Understanding different cultural beliefs and practices has become increasingly important for early childhood educators in the contemporary United States. This paper investigates how preschool teachers and administrators navigate different cultural discourses in classrooms that frequently go unidentified or ignored, and how they support children and parents from immigrant families. Preschool teachers and administrators play a vital role as moderators in contemporary early childhood education and care settings due to the increasingly diverse demographic and cultural landscape. Using a version of Bakhtinian textual analysis, we illustrate the complexities of navigating multiple sets of cultural beliefs and practices in early childhood classrooms, as well as the possible challenges of supporting children and parents from immigrant families. The paper makes visible tacit cultural values and attitudes that manifest in early childhood classrooms to explore the circulating discourses about cultural diversity in the midst of rising anxieties, ambivalence, and tensions around immigration. © 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Preschool cultural beliefs and practices Immigration Bakhtin

anxiety education cultural value human Cultural Diversity teacher immigrant Infant landscape administrative personnel ambivalence Article childhood immigration tension Child