Measuring cultural aspects of teacher-child interactions to foster equitable developmental opportunities for young Latino children

Debates continue about how to teach young Latinos and other minoritized children in the US. Latinos are a compelling case because of (1) their size and (2) their paradoxical development: strong social competencies yet relatively weak academic development. A suggestion is to provide young Latinos with classroom experiences that resonate with the ways they are socialized at home, yet cultural dimensions of teaching in early education are underspecified and reliable and valid measures do not exist. We frame equitable teacher-child interactions as the combination of generic and cultural aspects, and as a way to utilize the social assets of Latinos in classrooms to enhance their academic development. We refine an observation protocol-the Classroom Assessment of Sociocultural Interactions (CASI)-by integrating cultural concepts from the Learning by Observing and Pitching In (LOPI) paradigm with videos of K-1 classrooms in Central Mexico, and conduct a series of psychometric analyses. We find good model fit and moderate reliability for the CASI and discuss research and practice implications to foster equitable developmental opportunities for Latino children across early education settings. (C) 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.