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ERIC Number: ED634076
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2023
Pages: 158
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: 979-8-3795-5579-5
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
"This Is Just Who We Are": A Participatory Case Study on the Implementation of Antibias/Antiracist Pedagogies in Early Childhood Spaces
Tursi, Diana
ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Until recently, many early childhood educators, particularly those in nontraditional preschool spaces, leaned on a color-evasive approach to their work, largely ignoring systemic racism and bias, claiming love and acceptance of all children in their care. While well-intentioned, these practices left young children to construct their own understandings of issues like race, gender, sexuality, and ability, often solidifying the racist and biased ideological messages from popular society. Since 2020, however, a year marked by political division, a global pandemic, and a public reckoning over systemic racism, early childhood educators have been reexamining their practices. Armed with research on young children's racial awareness and buoyed by support from the National Association for the Education of Young Children, preschool programs around the country began looking for ways to implement equity-based teaching practices with young children. This participatory case study follows the administrators and teachers of one preschool program in central North Carolina as they worked to implement antibias/antiracist (ABAR) teaching practices in their play-based, community-centered early childhood classrooms. Relying on data from classroom observations, follow-up interviews, and staff meetings, the study examines what it means to implement ABAR teaching practices in nontraditional preschool spaces, with a specific focus on the supports and barriers the teachers encountered in this process. The findings of our study highlight the multiple administrative and collegial supports teachers feel in their ABAR work with young children: administrative policies, professional development, a feeling of safety and security, and personal empowerment and wellbeing. The study also found that implementing ABAR teaching practices requires attention and intention on the part of educators and the community as a whole. This intentionality is best supported through a community of like-minded educators and families with shared values and commitments to liberatory preschooling. Early childhood education is a field that is often overlooked by educational researchers. And because ABAR is a new approach in education as a whole, there has been very little academic research into ABAR in preschools. This study begins to fill that gap. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]
ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway, P.O. Box 1346, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Tel: 800-521-0600; Web site: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml
Publication Type: Dissertations/Theses - Doctoral Dissertations
Education Level: Early Childhood Education; Preschool Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: North Carolina
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A