Shuster is associate professor and coordinator of early childhood education at Central Connecticut State University. She served as a fellow at the Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy at Yale University from 1986-1989. She currently is the professional development school university facilitator in an elementary magnet school, where she is engaged in research on developing emotional intelligence in young children. As a consultant to the Connecticut State Department of Education, she is creating a sequential, developmentally based observational process for teachers to assess and plan for young children in the context of their daily classroom activities.

Patricia Steinhaus began her career in 1972 teaching 2-year-olds in a child care center in a housing project. After completing an M.S. at Northern Illinois University and serving as the center’s director for two years, she took a sabbatical and started a family. In 1986, she began teaching pre-kindergarten and completed another master’s degree at Southern Illinois University. In 1994, Ms. Steinhaus joined the Illinois State Board of Education as a consultant with the Early Childhood Division. She is presently an assistant professor at Chicago State University and is finishing her doctorate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Dawn Thomas serves as the project coordinator and infant/toddler liaison for the Great Lakes Quality Improvement Center for Disabilities (GLQIC-D), located at the University of Illinois. She has worked with Head Start since coming to the university nine years ago and Early Head Start since its initial funding (Wave I), providing integrated service delivery for the grantees in collaboration with the Region V Quality Network (Q-Net). Dawn has presented nationally on such topics as collaboration, interagency agreements, and individualizing goals and objectives for children (birth to 5) in the context of the IEP/IFSP. Dawn enjoys the creative arts, particularly music and writing, and finds the expression of both to be beneficial and fruitful in every area of life.

Karen VanderVen is professor and past director of the Program in Child Development and Child Care at the University of Pittsburgh. Interests in early childhood education include dynamical systems theory and its applications; professionalization, including career, curriculum, and leadership development; play and activity; and lifespan and intergenerational issues. Her writings in these areas have been published in journals and edited books in the field. Recently, Dr. VanderVen completed a term as secretary of the National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators. She serves on the editorial boards of six journals, is the author of over 200 publications on child-related issues, has received several national awards for her work in professionalizing practice with children and youth, and has presented all over the world.

Cheryl W. Van Hook is assistant professor of early childhood education at Ohio University. She is a graduate of the Child and Family Studies program at the University of Tennessee. She has experience working in the early childhood classroom, including university lab schools and Head Start, administering mentoring programs with young children, and developing curriculum for mentors. Her teaching and research interests include preparing teachers to develop creative experiences in the learning community and preparing teachers to develop an integrated curriculum that reflects the diversity of our world, promotes anti-bias, and is inclusive of all children.

Teresa Vasconcelos is a professor of early childhood education at the Escola Superior de Educacao do Instituto Politecnico de Lisboa. She was director for basic education at the Ministry of Education and coordinator of the Interministerial “Office for the Expansion and Development of Preschool Education” in Portugal. She started her career as an early childhood educator and completed postgraduate studies in educational supervision at Bank Street College of Education. Dr. Vasconcelos completed a Ph.D. in early childhood and elementary education at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, working and researching under the supervision of Lilian Katz, Daniel Walsh, and Bernard Spodek. She has been developing professional activities in the areas of initial, in-service, complementary, and higher graduate formation of teachers. She has developed research and published nationally and internationally around educational policies and curriculum and the practice of excellent early childhood education teachers. The book Ao Redor da Mesa Grande: Pratica Educativa de Ana came out of her Ph.D. work at the University of Illinois.

Thrity G. Vaswani is reader (i.e., associate professor), faculty of social work, Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda, India. Her bachelor’s degree is in child development, and her master’s degree is in social work. She has served in the field of children and family services for over 30 years, which includes educating nursery school teachers for village preschools and child and family welfare workers. She has published in American and Indian journals. Her scholarly work includes research projects on girls, parent-teacher associations, and elderly women. She has presented at national and international conferences in the United States, Austria, and Sri Lanka.

Sara Wilford, M.S., M.Ed., is director of the Early Childhood Center and Art of Teaching graduate program at Sarah Lawrence College, where she holds the Roy E. Larsen Chair in Psychology. In 1993, she was a delegate to the schools of Reggio Emilia, Italy, and, in 1996, a delegate to the U.S./South Africa Joint Conference on Early Childhood Education. She is a member of CHILD magazine’s editorial advisory board and received an Outstanding Service Award from Westchester Community College in 1999. Her writings include What You Need to Know when Your Child Is Learning to Read (Scholastic, Inc., 1998).

Pam Whitty is an associate professor in early childhood and curriculum in the faculty of education at the University of New Brunswick. Her research and writing interests include children’s early literacies, educational thought by and about women, and the integration of arts with literacy. Most recently, she has been involved in the UNB Parenting for a Literate Community Project and took the lead on the multimedia aspects of this project. Pam Whitty and Pam Nason have recently been awarded a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council grant titled “Emerging Literacies of Home, Family, and Community: Valuing the Literacies of Community Workers and Mothers.”

Eunju Yun is a doctoral student in early childhood education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her advisor is Dr. Lilian Katz. She holds a bachelor’s of education in elementary education and a master’s of education in the philosophy of education, both from Korea. She was an elementary teacher in Korea before enrolling in the early childhood education program at Indiana University, Bloomington. Since coming to the University of Illinois, she has served as a graduate assistant to Dr. Katz at the annual conference on the Project Approach at Allerton Park. Her academic interest is in the social and moral development of children through the Project Approach.

Naama Zoran has worked in the early childhood field in different areas for the last 20 years, including directing intervention programs for parents and children ages birth to 4 years. She worked with the founders of the early childhood department in the Ministry of Education and has supervised educational settings all over Israel. Ms. Zoran was also a part of the writing team for the national curriculum for 2- and 3-year-olds. She brought the Reggio Emilia approach to Israel. Ms. Zoran also established an early childhood program in the Department of Education at Tel-Hai College..

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