People

Bethany Wilinski is an associate professor in the Department of Teacher Education. Her work is situated in the field of anthropology of education. Wilinski draws on critical policy frameworks and employs ethnographic methods to study policy enactment in early childhood settings. In particular, she examines early childhood workforce issues and the lived experiences of pre- and in-service pre-kindergarten teachers in the U.S. and Tanzania. The focus of Wilinski's scholarship is conducting policy-relevant research that contributes to making pre-K a better place for teachers, children, and families. She is the author of "When Pre-K Comes to School: Policy, Partnerships, and the Early Childhood Education Workforce" (2017), which explores how policy is actually enacted in schools and provides important insight into what communities and policymakers should consider when creating pre-K policies. In addition to her domestic work, Wilinski studies pre-primary teacher education policy in Tanzania and leads projects for MSU's Tanzania Partnership Program.