Early Childhood Education

As an early childhood educator, your influence on the young children and families with whom you work lasts throughout their educational careers and into their adult lives.

With more and more infants, toddlers, and young children attending early childhood programs, and more kindergarten-primary grade children being exposed to the pressures of standardized, high-stakes testing, it has become more important than ever to discover how to create and implement appropriate care and education environments for children birth to age 8 to ensure their well-being in the present, and their academic success and healthy developmental outcomes far into the future.

Future Careers for Undergraduates

When you graduate, you’ll have a specialized body of knowledge and skills that makes you highly valuable for a number of careers. You will be able to articulate and defend a point of view about teaching and curriculum planning, implementation, and assessment, as well as about how to support young children and families for success in a multicultural, diverse society. Our early childhood graduates have successful careers in a variety of professional settings.

Future Careers for Master's and Ph.D. Students

Most graduates of the master’s program in early childhood education continue in or return to careers as practitioners in infant/toddler, preschool or primary grade settings; or become policy makers, leaders of agencies and organizations, or consultants for employers who serve families and young children or the professionals who work with them. Graduates of the doctoral program typically go into academic settings as researchers and teacher educators.

Our faculty

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Assistant Professor

Research Areas:
Early Childhood Education and Curriculum Studies
Email:
djcastne@iu.edu
Phone:
(812) 856-8188
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Professor

Research Areas:
Professional well-being; teacher beliefs and practices across cultures and contexts; infant toddler care and education
Email:
mmcmulle@indiana.edu
Phone:
(812) 856-8393
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Clinical Associate Professor

Email:
lray13@iu.edu
Phone:
(812) 856-8147
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Professor

Research Areas:
Play, Early Literacies, Digital Literacies, Children's Media
Email:
kwohlwen@indiana.edu
Phone:
(812) 856-8275

Contact Us

Undergraduate Program

Office of Teacher Education
ED 1000
(812) 856-8500
edhelp@indiana.edu

Graduate Programs

Mary McMullen
ED 3206
(812) 856-8363
mmcmulle@indiana.edu