“Homegrown” Latinx educator pathways: the challenges and possibilities for early childhood teacher education

ABSTRACTThis study highlights a critical case that can serve as a programmatic and conceptual model for institutional partnerships seeking to diversify the early childhood education (ECE) teaching profession with “homegrown” Latinx teachers. The case study explored the experiences of Latinx students in an ECE program at a regional, public 4-year university who participated in a Grow Your Own (GYO) program at their high schools and/or local community college. The student-centered qualitative case study addressed: What obstacles have GYO Latinx teacher candidates experienced as they transferred to a 4-year university teacher education program? What can we learn about how they made sense of and responded to these challenges for improving the way in which early childhood teacher education programs might extend and transform GYO initiatives at the university level to support the retention and continued success of Latinx teacher candidates? Using a combination of interviews and focus groups, and Latinx Critical Theory, this study demonstrated that once at the university, GYO Latinx students struggled with increased financial strain, entrance requirements into teacher education, and commuting. Stressed across the interviews was the importance of building a critical learning community, in which relationships could be nurtured in culturally sustaining and place-based ways. Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. Pseudonym.2. We acknowledge that this article comes at a time when the label “Latino” and “Chicano” is being challenged to better reflect.intersectional identities, particularly gender fluid and gender non-conforming individuals. We have seen various iterations of theterm, including (but not limited to) Latinx and Latinx/a/o. We applaud these efforts and recognize the need to (re)imagine our language to reflect intersectional experiences. Yet, we also want to make sure we do so in a way that centers those that will be most affected by the change in representative labels. We have decided to use Latinx here but do so cautiously as we continue to wrestle with how best to represent the complexity of experiences within this multifaceted ethno-racial community.3. We use color-evasive in lieu of color-blind, the more traditional term for this ideology to (a) problematize an assumption that equates blindness with ignorance that inaccurately conveys and distorts the unique way blind individuals interact with the world; and, (b) rethink and remove ableist language as core to our explicit efforts toward social justice in all aspects of our work, particularly in research and scholarship (Annamma, Jackson, & Morrison, Citation2017).4. DACA is an administrative relief that protects eligible immigrants who came to the United States when they were children from deportation. DACA gives undocumented immigrants: 1) protection from deportation, and 2) a work permit. The program requires that the DACA status and work permit be renewed every two years. See https://www.uscis.gov/DACA.