Abstracts
Abstract
This article uses an autotheoretical approach to examine epistemic injustice in postsecondary early childhood education and care (ECEC). Drawing on Miranda Fricker’s framework of epistemic injustice and my personal narratives, I explore how dominant developmentalist and neoliberal discourses marginalize alternative knowledges and lived experiences in ECEC programs. Through reflective vignettes centered on affirmative experiences of being listened to by my grandmother, I analyze testimonial and hermeneutical injustices faced by educators and students whose identities and epistemologies fall outside of normative developmental frameworks. This article argues that hierarchical knowledge structures and accreditation standards perpetuate exclusion and proposes listening as an ethical and political practice to advance epistemic justice. It concludes by envisioning democratic ECEC spaces that embrace multiplicity, challenge developmentalist hegemony, and create openings for diverse ways of knowing and being.
Keywords:
- epistemic injustice,
- postsecondary early childhood education,
- autotheory,
- developmentalism
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Appendices
Biographical note
Adam Davies, PhD, Ontario certified teacher, registered early childhood educator (they/them/he/him/all) is a queer educator, activist, and scholar who is a tenured associate professor in the College of Arts at the University of Guelph. Adam’s research encapsulates social justice and equity in early childhood education, K–12 schooling, and higher education and works within and across several disciplinary fields, including queer theory, trans studies, mad studies, and critical disability studies. Much of Adam’s work focuses on forms of exclusion and inequities within educational structures and employs autoethnographic and autobiographical methodologies. Adam holds a PhD in curriculum studies and teacher development with collaborative specializations in women and gender studies and sexual diversity studies from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. Email: adam.davies@uoguelph.ca
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