Childhood Innocence for Settler Children: Disrupting Colonialism and Innocence in Early Childhood Curriculum. Issue 2 (2nd April 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Templeton, Tran Nguyen; Cheruvu, Ranita
• Is Part Of: New educator. Volume 16:Issue 2(2020)
• Page Start: 131
• Page End: 148
• Publication Date: 2020-04-02
• Subjects: Teachers -- Training of -- Periodicals; Teachers -- Recruiting -- Periodicals; Education -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; 370.71073
• DOI: 10.1080/1547688X.2020.1734264
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1547-688X

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This article explores the challenges of rewriting prescriptive early childhood curriculum wherein settler colonialism and childhood innocence as a discourse reinforce one another. We attend to two primary ideas: 1) that the presence of settler colonialism pervades everyday practices in the early years, and 2) early childhood curriculum maintains young children's innocence vis-a-vis the regulation of their knowledge of colonial violence and Indigenous dispossession. By examining the curricular revisions of one pre-service teacher, we highlight the tensions that educators may undergo in negotiating the violence of U.S. settler colonialism within classrooms with young children.