Early childhood personnel preparation programs must prepare future early educators who can counteract racism and ableism to provide all children with an equitable and just education. We applied Dis/ability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit) Classroom Ecology to early childhood and specifically to preschool settings. We argue that early childhood personnel preparation programs can utilize this framework to prepare preservice early educators to facilitate more equitable experiences for Children of Color with disabilities and their families. We discuss the importance of preparing future early educators to counteract racism and ableism through their fieldwork experiences. We also provide a brief overview of DisCrit in relation to early childhood personnel preparation and present DisCrit Classroom Ecology to apply the framework components to preschool fieldwork.
Strong family–school partnerships are crucial throughout K–12 education as they enable the development and implementation of meaningful educational programs for students with disabilities. This is especially true during transition planning. In many families, youth with disabilities have siblings that are a core part of the family unit, are likely to have the longest relationships with their sibling with disabilities, and may take over supporter roles as parents age. However, siblings are frequently neglected members of family–school partnerships. Siblings of students with disabilities have many unique insights to offer, particularly during the transition planning. This article describes benefits of including siblings of students with disabilities in family–school partnerships and offers school professionals suggestions on how to include siblings during transition planning.
Efforts to “professionalize” early childhood through professional standards, licensure requirements, and standardized assessments have aimed to support effective practice and rectify the pay inequities experienced by early educators. However, such initiatives can inadvertently reinforce hegemonic developmentalism and have largely served to advance white, able-bodied norms and narrow views of teaching and learning. Teacher educators endeavoring to combat racism and ableism, therefore, can encounter several tensions that result from trying to apply critical perspectives while preparing pre-service teachers for graduation and certification in the current personnel preparation landscape. In this article, the authors employ Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit) Resistance to explore these tensions and offer potential ways they can serve as key opportunities for supporting equity. They discuss how teacher educators can enact DisCrit Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Solidarity to diversify the knowledge(s) that are represented in content; center and affirm the identities and gifts of multiply marginalized teachers of color; and disrupt power hierarchies to honor relationships and interdependence.
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