Not Black Like Me: The Cultural Journey of an Early Childhood Program

Universities and colleges across the United States have been increasingly intentional in their effort to become educational institutions with a culture reflective of all their students, faculty and staff. However, achieving a proportionate representation of faculty for the community of students they serve seems to be a goal yet to be achieved by the higher education institutions. Closing this gap of representation of faculty and students is critical for allowing students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds to access support and mentorship from faculty with whom they can identify. This paper describes the approach employed by an Early Childhood program of a southern university with faculty from culturally diverse backgrounds significantly underrepresented. Diverse students within the institution are unable to connect with a faculty member with whom they can identify. The faculty in this program took the initiative to discuss how the learning environment offered to pre-service teachers truly recognizes and creates learning opportunities inclusive of all cultural identities. The faculty and students participated in the Undoing Racism training program and further extended the conversations to address the needs of the program. Using the theoretical framework of the critical race theory, this paper describes how employing the Undoing Racism program to increase awareness and access to all students led to structural changes.