ABSTRACT
This chapter examines opportunities and challenges in initial, preservice teacher preparation and professional development (PD) for early childhood education teachers. It points out the importance, for both teacher education and ongoing PD, to break out of the neoliberal paradigm and market ideology and move, with cultural humility, toward strong democracy and equity that affirms children’s rights. The authors offer recommendations, novel approaches, and critical questions for teacher education leaders to guide efforts in recruiting more culturally diverse candidates and teacher education faculty and in creating field experiences that raise cultural awareness. Recommendations are given for content knowledge, skills, and dispositions to be included and cultivated in early childhood teacher education programs designed to support emergent bilingual and multilingual children and their families through the Reggio approach.
Examples are presented of powerful and innovative in-service and site-based projects and professional development initiatives. Opportunities for professional development from sources such as Reggio Children and NAREA are identified. The critical roles of the pedagogista and atelierista in Reggio-inspired education and pathways for learning those roles in higher education programs and/or other professional development are discussed. The authors emphasize the importance of cultivating collaborative leadership to advance equity and culturally responsive pedagogical practices.
