Christopher is a Professor of Curriculum and Instruction in Early Childhood Education. He is a Faculty Fellow with The Institute for Urban Policy Research and Analysis and a Faculty Fellow of the Center for Health and Social Policy at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. He is also the Past-Chair for the Early Education/Child Development Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association.
His research centers on how early childhood education stakeholders across a range of political and educational contexts make sense of and respond to policymakers' reforms. He has looked at this issue across a range of political and educational contexts using multiple theoretical and practitioner-based perspectives that span the fields of early childhood education, curriculum and instruction, teacher education, and policy analysis.
Through this work, his goal is to advocate for early learning environments that foster, sustain, and extend the complex educational, cultural, and individual goals and aspirations of teachers, children, and their families. To achieve this goal, he has produced empirical, theoretical, and practitioner-oriented publications on such topics as: high-stakes standards-based accountability reform in early childhood, early learning standards, pre-kindergarten (Pre-k) assessment, Pre-k alignment with elementary school, school readiness, culturally relevant and developmentally appropriate teaching, the changed kindergarten, neoliberal reform, teacher education, professional development, and teaching a mandated curriculum. Among his publications, 26 have been co-authored with 15 current and former graduate students at UT-Austin. (See the attached abbreviated CV; the publications are organized around the fourteen different research projects he has completed since arriving at UT-Austin)
His recent publications focus on three issues: 1) Examining how familial, education, research, and political stakeholders make sense of the changed kindergarten; 2) RIGOROUS DAP; 3) Understanding how practicing and pre-service early childhood educators in high-stakes public teaching contexts can engage in practices that support the cultural, individual, and developmental learning needs of children.
Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 2004
M.A. in Curriculum and Instruction, New Mexico State University, 1997
B.A. in Philosophy, University of the South, Sewanee, 1993
Brown, C. P.. & Lan, Y. C.. (2018). Understanding families' conceptions of school readiness in the United States: A qualitative metasynthesis.. International Journal of Early Years Education, 26(4), 403–421. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09669760.2018.1454302.
Brown, C. P.., Feger, B. S.. & Mowry, B. N.. (2018). RIGOROUS DAP in the Early Years: From Theory to Practice: Redleaf Press. (View)
Brown, C P. (2018). What really should be happening in kindergarten classrooms. Houston Chronicle.
Brown, C. P.. & Mowry, B.. (2017). "I wanted to know how they perceived jail": Studying how one early educator brought her students' worlds into her standardized teaching context.. Early Childhood Education Journal, 45(2), 163–173. https://rdcu.be/6gJp.
Brown, C. P.. & Englehardt, J.. (2017). A case study of how a sample of preservice teachers made sense of incorporating iPads into their instruction with children. Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 38(1), 19–38. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10901027.2016.1274695.
Brown, C. P.. (2017). Preservice teachers reconfiguring teaching young children in a high-stakes early education context through the use of iPads: A case study.. Early Education and Development, 28(8), 976–995. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10409289.2017.1336403.
Brown, C. P.. & Weber, N. B.. (2017). Bringing being into professional development: a qualitative investigation into teachers' struggles moving beyond an epistemological framing of teaching and learning. Early Child Development and Care. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03004430.2017.1343312?journalCode=gecd20. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2017.1343312.
Brown, C. P.. (2017). I've been in education for 20 years - here's what everyone gets wrong about kindergarten.. http://www.businessinsider.com/what-everyone-gets-wrong-about-kindergarten-2017-9.
Brown,, C. P.. & Englehardt, J.. (2016). Conceptions of and early childhood educators' experiences in early childhood professional development programs: A qualitative metasynthesis.. Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 37(3), 216–244. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10901027.2016.1204574?journalCode=ujec20.
Brown, C P., Weber, N. & Yoon, Y. (2016). Reluctantly governed: The struggles of early educators in a professional development course that challenged their teaching in a high-stakes neoliberal early education context.. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 17(2), 210–234. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1463949116647286.
Brown, C P. & Weber, N. (2016). Struggling to overcome the state's prescription for practice: A study of a sample of early educators' professional development and action-research projects in a high-stakes teaching context.. Journal of Teacher Education, 67(3), 183–202. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022487116636452.
Brown, C P. & Mowry, B. (2016). Using testimonio to bring children's worlds into a standardized teaching context: An example of culturally relevant teaching in early childhood education.. Childhood Education, 92(4), 281–289. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00094056.2016.1208006?journalCode=uced20.
Brown, C P., Englehardt, J. & Mathers, H. (2016). Examining preservice teachers' conceptual and practical understandings of adopting iPads into their teaching of young children. Teaching and Teacher Education, 60, 179–190. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0742051X16302645.
Brown, C. P.. (2016). Kindergarteners get little time to play. Why does it matter?. https://theconversation.com/kindergartners-get-little-time-to-play-why-does-it-matter-57093.
Brown, C P. (2015). Conforming to reform: Teaching pre-kindergarten in a neoliberal early education system. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 13(3), 236–251. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1476718X14538602.
Brown, C P., Mowry, B. & Feger, B. (2015). Helping others understand academic rigor in teachers' developmentally appropriate practices. Young Children, 70(4), 62–69. https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/yc/sep2015/helping-others-understand-academic-rigor.
Brown, C P., Lan, Y. & Jeong, H. (2015). Beginning to untangle the strange coupling of power within a neoliberal early education context. International Journal of Early Years Education, 23(2), 138–152. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09669760.2015.1034093?journalCode=ciey20.
Brown, C P., Bay-Borelli, D. & Scott, J. (2015). Figuring out how to be a teacher in a high-stakes context: A case study of first-year teachers' conceptual and practical development. Action in Teacher Education, 37(1), 45–64. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01626620.2014.969849.
Brown, C P. & Mowry, B. (2015). Close early learning gaps with RIGOROUS DAP. Phi Delta Kappan, 96(7), 53–57. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0031721715579041?journalCode=pdka.
Brown, C P., Weber, N. & Yoon, Y. (2015). The practical difficulties for early educators who tried to address children's realities in their high-stakes teaching context. Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 36(1), 3–23. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10901027.2014.996925?journalCode=ujec20.
Brown, C P. & Lan, Y. (2015). A qualitative metasynthesis comparing U.S. teachers' conceptions of school readiness prior to and after the implementation of NCLB. Teaching and Teacher Education, 45(1), 1–13. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0742051X14001097.
Brown, C P. & Lan, Y. (2015). A qualitative metasynthesis of how early educators in international contexts address cultural matters that contrast with developmentally appropriate practices. Early Education and Development, 26(1), 22–45. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10409289.2014.934176.
Brown, C P. (2015). Taking and teaching the test are not the same: A case study of first year teachers' experience in high-stakes contexts.. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 22(3), 1026–1044. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13540602.2015.1005870.
Brown, C P. & Pickard, H. (2014). Balancing the school readiness equation in early learning environments. Childhood Education, 115(12), 1–36. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00094056.2014.982975. doi:10.1177/1476718X14538602.
Spencer Foundation Small Grant: Examining how familial, education, research, and political stakeholders make sense of the changed kindergarten
Kindergarten in the United States has fundamentally changed. Debates among familial, education, research, and political stakeholder groups over these academic and instructional changes to kindergarten specifically and public education in general are fractured and far from settled; making it difficult to grasp what is driving this change. Thus, there is an empirical need to understand how various stakeholder groups make sense of these changes to kindergarten. Dr. Brown and his colleagues are examining this issue through a video-cued multivocal ethnographic study that documents how familial, educational, and political stakeholders at the local, state, and national level conceptualize the purpose and processes of kindergarten specifically and public schooling in general. They will use their findings to offer practical, educational, and political insight into what is driving these academic and instructional changes. Moreover, they hope to identify whether and how these various stakeholder groups might work individually and together to support and/or alter such changes to kindergarten specifically and public schooling in general, what opportunities for further reform exist, and what research still needs to be done
Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education Article of the Year, National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators (2017)
Outstanding Early Childhood Teacher Educator Award, National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators (2014)
Regents' Outstanding Teacher Award, University of Texas System (2013)
Foundation Research Award, National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators (2013)
Exemplary Research Award, American Educational Research Association, Division K: Teaching and Teacher Education (2011)
Taylor Francis Outstanding Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education Journal Article Honorable Mention, National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators (2011)
Da Hei Ku, Ph.D., expected 2021 (Supervisor)
social context of education, early childcare centers and early childhood education, educational policy, policy implications on early childhood education
Joanna Englehardt (Supervisor)
Joanna Englehardt is a doctoral candidate and assistant instructor of Curriculum and Instruction in Early Childhood Education at The University of Texas at Austin. As a former preschool director her professional and research interests center on promoting teacher retention through the use of ongoing center-based inquiry professional development that provides teachers agency in their learning and critical reflection of their teaching practices.
Lo DeWalt (Committee Member)
I am interested in research on children's literature, in-service teacher professional learning, and literacy coaching.
