Revolutionary Love: Early Childhood Education as Counter-Culture

Geoff Taggart
Additional contact information
Geoff Taggart: Institute of Education, University of Reading, Reading RG1 5EX, Berkshire, UK

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 8, 1-9

Abstract: This paper places the pedagogies of love and care which typify the early years of practice in the context of evolution, arguing that, during an optimum window of development, young children are predisposed physiologically to benefit from the attention of multiple alloparents. This anthropological model of community stands in stark contrast to the individualistic and privatised notion of love in neoliberal cultures, indicating reasons why practitioners may be ambivalent about it. Moreover, it is argued that, whilst the notion of care is easily commoditised, the deeper concept of love, contextualised within wisdom and faith paths, is resistant to the money culture. In looking beyond neoliberalism at counter-cultural alternatives, alloparenting traditions suggest a way in which ECEC settings can establish themselves as models of social sustainability rooted in ‘philia’ and mutuality.

Keywords: love; care; early childhood; sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/8/4474/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/8/4474/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:8:p:4474-:d:790031

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().