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SJIEC 20th Annual Conference – Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathwater
When: Saturday 27th July 2024 Time: 9:00am – 4.00pm Where: Online and in person at Redfern Community Centre, 29-53 Hugo Street, REDFERN
The 2024 Program
Join The Anti-Bias Practice Network
This network is an opportunity for early childhood professionals across the country to come together in a supported and facilitated environment to explore and unpack the four anti-bias goals (2020). A copy of The Anti-Bias Approach in Early Childhood (4th edition) is recommended but not required for participation in this network. Books can be purchased at the Early Childhood Australia Shop
Over four live zoom workshops, your facilitators will support you to consider the meaning of each anti-bias goal as it fits within the context of your place and space. There are no wrong answers and no one person holds all the knowledge within this network. The experience is one of learning and collaborating with likeminded people.
Four live Zoom workshops hosted and facilitated by members of the SJIEC Foundation Board and SJIEC Emissaries
Reflective questions shared prior to the workshops
Opportunity to share learning, thinking and reflections with colleagues through break out rooms
This submission was prepared by the SJIEC Policy Group (Dr Red Ruby Scarlet, Stephen Gallen, Dr Rachel Chapman, Sarah Louise Gandolfo, Alistair Gibbs and Kate O’Hara-Aarons), with input from early childhood teachers, educators and allies in the field of education.
“Mardi Gras is just one festival that the LGBTIQA+ community celebrates, and though it is Sydney based, it is the biggest queer cultural event in Australia. All states and territories have Pride marches and festivals during the year, and inevitably you’ll see all of these festivals festooned with families coming together and celebrating queer culture. It’s a colour-fest for the eyes and a joy filled experience for those who create these events, participate in them, and, more recently, report on them. Still, there are many educators who think this festival shouldn’t be part of early childhood education.
At the same time, there are many committed and enthusiastic educators and teachers who are keen to celebrate LGBTIQA+ cultures but aren’t sure how or where to start. Their hesitation is possibly due to not recognising sexuality and gender diversity as ‘culture’, however, sexuality and gender diversity is very much cultural. So in the same way we work hard to authentically embed Aboriginal, ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversities into our everyday practice, gender and sexuality are both part of these cultural diversities, and cultural diversities in their own right.”