Department of Curriculum & Instruction

Dr. Brown is a Fellow in the Judy Spence Tate Fellowship for Excellence.  His research interests focus on examining how early childhood education stakeholders across a range of political and educational contexts respond to policymakers' high-stakes standards-based accountability reforms. Rooted in multiple perspectives that span the fields of early childhood education, curriculum and instruction, and policy analysis, he has generated empirical, theoretical, practitioner-oriented scholarship on this topic. In examining such topics as early learning standards, pre-kindergarten assessment and alignment with elementary school, and teacher education, Dr. Brown has illuminated some of the tensions for the field that policymakers' reforms generate and has proposed practical solutions that early childhood advocates might implement to foster learning environments that match how children learn and develop.

He is currently pursuing two new lines of inquiry.  The first centers on how ECE teachers in high-stakes teaching contexts are preparing their culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students for success in these high-stakes ECE teaching contexts.  The second centers on employing qualitative metasynthesis to investigate how ECE practitioners are conceptualizing and implementing DAP in various contexts.

Ph.D., Curriculum and Instruction.  The University of Wisconsin-Madison (2004).

M. A., Curriculum and Instruction. New MexicoStateUniversity (1997).

B.A., Philosophy. The University of the South (1993).

Brown, C. P., & Lan, Y. C. (Forthcoming).  How teachers’ developmentally      appropriate practices influence children’s cognitive development: A qualitative metasynthesis.  Teachers College Record.

Brown, C. P. (Forthcoming). Reforming preschool to ready children for academicachievement:  A case study of the impact of pre-k reform on the issue of schoolreadiness.  Early Education and Development.

Brown, C. P., & Mowry, B. (Forthcoming).  How principals can foster academically rigorousdevelopmentally appropriate instruction in their preschool programs.  Principal.

Brown, C. P., & Lee, J. E. (2012).  How to teach to the child when the stakes are high: Examples of implementing developmentally appropriate and culturally relevantpractices in pre-kindergarten.  Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 33, 322-348.

Brown, C. P., & Gasko, J. W. (2012).  Why should pre-k be more like elementary school? A case study of pre-k reform.  Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 26, 264-290.

• Recipient, Division K, Teaching and Teacher Education, of the American Educational Research Association Award for Exemplary Research in Teaching and Teacher Education, 2011
• Recipient, National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators/Taylor Francis Outstanding Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education Journal Article Honorable Mention, 2011.

• Chair-Elect, Early Education/Child Development Special Interest Group, American Educational Research Association
• National Association for the Education of Young Children
• National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators
• Association for Childhood Education International
• Phi Delta Kappa