Child Trends hosted a presentation featuring Miriam Navot, Director of the Engelberg Center for Children and Youth at the Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute, a leading center for applied research on social policy and social services in Israel.

Ms. Navot’s talk centered on Improving the Quality of Early Childhood Education in Arab Society in Israel. Her presentation:
• Provides an overview of Arab society and Arab preschool education in Israel, and
• Describes a research project carried out in collaboration with the Bernard van Leer Foundation, JDC Israel-Ashalim, and the Department for Preschool Education in Israel’s Ministry of Education that involves conducting a formative evaluation of quality improvement activities in 164 Arab preschool programs in 11 communities throughout Israel.

Dr. Tamara Halle, Co-Director of Early Childhood Research at Child Trends, provided additional reflections on cross-cultural comparisons of early childhood quality improvement initiatives at the local, regional/state, and national levels.