Moron, Sick, and Perverted - Injurious Speech: Advocacy for Gender Equity in Early Childhood

Authors

  • Kylie Smith University of Melbourne
  • Sheralyn Campbell University of Melbourne - Victoria, Australia
  • Kate Alexander

Keywords:

Queer Decisions in Early Childhood Teacher Education, Teachers as Advocates for Gender Non-conforming and Sexual Minority Young Children and Families

Abstract

This article describes feminist post-structuralist attempts to enact anti-bias education as resistance to sexisms and heterosexisms in Australian early childhood education. We describe what this form of activism for anti-bias gender equity work looks like for some educators, children, and academics in the Australian early childhood classroom and in the public arena. We then use concepts of discourse and relations of power to link these examples with their location in dominant discourses of gender and childhood innocence. Drawing from the experiences of Kylie Smith, we ask the following questions: What are the challenges and risks for educators and others in ‘doing’ anti-bias work that resists gendered discrimination in the early childhood space, particularly in advocating for gender diversity and multiplicity? What support from government policy, funding strategies, and early childhood services is necessary for educators to continue their own forms of activism for anti-bias education? We explore Hillevi Lenz Taguchi’s (2005) understandings of the problematic and potential of “getting personal in feminist pedagogy” (p. 248) and Judith Butler’s ideas on performativity and injurious speech. These concepts have helped us find ways to negotiate the research questions and continue the roller coaster ride(s) of activism for anti-bias gender equity work.

Author Biography

Kylie Smith, University of Melbourne

Kylie Smith is a Senior Lecturer and Research Fellow in the Youth Research Centre and Associate Dean, Research Training at the University of Melbourne’s Graduate School of Education. Her research examines how theory and practice can challenge the operations of equity in the early childhood classroom and she works with children, parents and teachers to build safe and respectful communities.

 

Sheralyn Campbell is an educator and Research Fellow with the University of Melbourne. Most recently she has worked as manager of children’s services for a small rural Australian local government organization. She has worked for 40 years in a range of Australian children’s services and completed her doctoral studies with the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Equity and Innovation in Early Childhood. Her research and practice have focused on creating changes to how equity and diversity are experienced in early childhood education and care settings.

 

Kate Alexander is a Senior Administrator in the University of Melbourne’s Graduate School of Education where she provides support to staff located in the Youth Research Centre. Previously, she was a Research Fellow on a variety of research projects, grants and publications development exploring equity issues in early childhood. She has completed a Bachelor of Early Childhood Studies (Hons), a Master of Education (Research) that focused on gender and early childhood and is currently undertaking a PhD on the life histories of researchers that explore gender in early childhood.

Downloads

Published

2017-07-10

Issue

Vol. 6 No. 1 (2017): Special Issue 6(1) Confronting and Countering Bias and Oppression through Early Childhood Policy and Practice

Section

Articles (Peer Reviewed Research)

License

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
  1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
  3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

Those reproducing all or part of manuscripts first published in the journal are asked to acknowledge the International Critical Childhood Policy Studies Journal.