Toward Liberatory Early Childhood Theory, Research and Praxis: Decolonizing a Field

Abstract

This article surveys the emergence and application of critical pedagogy to the field of early childhood education in the USA and beyond. It explores selected portions of the field's vast body of literature vis-à-vis loosely configured and intersecting lines of research and praxis. The field continues to expand, with positivist orientations of child development, postmodern critical reconceptualizing models, and post-colonial discourse spaces. The article concludes with a discussion of liberatory praxis as a space of possibility and suggests post-colonial hybridity as a framework for the field of early childhood education.