CALL FOR PROPOSALS: 31st rece conference

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 Proposal 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!

Proposal Submission 

The deadline for submissions is March 3rd 2025. Proposals can only be submitted to the online portal through the RECE website beginning January 20th.   

Note: To facilitate the timely announcement of the conference program, there will be no deadline extension. Proposals will be reviewed by our international program committee and volunteer reviewers.

Your name may only appear on only one submission, to promote broad participation in the conference.

Proposal Guidelines

The 2025 RECE conference will include five types of sessions. All sessions can be presented in-person or online:

1. Themed panel proposals combine several papers by a self-organized group of presenters under a common theme. The panel papers relate to each other and encourage connection across individual presentations. We recommend that 3 papers be part of the panel proposals. 

Because they afford dialogue among the individual papers in a session, panel proposals are especially welcome. A themed panel can be delivered in multiple manners and we encourage innovative ways of presenting and engaging with the session attendees.

2. Individual papers. Individual papers will be programmed within sessions where authors present abbreviated versions of their papers for 20 minutes, followed by audience discussion. Each session will be scheduled for a 90-minute time slot, usually combining three individual papers. 

In consideration of RECE’s purpose as a community of scholarship, individuals must be attentive to the time allocation for presenting their work so that all members of a session have time to share their work. If including more than one speaker for your individual paper submission, the continuity and cohesiveness of the overall presentation needs to be maintained and that presentation may only use its allocated (20-minute) presentation time.  

3. Themed interactive workshop. RECE welcomes additional modes of presentation and scholarly engagement. This type of session would likely include a greater degree of attendee participation, interaction, and involvement than the two session types above. A themed interactive workshop could potentially focus on areas of activism, pedagogies, and current issues in early childhood for which “stand and deliver presentations” are not as well suited.  

This session will generally be scheduled for no more than 90 minutes. Please ensure you bring all the materials needed for your workshop to the session, as other material resources will not be available at the conference venue. It is also imperative that in planning for this session that time be allocated to returning the physical space to its original conferencing condition, including any rearrangement of furniture that may have been needed.

4. Works in Progress: These sessions (focussed on but not limited to emerging research by graduate students) provide opportunities for researchers to present their current research plans or develop proposals and receive formative feedback from others.

5. Performances and/or creative art sessions: We welcome innovative session formats that push the envelope of traditional conference sessions.

Proposals must strictly adhere to the word count limitations and preferably utilize 1.5 line spacing. All proposals must be submitted as a Word document.

Please include the following in your proposal:

1. Names, affiliations, addresses, and e‐mail addresses of all presenters
2. Brief title, capturing the primary focus, concern, or topic of the session
3. A one-line summary of the session
4. 3-5 Keywords
5. Indication of session type (themed panel, individual paper, themed interactive workshop, work in progress, or performance/creative arts session).
6. Indication of whether the session will be delivered in person or online. If online indicate your time zone.
7. Indication of provisions for involving audience participation, and format (PowerPoint, etc.)
8. Indicate if you want this proposal to be part of the Indigenous Caucus strand or the Policy Caucus Strand (which will be identifiable as ‘Indigenous’ and ‘Policy’ in the RECE conference proceedings with a silver fern or a book icon)
9. Abstract for inclusion in the conference program (100 words maximum)
10. Brief description of the session including the theoretical grounding of the session/paper, and its relevance to the theme and interests of the conference (500 words maximum without references)

The description should include content related to and will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• Significance of the topic/concern within RECE’s foci on research, theory, practice, policy, advocacy, and/or activism; how might the work affect change?
  
• Reconceptualizing/Critical perspective(s) and/or theoretical framework
  
• Broadly speaking:
• Reconceptualizing refers to work that challenges mainstream ideas regarding childhoods and learning; and discusses new imaginaries in theory and practice.  
• Critical perspective(s) refers to addressing privileged ways of knowing that create power for certain groups of people and oppress others.
• Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry described
  
• Warrants for arguments/point of view (e.g., How does the presenter justify or substantiate their findings/key points?)
  
•  Innovative delivery (where applicable)
  

You will be notified of the outcome of your proposal for presentations no later than May 15th.

Indication of whether “fast-track” reviewing is needed: Experience from prior conferences shows that participants from some countries may experience prolonged time getting visas to attend the conference in person. To facilitate in-person attendance where possible, we will review proposals with anticipated visa difficulties as fast as possible. Please indicate if you think this is needed.

For RECE 2025, should you choose to do so, section nine (the 100-word abstract) can be written in either the primary conference languages of English or Spanish or the authors’ primary language. Accepted presenters will have both versions (primary language and English or Spanish)  of their 100-word abstracts appear in the final online program. 

Due to the logistics of managing proposal reviews and program production, all other parts of the proposal must be written in English or Spanish.

Important Information

If you have any questions about this call for proposals or the theme of the RECE conference, please contact the Program Chairs Mara Sapon-Shevin or Mathias Urban. 

If you have any questions about securing a visa related to invitation letters for presenters and attendees at the RECE conference, please contact Maria Viviani.