Unequal Opportunities in Classroom Participation in Preschool

“

Our results suggest that preschools underutilize their potential to “level the playing field” for students from different SES strata, will spur the development of interventions targeting the context of early childhood education. For example, it is possible that increasing preschool teachers’ awareness of the cultural mismatch between the socialization experiences of low-SES students and the school environment may help teachers to foster equal engagement in all their students; explaining to teachers how the cultural stereotypes about low-SES students’ abilities may affect these students’ behavior in the classroom could have similarly beneficial effects. There are many concrete aspects of the preschool context that could be redesigned to promote more equal engagement, regardless of student SES. Consider, for example, whole-class discussions: One means of increasing the engagement of low-SES students during such discussions might be to inform students of the discussion topics ahead of time (e.g., “what is your favorite book?”), so that they all have a chance to prepare. Instituting a rule that each student should take a turn first before a student makes a second comment could help as well. Teachers could also model that all topics are interesting and appropriate—not just museums and the arts but sports and TV shows as well.

”