Now You See It, Now You Don’t: Revising Race in an Early Childhood Classroom

• In Event: Roundtable Session 96
  In Roundtable Session: Revisiting Social Historical Constructions in Early Childhood Education

Abstract

The purpose of this critical action research study is to examine how critical literacy, when used in tandem with the writer’s workshop, can open up spaces where children construct, deconstruct, and reconstruct superficial notions of race and racism in an early childhood classroom. In keeping with the research design, a 9-lesson unit on African American history was developed and implemented in an urban 1st grade classroom. Each lesson within the unit centered on critical literacy approaches and writer’s workshop. Data was analyzed using content analysis processes. Findings from the study indicate that students developed three kinds of written responses to issues of race and racism within the writer’s workshop: repressive, resistant, and retaliatory. Implications for early childhood teachers are discussed.

Author

• Terry Husband, Illinois State University