{"id":9077,"date":"2017-02-07T09:42:13","date_gmt":"2017-02-07T13:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/education.ufl.edu\/educational-research\/?p=9077"},"modified":"2026-03-18T15:59:45","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T15:59:45","slug":"research-spotlight-tina-smith-bonahue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/education.ufl.edu\/educational-research\/2017\/02\/07\/research-spotlight-tina-smith-bonahue\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Spotlight: Tina Smith-Bonahue"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\t\t\t\t[et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”]Q & A with<\/strong> Tina Smith-Bonahue, Ph.D.<\/strong>, Associate Professor in the School of Special Education, School Psychology, and Early Childhood Studies<\/p>\n

What basic questions does your research seek to answer?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

How can professionals working in early childhood settings use authentic, culturally relevant strategies to improve outcomes for vulnerable children? My research seeks to address this question through two lines of inquiry. \u00a0One line examines how teachers and other care providers can structure authentic and play-based interactions that promote social and emotional competence and critical thinking in young children. The second line of research explores how teachers and other early childhood professionals can ensure that their work is culturally relevant through meaningful partnerships with families.<\/p>\n

What makes your work interesting?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In the past 20 years or so, researchers, policy makers, and even the general public have become aware of the tremendous potential for early education to have a long lasting impact on high-risk children\u2019s developmental outcomes. With this increased attention, high stakes testing and methods to ensure accountability are being applied to preschools, changing and challenging the way we think about early childhood. Similarly, state-funded preschool programs have a mandate to focus on pre-academic and school readiness skills. As a result, studies suggest that time for play is on the decline in preschool classrooms. Since years of scholarship also tell us that play is essential for children\u2019s well-being, finding ways to ensure that play has a place in preschool classrooms has become part of my research agenda.<\/p>\n

As more and more children, particularly children from under-resourced communities, have the opportunity to participate in structured preschool experiences, ensuring that these environments are culturally relevant and family-friendly becomes a challenge. When teachers engage families effectively as partners in their children\u2019s learning and development, everyone benefits. But for teachers who are overwhelmed by accountability demands and the day-to-day demands that come with caring for young children, engaging families can seem like a daunting task.<\/p>\n

What are you currently working on?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Working with colleagues and graduate students here and at another university, I\u2019ve spent the past several years examining how helping in-service teachers make sense of the diversity among the families of the children they serve. We were also interested in identifying professional development strategies that improve teachers\u2019 ability to engage families in meaningful ways in their classrooms. Our next projects extend this work by examining preservice teachers\u2019 beliefs about diverse families and what kinds of pedagogical strategies best prepare them to form true partnerships with the families of the children they will serve. Of course, understanding the perspectives of professionals is only half the equation in school-family partnerships, so I\u2019ve recently begun a project with our local Head Start to gather data from parents to determine which parent engagement strategies work well, and what barriers prevent them from partnering with their children\u2019s teachers.<\/p>\n

Another research team and I have been analyzing the literature on play in early childhood for the past 10 years. Based on this analysis, we will explore teachers\u2019 understanding of the role of play in children\u2019s learning and early education. We\u2019ve also just completed a project examining the effectiveness of children\u2019s literature for teaching very young children emotion vocabulary and social problem solving. We hope to learn specific strategies for using authentic literature to promote social and emotional growth in very young children with developmental disabilities.[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column]
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Q & A with<\/strong> Tina Smith-Bonahue<\/strong>, Associate Professor in the School of Special Education, School Psychology, and Early Childhood Studies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":24235,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"Q & A with<\/strong> Tina Smith-Bonahue, Ph.D.<\/strong>, Associate Professor in the School of Special Education, School Psychology, and Early Childhood Studies\r\n

What basic questions does your research seek to answer?<\/strong><\/h2>\r\nHow can professionals working in early childhood settings use authentic, culturally relevant strategies to improve outcomes for vulnerable children? My research seeks to address this question through two lines of inquiry. \u00a0One line examines how teachers and other care providers can structure authentic and play-based interactions that promote social and emotional competence and critical thinking in young children. The second line of research explores how teachers and other early childhood professionals can ensure that their work is culturally relevant through meaningful partnerships with families.\r\n

What makes your work interesting?<\/strong><\/h2>\r\nIn the past 20 years or so, researchers, policy makers, and even the general public have become aware of the tremendous potential for early education to have a long lasting impact on high-risk children\u2019s developmental outcomes. With this increased attention, high stakes testing and methods to ensure accountability are being applied to preschools, changing and challenging the way we think about early childhood. Similarly, state-funded preschool programs have a mandate to focus on pre-academic and school readiness skills. As a result, studies suggest that time for play is on the decline in preschool classrooms. Since years of scholarship also tell us that play is essential for children\u2019s well-being, finding ways to ensure that play has a place in preschool classrooms has become part of my research agenda.\r\n\r\nAs more and more children, particularly children from under-resourced communities, have the opportunity to participate in structured preschool experiences, ensuring that these environments are culturally relevant and family-friendly becomes a challenge. When teachers engage families effectively as partners in their children\u2019s learning and development, everyone benefits. But for teachers who are overwhelmed by accountability demands and the day-to-day demands that come with caring for young children, engaging families can seem like a daunting task.\r\n

What are you currently working on?<\/strong><\/h2>\r\nWorking with colleagues and graduate students here and at another university, I\u2019ve spent the past several years examining how helping in-service teachers make sense of the diversity among the families of the children they serve. We were also interested in identifying professional development strategies that improve teachers\u2019 ability to engage families in meaningful ways in their classrooms. Our next projects extend this work by examining preservice teachers\u2019 beliefs about diverse families and what kinds of pedagogical strategies best prepare them to form true partnerships with the families of the children they will serve. Of course, understanding the perspectives of professionals is only half the equation in school-family partnerships, so I\u2019ve recently begun a project with our local Head Start to gather data from parents to determine which parent engagement strategies work well, and what barriers prevent them from partnering with their children\u2019s teachers.\r\n\r\nAnother research team and I have been analyzing the literature on play in early childhood for the past 10 years. Based on this analysis, we will explore teachers\u2019 understanding of the role of play in children\u2019s learning and early education. We\u2019ve also just completed a project examining the effectiveness of children\u2019s literature for teaching very young children emotion vocabulary and social problem solving. We hope to learn specific strategies for using authentic literature to promote social and emotional growth in very young children with developmental disabilities.","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[58],"class_list":["post-9077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-spotlights","tag-january-2017"],"yoast_head":"\nResearch Spotlight: Tina Smith-Bonahue - Office of Educational Research<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Research Spotlight: Tina Smith-Bonahue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Q & A with Tina Smith-Bonahue, Associate Professor in the School of Special Education, School Psychology, and Early Childhood Studies\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/education.ufl.edu\/educational-research\/2017\/02\/07\/research-spotlight-tina-smith-bonahue\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Office of Educational Research\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-02-07T13:42:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-03-18T15:59:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/education.ufl.edu\/educational-research\/files\/2017\/02\/Tina-Smith-Bonahue.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"480\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"340\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"evekung\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"evekung\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/education.ufl.edu\/educational-research\/2017\/02\/07\/research-spotlight-tina-smith-bonahue\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/education.ufl.edu\/educational-research\/2017\/02\/07\/research-spotlight-tina-smith-bonahue\/\",\"name\":\"Research Spotlight: Tina Smith-Bonahue - 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