Early Childhood Research Quarterly

Early Childhood Research Quarterly
Title	Early Childhood Research Quarterly
Discipline	Child development; developmental psychology; early childhood studies
Abbreviation	ECRQ
Publisher	Elsevier
Country	Netherlands
Frequency	Quarterly
History	1986–present
Impact	3.1
Impact-year	2023
Issn	0885-2006

Contents

Early Childhood Research Quarterly Early Childhood Research Quarterly is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal focused on empirical, theoretical, and policy-relevant studies concerning young children. It publishes interdisciplinary research bridging University of Chicago, Harvard University, Columbia University Teachers College, University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University communities with international scholarship from University College London, University of Toronto, University of Melbourne, University of Amsterdam, and University of Cape Town. The journal is frequented by scholars affiliated with institutions such as Yale University, University of Michigan, University of Oxford, UCL Institute of Education, and Northwestern University.

Overview

Early Childhood Research Quarterly emphasizes rigorous investigations into early childhood processes, sampling traditions from investigators associated with National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, MacArthur Foundation, Spencer Foundation, National Science Foundation, and European Research Council grants. Authors often have ties to centers such as the MIND Institute, Brookings Institution, Carnegie Mellon University labs, and research units at Johns Hopkins University. Typical submissions draw on longitudinal cohorts like the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project, Head Start Impact Study, and international birth cohorts such as Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study.

The journal began publication in 1986 during a period of institutional growth for early childhood research linked to policy initiatives from UNICEF, UNESCO, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Founding editors included scholars associated with Bank Street College of Education and university departments at Teachers College, Columbia University and University of Wisconsin–Madison. Over successive editorial terms, leadership has included appointees connected to Syracuse University, Rutgers University, Vanderbilt University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Pennsylvania State University. Major shifts in the journal’s remit track the rise of randomized controlled trials associated with the Perry Preschool Project and Abecedarian Project, the expansion of neurodevelopmental imaging networks such as Human Connectome Project, and comparative cross-national studies stimulated by reports from World Bank and OECD policy reviews.

Content spans experimental, quasi-experimental, observational, qualitative, and mixed-methods work that engages populations served by programs like Head Start, Early Head Start, Universal Pre-K initiatives in New York City, Chicago Public Schools, and San Francisco Unified School District. Article topics often relate to caregiver practices studied by teams at University of Minnesota, University of Washington, and McGill University; language and literacy work connected to scholars at University of Pittsburgh and University of Toronto; and socioemotional development research influencing policy discussions at Institute for Fiscal Studies and RAND Corporation. Special issues have concentrated on themes addressed at conferences like the Society for Research in Child Development and the International Society for Infant Studies.

The editorial board comprises researchers from institutions including Duke University, Brown University, Emory University, University of Pennsylvania, and Ohio State University. Peer review follows traditional double-anonymized procedures juxtaposed with open peer review experiments appearing in journals allied to Elsevier’s portfolio. The publishing cadence is quarterly, with issues guest-edited by scholars affiliated with University of Cambridge, King's College London, National University of Singapore, and research consortia funded by Wellcome Trust and the Gates Foundation. The journal accepts original empirical articles, meta-analyses, methodological papers drawing on techniques used by teams at Princeton University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and policy commentaries authored by contributors from The Hague Institute for Global Justice and think tanks such as Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University.

The journal is indexed in major bibliographic services used by researchers at PubMed Central, Web of Science, Scopus, PsycINFO, and ERIC. Libraries and cataloging units at institutions such as Library of Congress, British Library, National Library of Medicine, Bibliothèque nationale de France, and Deutsche Nationalbibliothek maintain records. Citation tracking appears in platforms managed by Clarivate Analytics and bibliometric analyses produced by groups at Leiden University and University of Leiden research centers.

Early Childhood Research Quarterly is cited by scholars publishing in outlets like Child Development, Developmental Psychology, Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, American Educational Research Journal, and Early Education and Development. Its findings have been referenced in policy reports by United States Department of Health and Human Services, Department for Education (England), Australian Department of Education, Skills and Employment, and international syntheses by UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre. The journal’s impact factor and citation metrics are monitored by researchers at Institute for Scientific Information and inform tenure and promotion committees at University of California campuses and international departments across Europe and Asia.

Category:Academic journals