This book analyzes stories of university early childhood faculty members, community activists in southern California, and children and the early childhood teacher education students working with them. The grounding of this research is reconceptualization of postmodern narrative theoretical influences. Through narrative inquiry, the book connects ongoing research to ongoing pedagogy. It explores the following research questions: (1) How do learners across generations create, build upon, and reinvent each other's stories to make new meanings through consideration of family history, multigenerational knowledge, and experiences?; (2) How do learners' stories offer new possibilities through leadership that connects Global South knowledge with Global North contexts?; (3) In what ways is it possible to use this framework and methodology in Higher Education to promote systemic consistency in promoting social justice that is generatively inclusive? More than half of the research participants have truly lived bi-culturally, many of the children in the early care and education programs in the USA are from Mexico and Central America. These collaborators truly carry their roots with them as they strive for justice and authenticity in early childhood teacher education and community activists working with families and children.

This is a book about story, the human experience, teaching and learning, creativity and community. Story is so much more than decoding text and writing using academic language. It also includes literature and all forms of the arts; digital forms of story, from social media to documentation of history; and new forms of multilayered, multigenre research. Story is the backbone and the catalyst for personal connections, appropriation of knowledge, and synergy of knowledge for global citizens. Critical qualitative research is the methodology by which to document and analyze what is really going on in the complex, multidirectional interactions. The authors maintain that story in a broad and newly enlightened sense may help us to break out from the narrow concepts of literacy, content knowledge related to measureable standards, and random facts that are unrelated to dispositions for addressing human needs. Literacy as a conceptual synthesis of knowledge, skills, and dispositions has been giving us glimpses of synergistic ways to approach learning and teaching.

This is a book about story, the human experience, teaching and learning, creativity and community. Story is so much more than decoding text and writing using academic language. It also includes literature and all forms of the arts; digital forms of story, from social media to documentation of history; and new forms of multilayered, multigenre research. Story is the backbone and the catalyst for personal connections, appropriation of knowledge, and synergy of knowledge for global citizens. Critical qualitative research is the methodology by which to document and analyze what is really going on in the complex, multidirectional interactions. The authors maintain that story in a broad and newly enlightened sense may help us to break out from the narrow concepts of literacy, content knowledge related to measureable standards, and random facts that are unrelated to dispositions for addressing human needs. Literacy as a conceptual synthesis of knowledge, skills, and dispositions has been giving us glimpses of synergistic ways to approach learning and teaching.

This book analyzes stories of university early childhood faculty members, community activists in southern California, and children and the early childhood teacher education students working with them. The grounding of this research is reconceptualization of postmodern narrative theoretical influences. Through narrative inquiry, the book connects ongoing research to ongoing pedagogy. It explores the following research questions: (1) How do learners across generations create, build upon, and reinvent each other's stories to make new meanings through consideration of family history, multigenerational knowledge, and experiences?; (2) How do learners' stories offer new possibilities through leadership that connects Global South knowledge with Global North contexts?; (3) In what ways is it possible to use this framework and methodology in Higher Education to promote systemic consistency in promoting social justice that is generatively inclusive? More than half of the research participants have truly lived bi-culturally, many of the children in the early care and education programs in the USA are from Mexico and Central America. These collaborators truly carry their roots with them as they strive for justice and authenticity in early childhood teacher education and community activists working with families and children.

This book documents a qualitative study involving various groups of teacher education students and practicing teachers. The study encompassed learners' multiple languages and recognized ways that multiple knowledge sources, identities, and language forms can contribute to the formation of new relationships, new knowledge, and new meanings. Integrating all the traditional content areas of study, the arts, and new forms of cross-disciplinary ways of knowing, a curriculum is framed around critical literacy, with its underlying elements of participation by all, respect for multiple sources of knowledge, and the responsibility of transformative action. The book uses illustrative case studies to present the research involved, and to identify the aspects of critical theory and the themes and implications that emerged from this participatory, learner-driven curriculum.