Pedagogy of Confidence

If the sky were the limit for my research project in hopes of making a positive contribution, I would research the impact of adopting pedagogy of confidence for children of low socio-economic status (SES).  Given multiple classrooms across a city with children of the same SES, same age, and same support profile (or lack of), I would like to see the social, emotional and cognitive outcomes for children where teachers intentionally teach with positive affirmations versus classrooms where teachers do not reinforce children’s gifts and natural desire to learn.  Too often educators inadvertently adopt pedagogy of the oppressed or pedagogy of deficits. I believe this research already exists; however, many want to believe that something is different and special about children who succeed, and the children with the same SES and support profile do not succeed because they are poor and minority.  For example, some individuals on my NAACP Education Committee believe that poor Black children at one of our local charter schools are somehow different.  They believe that’s why the principal is able to get a 100% graduation rate and 97% college attendance, while the non-charter schools have a more difficult task because their students are poor and Black with disengaged parents. Actually the charter and non-charter children live in the same neighborhoods with the same level of parent disengagement.   It’s difficult to change emotions and perceptions.  My research would be designed to help professionals and community members to recognize pedagogy of confidence makes the difference, not more money, charter status, or a magic wand that made the charter students more studious.  Implementing research based and evidence based teaching practices is important too.

My Research Journey

A research question I am considering is “What is the impact of educator’s beliefs and perceptions on the disproportionate suspension rates of children of color in kindergarten?”  I am interested in this topic because there may be an emerging pattern across Indianapolis schools which needs to be understood.  If a pattern exists at the kindergarten level, this pattern may reveal deeply rooted social issues which adversely impact the long term academic achievement of children, specifically children of color.  

The research chart made me think about my research question in a more scholarly way, but now I am almost paranoid.  Now, I think about is my subtopic too narrow, should my topic be more global, how much do I actually know about this topic to develop a theoretical framework, will I be able to add anything original to what is already known, and do I understand the similarities/differences in existing research?

There are resources available on this topic when I search in Google Scholar.  My colleagues also have books on this topic.  I am not sure, however, how many of these resources reach down to the kindergarten level.  Since many of you are in the early childhood field, do you have any insights or additional resources you can share on this topic?  For anyone interested in disproportional discipline in schools, the Equity Project at Indiana University, http://www.indiana.edu/~equity/index.php, meets the criteria for a quality resource and includes abundant references for further investigation.