What Child Development Knowledge Should Be Learned?
Can we agree on a body of child development knowledge and principles that must be mastered by students? Why has the role of child development knowledge in pedagogy become a contentious issue? The implications of possible answers to these questions are also discussed. Part II presents a brief outline of how understandings of the nature of child development can be used to generate basic principles of practice for early childhood education that satisfy developmental criteria. Nineteen principles of early childhood practice are proposed that, taken together, have many implications for planning curricula and programs for young children. Selected ERIC bibliographies on early childhood teacher education and developmentally appropriate practices in early childhood education are included in this publication for the convenience of the reader. An earlier version of Part I of this paper was published in Early Childhood Research Quarterly (volume 11, number 2, 1996). Part I: Child Development Knowl
