Early Childhood Education: Postcolonial Perspectives from India

`[Early Childhood Education] will be very useful for psychologists, educators, sociologists and cultural anthropologists alike.... This book is a valuable addition both in the Indian and Western context... this is a very useful source provided by an "insider" of an alternative paradigm to be compared with ones with which they are more familiar' - Early Years

Two major strands make up the heart of this book. The first strand consists of a critical postcolonial examination of dominant discourses about young children, which reflect mostly Western knowledge and perspectives. The other strand consists of a detailed ethnographic description of the postcolonial lived experiences of young children and the adults who work with them in one school in urban India are. The multiple and multidimensional ways in which childhood is experienced is explored through such means as a review of current Indian and Western literature on young children, an examination of historical ideas about childhood in different cultures, and finally through the lens of postcolonial theory. All this suggests that while dominant discourses of childhood speak about protecting the interests of children, by not recognizing the complexity of diverse children's life experiences they continue to disempower and marginalize them.