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Full-Text Articles in Education

The Radical Refuge: Reconceptualizing Teacher Quality Liberated From The Historical Commodification Of Latina And Black Women In Early Childhood Education, Vanessa Rodriguez May 2024

The Radical Refuge: Reconceptualizing Teacher Quality Liberated From The Historical Commodification Of Latina And Black Women In Early Childhood Education, Vanessa Rodriguez

Occasional Paper Series

This article highlights the need to redefine 'quality' in early childhood education (ECE) and challenges systems that devalue Latina and Black women educators. It advocates for recognizing teachers' inherent value and creating a supportive framework that promotes their well-being. The "Radical Refuge" program is introduced as a means of addressing systemic traumas through identity development and healing. Activities like Education Journey Mapping shed light on how traditional measures of quality negatively affect teachers' self-worth. The article emphasizes the importance of teachers' personal experiences and their ability to foster relationships with students. It concludes with hope for a reimagined concept of …


“Pour Into The Teachers”: Learning From Immigrant Women Of Color Through Conversations On “Quality” In Urban Early Education And Care, Seung Eun Mcdevitt, Louella Sween May 2024

“Pour Into The Teachers”: Learning From Immigrant Women Of Color Through Conversations On “Quality” In Urban Early Education And Care, Seung Eun Mcdevitt, Louella Sween

Occasional Paper Series

In this paper, we share our conversations with an education director of an early childhood education and care center, situated in a low-income immigrant community in New York City. We highlight an expanded definition of quality that she has demonstrated as a leader of the center. In doing so, we offer possible alternative ways of creating quality and equitable ECEC practices with and for immigrant children, families, and teachers, and detail the challenges that come with resisting the status quo.


“I Want To Say The Right Thing”: Developing Translingual Literacy Practices Through Early Care Educator And University Researcher Partnerships, Angie Zapata Phd, Mary Adu-Gyamfi, Phd, Adrianna González Ybarra May 2024

“I Want To Say The Right Thing”: Developing Translingual Literacy Practices Through Early Care Educator And University Researcher Partnerships, Angie Zapata Phd, Mary Adu-Gyamfi, Phd, Adrianna González Ybarra

Occasional Paper Series

An early care educator (ECE) and university collaborative model of teacher learning offers a distinct departure from common top-down models of professional development. Implementing a Social Design-Based Experiment, ECE and university partners collaborate to explore translingual picturebooks to address curricular inequities in their school settings. Featuring the experience of one white, middle-class ECE (Tamara) in a Midwest rural suburban school, we identify three critical components of this ECE and university researcher collaborative inquiry model: role of ECE as mentors and supporters, picturebooks as tools, and role of university partners as facilitators. Tamara’s experience highlights the critical components of the model, …


Redefining Quality To Center The Capabilities Of Young Children, Soyoung Park, Sunmin Lee, Nnenna Odim, Jennifer K. Adair May 2024

Redefining Quality To Center The Capabilities Of Young Children, Soyoung Park, Sunmin Lee, Nnenna Odim, Jennifer K. Adair

Occasional Paper Series

In this article, we offer a justice-centered approach to measuring and documenting instructional quality that counters traditional teacher evaluations models commonly used in states' Quality Rating Improvement Systems (QRIS). We tell the story of two early care and education practitioners - one teacher and one school leader - who participated in a professional development that focused on learning to observe young children in agentic contexts and finding more ways for young children to showcase, demonstrate, strengthen, or contribute their capabilities. Through these stories, we show how focusing on children's capabilities served to counter the reductionist, hierarchical, and dehumanizing approaches of …