Abstract:
This session explores conflicting accounts of educators' work around embedding Indigenous perspectives in two Australian urban childcare settings. Drawing on empirical data from a doctoral study that invited early childhood educators to participate in an action research process around embedding Indigenous perspectives, analysis focuses on conflicting accounts of productivity and inclusivity, and the reproduction of racialising practices in embedding processes in non-Indigenous educational sites. Action research is premised on action for change and transformative capacity. As a research-based approach to professional development, action research affords multiple entry points for practical, theoretical and ideological work, all of which are necessary for embedding Indigenous perspectives. Through action research, the educators and the researcher demonstrated evidence of embedding processes and outcomes that aligned with recommendations in early childhood education policy and that were classified "high quality" practices against regulatory standards. Despite good intentions and, at times, good outcomes, the researcher acknowledges through retrospective analysis that colonial discourses and power relations between non-Indigenous and Indigenous people in broader society were reproduced through the action research process, thus limiting claims to action for change. While resisting narratives of 鈥榞ood' early childhood education practice or 鈥榟appy stories of diversity' is discomforting, this session explores the necessity to examine how racialising practices are mobilised in professional practice and personal standpoint, even when approaches to embedding Indigenous perspectives are seen to be productive and inclusive. This analysis is timely given the national commitment to recognise the histories and cultures of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in educational practices, as outlined in the recently introduced Early Years Learning Framework and National Quality Standard for children aged Birth - 5 years, and the Australian Curriculum for formal schooling sites.