“Unwanted Sounds” in Australian Early Childhood Educational Contexts: Reparations Through Dis/Ability, Indigenous Reciprocity, and Inclusion

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Sunday 8:00 am Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Examinations of Dis/Ability in Early Childhood Practices and Pedagogies (Table 3)

Abstract

Australian early childhood settings are ‘noisy’ environments. Defined as ‘unwanted sounds’ (Bates, Page & Stover, 2021, p. 213), elevated sounds are often perceived as chaotic. Studies have identified that young children's learning outcomes and well-being are impacted when sound levels increase (Grebennikov, 2006). Consequently, remedies to counter excessive sounds are guided through governing policy frameworks in early childhood educational contexts (Grebennikov, 2006). This paper argues for understandings of the affects of sound in early childhood contexts. Elevated sounds are complex, and nuanced according to individual bodily perceptions and in connection with cultural understandings. Drawing upon autoethnographic data, this study found that Indigenous-reciprocal and relational more-than-human acts in the classroom became reparations for excessive sound; reimagining experiences of ‘noise’ in inclusive ways.

Author

• Kim Michelle Kinnear, Deakin University