Questioning Histories and Practices of/in (Early) Childhood webinar series

Title of critical dialogue topic: Unmanageable Subjects: Trans Childhoods and Civic Learning in the Elementary Classroom

Harper B. Keenan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy at the University of British Columbia. He currently serves as the inaugural Robert Quartermain Professor of Gender and Sexuality in Education. Dr. Keenan’s scholarship examines how adults and children relate to each other within the structures of schooling and other educational contexts, and what their interactions reveal about the possibilities and challenges of education. His research has been supported by a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation postdoctoral fellowship, the Canadian Social Science and Humanities Research Council, and the Roddenberry Foundation. Dr. Keenan earned a Ph.D. from the Stanford Graduate School of Education, a dual M.S. Ed. in Childhood Special and General Education from Bank Street College, and a B.A. from Eugene Lang College at The New School. His scholarship has been published in a variety of academic journals, including the Harvard Educational Review, Educational Researcher, Teachers College Record, Curriculum Inquiry, and Gender and Education. He has also written op-eds or been interviewed by popular press outlets like Teen Vogue, Them, NPR, Reuters, NBC National News, EdWeek, and Slate. Dr. Keenan is a proud former New York City elementary school teacher.

@HarperKeenan on Twitter website: www.harperkeenan.com

Title of critical dialogue topic: Continuation of Indigenous Language and Culture in Early Childhood Education: Developing a Tribal Nation Land, Water, and Seasonal Curriculum

Anna Lees (Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, descendant) began her career as an early childhood classroom teacher in rural northern Michigan. Now, an Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education at Western Washington University, she partners with schools and communities to prepare teachers for the holistic needs of children, families, and communities. Anna is committed to developing and sustaining reciprocal relationships with Indigenous communities to engage community leaders as co-teacher educators, opening spaces for Indigenous values and ways of knowing and being in early childhood settings and teacher education. She is currently engaged in research around a land education professional development model with Indigenous community leaders and relationship-based site embedded professional development with Indigenous early learning programs. Her scholarship has been awarded by the Journal of Teacher Education, Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, National Science Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation; she currently serves as editor of the Tribal College and University Research Journal.

Title of critical dialogue topic: Still Beyond Love? Questioning the Mattering of Black Boys in Early Childhood Education

Nathaniel Bryan is an assistant professor of early childhood education at Miami University. Dr. Bryan’s scholarship focuses on the investigation of three interrelated research ideas: (1) the constructed identities and pedagogical styles of Black male teachers in early childhood education (ECE); (2) the lived schooling, critical literacy development, and childhood play experiences of Black boys in early childhood education; and (3) teacher preparation for urban early childhood education to better address the needs of Black boys. Dr. Bryan is the author/editor of three books: (1) Toward a BlackboyCrit Pedagogy: Black boys, male teachers, and early childhood classroom practices; (2) The impact of classroom practices: Teacher educators reflect on culturally relevant teachers; and (3) Gumbo for the Soul: Males of color share their stories, meditations, affirmations, and inspirations.

Dr. Bryan has received thousands of dollars in grants and has more than 20 peer-reviewed publications. He also serves on the editorial board of the Journal of African-American Males in Education.  He has presented nationally and internationally on equity and diversity issues, and the schooling experiences of Black boys.  He has received prestigious awards such as the 2020 Emerging Scholar Award from the American Educational Association’s Special Interest Group––Critical Perspectives on Early Childhood Education.

RECORDING

Still Beyond Love? Questioning the Mattering of Black Boys in Early Childhood Education recording

Title of critical dialogue topic: Pedagogies of worldmaking in the everyday: Understanding young children as complex thinkers and social actors

Shirin Vossoughi is an associate professor of Learning Sciences at Northwestern University, where she draws on ethnographic and interactional methods to study the cultural, socio-political, and ethical dimensions of human learning. Vossoughi’s research centers on learning environments that support young people to develop, question and expand disciplinary and artistic knowledge in ways that nourish educational self-determination. She is particularly concerned with understanding the forms of pedagogical mediation, ethical relations, and developmental trajectories that take shape within these settings. She takes a collaborative approach to research and design, partnering with teachers, families, and students to study the conditions that foster educational dignity and possibility. Her articles can be found here, and the pedagogical zines she has developed with artists and educators can be found at Blue Dandelion. 

Title of critical dialogue topic: Foregrounding Women of Color Feminisms in Early Childhood Studies: Transformative Possibilities for Research and Praxis

Dr. Michelle Salazar Pérez is the Velma E. Schmidt Endowed Chair for Early Childhood Education & Professor of Early Childhood Studies at the University of North Texas. She uses women of color feminisms to inform her community collaborations, research, and pedagogy. These perspectives not only critically orient her work but also foreground the urgency to re-envision the field to support culturally sustaining praxis and programs for minoritized young children. Dr. Pérez’s past and current scholarship addresses early childhood policy reform, historical and contemporary constructions of childhood/s, teacher education, and critical qualitative methodologies. Her work has been published in Teachers College Record, Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, Equity & Excellence in Education, the Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, Qualitative Inquiry, and Review of Research in Education. She has co-edited several special issues and books, including The SAGE Handbook of Global Childhoods. Dr. Pérez is currently working with the Early Childhood Justice Collaborative (ECJ CoLab). More information about the group's Doctoral Fellows and projects can be found at ecjcolab.com. 

Mariana Souto-Manning, Ph.D., became Erikson’s 5th President in September 2021. Mariana has served as a professor of education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and held additional academic appointments at the University of Iceland and King’s College London. Committed to the pursuit of justice in early childhood teaching and teacher education, Mariana’s research centers on the lives, values, and experiences of intersectionally-minoritized people of Color. An Afro-Latina first-generation immigrant, Mariana earned her bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. at the University of Georgia, after having started her higher education journey at Dekalb Community College. Mariana has (co-)authored 10 books, dozens of book chapters, and over 80 peer-reviewed articles. She has received a number of research awards, including the American Educational Research Association Division K Innovations in Research on Diversity in Teacher Education Award.

RECORDING

Saying “You Belong Here” Does Not Make It So: Toward an Expansive Conceptualization and Enactment of Belonging in Early Childhood Education

Title of critical dialogue topic: Elevators, Toilets, and Other Important Things: A Politics of Care in Early Childhood

Tran Templeton is an Assistant Professor of Early Childhood and the faculty co-director of the Rita Gold Early Childhood Center at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research draws out a politics of the child which asks, which children are afforded which rights, which protections, and which childhoods? Through photography and visual research with young children, Tran juxtaposes children's versions of themselves against adults’ renditions of children. Her concern is with how adults misrecognize and misrepresent young children, whose ways of knowing and relating far exceed adults’ capacities to understand them. She proposes that enlarging our adult visions of children has significant implications for the ways that curriculum, schooling, and research are enacted. Tran has published her work in journals such as Harvard Educational Review, Children's Geographies, Language Arts, and Bank Street Occasional Papers. Her photo was made by 3-year-old Tulasi.

Title of critical dialogue topic: Thinking with Black ecologies in early childhood education

Dr. Nxumalo is faculty in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching & Learning at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, where she directs the Childhood Place Pedagogy Lab. Dr. Nxumalo has also affiliated with faculty in the School of the Environment. Her scholarship focuses on reconceptualizing place-based and environmental education within current times of ecological precarity. This scholarship is rooted in perspectives from Indigenous knowledge and Black feminist geographies. Dr. Nxumalo’s research and pedagogical interests are informed by her experiences growing up in eSwatini and working as a pedagogist with children and educators in North American settler colonial contexts. Her research and practice collaborations include the Afro-Diaspora Futures in Education Collective, Tkaronto CIRCLE Lab,  the Common Worlds Research Collective, the Early Childhood Pedagogies Collaboratory, the Pedagogist Network of Ontario and Planet Texas 2050. Her book, Decolonizing Place in Early Childhood Education (Routledge, 2019) examines the entanglements of place, environmental education, childhood, race, and settler colonialism in early learning contexts.

Twitter @Nxumalo71

Recent Publications

Nxumalo, F. & Pacini-Ketchabaw, V. (2022). Centering Black life in Canadian early childhood education. Gender & Education. DOI: 10.1080/09540253.2022.2050680

Nxumalo, F. (2021). Disrupting anti-Blackness in early childhood qualitative inquiry: Thinking with Black refusal and Black futurity. Qualitative Inquiry, 27(10), 1191-1199.

Nxumalo, F. (2021). Decolonial water pedagogies: Invitations to Black, Indigenous and Black-Indigenous world making. Bank Street Occasional Paper Series, 45, 1-12.