Significance of Anti-racist Inclusion in Early Childhood Education Settings and the Pedagogy of Hope

Abstract

As a result of a great number of people moving to Canada every year from different countries, backgrounds, and races, there is going to be a huge demographic change in early childhood education settings. Consequently, it becomes more and more vital to include anti-bias curriculum in everyday practices. This article argues that anti-bias work can unfold as a pedagogy of hope when educators adapt everyday gestures that gradually lead to interrupting whiteness-as-norm within daily classroom life. By drawing on Nash and Miller’s (2015) research, this paper will illustrate insights into the normalization of whiteness, why ECE educators often hesitate to discuss these seemingly difficult conversations and show how daily informed practices can convert these barriers into insights that bring children together while cherishing everyone’s uniqueness. Beginning by reflecting upon some of the underlying reasons for lack of proper anti-racist inclusion in daily practices of ECE settings namely childhood innocence assumption, colorblind approach and teacher’s reservations while encountering race and racism, I will then move on to offer solutions by known scholars and researchers of the field to create a safe space for all children to flourish and reach their full potential through exploring a pedagogy of hope that encourages child-led inquiry and public documentation that engages families as co-authors of classroom knowledge rather than recipients of it. These practices function as sustainable infrastructures for recognition, making anti-racism visible in routines, relationships, and decisions across the early childhood routines.