Examining How Familial, Education, Research, and Political Stakeholders Make Sense of the Changed Kindergarten

• In Event: Early Childhood Policy Challenges

Abstract

Kindergarten in the United States has fundamentally changed. Debates among familial, education, research, and political stakeholder groups over changes to kindergarten specifically and public education in general are fractured and far from settled; making it difficult to understand how various stakeholder groups make sense of these changes. This paper examines this issue through a video-cued multivocal ethnographic study that documents how familial, educational, and political stakeholders at the local, state, and national level conceptualize the purpose and processes of kindergarten. Such findings offer insight into what is driving these academic and instructional changes and how these various stakeholder groups might work individually and together to support and/or alter such changes to kindergarten specifically and public schooling in general.

Authors

• Christopher P. Brown, The University of Texas - Austin

• Joanna Englehardt, The University of Texas - Austin

• Da Hei Ku, The University of Texas at Austin

• Hye Ryung Won, Florida State University