Symbolic Violence in Early Childhood Education

This paper aims to analyse the practices of symbolic violence in ECE. Symbolic violence is an invisible violence that cannot be seen clearly without a critical and in-depth understanding of the person who experienced it (the victim). Symbolic violence often undetectable since it is recognized as something natural and must occurs. Symbolic violence comes about through internalized collective values, which have been assumed as the truth, proper, reasonable and are justified as a culture. Using Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic violence, this paper analyses the internalized collective values that led to symbolic violence in early childhood education settings.