Fostering Compassionate Partnerships Between Early Childhood Educators and Parents of Minority Children

• In Event: Care and Compassion in Educational Settings: Cultural-Historical Perspectives

Abstract

This paper examines collaboration between minority parents and early childhood educators. We report findings from an ongoing formative intervention (Engeström, 2011) aimed to foster compassionate practices in a Finnish kindergarten. Building on a novel, cultural-historical approach for investigating compassion and care (authors), we conceptualize compassion in terms of actions, which are caring responses to others’ suffering or unmet needs (Taggart, 2016). Compassionate actions are composed of three elements (Kanov et al., 2004): 1) Noticing another person’s suffering or unmet needs, 2) having other-regarding empathic concern, and 3) acting to alleviate suffering. This perspective permits examining foundations that the practices of an educational organisation create for compassionate actions (Lilius et al., 2011; Orlikowski, 2002). A compassionate organisation enables the capability of its members to consistently act with compassion in response to recurring instances of suffering. Furthermore, we find it useful to conceptualise compassion critically (authors): to include actions that not only provide comfort and help for others in their suffering but also address the root causes of that suffering (for example, organization of educational settings or broader institutional or societal structures).

We pose the following questions for our inquiry: What new forms of compassionate actions, if any, emerge between minority parents and early childhood educators during a formative intervention aimed to build a compassionate kindergarten? What tensions and contradictions are associated with these compassionate actions?

The data come from a series of change laboratory sessions (Engeström, 1996) conducted with the staff of a Finnish public kindergarten. Change laboratory is characterized by a collective effort to question and analyze the existing practices, re-envision what the activities are about, and to create new tools and practices to realize the enhanced vision. The intervention was preceded by a 15 months long ethnography (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007) including interviews staff (n=30) and parent (n=29) interviews. This study focuses on three pilot projects to build more inclusive practices for parental participation. The data include field notes and recordings of intervention sessions and interviews, Our analysis focuses on compassionate actions and how they were perceived by different stakeholders.

The findings shed light on three staff and parent concerns and their transformation: everyday racism, facilitating school transitions, and building shared understanding between families and kindergarten staff. Our findings illuminate the emergence of critical compassion, which involved acts that identify and seek to dismantle institutional causes of distress and injustices; for example, the kindergarten groups were renamed, because the old names were considered racist. However, our findings also show how cultural and language boundaries created misunderstandings and gaps in the communication between kindergarten staff and some racialised families when addressing the children’s needs. Some acts of compassion were misguided and ended up hurting the children or their parents. A benevolent desire to act on the behalf of historically marginalised communities easily ends up further silencing them (Andreotti, 2007). In all, our study advances a new holistic and transformative perspective to parent-educator partnerships in early childhood education, with potential to develop shared understanding and address systemic discrimination.

Authors

• Antti J. Rajala, University of Eastern Finland

• Nimco Noor

• Jaakko Hilppö, University of Helsinki

• Lasse Lipponen, University of Helsinki