This book is a collection of feminist childhood studies stories from field research with educators, young children, and/or early childhood student-educators that explores the challenges, tensions, and possibilities of common worlds research methods for the 21st century. Grounded in a common worlding orientation, the contributing authors grapple with complex methodological understandings within postqualitative practices within settler colonial states: Australia, Canada, South Africa, and the Unites States. Each chapter presents a method the authors have put to work in their efforts to unsettle the interpretative power of Euro-Western developmental knowledges and anthropocentric frameworks to reimagine research amid the colonialist, social, and environmental challenges we face today. The research(ing) stories act as provocations for generating innovative, relational, and emergent methods to attend to the complexity of 21st-century childhoods. Just as developmental and sociological perspectives gave birth to new forms of inquiry within childhood studies in 19th-century industrialization and 20th-century urban change respectively, the 21st-century requires novel questions, practices, and methodologies to enhance the childhood studies lexicon. In the field ofchildhood studies, where settler colonial and neoliberal logics have so much clout, suchstrategies are crucial. Feminist Research for 21st-century Childhoods is an important and relevant read for anyone working and researching with children.

This book is a collection of feminist childhood studies stories from field research with educators, young children, and/or early childhood student-educators that explores the challenges, tensions, and possibilities of common worlds research methods for the 21st century. Grounded in a common worlding orientation, the contributing authors grapple with complex methodological understandings within postqualitative practices within settler colonial states: Australia, Canada, South Africa, and the Unites States. Each chapter presents a method the authors have put to work in their efforts to unsettle the interpretative power of Euro-Western developmental knowledges and anthropocentric frameworks to reimagine research amid the colonialist, social, and environmental challenges we face today. The research(ing) stories act as provocations for generating innovative, relational, and emergent methods to attend to the complexity of 21st-century childhoods. Just as developmental and sociological perspectives gave birth to new forms of inquiry within childhood studies in 19th-century industrialization and 20th-century urban change respectively, the 21st-century requires novel questions, practices, and methodologies to enhance the childhood studies lexicon. In the field ofchildhood studies, where settler colonial and neoliberal logics have so much clout, suchstrategies are crucial. Feminist Research for 21st-century Childhoods is an important and relevant read for anyone working and researching with children.

"This book is a collection of feminist childhood studies stories from field research with educators, young children, and/or early childhood student-educators that explores the challenges, tensions, and possibilities of common worlds research methods for the 21st century. Grounded in a common worlding orientation, the contributing authors grapple with complex methodological understandings within postqualitative practices within settler colonial states: Australia, Canada, South Africa, and the Unites States. Each chapter presents a method the authors have put to work in their efforts to unsettle the interpretative power of Euro-Western developmental knowledges and anthropocentric frameworks to reimagine research amid the colonialist, social, and environmental challenges we face today. The research(ing) stories act as provocations for generating innovative, relational, and emergent methods to attend to the complexity of 21st-century childhoods. Just as developmental and sociological perspectives gave birth to new forms of inquiry within childhood studies in 19th-century industrialization and 20th-century urban change respectively, the 21st-century requires novel questions, practices, and methodologies to enhance the childhood studies lexicon. In the field of childhood studies, where settler colonial and neoliberal logics have so much clout, such strategies are crucial. Feminist Research for 21st-century Childhoods is an important and relevant read for anyone working and researching with children."--

This unique book brings together international scholars from around the globe to examine how different feminist theories are being used in early childhood research, policy and pedagogy. The array of feminist discourses captured by the authors offer contextualised possibilities for disrupting dominant patriarchal beliefs and producing change. The authors address and challenge how early childhood experiences, institutions and practices produce gendered effects across and within diverse contexts and demonstrate how feminism(s) in action can be used to reconceptualise research methods, government policy, children’s learning, teaching practice and educational resources. In this way, the book contributes to creating new knowledge connections and community alliances in the global effort to end gender-based inequalities across local and global communities.

Feminism and the Politics of Childhood offers an innovative and critical exploration of perceived commonalities and conflicts between women and children and, more broadly, between various forms of feminism and the politics of childhood. This unique collection of 18 chapters brings into dialogue authors from a range of geographical contexts, social science disciplines, activist organisations, and theoretical perspectives. The wide variety of subjects include refugee camps, care labour, domestic violence and childcare and education. Chapter authors focus on local contexts as well as their global interconnections, and draw on diverse theoretical traditions such as poststructuralism, psychoanalysis, posthumanism, postcolonialism, political economy, and the ethics of care. Together the contributions offer new ways to conceptualise relations between women and children, and to address injustices faced by both groups. Praise for Feminism and the Politics of Childhood: Friends or Foes? ‘This book is genuinely ground-breaking.’ ‒ Val Gillies, University of Westminster ‘Feminism and the Politics of Childhood: Friends or Foes? asks an impossible question, and then casts prismatic light on all corners of its impossibility.’ ‒ Cindi Katz, CUNY ‘This provocative and stimulating publication comes not a day too soon.’ ‒ Gerison Lansdown, Child to Child ‘A smart, innovative, and provocative book.’ ‒ Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Syracuse University ‘This volume raises and addresses issues so pressing that it is surprising they are not already at the heart of scholarship.’ ‒ Ann Phoenix, UCL

Across the globe the work of early childhood educators, who are predominantly women, is misunderstood, underpaid and undervalued. Perspectives on early childhood educators are highly contentious: are they child development experts, oppressed workers, maternal substitutes, technicians, facilitators of early learning, or something else? This volume features chapter authors from Australia, Canada, Norway, Sweden, the USA and New Zealand, examine a range of contemporary feminist theories in relation to the early childhood educator. The feminist theories covered include materialist feminism, poststructural feminism, decolonizing feminisms, posthumanist feminism, new materialist feminism, feminist ethics of care, womanist feminism, postcolonial feminism, femme theory and feminist queer theory. The editors of the volume offer an introduction and commentaries that explore solidarities and tensions between the feminisms to generate critical conversations about the work, lived experiences, and agency of early childhood educators. The volume contributes to shifting understandings of the early childhood educator in the contexts of culture, practice, policy and politics.

This open access book responds to a growing academic interest in theorizing care and care work in the early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector. The contributors theorize a new feminist ethics of care in everyday early childhood practice, revealing its complexities and importance. Drawing on feminist theories and philosophies, the chapter authors show how the caring practices of early childhood educators involve values, emotions, decision-making, action and work. Using cutting-edge theory, authors address the social locations and the inclusion and exclusion of both care givers and care receivers. With contributions from Belgium, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the USA, the volume brings together early childhood studies, sociology, psychology, philosophy and critical disability studies to offer diverse perspectives on feminist ethics of care in early childhood practice and its possibilities and dangers. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.