A Postcolonial Approach to Sustainable Early Childhood Teacher Education Curriculum and Pedagogy

• In Event: Culturally Responsive Pedagogies: Considerations for Policy and Practice in Early Childhood Education

Abstract

This paper draws from a series of qualitative inquiries conducted with early childhood teachers and teacher educators in some Asian countries (primarily India) and interrogates the sustainability of applying Euro-Western pedagogical frameworks to inform the preparation of early childhood teachers who will teach in non-western contexts. The author suggests a more critical, contextual and culturally appropriate approach to teacher education to ensure that children’s well-being is nurtured, and their rights are protected by preparing teachers in teacher education classrooms where culturally diverse local and global worldviews on child development and educational philosophies are explored and acknowledged.

Theoretical framework
A postcolonial theoretical framework is used to frame the findings and discussion drawing on the notion of hybridity (Bhabha, 1994), both cultural and pedagogical.

Methodology
This qualitative naturalistic inquiry sought to understand the preparation and classroom practice of early childhood teachers in schools in Asia. Participants included early childhood teachers, early childhood school administrators, and early childhood teacher educators. Data was collected by interviewing and surveying the research participants, and conducting classroom observations of the teachers who were interviewed.

Findings
Teachers’ responses in the study pointed to a distinct dissonance between their formal teacher preparation and their classroom practice, the latter being influenced by multiple and diverse socio-cultural forces. This dissonance compels us to move toward situating teacher education squarely within spaces of cultural and pedagogical hybridity. The use of postcolonial theory enables us to conceptualize this; address the complexities associated with such hybridization; and acknowledge the coexisting realities of diverse local and global influences on pedagogy and classroom curriculum.

Significance
Early childhood education research points to best practices as those characterized largely by curricula and pedagogies which address “funds of knowledge” (Moll & Gonzalez, 2004), and are sensitive and responsive to cultural, racial and linguistic diversities in every classroom. However, teacher education curricula and pedagogies that prepare educators for teaching young children continue to predominantly include theories of learning and development that relate more to the “West”: white middle-class, English-speaking communities of the world. A teacher education approach that draws on the notion of postcolonial hybridity and incorporates local and global discourses will help to address the dissonance between teachers’ theoretical preparation and classroom practice, and result in a more sustainable teacher education model. It is about re-positioning the local and the global in relation to each other such that multiple worldviews become reflected (Tickly, 1999).

Author

• Amita Gupta, City College of New York - CUNY