Social, cultural, and ecological justice in the age the Anthropocene: A New Zealand early childhood care and education perspective

This an important article that addresses our continued need to implement ethical pedagogies across all our curriculum. We can look to Te Whāriki (Early Childhood curriculum) as the document that contains the greatest vision and promise in the enactment of the process of de-colonisation. It addresses the fact that as educators we have a moral and ethic responsibility to address the imbalance of privilege, wealth and inequity. “This can be done through localised educational programmes that enable children (and families) to engage with local histories and ecologies, fostering a deep sense of connection to their locality, whilst learning how to maintain the delicate balances that sustain life on our planet (Greenwood, 2008, 2013).

Educators have an ethical responsibility to uphold the wellbeing of the children, families and communities that they serve.

This commitment becomes even more pressing as we move into the era of the Anthropocene, where human induced climate changes are disrupting the planet's systems, threatening the survival of not only humans, but of eco-systems and the earth's biodiversity. This paper draws upon examples from Aotearoa (New Zealand) to demonstrate ways in which a critical pedagogy of place informed by local traditional knowledges can inform early childhood education whilst also enhancing dispositions of empathy towards self and others, including more-than-human others.