Smart and Capable

“Smart and Capable is a powerful, rigorously researched invitation to recognize children—especially those too often controlled or pathologized—as imaginative, agentic human beings who deserve safety, complexity, and freedom. I highly recommend this book for anyone committed to creating the conditions for young people to thrive.”
—Dr. Dena Simmons, author, scholar, and founder of LiberatED

“Smart and Capable is not just a book about young children. Careful, respectful observation has yielded a profound and humane work about building a better society.”
—Anya Kamenetz, author of The Stolen Year: How COVID Changed Children’s Lives, and Where We Go Now

“This striking book demonstrates how children are compassionate and capable when adults support their agency. Even for children in unsupportive settings, Adair offers examples of how they find ways to be surreptitiously helpful to classmates and sneakily creative in their play.”
—Joseph Tobin, coauthor of Preschool in Three Cultures: Japan, China, and the United States

“In this rich account of her observations of young children and their interactions with adults in the US and abroad, Adair skillfully describes how children engage in and make sense of the world. The book’s core theme of agency comes to life in a series of compelling and well-curated examples of children participating in different activities, settings, and contexts that demonstrate the ways they expand their capabilities and understand and respond to life experiences, possibilities, and challenges. This personal and scholarly text is both a source of powerful images of children being ‘smart and capable’ and a call for adults—educators, parents, and others—to build upon children’s knowledge and elevate their strengths.”
—Vivian L. Gadsden, William T. Carter Emerita Professor of Child Development and Professor of Education, University of Pennsylvania

Jennifer Keys Adair, PhD is an Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education at The University of Texas at Austin. Her work focuses on the connection between agency and racism in the early learning experiences of children of color. She is primarily concerned with how racism and white supremacy impact young children’s early schooling experiences.

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