Educators’ narratives about everyday work of early childhood education and care in the culturally diverse North

ABSTRACT

The aim of the study is to deepen understanding of educators’ daily practices in the Northern ECEC through the lenses of culturally responsive teaching. The research material consists of two-staged peer interviews with 10 educators, which were selected from the whole research material for detailed analysis. The main finding of this study is ethical balancing, which permeates the work of educators in the culturally diverse North. Ethical balancing is presented through four dimensions: (1) educators’ struggles between equality and cultural diversity in everyday ECEC life, (2) educators’ values confronting the requirements of culturally responsive teaching and diverse educational communities, (3) educators balancing between diverse perspectives in collaboration with families and (4) educators’ experiences of inadequacy in culturally diverse settings. In addition to new empirical knowledge, the study provides a new methodological approach to the ECEC research field. The peer interview method has the potential to support educators with the dilemmas of everyday practice, and the method can also be extended to teacher education to support student teachers during their studies. The study challenges educators, education providers and policymakers to engage more deeply with the aims and practices of culturally responsive teaching to respond better to the needs of a diversifying society.

KEYWORDS:

• Early childhood education and care
• cultural diversity
• culturally responsive teaching
• peer interview
• narrative research

Acknowledgements

We thank the educators from the North who participated in the study and shared their narratives. We also want to thank Jaana Juutinen for her work in generating research material. This study was partly supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation, North Ostrobothnia Regional Fund.

Disclosure statement

Author 1 received partial financial support from the Finnish Cultural Foundation, North Ostrobothnia Regional Fund. The authors report there are no other competing interests to declare.

Additional information

Funding

The work was partly supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation North Ostrobothnia Regional Fund .