Introduction

EarlyEdU courses have been developed in partnership with experts in the early childhood education (ECE) field with the goal of building equitable professional development pathways for all educators that reflect the diversity that enriches the early learning profession. By integrating direct practice throughout higher education course work, EarlyEdU courses honor and illuminate the work of the individual practitioner in a community of developing professionals.

In order for courses to make a positive impact on students, they must see themselves and the children and families they serve throughout their learning experience. As such, we review our resources through a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) lens to ensure course content, readings, assignments, photos, videos, scenarios, etc. are positive representations of diverse individuals and meet diverse student learning needs. When possible, we also include an external consultant or community engaged panel to help us audit courses with an objective, equity-focused lens.

With a gift of funding from the Bezos Family Foundation, in 2021 we expanded this approach to course review by hiring an internal expert on DEI to lead our course audit efforts and engage with our community partners. Together we developed a rubric and supporting resources that build our capacity to audit and update EarlyEdU coursework.

This book outlines our approach to the EarlyEdU DEI audit, including our process for developing and testing a rubric to aid our review of courses. The text also includes suggested steps for using the rubric to conduct a DEI audit as well as lessons learned from our team’s work. Copies of the rubric and other resources to support successful use in other contexts are available for download in the Resources section.