From ‘Marginality’ to ‘Mainstream’: A Narrative of Early Childhood Professionalism in Bangladesh

Abstract

Early childhood as a professional field with its concern for the young child has gained a distinctive perspective in Bangladesh. The prevailing thoughts and practices of this field, derived from a modern scientific paradigm, are a continuation of the trend that was introduced through colonization. The prime concern of practitioners is that children are marginal, therefore they need to be placed in the mainstream. Then, it is claimed, children will become the holders of rights, privileged and affluent. This article argues that this approach does not reveal knowledge of young children's situation ‘as it really is’. Rather, it provides twisted understandings of young children. Drawing on a postmodern perspective, the article proposes an alternative paradigm of efficient professionalism that is respectful of ‘little narratives' — local voices, diversity and the child's perspective — which is appropriate to the Bangladesh context and embraces openness. In order to make professional practices decolonized, this paradigm dismantles the colonial trend, challenges the professional approach's claim to be a transcendent form of knowledge and initiates the trend of understanding children in terms of their own circumstances.