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ERIC Number: EJ1421054
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2024
Pages: 18
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1468-1366
EISSN: EISSN-1747-5104
Where Children Naturally Belong: Colonialism, Space, and Pedagogy in Waldorf Kindergartens
Hunter Knight
Pedagogy, Culture and Society, v32 n3 p835-852 2024
How do assumptions about where children naturally belong reinforce colonial productions of the human? This paper presents research from a study examining how North American Waldorf educators navigated the colonial legacies of common-sense understandings of childhood. I focus on the ideas about childhood that emerge in a belief that Waldorf kindergartens are ideal places for children. The pedagogical space of the Waldorf kindergarten is built on intuited assumptions about children being close to nature, family, and home. I bring together childhood studies and anticolonial theory to argue that these assumptions are not neutral or ahistorical, but instead originate in colonial stories of the human structured by settler geographies. This paper explores how relying on these assumptions ultimately meant that participants had to negotiate the racism and ableism embedded within their origins, illustrating larger implications for other educators who navigate dominant Western understandings of childhood that organise pedagogy and pedagogical spaces.
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education; Higher Education; Postsecondary Education; Early Childhood Education; Kindergarten; Primary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: North America
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A