Jennifer Keys Adair, PhD
Books
Smart and Capable: Supporting Children's Agency in a Complex World (Beacon Press) is about how smart and capable young children are. They already have most of what they need to learn and grow. Author Dr. Jennifer Keys Adair, a Professor of Early Childhood Education and a preschool teacher-turned-cultural anthropologist draws upon 20 years of stories and scientific evidence to show why agency is so important for children’s learning, even in a society that can be dangerous and complicated.
Using examples from many different countries and communities around the world – from Austin, Texas to Bangalaru, Karnataka – this book offers nine core experiences that honor and support young children’s agency: Exploration, Participation, Caring for the Natural World, Conflict, Difficult Discussions, Caring for People, Multilingualism, Multiplicity, and Protection.
Adair emphasizes that the nine experiences have endless variation and will look different depending on where you live, what you have access to, and the types of realities you face. This book is not a manual or a “how to” for teachers and parents, because there is no one best way to support children’s agency. To make this case, Adair includes stories of infants, toddlers, and young children in parks, homes, childcare programs, preschools, elementary classrooms and community centers using their agency in a variety of circumstances.
The heart of the book is a hope that adults will find their own ways to create environments in which children can enact their agency early and safely, so children can shift the world they are inheriting to the world they want.
Segregation by Experience: Agency, Racism and Learning in the Early Grades (University of Chicago Press) is about how racism and white supremacy impact the ways young children experience the early grades.
Early childhood education is the start of segregated experiences where some children problem-solve, follow their interests and share their stories while many others walk in straight, prison-like lines with little input, movement or opportunity to share their lives or interests with their class community. Using video-cued ethnography and interviews with over 100 Black and Latinx children and 150 educators and parents, this book details how a group of young children of color used their agency at school and why when we filmed their classroom and showed it all over the state of Texas, people struggled to accept the sophisticated, active and caring ways Brown and Black children were learning in the film. (Spoiler: Most of the 6-7 years olds who watched the film said the children were misbehaved. Most of the adults said the practices were too advanced and students needed training firth.)
This book shows both what is possible and what has to change in order for systems to push past dehumanizing perspectives and approaches and see young children of color as capable and smart.
Children Crossing Borders: Immigrant Parent and Teacher Perspectives on Preschool for Children of Immigrants (Russell Sage). In many school districts in America, the majority of students in preschools are children of recent immigrants. For both immigrant families and educators, the changing composition of preschool classes presents new and sometimes divisive questions about educational instruction, cultural norms and academic priorities.
Drawing from an innovative study of preschools across the nation, Children Crossing Borders provides the first systematic comparison of the beliefs and perspectives of immigrant parents and the preschool teachers to whom they entrust their children. Children Crossing Borders presents valuable evidence from the U.S. portion of a landmark five-country study on the intersection of early education and immigration. The volume shows that immigrant parents and early childhood educators often have differing notions of what should happen in preschool. Most immigrant parents want preschool teachers to teach English, prepare their children academically, and help them adjust to life in the United States. Many said it was unrealistic to expect a preschool to play a major role in helping children retain their cultural and religious values. The authors examine the different ways that language and cultural differences prevent immigrant parents and school administrations from working together to achieve educational goals.
Select Articles and Reports
Equitable Access to Agency-Supportive Early Schooling Contexts for Young Children of Color
Adair, J.K. Park, S., Alonzo, M., McMannus, M., Odim, N., Jones, N. N., Payne, K., & Colegrove, K.S.S., (2024) Equitable Access to Agency-Supportive Early Schooling Contexts for Young Children of Color. Early Childhood Research Quarterly 69, 49-64
Assessing Contexts, not Children: Working Towards Early Educational Equity by Prioritizing Agentic Learning Experiences over Control
Adair, J.K. & Jones, N.N. (2024). Assessing Contexts, not Children: Working Towards Early Educational Equity by Prioritizing Agentic Learning Experiences over Control. Educational Forum, 88(4), 415-426.
Taking Early Childhood Education and Young Children’s Learning Experiences Seriously
Adair, J.K. (2024) Taking Early Childhood Education and Young Children’s Learning Experiences Seriously. Teachers College Record 125 (11-12): 61-65. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146812412277
Jones, N., Adair, J.K. (2025) Black Girl Joy (Un)interrupted as Pedagogy: Centering and Sustaining Young Black Girls’ Joy and Community-building Capabilities in the Early Grades. Urban Education. 60(7), 1974-2015
Video-Cued, Multivocal Ethnographic Data Collection as a Tool Towards Participant Voice
Adair, J.K. & Kurban, F. (2019) Video-Cued, Multivocal Ethnographic Data Collection as a Tool Towards Participant Voice. Anthropology and Education Quarterly 50 (3): 313-332.
Humility and the Art of Working with Immigrant Parents
Adair, J.K.(2019) Humility and the Art of Working with Immigrant Parents. In McWayne, Sheridan & Doucet (Eds.) Family-School Partnerships in International Contexts and Implications for Research in Ethnocultural Communities in the United States. Springer Publishers, p. 109-122.
Adair, J.K., Colegrove, K. & McManus, M. (2018) Troubling Messages: Agency and Learning in the Early Schooling Experiences of Children of Latina/o Immigrants. Teachers College Record 120(6) p. 1-40.
Adair, J.K. Colegrove, K.S. & McManus, M.E. (2017) How the Word Gap Argument Negatively Impacts Young Children of Latinx Immigrants' Conceptualizations of Learning. Harvard Educational Review 87 (3), 309-334.
Civic Action and Play: Examples from Maori, Aboriginal Australian and Latino Communities.
Adair, J.K., Phillips, L., Ritchie, J. & Sachdeva, S. (2017) Civic Action and Play: Examples from Maori, Aboriginal Australian and Latino Communities. Early Child Development and Care 187 (5-6)
The Impact of Discrimination on the Early Schooling Experiences of Children from Immigrant Families
Adair, J.K. (2015) The Impact of Discrimination on the Early Schooling Experiences of Children from Immigrant Families. Washington, D.C.: Migration Policy Institute.
Moore, H.C. & Adair, J.K. (2015). “I’m Just Playing iPad”: Comparing preschoolers’ and pre-service teachers’ social interactions while using tablets for learning. Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 38(4), 362-378.
Agency and Expanding Capabilities in Early Grade Classrooms: What it could mean for young children.
Adair, J.K. (2014) Agency and Expanding Capabilities in Early Grade Classrooms: What it could mean for young children. Harvard Educational Review 84(2), 217-241.
Adair, J.K. (2014) Examining Whiteness as an Obstacle to Positively Approaching Immigrant Families in U.S. Early Childhood Educational Settings. Journal of Race, Ethnicity and Education New York: Russell Sage.
Recognizing the Voices of Immigrant Parents in Preschool/Pre-K Settings.
Adair, J.K. & Barraza-Correa, A. (2014). Recognizing the Voices of Immigrant Parents in Preschool/Pre-K Settings. Young Children.
Addressing Race and Inequity in the Classroom.
'Doucet, F. & Adair, J.K. (2013). Addressing Race and Inequity in the Classroom. Young Children, 68(5), 88-97
Adair, J.K., Tobin, J. & Arzubiaga, A. (2012). The Dilemma of Cultural Responsiveness and Professionalization: Listening Closer to Immigrant Teachers Who Teach Children of Recent Immigrants. Teachers College Record, 114 (12), 1-37.
Developing Qualitative Coding Frameworks for Educational Research
Adair, J.K. & Pastori, G. (2011). Developing qualitative coding frameworks for educational research: Immigration, education and the Children Crossing Borders project. International Journal of Research and Method in Education, 34 (1), 31-47.
Meditation, Rangoli and Eating on the Floor
Adair, J.K. & Bhaskaran, L. (2010). Meditation, Rangoli and Eating on the Floor: Practices from an Urban Preschool in Bangalore, India. Young Children, 65(6), 48-55.