Oona Fontanella-Nothom

Oona Fontanella-Nothom, PhD

Assistant Professor

Contact Information

(310) 243-2668
WH A-310C
ofontanellanothom@csudh.edu

Education

Ph.D., University of Missouri – Learning, Teaching, and Curriculum

Primary Area of Emphasis: Early Childhood Education, Secondary Area of Emphasis: Critical and Sociological Perspectives, Graduate Certificate in Qualitative Research

M.A., California State University, Long Beach – Social and Cultural Analysis of Education

Emphasis in Urban Contexts

B.A., Chapman University – Early Childhood Development

A.A., Santa Ana College – Child Development

CSUDH Courses

• CDV 220 – Principals and Practices of Teaching Young Children
• CDV 240 – Early Childhood Development and Curriculum
• CDV 260 – Introduction to Observation and Assessment in ECE 

Research Overview

Dr. Oona Fontanella-Nothom (she/her/hers), a former early childhood classroom teacher and curriculum specialist, has three different yet interconnected research interests: the teaching and learning of race, racism, and social justice topics during early childhood, challenging Eurocentric theories of child development, and innovative methodologies and approaches to qualitative inquiry. She employs critical, feminist, and post-theoretical/post-philosophical concepts in her work and advances research that provides expansive and affirming conceptions of children and childhoods. She believes that when we are willing to truly listen and learn from and with children, we can work towards social change and transformation.

In her work with pre-service and in-service early childhood professionals, Oona seeks to create opportunities for educators to recognize and enact their agency to create affirmative, caring, and culturally sustaining learning environments for young children and their families. She believes in early educators as changemakers and is committed to centering their perspectives and voices. Her most recent publications can be found in Cultural Studies <-> Critical Methodologies, Studying Teacher Education, Qualitative Inquiry, Multicultural Perspectives, Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice, and other journals and edited books. Her doctoral dissertation, a collaborative study about teaching and learning about race and racism with first-grade students and their teacher, was honored with an award in 2020 from the Critical Perspectives in Early Childhood Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association.

Selected Publications

Fontanella-Nothom, O., & Kuby, C. R. (2024). Questions, loneliness, lists, and holding space: Mundane significance in qualitative research mentoring. Cultural Studies <-> Critical Methodologies. https://doi.org/10.1177/15327086241260843

Edwards, L., Fontanella-Nothom, O., & Strom, K. (2024). Theorizing outside the lines: A self-study of collaborative learning in a critical posthuman reading group. Studying Teacher Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/17425964.2024.2374261

Fontanella-Nothom, O. (2024). Bewildering developmentalism: poetic juxtapositions and propositions to ask different questions about and with children. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 32(4), 1033–1049. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2024.2355113

Fontanella-Nothom, O. (2024). “This might have been better than anything we taught or planned”: Disrupt/ion leading the way towards culturally sustaining pedagogies. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2024.2348778

Fontanella-Nothom, O., & Newfield, D. (2023). Pursuing the post philosophical new: Taking our thoughts for a walk. Qualitative Inquiry, 29(1), 223-231. https://doi.org/10.1177/10778004221099969

Joubert, E., & Fontanella-Nothom, O. (2022). Living with monsters and ghosts: Theorizing race through unresolved writing. In L. E. Bailey & K. Hinton (Eds.), Racial dimensions of life writing in education (pp. 1-19). Information Age Publishing.

Fontanella-Nothom, O. (2021). “Ethical viewing practices”: First-Graders experiencing racism in Let the Children March. Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice, 70(1), 272-288. https://doi.org/10.1177/23813377211036198

Hancock, T. S., & Fontanella-Nothom, O. (2020). Becoming with/in excess(es) and mess(es): Pedagogies of sustainment (POSt). Qualitative Inquiry, 26(1), 81-88. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800419874827

Fontanella-Nothom, O. (2019). “Why do we have different skins anyway?”: Exploring race in literature with preschool children. Multicultural Perspectives, 21(1), 11-18. https://doi.org/10.1080/15210960.2019.1572485

Kuby, C. R., & Fontanella-Nothom, O. (2018). (Re)imagining writers and writing: The end of the book and the beginning of writing. Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice, 67, 310-326.https://doi.org/10.1177/2381336918786257