Illegitimate participation? A group of young minority ethnic children’s experiences of early childhood education

Abstract

This paper seeks to explore how a group of children, the majority of whom were of minority ethnic heritage, experienced starting nursery school in a setting where the majority of staff were of white indigenous heritage. The nursery is in a small town in the north‐west of England, and the children were aged three and four. Observations were carried out over a two‐year period using an ethnographic approach. Using critical perspectives, drawn from the sociology of childhood, postmodernism and critical psychology, questions are raised about many seemingly taken‐for‐granted practices in early childhood education, which the staff saw as offering legitimate participation to all of the children, but which seemed to marginalise all but a small group of largely white girls. The paper ends with a consideration of how early childhood educators need to re‐examine existing beliefs from multiple cultural perspectives in order to reduce marginalisation and discrimination.

Keywords:

• ethnicity
• early childhood education
• participation
• professional implications