Reexamining the Carolina Abecedarian Project using an antiracist perspective: Implications for early care and education research

Abstract

The Carolina Abecedarian Project helped to establish the understanding that early care and education experiences can have long-term positive impacts on educational, social-emotional, and health outcomes into adulthood. This article uses an antiracist lens to reexamine this research, concluding that whereas the study has many strengths, the study's “colorblind” approach and deficit-model orientation limit its ability to inform practice and policy for promoting positive developmental outcomes in the population of Black children represented in the sample. As these limitations remain prevalent in contemporary early care and education research, implications for future research are discussed. Specifically, we propose that studies that focus on race and are based on strength-based perspectives will further understanding of developmental science. This in turn will enable researchers to better inform practice that supports and promotes positive outcomes for all children and public policy that addresses structural racism and its consequences in systems serving Black, Latine, Indigenous, and other minoritized families and communities.