Feminism S In Early Childhood

This unique book brings together international scholars from around the globe to examine how different feminist theories are being used in early childhood research, policy and pedagogy. The array of feminist discourses captured by the authors offer contextualised possibilities for disrupting dominant patriarchal beliefs and producing change. The authors address and challenge how early childhood experiences, institutions and practices produce gendered effects across and within diverse contexts and demonstrate how feminism(s) in action can be used to reconceptualise research methods, government policy, children’s learning, teaching practice and educational resources. In this way, the book contributes to creating new knowledge connections and community alliances in the global effort to end gender-based inequalities across local and global communities.

Intersections: Feminisms/Early Childhoods presents a continuing dialogue among early childhood educators who name themselves as feminists. Essays by individual contributors are woven together by the coeditors as they interrogate the relationship of feminist theory to early childhood practice. In considering the identity of feminist early childhood educators, the first section of this book reconsiders historical events in early childhood education from a feminist perspective, in many cases renaming the issues and reclaiming the history. The second section of the book reflects on early childhood practice and feminist pedagogy through the narratives of practicing early childhood professionals working in day care, public school, and university settings. The final section of the book examines significant issues facing early childhood from a feminist perspective, including the roles and representations of women and children, the analysis of economic and cross-cultural realities of child care and the consideration of public policy.

Feminism and the Politics of Childhood offers an innovative and critical exploration of perceived commonalities and conflicts between women and children and, more broadly, between various forms of feminism and the politics of childhood. This unique collection of 18 chapters brings into dialogue authors from a range of geographical contexts, social science disciplines, activist organisations, and theoretical perspectives. The wide variety of subjects include refugee camps, care labour, domestic violence and childcare and education. Chapter authors focus on local contexts as well as their global interconnections, and draw on diverse theoretical traditions such as poststructuralism, psychoanalysis, posthumanism, postcolonialism, political economy, and the ethics of care. Together the contributions offer new ways to conceptualise relations between women and children, and to address injustices faced by both groups. Praise for Feminism and the Politics of Childhood: Friends or Foes? ‘This book is genuinely ground-breaking.’ ‒ Val Gillies, University of Westminster ‘Feminism and the Politics of Childhood: Friends or Foes? asks an impossible question, and then casts prismatic light on all corners of its impossibility.’ ‒ Cindi Katz, CUNY ‘This provocative and stimulating publication comes not a day too soon.’ ‒ Gerison Lansdown, Child to Child ‘A smart, innovative, and provocative book.’ ‒ Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Syracuse University ‘This volume raises and addresses issues so pressing that it is surprising they are not already at the heart of scholarship.’ ‒ Ann Phoenix, UCL

"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, who work with a particular feminist perspective. The feminist theories covered include materialist feminism, poststructural feminism, decolonizing feminisms, post humanist feminism, new materialist feminism, feminist ethics of care, womanist feminism, postcolonial feminism, femme theory and feminist queer theory. The chapter authors describe the key themes of these theories and explore how they can illuminate our understandings of the early childhood educator. 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."--

Gender and Care in Pedagogical Relations with Young Children is an exploration of how children, educators, and things become implicated in gendered caring practices. Drawing on a collaborative research study with early childhood educators and young children, the author explores what an engagement with human-and non-human relationality does to complicate conversations about gender and care. By employing a material feminist analysis of early childhood education, this book rethinks dominant Western individualist pedagogies in order to politically reposition them within a relationality framework.

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.

Adriany explores gender discourses in early childhood education in Indonesia, as well as how teachers and children are engaged in the process of constructing, negotiating, and resisting dominant gender discourses in kindergartens. Using an ethnographic approach, Adriany explores how both the teachers and children are doing and undoing their gender. She adopts feminist poststructuralist and postcolonial theories through her research and, in that context, views gender as something fluid and unfixed. The book also investigates the methodological aspect where the authors have both an inside and outside perspective. Each chapter aims to present and complicate the taken-for-granted practices in kindergartens that relate to how gender and power are constructed. The findings of this book show the extent to which early childhood education becomes a space for the teachers and children to construct, negotiate, as well as resist dominant gender discourses in kindergartens. Offering insights into local and global contexts that shape gender values in early years, this book will be a valuable reference for researchers, scholars, and students in early childhood education, gender studies, and comparative education.

Teachers commonly talk about loving their students, yet no effort has been made to explore the powerful educational potential inherent in these loving feelings. Teaching with Love breaks new ground by paying careful, scholarly attention to the nature, the scope, the dimensions, and the variety of teacherly love. In a highly readable narrative that builds on the feminist notion of an ethic of care and draws from the fields of psychology and women's studies, this book examines and analyzes the experiences of two primary grade teachers as they set about trying to create and enact a vision of early childhood education centered around loving relationships.