Current Research Interests

  • My longstanding research interest in supporting and empowering the early childhood workforce emerged during my brief experience working in an early learning and childcare center during college.

    My first major scholarly work in this area was through a collaboration with Pamela Oberhuemer and Inge Schreyer on a comparative study across 27 countries, published as Professionals in Early Childhood Education and Care Systems: European Profiles and Perspectives.

    I expanded my focus to include the early childhood care and education workforce in low- and middle-income countries in a literature review commissioned by UNESCO.

    More recently, through the multi-stakeholder Early Childhood Workforce Initiative, I contributed to several global and country-specific research reports, including:

    In the coming years, I would like to deepen my research on the role of unions and professional associations in improving working conditions for early childhood educators. I share some initial learnings on this topic in this 2023 blog post.

  • I research strategies to help governments and their partners raise revenue for early childhood services as well as allocate resources so that they improve access, equity, and quality.

    My earlier contributions include a paper commissioned by the International Commission on Global Education Opportunity (Education Commission). With R4D colleagues, we analyzed domestic and international financing in 12 countries and informed the landmark Learning Generation report.

    I recently co-authored a UNESCO working paper as a contribution to the 2024 Global Report on Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE).

    I’m currently writing two chapters on financing for the the next Global Report on ECCE.

    I’m a member of the ECDAN Early Years Financing Technical Working Group that is planning a Global Financing Forum in 2026.

  • Despite ample evidence on the importance of investing in young children, early childhood issues rarely rise to the top of global and national policy agendas. This is a topic that interests me both as a scholar with training in political science and public policy and as a practitioner working within international organizations to generate political prioritization of young children.

    With Shawn Powers (The World Bank), I co-authored two papers that look at the positioning of early childhood education on national agendas in Ethiopia, Jamaica, Liberia Tanzania and Punjab, Pakistan:

    • Neuman, M. J., & Powers, S. (2022). Political prioritization of early childhood education during the COVID-19 pandemic: A comparative analysis of low- and middle-income countries. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 60, 287-297.

    • Neuman, M. J., & Powers, S. (2021). Political prioritization of early childhood education in low- and middle-income countries. International Journal of Educational Development.

    In future work, I would like to explore the roles of framing, engagement of political champions and civil society organizations, and governance arrangements in early childhood politics and policy.

  • During my Federation of American Scientists Impact Fellowship (2023-2025), I immersed myself in the research and practice of playful learning around the world. I had the opportunity to collaborate with facilitation experts from the LEGO Foundation to develop and deliver a training module on playful learning for development practitioners. I also provided direct support to the design and implementation of play-based early childhood education programs in Ethiopia, Uganda, and Tajikistan.

    While there are many excellent resources available on playful learning, they not always easy to find. My plans to develop a knowledge hub on EduLinks did not come to fruition due to the dismantling of USAID. However, as part of my fellowship, I developed several “resource round-ups” that can be found here.