Reimagine "Home" in Early Childhood Education Through Analysis of Preservice Teachers' Discourses of Home-lessness

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session 30
  In Roundtable Session: Developing Understandings of Diversity Among Early Childhood Preservice Teachers

Abstract

Drawing on post-structural perspectives, this study attempts to deconstruct the discourse of ‘home’ that ECE pre-service teachers have through the discourse of ‘home-lessness. By raising a question on the normalcy of home in early childhood education, this study examines what notion of home pre-service teachers bring into the course, how discourse of home would be networked with and discourse of home-lessness and how the discourses produce lens to view children experiencing home-lessness and others. The data revealed that pre-service teachers had a binary notion of home and home-lessness. With the engagement in critical activities over the course, they realized that their normalized home produced a pathological perspective toward home-lessness and children experining home-lessness.

Author

• Jinhee Kim, Kennesaw State University