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Background Reading Materials for Diversity and School Readiness Meeting

On December 11-12, 2007 the Build Initiative hosted a meeting of partners with a focus on Diversity and School Readiness. The meeting was funded by the Heinz Endowments and the Annie E. Casey Foundation with significant support and participation from the National Black Child Development Institute and the National Council of La Raza. The materials listed below are divided into four categories that mirror the topics discussed at the meeting.


1. Framing Issues and Marketing Strategies for Equity and Diversity in Early Childhood

Cecilia Rouse, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, and Sara McLanahan. “Introducing the Issue. Special Issue: School Readiness: Closing Racial and Ethnic Gaps.” The Future of Children. Volume 15, Number 1, Spring 2005.
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Valora Washington. 2007. Persistent Disparities: The Impact of Race and Class on Young Children—And What Michigan Can Do About It. (Prepared for the Governor’s Summit on Early Childhood, November 2007.)
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Franklin D. Gilliam. 2005. From the Self Making Person to Opportunity for All: Rethinking Our Thinking on Race: A Frameworks Message Memo.
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Meg Bostrom. 2001. Education, Gender and Race: A Review of Current Public Opinion. The Frameworks Institute.
This 34 page review is not current, but it reviews public attitudes at that time toward education, gender and race and discusses how that impacts people’s understandings of equity in the classroom.
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Shaping the Message: How to talk about race. The Annie E. Casey Foundation.
This guide promotes effective discussion and advocacy concerning race. It is part of a series of documents in the "Race Matters Toolkit" designed to help decision-makers, advocates, and elected officials get better results in their work by providing equitable opportunities for all.
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Powerpoint presentation from Iowa Diversity meeting
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2. Building Cultural Competence in Child Development Practices and Early Learning Standards

Michelle Stover Wright & Abby Copeman. 2007. Culture and Language Elements within Nine State Early Learning Standards Documents. Child and Family Policy Center, Des Moines, IA.
This paper begins with a foreword by Charlie Bruner that highlights the need for a multicultural approach to early learning standards. The authors then provide a content analysis of the “diversity” related pieces of nine states’ early learning standards, which provides a good starting point for discussion of what early learning standards could and should look like if they are to reflect and be responsive to our multicultural society.
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Aisha Ray, Barbara Bowman & Jean Robbins. 2006. Preparing Early Childhood Teachers to Successfully Educate All Children: The Contribution of State Boards of Higher Education and National Professional Accreditation Organizations. Project on Race, Class and Culture in Early Childhood, Erikson Institute, Chicago, IL. Report to the Foundation for Child Development, NY, NY.
This study examined the websites of the 30 state boards of higher education and three national professional accreditation organizations with early education teacher preparation standards or elementary teacher standards with an early education endorsement. Researchers identified eight coding categories that reference children's characteristics typically associated with diversity. They examined the extent to which diversity categories are addressed in standards and whether the categories are adequately defined.
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Aisha Ray, Barbara Bowman & Jean Robbins. 2006. Preparing Early Childhood Teachers to Successfully Educate All Children: The Contribution of Four-Year Undergraduate Teacher Education Programs. Project on Race, Class and Culture in Early Childhood, Erikson Institute, Chicago, IL. Report to the Foundation for Child Development, NY, NY.
This study examined the extent to which early childhood teacher education programs awarding the bachelor's degree require that teachers learn content and practice skills that address the education and developmental needs of all children. Researchers identified 11 diversity coding categories for this study. Data were gathered from web sites of 226 schools, representing one-third of accredited U.S. Bachelor's Degree programs that train early childhood teachers.
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Slide on Child Development through a Multi-Cultural Lens.
This slide compares a mono-cultural to a multicultural approach to developmentally appropriate practices.
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3. Building a Diverse and Culturally Competent Early Childhood Workforce

Charles Bruner. 2007. Developing a Skilled, Ethnically and Linguistically Diverse Early Childhood Workforce. Village Building and School Readiness: Closing Opportunity Gaps in a Diverse Society. SECPTAN. Des Moines, IA.
This chapter of Village Building is adapted from California Tomorrow’s Getting Ready for Quality. The link for the full California Tomorrow publication is below.
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Hedy Chang. 2006. Getting Ready for Quality: The Critical Importance of Developing and Supporting a Skilled, Ethnically and Linguistically Diverse Early Childhood Workforce. California Tomorrow. Oakland, CA.
This policy paper is a product of a national working group on School Readiness, Culture and Language representing staff from California Tomorrow, Georgetown Center for Child and Human Development, National Black Child Development Institute, National Council of La Raza, and Zero to Three. The six chapters present research, rationale for the urgency of developing a diverse skilled workforce, definition of a high quality workforce for a diverse society, and recommendations for action at the local, state and federal policy levels.
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Charles Bruner. 2007. Developing Culturally-Appropriate Quality Rating and Improvement Systems. Prepared for the Build Initiative.
This two-page overview indicates some types of measures that could be incorporated into QRIS that would begin to recognize culturally appropriateness.
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Aisha Ray, Barbara Bowman & Jean Robbins. See descriptions and weblinks above.

Many topics and publications could fit under more than one category, including the many issues related to immigrant families and their children. Visit the CLASP website where you will find their publication Reaching All Children? Understanding Early Care and Education Participation among Immigrant Familes and more information about their work on immigrants and early education.

See also the publications area of the National Council of La Raza website for their recent publication Paying the Price: The Impact of Immigration Raids on America's Children.

4. Sharing Power and Expertise

The Annie E. Casey Foundation has a number of publications related to working toward racial equity. A few materials are linked below, but to see the range of materials, go to http://www.aecf.org/KnowledgeCenter/PublicationsSeries/RaceMatters.aspx.

System Reform Strategies is a one-page tool designed to help ensure that system reform strategies maximize opportunities for all children. It provides examples of types of interventions and suggests things to consider related to racial/ethnic impacts.
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Guidelines for Achieving Staff & Board Diversity & Guidelines for Promoting Racially Equitable Purchasing are two guides that are part of the Race Matters “Occasional Updates” series.
Download Guides for Achieving Staff & Board Diversity
Download Guides for Promoting Racially Equitable Purchasing

Mariana Souto-Manning & Jaime L. Dice. 2007. Reflective teaching in the early years: A case for mentoring diverse educators. Early Childhood Education Journal, 34 (6), 425-430.
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Family involvement is a significant aspect of sharing power and expertise. Below are a number of related resources contributed by the Statewide Parent Advocacy Network in New Jersey.

Family-Centered Services Standards & Indicators of Performance. 2007.
This is a draft of Standards for Parent Centers that comes out of a national team of representatives of the Regional Parent Technical Assistance Centers that is developing strategies to increase cultural and linguistic competence among parent centers. Some of the standards are explicitly about cultural and linguistic competence and others address this issue but not explicitly.
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Why do Parents get Involved? Statewide Parent Advocacy Network of New Jersey.
This one page handout articulates why parents get and stay involved.
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Families as Leaders. Statewide Parent Advocacy Network of New Jersey.
This two page handout documents lessons SPAN has learned about the journey family members take toward leadership.
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The Parenting Imperative: Investing in Parents so Children and Youth Succeed. 2007. Family Strengthening Policy Center, an initiative of the National Human Services Assembly.
Strengthening parents and their connections to resources can help children thrive. This recently published brief from the National Human Services Assembly looks at how a "parenting success" strategy can be used to strengthen families and communities. It discusses delivering effective family-centered services and provides recommendations for community groups, agencies, funders and policymakers on how to maximize impact.
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