Equity at the Center: The Imperative to Reconceptualize Early Care and Education "Quality"

Session Type: Working Group Roundtable

Abstract

Since the middle of the 20th C. researchers and advocates for early care and education (ECE) have linked high quality ECE with addressing race- and class-based disparities in school. However as ECE has become an increasingly visible public policy and research topic, it is becoming clear that current conceptualizations of quality are not serving the field’s equity-aspirations. This working group roundtable is an extension of a practice-policy-research symposium that was convened in October 2022. It will use participants’ scholarship to prompt discussion of 1) how equity lenses change the ways quality in ECE is defined, documented, supported, and who is a part of these decisions and 2) what steps can be taken to advance an equity-centered research-policy-practice quality agenda.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Critical Perspectives on Early Childhood Education

Chair

• Mark Nagasawa, Bank Street College of Education

Papers

• Expanding the Vision for "Quality Improvement" in Home-Based Childcare Networks - Samantha Melvin, Erikson Institute

• Moving Toward Culturally Relevant Supervision and "Quality" Assessment - Crystasany R. Turner, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee

• A Critical-Ecological Investigation of Inclusion Quality - Sarika S. Gupta, Bank Street College of Education

• Latina Preschool Teachers' Experiences of Professional Learning for Supporting Dual Language Learners: Implications on Quality - Alexandra Figueras-Daniel, National Institute for Early Education Research