Standardizing Latinx early childhood educators: (Un)intended consequences of policy reform to professionalize the workforce

Lucero, Leanna; Araujo, Blanca; Pérez, Michelle Salazar

doi:10.1177/1478210320921990

Cited by 7 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…As part of their professional identity, educators must uphold professional norms of depoliticized curricula and childhood innocence (Cook, 2009). Educators can feel pressure to minimize critical approaches to ECE (Lucero et al, 2020); otherwise, teachers are likely considered uncaring, unprofessional, and inappropriate (Adair et al, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

African American Head Start Teachers’ Approaches to Police Play in the Era of Black Lives Matter

Henward

Lyu

Jackson

2021

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

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Background: Scholars in the fields of early childhood education (ECE) and multicultural education have argued that preschools are key sites in which children learn about race and racism. However, there is little research on how teachers negotiate conflicting tensions and enact antiracist approaches within Head Start (HS) classrooms that use comprehensive and commercialized curriculums. Study Purpose: This article is about the challenges early childhood educators face when young children (ages 3–5) bring painful and uncomfortable issues of race, racism, and incarceration to preschool. This study is part of the research project Negotiating Head Start Curriculum (NHSC), a comparative study of policy implementation in four cultural communities in the United States. Here we focus on educators’ response to the “Jail Scene,” a pivotal scene taped in an HS classroom serving African American children. Research Design: The method used in the NHSC project is a multivocal ethnographic research method combined with a comparative case study design. We selected classrooms in each community that implemented both Creative Curriculum® and Teaching Strategies Gold®, led by experienced teachers in Chicanx and Latinx, Samoan, and white Appalachian communities. We made videotapes of similar activities across all sites. We then used these videos as cues for focus group interviews with educators (teachers, directors, and instructional personnel). We applied constant comparative, Critical Discourse Analysis, and Voloshinovian literary analysis to 41 interview transcripts of 132 educators’ talks. Findings: Analysis of transcripts indicates Black teachers are more likely to recognize racism, including the effects of incarceration and arrest on children’s talk and play, in ways unavailable to teachers from outside their community. Despite extant research suggesting early childhood teachers of color are no more likely to engage with young children about racism than white teachers, our study found that Black teachers offer nuanced, careful, and responsive approaches to antiracist pedagogy. They respond in sensitive, child-led, playful ways, inserting counternarratives within the confines of scripted curricula. Conclusions: ECE teachers’ disparity of interpretation has particular importance as ECE moves to professionalize the field. If elementary school patterns are any indication, the field should expect a sharp increase in the percentage of white, middle-class teachers instructing children of color. Unintentionally, these teachers may fail to recognize the play and talk to contain challenges born out of racism and inequality. We suggest policymakers, curriculum designers, and the broader field of ECE must carefully consider the approaches of teachers of color and take these approaches seriously.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

African American Head Start Teachers’ Approaches to Police Play in the Era of Black Lives Matter

Henward

Lyu

Jackson

2021

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

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“…Mandated assessments augment racism and ableism within the teaching profession by creating barriers to entrance into the workforce. The edTPA—a high-stakes assessment that educational officials use to prioritize testing outcomes while overlooking the test’s racial bias (Tuck & Gorlewski, 2016)—creates stress and disproportionately precludes TCs of Color from employment opportunities (Behizadeh & Nealy, 2019; Lucero et al, 2020). A persistent lack of support and accessibility with the edTPA (and high-stakes assessments like it) creates obstacles for disabled teachers to enter and stay in the field (Loeppky, 2021); that is, if multiply-marginalized TCs do not uphold “quality,” they can be excluded from opportunities to enter or advance within the profession (Tenets 1, 3, and 5).…”

Section: Unraveling Entanglements Of Ableism and Racism In Early Chil...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Teacher educators also have a responsibility to critically reflect on their pedagogies and policies to support TCs’ meaningful access and belonging. This begins with doing away with standardized admissions requirements (e.g., GRE) that equate whiteness with smartness and disproportionately screen out multiply-marginalized prospective teachers (Tenet 1) (Carter Andrews et al, 2019; Lucero et al, 2020). Teacher licensure pathways for in-service professionals can also cultivate meaningful access for multiply-marginalized paraprofessionals, whose perspectives on education are often grounded in community knowledge (Gist et al, 2019).…”

Section: Toward Pedagogies Of Wholeness Access and Interdependence: R...mentioning

confidence: 99%

A DisCrit Analysis of Quality in Early Childhood: Toward Pedagogies of Wholeness, Access, and Interdependence

Beneke

Love

2022

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

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Background: In U.S. contexts, the language of “quality” early childhood education is widely invoked to evaluate the “goodness” of teaching and learning and is often leveraged in attempts to ameliorate inequities. Likewise, efforts to define and achieve generalizable conceptualizations of early childhood quality often guide what takes place in teacher education. Though objections to quality reform efforts and the ways they uphold white supremacy have been extensively discussed, less work has explicitly examined how ableism intersects with racism in the ways quality is defined and applied in early childhood. Purpose: The purpose of this conceptual article is to extend prior critiques of quality to critically examine intersections of racism and ableism in the definitions, measurements, and enactments of quality early childhood teaching and learning. We bring disability critical race theory (DisCrit; Annamma et al., 2013) into conversation with literature on quality in early childhood to examine how traditional notions of early childhood quality position and affect multiply-marginalized children, families, and teachers. We emphasize how dominant notions of early childhood quality are reinforced and can be disrupted in teacher preparation. Interpretive Analysis: We utilize DisCrit’s seven interrelated tenets to analyze how ableism and racism mutually reinforce notions of early childhood quality by: (1) predefining universal goals for teaching and learning; (2) reducing the complexity of teaching and learning; and (3) discarding the wisdom of multiply-marginalized children, families, and teachers. Each of these technocratic processes rely on one another (and at times, overlap) to uphold whiteness and ableism in both early childhood practice and teacher education; exposing them allows us to imagine alternate ways of conceptualizing and enacting meaningful early education. Through DisCrit praxis, we offer an alternative language of evaluation that centers multiply-marginalized young children, families, and teachers using pedagogies of wholeness, access, and interdependence. Conclusions: At the nexus of ableism and racism, standardized notions of early childhood quality create myriad forms of harm for multiply-marginalized children, families, and teachers. Although the language of quality pervades the field, we know it is not the only way. We implore teacher educators to support teacher candidates in developing a DisCrit praxis, as we engage in such processes of reflection and action ourselves. When teaching and learning are rooted in principles of wholeness, access, and interdependence, we put multiply-marginalized communities at the heart of our work, reclaiming and enacting meaningful pedagogies in early childhood.

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“…There are multiple considerations for teacher educators to engage in this process from a DisCrit Pedagogy lens. First, given the hegemonic views of development that reinforce race and ability hierarchies in teacher education (Ferri and Bacon, 2011;Lucero et al, 2020;Souto-Manning, 2019a), teacher educators must prioritize partnering with multiply marginalized communities of color throughout collaboration efforts. Such partnerships can help expand what knowledge(s) are centered and affirmed in teacher education.…”

Section: Enacting Discrit Pedagogymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…developmentally appropriate practice) based on the western-informed preparation and professional development opportunities they accessed. Thus, professional standardization can serve to reify hegemonic ways of being and learning for children, and positivist approaches to "quality" practice for teachers (Lucero et al, 2020;Souto-Manning, 2019a).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Tensions as opportunities for transformation: Applying DisCrit Resistance to early childhood teacher education programs

Love

Hancock

2022

Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood

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Efforts to “professionalize” early childhood through professional standards, licensure requirements, and standardized assessments have aimed to support effective practice and rectify the pay inequities experienced by early educators. However, such initiatives can inadvertently reinforce hegemonic developmentalism and have largely served to advance white, able-bodied norms and narrow views of teaching and learning. Teacher educators endeavoring to combat racism and ableism, therefore, can encounter several tensions that result from trying to apply critical perspectives while preparing pre-service teachers for graduation and certification in the current personnel preparation landscape. In this article, the authors employ Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit) Resistance to explore these tensions and offer potential ways they can serve as key opportunities for supporting equity. They discuss how teacher educators can enact DisCrit Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Solidarity to diversify the knowledge(s) that are represented in content; center and affirm the identities and gifts of multiply marginalized teachers of color; and disrupt power hierarchies to honor relationships and interdependence.

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Standardizing Latinx early childhood educators: (Un)intended consequences of policy reform to professionalize the workforce

Cited by 7 publications

References 13 publications

African American Head Start Teachers’ Approaches to Police Play in the Era of Black Lives Matter

African American Head Start Teachers’ Approaches to Police Play in the Era of Black Lives Matter

A DisCrit Analysis of Quality in Early Childhood: Toward Pedagogies of Wholeness, Access, and Interdependence

Tensions as opportunities for transformation: Applying DisCrit Resistance to early childhood teacher education programs

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