MARIANA SOUTO-MANNING, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education in Curriculum and Teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University. From a critical perspective, she examines the sociocultural and historical foundations of early schooling, language development, and literacy practices. She studies how children, families, and teachers from diverse backgrounds shape and are shaped by discursive practices, employing a methodology that combines discourse analysis with ethnographic investigation. Her work can be found in journals such as Early Child Development and Care, Early Childhood Education Journal, Journal of Early Childhood Research, Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, Journal of Research in Childhood Education, and Teachers College Record. In 2008, she was awarded the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Language and Social Processes Early Career Award. In 2009, she was awarded the AERA Early Education and Child Development Early Research Career Award and the National Council for Research on Language and Literacy (NCRLL) Early Researcher Career Award. She teaches C&T 4114 (Multicultural Approaches to Teaching Young Children), C&T 4131 (Language and Literacy in Early Childhood), and C&T 5514 (Seminar in Early Childhood Education II) at Teachers College.