No Easy Task: Developing Antiracist Practice in Early Childhood Centers

• In Event: Perspectives on Humanizing and Antiracist Teaching and Professional Development

Abstract

In this paper, the researchers share the results from an on-going anti-bias professional development series at a university based Early childhood center on the west coast. Critical Race Theory is used to explore the supports and barriers to affecting change through professional development in early childhood settings. The study used two data collection methods: Teacher Survey with quantitative and qualitative questions and individual teacher interviews. What was thought by some educators to be a relatively easy shift into anti-racist pedagogy became a major undertaking for the center. Intractable instantiations of race in the guise of teacher beliefs and perceptions of practice, re-envisioning the curriculum, and structural and institutional changes have become a major ongoing reform for the center.

Authors

• Thandeka K. Chapman, University of California - San Diego

• Alison G. Wishard Guerra, University of California - San Diego

• Monica N. Molgaard, University of California - San Diego

• Shana R. Cohen, University of California - San Diego