Scatological Matters and a Politics of Care in Early Childhood

Background or Context: Early childhood education in the United States has increasingly abdicated its role in caregiving. A central argument we make in this article is that the separation of care from education in early childhood has shaped how caregiving routines unfold, with significant implications for how children—particularly children of Color attending predominantly white early childhood institutions—come to understand themselves and their social positions. We theorize this as part of a broader politics of care, which we define as the inequitable access to meaningful care practices in early childhood settings. Purpose, Objective, Research Question, or Focus of Study: In this work, we focus on data from a study set within an early childhood site that actively emphasized its status as a “school,” rather than as “childcare.” By foregrounding the site’s practices around a caregiving routine like toileting, we demonstrate how the institutional framing of care impacts children’s experiences and the formation of their social identities. Simultaneously, we discuss how one young child’s use of photography served as a form of resistance, enabling him to “talk back” to how institutional discourses around care and schooling positioned him. Research Design: This is a theoretical project that uses data to instantiate the theory. We first walk the reader through our theoretical and conceptual framework, which draws on the historical separation of care from education in the United States, as well as literature related to a politics of care in early childhood education. We then exemplify the theory through a study of one school’s caregiving practices and a child’s experiences with these practices. The research featured within this article utilizes a multiphasic process of image-based research with young children. Conclusions or Recommendations: This data highlights the power relations at play within tensions created by the care–education divide. Using disability studies in education and critical childhood studies together, we can see how, in moments where care is withheld, Oliver (the focal child) is racialized and simultaneously treated as more incompetent than other children. His race, gender, age, and body played a role in the ways school worked to contain him, both on the playground and in the bathroom.