Abstract
We present a critique of early childhood education and care (ECEC) as a contested site of cultural transmission and social reproduction in Western nation-states, but also as one that can become a potentially powerful space of resistance and change. We examine how language and other symbolic systems shape social hierarchies of power within and beyond ECEC contexts and how children from infancy to the early years of schooling are exposed to various forms of oppression caused by racist, ethnocentric, neoliberal, patriarchal, heteronormative, and neocolonial dynamics. These persistent cultural forces converge on malleable young minds, perpetuating not only White privilege but other injustices sustained by predatory capitalist cultural strategies, which emphasize conformity, competition, and consumerism over other ontological and axiological orientations, and are encoded through cultures of play, pedagogical practice, and interpersonal/intergroup relations in ECEC. We focus more specifically on how color-blind racism (Bonilla-Silva, Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States. Rowand and Littlefield, Landham, 2013) within ECEC is undergirded by a Western-centric, capitalist and patriarchal world-system (Wallerstein, Piel negra, máscaras blancas. Akal, Madrid, 2009), while we reject the discourses that situate ECEC as a neutral, color-blind space. Our discussion is further framed through intersectional (Collins and Bilge, Intersectionality. Polity Press, Cambridge, 2016), decolonial (Mohanty, Feminism without borders: Decolonizing theory, practicing solidarity. Duke University Press, Durham, 2003; Orelus, Whitecentricism and linguoracism exposed: Towards the de-centering of whiteness and decolonization of schools. Peter Lang, New York, 2013), counter-hegemonic (Freire, Pedagogy of the oppressed. The Seabury Press, New York, 1970; Moss, Transformative change and real utopias in early childhood education: A story of democracy, experimentation and potentiality. Routledge, New York, 2014), and cross-cultural inquiry into culturally sustainable (Ladson-Billings, Harvard Educational Review 84:74–84, 2014) child-centered pedagogy (Sánchez-Blanco, Fuego, meteoritos y elefantes: Cruzando fronteras en educación infantil. Miño y Dávila, Buenos Aires, 2018). We seek to understand how racial and other sociocultural hierarchies colonize children’s spatialities, temporalities, potentialities, and overall well-being, and we conclude by proposing strategies to foster resistance and rupture the systems of hegemonic power and dominator culture within ECEC.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Appadurai, A. (1990). Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy. Theory, Culture and Society, 7, 295–310.
Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Apple, M. W. (2004). Ideology and curriculum (3rd ed.). London/New York: Routledge Falmer.
Battiste, M. A. (2013). Decolonizing education: Nourishing the learning spirit. Saskatoon: Purich Publishing.
Bauman, Z. (2017). Retrotopia. New York: Polity Press.
Berman, R., Daniel, B., Butler, A., McNevin, M., & Royer, N. (2017). Nothing or almost nothing to report: Early childhood educators and discursive constructions of colorblindness. The International Critical Childhood Policy Studies Journal, 6(1), 52–65.
Bhabha, H. K. (1994). The location of culture. London: Routledge.
Bhabha, H. K. (2013). Nuevas minorías, nuevos derechos: Notas sobre cosmopolitismos vernáculos. Madrid: Siglo XXI.
Bonilla-Silva, E. (2013). Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States. Landham: Rowand and Littlefield.
Bourdieu, P. (2000). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. New York: Routledge.
Brill, S., & Pepper, R. (2008). The transgender child: A handbook for families and professionals. Berkeley: Cleis Press.
Buckingham, D. (2011). The material child: Growing up in consumer culture. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Cannella, G. S., & Viruru, R. (2004). Childhood and postcolonization: Power, education, and contemporary practice. London/New York: Routledge Falmer.
Chibber, V. (2013). Postcolonial theory and the specter of capital. London: Verso.
Clark, V. (2014). Entanglements of neoliberal capitalism, whiteness, and technoculture in early childhood art encounters. Power and Education, 6(3), 318–326.
Collins, P. H., & Bilge, S. (2016). Intersectionality. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Corsaro, W. A. (2003). We’re friends, right? Inside kids’ culture. Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press.
Cortina, A. (2017). Aporofobia, el rechazo al pobre: Un desafío para la democracia. Barcelona: Paidós.
Dei, G. J. S., & Kempf, A. (2006). Anti-colonialism and education: The politics of resistance. Rotterdam/Taipei: Sense Publishers.
Emdin, C. (2017). For white folks who teach in the hood… and the rest of y’all too: Reality pedagogy and urban education. Boston: Beacon Press.
Escayg, K., Berman, R., & Royer, N. (2017). Canadian children and race: Toward an antiracism analysis. Journal of Childhood Studies, 42(2), 10.
Fanon, F. (2007/1967). Black skin, white masks. New York: Grove Press.
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: The Seabury Press.
Gabriel, N. (2017). The sociology of early childhood: Critical perspectives. London: Sage.
Guss, F. (2005). Reconceptualising play: Aesthetic self-definitions. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 6(3), 233–243.
hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York: Henry Holt.
hooks, b. (2003). Teaching community: A pedagogy of hope. New York: Routledge.
hooks, b. (2015). Feminism is for everybody: Passionate politics. New York: Routledge.
Jipson, J., & Johnson, R. T. (2001). Resistance and representation: Rethinking childhood education. New York: Peter Lang.
Ladson-Billings, G. (2014). Culturally relevant pedagogy 2.0: A.k.a. the remix. Harvard Educational Review, 84(1), 74–84.
León, M. (2011, November). Redefiniciones económicas hacia el Buen Vivir: Un acercamiento feminista. Association for Women’s Rights in Development – AWID Women’s Rights. http://www.fedaeps.org/IMG/pdf/Magdalena_Leon_buenvivir_economia.pdf. Accessed 28 Nov 2016.
Leonardo, Z., & Singh, M. (2017). Fanon, education, and the fact of coloniality. In S. Parker, K. N. Gulson, & T. Gale (Eds.), Policy and inequality in education (pp. 91–110). Singapore: Springer.
Löfdahl, A. (2002). Förskolebarns lek – En arena för kulturellt och socialt meningsskapande (doctoral dissertation). Karlstad: Karlstads Universitet.
Lugones, M. (2008). The coloniality of gender. Worlds & Knowledges Otherwise, 2(Spring), 1–17.
McCarthy, C. (2013). The aftermath of race: The politics and perils of theorizing racial identities in education in the age of information. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 13(6), 570–574.
Mohanty, C. T. (2003). Feminism without borders: Decolonizing theory, practicing solidarity. Durham: Duke University Press.
Moss, P. (2014). Transformative change and real utopias in early childhood education: A story of democracy, experimentation and potentiality. New York: Routledge.
Naughton, G. M., & Davis, K. (2009). “Race” and early childhood education: An international approach to identity, politics, and pedagogy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Orelus, P. W. (2013). Whitecentricism and linguoracism exposed: Towards the de-centering of whiteness and decolonization of schools. New York: Peter Lang.
Palludan, C. (2007). Two tones: The core of inequity in kindergarten. International Journal of Early Childhood, 39(1), 75–91.
Ramsey, P. G. (2015). Teaching and learning in a diverse world: Multicultural education for young children. New York: Teachers College Press.
Said, E. W. (1993). Culture and imperialism. London: Vintage.
Sánchez-Blanco, C. (2015). Learning about democracy at school: An action research project in early childhood education. Educational Action Research, 23(4), 514–528.
Sánchez-Blanco, C. (2016). “To have or not to have” at school. Action research on early childhood education in Galicia (Spain). In W. Pannell & J. M. Iorio (Eds.), Disrupting early childhood education research: Imagining new possibilities (pp. 154–169). New York: Routledge.
Sánchez-Blanco, C. (2018). Fuego, meteoritos y elefantes: Cruzando fronteras en educación infantil. Buenos Aires: Miño y Dávila.
Scholz, R. (2014). Patriarchy and commodity society: Gender without the body. In N. Larsen et al. (Eds.), Marxism and the critique of value (pp. 123–142). Chicago: MCM Publishing.
Srinivasan, P. (2009). Languages matter: My subjective postcolonial struggle. In G. M. Naughton & K. Davis (Eds.), “Race” and early childhood education: An international approach to identity, politics, and pedagogy (pp. 155–166). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Teasley, C. (2009). Postcolonial learning in neocolonial times. The International Journal of Learning, 16(6), 91–100.
Teasley, C. (2014). Cross-cultural reflections on gender diversity in the earliest stages of youth identity formation. In A. Ibrahim & S. R. Steinberg (Eds.), Critical youth studies reader (pp. 152–160). New York: Peter Lang.
Twum-Danso Imoh, A. (2016). From the singular to the plural: Exploring diversities in contemporary childhoods in sub-Saharan Africa. Childhood, 23(3), 455–468.
Wallerstein, I. (2009). Prefacio: Leer a Fanon en el siglo XXI. In F. Fanon (Ed.), Piel negra, máscaras blancas (pp. 29–40). Madrid: Akal.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Butler, A., Teasley, C., Sánchez-Blanco, C. (2019). A Decolonial, Intersectional Approach to Disrupting Whiteness, Neoliberalism, and Patriarchy in Western Early Childhood Education and Care. In: Trifonas, P. (eds) Handbook of Theory and Research in Cultural Studies and Education. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01426-1_10-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01426-1_10-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-01426-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-01426-1
eBook Packages: Springer Reference EducationReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Education