Abstract
This article revisits the widely used yet underexamined concepts of equity, inclusion and belonging in Australian early childhood education. Building on Sumsion and Wong's interrogation of ‘belonging’ in the original Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) for Australia V2.0, it traces how the concept has been taken up across policy, practice and scholarship, including EYLF V2.0 and contemporary work on care, book sharing and cultural responsiveness. It argues that these approaches, while well intentioned, often individualise belonging, obscure ongoing colonial relations and privilege Euro-Western, human-centred ontologies that normalise some children, families and places while marginalising others, particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and Country. In response, the article brings dominant constructions of belonging into dialogue with Indigenous and critical theoretical perspectives, including Aboriginal relational ontologies and decolonial pedagogies. Drawing on Indigenist research, Red Pedagogy and critiques of culturally responsive practice, it reimagines belonging as relational, place-based and more-than-human. Through illustrative pedagogical vignettes, the article considers what it might mean for educators to read-with texts, care-with assemblages and blog-with Place in accountable relationship with First Nations communities and sovereignties. In doing so, it offers conceptual and practical provocations for reconfiguring pedagogies of care, equity and belonging-with Country within early childhood education.
Keywords
Australia, belonging, Country, cultural responsiveness, decolonial pedagogies, diffraction, early childhood education, posthumanism
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of Publication
1-1-2026
E-ISSN
14639491
Publication Title
Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood
Publisher
Sage
School
Kurongkurl Katitjin / Centre for Indigenous Australian Education and Research
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Binns, A. J., & Jackson-Barrett, E. (2026). Belonging-with Country: Diffracting equity, inclusion and care in Australian early childhood education. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/14639491261484383