Using Arts-Based Methods to Radically Imagine New Possibilities for Early Childhood Education

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 8:00 am Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Arts-Based Approaches in Early Childhood (Table 4)

Abstract

While stakeholders in various positions of power are recommending solutions to the ongoing crisis in early childhood education (ECE), this study centers the desires of early childhood educators themselves, adding to a small body of resistance and desire-based research in ECE. Guided by the tenets of critical qualitative inquiry, we use arts-based methods and the radical imagination to explore the dreams and desires of those working in ECE spaces. We share three resonant themes that spanned arts-based and survey data and claim that research and policy should center the expertise of those doing this underfunded, undervalued work.

Authors

• Katie Sloan, Oakland University

• Victoria Clark, Matrix Human Services