Japanese children’s experiences in New Zealand early childhood education settings

2021 ◽  
pp. 14-18
Author(s):  
Madoka Takemoto
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Japanese Child ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Cultural Challenges ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Doctor Of Education ◽  
Education Data

Early childhood education (ECE) settings in Aotearoa New Zealand are becoming increasingly ethnically superdiverse. This article draws on a research project that examined the cultural challenges that Japanese children sometimes encounter in New Zealand ECE contexts which was undertaken for my Doctor of Education. Data were analysed using a conceptual framework developed from five key notions that apply to third-culture individuals (TCI). The experiences of one child in this project and the tensions he experienced negotiating his self-identity as a Japanese child are described and their impact on his sense of belonging to the group of children at the centre is considered. The findings revealed that, despite the good intentions of teachers, the child’s Japanese cultural identity, and his attempts to share it, were frequently challenged by his teachers’ lack of cultural knowledge about Japan. I argue that these experiences resulted in complex situations for both the Japanese child and his teachers.

scholarly journals Ngā Tuakiri o te Tangata: Being Māori in Early Childhood Education

2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-114
Author(s):  
Lesley Rameka
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Minority Population ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Complex Settings ◽  
Settler Population ◽  
Over Time

Before the arrival of Europeans in Aotearoa, New Zealand and their subsequent settlement in the 1800s, there was no concept of a Māori identity. Over time, however, as a result of rapid colonisation, Māori became a minority population in New Zealand. Consequently, the term Māori as normal or usual, began to lose its meaning (Webber, 2008), and another meaning began to emerge based on contrasts with the Pākehā settler population. This paper explores the complex and increasingly diverse nature of Māori identities in contemporary Aotearoa/New Zealand, including contemporary early childhood contexts. It discusses the importance of negotiating the terrains of cultural knowledge, values and understandings in order to define what ‘being Māori’ means for teachers and children in an increasingly diverse and complex settings.

scholarly journals Business managers in children’s playground : Exploring a problematic (or not!) identity construction of early childhood teachers in New Zealand

2021 ◽  
pp. 146394912198936
Author(s):  
Olivera Kamenarac
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Business Managers ◽  
Professional Identities ◽  
Education Policies ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Teacher Professional ◽  
Early Childhood Education Policies ◽  
Policies And Practices

The impacts of neo-liberal education reforms on the early childhood education sector have been a focal point of scholarly critiques in New Zealand. Interestingly, only a few studies have addressed how teacher professional identities and professionalism have changed in response to the neo-liberal context of New Zealand early childhood education. It has been, however, recognised that understanding the complexity of teacher professional identities within the rapidly transforming landscape of early childhood education is a key consideration in implementing and sustaining a change agenda in education policies and practices. In this article, the author draws on data from her research study about how teachers’ professional identities have been reconstructed in response to the shifting discourses in New Zealand early childhood education policies and practices. Specifically, the author explores the construction of teachers as business managers, which has emerged through an interplay of discourses of marketisation and privatisation driving some of the country’s early childhood education policies and practices. It is argued that the construction of teachers as business managers has altered core professional ethical values underpinning the teaching profession, professionalism and the purpose of early childhood education in New Zealand, which were traditionally embedded in discourses of collective democracy, equity and social justice.

(In)visible perceptions of objects (‘things’) during early transitions: Intertwining subjectivities in ECEC

2021 ◽  
pp. 146394912110279
Author(s):  
E Jayne White ◽  
Fiona Westbrook ◽  
Kathryn Hawkes ◽  
Waveney Lord ◽  
Bridgette Redder
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
New Materialism ◽  
Object A ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Mediating Tools ◽  
Teachers And Parents ◽  
To Receive

Objects in early childhood education (ECEC) experiences have begun to receive a great deal more attention than ever before. Although much of this attention has emerged recently from new materialism, in this paper we turn to Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological concern with the (in)visibility of ‘things’ to illuminate the presence of objects within infant transitions. Drawing on notions of écart and reversibility, we explore the relational perceptions objects are bestowed with on the lead up to, and first day of, infant transitions. Recognizing the intertwining subjectivities that perceive the object, a series of videos and interviews with teachers and parents across three ECEC sites in Australia and New Zealand provided a rich source of phenomenological insight. Our analysis reveals objects as deeply imbued anchoring links that enable relational possibilities for transitions between home and ECEC service. Visible and yet invisible to adults (parents and/or teachers) who readily engage with objects during earliest transitions, the significance of things facilitates opportunities to forge new relationships, create boundaries and facilitate connections. As such, our paper concludes that objects are far more than mediating tools, or conceptual agents; they provide an explicit route to understanding with potential to play a vital role in supporting effective early transitions when granted visibility within this important phenomenon.

Transnational parenting practices of Chinese immigrant families in New Zealand

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 219-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angel Chan
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Parenting Practices ◽  
Immigrant Families ◽  
Chinese Immigrant ◽  
Parenting Strategies ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Chinese Immigrant Families ◽  
Transnational Parenting

This article advocates for fluid pedagogies that align with the transnational parenting practices of immigrant families. New Zealand is now considered to be a superdiverse country with a large population of immigrants. This superdiversity phenomenon can therefore also be found in its early childhood education settings. Research has indicated that many contemporary immigrants are transnationals who maintain close connections with their home countries and frequently engage in border-crossing activities. Transnational immigrants are mobile, and their parenting strategies may be similarly fluid. This article uses findings from a research project which involved Chinese immigrant families to illustrate transnational perspectives of early childhood education and parenting practices. Narrative excerpts are presented and analysed using key theoretical constructs of transnationalism to illustrate the participants’ cultural dilemmas in their parenting, their preparedness to adapt their heritage practices and to adopt early childhood education discourses of the host country, and their agency in choosing parenting strategies that they believed best support their children’s learning. It highlights the importance of parent–teacher dialogue and of enacting a curriculum with fluid pedagogies that are responsive to heterogeneous parental aspirations.

scholarly journals Pre-Service Early Childhood Teachers’ Preparedness to Teach Education for Sustainability

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-96
Author(s):  
Anita Croft
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Early Childhood ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Early Childhood Teachers ◽  
Education For Sustainability ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Sustainability Practices ◽  
Preparedness To Teach

The benefits of beginning Education for Sustainability (EfS) in early childhood are now widely documented. With the support of their teachers, young children have shown that through engagement in sustainability practices they are capable of becoming active citizens in their communities (Duhn, Bachmann, & Harris, 2010; Kelly & White, 2012; Ritchie, 2010; Vaealiki & Mackey, 2008). Engagement with EfS has not been widespread across the early childhood sector in Aotearoa New Zealand (Duhn et al., 2010; Vaealiki & Mackey, 2008) until recently. One way of addressing EfS in early childhood education is through teacher education institutions preparing students to teach EfS when they graduate.

scholarly journals Positioning Children Citizens: Exploring Discourses in Early Childhood Curricula in China and Aotearoa New Zealand

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 58
Author(s):  
Peng Xu
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Citizenship Education ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Citizenship Status ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand

 Positioning young children as citizens, now rather than as citizens in waiting, is an emerging discourse in early childhood education internationally. Differing discourses related to young children and early childhood reveal various ideas of children as citizens, and what their citizenship status, practice and education can be. This paper analyses the national early childhood education (ECE) curricula of China and Aotearoa New Zealand for the purpose of understanding how children are constructed as citizens within such policy discourses. Discourse analysis is employed in this study as a methodological approach for understanding the subjectivities of young children and exploring the meanings of young children’s citizenship in both countries. Based on Foucault’s theory of governmentality, this paper ultimately argues that young children’s citizenship in contemporary ECE curricula in China and New Zealand is a largely neoliberal construction. However, emerging positionings shape differing possibilities for citizenship education for young children in each of these countries.

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