Early Childhood Curriculum as State-Endorsed Racism

• In Event: Friday Roundtable Session 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Examining the Representation of Race and Ethnicity in Literacy Curricula Through Content Analysis (Table 20)

Abstract

This ethnographic research examined state-endorsed early childhood literacy curriculum and pre-service teachers (PSTs) field-placement for evidence of regimes of truth which serve to marginalize children’s voices, identities, and experiences. The findings suggest the curriculum positioned the children as (1) recipients, not creators or co-producers of their identities and literacy knowledge; (2) “othered” without agency through the exclusion of Black characters, and (3) puts forth a regime of truth that is historically inaccurate view of enslaved children, and offers no opportunity for children or PST to reconstruct this norm.

Author

• Sara Michael-Luna, University of Central Florida