Examining Early Childhood Teacher Candidate’s Perceptions of Diversity Regarding Material Selection

Providing opportunities for reflection is one way to gain a deeper understanding of teacher candidate’s perceptions of diversity and how their perceptions regarding diversity evolve. We conducted a qualitative content analysis of reflections to explore teacher candidates’ perceptions regarding instructional material selection. By prompting teacher candidates to consider their selection of materials to use with diverse learners within inclusive, bilingual, early childhood classrooms, we were able to organize data within themes and use pattern coding to identify subthemes that emerged. The a priori themes included identify, describe, judge, and apply. Various subthemes emerged within teacher candidates’ reflection matrices (general statements on diversity, combination, age, ability, cultural, and individual). Results revealed that teacher candidates increased their consideration of some areas of diversity (i.e., general statements on diversity, cultural) while others stayed constant (i.e., combination, age, ability).