CONFERENCE THEME AND INFORMATION

As this is the first RECE conference in South America, and to honor the connection to place and context, the 31st RECE conference will be collaboratively co-constructed in both English and Spanish. Sessions will be presented in either or both languages, and every effort will be made for accessibility. Participants will be encouraged to interact, learn, and grow in the Chilean context as much as possible.

We view with alarm the rise of authoritarian educational policies worldwide that manifest in various ways. These policies are often designed to consolidate state control, restrict critical thinking, and suppress dissent. These practices are becoming globally prevalent and are impacting early childhood education. They include:

Centralized curriculum control, legislative interference in higher education, and bureaucratic oversight undermine educational freedom by imposing rigid, state-approved curricula that promote nationalist ideologies, glorify ruling parties, and erase historical atrocities. Such systems suppress minority languages and cultures, restrict critical pedagogy, rewrite history to obscure inconvenient truths, and enforce standardized assessments and staffing limits. Additionally, surveillance of classrooms stifles free expression, while repressive regimes perpetuate gender discrimination by limiting women's and girls' access to education.

Early childhood education in Chile and other countries in South America reflects a colonial legacy perpetuated through neo-colonial trajectories of knowledge. Policies shaped by neoliberal rationales emphasize efficiency and standardization, aligning with Chile’s historical reliance on Eurocentric models like Frobelian and Montessorian pedagogies, which prioritize universal over locally contextualized approaches. The professionalisation of ECE further extends these colonial logics, narrowly defining educators’ roles through standards, while marginalising their agency and silencing Indigenous and community-rooted perspectives.

Scholars thinking and writing with ‘theories from the south’ point to old and new ‘epistemological exclusions’ as powerful mechanisms of persistent colonial impositions. They demand allyship and solidarity across ‘abyssal lines’ of global south/north divides and invite necessary engagement with majority world thinking and practice in early childhood development, education, and care. Such alliances are necessary as we must–and can–resist and counter restrictive and oppressive practices and policies at every level. In order to create a future that has children at the center, and respects the rights, dreams, and ambitions of their families and communities, we need a strong vision of what that would look like. 

What would education at every level (community education, classroom pedagogy, teacher education, curriculum design, and educational policy) look like? How can we move beyond token expressions of hope and technocratic fantasies of early childhood education as ‘investment’, and panacea for crises rooted in failed global capitalism? How do we ensure children’s rights as we move to action? 

The Latin American saying “donde las papas queman’ (where the potatoes burn) speaks to a critical or intense moment when removing the burning potatoes requires skill and urgency.

In the context of this conference, “Donde las papas queman” is about stepping into action where the challenges are urgent and critical. A decolonized framework demands we prioritize those directly impacted, moving beyond symbolic gestures to enact systemic changes. 

Decolonizing our thinking and practices requires humility and determination. It means acknowledging the historical and ongoing injustices faced by children and communities, particularly those most excluded from traditional systems of power. Just as removing potatoes from the fire requires care and precision, addressing these issues involves deliberate, community-centered action that respects local knowledge, fosters collaboration, and prioritizes the lived experiences of those directly impacted.

Possible Topics

• Reimagining early childhood education through decolonized pedagogies (Integrating Indigenous knowledge systems into early learning frameworks, moving beyond Eurocentric models in curriculum and assessment)
  
• Community-driven models of early childhood education and care (families and local communities participation in educational decision-making, addressing systemic inequities through local-level initiatives)
  
• Anti-racism in childhood education (developing practices that challenge inequities in early childhood, creating anti-racist policies in schools and care settings)
  
• Decolonizing professional development in early childhood education (rethinking teacher education to include diverse, non-Western perspectives, transforming the colonial legacy in early childhood training programs, community capacity initiatives)
  
• Climate justice and sustainability in early childhood education (the interconnection of environmental and social, justice from ECE, exploring the links between sustainability education, Indigenous knowledge, economic model, and social/cultural justice)
  
• Decolonizing research in early childhood (community-based participatory research, resisting extractive methods and emphasizing reciprocal methodologies that position children at the center)
  
• Decolonizing data: reclaiming the right to count what counts, and to measure what matters to address local and global inequity and injustice
  
• Centering the voices of marginalized children and communities: Creating spaces for children and families/communities to share their lived experiences, listen to their narratives, and consider them for decision and policy-making.
  
• Creating new forms of early childhood leadership (collective, democratic, non-technocratic) that position early childhood education and care as a profoundly ethical, political, and rights-based project of justice and equity in local and global contexts of diversity, uncertainty, and polycrisis.
  
• Imagining just and equitable ways of resourcing and funding early childhood education
  

With a focus on context-specific / community-based knowledge and pedagogies, the conference emphasizes the need to move beyond naive notions of hope, toward concrete actions that ensure children’s rights, agency, and well-being are at the center of decision-making, honoring children as agents of their own present and future.

For the 31st conference, we invite proposals that take up this ethical imperative of justice for young children, families, and communities. We welcome proposals from early childhood educators, teachers, scholars, researchers, and activists that explicitly address the theme of the conference, as well as proposals that address ongoing visions of RECE, including (but not limited to) those which:

• are developed participatorily;
  
• challenge Western hegemonic thinking about early childhood education
  
• prioritize actions for change at any level 
  
• employ principles of data justice;
  
• value community wisdom and history and include multiple voices
  
• utilize assets-based and justice-oriented approaches;
  
• address conditions that construct barriers to opportunities and equitable access;
  
• deconstructing  the interconnectedness of in/justice issues and/or systems of oppression;
  
• expand and traditional notions of what research is or might be;
  

We seek to develop a constellation of possibilities!