Patterns of Young Children's Development: An International Comparison of Development as Assessed by Who Am I? - April 2002

The comparison of children's development as assessed by Who Am I? across different countries and reported in this paper was made possible through the collaboration of colleagues in various countries. As an Honorary Fellow, and former Senior Research Fellow, of the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), I am indebted to my colleague, Brian Doig, of ACER for his support in the initial development of Who Am I? and his contribution to the construction of the final published version of Who Am I?, as well as to Katherine Cox and Catherine Underwood who undertook the tasks of scoring and data entry for the Australian study. In the case of the Hong Kong data, I am indebted to Elizabeth Mellor, of the Centre for Applied Studies in Early Childhood Education at the Queensland University of Technology, and Leung Wai Man, of the Hong Kong Institute of Education, who arranged for the administration of Who Am I? to children in a number of preschools in Hong Kong, and to Margaret Wu, of the Australian Council for Educational Research, who undertook the scoring of responses in Chinese script. In the case of the Indian data, I am indebted to Dr. Neelam Sood, of the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration in New Delhi, for making available the results of her study in which Who Am I? was used in the context of a broader investigation of early childhood provision in a remote rural area of Northern India. In the case of the Swedish data, I am indebted to Professor Gunilla Fredriksson, of Linkopings University, who agreed to trial Who Am I? in a number of preschools and preschool classes in Sweden. In the case of the Canadian data, I am indebted to the Applied Research Branch of Human Resources Development Canada and Statistics Canada for making available the results on Who Am I? from the North York community study and the five Community 2000 studies, undertaken as a part of the Understanding the Early Years initiative. I am particularly grateful to Dr. Satya Brink, Director, Child, Youth and Social Development Studies in the Applied Research Branch of Human Resources Development Canada, for her interest in and support of the work on Who Am I?, and to Liz Nieman, in the same Branch, and Stephanie Lalonde and Ghysline Forget, of Statistics Canada, for keeping me informed of the ongoing work relating to the use of Who Am I? in the Canadian community studies and in the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth.

I appreciated the opportunity to present material from this paper at Applied Research Branch's national dialogue conference, Ready, Set, Go! Improving the Odds Through Integrated Research, Policy and Practice, in February 2002.