Looking away: An analysis of early childhood teaching and learning experiences framed through a quality metric

Abstract

In this article, the author examines the ways in which a classroom quality metric framed the teaching and learning experiences of teachers and children in three Head Start classrooms. Using comic subjectivity theory, the author critically analyzes the ways in which the high-stakes classroom quality measure used in Head Start settings directed her gaze as a researcher, and had implications for teachers’ practice and children’s learning within the site of this gaze. This analysis raises questions about expectations for teachers’ performativity, the role of researchers’ complicity, and how children’s learning is conceptualized in early childhood classrooms that are heavily accountable to outside forces. This article also considers what the costs may be for teachers and children in early childhood settings where quality is conceptualized in ways that stand in stark contrast to teachers’ professional and personal knowledge. In these sites, their knowledge of and engagement with children is made subject to measure-directed regimes in the current accountability-driven era.