Stuck in a Bubble: Examining Kindergarten Teachers' Approaches to Social Justice Education in Private Bay Area Classrooms
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- The current study aims to highlight the voices of teachers that identify as committed to bringing social justice approaches and curriculums to private early-childhood settings. Particularly, this research attempts to explore the question of how a selection of Bay Area private school kindergarten teachers utilize their own identities and understandings of social justice-oriented approaches to education to affirm diverse identities and embolden students to reflect on and take action toward greater social justice. A series of semi-structured interviews with 11 teachers, representing multiple gender and racial identities, were conducted, transcribed, and coded using an iterative and inductive process. Teachers name personal reflection and continual education as necessary tools they use to help address their own identities and biases, how they interact with their understandings of social justice, and their teaching role. Teachers emphasize how they try to empower students to participate in similar self-reflection and understanding throughout several pedagogical approaches. This study highlights the powerful role early childhood educators view themselves to have in helping students understand and reflect on their own identities, biases, and understandings of social justice. This study also points to the need for further research, structure, support, and evidence-based approaches to aid teachers in successfully teaching and implementing social justice-oriented approaches to education in private early childhood settings.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | June 2021 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Pope, Allison |
|---|---|
| Advisor | Kelman, Ari |
| Advisor | Smith, Daniel Scott |
| Advisor | Willinsky, John |
| Primary advisor | Lit, Ira |
| Degree granting institution | Stanford University, Graduate School of Education |
Subjects
| Subject | social justice education |
|---|---|
| Subject | early-childhood |
| Subject | private school |
| Subject | kindergarten |
| Subject | teacher identity |
| Subject | bias |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction
- User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
- Pope, Allison. (2021). Stuck in a Bubble: Examining Kindergarten Teachers' Approaches to Social Justice Education in Private Bay Area Classrooms. Unpublished Honors Thesis. Stanford University, Stanford CA.
Collection
Undergraduate Honors Theses, Graduate School of Education
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- Contact
- allisonjp29@gmail.com
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