Learning From and With Community: Engaging Indigenous and Newcomer Community in Early Childhood Curriculum Design

• In Event: Indigenous Knowledge as Decolonial Curricular Transformation

Abstract

This research studies the process of engaging under-represented communities to inform community-based decolonial early childhood curriculum design. The researchers partnered with the Misipawistik Cree Nation and the Mosaic Newcomer Family Resource Centre to develop curriculum content for an existing early childhood education program (blinded) to expand the project beyond the limits of Euro-Western knowledge systems. The researchers built partnerships within and across community members to inform the project, and are engaging the project findings in university programming for aspiring early childhood educators. From our community-based work we have learned that: community members prefer multi-modal and land-based processes; early-years curriculum for language sovereignty; and we have understood potential ways to reformulate and/or expand learning categories from traditional Euro-Western conceptual approaches.

Authors

• Jeannie Kerr, University of Winnipeg
  Presenting Author

• Sheri-Lynn Skwarchuk, University of Winnipeg
  Presenting Author