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- Convenor:
-
Malvika Agarwal
(Western University)
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- Discussant:
-
Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw
- Format:
- Traditional Open Panel
Short Abstract:
This panel examines the transformative role of early childhood education in climate crises, promoting collective shifts beyond human-centric models. It critiques techno-scientific solutions and explores alternative pedagogies undertaken to navigate ecological uncertainties.
Long Abstract:
In the face of ecological uncertainties, amplified by an ongoing climate crisis, transformative shifts in societal structures, perceptions, and actions are not just necessary—they are imperative. Education plays a pivotal role in this transformation, serving as a dynamic force capable of making profound impacts by catalyzing responses to the injustices of the climate crisis (Nxumalo, Nayak, & Tuck, 2022).This panel intends to grapple with scientism in early childhood education, and delve into and scrutinize collective actions and responses undertaken by childhood assemblages—scholars, educators, children, and more-than-human entities—actively navigating ecological uncertainties in this manner.
Situated at the crucial intersection of Science and Technology Studies (STS) and early childhood education, this panel embraces thinking as a relational material practice (de la Bellacasa, 2012). Within this confluence, pedagogy emerges as a dynamic social science, continuously evolving and seeking new foundations for thought, steering clear of universal or objective viewpoints on knowledge creation (Delgado, 2020). The panel aims to share narratives and pedagogies that recognize children, yet they extend beyond a merely human-centric model of existence (Spyrou, Rosen & Cook, 2019).
The panel encourages critical examination of techno-scientific solutions, demystifying misconceptions that technology alone will redeem early childhood. It explores how alternative pedagogies and collective practices with children and more-than-human entities can influence climate strategies beyond scientism.
Submitted papers should utilize STS concepts to address ecological uncertainties through early childhood education. Accepted papers may investigate the following:
- Explore speculative ethics (Ashton, 2022) or pedagogies (Vintimilla, 2020) resisting techno-scientific solutions, advocating approaches beyond anthropocentrism.
- Discuss transformational pedagogical approaches in curriculum making.
- Analyze situated collective (van Dooren, 2022) practices by more-than-human assemblages disrupting traditional stewardship in climate action.
- Examine early childhood education's role in offering alternatives to positivist educational models.
- Undertake creative, experiential, and embodied approaches (Manning, 2013).
Accepted papers:
Session 1Maureen Cullen (Western University)
Short abstract:
This study explores reimagined curricula focusing on multispecies relations and experiential learning to address ecological crises. It promotes critical thinking beyond traditional methods, advocating for embodied engagement and deeper connections with the natural world.
Long abstract:
This paper draws on Science and Technology Studies (STS) to reimagine educational curricula through embodied, experiential, and multispecies relations. The authors present research grounded in experimental and innovative pedagogical approaches involving educators, preschoolers, and vermicompost. Responding to pressing ecological uncertainties, this study co-creates multispecies relations to foster critical and creative thinking beyond the conventional "Three Rs" (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) in early childhood education. It critically examines the current ecological crisis and questions the efficacy of techno-scientific solutions (Vintimilla, 2020), proposing a pedagogical framework that prioritizes embodied engagements with more-than-human entities (Manning, 2013) and relational material practices (de la Bellacasa, 2012). The research aims to collaboratively explore with educators and children the potential of multispecies kinships (van Dooren, 2022) to cultivate a profound, ferocious love for and with more-than-human entities. This endeavor co-creates curriculum that enlightens and emotionally binds young learners to the natural world, opening new avenues for nurturing ecological consciousness and empathy from an early age.
Fikile Nxumalo (University of Toronto) Tia Madkins (The University of Texas at Austin)
Short abstract:
Situated within the context of Eswatini, this paper discusses how children’s ecological and reciprocal caring, and curiosities about the more-than-human are (re)enactments of situated Indigenous relational and reciprocal ontologies that hold potential as a mode of climate justice education.
Long abstract:
The vulnerabilities that are brought by climate change are highly disproportionately distributed between the Global North and South. However, perspectives, relational knowledges and activisms of young children from the Global South remain largely absent in both research and teaching that centers climate justice. This research is situated in a rural community in Eswatini, where young children were invited to visually and orally story their perspectives on the impacts of climate change before and during walks in their community and after storytelling with elders. We discuss how children’s ecological and reciprocal caring, curiosities about the more-than-human, and complex sense-making of place were (re)enactments of situated Indigenous relational and reciprocal ontologies that hold potential as a mode of climate justice education.
Felizitas Juen (Pädagogische Hochschule Zürich PHZH)
Short abstract:
This proposal explores how intra-actions of young humans and non-humans in educational settings come into being. Using a relational map to analyse an empirical example, this new materialist perspective challenges human-centred notions as well as ethnographic research and writing methodologies.
Long abstract:
New materialist perspectives are slowly broadening the spectrum of how young humans in educational settings are being researched (a.o. Taylor 2013; Murris 2016; Taylor/Pacini-Ketchabaw 2019). In my paper, I want to take a closer look at processes of intra-action (Barad 2007) between young humans and more-than-humans. These intra-actions, I argue, call for diverse, entangled, inclusive and complex understandings of early childhood (Hamilton/Taylor 2017: 112) and require in-depth analysis.
By unfolding multiple intricacies of an empirical ethnographic example from a kindergarten into a relational map, I slow down and pay attention to emerging relationships between humans and non-humans. In conclusion, I will summarize how this perspective challenges my own entrenched thought patterns by the paradox of focusing more on young humans – a neglected focus in STS – while at the same time decentring them theoretically and analytically (Pacini-Ketchabaw/Taylor/Blaise 2016).
Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Duke University Press.
Hamilton, L., & Taylor, N. (2017). Ethnography after humanism: Power, politics and method in multi-species research. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53933-5
Murris, K. (2016). The Posthuman Child. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315718002
Pacini-Ketchabaw, V., Taylor, A., Blaise, M. (2016). Decentring the Human in Multispecies Ethnographies. In: Taylor, C.A., Hughes, C. (eds.): Posthuman Research Practices in Education. Palgrave Macmillan UK, 149–167. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137453082_10
Taylor, A. (2013). Reconfiguring the Natures of Childhood. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203582046
Taylor, A., & Pacini-Ketchabaw, V. (2019). The common worlds of children and animals. Relational ethics for entangled lives. Routledge.
İdil Gaziulusoy (NODUS Sustainable Design Research Group, Aalto University) Gloria Lauterbach (NODUS Sustainable Design Research Group, Aalto University) Turkan Firinci Orman (Aalto University) Julia Lohmann (Aalto University)
Short abstract:
The paper presents two workshops held at a preschool and elementary school focusing on multispecies encounters through applying child-led research approaches. The workshops aim was to learn about a site through the eyes of children, including their perspectives and visions of a multispecies future.
Long abstract:
In response to the call to address scientism in early childhood education, this paper presents two workshops that follow alternative pedagogies, conducted consecutively in a Swedish preschool and a Norwegian elementary school. These workshops focus on multispecies encounters and envisioning a future shaped by young children's perspectives.
Employing a child-led research approach, the workshops aimed to integrate children's voices into planning processes and foster literacy through different sets of tools for envisioning multispecies futures. The central questions guiding this research are: 1) What unconventional methods and tools are needed to inform sustainable design while mediating the needs of children and nature? 2) What can be learned from child-led research to incorporate multispecies considerations in planning practice?
The workshop design included attunement exercises outdoors and role-playing with local species, facilitated by nature pedagogues, immersing children in multispecies perspectives. Elementary school children explored their local surroundings through the lens of local species, while preschoolers engaged in sensory experiences to deepen their understanding. The workshops also incorporated visioning exercises to generate alternative perspectives and foster collective thinking.
Embedded learning about local species was integrated into the school curriculum, highlighting the interconnectedness of humans and more-than-human entities. Through prototyping and storytelling activities, emerging themes of protection, comfort, and care were identified, reflecting children's concerns for the multispecies world.
As such, these workshops contribute to advancing dialogues on multispecies pedagogies and the active participation of children in shaping sustainable futures while considering their voices in the planning processes of today.
Malvika Agarwal (Western University)
Short abstract:
This paper advocates for a speculative digital methodology in early childhood education, aiming to involve children in urban climate resilience and considering their lives in city redesigns through creative digital engagement.
Long abstract:
This paper proposes a speculative digital methodology in early childhood education (Pink, 2022), addressing the gap in children’s active participation in urban climate resilience amidst over five hundred Canadian cities declaring climate emergencies and aiming for net-zero emissions by 2050 (Eidelman et al., 2022). It challenges the marginalization of children in urban policy, advocating for their inclusion as key stakeholders in city-building, aligning with calls for multidisciplinary stakeholder involvement (Bai et al., 2018).
The paper critiques Canadian guidelines cautioning against early childhood digital technology use (Teichert et al., 2023), promoting a nuanced engagement that leverages digital technologies from a more-than-human perspective (Barua, 2023). It explores digital technologies' role in embedding ecological awareness within educational practices.
Utilizing speculative digital methodologies, this paper illustrates how might children and educators engage in digital storytelling, that enable collective stories that might create and contribute to urban design amidst climate challenges. This approach underscores the potential for meaningful, ecologically conscious digital integration in education, proposing a reimagined role for technology in fostering young learners' active engagement with their urban environments.