Poster #36 - Ready or not? Families’ beliefs about kindergarten readiness

• In Event: Poster Session 13

Abstract

Approximately four million children enter kindergarten each year in the United States. In recent years, there has been an increasing push to fund public pre-kindergarten programs, especially in historically marginalized neighborhoods, in order to ensure that all children enter ready for school. Readiness, also known as “kindergarten readiness” or “school readiness”, is commonly conceived of as a set of skills and dispositions that position a child for success in the early years of formal schooling and beyond. Most research and policy on readiness is reflective of school-based views of readiness but families are their children’s first and most important educators in early childhood. This study explores what families and children make of the pressures associated with preparing for school?

Most of the research on families’ views of readiness and transition practices uses closed-ended survey approaches (see Barbarin et al., 2010; Puccioni, 2015; Puccioni et al., 2019; Puccioni et al., 2020; Taylor et al., 2004). These studies may miss important considerations that families make in conceptualizing readiness and preparing their children for school. A much less prevalent area uses a multidimensional lens to understand readiness as a function of community-based values, goals and trends (see Anderson et al., 2015; Eisenhart & Graue, 1990; Jarrett & Coba-Rodriguez, 2019; McAllister et al., 2005; Suizzo et al., 2014). Even though the relationship between neighborhood and child development is well researched, few studies have included family perspectives (Dunaway et al., 2021), and little research has captured the cultural strengths and resilience of families living within impoverished neighborhoods. The purpose of this qualitative case study is to understand family-members' and children’s beliefs about readiness in one historically marginalized neighborhood.

Using Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological systems theory (2001) and Yosso’s community cultural wealth (2005) as guiding frameworks, this study explored the following research questions:

How do family-members and rising kindergarten children conceptualize kindergarten readiness?

How do families express community cultural wealth in their beliefs about readiness and transition practices?

This study utilized narrative case inquiry (Clandenin, 2007) and photovoice (Wang & Burris, 1997) to explore the phenomenon. The setting was the North Hastings Possibility Community (pseudonym) (see Table 1). The study took place in the summer of 2022. Nine families (n = 9), with children who would be attending kindergarten in the neighborhood in the fall, took part. Family-members took part in an hour long semi-structured interview with the researcher and rising kindergarten children took part in a 15-minute interview. Families were also asked to provide and caption at least five photos of “getting ready for school”. Preliminary analysis of the data has suggested that school choice, racial socialization and safety are important themes for families when thinking about preparing for school.

With an understanding of readiness as an ethical responsibility, reflective of the social, cultural and political values of society (Graue, 2006), this study represents an initial step in documenting the perspectives of stakeholders who are not frequently heard. This study intends to uncover family-based assets that have been ignored within hegemonic school-based ideologies of readiness.

Author

• Katie Mathew, Drexel University
  Presenting Author