Jumpin’ with Jubilee: An ethnographic case study of Inclusion and the Emotional Lives of a Bilingual Pre-Kindergarten Classroom in Washington, D.C.
Open Access
- Author:
- Collopy, Alex
- Graduate Program:
- Curriculum and Instruction
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- August 22, 2019
- Committee Members:
- Joseph M Valente, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Joseph M Valente, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Gail Louise Boldt, Committee Member
Kimberly Anne Powell, Committee Member
Christopher Schulte, Outside Member
Scot Danforth, Special Member
Gwendolyn Monica Lloyd, Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- inclusion
early childhood education
universal pre-kindergarten
disability studies in education
preschool
ethnography - Abstract:
- As public preschool and inclusion education are increasingly debated and made, though disproportionately, accessible across in the United States, Washington D.C. Universal Pre- Kindergarten is a unique case to examine experiences of changing policy and practice at the school and classroom level. While D.C. has long been recognized as a leader in early childhood education, United States Department of Health and Human Services, United States Department of Education, and D.C. Office of the State Superintendent reports similarly suggest that inclusion programs have not grown proportionately with the expansion of Universal Pre-Kindergarten to three-and-four-year-old’s, following a history of D.C.’s noncompliance with national requirements of the Least Restrictive Environment of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (United States, 2015; DC Office, 2009). This dissertation study explores national and local landscapes of inclusion through a year- long ethnographic case study of the Universal Pre-Kindergarten classroom at Jubilee JumpStart, a Community Based Organization in Adams Morgan, Washington D.C. Jubilee Jumpstart, whose stated mission is to serve low-income, Spanish-speaking, immigrant children and their families, is notable for being an inclusive, dual-language (Spanish-English) program. Likewise, Jubilee is notable for its equal emphasis on the emotional and educational lives of students through partnerships with The Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis and developers of The Creative Curriculum. Through sustained fieldwork, formal and informal interviews with administrators, teachers, children, parents, therapists, and special education service providers at the school, this study reveals a portrait of children and adults’ individual and shared complex emotional experiences of inclusion education. I discuss the inclusive potential, pitfalls, and paradoxes of Jubilee’s teaching and community practices that purposefully attend to the emotional lives and labor of all school community members—children and adults alike. This dissertation concludes with a discussion of implications for early childhood inclusion education, research, and policy.