Toward a Multidisciplinary Perspective on the Role of Early Childhood Education in the Formation of Broader Racial/Ethnic Relations and Ideologies

• In Event: Rethinking and Redoing Race in Early Childhood Education: Policies, Perspectives, and Pedagogy

Abstract

This paper presents a critical review of three research traditions shedding light on the role of early childhood education in the recreation and transformation of broader racial/ethnic relations and ideologies. Specifically, it will examine the contributions and limitations of research from 1) developmental, cognitive, and social psychology; 2) multicultural education and critical cultural studies of education; and 3) early childhood education, which have developed largely in isolation from each other.

The paper reviews research findings from each intellectual tradition that clearly support the claims that 1) young children are not free from ideological pressures and 2) early childhood education, through its curricula, classroom organization, pedagogies, and assumptions and practices regarding parent involvement and education, embed racial/ethnic messages and practices that potentially contribute to perpetuate but may also help transformation oppressive and prejudiced racial/ethnic relations and ideologies. This analysis also discusses each tradition’s theoretical and methodological limitations that may obscure the mechanisms through which broader racial/ethnic relations and ideologies structure everyday life in early childhood classrooms.

Based for the most part on research in laboratory settings, the psychological literature examines such issues as prejudice development; intergroup contact; racial perspective taking ability and racial attitudes; implicit and explicit biases and stereotypes; empathy; attachment; social categorization and social identity; and perceived threat and stereotype threat. The wealth of research has yielded fairly consistent findings whose importance is unquestionable, but whose meaningfulness may be limited because it is not clear how they depend upon the broader social, political and historical context of the research or how they may generalize to children’s ‘natural’ contexts. In contrast, research on multicultural education and the critical cultural studies of education incorporates an analysis and critique of broader contexts (society, culture, and the economy) and how they impinge upon children’s experiences, identities and trajectories. Drawing largely on qualitative methodologies, it examines how children, through their interaction with schools, peer groups, media, and neighborhoods, formulate a sense of self and create, recreate and transform their world in relation to their every day experiences and the messages from the broader context. This tradition fails to ground the research on the developmental and psychological foundations of the processes studied. It pays little attention to early childhood education. Furthermore, their case-study methodologies present limitations regarding the generalizability of their findings. Last, the early childhood education literature builds largely on Louise Derman-Sparks’ anti-bias work and on multicultural education. It examines issues of teacher perspectives, teacher preparation, and curriculum content. With a somewhat weak research basis and a serious lack of methodological rigor, this literature proceeds with little discussion of the psychological foundations or the social, political, cultural and economic contexts within which children grow and develop.

The paper will outline a multidisciplinary theoretical framework that critically incorporates the contributions of these intellectual traditions under the conceptual umbrella of promoting social inclusion and respect for diversity in early childhood education. The implications of such framework for future research, teacher preparation, program evaluation and practice in early childhood education will be discussed.

Author

• Mariajose Romero, LaGuardia Community College -CUNY