A DisCrit Analysis of Quality in Early Childhood: Toward Pedagogies of Wholeness, Access, and Interdependence

In U.S. contexts, the language of “quality” early childhood education is widely invoked to evaluate the “goodness” of teaching and learning and is often leveraged in attempts to ameliorate inequities. Likewise, efforts to define and achieve generalizable conceptualizations of early childhood quality often guide what takes place in teacher education. Though objections to quality reform efforts and the ways they uphold white supremacy have been extensively discussed, less work has explicitly examined how ableism intersects with racism in the ways quality is defined and applied in early childhood. The purpose of this conceptual article is to extend prior critiques of quality to critically examine intersections of racism and ableism in the definitions, measurements, and enactments of quality early childhood teaching and learning. We bring disability critical race theory (DisCrit; Annamma et al., 2013) into conversation with literature on quality in early childhood to examine how traditional notions of early childhood quality position and affect multiply-marginalized children, families, and teachers. We emphasize how dominant notions of early childhood quality are reinforced and can be disrupted in teacher preparation. We utilize DisCrit’s seven interrelated tenets to analyze how ableism and racism mutually reinforce notions of early childhood quality by: (1) predefining universal goals for teaching and learning; (2) reducing the complexity of teaching and learning; and (3) discarding the wisdom of multiply-marginalized children, families, and teachers. Each of these technocratic processes rely on one another (and at times, overlap) to uphold whiteness and ableism in both early childhood practice and teacher education; exposing them allows us to imagine alternate ways of conceptualizing and enacting meaningful early education. Through DisCrit praxis, we offer an alternative language of evaluation that centers multiply-marginalized young children, families, and teachers using pedagogies of wholeness, access, and interdependence. At the nexus of ableism and racism, standardized notions of early childhood quality create myriad forms of harm for multiply-marginalized children, families, and teachers. Although the language of quality pervades the field, we know it is not the only way. We implore teacher educators to support teacher candidates in developing a DisCrit praxis, as we engage in such processes of reflection and action ourselves. When teaching and learning are rooted in principles of wholeness, access, and interdependence, we put multiply-marginalized communities at the heart of our work, reclaiming and enacting meaningful pedagogies in early childhood.