Cultural Identity Agency: An Allyship for Recentering Culture & Identity with Children

Abstract

This article argues for a renewed educational commitment to allyship with children by centering culture, identity, and agency as fundamental rights. Drawing on theoretical, empirical, and autoethnographic evidence brings into conversation a critical examination of how contemporary schooling shaped by the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM) and neoliberal ideology, diminishes children’s cultural identities, agency, and full personhood.  To counter these reductive structures, the article introduces cultural identity agency, defined as the ability to maintain and sustain one’s cultural identity by resisting assimilation and colonizing practices. Rooted in the preservation of cultural identity, home language, and community knowledge, cultural identity agency extends beyond skill‑based or meritocratic notions of agency by centering culture, identity, and justice‑oriented learning design as essential components for children’s participation and empowerment. The article concludes by calling on educators to reimagine the image of the child as capable sense makers and to enact an allyship that sustains children’s cultural identities to rehumanize early learning environments.