Developmentally Appropriate Practice: Culture, Curriculum, Connections

This study explores the implications of developmentally and culturally appropriate practice for early childhood education. Selections from classroom journals and personal narratives of 30 early childhood educators are presented to provide the context for the examination of the use of developmentally appropriate practice as a curricular base for early childhood programs. The capability of developmentally appropriate practice to respond to cultural diversity is analyzed and several questions are addressed Whose experiences are represented by developmentally appropriate practice? Whose ways of knowing are validated by developmentally appropriate practice? Teachers participating in this study noted that developmentally appropriate practice often failed to acknowledge the roles of culture, care-taking, inter-connectedness, and multiple ways of knowing in the teaching-learning experiences of young children. Their voices add the critical perspective of the practitioner to the consideration of what constitutes "appropriate" early childhood curriculum.