Reading Beyond the Book: Examining a Critical Social Educator’s Race & Equity Read Aloud in an Early Childhood Classroom

Abstract

In this paper, the authors specifically consider what it means to engage as a critical white social educator of young, racially diverse children. They document how one third-grade teacher-Ms. Honey, a thirty-something white woman-used diverse books as a springboard to cultivate a more critical curriculum. The authors demonstrate how, as the focal teacher centered on pressing and historical social issues-including systemic racism -in her curriculum, classroom, and community, she also re-learned (hi)stories herself. In the findings, the authors demonstrate how Ms. Honey carefully led children through a read-aloud within an integrated social studies and literacy unit. The authors frame Ms. Honey's actions as a critical social educator and, in doing so, they highlight the messy, seemingly imperfect work required to engage as a critical social educator.

Whole-class read-alouds with diverse children's literature: primary teachers' perspectives and practices

“…DCL can increase students' understanding and awareness about diverse groups of people (Wham et al, 1996) and can also create opportunities for children to draw from their cultural backgrounds and personal experience to critique complex social issues (Braden, 2019;Brownell & Rashid, 2020;Peterson & Chamberlain, 2015;Robinson, 2013). But how teachers invite students to participate in IRAs with diverse picturebooks (Adu-Gyamfi et al, 2021;Brownell, 2021;Wiseman, 2011), as well as larger, unexamined institutional Discourses (Beneke & Cheatham, 2019), can also influence the quality and depth of the discussion and meaning-making about social issues.…”

“…Because DCL mirrors children's identities and realities, all children can have opportunities to draw upon their social and cultural knowledge and experiences as they participate in IRAs with it (Braden, 2019;Peterson & Chamberlain, 2015;Robinson, 2013). Their identities and experiences also facilitate children making connections to and critiquing sociopolitical topics, issues, and Discourses such as immigration (Braden, 2019;Brownell & Rashid, 2020), language use (Peterson & Chamberlain, 2015), and race and racial injustice (Adu-Gyamfi et al, 2021;Brownell & Rashid, 2021). The dialogic interactions in read-alouds with DCL can build students' empathy (Robinson, 2013) and learn to think through and take on another's perspective (Braden, 2019).…”

“…The dialogic interactions in read-alouds with DCL can build students' empathy (Robinson, 2013) and learn to think through and take on another's perspective (Braden, 2019). Although there is not extensive scholarship on how teachers construct and conduct IRAs with DCL, research indicates that teachers must be mindful when they share DCL (Adu-Gyamfi et al, 2021;Beneke & Cheatham, 2019;Brownell & Rashid, 2021).…”

“…For the early childhood literacy Discourse, the researchers found that accountability pressures and having to implement kindergarten readiness standards caused Ann and Jasmyn to "engage[d] in a discourse of readiness" rather than "critical engagement and meaning making" (p. 121). Adu-Gyamfi et al's (2021) and Brownell and Rashid's (2021) studies each explored how elementary teachers, who identified as white women, shared picturebooks in whole-class read-alouds to facilitate critical conversations with their students around topics such as race and racism in historical events. Drawing on white educational discourse (Haviland, 2008), Adu-Gyamfi et al (2021) analyzed the read-aloud discussions of first-grade teacher Lottie and her class with two picturebooks that recounted Rosa Parks' and Richard and Mildred Loving's struggles to change racially unjust laws.…”

“…Additionally, for students to talk critically about race and racial injustice issues and to avoid centering whiteness, teachers need to ask reflective questions, rather than general or broad questions. Brownell and Rashid's (2021) research study focuses on how a third-grade teacher shared a diverse text about Audrey Faye Hendricks in a read-aloud to center conversations around race and equity. The researchers noted that the teacher provided a broad, general overview of the Civil Rights Movement rather than "unpacking" it more explicitly for students by sharing specifics of the time period.…”