Bringing together scholarship and examples from practice, this book explores ways in which early childhood curriculum – including classroom practices and community contexts – can more actively engage with a range of social justice issues, democratic principles, and anti-oppressive practices.

List of Contributors Foreword [Cinthya Saavedra] Acknowledgements Series Introduction [Nicola Yelland] Introduction [Shirley Kessler and Beth Blue Swadener] Part I: Voices of Children, Teachers and Families 1. Immigrant Children in Arizona: Social Justice Implications for Education in the Borderlands [Angeles Maldonado, Beth Blue Swadener and Casey Khaleesi] 2. Countering Color-Blindness in Early Childhood Education: Elevating the Embodied Experiences, Perspectives, and Voices of Black Women Educators [Kia S. Rideaux and Michelle Salazar Pérez] 3. Children’s Voices and Gender Pedagogies for Equity In and Out of Early Childhood Classrooms [Kylie Smith] 4. Early Childhood Teacher Certification as a Site for the Re-Production of Racial and Cultural Injustice [Mariana Souto-Manning, Gail Buffalo, and Ayesha Rabadi-Raol] Part II: Social Justice in the Classroom: Democratic and Anti-bias Practices 5. Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Democratic Education in Early Childhood [Shirley A. Kessler] 6. "She doesn’t want to be a beautiful princess!": Language, Power, and Teaching for Democracy in the Early Childhood Classroom [Dana Frantz Bentley with Betty Chan] 7. Activism in their Own Right: Children’s Participation in Social Justice Movements [Lacey Peters] 8. The Cultural Politics of Childhood Education for Democracy in Reggio Emilia’s Servizi dell’Infanzia [Rebecca S. New] Part III: Way Forward: Stories of hope and possibility 9. Out and About: Practicing Hope through Research [Jeanne Marie Iorio and Clifton S. Tanabe] 10. "What’s Love Got To do?": Enacting the Beloved Community Through Early Childhood Education [Mara Sapon-Shevin] 11. Social Justice in Early Education and Child Care: "What Is" and "What Ought to Be?" [Marianne N. Bloch] 12. Equality and Democratic Education Evaluation: A Way Forward for Teachers [Shirley A. Kessler] Afterword [William Ayers]

"This is a very well-timed book in an age when democracy and institutions that are supposed to respect civil rights and social justice are undermined. With valuable knowledge and a critique of how neo-liberal policies have, in a subtle way, influenced young children and their families’ lives, the authors also offer significant examples of how early childhood educators may be able to work in a more just and ethical way for all." Gunilla Dahlberg, Professor Emerita, Department of Child and Youth Studies, Stockholm University"A most critical time for social justice in a person's life is during their early childhood years. Today, young children or their parental representative are denied recognition, economic fairness, and unhampered representation. Shirley Kessler and Beth Blue Swadener have assembled a distinguished international team of authors to illuminate a range of social, political, economic, and environmental justice issues and show how early childhood educators, researchers, and children themselves can play a role in confronting injustice. Besides being an eye-opening and engaging personal read, this book is one you’ll want your colleagues and students to read, too." Carl A. Grant, Hoefs Bascom Professor, University Wisconsin-Madison