Resiliency, Relationships, and Race: Early Childhood Teachers, Practices, and Systems

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Frameworks for Expansive Learning (Table 9)

Abstract

This study evaluates an initiative developed through a partnership between three community funding organizations and implemented in six early childhood centers. Our study is rooted in the theoretical frameworks of ideological becoming (Bakhtin, 1981), critical socioculturalism (Lewis, Enciso, & Moje, 2007), and materiality (Jewitt, Kress, Ogborn, & Tsatsarelis, 2000; Wohlwend, 2011). We rely on qualitative methodologies, using field notes, interviews, and focus groups; our analysis is according to grounded theory methods. Findings include the ways teachers achieve the liberatory practices of emergent curriculum only to have those practices disrupted by the quartet of pandemics identified by Ladson-Billings (2021); these findings are significant in that they indicate ways that teachers cultivate equitable systems in the face of challenges and change.

Authors

• Jane Andris, University of Louisville

• Yohimar Sivira Gonzalez, University of Louisville

• Lori Ann Norton-Meier, University of Northern Iowa

• Jennifer Pollard, University of Louisville

• Ginevra Courtade, University of Louisville