Policymakers’ demands for improved academic achievement by all children and the standardization of instructional practices continue to alter the landscape of early childhood education. Many within the early childhood education community are examining how these changes impact stakeholders' conceptions of school readiness. Yet, little has been done to examine how these same stakeholders make sense of the changed practices of kindergarten itself—the program for which children are getting ready. This article addresses this issue by examining findings from an instrumental case study that examined how a sample of urban prekindergarten program stakeholders in the Midwest made sense of the changed kindergarten. Investigating this issue created the opportunity to consider whether preschool stakeholders are conceptually prepared for children transitioning into kindergarten, which may impact how children’s transition into elementary school unfolds, as well as whether they believe the changed kindergarten is an appropriate learning environment for children. Such findings also offer the chance to consider how early childhood stakeholders might work to alter the current framing of the changed kindergarten. (author abstract)
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United States