Shallwani, S. (June, 2008). Racism and imperialism in the child development discourse. Paper presented at the Biennial Convention of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, Chicago. Abstract: Knowledge in the human sciences in general, and in the study of the child in particular, is racialized. In this presentation, I argue that the knowledge base on ‘child development’ reflects and reproduces the White (modern imperial Western) subject. The three main aspects of my argument are as follows: (1) the dominant discourse on child development, dominated by the discipline of developmental psychology, is rooted in and carries out the goals of the modern Enlightenment project, which include the regulation of individual and multiple bodies (Foucault, 1975-76/2003, p. 242-243); (2) the dominant discourse on child development depends on colonial implications of ‘development’ to privilege imagined White civility (Coleman, 2006, p. 10) and produce the Western imperial subject; and (3) the dominant discourse on child development rests on particular imagined notions of a ‘We’ – the (inter)national subject who, even in the rhetoric of inclusion, has the power to locate difference in and exclude the racialized ‘Other’ (Ahmed, 2000, p. 97). The text I use as an empirical example is the official position statement of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC, 1997), found in the guidebook entitled: Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs (S. Bredekamp & C. Copple, 1997). This text is a typical example of the dominant child development discourse, and is highly influential in the design, development, and evaluation of programs, curricula, and pedagogical practices with young children, both in North America and around the world. Through the deconstruction of this text, I argue that the dominant discourse on child development reflects and furthers the goals of the modern Enlightenment project including social regulation, privileges imagined White civility and aims to reproduce the Western imperial subject, and rests on particular imagined notions of ‘We’ and the ‘Other’.

1. Racism and Imperialism in the
Child Development Discourse
Sadaf Shallwani, SPSSI Convention, Chicago, June 27, 2008
Shallwani, S. (June, 2008). Racism and imperialism in the child
development discourse. Paper presented at the Biennial Convention of the
Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, Chicago.
Contact: Sadaf Shallwani, Department of Human Development and
Applied Psychology, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education / University
of Toronto. http://sadafshallwani.net

2. Knowledge is racialized
Racism: as a means of ‘separating out the
groups that exist within a population’
(Foucault, 1975-76/2003, p. 255)
Scientific knowledge is ‘racialized’ in the
way it normalizes, hierarchizes, and
includes/excludes certain groups of
humans (Goldberg, 1993)

3. Overview
Example text: NAEYC Position Statement
Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early
Childhood Programs (Bredekamp & Copple,
1997)

4. Overview
Child development discipline’s role in
modernity’s social regulation
‘Child development’ as the production of
the Western imperial subject

5. Overview
Child development discipline’s role in
modernity’s social regulation
‘Child development’ as the production of
the Western imperial subject

6. Child development’s role in modernity’s
social regulation
Modern Enlightenment project: objective
scientific knowledge and social regulation
Child development discourse: rooted in and
reflective of modernity

7. Child development’s role in modernity’s
social regulation
Social regulation and engineering – state
power (Foucault)
Technologies: Dividing, hierarchizing,
normalizing
Overall rule: the ‘norm’

8. Child development’s role in modernity’s
social regulation
Foucault: management of ‘childhood’
Child development discipline monitors and
regulates childhood

9. Child development’s role in modernity’s
social regulation
Child development discipline monitors and
regulates:
the bodies and spaces with which children
interact, and
children themselves.

10. Child development’s role in modernity’s
social regulation
Child development discipline monitors and
regulates:
the bodies and spaces with which children
interact
early childhood environment
early childhood caregivers/teachers
children themselves

11. Child development’s role in modernity’s
social regulation
Child development discipline monitors and
regulates:
the bodies and spaces with which children
interact
children themselves
dividing practices
observing and training bodies to be ‘useful and docile’

12. Overview
Child development discipline’s role in
modernity’s social regulation
‘Child development’ as the production of
the Western imperial subject

13. ‘Child development’ as the production of
the Western imperial subject
Power is constitutive and productive
(Foucault, 1977/1984)
Child development discourse aims to
produce the modern imperial Western
subject

14. ‘Child development’ as the production of
the Western imperial subject
Notion of ‘development’ as ‘progress’
Developing a sense of ‘Self’ vs. ‘Other’

15. ‘Child development’ as the production of
the Western imperial subject
Normalizes and prescribes development of
the rational scientist,
the conquering explorer,
the citizen of democracy, and
the member of a capitalist market economy.

16. ‘Child development’ as the production
of the Western imperial subject
Normalizes and prescribes development of
the rational scientist
dependence-attachment and irrationality to
independence-detachment and rationality
separateness and discovery
the conquering explorer
the citizen of democracy
the member of a capitalist market economy

17. ‘Child development’ as the production
of the Western imperial subject
Normalizes and prescribes development of
the rational scientist
the conquering explorer
exploration and achievement, ‘frontier’ language
the citizen of democracy
the member of a capitalist market economy

18. ‘Child development’ as the production
of the Western imperial subject
Normalizes and prescribes development of
the rational scientist
the conquering explorer
the citizen of democracy
self-regulating and other-regulating
the member of a capitalist market economy

19. ‘Child development’ as the production
of the Western imperial subject
Normalizes and prescribes development of
the rational scientist
the conquering explorer
the citizen of democracy
the member of a capitalist market
economy
entrepreneurs
consumers with choices and preferences

20. Child development:
A socially constructed disciplinary discourse
All knowledge is socially constructed
Disciplinary discourses reflect the social
contexts in which they evolve
Knowledge production can be racialized in
the way it categorizes, normalizes, and
hierarchizes groups of humans