‘We don’t teach race here’: race-silenced pedagogies of Trinidadian preschool teachers

Abstract

ABSTRACT Much of the educational literature highlights the importance of teaching young children about the value of diversity in relation to fostering positive social–emotional skills and well-being. In the Trinidadian context, while ample work addresses the prevalence of racism, far less research has investigated the racial socialization practices of Caribbean teachers in general and Trinidadian teachers in particular. The present qualitative study investigated how Indo-Trinidadian teachers addressed children’s racial awareness, cultivated racial pride in young children and enacted anti-racist pedagogies. Findings revealed that teachers did not engage in explicit racial socialization; and the lack of anti-racist/anti-colonial pedagogy was strongly linked to teachers’ professional and personal identities; as well, it appeared that context-specific race relations inform educator’s conceptual understandings of race and its relevance to their teaching practice. The article concludes with suggestions for a decolonized early childhood education model for the Trinidadian context.