Dark, Dark and Darker: Negotiations of Identity in an Early Childhood Setting

The importance of curriculum frameworks that emphasise social justice and counter the development of prejudice have been widely discussed in early childhood literature and inform the pedagogies in many early childhood settings. This article draws on some practitioner inquiry set in an inner-city long day care centre. As a group of educators, the practitioners (including the author) drew on ‘popular’ interpretations of developmental and anti-bias discourses to interact with young children around issues of identity. The author examines the way ‘identity’ is constructed as a (fixed) site of affirmation in these interpretations of curriculum. By drawing on post-colonial and post-structural theory, the author adopts a focus on the ways material differences between people were constructed and affirmed. This ‘post-colonial’ reading of the data reveals the constraining effects of curriculum frameworks for both staff and children at the centre. The author shows how the children strategically deployed a variety of identity constructs to slip through the gaps created by tensions between and within the developmental discourses and the advocacy discourses in operation. Finally, the implications of viewing ‘identity’ as a pedagogical site for negotiation rather than as a site of affirmation are discussed.