In its "Advancing Equity in Early Childhood Education" position statement, NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young
Children), one of the major professional organizations of early childhood in the United States, advocates that "all children have the
right to equitable learning opportunities that enable them to achieve their full potential as engaged learners and valued members of
society" (NAEYC, 2019, p. 5). Notwithstanding that this statement makes perfect sense in theory, what is daunting and less clear is its
practical counterpart. For preschool teachers, what would it look like and what would it take to translate these ideals into everyday
lived practices? Susan Friedman and Alissa Mwenelupembe, in their edited book Each and Every Child: Teaching Preschool with an
Equity Lens provide us with a great sense of hope by thoughtfully compiling a total of 24 powerful stories and voices of everyday early
childhood educators implementing this important mission.
Organizationally, the book is structured in six parts, each including three to seven chapters written by over 50 experts from the field. Each part follows a similar structure wherein Friedman and Mwenelupembe first revisit the key recommendations from the
aforementioned NAEYC position statement before offering a brief introduction, and then provide a list of thought-provoking yet
practical reflection questions for readers to consider. This format would be appreciated by those who are newer to the field or to this
particular topic since it offers bite-sized thinking steps. Also, although each chapter organization varies widely, the information is
extremely accessible as they include multiple real-life examples, visuals, and recommendations. This is undoubtably a significant
strength of this book that allows readers' easier engagement with the uneasy topics. In addition, each chapter ending provides which
NAEYC early learning program accreditation standards and topic areas are supported by the chapter's ideas. This feature would be
instrumental for early childhood programs who are interested in earning NAEYC accreditation. In an attempt to help readers follow
through the book in order, each part of the book will be briefly reviewed in the following paragraphs.
Part One (Chapters One through Three) starts with the critical element of teachers' self-reflection. In the first chapter, readers are
reminded that all human beings are not immune to societal stereotypes and/or implicit biases, and thus teachers need to engage in
continuous self-examination to reflect on or even challenge their personal beliefs. Another chapter cautions educators to rethink
children's challenging behaviors by articulating how human behaviors can be formed and interpreted differently from various cultural
lenses. Taken altogether, this part serves as a strong anchor for the rest of the chapters. Part Two (Chapters Four through Ten) appears
to be the core of this book. Friedman and Mwenelupembe preface this part by stating that "Equity is not a one-size-fit-all approach,
and teaching with an equity lens is a complex undertaking" (p. 26). To bolster their stance, they showcase a wide variety of
instructional approaches, including how to incorporate families' culture into play centers, how to adapt materials and approaches to
support refugee children, what books to present in the library area to have an inclusive classroom, and so forth. The most beneficial
aspect of these ideas is that none of them require any expensive tools or environmental renovations; they are rather easily
transferable to any early childhood classroom.
Part Three (Chapters Eleven through Thirteen) is perhaps one of the most unique addition of this book. Instead of broadly referencing
race and gender bias, this book directly addresses the issues faced by young Black boys who have been reported to be unfairly and
thus disproportionately suspended and expelled from early childhood programs than their White peers. The chapters emphasize the
importance of reframing educators' approach from deficit perspectives seeing Black boys as a problem to culturally responsive, assetbased
perspectives tapping into the power of Black boys and men documented in American history. This is followed by Part Four
(Chapters Fourteen through Sixteen) illustrating many benefits of being a bilingual child and outlining strategies teachers can use to
welcome, support, and work with emergent bilingual children and their families. These chapters can be attractive to classroom
teachers who have a large number of bilingual children as they offer ready-to-use tools such as a checklist and interview guide.
In the following Part Five (Chapters Seventeen through Twenty), Friedman and Mwenelupembe start by stating "To advance equity, a
family must be recognized as the best experts about their child" (p. 104). While collaborating with families has been an embedded
theme throughout the book, allotting a separate part to explicitly discuss diverse families indicates the strong support for this topic. In
recognition of the growing diversity of family structures, the chapters share suggestions such as making home visits, inviting children
to talk about their families, and offering play-based learning ideas at home. Finally, in Part Six (Chapters Twenty-One through Twenty-
Four), Friedman and Mwenelupembe pose a critical and daunting question for readers: "How can you move from teaching with an
equity lens in your classroom to advocating for equity on a larger scale?" They then immediately offer a relieving suggestion that,
"There is no one way to start" (p. 128). This provocation followed by several educators' examples enables readers to start thinking
about their choices for becoming a small activist within their own context.
This edited book by Friedman and Mwenelupembe is filled with vivid real-life scenarios, and thus it is extremely applicable and
beneficial to various stakeholders who are wondering how equity-based pedagogy can be enacted with preschool age children. In
response to a possible rebuttal that preschoolers are too young to be exposed to issues of equity, race, etc., Friedman and
Mwenelupembe make a strong case based on recent research findings that the negative impact of implicit bias begins in early years
and that young children are extremely capable of making sense of these sensitive issues. It is certainly untrue and even dangerous to
claim that this one book can answer all the questions and addresses all the complexities related to equity we know are still at play in
our society. In fact, it should also be noted that by virtue of the edited book attempting to share a large number of exemplars from
many authors, there are some moments when readers are left with an unfinished cognitive train of thought, wanting to know more
details and/or foundational research behind the suggested strategies. Nonetheless, especially considering its reader-friendly nature of
writing and formatting, this book can serve as an accessible and rich resource for all early childhood educators whether they are
wanting to learn a teaching strategy to address a specific issue, looking for some inspirational ideas, or even needing philosophical
support from like-minded professionals.
From the long-lasting under-appreciation of teaching preschoolers to the recent pandemic-induced challenges impacting young
children and their families, the field of early childhood education is used to challenging many societal misconceptions and advocating
for under-voiced individuals. Now more than ever, early childhood professionals should be committed to providing equitable learning
opportunities to all children, and this book can hopefully bring about more dialogue among fellow early childhood professionals.
Reference
NAEYC (2019). Advancing equity in early childhood education: A position statement of the National Association of the Education for
Young Children. https://www.naeyc.org/sites/default/files/globally-shared/downloads/PDFs/resources/positionstatements/
naeycadvancingequitypositionstatement.pdf -- Sophia Han * https://www.tcrecord.org ID Number: 23569 *
