Reluctantly Governed: The Struggles of Early Educators in a Professional Development Course That Challenged Their Teaching in a High-Stakes Neoliberal Early Education Context

• In Event: 46.086 - Roundtable Session 16
  In Roundtable Session: 46.086-22 - Politics of Early Childhood Policies and Accountability

Abstract

This paper documents the pedagogical and practical struggles of a sample of early educators in a large urban school district in the United States who engaged in a professional development course. This course offered them an alternative conception of teaching that critically questioned the norms and practices of their high-stakes neoliberal early education system. Examining the evolution of these teachers’ conceptions and practices illuminates the challenges that exist in attempting to address culturally relevant issues with students in a highly-scripted and surveilled teaching context. It also reveals three key issues that early educators, teacher educators, and those who advocate for early childhood education should consider when developing and/or enacting alternative conceptions of teaching in similar neoliberal early education environments.

Authors

• Christopher P. Brown, The University of Texas - Austin

• Natalie Babiak Weber, University of Mary Hardin-Baylor

• Yeojoo Yoon, The University of Texas - Austin