"Homegrown" Latinx educator pathways: the challenges and possibilities for early childhood teacher education

This study highlights a critical case that can serve as a programmatic and conceptual model for institutional partnerships seeking to diversify the early childhood education (ECE) teaching profession with "homegrown" Latinx teachers. The case study explored the experiences of Latinx students in an ECE program at a regional, public 4-year university who participated in a Grow Your Own (GYO) program at their high schools and/or local community college. The student-centered qualitative case study addressed: What obstacles have GYO Latinx teacher candidates experienced as they transferred to a 4-year university teacher education program? What can we learn about how they made sense of and responded to these challenges for improving the way in which early childhood teacher education programs might extend and transform GYO initiatives at the university level to support the retention and continued success of Latinx teacher candidates? Using a combination of interviews and focus groups, and Latinx Critical Theory, this study demonstrated that once at the university, GYO Latinx students struggled with increased financial strain, entrance requirements into teacher education, and commuting. Stressed across the interviews was the importance of building a critical learning community, in which relationships could be nurtured in culturally sustaining and place-based ways.