ABSTRACT
This article argues that incorporating theoretical conceptions of care into Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) programmes creates a foundation for achieving the effective inclusion of children with disabilities. Critical examinations of the origins of care theory and current conceptions of care are used to consider the differing valuation of autonomy and interdependence, the notion of care as a right, and understandings of care in the context of disability and education. The complexity of care, as well as the ways in which conceptions of care inform understandings of disability and influence practices of inclusion are taken up using some examples from Ontario’s ECEC contexts through a social justice and disability studies lens. This article presents an ethic of care as a viable tool for social justice in ECEC because it allows for a more comprehensive way of thinking about care. This reframing fosters the inclusion of children with disabilities in a way that recognises difference, values interdependence and reconceptualises what it means to be cared for and to care.
