Decolonial Education through Solidarities: Anti-Racism Learning in Early Childhood Education And Care in Canada

• In Event: What Challenges and Possibilities Lie Ahead for Educational Research on Decolonizing the Curriculum in the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom Amidst a Political Climate of Right-Wing Populism?

Abstract

This paper presents a decolonial and, specifically, an antiracist approach to thinking about teaching and learning in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) within the settler-colonial Canadian context, a context in which Euro-centric developmentalist narratives predominate. To problematize such hegemonic orientations, a team of academics, in partnership with the College of Early Childhood Educators and the Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario, carried out antiracist professional learning with the early childhood sector in Ontario, Canada. Four two-hour sequential on-line sessions were offered, with three hundred professionals in participation. This knowledge transfer initiative focused on sharing information and providing a platform for educators to ask questions, learn, and unpack their own positionalities in challenging race and racism in early learning pedagogies and curriculum. Pre- and post-session surveys were distributed, the results of which are discussed in this paper. Strengths and weaknesses of this initiative are considered, along with impact and next step challenges and possibilities for decolonial educational research for teaching and learning in Canada.

Authors

• Zuhra Abawi, Niagara University - Ontario

• Rachel C. Berman, Toronto Metropolitan University