EECERA Conference 2025 – Guest Blog # 41: Anti-Racist Pedagogy in the Early Years

One of a series of short blog posts by presenters who will be sharing their work at the upcoming annual conference in Bratislava, Slovakia. Any views expressed in this post are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official stance of their affiliated institution or EECERA.

Anti-Racist Pedagogy in the Early Years: Whose Job Is It, Anyway?

By Dr Shaddai Tembo, on behalf of the Bristol Early Years Forum for Anti-Racist Practice (BEYFARP), founded by Erin Blessitt, Isabel Ruddick and Beth Wilkinson

Photo by Kalea on Unsplash

As demands for racial justice continue to expose the structural inequities embedded in education systems, the early years cannot be left out of the conversation. Achieving true inclusion and equality in early childhood education requires a serious engagement with anti-racist practice from the start. Yet in many settings, it is still seen as ‘too political’, ‘too divisive’, or ‘not relevant’ for our youngest children.

This blog introduces our EECERA 2025 paper, What White People Did Next: Insights on Building an Anti-Racist Early Years Forum. It reflects on the formation of BEYFARP, a community of early years educators who came together in response to the resurgent Black Lives Matter movement of 2020. Our paper explores how the forum was developed, what it offers, and why white and all educators must play an active role in building anti-racist futures for young children.

Understanding the landscape: whiteness and avoidance

White disengagement from anti-racism has a long history in the early years sector. Nearly two decades ago, Gaine (2005) captured the sentiment of many white-majority settings with the phrase, “We’re all white here, thanks”, which speaks to a refusal to see racism as relevant unless children or staff of colour are present. This reflects what Critical Race Theorists describe as racial liberalism (Mills, 2008): the facade of fairness without any effort to challenge the systems that produce racial inequity. In this context, racism is often understood as a matter of individual prejudice rather than structural power. Educators may express good intentions while continuing to reproduce inequalities through curriculum, environment, and everyday interactions.

These dynamics are compounded when white educators do engage but do so hesitantly or performatively. Ahmed (2004) describes this as the “non-performativity” of anti-racism. Emma Dabiri (2021) critiques allyship for similar reasons, arguing that it often centres white emotion rather than contributing to collective struggle. Instead, she proposes coalition as a mode of action rooted in shared political interests and mutual accountability.

Relational work

My own paper on liminal relationalities explores these complexities and the importance of genuine, vulnerable cross-racial collaboration (Tembo and Bateson, 2024). This framing helped me make sense of my decision to join the BEYFARP leadership team. I was not there to validate a white-led initiative or to speak on behalf of anyone. I was drawn to the forum as a space for relational praxis, one that resonated with the cross-racial collaboration I had explored previously. In that work, we caution against reproducing colonial dynamics that position Black colleagues as diversity placeholders and instead call for partnerships grounded in mutual vulnerability and the ongoing re-negotiation of power – what Dabiri (2021, p.147) describes as “a sense of mutuality rather than charity.” That same ethos shaped early forum conversations prior to me joining. As one of the founders reflected,

if you’ve got somebody that’s Black or brown and is willing to talk about their experiences, that’s great, but we can’t rely on that.

Building BEYFARP: a forum grounded in practice and politics

The Bristol Early Years Forum for Anti-Racist Practice began with the question of how white educators can move beyond one-off training and begin to embed anti-racism into their professional lives. Initially formed by three white women who had attended anti-racism training, the group later invited me to join to support the facilitation of sessions and deepen the forum’s critical foundation. Today, a model is in place that offers dialogic, practice-oriented support for early years educators across Bristol.

The forum meets three times a year, moving from reflection to practice and policy. Our aim is to develop both racial literacy and professional confidence to help participants recognise, talk about, and address race and racism in early years settings.

The forum emerged from a sense of shared responsibility and a desire to create something that could be both disruptive and supportive. In the early stages, Izzy, Erin and Beth were acutely aware of the pressures and priorities practitioners are juggling yet were also clear that this could not become a reason to sideline anti-racist practice. As is written in the paper:

We’re mindful of people’s priorities and juggling things, but also, we don’t just shy away saying, ‘oh, you’re busy, don’t worry.’

This balance has shaped how the forum operates. It recognises the realities of the sector while refusing to lower expectations for meaningful change. Clearly, educators in early years are under immense pressure, yet we believe this cannot be an excuse to avoid anti-racist action. We have developed what we call a “kick and cushion” approach, one that aims to challenge participants to think differently while also offering support and community.

Looking Ahead: A Call for Coalition

As we present this work at EECERA 2025, we are actively seeking to connect with colleagues across Europe who are interested in creating similar forums in their contexts. We want to build coalitions, networks of educators who are willing to learn together, act together, and stay in the work even when the wider public attention is on the wane. Please come and speak to us!

Dr Shaddai Tembo will present work referred to in this blog in Symposium Set D2 | Wednesday 27th August 2025 (Schedule liable to change; please refer to final programme for details).

References

Ahmed, S. (2004) ‘Declarations of Whiteness: The Non-Performativity of Anti-Racism’, Borderlands, 3.

Dabiri, E. (2021) What White People Can Do Next. Great Britain: Penguin Books.

Gaine, C. (2005) We’re all White, Thanks: the persisting myth about ‘white’ schools. Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books Limited.

Tembo, S. and Bateson, S. (2022) ‘Liminal relationalities: on collaborative writing with/in and against race in the study of early childhood’, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 37(2), pp. 530–544.

Tembo, S., Wilkinson, B., Blessitt, E., & Ruddick, I. (forthcoming). What White People Did Next: Insights on Building an Anti-Racist Early Years Forum. Journal for Childhood Education and Society.  

For more information please visit: https://www.bristolearlyyearsforumforanti-racistpractice.co.uk/