Equity As Praxis In Early Childhood Education And Care

Equity as Praxis in Early Childhood Education and Care aims to map, deconstruct, and engage with different models of equity as they pertain to the early childhood education landscape in Ontario. Drawing on marginalized narratives of gender, race, Indigeneity, dis/ability and inclusion, and migration, immigration, and displacement, the authors discuss how to advance the field and make it more equitable for children, families, early childhood educators, and all other practitioners. This edited collection outlines the current political climate of early childhood education and care in Ontario through a critical analysis of policies and dominant discourses of equity and inclusion. By prompting readers to reflect on and critique their understandings of children, families, communities, and practices in the field, the authors seek to provide counternarratives to Eurocentric developmentalist hegemonies and an alternative strength-based approach to critical and transformative praxis. This vital text encourages rethinking how narratives of equity and inclusion are constructed and what this means for young children and their families in Ontario, as well as throughout Canada. This is an essential resource for students in early childhood education and care, early childhood studies, and education programs. FEATURES: - Includes perspectives from multiple positionalities in the field to provide a critical and interdisciplinary approach - Draws on a reconceptualist lens to present a critique of developmentalist approaches - Encourages readers to engage with the content by practising critical self-examination and considering social factors and forces that inform their own concepts

This book highlights the urgent need to expand conceptions of leadership in early childhood to emphasize postmodern epistemology, a belief that equity starts by acknowledging and making diversities visible, and to unite leadership in a commitment to work for social justice.

Early childhood education in Australia has been a rapidly growing part of the education sector for the past two decades and, while complex and often controversial, has, until very recently, generated limited discussion in mainstream educational policy arenas and relatively little investment in research and development. Most sector growth and investment has been in services and fee subsidies to provide care for young children while their parents work. There has been less focus on developmental issues and outcomes for children, little emphasis on strengthening early development and education components in child care, and a widening gulf between preschool and kindergarten programs and childcare programs for children in the year or so before school. Furthermore, despite seemingly bipartisan political and social commitment to the benefits of strong early childhood development and education programs, there are diverse administrative and legislative arrangements for early childhood services, limited intergovernmental agreement on policy and little concerted or coordinated effort to assure quality programs and outcomes or to close the achievement gap in the early years. Worst of all, many Australian children miss out on early childhood development and education opportunities.

Relationships with Families in Early Childhood Education and Care radically challenges the role assigned to parents in neoliberal discussions of early childhood education and care, and presents new ways of thinking about relationships with families. With contributions from international early childhood scholars and practitioners, this book includes outlooks of practitioners, families and children, particularly about the meanings they assign to relationships. Bringing together key understandings about how parent-partnerships can be understood, this book provides innovative examples of how to enact democratic partnerships with parents in diverse contexts. Relationships with Families in Early Childhood Education and Care is an ideal text for ECEC practitioners and policy makers, trainers, graduate students and researchers.

Across the globe the work of early childhood educators, who are predominantly women, is misunderstood, underpaid and undervalued. Perspectives on early childhood educators are highly contentious: are they child development experts, oppressed workers, maternal substitutes, technicians, facilitators of early learning, or something else? This volume features chapter authors from Australia, Canada, Norway, Sweden, the USA and New Zealand, examine a range of contemporary feminist theories in relation to the early childhood educator. The feminist theories covered include materialist feminism, poststructural feminism, decolonizing feminisms, posthumanist feminism, new materialist feminism, feminist ethics of care, womanist feminism, postcolonial feminism, femme theory and feminist queer theory. The editors of the volume offer an introduction and commentaries that explore solidarities and tensions between the feminisms to generate critical conversations about the work, lived experiences, and agency of early childhood educators. The volume contributes to shifting understandings of the early childhood educator in the contexts of culture, practice, policy and politics.

The role of the professional in supporting the diverse needs of children and families, as well as their own professional development over time, is the organizing structure of this text. The book includes information on the application of both NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children) and DEC (Division for Early Childhood) standards to quality programming for young children and their families, as well as ongoing professional development. --from publisher description.

Enacting Anti-Racist and Activist Pedagogies in Teacher Education is a timely edited collection that examines the complexities, challenges, spaces of resistance, and possibilities when faculty—specifically Black, Indigenous, and racialized faculty—advocate and implement anti racism approaches and pedagogies in Canadian teacher education programs. Taking an explicitly critical anti-racist approach, the text challenges the pedagogical, curricular, structural, and institutional underpinnings in teacher education framed by whiteness. As a collective, the chapters explore how to disrupt white normalcy by dismantling the hierarchies in place and unpacking intersectionalities, positionalities, and knowledge production through transformative anti-racist pedagogies. Established and emerging academics, as well as field practitioners, present a holistic and nuanced understanding of anti-racism within the educational context and seek to reframe teacher education through resistance and activism, preparing teacher candidates as practitioners for anti-racist work with racialized students, families, and communities. Including key terms, discussion questions, and “toolbox” sections highlighting advice for pre-service K–12 teachers, this text is an essential resource for undergraduate and graduate students in teacher education.