ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿

Personal statement

Dr Shaddai Tembo is a Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood Studies at ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿. He is Programme Leader for the BA (Hons) Early Childhood Studies degree and for the University’s Pre-School Education joint-partnership programme with Hunan University of Humanities, Science and Technology (HUHST) in Hunan Province, China. He also serves as Undergraduate International Students Lead within the School of Education.

His research examines how early childhood education shapes experiences of subjectivity, identity, belonging and inequality. His work addresses race and racism, gender and heteronormativity, equity and social justice, with particular attention to the affective, material and relational dimensions of early childhood environments. He draws on sociomaterial and more-than-human theoretical perspectives to explore how children, educators, spaces, objects, routines and institutional conditions participate in the formation of everyday educational experience.

Shaddai completed his doctoral research at the University of the West of Scotland. His thesis, Affective Sociomaterialisation: An Inquiry into Early Childhood Subjectivities within Outdoor Early Childhood Provision in Scotland, UK, developed a sociomaterial account of how subjectivities emerge within early childhood environments. His research has been published in journals including the Journal of Early Childhood Research, Ethnicities and Emotion, Space and Society.

Between 2022 and 2024, Shaddai held Froebel Trust funding for Diversity in Unity: Developing an Anti-Racist Framework within Froebelian Pedagogy. This work examined the ways racial inequalities can emerge through children’s play and informed a practice guide for educators. His current work develops research and knowledge-exchange partnerships with practitioners, early childhood organisations and community groups concerned with anti-racist practice, belonging, social justice and equitable provision for young children and families.

Shaddai is Co-Chair of ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿’s Centre for Research in Equity, Inclusion and Community (CREIC), where he contributes to the development of interdisciplinary and community-partnered research. He is an expert advisor with the Bristol Early Years Forum for Anti-Racist Practice and is committed to forms of research that create meaningful opportunities for practitioner and community knowledge to shape questions, methods and outcomes.

He serves on the international advisory committee for the and the editorial board of . He is a trustee of the and involved in the the Men in the Early Years (MITEY) campaign. His wider professional service has included trusteeship of Early Education, advisory roles for research on ethnicity and the early years workforce, and involvement in work on gender diversification within early childhood education.

Alongside his university role, Shaddai works as an external speaker and consultant through . He has extensive experience of professional learning and development with early childhood educators, schools, charities and public bodies. Before entering higher education, he worked in a range of early years settings as a nursery practitioner. 

Shaddai welcomes enquiries concerning doctoral supervision, research partnerships, knowledge exchange, consultancy and commissioned research in early childhood studies, particularly in relation to race and racism, gender, identity, social justice, practitioner learning, sociomaterial approaches and more-than-human theory.

Academic qualifications

• PhD Education, University of the West of Scotland
• MSc Social Science Research Methods (Sociology), University of Bristol
• BA (Hons) Education: Early Years, ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿.

Professional memberships

• Early Education
• British Educational Research Association
• British Sociological Association.

Areas of expertise

• Social justice, equity and inclusion in early childhood education
• The social, cultural and political construction of childhood
• Subjectivity, identity, belonging and difference
• Race, racism and anti-racist practice in early childhood
• Gender, heteronormativity and masculinity in early childhood
• Alternative play environments and pedagogies
• Sociomaterial and more-than-human theories.