Gisele M. Crawford

Gisele M. Crawford, MAA, is a research specialist at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Early in her career she served as an assistant teacher in a classroom for 4-year-olds and a lead teacher for 2½–3-year-olds, as well as a teacher of English for children and adults in Taiwan. Since then she has worked on numerous studies of young children and their environments and experiences, including large-scale studies of public prekindergarten in the United States. Crawford is currently on the staff of FirstSchool, a prekindergarten through 3rd-grade initiative to improve the school experiences and outcomes of African American, Latino, and low-income children. She has published articles and book chapters relating to serving diverse populations of children in early education settings.