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Dr. Michelle Salazar Pérez is the Velma E. Schmidt Endowed Chair for Early Childhood Education & Professor of Early Childhood Studies at the University of North Texas. She uses women of color feminisms to inform her community collaborations, research, and pedagogy. These perspectives not only critically orient her work, but they also foreground the urgency to re-envision the field to support culturally sustaining praxis and programs for minoritized young children.
Dr. Pérez’s past and current scholarship addresses early childhood policy reform, historical and contemporary constructions of childhood/s, teacher education, and critical qualitative methodologies. Her work has been published in Teachers College Record, Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, Equity & Excellence in Education, the Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, Qualitative Inquiry, and Review of Research in Education. She has co-edited several special issues and books, including The SAGE Handbook of Global Childhoods. Recently, she was Co-PI of a Spencer Foundation grant, with colleagues Dr. Fikile Nxumalo (PI) and Dr. Mere Skerrett (Co-PI), entitled Enacting sustainable futures in early childhood education: Transforming educational systems in relation with living lands, waters, and languages across global contexts. Dr. Pérez was the recipient of the 2020, AERA Mid-Career Award, from the Critical Examination of Race, Ethnicity, Class, and Gender in Education SIG. She was also the Host Chair of the 27th international Reconceptualizing Early Childhood Education (RECE) conference in 2019, and the Chair of the AERA Critical Perspectives on Early Childhood Education (CPECE) SIG in 2018. |
Dr. Pérez earned her Ph.D. from Arizona State University and her master's and undergraduate degrees from Texas A&M University in College Station. Prior to her appointment at the University of North Texas, she was a tenured Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education at The University of Texas at Austin. She also spent seven years at New Mexico State University, where she held the J. Paul Taylor Endowed Professorship, co-founded the Glass Family Research Institute for Early Childhood Studies, was Co-PI of a Head Start and Kellogg grant, and served as Interim Associate Dean for Research in the College of Education.
Dr. Pérez is currently focusing on research involving childcare equity with the Early Childhood Justice Collaborative (ECJ CoLab).
Online First Publications
Harmon, F.J., & Pérez, M.S. (published online first, September 2024). Transforming the legacy of colonial and racialized inequities in childcare systems in the U.S.: (Re)framing futures through Black feminist thought. American Behavioral Scientist.
Lopez, A., Finno-Velasquez, M., Sepp, S., Mendoza, V., Corkill, M., & Pérez, M.S. (published online first, Nov 2024). Community leaders’ perspectives on the unique service barriers and facilitators among immigrant families with young children in the rural U.S./Mexico border region. Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services.
Recent Publications +alphabetical listing of authorship
Pasque, P.A., Carducci, R., Gaston Gayles, J., Nicolazzo, Z., Pérez, M.S., & Samura, M. (2025). Critical qualitative research and social justice: An introduction for uncertain times. In P. A. Pasque (Ed.), Critical qualitative research & social justice: Key concepts in qualitative methods (pp. 1-16). Routledge.
Abril-Gonzalez, P., Harmon, F.J. & Pérez, M.S. (2024). Collective dreaming as conduits to enact just futures in childhood/s education and care. Global Studies of Childhood, 14(3), 294-305. Global Studies of Childhood.
Pérez, M. S. (2024). Theories in the flesh and qualitative methodologies. In R. McMillian, P. A. Pasque (Eds.), Advancing qualitative inquiry toward methodological inclusion (pp. 63-70). Routledge.
Ulmer, J., Hughes, C., Pérez, M.S., & Taylor, C. (Eds.). (2024). The Routledge international handbook of transdisciplinary feminist research and methodological praxis. Routledge.
Nxumalo, F., Pérez, M.S., Barces, A., Castillo, J., Doherty, M., Holmes, Z., Nah, J. & Phillips, I. (2024). Insights on feminist transdisciplinarity and Dr. Fikile Nxumalo’s ‘Decolonizing place in early childhood education’ (pp. 350-355). In J. B. Ulmer, C. Hughes, M. S. Pérez, & C. A. Taylor (Eds.), The Routledge international handbook of transdisciplinary feminist research and methodological praxis. Routledge.
Ruiz Guerrero, M., & Pérez, M. S. (2023). Snack time: The “both/and” of an in-between praxis. In C. M. Myers, R. Hostler, K. Smith, & M. Tesar (Eds.), Reframing the every/day in early childhood pedagogies: Conceptualising the mundane. Routledge.
Selected Publications (see scholarship page for a full list of publications)
Pérez, M. S., Saavedra, C. M., Jones, N. N., & Abril-Gonzalez, P. (2022). Woman of color feminisms as a vehicle for racially-just methodologies in educational research. International Journal of Research & Method in Education, 45(4), 323-329.
Yelland, N., Peters, L. E., Fairchild, N., Tesar, M., & Pérez, M. S. (Eds.). (2021). The Sage handbook of global childhoods. Sage.
Pérez, M. S. (2019). Dismantling racialized discourses in early childhood education and care: A revolution towards reframing the field. In F. Nxumalo & C. P. Brown (Eds.), Disrupting and countering deficits in early childhood education (pp. 20-36). Routledge.
Pérez, M. S. (2018). What does the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) mean for early childhood education? A history of NCLB’s impact on early childhood education and insights for the future under ESSA. Teachers College Record, 120(13), 1-18.
Pérez, M. S., & Saavedra, C.M. (2017). A call for onto-epistemological diversity in early childhood education and care: Centering global south conceptualizations of childhood/s. Review of Research in Education, 41(1), 1-29.
Book Foreword & Endorsements
Book Endorsement: Beneke, M., & Love, H. R. (Eds.) (2025). Beyond compliance in early childhood education: Centering disability, freedom, and belonging. Teachers College Press.
Book Foreword: Han, S., Kim, J., Meacham, S., & Wee, S. (2023). Supporting Korean American children in early childhood education: Perspectives from mother-educators. Teachers College Press.
Book Endorsement: Nagasawa, M. K., Peters, L. Bloch, M. N., & Swadener, B. B. (Eds.) (2023). Transforming early years policy in the U.S.: A call to action. Teachers College Press.
Book Endorsement: Wells, T. C., Carlson, D. L., & Koro, M. (Eds.) (2020). Intra-public intellectualism: Critical qualitative inquiry in the academy. Myers Education Press.