› Teachers often face pressures from policies or administrators that may conflict with promising practices in early childhood education. They can leverage their collective agency to support broader institutional change. For example, teachers can connect with colleagues to discuss how to meet children’ s needs while navigating mandated pacing guides or scripted curricula within their systems.
› Agency is strengthened when teachers include diverse perspectives and address the cultural context of their students and their families( Ladson-Billings 2009; Gay 2010). For example, teachers might invite children to share stories, artifacts such as head coverings or recipes, or traditions from their families and communities as part of classroom discussions.
› Promoting teachers’ frontline experiences and voices is essential to shaping effective educational policy and practice. These efforts should be incorporated into all career phases for preservice and in-service educators, such as through mentoring and within communities of practice( Wenger 1998; Cochran-Smith & Lytle 2009). For example, teachers might participate in professional learning communities or mentoring relationships where they reflect on classroom experiences and advocate for developmentally appropriate practices.
› Resisting deficit discourses supports children’ s rights and dignity while empowering teachers to foster inclusive environments. While individual and collective teacher efforts can resist deficit discourse, teacher agency also helps drive revisions in professional standards and curriculum that align with developmentally appropriate, equitable practice( NAEYC 2019, 2022). For example, teachers might reframe conversations about children’ s abilities by highlighting their strengths, cultural knowledge, and contributions to classroom learning.
Children will benefit significantly when teachers like Mr. Omar and Ms. Kimmie use their professional authority and agency to influence schools and classrooms, promoting authentic learning and development. Rather than undermining teacher agency through restrictive curricula and policies that govern teachers’ pace and the form of instruction, teachers and those who prepare and support them should promote opportunities to develop individual, proxy, and collective agency. Intentionally training and developing their voices and choices will contribute to teachers’ capacity to plan curriculum and instruction and work collaboratively to deliver sophisticated, effective, equitable practices.
About the Authors
Brian L. Wright, PhD, is an associate professor and coordinator of Integrated Early Childhood / Early Childhood Education at the University of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee. He is the author of The Brilliance of Black Boys. blwrght1 @ memphis. edu
Mona M. Abo-Zena, PhD, is an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston. On individual, social, and structural levels, her asset-based applied scholarship supports developing diverse( i. e., all) children, families, and communities while acknowledging contextual challenges and resources. mona. abozena @ umb. edu
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16 Young Children
Summer 2026