The Early Childhood Educator

Critical Conversations in Feminist Theory

Rachel Langford, Brooke Richardson

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9781350267237
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350267213
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Early Childhood Education

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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Series Editors’ Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Reflections on Poststructural Feminisms: Supporting Multiple Performances of Teacher Identities
• 2 Kristevan Early Childhood Teacher: Poststructural Feminist Identities in Australia and New Zealand
• 3 Labouring Relations and the Early Childhood Educator: The Return to Materialism
• 4 Reclaiming Early Childhood Educator(s) as Early Childhood Educator(s) through Feminist Ethics of Care
• Commentary 1
• 5 Waves upon Waves: Highlighting the Invisibility of the Early Childhood Workforce through Conversations with Fourth Wave, Black and Postcolonial Feminisms
• 6 Womanist Praxis in Early Childhood Education and Care: Educators’ Nourishment of Mind-Body-Spirit Relations
• 7 Decolonizing Feminisms: Provocations for Early Childhood Educators in Aotearoa/New Zealand
• Commentary 2
• 8 Queer Bodies in Early Childhood: Gender and Sexuality Disruption(s) and Impure Feminisms to ‘Get Us Free’
• 9 Posthuman Possibilities for the Early Childhood Educator
• 10 Early Childhood Pedagogues, Thresholds and the Potentialities of Feminisms and New Materialism
• 11 Femme-inist Approaches to Early Childhood Education and Care: Cultivating Pedagogies of Care via Femme Theory
• Commentary 3
• Concluding Remarks
• Index
• Imprint