Caring About Care

Caring About Care is a 3-year research project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). We’re a team of researchers from Ryerson University, Brock University and the University of Manitoba. Our goal is to enhance dialogue and debate about care in early childhood education politics, policy, and practice in Canada. We seek to unsettle conventional, universalized notions of care in early childhood education.

Caring About Care

This website was created at Ryerson University which acknowledges that it is located in the “Dish With One Spoon Territory. The Dish With One Spoon is a treaty between the Anishinaabe, Mississaugas and Haudenosaunee that bound them to share the territory and protect the land. Subsequent Indigenous Nations and peoples, Europeans and all newcomers have been invited into this treaty in the spirit of peace, friendship and respect.” Our thinking about and research on care in early childhood education has been undertaken in solidarity with Indigenous peoples of Canada who always already make relationality central to ways of thinking and being in interconnected worlds.

Research Foundations

How is care & care work currently understood?

Why is Care & Care Work Undervalued?

What is Ethical & Feminist about Care?

Shattering Myths

In our research, we use feminist ethics of care theories to unpack common misconceptions about early childhood educators’ practices and to capture the complexities and challenges of caring for young children. We’ve identified some common myths about the role that care plays in early childhood education.