“You’re a Scientist Too?” Affirming Children’s Voice in Early Childhood Education Classrooms (Poster 25)

• In Event: AERA Poster Session Friday 3:20 p.m.
  In Poster Session: Student Identity and Autonomy

Abstract

As the field of education moves towards designing and implementing learning spaces that privilege and value the knowledge that students bring to the classroom, it remains imperative that we understand how adults can move from being gatekeepers of knowledge, to collaborating with young learners. Our paper looks at ethnographically described moments of joint activity to see how teachers uphold children’s voices to create spaces for dignity affirming learning. We highlight how these moments are able to ameliorate traditional power dynamics in U.S. schools that often more highly esteem “adult” logics and knowledge and instead affirm children as being expert learners in a way that gives children the agency to shape inquiry and the classroom.

Authors

• Flora Zempleni, University of California - Los Angeles

• Pragya Rimal, University of California - Los Angeles

• Christine Lee, University of California - Los Angeles

• Nicole A. Mancevice, University of California - Los Angeles

• Christine Abagat Liboon, University of California - Los Angeles