Placing Educators Front and Center: Examples From Research on the Early Care and Education Workforce

• In Event: How Participatory Are Our Participatory Approaches? A “Pop-Up” Community of Praxis

Abstract

The paper presents examples from the author’s (and one organization’s) approaches to research on early care and education (ECE) workforce and its relationship with policy, practice and advocacy. The author shares how the organization’s roots and orientation in activism shape the research process, including selection of topic areas and research questions, engagement with study participants, interpretation of results, and dissemination of research outputs. Issues on positionality, power-sharing, participation, and partnership in research for each of the examples will be discussed during the panel conversation.

Example 1. The author shares multiple ways early educators are engaged in the research process. One example is the development of a toolkit that aims to support early educators in their advocacy, power building, and stakeholder engagement (Author’s organization, 2023). It includes the latest facts and policy solutions about the ECE workforce that educators can use to build arguments for change, from the local to the national level. Another example is the development of a pool of early educators that can be consulted throughout the research process. Through these practices, it is hoped that we keep educators’ voices front and center and make sure that we not only conduct research for the workforce but more importantly with the workforce.

Example 2. The ECE workforce has a rich history of organizing and building collective power (Author 2, 2001). Learning the history, policies, politics, and power dynamics at play in the ECE sector is important for early educator activists to become effective agents of change and to overcome the historic silencing imposed on them. As a way to support this learning process, the Center created an interactive learning space designed for those seeking to transform ECE jobs and services (Author’s organization, 2022). The project provides an accessible way for people to explore 1) critical junctures (or turning points) in the history of ECE that shaped and continue to impact the current system, 2) inequities that echo through time in the system, and 3) activist movements that can guide and inspire efforts today.

Example 3. The historical roots of the child care field and the current make-up of the workforce necessitate a critical-racial lens for studies of the ECE workforce (Lloyd et al., 2021; Ullrich et al., 2016). The author shares examples of a race-conscious approach in ECE workforce research, especially those using quantitative methods. The author stresses that researchers should ask the question of “who is included” when conducting workforce studies, because those that are often overlooked are more likely to be women of color or immigrant women (e.g., center teachers [vs. directors], assistant teacher [vs. lead teachers], etc.). Taking a race-conscious approach means that researchers are critically aware of this reality and making sure these educators are included in the study. The author also problematizes the notion as quantitative research being value-neutral, incompatible for critical inquiry and shares a recent study that uses quantitative critical race theory (QuantCrit) to examine how racism operates within the ECE workforce. Next steps for this line of study are discussed.

Authors

• Yoonjeon Kim, University of California - Berkeley

• Hopeton Hess, Center for the Study of Child Care Employment

• Marcy Whitebook, University of California - Berkeley