Doing theory in early childhood educators: understanding difference and diversity in personal and professional contexts

This paper will provide an overview of the pedagogical practices we have developed over several years of teaching early childhood educators at the University of Western Sydney, Macarthur, to increase their awareness and understanding of difference, inequality, and social justice. Students are introduced to a range of theoretical contributions to explain difference and social inequities over the three semesters that they undertake the compulsory diversity and social justice subjects. The focus of this approach includes incorporating critical personal reflection as a framework from which students can begin to analyse and theorise the construction of their own attitudes and values towards difference. It provides the opportunity to explore the origins, maintenance, and changes in one's attitudes over time, and how this process is linked to the construction and perpetuation of power and inequality within a broader social context.