Neoliberal policy agendas are shaping ECCE, focusing on school readiness, measurable learning outcomes, standardization, and accountability. In this policy world, curriculum is seen as pre-decided knowledge designed by outsiders, including experts from universities and other institutions not part of the school, and implemented by teachers, while families and the community are acknowledged as supportive agents. While much research has theorized parental involvement, community participation, culturally responsive pedagogy, and relational approaches in ECE, relatively little conceptual work theorizes the community itself as curriculum. In response to this conceptual gap, the article presents the Community-as-Curriculum Framework, stating that curriculum emerges through the relational, cultural, and democratic interactions of children, families, educators, and communities and not just externally imposed content. The study adopts a conceptual research design in this article. It undertakes an integrative conceptual analysis to synthesize insights from democratic education, critical pedagogy, relational pedagogy, Indigenous African Early Childhood Care and Education (IECCE), Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory, and recent literature on mutual aid and participatory democracy. Through this theoretical synthesis, the article shows that community is to be understood not just as a context of curriculum implementation, but rather its primary source, site, and purpose. Sources taken from community-managed early learning programs, the Indigenous early childhood care and education framework for Africa, the Community-Led Action for Children (CLAC) model, and the English Early Years Coalition show that community-based approaches can promote democratic participation, cultural continuity, shared responsibility, holistic child development, and more. The study presents a new conceptual framework that repositions children, families, educators, and communities as co-constructors of curriculum within interconnected ecological and democratic relationships. Reclaiming ECCE as a community-focused undertaking suggests an alternative means to an increasingly market-oriented and standardized method. Furthermore, it provides possibilities for future empirical research, policy innovation, and pedagogical invention.
Early Childhood Care and Education; community as curriculum; relational pedagogy; mutual aid; democratic education; Indigenous education; participatory democracy; curriculum theory.
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