Parents, participation, partnership: Problematising New Zealand early childhood education

Abstract

This article interrogates notions of teacher ‘partnership with parents’ within early childhood care and education (ECCE) settings in the context of Aotearoa (New Zealand). Te Whāriki, the New Zealand early childhood curriculum, clearly positions children’s learning and development as being “fostered if the well-being of their family and community is supported” and “their family, culture, knowledge and community are respected” (Ministry of Education, 1996: 42). Yet findings from both national evaluative reports and recent studies indicate that in many instances, families who are not members of the dominant cultural group do not experience this synergy. We firstly draw upon national evaluative reports to paint a broad picture of the implementation of ‘partnership’, and then employ illustrative data from our research regarding the inclusion of Māori and Chinese families respectively. We then employ hybridity theory (Bhabha, 1994), along with the related idea of funds of knowledge (González, 2005), to reinforce the need for teachers to proactively move beyond the hegemonic safe zones of traditional teacher-dominated practices, towards opening spaces of dialogic, fluid engagement with families whose backgrounds differ from their own. This aspect of teachers’ professional responsibility is particularly important in the current era of increasing superdiversity (Spoonley, 2014).