BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: EARLY CHILDHOOD TEACHERS’ EXPERIENCES WITH MULTICULTURAL CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

The increasingly diverse student population calls for early childhood teachers who foster equitable classrooms, particularly through their literacy practices. One tool that teachers can leverage to promote a love of literacy and highlight student diversity is multicultural children’s literature. Yet, little is known about how teachers engage with these books, nor about the external structures that may influence their selection and use. This phenomenological study, informed by ecological systems theory and critical race theory, investigated early childhood teachers’ experiences as they navigated their ecological structures and engaged in (a) intentionality in their selection of multicultural children’s literature, (b) reflexivity in their use of multicultural children’s literature, and (c) processes for selecting books, editing classroom libraries, and curating book titles that highlight diversity. These findings support researchers and practitioners alike in understanding how ecological structures can influence teachers’ selection and use of multicultural children’s literature to build equitable classrooms for young learners.

Author

• Hayes, Courtney

• diversity
• early childhood
• equity
• intentionality
• multicultural children's literature
• reflexivity

Identifier

hdl:1920/14542

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:MARS:1920/14542