In an era of unprecedented economic, political, and social challenges, the European Commission has declared that the future of Europe depends on smart, sustainable, and inclusive growth. The basic means for achieving growth in all three spheres is to improve the quality and effectiveness of education systems across the EU. In this context, Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) is considered an essential foundation for lifelong learning, social integration, development, and later employability. Complementing the central role of the family, ECEC has a lasting effect that cannot be duplicated by any measures taken at a later stage in life (European Commission, 2011). One important foundation for the development of high-quality ECEC services is the professionalization of its workforce (Lazzari, Picchio, & Mussati, 2013).

The present volume is designed to address readers with an interest in the professional development of early childhood educators and the quality of early childhood education environments. Further, its primary purpose is to present an alternative approach to early childhood educators’ professional development. The editors’ initial thoughts regarding this book came from the experience they gained in coordinating the Early Change project. A Comenius Multilateral project (code:517999-LLP-2011-GR-Comenius-CMP) funded with the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Union, the Early Change project was completed on May 31, 2014. Six European countries participated in the project. Greece, the coordinating country (Alexander Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki was the coordinating institute) and Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Portugal, and Romania took part in the study.

Among other goals, the main objective of the project was to enhance the professional development of the participating early childhood educators. The basic means for achieving this was training in the use of the observational rating scale Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised (ECERS-R) (Harms, Clifford, & Cryer, 2005) for self-evaluation and reflection. During the 30-month period of the project’s duration, the feedback and the experiences of the approximately 120 participating early childhood educators suggested noteworthy gains and personal improvement through their use of this instrument. Almost all early childhood educators from the six EU countries reported that their experience from the project and the training they received significantly enhanced their professional learning (Edwards & Nuttall, 2009), empowered their reflection on their daily teaching practices, and facilitated their self-monitoring and realization of every aspect of their work. Over the course of the project, this kind of feedback continued to bolster our belief that a professional development approach that does not focus solely on episteme (pure knowledge) but targets phronesis (practical knowledge) (Andrew, 2015) as well can have a much greater influence on the attitudes of early childhood educators.

The European Lifelong Learning Programme perceives competences as “a combination of knowledge, skills, and attitudes appropriate to the context” (European Commission, 2007, p. 3). However, as Campbell-Barr (2016) eloquently describes, such a definition of competence, especially when viewed through professional development lenses, encounters various difficulties, since “knowledge, skills and attitudes represent very different attributes that shape and inform those who work in ECEC” (p. 3). Campbell-Barr continues, noting that “this technocratic assessment of competence suggests the ability to demonstrate given knowledge, skills and attitudes to an assessor. While this may be possible for knowledge and skills, the demonstration of a given attitude is more problematic, as it implies that attitudes can be switched on and off at prescribed times…” (p. 3). In the same spirit, (Andrew, 2015) highlights how despite emotions and emotional capital being central for people working in ECEC, professional development programs and interventions frequently overlook them. But early childhood educators do not often consider their qualifications as being the only knowledge that defines who they are and what they do (Penn, 2011). Andrew (2015) underscores the difficulty in articulating emotions and practical knowledge for the ECEC workforce, while (Eraut, 2000) recognizes two types of knowledge: codified knowledge, which focuses on the official language used to discuss working in ECEC, and personal/tacit knowledge, which includes the personal resources educators bring to the discussion, their experiences, feelings, implicit theories, and attitudes.

Thus a question arises about whether there is one continuing professional development model that is more effective than others? Or which type of professional knowledge is the most fundamental? (Pirard & Barbier, 2012). In spite of the fledging line of research and the diversity of existing early childhood educator professional development programs, an emerging conceptualization of effective professional development models focuses on providing sustained opportunities for educator learning, and content focused on the outcomes educators are called upon to foster in their classrooms (Burchinal, Magnuson, Powell, & Soliday Hong, 2015). Such professional development programs draw their theoretical support from the argument that adults acquire new knowledge and skills through reflections on their own practice and interactions with trained experts over extended periods of time (Burchinal et al., 2015).

Arguments such as these provide partial support for the rationale of our proposal that there is always “space” to invest in early childhood educators’ autonomy, reflection, and self-evaluation by addressing and empowering their practical knowledge needs. Educators are both the subjects and objects of learning at the center of the professional development process (Avalos, 2011). By offering practical knowledge to early childhood educators and making the most of their emotional capital, professional development activities can be utilized to influence their attitudes.

The Eurofound report (2015) notes that continuing professional development (CPD) interventions that are integrated into the ECEC center’s practice and focus on reflection are more effective. Especially for short-term CPD programs, intensive training with a video feedback component and a focus on practical knowledge has been found to be efficacious in fostering early childhood educators’ competences (ibid.). Of course, the development of an effective CPD program is not the sole responsibility of individual early childhood educators, but requires a synergy from training centers, administrative institutions, and stakeholders. We are convinced that the more we study and reflect on ECEC practices across Europe, the more we can learn from each other and the more we can advance in providing quality ECEC services for the benefit of our children.

The present multiauthor book consists of ten chapters. The main body of the text begins with Chap. 2, which includes a brief description of the current framework and challenges related to ECEC. It discusses the diversity of the existing terms regarding early childhood education and attempts to inform the reader about recent research findings related to the effects that ECEC quality has on children’s development and well-being.

ECEC quality is the focus of Chap. 3, and the concept of quality, its basic features, and its operationalization are discussed in detail. There is also a discussion regarding critiques of the concept of quality. The chapter presents the arguments, on one hand, for the use of normative development as the unique criterion to define and evaluate the impact of quality characteristics and, on the other hand, for the use of a limited ecological perspective on human development as a framework to study quality. It concludes with a brief mention of future perspectiv...