Early childhood studies in a polarised dystopia: Pedagogy as ethical leadership in education

Young children today face intergenerational inequality as a consequence of ecological, economic and humanitarian crises. ‘The future’ is characterised by unpredictability and insecurity. So how might early childhood education and care adapt to this dystopian global picture? This chapter explores the use of Levitas’s (2013) Utopia as Method in an Early Childhood Studies (ECS) undergraduate module that explicitly aims to engage students with future-oriented practice. This method sees students articulate characteristics of ‘the good life’ as seen by a variety of perspectives, including their own personal viewpoint and from the point of view of national policy, and synthesising these perspectives into a vision of childhood utopia. Students propose practicable and critical action to improve children’s experiences of childhood.
Predictably, students’ visions of childhood utopia frequently share common characteristics: a child-centred focus, active engagement with key people, community spaces and meaningful relationships. Predictably, too, students’ visions of the good life differ. This chapter analyses the various ways ‘ethics’ are brought into focus through the module. It addresses the compatibility and incompatibility of students’ respective constructions of the good life and how these might be resolved when we find ourselves to be poles apart in what constitutes our respective utopia. It also analysis the way in which students’ and tutors’ explorations of utopia suggest directions for the leadership of ECS in dystopian times.