Reimagining early childhood education and school readiness through the perspectives of historically marginalized families living in a rural community

Abstract

Given opportunities for early childhood education (ECE) expansion in the US, we seek to explore and elevate the perspectives of historically marginalized families, from an understudied rural community, to inform future local and state action involving public pre-kindergarten (pre-K) and kindergarten (K) provision. In partnership with a state Department of Education (DOE) and local district, we conducted two culturally responsive focus groups to investigate how such caregivers conceptualize ECE and school readiness, identify barriers with the current system, and pinpoint potential solutions to improve public pre-K and K. Participants included eight female caregivers, three of whom identified as Black, two as Hispanic, and three as White. All families met the DOE's eligibility requirements to attend public preschool. Through two 90-minute focus groups, we found families conceptualized ECE as a time for humanizing and hands-on classroom practices. They questioned the concept of school readiness, instead advocating for ways that schools can be ready for their children. Furthermore, families identified accountability culture (testing, standardization of curricula, narrow focus on core academic content, etc.), as a problem, particularly upon kindergarten entry. Solutions to improve pre-K and K included representative curricula, more equitable funding, and opportunities for collaboration across education interest-holders (e.g., teachers, families, administration, etc.) at school, district, and state levels.

Keywords

School readiness early childhood education rural education critical culturally responsive focus group

Motivation

In the United States (US), the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated existing educational opportunity gaps (Fahle et al., 2023) and illuminated issues within the decentralized early childhood education (ECE) infrastructure that serves children before kindergarten entry (Barnett et al., 2021). These fragmented sectors, before kindergarten, include public pre-kindergarten (pre-K), (Early) Head Start, independently operated childcare centers, family day homes,¹ and other care (nannies, au pairs, family members, friends, etc.). Within these sectors, free care, funded by federal, state, and local governments, is typically targeted toward the most vulnerable families, who meet income and other requirements. There is a need to understand such families’ perspectives on current ECE provision, especially as state and local policymakers continue to expand public access, specifically in pre-K, where there is bi-partisan support by governors (Lovejoy, 2023) and voters (DiGregorio and Kashen, 2023).

In addition to the policy timeliness, ECE² is an important area of scholarship given the potential for high-quality provision to address educational equity concerns. For instance, high-quality ECE promotes important long-term outcomes, like improved health and earnings as well as reduced incarceration and public assistance (McCoy et al., 2017; Phillips et al., 2017), which scholars largely attribute to the development of non-cognitive skills like executive function and emotional regulation (Heckman and Karapakula, 2019). Furthermore, there is some evidence of differential benefits of pre-K for Black and Hispanic students (Bassok, 2010). With this in mind, not all ECE is high-quality and supportive of such skill development, making the logistics of potential public expansion and provision, especially in the public pre-K sector, critical.

Accountability policy and neoliberal goals for education will likely impact ECE expansion and provision. For example, in K-12, accountability culture testing has resulted in academization (Linn, 2000) or the redirection from holistic education practices to a rigid set of content standards. Furthermore, arguments for public expansion often center neoliberal goals and practices. For instance, such goals and practices include boosting short-term “school readiness,” maternal employment, and long-term economic production (Brown, 2023). This centering of academic competition and monetary production, although likely well-intentioned and common within the post-Nation at Risk Report and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) accountability landscape (DeBray-Pelot and McGuinn, 2009; Roberts-Holmes, 2021), often assumes “high-quality” education is important to promote individual and collective economic advancement, not civic development (Labaree, 2000), or more wholistic flourishing (Kristjánsson, 2020).

Given this context, the discourse surrounding school readiness, specifically, has evolved over time. For instance, the concept of readiness emerged in the early 1900s, with maturationist theory describing when cognitive, social-emotional, motor, and language skills emerge along the developmental life cycle (Gesell Program in Early Childhood, 2024). Understanding different developmental trajectories resulted in initiatives to hold back younger students, particularly boys, who did not demonstrate specific skills within these four broad categories (Shepard and Smith, 1986). The framing of school readiness as a policy problem often enforces deficit narratives of students and families (Brown, 2023) and fails to acknowledge the ways that schools/larger systems should be ready to serve families of various cultural backgrounds and developmental trajectories (Kagan and Landsberg, 2019; Nemeth, n.d.).

Furthermore, there is debate over whether public provision under accountability policy and school readiness initiatives will drive academic pressures and standardization of classroom practice, particularly in kindergarten. For example, scholars argue public ECE provision and readiness initiatives risk increased assessment and curricula standardization, which shift power away from on-the-ground interest-holders (Fuller, 2007). These practices may also come at the expense of unstructured play, art, physical activity, and other programming important for social-emotional development (Russo, 2012). While in ECE there is arguably more emphasis on social and emotional skills than in later years of schooling (Denham, 2003, 2006), in kindergarten, academization pressures appear to have intensified assessment and standardization (Mashburn et al., 2018; Pianta et al., 2007). For example, one nationally representative study showed significant shifts from 1998 to 2010 in kindergarten teachers’ readiness views (increased academic, self-regulation, and social skills expectations), time spent on academic content (increased in math, decreased in the arts), classroom organization (reduced spaces for play/exploration), pedagogical approach (reduced child-choice and increased teacher-led instruction), and standardized testing (increased comparison to others; Bassok et al., 2016).

Ironically, such shifts may not result in the desired neoliberal goals of economic production. For instance, there is causal evidence that centering social-emotional (i.e., non-cognitive, soft-skill) development drives long-term economic success (Chetty et al., 2010; Heckman and Karapakula, 2019). Moreover, the practices are developmentally appropriate (Pianta et al., 2007) and associated with academic success and psychological well-being (Cipriano et al., 2023).

Within debates around ECE provision and ensuring readiness, some scholars have focused specifically on historically marginalized families’ perspectives. For example, some argue that culture (Lareau, 2011), toxic stress, trauma, lack of time or resources, and discrimination, among other factors (McEwen and McEwen, 2017), lead historically marginalized families to take a more passive role than higher-income families in cultivating their child's early learning experiences, thus resulting in the replication of inequities. This logic may underestimate the capacities of historically marginalized families to actively be a part of dispelling such educational disparities. In contrast, standpoint theory and funds-of-knowledge scholars would argue that those closest to systemic marginalization should have the most active role in designing early learning spaces for their children, given that their proximity to injustice leads to the richest understanding (Harding, 2004; Yosso, 2005). Furthermore, educational liberation scholars would argue that beyond historically marginalized families having a voice, educational systems should result in empowerment, through practices like questioning and collective learning, specifically about systemic injustice (Freire, 2018).

This leads to questions surrounding how the voices of historically marginalized families should impact policy. Exclusion of historically marginalized perspectives in establishing school expectations and state policies, as early as school entry, is common and perpetuates educational injustice (Omodan, 2023). For instance, in the case of ECE, current expectations for programming and school readiness are often developed without the input of such families, who are directly impacted and serve as children's first educators and advocates (Brown, 2023). Furthermore, political scientists argue that policy decisions often reflect the interests of the most powerful, specifically, economically (Gilens and Page, 2014); however, there are moments of collective action in history (e.g., the Logan Square Neighborhood Association, Moviemento Poder, the Black Lives Matter movement) in which street-level bureaucrats (Baumgartner and Jones, 2009), specifically communities of color, mobilized collective action towards policy change (Anyon, 2014; Warren and Mapp, 2011).

Finally, past critical scholarship on ECE and school readiness largely features the voices of non-White mothers in city spaces, without addressing viewpoints from rural areas or within the post-pandemic timeline. Existing research with Indigenous communities (Huber et al., 2018), Mexican immigrant mothers (Civil and Andrade, 2003), and Black mothers with children in Head Start (McAllister et al., 2005) suggested a common theme of deficit-framing. Such framing around deficient school readiness damages trusting relationships and contributes to the exclusion of non-White communities “by the ‘white stream’ education system” (Ritchie, 2014: 87). The current scholarship has yet to investigate historically marginalized families’ view of ECE and school readiness in rural spaces, at this post-pandemic moment with the language of panic around “learning loss” and lack “school readiness” (Fahle et al., 2023; Igielnik, 2021).

In response to these gaps, we designed this study to highlight counternarratives (Miller et al., 2020) and draw on cultural wealth/multiple forms of knowledge from oppressed communities that often go overlooked in academia and policy (Yosso, 2005). Given the exclusion of rural communities from larger conversations around ECE, we looked to investigate the following questions through two culturally responsive focus groups (Hall, 2020).

Research questions

How do rural families with historically marginalized identities conceptualize early childhood education and school readiness?

How may school, district, and state actors provide public preschool and kindergarten environments that better reflect what families desire from ECE?

Positionality

Both authors are graduate students and former early childhood educators, with expertise on the everyday functioning of rural and urban schools. They bring together interdisciplinary perspectives from educational psychology and education policy respectively. This lived experience and content knowledge positioned the researchers as instruments attuned to nuances of school readiness in the current accountability era and enhanced credibility with families (Milner, 2007).

This research grew from a partnership between the authors and the DOE from a shared commitment to improving ECE. The entirely female partnership team consisted of the two researchers/authors, who identify as White, two representatives from the DOE who identify as White and Black respectively, as well as a district representative, who identifies as Black. Given intersectional differences in identity (Crenshaw, 1989) between the research team and participants, researchers aimed to mitigate barriers and power dynamics through humanization, rapport building, and reciprocity efforts (Rodriguez et al., 2011), described in more depth in the methods.

Methods

We approached our research questions through a critical paradigm (Lincoln, 2015), aiming to uplift the voices of historically marginalized people (racial, ethnic, geographic, socioeconomic intersections), counter deficit narratives (Graue, 2006), and encourage social justice-oriented action from policymaker partners (Vierra et al., 2023). We operated out of a critical paradigm because while ecological scholars acknowledge the interactions of inputs at a micro- or meso-level, they fail to question the macro-historical, institutional, and cultural forces, or how power shapes the discourse (Guba and Lincoln, 1994). Methodologically, we sought to contextualize present realities, acknowledge how power has produced scholarship and policy, and generate work that leads to socially just actions/policy.

Sample

The study included a total of eight participants over two sessions in line with culturally responsive focus group recommendations (Hall, 2020). To prioritize historically marginalized people's voices, focus groups were conducted in a rural school district serving predominantly low-income families. Furthermore, we focused on families that met the state's at-risk classification³ to attend public pre-K and especially prioritized the representation of Black and Hispanic families. We invited participants based on meeting one of the following inclusion criteria: caregivers of non-White children, families who qualified for free or reduced-price lunch (FRPL), or caregivers whose highest level of education was less than college. Given difficulties with simultaneous translational services, mono-lingual Spanish families were excluded from this project. The sample was intentionally balanced between caregivers of students in pre-K and kindergarten from one public elementary school in the rural Appalachia region offering public pre-K programming to qualifying four-year-olds.

Our district partner compiled all caregivers who met inclusion criteria and managed communication given her pre-existing relationships. Out of the roughly 20 families in pre-K, four were randomly selected and received an email describing the study's aim to better understand families experiences of ECE and school readiness initatives. One family did not reply and one declined due to travel. Caregivers of kindergarten students were invited based on existing relationships and to maximize diversity within the sample. Two of the initial four selected declined due to scheduling. Confirmed participants included eight female caregivers (e.g., mothers, grandmothers) who self-identified as Black (n = 3), Hispanic (n = 2), and White with multi-racial children (n = 3). No participants were directly related to one another to increase the diversity of the sample. In the following sections, we refer to participants as families, caregivers, or by the assigned pseudonym (Table A1) to mask identity.

Data collection

Focus groups serve as an appropriate method to gain information about a specific topic through dialogue (Krueger & Casey, 2015; Morgan, 2019; Patton, 2014). Culturally responsive focus groups, specifically, acknowledge/connect to participants’ intersectional identities, center social justice, question common assumptions, and facilitate the co-creation of knowledge (Hall, 2020; Lahman et al., 2011). Advantages of such focus groups include shifting power to the participants and allowing cross-participant interaction that can deepen collective understanding and relationships. We noted this in our focus group through participants expressing gratitude for in-person connection to other families and co-creation of knowledge. This allowed for the focus groups to serve as an empowering intervention in addition to providing data to inform the outlined research questions (Hall, 2020). One drawback of data collection via focus groups was that some voices dominated the conversation while others had less time to be heard.

In addition to prioritizing rapport-building, culturally responsive focus groups allowed for questioning social norms/deficit framing in an approachable way (Hall, 2020; Rodriguez et al., 2011). The PIs collaboratively developed the original focus group protocol goals and questions with DOE partners with this in mind (Table A2). We asked questions that engaged participants from an asset-based perspective, which were brief, digestible, open-ended, logically sequenced, and prompted story-sharing/concern-voicing (Hall, 2020). For example, caregivers responded to questions such as, “How does your idea of early childhood education and school readiness differ from the Department of Education's?” In their responses, caregivers were comfortable questioning common narratives and sharing their stories.

Our focus group data collection consisted of two 90-minute semi-structured focus groups over two weeks and an optional virtual 60-minute tour of online state readiness resources for families in-between sessions. Researchers obtained University IRB approval, participant informed consent, and demographic survey data. The first focus group occurred in April 2023, in the local National History Museum, with seven of the eight invited participants present. The second focus group occurred in May 2023, in a local arts center, with all eight participants present. Chairs were arranged in a circle to promote equal contribution and dialogue. Lunch was provided by a local minority and woman-owned restaurant, and participants were compensated $50 for their time at each focus group session.

During the first focus group session, participants were invited to participate in a virtual resource tour and if there were any additional resources we could provide during the second focus group, to emphasize reciprocity. Based on participant engagement and feedback in the first focus group, we adjusted the protocol for the second focus group to accommodate caregivers’ interest in the formal state definitions of school readiness and better answer the existing research questions. In the first focus group session, no members of the state DOE nor district partners were in the room so participants might feel freer to share their honest thoughts and critique. However, participants advocated that they would like to have state DOE and district partners in the conversation for the second focus group session. During the second session, data reached saturation, with similar themes re-emerging.

Analysis

Focus groups were audio-recorded via Zoom (no video) for automated transcription, which authors manually checked and analyzed with an abductive coding process in Dedoose, version 9. This flexible process (Deterding & Waters, 2021) allows for theory to inform coding schemes while remaining open to emergent themes that could contradict or extend existing theory (Timmermans & Tavory, 2012). After memoing, researchers created a codebook and coded individually, then compared coding schemes. Thematic findings were then summarized in a one-pager (front and back) shared with the DOE, district partners, and participants (Figure 1). Sharing findings with the participants was particularly important for member-checking the themes to ensure that we accurately reflected caregivers’ perceptions. The member-checking process led to feedback that informed a revision to the final report. To ensure mutual benefit and empowerment, the report also included resources for family advocacy and working toward collective liberation.

Beyond sharing the findings with participants and the DOE partners, we also hosted a collaborative discussion session via Zoom with the district and DOE partners to brainstorm next steps and implications for the research. During the collaborative discussion session, themes from the analysis were presented with representative quotes. We used a brainstorming approach to the presentation in which all research team members and partners were given the opportunity to reflect on the meaning and implications of each theme. Along with district and DOE partners, we created a table of action steps for each interest-holder based on study findings (Table A3).

Findings

Throughout the focus groups, we attempted to minimize our voices and let the caregivers co-lead the conversation. At times, this required redirecting conversation back to the protocol. We tell a storified account of the focus groups and broadly find that (1) families conceptualized early childhood ideally as a humanizing, hands-on, play-based space. (2) Caregivers questioned school readiness and shifted conversations on whether schools can meet families’ needs, particularly around the kindergarten transition. Families suggested (3) shifts away from cultures of accountability and academization and (4) instituting collaborative policies at a school, local, and state level (e.g., more equitable funding, more representative curriculum, more relationship-building opportunities). Despite our initial research aims of understanding families’ perspectives specifically in pre-K and the transition to kindergarten, families organically and repeatedly emphasized concerns for their children's transition to continued formal schooling at this time and beyond.

Desire for humanizing and play-based approaches to ECE

Focus group one began with the rapport-building question, “What are your hopes and dreams for your children?” Families responded with hopes such as, “I hope she, well, she loves school … I want her to excel in school” (Vera) and “She's super smart … I hope that she continues to grow on that aspect, of course, academically, but also on the other side that's not in school, you know, everything else” (Leah). Another parent added, “Just be a decent well-rounded benefit to society, and family member, that is my goal for all my kids” (Moriah).

When the conversation pivoted to what families desired from pre-K and K, caregivers expressed a desire for more humanizing education that allows for play-based, hands-on learning.

[Pre-K teachers] believe in learning through play all over, and that's beautiful. (Moriah)

I feel like pre-K it's more like hands-on, more social skills than anything else. (Vera)

I’m a hands-on person. You can explain it to me. I won’t know a thing like if you talk me through it, I’m listening, I’m not retaining, I have to do it myself. And I think that's a problem too with our kids. (Noami)

Caregivers expressed a desire for hands-on, play-based learning designed to promote social skills, but noted that these practices were becoming less common given cultures of accountability and limits placed on teachers (discussed in more depth later).

Questioning school readiness

As facilitators, we shifted the dialogue toward school readiness and the transition to kindergarten. Families questioned if it is possible to fully prepare their child for school. They flipped the concept of readiness on its head and suggested how schools could adjust to encourage social interactions as well as hands-on learning, which was more common in pre-K.

I don’t really think there's anything that could really make them 100% ready. I feel like pre-K specifically, I guess where they’re just kind of getting started is where it's really gonna start preparing them because it gets them into that set schedule, it gets them into the social interactions. (Naomi)

Families also noted how their children were not ready for the kindergarten transition, but faulted the school system's approach–not that they “failed” to make their child “ready.”

There is a disconnect between pre-K and literally the entire rest of the school … I’m gonna say it's very much “come to your classroom, sit down, do your work, do what you’re supposed to do, learn what you’re supposed to learn, go home, and then do whatever, but you still got to do your homework.” I was a child of that same system. It was not beneficial to me … So to see my child go from playing and learning and all this to coming home and she's like, “I don’t like kindergarten.” Why? “Because we don’t play. There's toys but we don’t get to play with them.” That bothers me personally. (Leah)

There is a big leap of learning through play, to here's your desk … I don’t know who we’re competing with. I don’t care. The reality is these kids need to start off with play and slowly transition. (Moriah)

Families perceived kindergarten as overworking students through long hours at desks in school and through homework at home. Moreover, families expressed that they had limited time to offer support at home due to time constraints, mainly related to work. They questioned who their children are competing with within what they perceived as an anxiety-ridden world.

Accountability culture and academization

Families pinpointed much of the stress of kindergarten and higher grades to accountability culture and academization, which they did not desire to be as present within their child's learning environments. Given the late spring timing of the focus groups, these themes were very present given many families had recently experienced state standardized testing with older siblings. Without prompting, the discussion turned to anxieties related to the changing conditions in the larger world and in schools. Families appeared to agree that they and their children felt stressed.

It's so scary for our kids, and it terrifies me and I want more. But then again I don’t want more because I don’t even know what the world's coming to. (Naomi)

I am seeing things in the school system that not only terrify me but I’m ashamed of … The DOE does not listen to parents because I can guarantee you, even for the parents who don’t care, none of us like the state tests. None of us see a use in them because we know the reality is that they are testing teachers, not our kids. My kids are learning what has been dictated to the teachers to teach. I guarantee you, my teachers haven’t created very many other lessons. It's given to them. This is what you have to do. You stay this path, don’t stray, stay this path. Whereas when I was in school, they [teachers] could stray a little and we learned a lot more because it was interesting. It made us want to learn it. We cared. We were curious, I really feel like if the school could include a little bit of unschooling versus traditional schooling, we get a lot better benefits of these kids. (Moriah)

This segment exemplified caregivers’ shared anxiety and perceptions of testing as a practice that took time away from students’ learning, while perhaps not meeting families’ needs. For instance, standardized testing was perceived as part of a system of holding schools and teachers accountable at the expense of personalized learning and curiosity. Caregivers expressed concern about the emphasis on tests starting right before kindergarten entry and continuing into future grades, including annual standardized testing and recurring formative assessments throughout the year, as one parent describes.

I don’t know if y’all had, did the end of the school year test. Have you already done it? We went over it with the teacher, the pre-K language and literacy screener, and the state math assessment. Yeah. And we decided that it's not developmentally appropriate for those age groups. It's a whole different than when my nine-year-old took hers. It's a lot different and the stuff that they asked for pre-K they should be asking of a second or third grader. (Maya)

At a different portion of the conversation, parents expressed that they understood the importance of formative assessment for measuring their child's academic strengths and areas of improvement, but their experience of state-level testing did not align with this vision. Instead, they and their teachers questioned the developmental appropriateness and usefulness of state tests for pre-K students.

Furthermore, families were aware of the connections between assessment-oriented schooling and capitalist structures based on competition and production. One mother introduced the idea that educational systems are intended to make their children compliant workers.

Because it all boils down to the industrial times where they wanted to overwork people and of course people came up and were like, “We don’t wanna work seven days a week” and they’re like, “OK, we’ll give you five, we’ll give you five.” The school obviously has become that training program for the worker … They [systems] are designed to keep people down … and I feel like instead of making kids better people, they want kids to be better workers. (Leah)

[responding to Leah's previous comment] Or preparing our kids for the “real world,” when you’re not even teaching real-world concepts. (Naomi)

School, district, and state solutions

Given these concerns families offered district and state partners suggestions for how to improve ECE, which largely included opportunities to share information, foster connection, and approach the work more equitably (e.g., representative curricula, funding reform, etc.).

School/district-level

When thinking about ECE and the kindergarten transition at the school level, families expressed a desire for information and collaboration. For instance, they discussed how the schools/the district may do launch parties, provide expectations to families at the start of the year, and encourage relationship-building.

They had … a kindergarten, like, launch party … and they all went to school. They all got to walk the classrooms, got to walk to school, got to see everything, meet the teachers. (Vera)

Like in higher grades who give syllabus for the year—to do that for kindergarten. That would be great because I feel like my kid could have been more prepared if I had known what they were getting into and vice versa. Like what you guys said about getting to know the teacher. “What are your expectations? Here are mine.” (Leah)

You can build that relationship with who your child is gonna be with for that entire year. I would love to be able to sit down with my teachers. And I say, what are your expectations of me? Because here are my expectations of you for this upcoming school year … I think new teachers need to pair up with older teachers. And mentor. I personally think there needs to be a parent-to-parent mentor too. You mentioned being a brand new parent. I’ve been a parent for 30-some years, right? Granted the times have changed, but I guarantee you the basics haven’t and she would have never met me to know that she could ask a question until this happened because I’ve never seen them. (Moriah)

I enjoy talking to the [other] parents because a lot of things have changed. (Maya)

At a school level, such launch parties could provide an opportunity to introduce information like readiness goals for pre-K and K. Furthermore, they would allow for relationship-building between teachers and families. Additionally, families advocated for families and teachers learning from peers through mentorship opportunities. These ideas around collaboration led to helpful insights around leveraging connection/knowledge building through virtual spaces.

That Facebook group has been awesome … That Facebook group put me in touch with parents. (Moriah)

I’m seeing it now, like in terms of what's going on in Florida [referring to book bans] … But we know, I know the truth. And where did I learn that? … I got it on TikTok … Like the real truth of what happened when the English came and literally killed off all the Native Americans. You know, we didn’t know that in school, and so I’m teaching my fifth grader. (Leah)

Many families agreed the family Facebook group and other social media platforms had served as powerful tools for connection and information, which schools and districts could leverage to foster connection. Facebook was described as useful for building camaraderie and sharing questions or concerns about school or child-rearing in general which helps caregivers feel seen and not alone. TikTok was given as an example of short, engaging, and informational videos that many caregivers appreciated for gaining information, which districts could also leverage.

State-level

At the state level, families advocated for similar types of improved communication, funding shifts to support ECE learning environments that mirrored their higher-income peers, as well as more representative curricula, starting at a young age.

I think what would be cool is a representative from each school meet at convention week, some kind of travel, something and see how each school district compares. (Moriah)

In this quote, the parent expresses a desire for school representatives around the state to have more opportunities to exchange ideas around best practices. Furthermore, they noted the state could support professional development at this “convention.” These discussions of state action led to a conversation around funding.

Money is not divided equally in my view … [wealthier region in the state] has it made … It is also my understanding that the county gets more funding than the city across the way. (Moriah)

This illustrates the desire for more equal funding to provide children the opportunity for high-quality education in ECE and beyond (e.g., curricular materials, more staffing support, paying for interest-holders to meet each other outside of the school day, etc.). Two quieter participants expressed learning from this comment, not realizing school funding's tie to property taxes, demonstrating how past education systems had failed to teach them about inequities and the power of connecting with knowledgeable peers.

The conversation next addressed state-wide curricular debates, in which families expressed a desire for more representative curricula in pre-K and kindergarten as well as school more broadly.

And I’m sorry, but Black history is not touched enough around here. No, it is not. I have a biracial son and I’ve had to learn a lot from his family. I never learned anything about Black history in school, ever. Martin Luther King Jr.—learned about him like, yeah, he made a famous speech. Oh, that was it. Bye. (Naomi)

You need cultural aspects everywhere because the reality is our kids are gonna run into so many different cultures. (Moriah)

Families argued for non-White-washed history, which may have been expected given the sample's ethno-racial diversity, but also could surprise those who associate rurality with policies like book bans or classroom censorship. While the caregivers did acknowledge, “Yeah, there's always gonna be backlash” (Leah), they agreed on the importance of representative curricula.

Finally, during the second focus group participants were asked to respond to their experience in the online virtual resource tour provided by the state. Caregivers noted they did not find the current local and state websites particularly user-friendly, when searching for information.

That's one thing that needs to be fixed and fixed quick. This does not cater to any parent I’m not saying give us a little parent's corner because I wanna be able to access and understand it in its entirety. I don’t like parents’ corners because we don’t get half the information we need. I was able to look through [the website], but I had to get through all this corporate stuff to get to what pertained to me and mine. That's not cool. If you’re putting this out there for me, I should not have to deep dive and dig and dig. (Moriah)

Moriah's comment highlighted the “huge lack of communication between the state and us,” families, with which other participants agreed.

Discussion

These findings build upon past scholarly work and provide powerful counternarratives. First, caregivers expressed their ideal ECE would include play and experiential learning. Unfortunately, greater emphasis on academics, especially in kindergarten, has reduced play and hands-on learning (Bassok et al., 2016; Russo, 2012), which are not only popular in ECE but also developmentally appropriate (Denham, 2003; 2006) and effective strategies (Cipriano et al., 2023; Taylor et al., 2017). In addition to increased academic expectations in kindergarten, caregivers expressed the strain of standardization on teachers (Fuller, 2007).

Families within systemic marginalization possessed a critical perspective that they leveraged to provide recommendations on how to improve state-administered ECE environments. For instance, caregivers brought up schooling's purpose being to train the worker, which aligns with past work rejecting factory models of education (Freire, 2018), for an approach that empowers historically marginalized families. They acknowledged that they could not access their ideal ECE. Furthermore, given the rurality of the sample, others may be surprised by the desire for culturally affirming curricula, affirmed loudly by two White and one Hispanic caregiver within the sample, at a moment of book bans and other forms of classroom censorship. This finding provides a strong counternarrative to the awareness of historically marginalized communities about their own oppression.

Other policy recommendations largely involved increased family engagement, collaboration, and information distribution. Desire for increased involvement is counter to some deficit-based narratives of caregivers not wanting to be involved in school or not showing up to parent nights (Bower & Griffin, 2011; Henderson & Mapp, 2007; Johnson, 2015). These caregivers wanted more school-based opportunities to connect with teachers and other families. Additionally, they advocated for teacher–teacher relationships by setting up a mentor system, which aligns with research-based best practices (Jones et al., 2013). Interestingly, while many connections required meeting in person, caregivers also saw value in virtual spaces for connection and knowledge-building. Finally, they broadened their lens to how change could happen through collaboration on a district- and state level. Bringing together various interest-holders to facilitate more equitable change is another research-backed organizing tactic to achieve policy change (Anyon, 2014), which some work suggests only requires committed support from 3.5% of the population (Chenoweth, 2021).

Limitations

Though we intentionally sought a small and ethno-racially diverse sample, we recognize a limitation of this study is the relatively small sample size (N = 8), drawing from one school. The smaller number of participants in focus groups did allow us more time to hear details from each participant, like their individual experiences with the school system, testing, and visions from the future. With this in mind, a small sample limits the generalizability of findings to less diverse rural spaces, for example. Additionally, caregivers had to opt into the group after selection (with four families opting out), showing a degree of initial interest, motivation, and time flexibility which could impact how findings transfer to other demographics. Furthermore, as noted in the challenges of conducting focus groups, certain caregivers were very eager to share, which risked minimizing others’ voice. For instance, although there were many nonverbal gestures indicating group agreement, the three most vocal participants were non-Black women, who spoke English as a first language. Given the historic elevation of privileged people's perspectives (i.e., White people), this is perhaps unsurprising. We attempted to counter this drawback by asking participants explicitly during the focus group to allow space for voices that had yet to share, encouraging those who had yet to speak to answer first, and trying to highlight a variety of voices within our findings.

Implications and next steps

Through the partnership the team intended to connect interest-holders, provide tangible support for families, and gather historically marginalized families’ perspectives on ECE to inform policy conversations/change. Notably, this research partnership was not funded by the DOE and it's hard to say yet whether the intended implications were fully met. An initial action was a collaborative brainstorming session where the district and DOE representatives demonstrated responsivity to the overarching themes. Specifically, the district and DOE representatives seemed open to more localized action steps, like creating more in-person and virtual opportunities to connect families and teachers, setting up informal mentoring opportunities, website redesign, potentially raising funds for an ECE coordinator, and so on. Given the longer nature of policy change, at the time of publication, the action steps by the DOE included planning to continue family focus groups with family councils in regions across the state. Further research is needed to systematically gather feedback from families surrounding ECE, to track the implementation of research findings within various levels of education policy.

Conclusion

Through critical qualitative analysis, we synthesized the perspectives of eight rural caregivers on the state of ECE following the pandemic. Preliminary findings build on past work (Brown, 2009, 2023; Wesley & Buysse, 2003), suggesting the need to align school policies with more asset-based, humanizing education, to ensure schools are ready for families, instead of families being ready for school. Specifically, we found that accountability culture appeared to have entered younger grades, particularly kindergarten, a theme also supported by past work (Bassok et al., 2016; Pianta et al., 2007). To achieve hands-on, play-based learning environments, families advocated for change across various education policy levels. These findings contribute to the broader literature by providing the perspectives of an understudied group: historically marginalized caregivers in a rural community. Finally, counternarratives relating to a desire for increased collaboration in policy change, more representative curricula, and equalized funding could help inform more equitable ECE policies at this pivotal moment of potential expansion.

Footnotes

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: Work on this project was supported by the Institute of Education Science, U.S. Department of Education through grant R305B200005 to the University of Virginia.

ORCID iDs

Liz Nigro

Allison Ward-Seidel

Notes

Author biographies

Liz Nigro is a PhD candidate in the Research, Statistics, and Evaluation (RSE) program. Her primary area of research is creating more truly integrated schools through critical participatory action research approaches.

Allison Ward-Seidel is a PhD candidate in the Educational Psychology Applied Development Science (EPADS) program. Her area of research is adolescent racial and ethnic identity development.

Appendix

Table A3.

Action steps generated during collaborative brainstorming session with district and DOE partners based on focus group findings

Organization	District Partner	DOE ECE Department	DOE-ECE Partner	Research Team
Guiding Question:	(Thank you!) What does this mean for families in X?	How does this fit into family councils and state-wide initiatives?	How does this influence continued focus groups/content development?	What are ways to disseminate this work and continue to support partners?
Notes	Mail one-pager to family participants. Gather to debrief with families 1-pager & resources	Full-time positions to do parent engagement (and preschool coordinator)		Grant opportunities for parent engagement

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