Building Mutual Trust Through Pláticas: Relational Approaches to Research Practice Partnerships in Early Childhood

• In Event: Trenzando Chicana Latina Feminist Perspectives into Mathematics Education

Abstract

This paper examines the early development of a research-practice partnership (RPP) between the lead researcher and the educators and staff of an early childhood education (ECE) center. The study is part of an ongoing two-year qualitative project that employs ethnographic methods to explore the connections between children’s home and school environments. The formation of this partnership is guided by Chicana/Latina Feminist Epistemologies and the RPPs literature, which together aim to challenge deficit-based narratives about the early childhood workforce (Coburn & Penuel, 2016). Instead, this work centers educators as holders of valuable experiential knowledge and as agents of transformative change.
A central methodological approach in this study is the use of pláticas (Fierros & Delgado Bernal, 2016) as a method of dialogue rooted in relationality, vulnerability, and community. Although the lead researcher did not have a pre-existing relationship with the participants, this study demonstrates how engaging in pláticas created spaces of mutual trust and safety. These conversations allowed for the emergence of educators’ personal narratives, professional histories, and the structural conditions shaping their work in early childhood education.
Through this relational foundation, the partnership evolved into a collaborative space where educators and the researcher co-constructed definitions of problems of practice and visions for meaningful, culturally sustaining mathematical experiences for young children. These visions were grounded in the educators’ lived experiences, cultural knowledge, and pedagogical concerns. Empirical data includes transcripts from three rounds of individual pláticas with eight teachers, as well as field notes and classroom observations collected throughout the school year. The teachers primarily served children from military families in the Southwestern United States and represented perspectives from diverse racial and ethnic identities.
A cross-case analysis of these data sources reveals the often-overlooked labor, insights, and emotional investments of early childhood educators—elements that are frequently marginalized in traditional, extractive models of educational research. Results demonstrate how pláticas revealed multiple ways in which teachers address limitations in their curriculum and contexts by leveraging their identities and community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005) to design their own lessons to support young children’s learning and community connections. This study contributes to the growing body of work that reimagines research as a collaborative, justice-oriented practice rooted in care, reciprocity, and shared knowledge production.

Author

• Daniela Alvarez-Vargas, Colorado State University