Preparing Teachers of Color to Engage in Quality Universally Inclusive Early Responsive Education

• In Event: 75.047 - Culturally Responsive Approaches to Preparing Early Childhood Teachers for Inclusive Classrooms

Abstract

In light of the great cultural, linguistic, and racial mismatch between teachers and students in US early educational settings and the need for more teachers of color (Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 2011), this study examines the ways in which five early childhood (EC) teachers of color who had graduated from a teacher education program which focused on equity and inclusive practices constructed successful teacher identities during their teacher education program and within their first years of teaching. In doing so, it documented the reasons leading teachers of color decide to stay in EC education and the role of a program’s focus onto the development of the identities, practices, and beliefs of teachers of color.
To start understanding the experiences of early career EC teachers of color and the impact that a specific teacher education program focus can have on the development of their identities, practices, and beliefs, we interviewed five graduates of a program leading to a Master’s degree with initial certification that focused on equitable and inclusive practices for no-/low-income immigrant children and their families. They were teaching in high-needs early educational settings. Via interview methodology (3 interviews per participant), drawing on feminist qualitative research traditions (Anderson et al., 2004; Devault, 2004; Miller & Crabtree, 2004), we explored the following question:
How does the EC teacher education program focus (namely, universal inclusiveness, focusing on low/no-income, bi/multilingual, and immigrant families) shape the practices, beliefs, and experiences of EC teachers of color?
Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed using a word-processing program for data analysis. There were 15 interviews, each lasting 90-160 minutes and totaling 1900+ minutes. After reading and rereading the data, we identified themes within and across interviews and individuals, analyzing the ways in which these teachers negotiated a macro-discursive context, which often excluded them. We were particularly interested in the ways that their program had provided them tools, strategies, and approaches to resist exclusionary and/or deficit-based paradigmatic discourses.
Through in-depth interviews with five EC teachers of color who underwent a universally inclusive teacher education program and were teaching in a large urban center (allowing us to reveal what participants actually did, rather than interpretations from so-called experts), this study finds that in contrast to findings that EC teachers of color do not have positive and supportive experiences in their teacher education programs (Kohli, 2008; Meacham, 2000; Newton, 2003), a programmatic focus on equity and inclusion may afford them markedly different experiences.
Findings indicate that their program had been a space where they developed tools to fight against and refute normative EC teacher education discourses and “veiled” (Du Bois, 1903) definitions of successful EC teachers. This study sheds light onto the pressing need to illuminate the ways in which EC teachers of color “become” teachers within the context of teacher education programs and the role of a program’s focus on their experiences, beliefs, and practices.

Authors

• Mariana Souto-Manning, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Celia S. Genishi, Teachers College, Columbia University