Construction and Counter-construction of Childhood in Colonial Bengal and Post-colonial Bangladesh

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 4:15 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Imagining Histories and Futures of Children and Families

Abstract

This paper presentation locates the colonial construction of childhood in British Bengal and its ongoing influence on early childhood education (ECE) in postcolonial Bangladesh. Through a literature review, critical document analysis, and discourse analysis of historical literature and policy texts, the paper demonstrates how colonial ideologies of childhood and child development, embedded in the education system, dominated local child-rearing practices. Findings also reveal how these ideologies persist in current ECE policies as an amalgamation of colonial and neo-liberal prevalence. The paper also highlights anti-colonial educational endeavors, such as folktales, children’s literature, and the restructuring of educational spaces as sites of resistance, which can point towards relational, context-specific knowledge to reimagine early childhood beyond colonial inheritances.

Author

• Md Rifat Hassan Liju, Pennsylvania State University