An expert in early years EDUCATION AND CARE
LECTURER, WRITER, SPEAKER, TRAINER, CONSULTANT, TRUSTEE AND FORMER PRACTITIONER.
WHO?
I am Shaddai Tembo (pronounced “Shad-eye”), an expert in early childhood education and care.
I focus on children’s experiences from birth to school age as a lecturer, writer, speaker, trainer, consultant, and trustee.
WHAT?
I founded Critical Early Years to connect with the sector through training and consulting.
I focus on equality and inclusion, including anti-discrimination, anti-racism, and social justice
WHY?
I believe a key way to tackle social issues is to focus on early childhood.
This means recognising the power that we, as educators, can have in supporting young children to flourish without constraint.
Biography
Current
Shaddai is a senior lecturer in Early Childhood Studies (UK and China) at Bath Spa University and an associate lecturer at the Open University.
Shaddai is an Fellow (FHEA) and has completed the Diversifying Leadership programme with AdvanceHe.
They are on the editorial board for Gender and Education journal and contribute toward the academic peer-review process.
Shaddai is also a trustee for the Fatherhood Institute, the UK’s leading think tank on fatherhood, and part of the steering group for the MITEY campaign which aims to celebrate, support and increase the numbers of men working in early childhood.
Shaddai is currently involved as an advisor with the Bristol Early Years Anti-Racist Practice Forum. They are also a 'thought leader' for the Family Music Hub.
Past
Shaddai has published papers with the Journal of Early Childhood Research, Ethnicities, and Emotion, Space and Society.
He completed his PhD in 2022 at UWS. Shaddai received an MSc in Social Science Research Methods (Sociology) from the University of Bristol. His undergraduate is a BA (Hons) Education: Early Years from Bath Spa University.
Between, 2018-2022, Shaddai was formerly a trustee for Early Education, a national charity supporting practitioners with training, resources and professional networks, and campaigning for quality education for the youngest children.
Shaddai was part of the systematic review advisory panel for the Froebel Trust funded study Froebelian Leadership in Early Years and was part of the advisory group for the BERA funded study, ‘Ethnicity and the Early Years Workforce’. He was on the steering group for the ESRC funded study 'Gender Diversification in Early Years Education’.
Shaddai also co-convened the Scottish Educational Research Association (SERA) Early Years Network between 2018-2022. In October 2018, Shaddai featured on the BME Power List, showcasing Bristol's 100 most influential BME people.
He was on the leadership team for the Bristol Men in Early Years (BMIEY) Network for over three years. This is role involved networking with others both in the UK and further afield in Europe toward creating a cohesive voice around tackling the gender imbalance in the early years.
Shaddai’s experience working in the early years is varied, most recently he was part of the family support team within a children’s centre in central Bristol. He has worked as an early years practitioner in a range of PVI nurseries. During his time studying at the University of Bristol Shaddai was a community liaison ambassador.
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Date descending. Includes contributions and features.
Tembo, S., Dujczynski, M., & Sakr, M. (2024). ‘Maybe that makes a difference actually’: Attuning to praxis for anti-racist social justice leadership among nursery school head teachers in the UK. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 0(0).
Tembo, S., & Bateson, S. (2024). Skin deep: A review of early childhood policy affordances for anti-racist practice in England and Scotland. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 0(0).
Tembo, S., & Bateson, S. (2024). Before race: A literature review on de/colonial habits in play within early childhood. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/1476718X241241142
Tembo, S. (2023) End discriminatory practices and prioritise meaningful inclusion. Early Education Journal No 101 - An agenda for the future. Available here
Benham, F. and Tembo, S. (2023) Heteronormativity in early childhood: part two. Available here (Accessed 27 June 2023).
Tembo, S. and Bentham, F. (2023) ‘Chapter 10: Gender and LGBTQ+ Inclusive Practice in Early Childhood’ in Nutbrown, C. (eds) Early Childhood Education: Current realities and future priorities. London. Sage.
Tembo, S. (2022) Affective Sociomaterialisation: An Inquiry into Early Childhood Subjectivities within Outdoor Early Childhood Provision in Scotland, UK., University of the West of Scotland [Online] Available here (Accessed: 02 Jan 2023).
Heywood, S. and Adzajlic, B. (2022) Challenging Gender Stereotypes in the Early Years. London. Routledge. (I contributed toward a section on men in the early years)
Sakr, M. and Tembo, S. (2022) Ethnicity and the early years workforce in maintained nursery schools across England. Available here (Accessed 10 Oct 2022)
Benham, F. and Tembo, S. (2022) Heteronormativity in early childhood. Available here (Accessed 10 Oct 2022).
Tembo, S. (2022) Affective sociomaterialisation: An inquiry into early childhood subjectivities within outdoor early childhood provision in Scotland, UK. Available here (Accessed 10 Oct 2022).
Thomas, A. (2022) Representation Matters. London: Bloomsbury (I contributed a 1000-word section on racism in the early years).
Tembo, S and Bateson, S. (2022) ‘Liminal relationalities: on collaborative writing with/in and against race in the study of early childhood.’ International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. Available here
Petrie, C. (2022) When should my child start doing chores? When they’re two, is the surprising answer from the experts. Available here
Tembo, S. (2021). ‘Bodies out of place: Affective encounters with whiteness.’ Emotion, Space and Society. Availahle here
Tembo, S. (2021). More work to do: thinking through equalities with young children in Scotland. Play is the Way. S. Palmer. Paisley, CCWB Press: 186-196.
Gaywood, D., Collies, S., Tembo, S., Hutchin, V., and Bradbury, A. (2021) Developing a positive sense of self. Available here (Accessed 10 Oct 2022).
Dinnie, K. (2021) The MITEY UK and other methods: how to get more men to join the EYFS: An Interview with Early Education Expert Shaddai Tembo. Available here Accessed 10 Oct 2022)
Latto, L. and Tembo, S. (2022) Posthumanism in Early Childhood: Implications for Practice. Available here (Accessed 10 Oct 2022).
Tembo, S. (2020). "Black educators in (white) settings: Making racial identity visible in Early Childhood Education and Care in England, UK." Journal of Early Childhood Research 19(1): 70-83. Available here
Tembo, S. (2020). "‘Hang on, she just used that word like it’s totally easy’: Encountering ordinary racial affects in early childhood education and care." Ethnicities. Available here
Pemberton, L. and Tembo, S. (2020) Foregrounding racial equalities in the Birth to 5 Matters guidance. Available at: https://www.criticalearlyyears.org/writing/2020/12/14/foregrounding-racial-equalities-in-the-birth-to-5-matters-guidance-dec-20. (Accessed 10 Oct 2022).
Nursery World. (2020) What does the early years sector want for the coming year?. Available here (Accessed 10 Oct 2020)
Russell, MJ., (2020) Nursery Management: Diversity - In the minority. Available here (Accessed 10 Oct 2020)
Tembo, S. (2018) We need to talk about racism. Available here (Accessed 10 Oct 2022).
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Affective sociomaterialisation: an inquiry into early childhood subjectivities within outdoor early childhood provision in Scotland, UK
In a nutshell, my thesis examines how children’s identities are formed and can be formed otherwise through different ways of knowing about how our human relation to material environments.My doctoral thesis is available to download from the British Library (or on ResearchGate). It was completed 2018-2022 at the University of the West of Scotland.
The aims of this thesis:
1. To advance a sociomaterial metaphysics toward understanding children’s identity in-formation
2. To examine the potential for outdoor early childhood environments to facilitate thinking otherwise beyond determinising identity formations.
3. To evaluate how a sociomaterial metaphysics toward understanding children’s identity formation can assist future learning and teaching.Abstract below:
“This doctoral thesis examines the formation of children’s subjectivities, related to the metaphysical conditions of being and becoming a subject, within fully outdoor early childhood provision in Scotland. The role of outdoor play provision has been made central in recent years by the Scottish Government as part of the broader expansion of Early Learning and Childcare (Scottish Government, 2017a; Scottish Government, 2017b; Education Scotland, 2019c; Scottish Government, 2020a). This enhanced focus raises questions around how children form their subjectivities in such spaces and how this may differ from what is known about subjectivity within conventional indoor provision.
Further, while the existing knowledge base on subjectivity in childhood is derived mainly from the intellectual progress made through the fields of social constructionism (Foucault, 1978), performativity theory (Butler, 2004; 2006; 2011) and developmental psychology (Piaget, 1948; 1957), concerns have been raised regarding the extent to which such frameworks may give primacy to the human, and the logics of humanism, over and above the non-human world (Barad, 2007; Dolphijn and Tuin, 2012; Braidotti, 2013). Such concerns warrant special attention in relation to entirely outdoor environments, where these approaches may underplay the significance of ontological and ontogenetic matters that contribute toward the formation of subjectivity.
This study applies a sociomaterial metaphysical framework to propose an alternative way of understanding how subjectivities come to form in early childhood environments, bringing together Spinozist (2002) monism and insights from process philosophy (Massumi, 2002) in relation to Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) concepts of the assemblage and affect. Methodologically, a ethnographic approach, inspired partly from the postqualitative field of scholarship, is employed to gather data on children’s subjectivities at Wood Fire, a fully outdoor early childhood setting.
The findings of this study reveal the novel materiality and relationality of fully outdoor early childhood provision through which subjectivities are in-formed, and also point toward the ways that social and cultural determinacies continue to affectively orientate children’s desires in the absence of clearly demarcated material spaces. Thus, these findings a demonstrate more expanded understanding of how we, humans, are produced as individuals in specific encounters through processes of ‘affective sociomaterialisation’. Through the presentation of data in textual, visual and cinematic modes, practitioners are encouraged to re-evaluate the role of outdoor provision through a sociomaterial metaphysics that challenges conventional knowledges about how children’s subjectivities are formed. Practically, this carries implications for how the materiality of outdoor environments is understood to contribute to the child’s sense of self on more expansive terms.”
To cite: Tembo, S. (2022) Affective Sociomaterialisation: An Inquiry into Early Childhood Subjectivities within Outdoor Early Childhood Provision in Scotland, UK., University of the West of Scotland [Online] Available here (Accessed: 02 Jan 2023).
Please get in touch directly if you’re not able to access the thesis via the link.
What is affective sociomaterialisation?
This is an original term used within this thesis. It is intended to describe the process through which subjectivity is produced on the basis of the sociomaterial framework that I advance. Affective sociomaterialisation denotes a more expansive way of understanding subjectivity, compared to conventional theoretical frameworks, insofar as it incorporates ontogenetic as well as epistemological knowledges.
