Mange amerikanske førskolebørn forbliver raceadskilt i skolen

Små børn kan have stor gavn af eksponering for racemæssig og etnisk mangfoldighed i en afgørende dannelsesperiode i deres liv, ifølge en uddannelsesprofessor i Penn State. Imidlertid, nyere forskning tyder på, at en høj grad af segregation i amerikanske børnehaver kan forhindre elever i at danne disse værdifulde tværraciale forbindelser.

Erica Frankenberg, professor i pædagogisk ledelse (pædagogisk ledelse) ved Pædagoghøjskolen, er midt i et flerårigt projekt, der skal hjælpe med at facilitere en diskussion af vigtigheden af ​​mangfoldighed i den tidlige barndom og understøtte faglig udvikling af småbørnspædagoger i forskellige miljøer.

"Jeg tænker på måder at tilskynde til integration, sagde Frankenberg, meddirektør og grundlægger af Center for Uddannelse og Borgerrettigheder (CECR) i College of Education. "En del af det skal være at ændre holdninger hos både politikere og forældre."

Frankenberg og kollega Peter Piazza var medforfatter til "Segregation at an Early Age:2019 Update, ", som præsenterer data, der illustrerer den nuværende adskillelse af førskolebørn. Tegning på 2015-16 Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), rapporten analyserer 1,58 millioner børn i 29, 186 offentlige uddannelsesinstitutioner, der optager mindst én førskoleelev.

Består af næsten 20 procent af alle tre- og fireårige børn i landet, CRDC-data "illustrerer den varierede racesammensætning af førskoleelever mellem stater som følge af demografiske forskelle og statslige politikker, der understøtter offentlige førskolemuligheder."

Piazza, som afsluttede et postdoc-stipendium ved CECR i sommeren 2019, skriver om race og skoleintegration i CECRs blog, Skolens mangfoldighedsnotesbog. Han er nu direktør for skolekvalitetsforanstaltninger ved Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment (MCIEA), et projekt, der har til formål at udvikle et mere holistisk alternativ til testbaseret skolemåling.

Frankenberg og Piazza delte oprindeligt resultater om, i hvilket omfang førskoleelever er i racemæssigt forskellige uddannelsesmiljøer i en rapport fra 2016 med titlen "Segregation at an Early Age, " udgivet gennem CECR i samarbejde med The National Coalition on School Diversity. Rapporten var baseret på CRDC fra 2013-14, analyserer 27, 957 offentlige skoler, der indskrev 1,43 millioner førskoleelever.

I lighed med rapporten for 2013-14, dataene for 2015-16 afspejler et samlet fald i amerikanske førskolebørn, der går på meget adskilte skoler. I fællesskab, imidlertid, antallet af raceisolering er fortsat høj. Mens asiatiske studerende generelt er velintegrerede, hvide førskoleelever, gennemsnitlig, gå på en skole, hvor størstedelen af ​​de andre elever er hvide i næsten alle 50 stater. Også, i næsten halvdelen af ​​alle stater, sorte førskolebørn, gennemsnitlig, gå på en skole, hvor 25 procent eller mindre af eleverne er hvide.

Et yderligere højdepunkt i rapporten er bevis på begrænset eksponering for sorte og latinamerikanske børn til både hvide studerende og hinanden. De fandt ingen stat, hvor den gennemsnitlige latinamerikanske førskoleelev går på en skole, hvor de fleste af eleverne er sorte, og opdagede, at sorte førskolebørn, gennemsnitlig, gå på en skole, hvor et flertal af eleverne er spansktalende i kun to stater:Californien og New Mexico.

"I stedet, næsten 20 procent af latinamerikanske elever går i børnehaver, hvor 90 procent eller flere elever er af samme race/etnicitet, " skrev forskerne i rapporten.

CECRs kollektive arbejde, ifølge rapporten, har til hensigt at fremme lighed på tværs af uddannelsespipeline ved at støtte indsatser, der letter integration gennem en tværfaglig tilgang. CECR sigter mod at bringe raceintegration i centrum af en landsdækkende samtale om at bruge offentlige midler til at udvide adgangen til førskole."

Frankenbergs interesse for adskillelse fra før K, hun sagde, stammer fra både hendes forskningsbaggrund og personlige forhold.

"I've long studied k-12 segregation and research has pretty consistently shown that some of the strongest benefits of integration comes from cross-racial exposure at early ages, " she said. "I'd always been curious about pre-K integration but a combination of burgeoning policy efforts to expand pre-K, Penn State bringing its early childcare centers in-house, and being the parent of preschoolers made me actually start this work."

I de seneste år, Frankenberg said, there has been widespread support of the expansion of publicly funded early education. According to the pre-K segregation report, state-level funding for early education programs more than tripled from $2.4 billion in 2002 to more than $7.6 billion in 2017. While there are fewer students overall in pre-K programs, gathering information on those students is challenging because of both public and private educational models.

"No one has really looked at this issue of racial segregation in pre-K, " Frankenberg said. "Understanding the extent to which pre-K students could be in diverse settings which could expose them to children from different backgrounds and therefore reduce the formation of stereotypes could be useful."

Racially integrating preschool classrooms provides a number of benefits for individual students as well as society, Frankenberg said. By interacting and making friends with classmates from different backgrounds, students can learn about other cultures as well as build their capacity for empathy and develop leadership skills.

"Ultimativt, I think all early child education programs should consider diversity and inclusion in their teaching and in composition of their educators, " she said. "For diverse settings, you'd want educators and their teaching to reflect the children. But in homogeneous settings too, like mostly white spaces, you'd also want educators to be exposing children to diverse literature, etc., as a way to help support the development of children for our diverse country."

In addition to preschool children missing out on the benefits of broadening their social and cultural horizons, hun sagde, preschool segregation typically results in minority groups receiving a subpar educational experience. Her research has found that public preschool programs in states with higher rates of residential segregation have greater variation in quality, while programs in low-income communities are more likely to operate with fewer resources and consequently rated as low quality.

"Historically, we've never given the same kind of resources to schools who serve high shares of students of color, " Frankenberg said.

In preschool expansion, Frankenberg and Piazza wrote in their report, there is an "opportunity to provide our youngest students with the types of learning environments that contribute to reduced racial prejudice and increased inter-group friendships in the K–12 setting."

One of the factors that contribute to increased segregation in U.S. preschools, Frankenberg said, is that parents prefer to send their kids to preschools that are relatively close to their homes. She added that it is vital for parents and legislators to recognize that "being educated in spaces that reflect the diversity of our country is really important, også."

I deres rapport, Frankenberg and Piazza outline several short-term and long-term strategies for fostering integration in preschools. A couple of possible solutions, Frankenberg said, could be locating new preschool programs at sites that serve students from diverse neighborhoods or creating inter-district partnerships that promote integration. The federal government can drive state level integration by providing matching funds to expand preschool integration; while the federal government and individual states can provide incentives for low-income parents to send their children to preschools in middle- and upper-income neighborhoods.

The CECR plans to release at least one more report on preschool segregation, Frankenberg said. Imidlertid, in September 2019, the Trump administration proposed plans to end the disaggregation of public preschool data based on race. If this rule goes into effect, tilføjede hun, it will be much harder to track any changes—positive or negative—in the data.

"It will be a real challenge, " she said. "There are other data sources, but none that are national in scope. The National Center for Education Services (NCES) is starting to add pre-K to some of its data sources, so it will likely be a matter of pulling from different data to see what we can learn."

Despite the potential obstacles, Frankenberg said she is still optimistic about the value of the research on pre-K segregation.

"Because it is an area of growth, there are exciting possibilities, if we take the importance of carefully designing preschool to consider integration and educating kids about diversity and inclusion."