Moving Beyond Whole Child to “Fixing” the Whole System: Critically Moving Toward Justice

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 8:00 am Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Dismantling Harmful Systems and Structures in K-12 Settings (Table 3)

Abstract

Although a “holistic” tenet of equitable early childhood education (ECE), focusing on the whole-child overlooks how systems maintain inequality. Predicated on individual-level interventions, the whole-child approach prioritizes “fixing” children, but not the oppressive systems that contextualize children’s realities. This paper describes historic and ongoing oppressive reasoning that guide educational theory and developmental science. Relatedly, cultural knowledge embedded in the Afro-centric, Ghanaian principles of Sankofa guide our looking back to identify the etiology of asymmetric power relations that characterize formal education systems, which helps redirect how we move forward to rectify unjust systems starting at personal and social levels.

Author

• Mona M. Abo-Zena, University of Massachusetts - Boston