The Academic Language of Universal Pre-Kindergarten Science: Teacher Narratives of Policy Implementation

• In Event: 21.039 - From Policy to Practice: Exploring the "Implementation Gap" in Early Childhood Education

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this qualitative case study (Stake, 2010) is to examine how four Universal Pre-Kindergarten (UPK) teachers implement district-level policy regarding the academic language of science with their four-year-old students.

Theoretical Framework

The aim of UPK is to provide an equal opportunity for all four-year-old children through access to high-quality, publicly funded early education (Barnett, 2011). K-12 policy initiatives, such as the Next Generation Science Standards, have “trickled down” to preschool through district-level UPK initiatives. Like other discourses of schooling, UPK initiatives carry universal learning expectations that produce dominant values and normative structures (Foucault, 1991), which assume a universality for child development (Brown & Lan, 2016). The academic language of science (Gee, 2008; Spycher, 2009) also holds normative values, which are manifest is in linguistic markers such as vocabulary, syntax, information density, abstract concepts, narrative structure, and grammatical metaphors (Author, 2016). Little research has documented the academic language of science in UPK policy, curriculum, and practice.

Teacher implementation of district-endorsed
curriculum and policy directives is very complicated (Authors, 2018; Authors, in press). This study seeks to examine: How does UPK science curriculum and policy position academic language of science for four-year olds? And how do four UPK teachers co-constructed, reconstructed and instructed science curriculum and policy in their preschool classrooms?

Methodology

This study employs a critical discourse analysis (Gee, 2014) of four UPK teachers’ reflective writing, interviews, and lesson plans, coupled with a macro-discourse analysis of power and subjectivity (Foucault, 1980) of district-issued policy briefs and curriculum. The aim is to give voice to teachers’ experiences as they negotiate their professional identities (Urban, 2010) while both embodying and resisting the directive of academic rigor (Foucault, 1991). All data was coded and triangulated in order to contribute to a larger case collective study (Stake, 2010).

Findings

The findings suggest that policy on science content and academic language codifies language, cognitive development and cultural norms for teachers and children in normative ways, specifically highlighting:
1. The official science curriculum’s minimal focus on foundational vocabulary.
2. The lack of support for identifying and teaching complex science syntax, such as causal relationships in “If, then” clauses.
3. The lack of developmentally appropriate support in teaching abstract knowledge, such as the water cycle.
Teachers are complex actors, capable of not only interpreting but also rewriting meanings and practices. The teachers’ narratives attest to the ways they filtered district policies to create meaningful experiences, beyond the prescribed curriculum, for their students to engage in science content and language.

Scholarly Impact

The study aims is two-fold: (1) to shed light on the ways UPK policy, curriculum and practices aim to universalize dominant social and cultural norms and (2) to understand how UPK teachers co-constructed those norms to serve the needs of their students. By foregrounding teachers’ voices and their struggles with/in discourses of public education reform, this study contributes to the educational research that recognizes the perspectives and knowledge of early childhood teachers.

Authors

• Sara C. Michael-Luna, University of Central Florida

• Leslee Grey, Queens College - CUNY