Anna Kirova

This presentation draws upon the findings in a study of early childhood teacher education (ECTE) programs in three social contexts: a workplace-embedded program for immigrant/refugee educators in Canada, a university-based ECTE program in Namibia, and a partnership between a Colombian Misak indigenous community and a local university to deliver community-based courses for educators. Framed by critical pedagogy, the study considered the extent to which teacher educators and their students adhered to aspects of the dominant Euro-American global view, as reflected in their country’s ECE policy and practice, or integrated that knowledge with indigenous views stemming from their home cultures. The study used ethnographic methods to undertake fieldwork in teacher education classrooms and early childhood programs at the three sites. Qualitative data were collected in the form of documents, field notes, semi-structured interviews, focus groups/meetings, emails, and informal conversations. The findings illumine various tensions between the local understandings and global ideas, such as understandings of early socialization, curriculum content, pedagogical approaches and tools, and language.

Using the case of Bulgarian Roma—Europe's largest, poorest, and most discriminated against group—this chapter examines how educational institutions and, more specifically, teachers can plan for and support marginalized Roma students during and after the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting socioeconomic calamities. It identifies educator-initiated strategies to support Roma students' learning in times of a major health crisis that can be identified as emergent teacher leadership. The study found that participants went beyond their educator duties through a series of leadership practices, such as collaborative improvement of practice, nurturing a culture of success, and taking actions to break down barriers. The teachers described a complex picture of socioeconomic and digital gaps, showing that teacher leadership emerged during the pandemic as an approach to tackling structural problems such as poverty and discrimination through employing adaptive leadership.

For six months, youth from a diverse cross-section of schools across Canada worked on a curriculum project aimed at addressing issues of injustice and inequality facing First Nations children in Canada. Youth came together to collaborate, through the use of technology, to discuss the youths’ vision of justice for First Nations children as well as possible avenues of advocacy to ensure justice and equity. As part of a a decolonizing project that calls for “epistemic disobedience and delinking from the colonial matrix [of power] in order to open up decolonial options” (Mignolo, 2011, p. 9), this project holds potential to decenter mainstream notions of how to ensure justice and equity for First Nations children and simultaneously open new ways of taking up education for reconciliation that attempt to place Indigenous knowledges, traditions and cultures at the centre of our learning. This panel presentation will bring together youth, teachers, and researchers involved with the project ...

Abstract This comparative and qualitative study-in-progress focuses on two early childhood teacher education (ECTE) programs in contexts where the participants are undergoing rapid social and personal change: a program in Namibia and a training program for immigrant childcare educators in Canada. The objective is to provide in-depth understanding of the ways in which differing ideas about ECTE are reflected in practice. It is important to ensure that ECTE programs prepare teachers to dovetail children’s preparation for school with meaningful connections to the culture and language of the home community, since more and more children spend their preschool years in early childhood (EC) centers that are becoming increasingly westernized in character. Without such connections, children in settings undergoing rapid change will continue to drop out of school before literacy and other skills are firmly established. The data will stem from analysis of early childhood care and education and ECTE curricula; policy and other documents; focused observations in ECTE classrooms and teaching practica; and interviews with teacher educators, education officers, teachers, parents, and community leaders. The results are expected to illuminate issues and strategies which are most likely to be effective for ECTE programs, with implications for teacher education in a range of settings in both the majority and minority worlds.

ABSTRACT This article has three objectives. First, it examines critical discourses in the academic literature on multicultural education that point to the major conceptual flaws in multicultural education theory that led to practices that have achieved effects opposite to the intent of the Canadian Multiculturalism Act. Second, it identifies some of the suggestions being made in the context of the "post-multiculturalism" discourse on how to overcome these flaws in multicultural education theory and practice. And, third, it discusses some possible implications of the key findings of the review for multicultural education. Current multicultural education practices in Canada based on ethno-racial distinctions (i.e., curricula essentializing knowledge about "Other" cultures and celebrating them) have not contributed to the elimination of racism nor the unequal treatment of minority non-White students, nor have they led to the critical examination of the dominant White, middle-class Eurocentric culture. However, the review also demonstrates that the complexity of the issues identified as problematic within multicultural theory and practice makes it difficult to formulate a unified multicultural education mission that speaks to the multiplicity of identities, fluidity of culture, negotiation of power in the cultural space, and the new politics of difference based on universal dignity and equality. It is even more difficult to organize and implement such a mission especially in the absence of a federal multicultural education policy. Suggestions as to how provincial ministries of education might use the identified shifts in the meaning of culture, cultural difference, cultural identities, citizenship, and civic and national identities are provided. Résumé: Cet article poursuit trois objectifs : en premier, nous y examinons les discours critiques dans les publications universitaires qui relèvent les défauts conceptuels majeurs dans la théorie de l'éducation multiculturelle et une mise en pratique qui a atteint des résultats opposés à ceux visés par la Loi sur le multiculturalisme canadien. Deuxièmement, nous signalons quelques suggestions parmi celles proposées dans le contexte du discours « post- multiculturel » sur la manière de surmonter ces défauts dans la théorie en question et son application. Et en troisième lieu, nous nous arrêtons à quelques implications possibles des découvertes cruciales qui découlent de cet examen critique de l'éducation multiculturelle. La conduite actuelle de cette dernière au Canada s'appuie sur des distinctions ethno-raciales (par exemple, des programmes scolaires portant essentiellement sur la connaissance des cultures de l'« Autre » et sur leur célébration) et elle n'a contribué à éliminer ni le racisme, ni le traitement inégal de la minorité des étudiants non-blancs; elle n'a pas non plus mené à un examen critique de la culture dominante blanche et eurocentrée de la classe moyenne. Cependant, cette recension prouve aussi que la complexité des questions identifiées comme posant problème au sein même de la théorie multiculturelle et de sa mise en pratique, rend difficile la formulation d'une mission concernant une éducation ad hoc unifiée qui puisse s'adresser à la multiplicité des identités, à la fluidité des cultures, à la négociation du pouvoir dans le domaine culturel et aux nouvelles politiques fondées sur la dignité et l'égalité universelles. Il est particulièrement encore plus difficile d'organiser et de remplir une telle mission en l'absence d'une politique fédérale en éducation multiculturelle. Cet article offre enfin des suggestions sur la manière dont les ministères provinciaux en éducation pourraient se servir des mutations identifiées dans les concepts de culture, de différence et d'identités culturelles, de citoyenneté et d'identités civiques et nationales.

Starting with the research question ‘What is the role of play as a means of genuine inclusion of home language and cultural traditions in an intercultural early learning programme?’, the article focuses on the role of cultural artefacts in a programme in which the majority of the children were refugees from Africa. The sociocultural theory of learning of Vygotsky and the activity theory of Leontiev provided the theoretical framework for the study. From a sociocultural perspective, materials are cultural objects within the social context and their use and functions are adaptive, depending on the activities that are also social. By engaging in these habitual activities and interactions, children become a part of their cultural world. Ethnographic data collection methods were employed to address the research question. A description of a play episode was used as an example of a young child's use of her appropriated knowledge of a particular cultural practice (singing while doing housework) and a cultural object (artefact) as a tool to mediate her learning. The authors argue that the example demonstrates that the presence of cultural artefacts allowed the child's home culture to emerge as the dominant one in the early childhood setting. The authors believe that the mindful, deliberate introduction of cultural artefacts by the first-language facilitators and cultural brokers who were members of the classroom teaching team allowed the child to consolidate her learning from both her home and her school environments in a manner consistent with her cultural background. The study suggests possible tools and forms of analysis that provoke early childhood educators to extend themselves outside of their own knowledge systems so that they can better facilitate children's ongoing negotiations among their multiple worlds.

This paper presents findings from a study that examined and described young children’s early multiliteracy experiences at a laboratory preschool affiliated with a research-intense university in a large city in western Canada. The study first identified the different forms of technology and literacy practices that young children participated in within their homes. It then examined how young children engaged in multiliteracy practices in preschool contexts, with a focus on how these practices were scaffolded by their teachers. These experiences were documented over a four-month period in which the children were involved in an ongoing inquiry project on puppets. During the period of the study, there was evidence of teacher and peer scaffolding, as well as independent use of iPads and apps in the classroom. This paper is focused on the process of teacher scaffolding to support children’s use of iPads in their learning and creation of multimodal texts and videos as part of the puppet inquiry project. The study, grounded in Vygotsky’s (1978) sociocultural theory of learning and Green’s (1988, 2012) three-dimensional view of literacy, was guided by the following research questions: What multiliteracy practices do preschool children bring from home, and how do teachers build on and scaffold these practices in a preschool environment

The advancement of technology has impacted the modes, media, and concept of literacy. New media such as mobile devices (e.g. iPads) are embedded in the everyday experiences of many young children. Preschoolers’ home literacy experiences are significantly different from experiences prior to the digital era and these background experiences can influence the knowledge that children bring with them to school (Beecher, 2010). In addition, the impact of new technologies on our daily lives is one the factors that has motivated policy makers and educators to rethink and reform school curriculum. In many OECD countries, introduction of 21st century competencies and skills has occurred via general reform initiatives. Educators and researchers need to better understand the complex and multifaceted relationship between home and school literacy experiences of contemporary preschoolers to support development of literacy curriculum that better acknowledges the changing contexts of children’s literacies. This four-month qualitative intrinsic case study documented, described, and analyzed the ways preschoolers engaged in multiliteracy practices as part of an inquiry project on puppets at a preschool associated with a university in a large city in western Canada. It also examined the relationship between classroom and home multiliteracy practices, and parents’ and teacher’s perspectives in relation to these practices. Data consisted of recorded observations of twenty-five children, interviews with seven children, field notes from weekly visits, with detailed descriptions, and digital artifacts representing children’s range of multiliteracy practices in a preschool context. Thirteen parent questionnaires about home use of technology and home multiliteracy practices, and focus group conversations with the two teachers about their perceptions of children’s use of technology in relation to multiliteracies were also included. The study, grounded in Vygotsky’s (1978) socio-cultural theory of learning and Green’s (1988; 2012) three-dimensional view of literacy, was guided by the following research question: What multiliteracy practices do preschool children bring from home, and how do teachers build on and scaffold these practices in a preschool environment? During the period of the study, there was evidence of teacher and peer scaffolding, as well as independent use of iPads and apps in the classroom. This presentation will focus on the process of teacher scaffolding to support children’s use of iPads in their learning and creation of multimodal texts as part of an ongoing inquiries. The findings of this study inform early childhood educators in ongoing attempts to support the development of young children’s early literacies

This study currently in progress focuses on two early childhood teacher education programs in contexts where the participants are undergoing rapid social and personal change: a program in Namibia, and a program for immigrant childcare educa- tors in Canada. The objective is to provide in-depth understanding of the ways in which differing ideas about teacher education are reflected in practice. It is important to en- sure that teacher education programs prepare teachers to dovetail children's prepara- tion for school with meaningful connections to the culture and language of the home community. Without such connections, many children in settings undergoing rapid change will continue to drop out of school before literacy and other skills are firmly established. The study uses ethnographic methods to undertake fieldwork in teacher education classrooms at the two research sites over a period of two terms. The central research question focuses on the way conceptions of young children...

This paper presents findings from a study that examined and described young children’s early multiliteracy experiences at a laboratory preschool affiliated with a research-intense university in a large city in western Canada. The study first identified the different forms of technology and literacy practices that young children participated in within their homes. It then examined how young children engaged in multiliteracy practices in preschool contexts, with a focus on how these practices were scaffolded by their teachers. These experiences were documented over a four-month period in which the children were involved in an ongoing inquiry project on puppets. During the period of the study, there was evidence of teacher and peer scaffolding, as well as independent use of iPads and apps in the classroom. This paper is focused on the process of teacher scaffolding to support children’s use of iPads in their learning and creation of multimodal texts and videos as part of the puppet inquiry project. The study, grounded in Vygotsky’s (1978) sociocultural theory of learning and Green’s (1988, 2012) three-dimensional view of literacy, was guided by the following research questions: What multiliteracy practices do preschool children bring from home, and how do teachers build on and scaffold these practices in a preschool environment