“I woke up to science”: Teacher narratives of growth in a culturally sustaining preschool STEM program

The study reported in this paper was conducted as part of a collaborative research project designed to develop a culturally sustaining approach to science, technology, and engineering education in preschool classrooms. Readiness through Integrative Science and Engineering (RISE) is an integrated approach to providing professional development support to Head Start teachers. Our strengths-based sociocultural approach is centered on best practices in preschool science, technology, and engineering (STE) pedagogy and intentional engagement of families through a home-school connections (HSC) perspective. Two forms of narrative analysis were integrated to generate multidimensional profiles of teachers that were then categorized into three groups representing variation in the teachers’' pathways to understanding and appropriating the RISE approach.