Culturally Sustaining and Humanizing Practice in Early Childhood Care and Education

This chapter aims to address what educators can do in early childhood care and education (ECCE) settings in terms of supporting the cultural development and self-image of all the children they serve. It presents two conceptual frameworks. The first, “humanizing practice, " builds on the work of Paulo Freire, who proclaimed, “To transform the world is to humanize it”. The second, “culturally sustaining pedagogy”, is what Ladson-Billings has termed “the remix” to her original and groundbreaking notion of culturally relevant pedagogy. The chapter proposes commitments that teachers can adopt and enact in their day-to-day practices with children in their classrooms. This list of commitments is an adaptation and extension of the “strategies and lessons for culturally responsive teaching” detailed in Roselle Chartock’s practical text and is by no means exhaustive. The chapter also provides examples for implementing the commitment in an early childhood classroom.