Underrated and Urgent Problems of Practice in Early Childhood Care and Education

• In Event: 69.057 - Roundtable Session 32
  In Roundtable Session: 69.057-17 - Young Children's Care and Learning in Different Early Childhood Settings

Abstract

This paper centers on “urgent problems of practice” (Snow, 2015) in early childhood classrooms, when the proverbial transfer of theory and research to practice is compromised. In doing so, I invert the premise of Snow’s call for practice-embedded research by asking what happens when so-called research-embedded practice goes awry. I draw from familiar themes in teacher preparation and research over the last two decades to ensure relevancy: instruction, child development, curriculum, multiculturalism, and social justice. My goal is to provide sufficient systematic description of each to illustrate what I call quandaries of information and operation, which conceivably undermine the day-to-day school lives, academic success, and future of the children they touch.

Author

• Patsy Cooper, Queens College, City University of New York