Seeking a ‘we’: Access policies to baby rooms for cultural and neurodivergent diversities in Chile

Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) has gained increasing relevance in advancing social justice. Since 2006, Chile has implemented a policy-expansion to broaden access to baby rooms, prioritising disadvantaged families as a means of contributing to this goal. Drawing on international reviews of access to ECEC and baby rooms, key factors have been identified that inform policy development and deepen the understanding of the complex entanglements surrounding access. This study adopts an intercultural, decolonial, radical anti-racist, and critical feminist approach to explore how cultural and neurodivergent diversities access baby rooms, and how forms of structural racism persist within Chile’s public provision system. In-depth interviews were conducted with directors and educators, along with group interviews with mothers or caregivers, across eight extreme cases of baby rooms inaugurated after 2006, reflecting different types of provision and geographical areas. The findings reveal decolonial and radical anti-racist practices that resist structural racism and highlight forms of pedagogical commitment and democratic transformation aimed at fostering an inclusive “we”, exemplified by food practices that resist monocultural norms.