2026-2027 Catalog
Early Childhood Studies Department
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The Department of Early Childhood Studies is dedicated to preparing highly qualified, reflective, and socially responsible early childhood educators who are committed to serving diverse young learners and their families. Grounded in culturally sustaining pedagogies, the department promotes justice, equity, diversity, belonging, and inclusion as foundational principles in early learning environments. Our programs equip future teachers with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to support the development and learning of children from birth through age eight. With a strong emphasis on dual language learners and children with special abilities, the department prepares educators to design inclusive, responsive, and developmentally appropriate educational experiences that honor children’s cultural, linguistic, and individual identities. We are also an engaged department that embeds service-learning opportunities throughout coursework, allowing students to develop civic responsibility while working alongside community partners in meaningful, practice-based contexts. The Department of Early Childhood Studies offers a Bachelor of Arts in Early Childhood Studies, accredited through the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), ensuring rigorous, nationally recognized standards of excellence in teacher preparation. The department also offers a fully asynchronous Master of Arts in Early Childhood Studies, expanding access and providing flexible, high-quality graduate education opportunities for early childhood educators seeking to advance their professional practice and leadership.
The Department of Early Childhood Studies is an integral part of the future Early Childhood Care and Education Center (ECCEC), an innovative hub designed to bridge theory and practice. The ECCEC will serve as a dynamic “playground” for Early Childhood Studies students, providing an on-site, high-quality learning environment where they can engage in student teaching, clinical practice, and supervised fieldwork. As a living learning research site for early education, the center will create rich opportunities for internships, collaborative inquiry, and faculty- and student-led research. Through the ECCEC, students will deepen their pedagogical skills in authentic settings, contribute to evidence-based practices, and actively participate in a model program that reflects the department’s commitment to equity, inclusion, and excellence in early childhood education. The ECCEC is expected to open Fall 2028
Faculty Highlights
Regan Bynder, M.A. Lecturer, Early Childhood Studies
Regan Bynder is currently part of the STEMIE IHE Fellow Cohort through the University of North Carolina. The fellowship supports higher education faculty in preparing future early childhood educators by providing shared, community-driven resources and tools to integrate high-quality, inclusive STEM learning for all young children, with and without disabilities, into everyday routines and activities in every setting. In her roles as coordinator at VCOE she leads the Count Play Explore Early STEM grant and the Inclusive Early Education Expansion Program grant funded through CDE. Regan teaches ECS 355 Foundations of STEAM in Early Childhood. ECS 355 is a service-learning course. Students are offered opportunities to sign up to support early STEM activities through a variety of community and family engagement events across the semester.
Contact: Email regan.bynder@csuci.edu
Dr. Kay Kyunghwa Park, Assistant Professor, Early Childhood Studies
Dr. Park’s work centers on inclusive early childhood education and the development of equitable early intervention systems that support young children with disabilities and their families from marginalized backgrounds. Her research advances the implementation of evidence-based practices through implementation science, with particular attention to the factors that influence the adoption, implementation, and sustained use of effective practices in real-world settings. She is committed to preparing educators for inclusive education through a collaborative, blended teacher preparation model that integrates general and special education, and she brings a strong equity-focused approach to teaching and student support in higher education, working to reduce barriers for students with disabilities or mental health challenges in fieldwork and professional preparation. Dr. Park’s areas of expertise include early intervention practices and service delivery, implementation science research, family-centered practices for culturally and linguistically diverse families, practice-based teacher preparation, and mixed methods research. Her scholarship has received national visibility, including recognition from the publisher of two Young Exceptional Children articles and a research article in the Journal of Early Intervention, which was also featured on The Informed SLP, a widely read research summary platform for speech-language pathologists. She further contributes to the field through numerous conference presentations and extensive scholarly service, including grant and journal peer review.
Contact: Email: kyunghwa.park@csuci.edu | Office: Madera Hall 1622
Mari Riojas-Cortez, Ph.D., Professor and Chair, Early Childhood Studies
Dr. Cortez received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in Curriculum & Instruction with a concentration in Early Childhood Education and Multilingual Studies (bilingual education). Her research focuses on Latinx family partnerships (in early childhood contexts), young dual language learners, and early childhood teacher education. Dr. Riojas-Cortez experience with early childhood contexts began at the Harlandale Independent School District in San Antonio, Texas as a bilingual prekindergarten teacher. Currently, Dr. Cortez serves on the editorial board for the Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education and the Early Childhood Education Journal. Her latest publications include a chapter titled Families and Family Engagement in Early Childhood Education the in the edited book Crucial Conversations in Early Childhood Education published by Teachers College Press and the article titled Cuentos Festivos de Mi Gente: A Family Biliteracy Event in a Head Start Classroom published in the journal Dimensions of Early Childhood. Dr. Cortez’s recent research examines Latinx bilingual children’s picture books through the lens of cultural and linguistic wealth, with preservice teachers serving as participants in the study. She also led a service-learning research project in a farmworker community with dual language learners, including an exploratory case study that investigated how Latinx dual language learners (ages 4-8) draw upon their funds of knowledge while engaging with culturally relevant picture books during STREAM learning experiences.
Contact: Email: mari.riojas-cortez@csuci.edu | Office: Madera Hall 2721
Assadullah Sadiq, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Early Childhood Studies
Dr. Sadiq is an Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Studies at California State University Channel Islands. He is a former elementary school teacher and children’s museum educator, where he worked closely with refugee and immigrant families. His research focuses on Afghan refugee children’s language and literacy practices, with particular attention to family contexts, multilingualism, and educational access. His June 2025 article in the School Community Journal examines barriers between Afghan refugee parents and teachers and the implications for family-school partnerships. He is a co-author of the forthcoming chapter, “Family Literacy Programs and Young Children’s Early Development,” in The Bloomsbury Handbook of Literacy (Bloomsbury Academic). He will present at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting in April on literacy among Muslim children and on the role of Afghan daughters as guiding lights of literacy within refugee families. For the past three years, Dr. Sadiq has hosted Tiempo de Cuentos, a monthly community-engaged storytime initiative where Early Childhood Studies students apply theory to practice while working alongside families and young children. He recently presented with his students at the CSUCI Social Justice Conference on how the Tiempo de Cuentos initiative highlights families’ funds of knowledge, and he has submitted an IRB proposal to examine the service-learning dimensions of this work. He was selected by the Center for Community Engagement and the Provost to participate in the Engaged Civic Learning and Economic Mobility Project through AASCU, which will further strengthen and expand the service-learning dimensions of Tiempo de Cuentos. His work integrates justice-centered and culturally sustaining approaches to early childhood education
Contact: Email assadullah.sadiq@csuci.edu Office: Madera Hall
Dr. Annie White, Ed.D., Associate Professor, Early Childhood Studies
Annie White, Ed.D., is Associate Professor of Early Childhood Studies. She designed and led a funded, interdisciplinary New Zealand Study Abroad course in which students engaged in biculturalism through a Māori marae stay, and secured IRA grant funding to support interdisciplinary fieldwork on Santa Rosa Island in collaboration with Performing Arts and Music Program faculty and students. She integrates service-learning and sustained community partnerships into her coursework, advancing community-engaged and experiential learning. Dr. White published in the Journal of Research in Childhood Education (2025), contributed chapters to NAEYC volumes, and co-authored a Routledge chapter with an ECS Lecturer on AI in Early Childhood Education. She is currently under contract with SAGE Publications for her forthcoming book, Learning Stories: Supporting Diverse Learners in Multiple Settings. A recipient of the 2025 Presidential Medallion Award, Dr. White serves as President of Supporting the Advancement of Learning Stories in America (SALSA) and has demonstrated extensive leadership in shared governance, accreditation, curriculum development, and doctoral education. Her areas of interest include Early Childhood Education; Learning Stories and learner identity development; community-engaged and experiential learning; interdisciplinary field-based research; AI in Early Childhood Education; and international, culturally responsive education.
Contact: Email: annie.white@csuci.edu | Office: Madera Hall 1616
Student Opportunities:
Notable internships, research, community engagement, and other student experiences.
Día de los Niõs/Children’s Day
Fieldwork
Learning Stories
International Travel to New Zealand
Service Learning
STEAM Carnival
Student Teaching
Contact Information
http://education.csuci.edu
education@csuci.edu
Faculty
Annie White, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Early Childhood Studies
Madera Hall, Room 1616
Annie.white@csuci.edu
Candice McKinnon, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Studies
candice.mckinnojn@csuci.edu
Kay Park, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Studies
kyunghwa.park@csuci.edu
Mari Riojas-Cortez, Ph.D.
Professor & Chair of Early Childhood Studies
Madera Hall, Room 2721
mari.riojas-cortez@csuci.edu
Assadullah Sadiq, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Studies
assadullah.sadiq@csuci.edu
Krista Bloom
Lecturer
krista.bloom@csuci.edu
Regan Bynder
Lecturer
regan.bynder@csuci.edu
Lauren Chase
Lecturer
lauren.chase@csuci.edu
Debbie Connolly
Lecturer
deborah.connolly@csuci.edu
Loretta Galaviz
Lecturer
loretta.galavi@csuci.edu
Lorena Ramos
Lecturer
lorena.ramos@csuci.edu
Adria Taha-Resnick, Ed.D.
Lecturer
adria.taha-resnick@csuci.edu
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