Toward Liberatory Early Childhood PDF

Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, Volume 3, Number 1, 2002
Toward Liberatory Early Childhood

Theory, Research and Praxis:
decolonizing a field
LOURDES DIAZ SOTO

Teachers College, Columbia University,
and Pennsylvania State University, USA
BETH BLUE SWADENER
Arizona State University, USA
ABSTRACT This article surveys the emergence and application of critical

pedagogy to the field of early childhood education in the USA and beyond. It
explores selected portions of the field’s vast body of literature vis-à-vis loosely
configured and intersecting lines of research and praxis. The field continues to
expand, with positivist orientations of child development, postmodern critical
reconceptualizing models, and post-colonial discourse spaces. The article
concludes with a discussion of liberatory praxis as a space of possibility and
suggests post-colonial hybridity as a framework for the field of early childhood
education.
A growing number of researchers in the interdisciplinary field of early

childhood education (and, more recently, childhood studies) are recognizing
how its attachment to Western ideology and positivist traditions has tended to
obscure the possibilities for newly evolving critical orientations and research.
Multiple ‘ways of knowing’ have been proposed by a wide range of
researchers, including early childhood reconceptualists (e.g. Jipson, 1991;
Swadener & Kessler, 1991; Bloch, 1992; Kessler & Swadener, 1992; Leavitt,
1994; Lubeck, 1994; Cannella, 1997; Soto, 1998, 2000; MacNaughton, 2000;
Greishaber & Cannella, 2001), Native American child-rearing experts
(Brendtro et al, 1990; Rinehart, 2000), critical theorists (Freire, 1985; Giroux &
McLaren, 1986; Ayers, 1992; Kessler & Swadener, 1992; Kincheloe &
Steinberg, 1993; Giroux, 1995; Slattery, 1995; Steinberg & Kincheloe, 1997,
1998), as well as multicultural and bilingual (education) researchers (Au &
Jordan, 1981; Heath, 1983; Philips, 1983; Derman-Sparks, 1989; Genishi, 1992;
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TOWARD LIBERATORY THEORY, RESEARCH AND PRAXIS
Chang, 1993; Cummins, 1993, 1996; Delpit, 1995; Soto 1997a, 1998, 2000,
2002).
Decades of scholarship, research, and practice have positioned the field of
early childhood education to continue to explore differing cultural and
theoretical world-views. This article focuses on how the field of early
childhood education is currently configured – theoretically, ideologically, and
methodologically – as it moves toward newly evolving discourse spaces. It also
provides a brief, relatively recent genealogy of major theoretical assumptions,
which have helped to create the landscape of the early childhood field,
primarily in the USA, and in the Western literature. We regret omitting
additional relevant literature, understanding the need for a companion or
follow-up for this initial piece. We conclude with a discussion of post-colonial
scholarship and possible projects for a more liberating critical advocacy and
discourse spaces in early childhood theory, research, and praxis.
We acknowledge that any review of an entire field is a daunting, if not an
impossible, task and recognize that we have imposed somewhat arbitrary
boundaries within large bodies of scholarship (e.g. between
qualitative/interpretive research orientations and research in multicultural
education) in order to convey the diversity of directions the field has taken in
the past two decades. We also recognize that such categories or typologies
often create artificial oppositional categories where blurred boundaries and
many overlapping themes and methodologies exist. Having said this, we have
identified several loosely configured and intersecting discourse spaces and
orientations to represent differing cultural and theoretical world-views in the
changing landscape of early childhood education. These include, but are not
limited to, research and literature in early childhood education or childhood
studies:
Scientific Orientations: child development

Qualitative/Interpretive Research [1]
Early Multicultural and Bilingual Education
Advocacy and Social Justice
Critical Reconceptualist, Feminist, and Post-colonial Theory
Liberatory Praxis: decolonizing the field
Scientific Orientations: child development

Child development is an integral part of the scientific paradigm by ascribing to
a positivist world-view. Child development has a long-standing tradition in
early childhood education, and is based largely in the field of psychology,
particularly developmental psychology and the interdisciplinary field of child
development, and in biology. Most of the published research in scholarly
journals of early childhood education falls into this paradigm, with primarily
quantified, predetermined hypotheses and discrete point data. In other words,
a persistent empirical and quantitative paradigm is evident in much of this
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Lourdes Diaz Soto & Beth Blue Swadener
literature. Readers interested in exploring critiques of several aspects of this

paradigm are referred to the special issue on ‘Minority Children’ published in
Child Development (1990) and a special issue of Early Education and Development
(1991), titled ‘Reconceptualizing Early Childhood Education’ (Swadener &
Kessler, 1991).
Contributors to the Child Development journal critiqued literature on
developmental outcomes, identity processes, school achievement, child-
rearing practices, and the psychosocial experiences of ‘disadvantaged minority
mothers.’ Articles written for both these special issues deconstructed the
dangers of universal child development assumptions, including assumptions
regarding ‘best practice’ or ‘developmentally appropriate practice,’ which may
represent Eurocentric and middle-class views and life experiences and not
speak for all cultures. McLoyd (1990) points to the fact that since the majority
of studies in the field have been conducted with white, middle-class children,
there is a cultural gap in our knowledge as well as the need for additional
diverse scholars in the field. Other critiques have included concerns about
stage theory, focusing on ‘typical development’ and having only limited
application to children who are developing ‘atypically’ (e.g. Mallory & New,
1994).
Contributions to the field of child development scholarship are abundant
and significant; yet, as Bloch (1992) points out, the century-long domination of
psychological and biological child development perspectives in the field has
meant a lack of recognition or acceptance of alternative theoretical and
methodological perspectives:
The terms ‘critical theory,’ ‘interpretivist or symbolic research,’ or ‘postmodern’
are rarely heard in seminar rooms, publications, or conferences focusing on early
childhood education ... the few scholars who identify with both these perspectives
and early childhood education have called for and created their own forums for
discussion of these issues.(p. 3)
Although it remains unclear why the larger early childhood field has generally
resisted or ignored such alternative perspectives, a growing number of scholars
are pursuing newly evolving discourse spaces and finding an increasing
number of outlets for scholarly exchange and dissemination. The growing
interest in expanding the theoretical and methodological framings of early
childhood are evidenced in an annual international conference, a number of
books and a book series now numbering over 10 volumes (on ‘Rethinking
Childhood’), new journals being published in Australia and the UK (e.g.
Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood Education), and with the successful
launching, in 1999, of a new Special Interest Group (SIG) within the American
Educational Research Association (AERA), ‘Critical Perspectives on Early
Childhood Education.’ The growth of the newer field of Childhood Studies is
further evidence of a small, but growing, alternative scholarship.
The child development orientation includes writings that valorize
developmentally appropriate practice (Bredekamp, 1987; Bredekamp &
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Copple, 1997) and the Piagetian (Piaget, 1970, 1977) stages of children’s
growth and development. Much of this literature has become ‘taken-for-
granted’ knowledge, rarely critiqued until recently. Also, only recently have
issues of language and culture been integrated as part of what Michael Apple
(1990) refers to as the ‘politics of cultural incorporation,’ in which dominance
is maintained through a process of compromise and ‘mentioning’ (see
discussion in Lubeck, 1994). For a critical analysis of developmentally
appropriate practices, see Jipson (1991), Lubeck (1994), and Mallory & New
(1994). Another, related, issue has been the phenomenon of ‘vulgar Piagetians’
in the early childhood field; that is, a surface understanding of basic
assumptions of constructivism that is often not well grounded in a direct
reading of Piaget or neo-Piagetian developmental theory and empirical studies
(D. Walsh, 1991).
In a multicultural critique of the Piagetian and post-Piagetian
constructivist orientation, Soto (1997a) challenged the field to move beyond
the scientific and biologically derived origins of the Piagetian perspective
toward a ‘critical constructivist paradigm’ that examines issues of power and
pursues a utopian dream of equity and social justice in the arena of early
childhood education. In spite of Piaget’s remarkable research for over half a
century, the genetic epistemology of these writings is evidenced by the
language included in the descriptions of ‘the individual,’ ‘the organism,’
‘assimilation’ and ‘accommodation.’
Although Piaget did not completely overlook social elements, recent
research has helped us to gain additional understandings about children’s
cognitive development (Wertsch, 1985; Perret-Clermont et al, 1991; Resnick et
al, 1991; Lambert et al, 1995; Fosnot, 1996). Perret-Clermont et al (1991)
observed children progressing from one Piagetian stage to another in a very
short time (5-10 minutes). Such work followed a plethora of cognitive skills
‘training studies’ in Canada and the USA during the 1970s and early 1980s, in
which children were instructed in the skills commonly cited as evidence for
Piagetian stage theory. In addition, the distinction between cognitive and
social/emotional development can be problematic, as the work of Perret-
Clermont et al (1991) conveys:
Research orientations built on supposedly clear distinctions between what is social
and cognitive will have an inherent weakness, because the causality of social and
cognitive process is at the very least, circular and is perhaps even more complex.
(p. 50)
Vygotsky’s (1978) emphasis on the sociohistorical aspect of knowledge is an
important contribution to the field. Like Piaget, Vygotsky believed that
learning is developmental but distinguished between ‘spontaneous’ (naturally
occurring) and ‘scientific’ (structured) learning concepts. His now well-known
ideas include the ‘zone of proximal development’ and the formation of inner
speech and dialogue. Bruner extended Vygotsky’s work with the notion of
‘scaffolding.’ The work of Piaget, Vygotsky, and others helps to form the basis
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for the constructivist principles. For a discussion of ‘cognitive constructivism’

and ‘social constructivism,’ see Fosnot (1996).
Contemporary biologists have also noted that the biological and the
social are not separate, but are complementary (Lewontin et al, 1984). For the
past decade, research (e.g. Cobb et al, 1992) has demonstrated that we cannot
understand cognition without observing the interaction within a context and a
culture. In Resnick et al’s (1991) book introducing the idea of socially shared
cognition, Wertsh notes that Piaget, Werner, and Vygotsky all placed the
genetic analysis as the very foundation of the study of the mind. In Vygotsky’s
case, the genetic method was in part due to his goal of creating a scientific
psychology compatible with the Marxism–Leninism of the 1920s. Vygotsky
also emphasized the development of the individual and formulated a ‘general
genetic law of cultural development.’ Vygotsky indicated that any function in
the child’s cultural development appears twice – on the social plane and on the
psychological plane.
There is no doubt that Piaget and the cognitive psychologists have added
tremendous knowledge to our field and have transformed modernist notions
by indicating that there is no truly objective reality. One of the major
problems, however, is that there is a reductionist analytical reasoning
coinciding with Cartesian dualism that splits the human experience into the
false dichotomy of ‘in here’ and ‘out there.’
Kincheloe & Steinberg (1993) note in their theory of post-formalism:
‘Developmental psychological principles have become so much a part of
teacher education programs that it is hard to see where questions about them
might arise’ (p. 171). Yet, the number of critiques of the dominance of
developmental psychology has grown, and often builds upon arguments
discussing the social and cultural construction of childhood and persistent
problems with universal models and normalizing discourses about childhood
and ‘best practice.’
Qualitative/Interpretive Research
Qualitative/interpretive research has been influenced not only by
anthropology but also by linguistics, sociology, and philosophy. Examples of
earlier work foregrounding issues of language, culture, and socioeconomic
status include the Hawaiian KEEP Project (Au & Jordan, 1981); the Warm
Springs Indian reservation study viewing communication patterns in the
classroom and the community (Philips, 1983); in-depth descriptions of family
literacy and young children growing up in the inner city (Taylor & Dorsey-
Gaines, 1994); Heath’s (1983) ‘ways with words’ study in Carolina, detailing
two children’s learning communities; Swadener’s (1988) ethnographic case
study of two inclusive, culturally diverse child care centers; Delpit’s (1995)
description of cultural conflicts in classrooms where African-American children
are often viewed as ‘other people’s children’; and Lubeck’s (1985)
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ethnography, Sandbox Society, comparing a predominantly African-American

Head Start and a white, middle-class nursery school.
More recent work, combining interpretive work and postmodern
theories, includes Robin Leavitt’s (1994) feminist, post-structural ethnography
of infant caregivers in childcare settings, Lisa Goldstein’s (1997) feminist case
study of a primary teacher and her ‘teaching with love,’ and Julie Kaomea’s
(e.g. 2001) studies of Native Hawaiian educational initiatives and
representation of indigenous Hawaiians in elementary and early childhood
curricula. A growing number of early childhood scholars have also noted
differential treatment of young children based on their family’s income and the
school’s role in cultural transmission.
Wilcox (1982), for example, notes the differential treatment young
children receive as a result of having been born into a particular neighborhood
and a particular socioeconomic class. Her findings included the observation
that:
The pattern of differences ... [is] directly in conflict with the promise of equal
opportunity offered by the educational system in the United States. At the tender
age of six, these children have done practically nothing as individuals to account
for the kind of differential treatment they are receiving, except to have been born
by chance into one neighborhood and social class background or another. (p. 295)
Swadener (1988) called for an education that is multicultural in early childhood
settings. Her ethnographic case study of peer interactions and implicit and
explicit curriculum in two inclusive, culturally diverse childcare programs
helped Swadener conclude that ‘interactions with racially and culturally
diverse peers and teachers remains one of the best early childhood strategies
for creating education that is multicultural’ (p. 26).
Lisa Delpit (1995) observed how US society maintains stereotypes,
portrays young black children negatively, and values the world-views of those
in privileged positions. Delpit underscores the combination of power and
‘otherness’ by stating:
we must all find some way to come to terms with these two issues (power and
‘otherness’). When we teach across the boundaries of race, class, or gender –
indeed when we teach at all – we must recognize and overcome the power
differential, the stereotypes, and the other barriers, which prevent us from seeing
each other ... Until we can see the world as others see it, all the educational
reforms in the world will come to naught. (p. 134)
Beginning in the early 1980s, a series of symposia presented at the annual
meetings of the American Anthropological Association, sponsored by the
Council on Anthropology and Education, examined early education issues
‘Through Children’s Eyes and in Children’s Voices.’ These papers included
cross-cultural research, as well as classroom ethnographies from the USA, and
led to publication of several articles and books using interpretive and
ethnographic methods to study childhood and early education. Hatch’s (1995)
edited book, Qualitative Studies in Early Childhood Settings, drew upon
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anthropological perspectives and a number of papers presented at the initial

‘Reconceptualizing Early Childhood Research, Theory and Practice’
conferences in the early 1990s.
Walsh et al (1993), in their extensive review of qualitative research in
early childhood education, also point to the importance of interpretive
research in the field since it holds the potential for collaborative, negotiated
relationships among shareholders and the opportunity to give voice to
children and practitioners who ‘historically have been silenced and isolated’
(p. 473).
Early Multicultural and Bilingual Education

Multicultural research with young children was initiated over half a century
ago. The examination of racial and ethnic self-concepts and attitudes of young
children has consistently shown that young children are not only aware of
racial and ethnic differences, but they have also internalized the views of their
society (Banks, 1993). The pioneering research of the 1920s and 1930s indicated
that racial attitudes are initiated during the earliest years of a child’s life. In this
sense, it has taken a whole ‘oppressive village’ to systematically educate young
children to internalize the stereotypes and hatred of racism (and other forms of
oppression). At the same time, these research projects helped make the case
that early childhood education is truly a window of opportunity for equity,
social justice and reconstruction.
In his review of racial and ethnic attitudes and their modification, James
Banks (1993) found pre-school and kindergarten African-American children
often make out-group preferences while most white children make own-group
racial preferences. This research also showed that young white children hold
ethnocentric attitudes and express negative attitudes toward other racial and
ethnic groups beginning at age four, and that children of color, by the same
age, have become aware of the marketability of ‘whiteness’ as a commodity.
As race and culture become more affectively laden for young children, the
roots of ‘internalized oppression’ are reinforced; in other words, children begin
to take in the pervasive messages of institutional racism. The intervention
studies Banks reviewed showed that the research on children is much more
hopeful than the intervention research on adults. Since the evidence indicates
that it is increasingly difficult to influence the attitudes of children as they
grow older, clearly ‘early childhood educators have the best opportunity to
positively influence the racial and ethnic attitudes of children’ (p. 244).
Theories in multicultural education and about multiculturalism emanate
from a variety of fields and perspectives. John Ogbu’s (1982, 1987, 1988)
frequently cited research, for example, pursues an anthropological perspective
and reflects proponents of the research theory that views society as being
organized into systems that maintain the privileges (and power) of the
dominant group. This research examines relationships among institutions and
schools, thereby creating distinctions among dominant and ‘minority’ groups
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leading to social inequality. Ogbu describes voluntary, involuntary, and caste-

like ‘minority’ groups, helping to uncover evidence that the society itself is
problematic. He sees the need for reform at a variety of levels, including the
school, community, and society. In his theory, community mobilization,
school reform, and anti-discrimination policies are vital to changing the
inequitable structures in our society.
Paulo Freire’s (1985, 1996) inspirational body of work explains why the
‘banking concept’ of education is erroneous. Such a mechanistic model of
repetition and memorization needs to be replaced with a problem-posing
concept where learners are viewed within a humanistic curriculum. Freire
(1985) reflects on ‘cultural invasion,’ in which:
invaders penetrate the cultural context of another group, in disrespect of the
latter’s potentialities; they impose their own view of the world upon those they
invade and inhibit the creativity of the invaded by curbing their expression.
(p. 133)
These issues are crucial to our understanding of how power affects the lives of
young children in postmodern America. The work of this article, in part, is to
apply Freire’s idea of ‘cultural invasion’ concretely to early childhood practice,
theory, and research.
Cummins’s (1996) research with linguistically and culturally diverse
learners has helped us to gain insights about young children’s educational
needs. The threshold hypothesis, for example, helps early childhood educators
understand that there may be levels of proficiency children must attain in
order to reap the benefits of bilingualism and biliteracy. The issue of power is
also highlighted by Cummins, who distinguishes between collaborative and
coercive power, where the latter is imposed to the detriment of a subordinate
group while the former is generated in interpersonal and inter-group relations.
Cummins (1994, 1996) has shown how coercive power imposes oppression,
abuse, inequity, and totalitarianism, and violates human rights and freedoms,
while collaborative power affords democratic expression, human rights, and
freedom.
Education that is multicultural and social reconstructionist (Sleeter &
Grant, 1988) extends the multicultural curriculum ‘into the realm of social
action and focuses at least as much on challenging existing social stratification
as on celebrating human diversity and equal opportunity’ (p. 28). An education
that is multicultural and social reconstructionist has been recommended in the
past decade by early childhood educators, including, but not limited to,
childcare settings (Swadener, 1988), infant and toddler settings (Whaley &
Swadener, 1990), and teacher education (Soto, 1998).
Early bilingual/bicultural research has helped early childhood educators to
value young children’s home language and home culture. Researchers have
shown that a strong home language base facilitates not only second language
learning but young children’s emotional and academic well-being (Hakuta,
1986; Krashen, 1988; Cummins, 1993, 1994; Soto, 1993, 1997b). It is helpful to
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organize the bilingual education research studies into ‘eras’: (a) the bilingual
‘handicap’ era; (b) the ‘positive findings’ era; (c) the era of newly evolving
orientations; and (d) the era with a vision toward the future that critically
analyzes issues of power (Ada, 1986; Cummins, 1996; Soto, 1997a, 1997b) and
rethinking language proficiency (MacSwan, 2000; MacSwan & Rolstad, in
press).
First, the bilingual ‘handicap’ era denotes findings in keeping with the
notion that bilingualism and English language learners (referred to as ‘limited
English proficient (LEPs) were synonymous with deficiency. The initial
research is responsible for creating what Cummins (1996) refers to as the
‘myth of the bilingual handicap.’ Hakuta (1986) notes that it is important to
view this early literature in light of historical context. The problem with the
research era of the 1920s through the early 1960s is that, in spite of
contemporary research, the older deficit model continues to drive existing
programs and language proficiency assessment paradigms. MacSwan (2000),
for example, argues that Cummins’s Threshold Hypothesis and its embedded
notion of ‘limited bilingualism’.
Studies in the ‘positive findings’ era showed that children raised
bilingually were more attentive to semantic relationships, indicated superiority
in awareness of linguistic rules and structures, outperformed monolinguals on
a variety of measures of metalinguistic awareness, and demonstrated divergent
thinking and creativity. These studies documented the positive effects of
bilingualism on a variety of cognitive performance measures such as concept
formation, Piagetian conservation and field independence, the ability to
monitor cognitive performance, and that learning concepts in the native
language will transfer and enhance second language learning (Liedtke &
Nelson, 1968; Torrance et al, 1970; Ianco-Worrall, 1972; Bain, 1974; Ben Zeev,
1977; Bain & Yu, 1980). It is interesting to note that the bilingual research of
this era also appropriated Piaget’s genetic epistemology, often utilizing
Piagetian tasks as measures of cognition.
The era of newly evolving orientations has relied, to a greater extent, on
qualitative methods and initiated ways of viewing issues of language and
culture as related domains. Findings from this era have helped us to
understand the effects of teacher assumptions of children’s English language
proficiency on the quality of instruction (Moll & Diaz, 1987); the importance
of the distinction between social language skills and the more complex
academic skills (Cummins, 1993); why the loss of the primary language can be
costly to children, families, and society as a whole (Wong Fillmore, 1991a,
1991b); the long-term benefits of bilingual education programs on children’s
attitudes (Collier, 1989, 1992); the need to incorporate ‘funds of knowledge’ in
the bilingual education classroom (Moll, 1992).
The field will continue to build upon this knowledge base and evolve,
explore, and experiment with research methods, theoretical frameworks, and
alternate orientations (Soto, 1991). Researchers are seeing the need for social
science research to redirect itself from deficient stereotypical orientations to
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exploratory and creative orientations capable of meeting the needs of teachers,

learners, and families (Ernst & Statzner, 1994). The research studies conducted
by Ada (1986), Soto (1997b) and C. Walsh (1991) can be viewed as initiating an
era that includes a futuristic vision by critically analyzing issues of power in
bilingual education. More recent work has begun to apply a postmodern,
Chicana feminist Mestizaje image of language and deconstruction of bilingual
education assumptions, including constructions of the ‘bilingual child’ (Demas
& Saaverdra, 2001).
Continued scholarship in critical bicultural pedagogy ‘holds the
possibility for a discourse of hope in light of the tensions, conflicts, and
contradictions that students must face in the process of their bicultural
development’ (Darder, 1991, p. 96). The praxis envisioned by critical bicultural
scholars (e.g. Soto, 1997b; Macedo, 2000) includes, but is not limited to,
Freire’s (1970) notion of conscientization, where learners, communities and
educators learn to critically analyze the ‘word’ and the ‘world.’ The praxis
includes learners, communities and educators taking up the needs ascertained
by the group and solving these in solidarity with ourselves and with ‘the
other.’ Critical bilingual/bicultural scholars envision an education that is built
on a theory of cultural democracy that seeks to redistribute axes of power.
Advocacy and Social Justice

Advocacy and social justice in early childhood includes multiple voices within
the field and voices speaking on behalf of young children. These writings
include research evidence (e.g. California Tomorrow on behalf of immigrant
children), curricular literature (e.g. anti-bias, tolerance, various texts),
demographic data profiling the state of America’s children across a number of
factors (e.g. Children’s Defense Fund), and selected children’s literature.
Jonathan Kozol’s (1991, 1995, 2000) work, for example, has served as a
powerful ally in the advocacy literature. His willingness to portray the daily
realities of children whose lives appear to be permanently damaged continues
to influence the ‘conscience’ of Americans.
A more ‘critical’ advocacy has also been growing in recent years. This
has ranged from the sort of direct action social justice campaigns and protests
waged by grass-roots groups (such as Welfare Warriors of Milwaukee and the
Kensington Welfare Rights Alliance) to the writings of early childhood
researchers including Polakow (1993), Cannella (1997), Polakow & Swadener
(2000), Soto (2000), and Polakow et al (2001). The new AERA SIG, Critical
Perspectives on Early Childhood, sponsored a ‘critical child advocacy’
reception at the 2000 annual meeting that was attended by representatives
from five other SIGs and was interested in a more critical, less liberal ‘child-
saving’ or deficit-framed discourse. Advocacy scholarship is also growing.
Topics of interest are many and include impacts of welfare reform on young
children and childcare, high stakes testing and the ‘standards’ movement,
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persistent racism, classism, and heterosexism in educational contexts, and an

array of issues related to children and families in poverty.
California Tomorrow’s work, which originated on behalf of immigrant
children, has evolved as a voice for California’s young children (see Soto,
2000). In the report, Affirming Children’s Roots (Chang, 1993), the use of
childcare by racially, culturally and linguistically diverse families is examined.
This field research project targeted 450 childcare centers in California
(included in these findings is the fact that children of color are significantly less
likely to be cared for by teachers of their same racial background than white
children). The researchers provided recommendations for further research,
agencies, early childhood professional organizations, private foundations, and
others that ensure the affirmation of children’s home language and culture,
thereby ensuring a healthy sense of self. It is crucial that all of the players in the
field recognize and assist with recruitment, education, and retention of early
childhood professionals (childcare teachers and leaders) reflecting the
racial/ethnic/linguistic backgrounds of children in the USA.
In a subsequent study conducted by California Tomorrow (Chang et al,
1996), 300 childcare providers, trainers and parents were interviewed, leading
to recommendations (framed as guiding principles) capable of leading to
quality care in a diverse society, based upon their observations and
collaborations with participants. The recommendations included: (a)
combating racism and fostering positive racial identity in young children; (b)
building upon the cultures of families and promoting respect and cross-cultural
understanding among children; (c) preserving children’s family languages and
encouraging children to learn a second language; (d) working in partnership
with parents to respond to issues of race, language and culture; and (e)
engaging in dialogue and reflection about race, language, and culture on an
ongoing basis. ‘How to’ equip our early childhood ‘workforce’ was
highlighted. These researchers also saw the need to broaden the research in
early childhood education, since most child development theory is built upon
research conducted on white middle-class American children. New (cited in
Chang et al, 1996) noted that only 9.3% of the research in the journal Child
Development is devoted to non-whites, which often reflects the demographics of
the university researchers conducting the studies. By viewing the latter issue as
a function of the ethnic origins of university researchers, we can also
understand the need for additional faculty of color and scholars of color in the
field.
Working for over 30 years in a more liberal tradition of child advocacy,
Marian Wright Edelman (Children’s Defense Fund [CDF], 1996) has been an
advocate and a powerful voice for young children. Her organization has issued
numerous publications and engaged in numerous lobbying activities for over
two decades. CDF’s annual reports on the State of America’s Children and the
accompanying advocacy literature are valuable not only to early childhood
professionals but for parents and policy-makers. The publications from the
Children’s Defense Fund provide recent statistics about how young children
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are faring with regard to multiple issues, including, but not limited to, poverty,
housing, health, safety, and education. Additional publications provide very
specific advice on how to influence policies by working with legislators, via
media releases, and by forging alliances.
Louise Derman-Sparks’s (and the Anti-Bias Curriculum Task Force)
(1989) Anti-bias Curriculum has helped to inform early childhood educators for
over a decade. This guide includes resources, developmental guidelines, and
ideas of empowerment based upon Freire’s ‘practice of freedom’: ‘the means
by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and
discover how to participate in the transformation of the world’ (cited in
Derman-Sparks, 1989, p. ix). The ‘practice of freedom’ will prove valuable in
colleges of education working with early childhood professionals, in
communities caring and responding to the needs of young children, and
ultimately in the curriculum that is implemented in early childhood settings,
thereby helping to influence children’s sense of social justice. This work
intersects with the multicultural paradigm but we chose to place it under
advocacy and social justice in light of the impact it has had on the field and the
public at large. This work has come under attack by the conservative right-
wing forces in the USA, who have accused it of being a ‘dangerous’
curriculum. Derman-Sparks and her allies have found it necessary to defend
and respond to their attackers through the media. Monica Miller Marsh and
others (Marsh, 1992; Swadener & Marsh, 1995) have documented the impacts
of enacting an anti-bias curriculum with young children.
Critical Reconceptualist, Feminist, and Post-colonial Theory

The dialogue initiated by Kessler & Swadener (1992) in Reconceptualizing the
Early Childhood Curriculum helped the field to examine itself. US scholars from
the Reconceptualizing/Critical Model include but are not limited to the work
of William Ayers, Marianne Bloch, Janice Hale, Jan Jipson, Michael
O’Loughlin, Shirley Kessler, Nancy King, Sally Lubeck, Valerie Polakow,
Jonathan Silin, Lourdes Diaz Soto, Beth Blue Swadener, Joe Tobin and many
others. These scholars have shown how the field has been influenced, indeed
dominated, by science, psychology, and child development theory. Among the
diverse critiques of prevailing theory and research was a concern that, unlike
other areas of education scholarship, early childhood literature was rarely
informed by feminist, critical, postmodern, or post-structural theory, and
tended to focus on individual, normative child development rather than on
issues addressed for some time in the critical curriculum studies literature.
Included in this discourse was a critique of ‘universal’ formulas for ‘best
practice,’ particularly the National Association for the Education of Young
Children document, Developmentally Appropriate Practice (Bredekamp, 1987), as
discussed previously. These early childhood scholars envision alternative
perspectives in both theory and practice, are willing to ask the difficult
questions that have not been addressed previously, integrate multiple voices
49
(especially the voices that have so often been disregarded), and draw from
both critical and feminist theories to better understand the complexities and
socially/culturally constructed aspects of childhood.
The postmodern notion of multiple childhoods and feminisms is
reflected in Jipson & Hauser’s (1998) book, Intersections: feminisms and early
childhood, which offers a self-reflexive and critical dialogue among editors and
contributors. Earlier feminist work regarding childhood includes the extensive
critical scholarship of Valerie Walkerdine (e.g. 1984, 1988, 1990). Children,
families, critical multiculturalists, early childhood advocates, proponents of
dialogic-critical pedagogy, and proponents of feminist and queer perspectives
can help us alter the future. Only in solidarity will the field begin to influence
the complex daily realities young children and their families are facing. Only
when the field moves beyond the rhetoric and the ‘fashion shows’ (Soto,
1997a) and beyond the genetically driven scientific epistemologies (Soto,
1997a) will the humanization and the liberation of childcare teachers, children,
and families begin to evolve.
Recent scholarship utilizing critical postmodern perspectives is also
helping to influence the early childhood curriculum by integrating knowledge
from critical constructivism, multiculturalism, and feminist ways of knowing,
and examining issues of power, especially as these relate to popular culture. In
Kinderculture, for example, Steinberg & Kincheloe (1997) exposed the corporate
construction of childhood in the USA. Grieshaber & Cannella’s book includes
chapters on issues of sexual orientation and a section on ‘challenging colonized
identities’; and addresses issues of popular culture and commercialization and
their intersections with the lives of children and the early childhood
curriculum.
In another recent edited volume, The Politics of Early Childhood Education
(Soto, 2000), curriculum scholars from early childhood education (e.g. Bloch,
Hatch, Jipson, Kessler, Lubeck, Swadener) and from more general postmodern
critical perspectives (e.g. Giroux, Kincheloe, McLaren) continue to challenge
the field of early childhood education. These writers call for a move toward
the critical, the multicultural, the dialogic, the feminist, the personal, and with
the others, the silenced, and in solidarity with multiple players. As these
scholars continue to critique the sacredness of the Western lens, they also
propose ‘hope and possibility as we move toward a newly evolving, liberating
“third space”; early childhood dreamscape of social justice and equity’ (Soto,
2000, p. 198). As Soto (2000) asks:
Can we envision an early childhood education that is liberating, anti-racist,
feminist, critical, and revolutionary? We can no longer afford to allow the sacred
Western lenses to ‘govern our very souls’ ... Only when we collaboratively envision
an early childhood education that is built on a theory of cultural democracy and
acknowledges the issues of power and the political nature of the field can we begin
to hope ... Only when we garner our greatest courage and wisdom ... our goal in
solidarity can mean the emancipation and liberation of children, families,
childcare teachers, our field, and ultimately America. (p. 208)
50
In summarizing, it is evident that each of these discourse spaces offers

opportunities for early childhood education.
At Reconceptualizing Early Childhood conferences held in Hawaii (1998)
and in Brisbane, Australia (2000), post-colonial theory and calls for critical
interrogation and ‘decolonizing’ of research were themes of several papers.
Presentations by indigenous scholars (e.g. Babu, Kaomea, Mohite, Mutua,
Proud, Song, Viruru) and calls for more authentic cross-cultural collaboration
(e.g. Babu, 2001; Swadener & Mutua, in press; Viruru & Cannella, in press)
named persistent patterns of colonized identities, framed some research
settings as ‘data plantations,’ and drew from hybridity theory (e.g. Bhabha,
1994; McCarthy, 1998; Dimitriadis & McCarthy, 2001) and critical post-
colonial theory (Gandhi, 1998; San Juan, 1998; Swaminathan, 1998; Smith,
1999; Spivak, 1999). Smith’s (1999) work, in particular, is providing a space to
examine the indigenous voice as she clearly depicts the experience of being
‘the researched other.’ In early childhood education, ethical issues also become
paramount as the ‘subjects’ of our scholarship may be children and families
whose understanding of research projects and processes may be quite limited.
Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s work (1999) has been particularly influential in
helping us grapple with issues of decolonizing research. In addition, a recent
presentation at the Reconceptualizing Early Childhood conference (Proud &
a’Beckett, 2001) looked at the experiences of two former early childhood
colleagues and long-time friends in Australia (one indigenous and one non-
indigenous) in their current work settings – an urban prison and a rural
university. In collaborating, they moved from a Western framework to a more
indigenous context for deconstructing their relationship and the influence of
their work in early childhood on their current vocations.
Liberatory Praxis: decolonizing the field

As scholars in the field continue to critically examine and deconstruct the
sanctity of the single, rationalistic Western lens, the early childhood field has
begun to incorporate newly evolving orientations, practices, and other ways of
knowing. A move toward the critical, toward the multicultural, toward the
dialogic, toward the feminist, toward the personal, with others, with the
silenced, and in solidarity with all participants offers promise and unimagined
possibilities bringing us closer toward our dreamspace of social justice and
equity for children, for families, and for childcare teachers.
As we begin to leave the scientifically driven epistemologies as the
grounding for early childhood education, we can begin to pursue more
personal, liberating, democratic, humanizing, participatory, action-driven,
political, feminist, critically multicultural, decolonizing perspectives. How we
summon our imaginations to formulate, envision, and implement a liberating
praxis that integrates theoretical understandings, critique, and transformative
action will help determine what happens to young children growing up in a
postmodern context. As we begin to recognize that ours is a struggle toward
51
humanistic and emancipatory goals, we can also begin to chart a path of

solidarity that, as Paulo Freire noted, is dialectical, moving from action to
reflection and from reflection to new action.
Our vision can include a utopian dream unique to early childhood, as
Maxine Greene (1996) has noted:
For those of us who teach the young at this peculiar and menacing time ... Perhaps
we might begin by releasing our imaginations and summoning up the traditions of
freedom in which most of us were reared. We might try to make audible again the
recurrent calls for justice and equality. (p. 28)
Many children appear to have a strong sense of justice and fairness and a keen
awareness of hurt and unfairness (cf. Derman-Sparks, 1989; Marsh, 1992).
There has been growing evidence in the infant and toddler literature that even
such young children demonstrate empathic behaviors, such as touching for
comfort when another child in group care is crying or upset.
In terms of the praxis or project we are advocating, we can begin with
our own modest lived experiences as researchers, from our own way of seeing
the world as teachers, parents, and grandparents of young children, and from
our collective decades of educational work with children, families, teachers,
scholars, communities, and policy-makers. The major contemporary and
postmodern concern centers on rectifying the complex and often contradictory
issues of power – ssues of power for the privileged classes, issues of power for
childcare teachers, issues of power for children and families, and issues of
power for policy-makers negotiating our lives in the halls of Congress. When
we begin to examine and critique how issues of power are affecting our lives
and children’s lives, we will also see the need to rethink our overreliance on a
strictly scientific world-view.
Researchers intent on privileging biological, genetic, and scientifically
driven epistemologies tend to regard children and teachers’ daily needs as
irrelevant and categorize them within an ‘emotional’ domain, far removed
from the types of knowledge that have historically been deemed more
valuable, more scientific, more quantifiable, and more ‘appropriate’ for the
field. In early childhood education, the issue of power relates both to young
children’s daily realities and to our childcare teachers’ lack of a living wage.
Childcare teachers employed by Head Start, and other early childhood
teachers, often earn wages below poverty levels, and frequently lack medical
coverage. Early childhood teachers have been relegated to an underclass as our
nation jeopardizes the lives of young children and the lives of childcare
teachers for its own economic benefit. All of these issues of power, oppression,
and ‘savage distributions’ (Polakow & Swadener, 1993) are clearly absent from
the behaviorist, often sanitized, psychological orientations that have been
blind to issues of equity and social justice in contemporary America.
As researchers and scholars, many of the proponents of child
development perspectives have tended to portray themselves as only
knowledge brokers in the field. In many ways, they have created a climate that
52
has ignored and at times silenced multiple players and multiple perspectives.
The creation of knowledge in the field is not for elitist child development
researchers only. As we expand our vision, it will be possible for many more
members of the early childhood community to have their voices heard as we
collaboratively design projects that emphasize issues of equity and social
justice.
These projects will shed light on issues of power and will lead us to
justice and equity in the lives of children, families, early childhood teachers
and caregivers, and researchers. Newly emerging and evolving postmodern
philosophies, epistemologies, research, scholarship, policies, and practices may
mean that we will travel in areas that may deconstruct and de-center scientific
traditions, push the boundaries of our existing knowledge base, and begin to
critically analyze and question the taken-for-granted knowledge of the genetic,
biological and scientific. Examples of taken-for-granted knowledge include the
universals of child development, critiqued by Bloch (1992) and Bloch &
Popkewitz (2000), and the document Developmentally Appropriate Practices
(Bredekamp, 1987), critiqued by Lubeck (1994), Jipson (1991), and Mallory &
New (1994).
Our field has been obsessed with scientific measurement of discrete and
‘objective’ variables quite distant from the daily realities of young children,
teachers, and families. Kincheloe & McLaren (1994) point to the importance of
legitimating worker knowledge since the practitioner is less likely to distort
reality by being closer to everyday exigencies. The ‘experts,’ whose quantified
and objective knowledge is more valued by policy-makers, have often
disregarded the practitioners’ voices. Teachers working with young children
have long understood the emotional, the qualitative, and the needs of the
human spirit.
Early childhood reconceptualists/critical scholars have examined the idea
that we are merely knowledge brokers, not knowledge producers. Kessler &
Swadener (1992) note, for example, that:
If knowledge is power ... the nature of knowledge, as well as the practices that are
valued or privileged in the early childhood curriculum, must be examined within a
number of larger contexts as well as from multiple perspectives. In order to
reconceptualize ... we will need to become better listeners ... honor the voices ...
learn how to make the ‘familiar strange’ and many of our prized assumptions
problematic. (p. 293)
As we critically analyze the daily realities of our postmodern existence, we can
also begin to note the moral and ethical imperative facing the field. In many
ways, these are matters of the heart since scientific, genetic epistemologies
cannot begin to respond to all of the contemporary societal challenges. Our
ability to move beyond rhetoric to a redistribution of power will determine
the kind of liberating and humanizing space that our children will encounter.
The basis for hope comes from knowing that each one of us individually and
collectively can change and shape not only our field, but also our
53
communities. In a recent Review of Educational Research article, for example,

Kumashiro (2000) analyzed the growing literature on anti-oppressive
education and argues for the need to ‘look beyond the field of educational
research to explore the possibilities of theories that remain marginalized,
including post-structuralist and psychoanalytic perspectives’ (p. 25).
Gaining insights from collaborative research on children’s daily lived
realities can guide the field to critically examine long held practices and
establish equity and social justice as paramount aims. Giroux (1992) uses the
term ‘border crossings’ when emphasizing the importance of solidarity among
critical theorists, feminists, multiculturalists, and anti-racist theorists. In
curriculum theory, Slattery (1995) maintains, crossing the border ‘necessitates
a commitment to postmodern democratic reform where subject-area
disciplinary boundaries are traversed’ (p. 31). As Anzaldua (1999) eloquently
reminds us, ‘To live in the Borderlands means you are neither hispana india
negra Espanola ni gabachacha, eres mistiza, mulata, half-breed while carrying
all five races on your back not knowing which side to turn to, run from’
(p. 216). Williamson (1997), in her call for ‘the healing of America,’ refers to
‘blood money’ and states, ‘Money is, at heart, the great moral issue of our
time. America must have a serious discussion with itself about the wisdom of
allowing the market to drive us’ (p. 216).
The fact that our nation is so concerned with Wall Street profits has
meant that our familiar visions of childhood are disappearing and being
replaced by a different kind of childhood, which can be viewed as a complex
and contradictory artifact of late capitalism or post-welfare states. We have
seen young persons in sophisticated Calvin Kleins, the Disneyfication of
children’s toys and media, Internet literate second graders, the appeal of the
Spice Girls, Joe Camel’s reach for our children, and the release of a Tweety
Bird postage stamp. US popular culture is exported and widely consumed. Still,
childcare teachers are among the lowest paid workers in the USA. Only 15
occupations pay lower median wages, according to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics (cited in Gardner, 1998). A typical childcare teacher earns $6.12 an
hour while a parking lot attendant earns $6.38 and a bus driver earns $11.58.
The US Treasury Department has documented the importance of childcare to
the economy and its value to business as it increases productivity and reduces
absenteeism (Gardner, 1998).
The media has disregarded children’s daily realities as it hungers for
profits and thinks little about the effects of violence in children’s lives. Recent
research continues to document that young children will imitate what they see
on the screen. David Walsh (cited in Marks, 1998) of the National Institute of
Media and the Family conducted a simple experiment in a Minneapolis day
care center. He observed that when children aged two to five years watched
‘Barney’ the purple dinosaur, they sang, held hands, marched together, and
laughed. When children watched the aggressive avengers, the ‘Mighty
Morphin Power Rangers,’ they initiated karate chopping and high kicks with
one another. In addition, Kunkel (cited in Marks, 1998) recently conducted a
54
three-year study and concluded that the way violence is portrayed as desirable,
necessary, and painless poses a serious risk to children. Tobin’s work,
particularly ‘Good Guys Don’t Wear Hats’ (2000), further complicates many
prevailing assumptions about children’s reading of popular media and
documents the subtle dynamics of young children experiencing media. He
questions the assumption, for example, that viewing violence increases violent
behavior. Tobin also advocates the inclusion of popular media literacy in
research on early or emergent literacy.
In framing advocacy-based scholarship in late capitalist or neo-liberal
contexts, we feel that, while popular culture and policy analysis is critical, it is
insufficient. We agree with Schram (2000) that a more radical response may be
required:
In the end, these considerations remind us that social justice is still contingent on
all families being able to access basic social welfare entitlements. All families
should be able to practice a ‘politics of survival.’ ... Parents should have access to
the basic services needed to raise their children: health care, to receive the
education and job training they need not only to be effective parents but also
productive citizens. Whether these universal entitlements should be guaranteed all
at once under some comprehensive family policy or whether they should be built
up one after another was decided a long time ago. The time for incrementalism to
get radical and radicalism to get incremental is long overdue. (p. 182)
Bloch & Popkewitz (2000) point to the role of foundations and institutions of
higher learning in the ‘history as present’ in early childhood education. Their
analysis helps us to understand how we came to be in this place with sacred
heroes and privileged child development-based ways of viewing children and
families. They conclude:
The normalities inscribed in the discourses of the mother, the child, and
biological/social development had a secular social location and sets of distinctions
... [T]he principles of classification that ordered the actions of the female teachers
were envisioned through the burgeoning scientific knowledge about health,
hygiene, social welfare, and child development. (p. 24)
In a related edited volume, Governing the Child in the New Millennium, Hultqvist
& Dahlberg (2001) explore ‘significant shifts in the regimes of knowledge and
power that guide and govern the conception of the child in such various fields
as education, media, and popular culture’ (p. 2). Among issues considered in
this edited volume are questions of how ‘historical relations of power
reinscribe issues of inclusion and exclusion ... how the child is mobilized in
different local and national contexts ... and how national differences in the way
the child is conceived of can be used to explore the relationship between the
local/national and global’ (p. 2).
It is clear that it will be crucial for the field to continue to critically
analyze how privilege and power have influenced the direction of the field
toward the scientifically driven epistemologies and valorized the rationalistic
Western lens. Who stands to benefit from the overreliance on Western ways
55
of seeing the world? Why has it been so difficult for the field to examine its
own presuppositions? When will ‘other ways’ of envisioning childhood be
recognized and credited in the discursive space of early childhood education?
If scientists themselves are indicating that their epistemologies need to be
tempered, are limited, are approximate, and ‘never provide any complete and
definitive understandings’ (Capra, 1991, p. 7), then why is the field of early
childhood education clinging to positivist orientations? Capra (1991) calls for a
shift from an attitude of domination and control to one of cooperation and
non-violence. While we recognize that modern science is fundamentally
probabilistic, there is also a persistent ‘scientific’ tendency to seek definitive
answers. We would argue, with Capra (1991) that:
[t]he Cartesian paradigm was based on a belief in the certainty of scientific
knowledge ... In the new paradigm it is recognized that all scientific concepts and
theories are limited and approximate. Science can never provide any complete and
definitive understanding. (p. 333)
Social justice and equity have not been uppermost in the minds of the child
development experts operating under the press of ‘effectiveness’ or expediency
to decide what is a ‘normal’ childhood and who succeeds within the purview
of ‘normal’ or ‘typical’ development. Issues of power, issues of language and
culture are rarely discussed and when they are included, children and families
are essentialized and categorized. Are there ‘other ways’ of framing early
childhood education? Cannella (1997) describes how childhood discourses
actually ‘conceal and even disqualify certain forms of knowledge, generating
power for particular groups and subjugating others’ (p. 42). Cannella adds that
an attempt at a ‘universal’ child discourse has generated positions of power,
including colonial power perspectives. This discourse has been grounded in
the belief in universal human development and a predetermined sequence of
experiences.
In their book, Brendtro et al (1990) depict examples of Native American
child-rearing practices that provide one possible ‘other’ perspective. These
writers describe the optimism of the Swedish sociologist, Ellen Key, who
envisioned ‘the century of the child’ and the need for the ‘reclaiming’
environments that are needed in order to restore, to recover, and to redeem.
The Native American artist, George Bluebird, illustrates the concepts of
generosity, belonging, independence, and mastery within a circular depiction.
As Brendtro et al, (1990) state, ‘Members of the dominant culture who define
success in terms of personal wealth and possessions are usually unable to view
positively the Native values of simplicity, generosity and nonmaterialism’
(p. 45).
Other scholars (e.g. Light & Martin, 1985; Little Soldier, 1992; MacPhee
et al, 1996; Spring, 1997; McCarty, 2002) have documented American Indian
child-rearing and cultural construction of childhood that can inform early
childhood scholarship. Teresa McCarty’s (2002) book, A Place to be Navajo,
draws from her 20 years of work with the Rough Rock Navajo School, the first
56
community-controlled American Indian school, emphasizing

bilingual/bicultural education and community empowerment and self-
determination.
As we struggle with the multiple issues of power (e.g. race, class, gender,
language and culture, sexual orientation, age, ability, etc.) in the field, it may
be useful for us to continue to consider how the field could benefit from
postmodern and post-colonial thought. Maher (1987), for example, proposed
the need for a synthesis among models of liberatory pedagogy and feminist
perspectives, since in her analysis, gender models tend to ignore power while
the liberation models have tended to ignore interpersonal issues. Maher finds
that the ‘aspirations for a life of “completeness” cannot be solved at the level of
theory, but must be worked out in practice “in our muddled daily lives”’
(p. 99). Indeed, a more frequent genre in educational research has been
described as ‘critical personal narrative and autoethnography’ (Burdell &
Swadener, 1999, p. 21).
How might we begin ‘in our muddled daily lives’ to envision an early
childhood education that is liberating, anti-racist, feminist, and critical? In
addressing this question, we have also turned to post-colonial and indigenous
theories and have reflected on ways of ‘decolonizing’ early childhood research.
The literature that has informed this critical examination of persistent colonial
relationships in educational research includes the writings of Homi Bhabha
(1994), Leela Gandhi (1998), Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999), and Marie Battiste
(2000). Early childhood scholarship working in this framework includes the
work of Julie Kaomea (2001), Radhika Viruru & Gaile Cannella (2001; in
press), Jenny Ritchie (2001), and Swadener & Mutua (in press). Although a
number of publications in early childhood have focused on ‘marginalized
voices’ or life experiences previously underrepresented in Western research
literature, we share the concern expressed by Gayatri Spivak (1993) that ‘the
margin is at the service of the center’ (p. 55), yet believe, with bell hooks
(1989), that the margin can be a radical space of critique and resistance.
Swadener et al (2000) discuss explicit strategies for decolonizing cross-cultural
research in early childhood settings, and conferences emphasizing indigenous
scholarship have grown in number and visibility, particularly in New Zealand,
Australia, and Canada.
At a recent AERA symposium on the dynamics, complexities, and
contradictory nature of ‘decolonizing research,’ we joined other panel
members in lively discussion of a range of issues and challenges. Questions
raised for discussion included, but were not limited to, the following:
Who has the power to name, and how does naming reify existing power
relations?
Is experience, particularly ‘indigenous insiders’ experience,’ a necessary
precursor for asking the right questions in pursuit of culturally legitimate
scholarship – or can the privileging of ‘insider’ experience be problematic?
57
Are the tools for decolonization available only to indigenous researchers or

can this be a shared process?
In what ways are reductive, binary categories (e.g. ‘developed’ versus
‘developing,’ ‘First World’ versus ‘Third World,’ ‘Western’ versus ‘non-
Western’) dangerous dichotomies that polarize discourses and reinscribe
patterns of exploitation and privilege?
How might hybridity theory inform the struggle to decolonize research –
not serve as a ‘resolution,’ but complicate it in critical ways?
Why might problematizing post-colonial theory be critical to decolonizing
early childhood research?
Whose agenda is decolonizing research?
What are some of the subtle dynamics of the ‘Third World’ intellectual
working within the ‘First World’ academy?
Who defines and legitimizes what counts as ‘scholarship’?
Has the discourse on decolonizing research been colonized or appropriated?
Where are some of the current ‘data plantations’ in early childhood and
special education?
What are contradictions of finding power at the margins or being marginal
at the so-called centre? (What are limitations of persistent core/periphery
binary categories?)
What are contributions and contradictions of feminism[s] to decolonizing
research/perpetuating colonial power relations?
What role do funders of research play in attempts to decolonize it?
What are some of the dynamics, tensions, and possibilities of cross-cultural
alliances?
What happens when researchers find themselves ‘outside’ when doing
‘insider’ research?
How might we continue to explore ways to decolonize the field of early

childhood and create spaces of liberatory praxis? Can we continue to be
governed by a single ‘official’ pedagogy, one that ‘govern[s] our very souls’
(Rose, 1999)? Our experimental and newly emerging orientations will mean
that we are traveling creative paths, as architects, as builders, as wisdom
keepers, as healers discovering, building, and charting newly liberating spaces
of hope and possibility. Only when we collaboratively envision an early
childhood education that is built on a theory of cultural democracy and
acknowledges the issues of power and the political nature of the field can we
begin to reconfigure policy and practice in a discourse of ‘hope.’ Only then will
we find ourselves in our roles as cultural workers invested in healing. Only
when we work in solidarity and as allies with multiple voices will diverse
children, families and communities experience social justice and equity in our
lifetimes. Only when we garner our greatest courage and wisdom will we find
light and peace. Our goal in solidarity can mean both discourses and moments
of emancipation and liberation of children, families, childcare teachers, and
our field. We believe, with Dimitriadis & McCarthy (2001, p. 119), that ‘A
58
strategy of alliance might allow us to produce new anti-discriminatory

pedagogies that will respond to this fraught and exceedingly fragile moment of
globalized, postcolonial life.’ Such alliances should foreground the voices of
children, families and communities and challenge the pervasive assumptions of
late capitalism with indigenous sensibilities and solutions.
Correspondence
Lourdes Diaz Soto, Teachers College, Columbia University, Box 122,
351C Macy Hall, 525West 120th Street, New York, NY 10027, USA
(soto@exchange.tc.columbia.edu), and at Pennsylvania State University,
149 Chambers Building, University Park, PA 16802, USA (lcs1@psu.edu).
Note
[1] The qualitative/interpretive literature overlaps with several other categories
and intersects with various lines of research, especially but not limited to
multicultural education, bilingual/bicultural, reconceptualists/critical and
post-colonial perspectives.
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Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, Volume 3, Number 1, 2002

Toward Liberatory Early Childhood

LOURDES DIAZ SOTO

ABSTRACT This article surveys the emergence and application of critical

A growing number of researchers in the interdisciplinary field of early

Scientific Orientations: child development

Scientific Orientations: child development

literature. Readers interested in exploring critiques of several aspects of this

for the constructivist principles. For a discussion of ‘cognitive constructivism’

ethnography, Sandbox Society, comparing a predominantly African-American

anthropological perspectives and a number of papers presented at the initial

Early Multicultural and Bilingual Education

leading to social inequality. Ogbu describes voluntary, involuntary, and caste-

exploratory and creative orientations capable of meeting the needs of teachers,

Advocacy and Social Justice

persistent racism, classism, and heterosexism in educational contexts, and an

Critical Reconceptualist, Feminist, and Post-colonial Theory

In summarizing, it is evident that each of these discourse spaces offers

Liberatory Praxis: decolonizing the field

humanistic and emancipatory goals, we can also begin to chart a path of

communities. In a recent Review of Educational Research article, for example,

community-controlled American Indian school, emphasizing

Are the tools for decolonization available only to indigenous researchers or

How might we continue to explore ways to decolonize the field of early

strategy of alliance might allow us to produce new anti-discriminatory

Cummins, J. (1993) Empowering Minority Students: a framework for intervention, in

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