Co-Constructing Culturally Responsive Pedagogies Through Critical Action Research Within Reggio-Inspired Preschools

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

Abstract

In Australia, pedagogical techniques are urgently required that assist teachers to respond to the appalling educational disparities among Aboriginal children and the increasingly super-diverse populations. This paper presents findings from a qualitative research project focused on understanding How might the theory and practice of culturally responsive pedagogy be further developed in Australian preschool contexts through an action research process? Acknowledging that educational change requires knowledge production ‘to occur at the local level—again and again’ (Thomson 2015, p. 310), this paper examines the co-construction of culturally responsive pedagogies within Australian preschool contexts.
Significance
This research is significant as it offers an alternative to traditional teacher professional development models by positioning teachers as co-constructers of knowledge through a process of action research. In doing so it provides insights into how preschool teachers enact pedagogical change in ways that increase their own—as well as children’s—learning about diversity, inclusion, Aboriginal identity and democracy.
Conceptual framework
The conceptual framework is informed by an archive of international research literature across the settler colonial countries that focuses on pedagogies that work with Indigenous learners and includes: Indigenous culture-based pedagogy (Rigney 2011, Demmert & Towner, 2003), Culturally responsive schooling for Indigenous youth (Castagno & Brayboy, 2008), and culturally responsive/culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings 1994; Villegas & Lucas, 2007), and Alaska Native Knowledge Network1998).
Methodology
This study used a critical action research approach augmented with methods borrowed from educational ethnography and policy sociology. Collaborative and participatory action research enabled the systematic examination of the re-designing of pedagogic practice by preschool teachers. In drawing from previous research (Hattam et al. 2009; Sisson et al., 2016) an action research model was developed and used to establish conditions for critical reflection; inviting preschool teachers to engage collaboratively with relevant research; focusing on improving theory and practice; fostering teacher/site ownership; and systematically collecting and analysing evidence. Interviews with preschool leaders and teachers occurred at key points of the project to understand their experiences and changes to their pedagogy.
Findings
Findings provide insight into the challenges that preschool teachers and leaders face as they enact locally informed culturally responsive pedagogies, their experiences within the action research process, and how their practice changed to reflect a local culturally responsive pedagogical approach.

Authors

• Lester Irabinna Rigney, University of South Australia

• Jamie Huff Sisson, University of South Australia

• Robert James Hattam, University of South Australia

• Anne Morrison, University of South Australia