The learning early childhood education and care institution as an inclusion arena

ABSTRACT

Early childhood education and care in Norway have a broad mission and are, among other things, mandated through legislation and frameworks to remedy social injustice and emphasise inclusion. Nevertheless, research illustrates that symbolic power tends to be present in early childhood education and care institutions. In this conceptual paper, it is discussed how the local line leadership and staff in early childhood education and care institutions can analyse and challenge their work with inclusion when partaking in multicultural professional development. A model is presented to function as a tool to help the line leadership and staff in this process. It is argued that to function as learning inclusion arenas, it is necessary that the local line leadership and the staff critically explore how the institution function for all actors and that they visualise and challenge potential symbolic power in the institution.

KEYWORDS:

• Early childhood education and care
• inclusion
• symbolic power
• multicultural professional development
• local line leadership

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Children in Norwegian ECEC institutions are defined as minority language speakers if both the child and the child’s parents speak a language other than Norwegian, Sami, Danish, Swedish or English as their first language (UDIR 2023a).