In December 2023 members of the early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector in England joined a symposium Educating for Activism that aimed to connect knowledge and experience of structural injustice. The symposium included early childhood practitioners (ECPs), people working in campaigning organisations and academics. As a collectively authored reflection on the symposium, this blog post advocates for a just approach in knowledge exchange about injustice in ECEC.

A flurry of recent government policy announcements in England about the expansion of the free childcare for working parents has brought to the foreground questions about sustainability and injustice. Sustainability here refers to the challenges in the availability of ECEC provision for both children and families in a marketised system, the recruitment and retention of ECEC practitioners, the fairness of the funding model, and the quality of the provision. The inequality endured by people working in the ECEC sector is visible in campaigns led by the Early Education and Childcare Coalition  in England. Injustice experienced by this predominantly female and working-class workforce relates to pay and status relative to other education professions (Morton, 2023). It is deepened by an early year’s regulatory framework that privileges middle-class cultural capital and, in this way, devalues the work of low-paid working-class women; ‘it imposes embodied labour of habitus mimicry so that they do not socialise the children “like them” but focus on middle class practices and embodiment’ (Wilson-Thomas & Brooks, 2024, p. 5). Injustice is not restricted to women working in nurseries; nannies in home settings, often migrants, are marginalised by both ECEC policy and the hostile environment of immigration policy. While neoliberal structures fragment the ECEC system through marketisation (Roberts-Holmes & Moss, 2018) they also act as a barrier to ECPs forming a collective voice.

How can a fragmented ECEC sector form a collective knowledge of injustice?

We argue that knowledge exchange activities could be re-imagined in the ECEC sector by focusing on connecting people and amplifying the voice of ECPs. Much can be learned from ECEC community projects which establish connections between ECPs; for example, the building of a professional community that connected geographically dispersed women working in ECEC in British Columbia. The London Early Years Foundation, a social enterprise in England, exchanges practice knowledge across a large network of nurseries through communities of practice. Similarly, connections can be made between diverse campaigning grassroots organisations, including, for example, the Nanny Solidarity Network; such organisations give visibility to marginalised voices. The issue of the marginalisation of women workers in the ECEC sector is not a new phenomenon; On the Record: Grow your Own, an oral history project, documents the struggles of childcare workers, in London from the 1960s onwards. Documenting struggles for employment rights of women gives visibility to knowledges of activism and solidarity (Manning-Morton, 2023).

‘Knowledge exchange activities could be re-imagined in the early childhood education and care sector by focusing on connecting people and amplifying the voice of early childhood practitioners.’

Lecturers can connect diverse knowledge of injustice and activism in ECEC through scholarship. This would mean that knowledge from different sources is equally valued (Campbell-Barr, 2018) – for example, perspectives of grassroots organisations such as the Early Years Alliance or Early Years Equality could complement knowledge from empirical research about the micro-acts of resistance by ECPs (Archer & Albin-Clark, 2022). Lecturers can explore justice in ECEC not only as a peremptory ethical consideration but also as an intention and an action. Sousa (2023) argues that undergraduate scholars can interrogate knowledge and practice when curriculum and pedagogy embody the principles of justice, rights, democracy and activism. When lecturers connect alumni of ECEC undergraduate degrees, there is potential for dialogue about injustice. In the Educating for Activism symposium, there were two powerful examples: first, Butler and Whiteley (2023), leaders of independent nurseries, gave visibility to the unremunerated labour of families in sustaining their provisions; and second, Pimm (2023), a leader of a community nursery, discussed imaginative and democratic practices as an act of resistance to top-down approaches to policy. In this way lecturers can privilege the voice of ECPs and grassroots organisations in knowledge exchange and teaching to generate a collective knowledge of structural injustice.

This blog post is an outcome of a symposium held in December 2023 on the theme of Educating for Activism – connecting knowledge and experience from early childhood practice and the HE classroom. The following co-authors presented at the symposium: Nathan Archer (Leeds Beckett University), Leonie Butler (Montessori Minds Nursery and University of East London), Ruby Brooks (Manchester Metropolitan University), Romana Calauz (London Early Years Foundation), Mandy Cutler (London Early Years Foundation), Micky LeVoguer (University of East London), Julia Manning-Morton (London Metropolitan University and Bath Spa University), Sara Mendes (Nanny Solidarity Network), Jenny Robson (University of East London), Gemma Ryder (University of East London), Rosa Schling (On the Record), Diana Sousa (UCL), Caroline Wadham (Early Years Alliance), Jessica Whitely (Goldhanger Community Nursery) and Juliet Wilson-Thomas (Manchester Metropolitan University).

The corresponding author is Jennifer Robson j.robson@uel.ac.uk

References

Archer, N., & Albin-Clark, J. (2022). Telling stories that need telling: A dialogue on resistance in early childhood education. FORUM, 64(2), 21–29. https://doi.org/10.3898/forum.2022.64.2.02

Butler, L., & Whiteley, J. (2023, 13 December). In conversation about friend and family goodwill capital and networking [Symposium presentation]. Educating for activism, University of East London.

Campbell-Barr, V. (2018). The silencing of the knowledge-base in early childhood education and care professionalism. International Journal of Early Years Education, 26(1), 75-89. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669760.2017.1414689

Manning-Morton, J. (2023, December 13). Nursery workers bite back [Symposium presentation]. Educating for activism, University of East London.

Morton, K. (2023, March 12). Eight in ten Britons think salaries for early years staff are too low. NurseryWorld. https://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/news/article/eight-in-ten-britons-think-salaries-for-early-years-staff-are-too-low

Pimm, H. (2023, December 13). Perspectives from the community nursery [Symposium presentation]. Educating for activism, University of East London.

Roberts-Holmes, G., & Moss, P. (2021). Neoliberalism and early childhood markets, imaginaries and governance. Routledge.

Sousa, D. (2023, December 13). Cultivating justice and rights in early childhood education degrees: A democratic approach towards professional activism [Symposium presentation]. Educating for activism, University of East London.

Wilson-Thomas, J., & Brooks, R. J. (2024). Investigating Ofsted’s inclusion of cultural capital in early years inspections. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 45(3), 381–401. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2024.2325542