With Their Help: How Community Members Construct a Congruent Third Space in an Urban Kindergarten Science Classroom

• In Event: Emerging Years of Schooling

Abstract

Through the use of narrative inquiry, this paper tells the story of how a kindergarten teacher in an all-girls’ school incorporates family and community members’ involvement to the construction of the congruent Third Space present in the science classroom, and the ways the girls respond to this involvement thereby providing a successful model for other schools in marginalized communities. In this study, author 1 sought to understand how this teacher and the community members’ in this classroom create a congruent Third Space. This research inquiry includes the systematic use of the methodology portraiture with analysis of critical events (Webster & Mertova, 2007). The portraits are titled: Mutual Desire for the Girls to Succeed and Community Members’ Involvement.

Author

• Cassie Fay Quigley, Clemson University