Looking for Great Early Childhood Education PhD Programs

[DangerDave]

Hey folks! I'm beginning my search for schools for the Fall 2019 season, and am struggling to find the best programs for research oriented PhDs in early childhood education. Any recommendations? So far, I have Harvard and Stanford on my list. 

Also, anyone else interested in early childhood education research?

Thanks!

[ZeChocMoose]

On 6/18/2018 at 9:57 PM, DangerDave said:

Hey folks! I'm beginning my search for schools for the Fall 2019 season, and am struggling to find the best programs for research oriented PhDs in early childhood education. Any recommendations? So far, I have Harvard and Stanford on my list. 

Also, anyone else interested in early childhood education research?

Thanks!

The common rule of thumb for PhD programs is to find faculty that you want to work with by searching for and reading their journal articles and then finding out where they are currently employed to see whether the program is a good fit for your interests.  It doesn't really help to find the "best" program if there is no one there that you want to work with or has the necessary expertise to chair your dissertation.

[t_ruth]

Agree with ZeChocMoose. For work in early childhood, check out SRCD--you will see a lot of those in this field involved with early childhood work. Do you have a specific topic of interest? Perhaps there are those of us who can provide some guidance.

[DangerDave]

Thanks t_ruth and ZeChocMoose! I'm coming to Academia from industry (Toy), so a lot of this is new to me! SRCD looks like a fantastic resource - I'm going to look through there for leads.

And I'm most interested in very early childhood work, i.e 0-3, especially 0-1, and am particularly interested in novel approaches to teaching/development at these ages. I'm going through SRCD now, but is there any group/researcher focused on that younger range that you would recommend looking at? 

 

Thanks again! 

[t_ruth]

With that age group I think you will have more luck with Dev Psych programs than with Ed programs--unless you were interested in early childhood policy. I can PM you a name or two.

[birdy-bear]

I agree with @t_ruth and @ZeChocMoose: finding academics whose research you're interested in and working backwards to the universities is a good way to get started! You might try reading abstracts in the Journal of Early Intervention, Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, and Early Childhood Education Journal. If you find something you like and want to read more, researchers will sometimes make their articles available on ResearchGate or provide full copies upon request. If you're interested in a SPED focus, you might try looking at publications coming out of Vanderbilt, Kansas, UT Austin, UO, and UGA. These are just a few institutions who have faculty doing interesting work... Or interesting to me, at least!

I also agree with @t_ruth that you might be unlikely to find many folks researching infants in ECE. Most ECE programs bill themselves as covering ages 0-6 or 0-8, but in my experience, these programs tend to focus on ages 2-6. 

I attended Harvard about a decade ago, and at that time, HGSE wasn't known for ECE. I see they've introduced an early childhood initiative since then, so it may be different now, but the "big name" schools aren't necessarily where you'll find the strongest ECE programs!

Edited June 23, 2018 by birdy-bear

[NEmikon]

My friend graduated from this Academy. According to him, there is a good level of teaching there, so I think you will like it there. However, I also advise you to look at the list of teachers and works published by these teachers. This way you will understand whether you are interested in a particular course.