Natacha Ndabahagamye Jones

Dr. Natacha Jones is an Assistant Professor in Early Childhood Education in the Department of Teacher Education and Administration. She earned her master's degree and Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with a focus on Early Childhood Education from the the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Jones spent more than a decade as an early childhood and bilingual elementary school educator, teaching and learning with and from children, families and various communities in and around central Texas public schools. She engages in black feminist and critical epistemologies in her work to center, document, and reimagine how black children experience schooling, enact their agency, and matter in school. Her research and teaching focus on understanding and interrogating educational practices and ecologies that sustain and build on the capabilities, curiosity, and identities of young children with a focus on children whose identities and community knowledge have been pathologized and marginalized. Her work also examines traditional and non-traditional educational spaces that empower young children's ability to be critical, joyful, and communal learners. She particularly examines how children seek and build community, enact their agency, and construct their identities as learners.

• Jones, N. N., & Adair, J. K. (2024). Black Girl Joy (Un)Interrupted: Recognizing and Nurturing Black Girls’ Community-Building Capabilities in the Early Grades. Urban Education, 0(0). https://doi-org.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/10.1177/00420859241258174

• Adair, J. K., Park, S., Alonzo, M., McManus, M. E., Odim, N., Lee, S., Jones, N.N, Payne, K.A., & Colegrove, K. S. S. (2024). Equitable access to agency-supportive early schooling contexts for young children of color. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 69, 49-64.

• Jones, N. N., Fowler, A. T., & Adair, J. K. (2023). Assessing Agency in Learning Contexts: A First, Critical Step to Assessing Children. YC Young Children, 78(1), 16-23.

• Perez, M. S., Saavedra, C. M., Jones, N. N., & Abril-Gonzalez, P. (2022). Woman of colour feminisms as a vehicle for racially-just methodologies in educational research. International Journal of Research & Method in Education, 45(4), 410-420.