READ: New Book
Adair, J.K. & Colegrove, K. (2021) Segregation by Experience: Agency, Racism and Early Learning. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Segregation by Experience: Agency, Racism and Learning in the Early Grades (2021; University of Chicago Press) is about how racism and white supremacy impact the ways young children experience the early grades. Early childhood education is the start of segregated experiences where some children problem-solve, follow their interests and share their stories while many others walk in straight, prison-like lines with little input, movement or opportunity to share their lives or interests with their class community. Using video-cued ethnography and interviews with over 100 Black and Latinx children and 150 educators and parents, this book details how a group of young children of color used their agency at school and why when we filmed their classroom and showed it all over the state of Texas, people struggled to accept the sophisticated, active and caring ways Brown and Black children were learning in the film. (Spoiler: Most of the 6-7 years olds who watched the film said the children were misbehaved. Most of the adults said the practices were too advanced and students needed training firth.) This book shows both what is possible and what has to change in order for systems to push past dehumanizing perspectives and approaches and see young children of color as capable and smart.
BUY: Segregation by Experience
Black Pearl Books (Black-owned bookstore in Austin, Texas)
University of Chicago Press (Publisher and 20% discount code: UCPEDU)
WATCH: Films from the book, Segregation by Experience (Vimeo)
FOllOW + SUPPORT: @jkeysadair (twitter) #segregationbyexperience (twitter) @aycresearchcollective (instagram)
FINDING: There is an inverted relationship between deficit thinking and children’s agency. Basically, if you don’t see children of color in an authentic, strengths-based way, you will not support their agency very much. Higher deficit thinking? Lower amount of agency supported.
Adair, Colegrove & McManus (2018) Troubling Messages: Agency and Learning in the Early Schooling Experiences of Children of Latinx Immigrants. Teachers College Record Vol.120(6) 1-40
Abstract: Early childhood education in the United States is currently suspended between the belief that young children learn through dynamic experiences in which they are able to create and experiment, and the belief that young children’s emerging literacy and math skills require formal instruction and assessments to ensure future academic success. This balance is difficult because each approach requires different allowances for children’s agency. This study investigates how district administrators, school administrators, pre-K–3 teachers, and bilingual first graders within a school district serving Latinx families. The data reveals an inverse relationship—termed agency diffusion and deficit infusion—between participants’ ideas about the amount of agency students should be afforded in the classroom and the deficit ideas they articulate about children of immigrants and their families. Our findings suggest that even in supportive, academically successful districts, deficit thinking at any level can justify narrow, rote types of instruction that ultimately impact the types of messages young children receive about learning and being a learner.
LISTEN: The “word gap” argument perpetuates discrimination
NPR’s coverage of the word gap has changed over time and more and more empirical evidence points to flaws and discrimination in the foundational work supporting the “word gap” argument as well as evidence that the “word gap” is justifying narrow, rote learning experiences, deficit thinking and a Whiteness-oriented pressure on parents of color to act and talk like white parents. The Code Switch podcast piece did a fantastic job covering this shift and includes important work from Dr. Majorie Orellana. See also Sperry, Sperry & Miller and a breadth of scholarship from linguists, anthropologists and education researchers. NPR’s call to stop talking about the word gap can be found here.
This special issue of the Occasional Paper Series co-edited by Dr. Fabienne Doucet (NYU) and Dr. Jennifer Keys Adair (UT Austin) describes practices and policies that can positively impact the early schooling of children of immigrants in the United States. We consider the intersectionality of young children’s lives and what needs to change in order to ensure that race, class, immigration status, gender, and dis/ability can effectively contribute to children’s experiences at school and in other instructional contexts, rather than prevent them from getting the learning experiences they need and deserve. Contributors include: Ramón Antonio Martínez, Sandra L. Osorio, Max Vázquez Domínguez, Denise Dávila, Silvia Noguerón-Liu, Alejandra Barraza, Pedro Martinez, Zeynep Isik-Ercan, Adriana Alvarez, Lesley Koplow, Noelle Dean, Margaret Blachly, Gigliana Melzi, Adina R. Schick, Lauren Scarola and Kiyomi Sánchez-Suzuki Colegrove
