Process Quality in Kindergartens - Concepts, implementation and findings

The educational quality of early childhood care and education institutions has been variably defined in the relevant investigations. Therefore, this paper develops a theoretical concept of quality which differentiates between quality dimensions (quality of processes, structures and educational beliefs of teachers) and distinguishes global and domain-specific aspects of process quality. This concept is being implemented within the context of a research group on "Educational processes, competence development and selection decisions at preschool and primary school age" sponsored by the German Research Foundation. The paper reports on the quality levels in the sampled kindergarten groups and analyses the dependency of process quality on structural aspects of kindergartens and on teachers' educational beliefs. The lower level of process quality in kindergarten groups with a higher rate of children with a migration background and with a younger mean age is remarkable and calls for specific educational interventions.