Early learning in preschool: meaningful and inclusive for all? Exploring perspectives of migrant parents and staff

ABSTRACT

Over the last decades, increasing attention has been paid in research and policies to the importance of children’s early learning in preschool as a foundation for later life. This is considered especially beneficial for children living in disadvantaged societal conditions and those at risk of school failure. However, the perspectives of those most closely involved in a child’s learning, namely parents and preschool staff, are often absent in early learning debates. Ten video-elicited focus groups with migrant parents and three focus groups with preschool staff took place in the Flemish Community of Belgium. By conducting a ‘conventional content analysis’, we present similar and opposing meanings that parents with migrant backgrounds and preschool staff attribute to early learning in regard to managing bodily needs of children and (dominant) language learning in preschools. Based on these results, we recommend that preschool policies and practices should continuously conceptualise early learning in dialogue with parents so that inclusion and exclusion mechanisms can be tracked, revealed, and dealt with.

KEYWORDS:

• early learning
• parents
• professionals
• preschool
• migrant
• inclusion