In late February, my family landed at the small Mwanza airport in Tanzania. With our luggage and our toddler, Z, hoisted on my hip, we climbed down the airplane stairs and onto the shuttle bus that would take us to the terminal. The shuttle bus was packed and I remember feeling slightly disappointed that … Continue reading
Tagged with diversity …
Why I use the term ‘Majority world’ instead of ‘developing countries’ or ‘Third world’
As you may have noticed in my blog posts, I avoid using the terms ‘developing world’ or ‘Third world’. Instead, I use the term ‘Majority world’. Here’s why. The terms ‘developing world’ and ‘Third world’ imply that ‘development’ is a standard, linear process, and that certain ‘developed’ countries have finished ‘developing’ and are the norm towards … Continue reading
Children learning to stereotype and discriminate (racism experiment)
A friend and colleague recently shared this video – it is one of the most powerful videos I have seen in recent days. Background: In the late 1960s / early 1970s, Jane Elliot, a school teacher, set up an arbitrary social division among her third graders (blue eyes vs brown eyes) and had them experience … Continue reading
Is racism learned during childhood?
Research has shown that children begin to recognize different races very early on, in the first few months of life, and that they are better able to differentiate faces from the race with which they are most familiar (e.g., Kelly et al., 2007). There’s also research showing that, in adulthood, racist perspectives can be seen … Continue reading
Early childhood education: Questioning play and child-centred approaches
Despite increasing awareness that culture and context shape our understandings and practices, there are still concepts in the early childhood discourse that we take for granted and don’t question as core tenets or principles. For example, we don’t generally interrogate or critique the idea that children learn through play, or the larger notion of ‘child-centered’ … Continue reading
