Discrimination as a Contextualized Obstacle to the Preschool Teaching of Young Latino Children of Immigrants

Abstract

This article explores how discrimination acts as a barrier to providing the highest quality education to young Latino children of immigrants. Preschool teachers' concerns emerged from focus group data with 40 teachers in four US cities, collected as part of the international Children Crossing Borders study of immigration and early childhood education. Using focus group data as well as a multi-sited comparative analytic model, this study details teachers' concerns about discrimination in terms of negative discourses and harsh education and immigration policies, and explains how these forms of discrimination affect preschool teachers' efforts to teach. The findings demonstrate why and how local and national forms of discrimination can prevent teachers from reaching their full capacity to teach young Latino children of immigrants successfully, while suggesting that educational inequities facing Latino immigrant families cannot be resolved by teacher education alone, but must include cultural, societal and political changes to how Latino families are treated in the USA.