Bringing Perspectives Into Dialogue: A Case Study of Culturally Responsive Pedagogies in an Australian Early Childhood Context

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

Abstract

This paper presents the findings from a case study focused on understanding how cultural models of education are brought together in dialogue to re-imagine education. The use of cultural models theory provided a useful framework for exploring how teachers, leaders, children and families at Westside Primary School, orchestrated multiple perspectives to re-imagine their figured world as culturally responsive. Findings suggest the principles from Reggio Emilia and a pedagogical framework called the Nunga Way informed by local Aboriginal First Nations peoples, were two cultural models of education that were significant to informing a local culturally responsive pedagogy.

Significance
Internationally scholarship has focused on the use of Culturally Responsive Pedagogies (CRP) in responding to inequities in education. The literature on CRP in early childhood education has been growing, however most of this research is North America. Durden, Escalante and Blitch (2015) call for further research to focus on how, “other countries implement culturally relevant pedagogies” (p. 231). This paper answers this call for research by presents findings from a case study focused on understanding how culturally situated perspectives on education are used to re-imagine local pedagogies in an Australian early childhood setting.

Conceptual framework
Cultural Models Theory (Holland et al., 1998) provided a useful framework for this research in exploring how cultural models of education were brought into dialogue to inform the learning community at Westside Primary School. In provided a framework for exploring the multiple experiences of teachers, leaders, children and families and how their multiple perspectives are orchestrated to re-imagine their figured world as culturally responsive.

Methodology
For this research a qualitative case study approach was used (Simons, 2009; Stake, 1995), with Westside Primary School identified as the case, to address the research question: How are culturally situated experiences and perspectives brought together to re-imagine early childhood education. This approach provided an opportunity to draw on the multiple experiences and realities of individuals (educational leaders, teachers, children and their families) living in multiple figured worlds, and how those come together to understand and create their shared figured worlds (Cresswell, 2007; Yin, 2014). This holistic account of the context, values, processes and relationships sheds light on the Nunga Way and the Reggio Emilia principles as two cultural models of education that were significant to informing a local approach.

Findings
Findings demonstrate how the cultural models of the Reggio Emilia principles and the Nunga Way were brought into dialogue to re-imagine in culturally responsive ways the figured world of education at Westside Primary school. These findings demonstrate the importance of being open to engaging with multiple perspectives and to building a sense of community with teachers, leaders, children and families to re-imagining pedagogy in ways that reflect the values and beliefs of the shared community.

Authors

• Jamie Huff Sisson, University of South Australia

• Victoria Whitington, University of South Australia

• Anne-Marie Shin, University of South Australia