A Critical and Women of Color Feminist Analysis of Childcare in the United States

• In Event: A Critical Women of Color Feminist Analysis of Childcare: Histories, Contemporary Issues, and Futures

Abstract

Building on the foundational scholarship that has examined inequities in childcare systems in the U.S. and globally (Bloch et al., 2003; Polakow, 2007), this paper discusses the historical influences on the contemporary context of childcare in the U.S. We begin with providing a historical account of the varied types of and purposes for childcare, who particular kinds of care has historically served, and how systems have operated. Important focal points of this paper include discussions on privatization, policy, and dominant childhood discourses, such as notions of quality, which are critically unpacked to provide an understanding of how vast inequities in childcare have been produced over time (Dahlberg et al., 2013). Next, we provide an overview and rationale for theories that were used to inform the research shared throughout this session. Drawing on a range of childhood/s scholarship that is critically oriented (Swadener et al., 2018; Wright & Counsell, 2018; Yelland & Frantz Bentley, 2018), and women of color feminisms, such as Black and Chicana feminisms (Anzaldúa, 2009; Collins, 2008), we explain how matrices of power (Collins, 2008) within the current childcare context uncover and inspire important provocations. An example is examining how public policy and the privatized aspect of much of our childcare system in the U.S. has operated as structural and disciplinary matrices of power (Collins, 2008), creating issues such as limiting the ability to compensate educators in a way that values their vital knowledge as professionals and for programs to obtain resources necessary to provide “quality” education and care (conceptualized broadly) for young children who are minoritized. We also discuss how childcare centers can foster culturally sustaining practices for families and children of color (Cheruvu, 2019; Gardner, et al., 2020; Nash et al., 2020), who too often find educational spaces to be culturally disconnected from their everyday lived experiences. This paper has scholarly significance as it provides possibilities for how inequities have manifested within our contemporary childcare context and offers new framings to transform the lived experiences of those most impacted by these inequities.

Authors

• Michelle Salazar Perez, University of North Texas
  Presenting Author

• Flora J. Harmon, American Institutes for Research
  Presenting Author