Parallel Voices
so we see variation in the texture of the data related to how soon she could get to the data and to how vividly she recalled the moment. As a suggestion for how she could have expanded this study, Jamie might have talked with colleagues, families, and the children more directly about the topic. For example, eliciting feedback from families would have provided a window into how the children were talking about gender at home and could have drawn the families more immediately into the project. All the same, Jamie’s data has real trustworthiness in the way it captures her exchanges with the children as an insider who knows these individuals and this classroom in a manner that an outsider researcher rarely (if ever) could match. In closing, what is important to note in Jamie Solomon’s analysis is how she willingly makes herself one of her objects of study. Teacher research requires us as practitioners to ask hard questions about our interactions with those we teach and to look with a critical eye to understand how to modify environments, modes of interaction, and attitudes so that we can more fully mesh our values with our actions. Jamie’s values as an activist teacher who uses her teaching to work for social justice from a critical feminist stance are evident throughout this article. Her questions are not easy ones, and she comes to no easy answers. I hope that we will have many more examples of teacher research that look at social justice with respect to a range of aspects of human identity and difference that might include gender, race, social class, disability, primary language, immigration status, or family composition, to name a few.
References Blaise, M. 2005. Playing it Straight: Uncovering Gender Discourses in the Early Childhood Classroom. New York: Routledge. Brown, T., & L. Jones. 2001. Action Research and Postmodernism: Congruence and Critique. Conducting Educational Research series. Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press. Counterman, L., & D. Kirkwood. 2013. “Understanding Healthy Sexual Development in Young Children.” Voices of Practitioners 8 (2): 1-13. Daitsman, J. 2011. “Exploring Gender Identity in Early Childhood Through Story Dictation and Dramatization.” Voices of Practitioners 14. www.NAEYC.org/files/NAEYC/file/Publications/VOP_ Daitsman_Final.pdf. hooks, b. 1994. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge. Liang, Y. 2015. “A Journey of Journals: Promoting Child-Centered SecondLanguage Acquisition in Preschool.” Voices of Practitioners 10 (2): 45-58. www.NAEYC.org/files/NAEYC/ VOPLiang.pdf. Meier, D.R., & B. Henderson. 2007. Learning From Young Children in the Classroom: The Art and Science of Teacher Research. New York: Teachers College Press. Neimark, A. 2008. “‘Do You Want to See Something Goofy?’ Peer Culture in the Preschool Yard.” Voices of Practitioners 3 (1): 1-11. www.NAEYC.org/files/NAEYC/file/vop/Voices_NeimarkGoofy.pdf. Ortiz, A., D. Ferrell, J. Anderson, L. Cain, N. Fluty, S. Sturzenbecker, & T. Matlock. 2014. “Teacher Research on Boys’ Literacy in One Elementary School.” Voices of Practitioners 9 (1): 1-19. www.NAEYC. org/files/NAEYC/images/voices/9_Ortiz%20v9-1.pdf.
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