Negotiating Space for Understanding Family Pedagogies in Teacher Education and Ongoing Professional Learning

• In Event: Imagining Possible Worlds With Young Children, Families, and Teachers: Sustaining Language/s and Family Pedagogies

Abstract

Teacher education curriculum is a crowded and contested space (Kamenarac, 2019; Sachs, 2005). Providers work to graduate teachers with sound grounding in professional knowledge, a disposition for ongoing learning and reflection, and skills to engage in inquiry into practice. Provision of ongoing professional learning to support graduates internationally is not well-resourced or supported, and at times ineffective (Waniganiyake, Heikka & Halttunen, 2019). Yet, becoming and being a teacher is a more personal and complex endeavour (Gaches & Walli, 2018; Korthagen, 2017) than much literature suggests.
Teachers in early childhood education (ECE) in New Zealand teach children aged birth-5 years. The importance of relationships/partnerships between parents and teachers in ECE is well-established in research (Hujala, Turja, Gaspar, Veisson, & Waniganayake, 2009). Of significance, some research identifies that as societies become more linguistically and culturally diverse that despite having positive attitudes and good intentions teachers struggle to understand and connect with diverse families (e.g., Brooker, 2002). In becoming and being a teacher, we suggest there is currently little time and attention to in-depth experiences that develop understandings of young children’s families.
Recently the term family pedagogy has been used in ECE (Author, 2017; Lawrence, Gallagher, & the Pen Green Team, 2015; Li & Fleer, 2015; Murray, 2015). Author (2017) defined family pedagogy as the learning interactions and cultural practices that occur within families. They argued that understanding family pedagogy can broaden teachers’ awareness of children’s learning opportunities within families and enhance both teacher-parent and teacher-child interactions in and beyond the early childhood setting. Learning about family pedagogy comes from engaging with home visits that are founded on an appreciation of funds of knowledge (González, Moll & Amanti, 2005) that comes from teachers visiting family homes.
The data drawn on in this paper came from a Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (Author, 2014) underpinned by funds of knowledge as theory and pedagogy. The project was a partnership between academic and teacher researchers. The project adopted an interpretivist methodology and used qualitative methods in its design and implementation. As one method, pairs of teachers visited family homes to learn about family practices, values and cultures.
This paper will present an example from a family visit in which the insights were critical and transformative (Author, 2014). The changes resulting from this visit were repeated and evident in other visits. Hence, we argue that for teachers to both be prepared for and participate in teaching in diverse societies that space needs to be negotiated within teacher education and professional learning for family visits that promote in-depth and empathetic insights into children’s families and cultures that transform teaching practices. In particular, we advocate for attention to family pedagogies as a way to understand the practices that children experience at home and their influence on ways children may respond to teachers in an educational setting.

Authors

• Helen Hedges, University of Auckland

• Sophie Alcock, Victoria University of Wellington