Contemporary Issues in
Early Childhood

ISSN 1463-9491

Volume 2 Number 1 2001

CONTENTS [click on author's name for abstract and full text]

Editorial pages 1-3
Tara Goldstein. ‘I’m Not White’: anti-racist teacher education for white early childhood educators, pages 3-13
Michael T. Hayes.A Journey through Dangerous Places: reflections on a theory of white racial identity as political alliance, pages 15-30
Radhika Viruru. Colonized through Language: the case of early childhood education, pages 31-47
Michael O’Loughlin. The Development of Subjectivity inYoung Children: theoretical and pedagogical considerations, pages 49-65
Julie Kaomea. Dilemmas of an Indigenous Academic: a Native Hawaiian story, pages 67-82
Glenda MacNaughton & Karina Davis. Beyond ‘Othering’: rethinking approaches to teaching young Anglo-Australian children about indigenous Australians, pages 83-93
COLLOQUIA
Megan Grant. ‘Building Bridges’ and Indigenous Literacy: learning from indigenous families, pages 95-103
Bruce Burnett. Coming to Terms with Culture and Racism, pages 105-109
Richard Johnson. The Struggle for Authenticity in an Inauthentic World: a response to a response(s), pages 111-115
BOOK REVIEWS
Supporting Identity, Diversity and Language in the Early Years (Iram Siraj-Blatchford & Priscilla Clarke) reviewed by Judith K.Bernhard, page 117 VIEW FULL TEXT
Researching Racism in Education: politics, theory and practice (Paul Connolly & Barry Troyna, Eds) reviewed by Julie Kaomea,
page 119 VIEW FULL TEXT
Early Childhood Services: theory, policy and practice (Helen Penn, Ed.) reviewed by Gail Boldt, page 123 VIEW FULL TEXT
Rethinking Gender in Early Childhood Education (Glenda MacNaughton) reviewed by Sally Barnes, page 127 VIEW FULL TEXT

Editorial

This issue of the journal is a unique collection of articles that raise concerns and issues for debate about race, racism, ethnicity and indigenous matters as they relate to early childhood education. Some of the articles incorporate discussion of colonialism and post-colonialism, again with an orientation towards early childhood education. We think that they make a significant contribution to the field.

In another milestone for Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, we include video as part of the colloquium from Megan Grant. Short video excerpts have been used to illustrate aspects of a study with indigenous Australian children and their families. We hope that this format will help bring to life particular aspects of this study that are not available in more traditional journal formats. The second colloquium by Bruce Burnett identifies the two dominant positions of anti-racist educational programmes and argues for a position that considers how racism is socially constructed and exercised, while understanding that such constructions are fluid and changing.

The authors of the articles cover a broad range of perspectives, from issues encountered as an indigenous researcher working in indigenous communities (Kaomea), to anti-racist teacher education for early childhood educators (Goldstein), to challenging us to think about the often unspoken supposition of alliance among whites (Hayes). How we might develop our subjectivity (our sense of being in the world) as children is the focus of the article by O’Loughlin. This is undertaken from a Kleinian and neo-Kleinian approach, with the latter part of the article taking up some issues for teachers and caregivers. Viruru takes a different tack again; questioning the assumption that language is the natural way of expressing ourselves, arguing, with the support of data from India, that such an assumption represents the continued colonisation of the field of early childhood education. Continuing the focus on indigenous issues, MacNaughton & Davis offer data from two empirical studies that support rethinking our approaches to teaching young children about indigenous issues in Australia.

Richard Johnson has responded to the rejoinders from Stephen Wright and Frances Rofrano, continuing the debate about the article ‘Imperialism and Cargo Cults in Early Childhood Education: does Reggio Emilia really exist?’ (Johnson, 1999), published in the first issue of CIEC. Regular visitors to the CIEC web site will have noticed the recent addition of a Discussion Area, a section for continuing comment and response. We welcome contributions to this part of the journal and encourage readers to engage and respond.

The four book reviews in this issue include Researching Racism in Education: politics, theory and practice (Connolly & Tryona, 1998), reviewed by Julie Kaomea; Supporting Identity, Diversity and Language in the Early Years (Siraj-Blatchford & Clarke, 1998), reviewed by Judith Bernhard; Rethinking Gender in Early Childhood Education (MacNaughton, 2000), reviewed by Sally Barnes; and Early Childhood Services: theory, policy and practice (Penn, 2000), reviewed by Gail Boldt.

We thank all those who responded for the call to review articles and books and hope to be able to call on you soon, using your expertise in these tasks. We also announce a call for articles and colloquia with a focus on the sociology of childhood, to be published in mid-2002, with guest editor Allison James from the University of Hull in the United Kingdom.

We hope that you find this issue challenging and thought-provoking, and thank all those who support the journal as readers and as contributors.

The Editors

‘I’m Not White’: anti-racist teacher education for white early childhood educators

TARA GOLDSTEIN Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Toronto, Canada

Conceptualising and implementing early childhood teacher education for racial and cultural diversity is a complex task that involves learning about social stratification and race, acknowledging the privileges associated with whiteness, and finding ways to create positive racial teaching identities. This article discusses three ways that teacher educators might prepare white early childhood education students for anti-racist work in their classrooms.

A Journey through Dangerous Places: reflections on a theory of white racial identity as political alliance

MICHAEL T. HAYES University of Hawaii, USA

In this article, the author develops a theory of white racial identity as a political alliance. He argues that a racial identity is inherently a social relationship that is immersed in institutional and everyday power arrangements and that formulating a racial identity is an inherently political process that involves the articulation of politically committed relationships, which are alliances. Using examples from academic literature and personal experience, the author illustrates how racial identity is articulated within the constant tension between historical and institutional structures and human agency. The implications are twofold. First, whites must acknowledge and take responsibility for the historically derived systems of privilege that place them into alliances with each other. Second, whites must also understand that reformulating a racial identity entails the development of social relationships that, because they are racial in nature, are inherently political. This means that constructing a white racial identity is a form of political action that requires a conscious effort to develop an anti-racist identity that embraces the possibility and need for social justice.

Colonized through Language: the case of early childhood education

RADHIKA VIRURU Texas A & M University, College Station, USA

In this article, the privilege accorded to language as the ‘natural’ way of human expression and communication is problematized. Drawing upon multiple post-colonial sources, the author suggests that this is yet another of the ways in which dominant Western ways of viewing the world are imposed upon diverse groups of people, including young children. Questions are asked about whose interests are best served when language is privileged over other modes of communication. Acquiring language is often perceived as a crucial tool in the growth of young children; however, the question is rarely asked, what is lost when language is gained. The article also provides examples from an ethnographic study done in India that suggests that children can engage in complex forms of communication that do not involve language. Finally, the article addresses the common assumption that using language mostly means using one language. Dominant Western discourses about language are almost overwhelmingly unilingual; however, most of the world’s children use and live in multilingual environments.

The Development of Subjectivity in Young Children: theoretical and pedagogical considerations

MICHAEL O’LOUGHLIN Adelphi University, Garden City, USA

The author presents the outlines of a theory of subjectivity that is anchored in processes of identification. Subject formation is a continual process of becoming that is constituted by three interrelated processes: (1) intrapsychic factors within each child; (2) effects of participation in groups on the kinds of identifications and disidentifications a child adopts; and (3) effects of the discursive practices of society on the kinds of subjectivity a particular child performs. The author begins by outlining Melanie Klein’s theory of the development of individual subjectivity through early object relations. Then, using neo-Kleinian writings, the effect of group membership on the child’s evolving sense of subjectivity is explored. Ways in which specific discursive environments at home, at school, in popular culture and media etc. can either open up possibilities for expanded subject identification for children or limit those possibilities are then explored. Finally, the author explores the pedagogical implications of this way of thinking, focusing on the ethical responsibilities of teachers to understand the workings of otherness in subject formation so that they might create classroom communities that foster empathy and positive identity formation and diminish the capacity of children to hate and exclude others.

Dilemmas of an Indigenous Academic: a Native Hawaiian story

JULIE KAOMEA University of Hawai‘i, USA

In this article, the author draws upon the Native Hawaiian practice of ha‘i mo‘olelo, or storytelling, to problematize her role as an indigenous, Native Hawaiian academic working and researching in Native Hawaiian elementary and early childhood educational communities. Focusing on her personal dilemmas and struggles within this role, she attempts to unpack a number of ethical, cultural and political issues that can present special difficulties for indigenous academics who work partly as insiders and partly as outsiders within both the academy and their home communities. By intertwining Marxist and post-structuralist theory with Native Hawaiian protocol and tradition, she considers possibilities for reconnecting indigenous academics with native communities through the development of hybrid indigenous/Western research methodologies that draw from and speak to both indigenous and Western ways of knowing and being.

Beyond ‘Othering’: rethinking approaches to teaching young Anglo-Australian children about indigenous Australians

GLENDA MACNAUGHTON & KARINA DAVIS University of Melbourne, Australia

Current early childhood literature concerning anti-racist and multicultural education discusses the importance of adopting a curriculum framework to counter the development of prejudice and racism in young children. This article draws on two separate research projects in Victoria, Australia that explore how this might best be done. One project was concerned with exploring young children’s understandings of indigenous Australians and their cultures and the other investigated teaching practices of a group of early childhood practitioners with indigenous Australians and their cultures. The results from these two projects are compared in order to explore some current issues in adopting curriculum frameworks that counter the development of prejudice and racism in young Anglo-Australian children towards Australia’s indigenous peoples and cultures.

‘Building Bridges’ and Indigenous Literacy: learning from indigenous families

MEGAN GRANT Australian Early Childhood Association, Watson, Australia

This article outlines the Australian Early Childhood Association project Building Bridges: literacy development for young indigenous children, funded by the Australian Commonwealth Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs. Building Bridges was a highly innovative project designed to develop resources for improving literacy competence in indigenous young children.

Coming to Terms with Culture and Racism

BRUCE BURNETT Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

How the early childhood sector engages with and ultimately addresses notions of racism is clearly contingent upon what educators in the field believe to be its origins and causes. Despite what appears to be a complex and multifaceted set of ‘origins and causes’, it is surprising to find that most educational institutions tend to position their anti-racist programmes somewhere along a single continuum where, at one extremity, are programmes that implicate individuals, while at the other are programmes which lay the blame on institutions. The purpose of this short commentary is to outline these two dominant positions and to unpack some of their underlying theoretical baggage. However, another more important goal is to challenge educators into broadening their established understandings of racism and thus allow for non-traditional forms of racism to be included, i.e. those which are not exercised in transparent and overt forms. One of the major hurdles appears to be focusing educators’ attention on the elusiveness of the actual target of the anti-racist programme. The predicament in the early childhood sector is how best to provoke its educators into refusing the apparent ‘safety’ of established anti-racist programmes and encourage them to recognise that the manner in which racism is socially constructed and exercised is both fluid and evolving. Only after the imprecise and blurred make-up of contemporary racism is recognised can educators begin a process where successful aspects of traditional anti-discrimination programmes are retained, and new programmes developed to target aspects of racism that are centred on culture.

The Struggle for Authenticity in an Inauthentic World: a response to a response(s)

RICHARD JOHNSON University of Hawai‘i, Honolulu, USA

This is a response to a critique by Frances Rofrano of both Richard Johnson and his Reggio article in Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, Volume 1, Number 1, 1999.

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