Preschool and Im/migrants in Five Countries
England, France, Germany, Italy and United States of America
Summary
This book tells the story of our study of beliefs about early childhood education of im/migrant parents and of the practitioners who teach and care for their young children. It is simultaneously a study of im/migration seen from the perspective of early childhood education and of early childhood education seen from the perspective of im/migration. The book answers the questions: What do im/migrant parents want for their children in ECEC programs? How are the perspectives of im/migrant parents like and unalike the perspectives of their children’s preschool teachers and of non-immigrant parents? How are England, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States using ECEC settings to incorporate im/migrant children and their families into their new society? What can all five countries do better?
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the author
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Table of Contents
- Chapter 1. Introduction
- Section I: Research Methods
- Chapter 2. Research Methods Overview
- Chapter 3. Videotaping
- Chapter 4. Focus groups
- Chapter 5. Coding
- Chapter 6. Researchers as Insiders and Outsiders
- Section II: Findings
- Chapter 7. Parent and Teacher Perspectives on Curriculum and Pedagogy
- Chapter 8. Cultural and Political Influences on Preschool Pedagogy. The Case of the French école maternelle
- Chapter 9. Curriculum Perspectives of Turkish Parents in Germany and France
- Chapter 10. Language
- Chapter 11. Migration, Identity and Prejudice
- Chapter 12. “I’m Not from Here or There”. Cultural Citizenship of Mexican Immigrant Parents and Children in the US
- Chapter 13. Italian Immigrant Parents’ and Teachers’ Views of Immigrant Children’s Identity
- Chapter 14. How Immigrant Parents and Teachers in Italy Talk about Each Other
- Chapter 15. Asymmetries in Relationships Between Teachers and Immigrant Parents
- Chapter 16. Stories of Interventions. Bringing Parents and Teachers Together
- Chapter 17. Conclusion
- References
- Series index
Professor of Pedagogia generale e sociale, Department of Scienze Umane per la Formazione “R. Massa”, University of Milano-Bicocca (Italy)
Professor, College of Education, The University of Georgia (United States)
Immigration and Early Childhood Education
A significant and growing percentage of the children enrolled in preschools in the United States and in many countries in Europe are children of recent immigrants. For most young children of parents who have come from other countries and cultures, preschools are the first context in which they come face to face with differences between the culture of home and the public culture of their new country. For parents who have recently migrated to a new country, enrolling their child in an early childhood program is the paradigmatic moment where cultural values of their home and adopted culture come into contact and, often, conflict. For countries with high rates of im/migration, preschool programs are key sites for enacting national goals for social inclusion and the creation of new citizens. And yet the field of early childhood education and care has conducted too little research on the experience of immigrant children and their families. There has been very little research that focuses on understanding the perspectives of immigrant parents and of the teachers who work with their children.
Immigration is a challenging social issue in today’s world. It is a key political domain that connects domestic to international policies, that is closely linked with urban poverty, and that reflects core concerns about what it means to be a nation, a people, and a union. The treatment of immigrants has become even more salient in the contemporary era of terrorist attacks, heightened concerns about national security, rising xenophobia, and high rates of unemployment and growing economic ← 9 | 10 → uncertainty. As our nations struggle to develop a coherent immigration policy, directors and teachers of early childhood education and care centers are left with the task of figuring out how to best serve the immigrant children and families that come through their doors. As our preschools struggle to develop a coherent approach to serving immigrant children and their families, three- and four-year old children are left with the task of being border crossers, who move back and forth each day between the often discordant cultural worlds of home and school. Immigrant parents must figure out on their own what is expected of them, what role, if any, they can play in their child’s preschool, and how they might voice their wishes and concerns.
This study has been guided by four research questions: what do recently arrived immigrant parents want for their children in early childhood education and care programs? How are the perspectives of immigrant parents like and unalike the perspectives of their children’s preschool teachers and of native-born parents? How are England, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States using ECEC settings to incorporate immigrant children and their families into their new society? And what are the implications of our research findings for practice and policy for serving immigrant children and their families in ECEC programs?
In addition to these questions, our study has at its core the ethical, political, and epistemological question of whether new immigrant parents can speak in a way that they can be heard and understood by researchers, practitioners, and policy makers. This is a version of the question the post-colonial critic Gayatri Spivak (1988) posed as “Can the subaltern speak?” In our project this took the form of the question: Could we develop structures for inviting participation from immigrant parents that would allow them to speak openly and honestly and once they did, could we develop interpretive structures that would allow us to understand what they were saying to us and to reflect these perspectives back to practitioners and to the research and policy communities?
Project Goals
Details
- Pages
- 223
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9782807601185
- ISBN (MOBI)
- 9782807601192
- ISBN (Softcover)
- 9782875743602
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9783035266399
- DOI
- 10.3726/978-3-0352-6639-9
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2016 (September)
- Published
- Bruxelles, Bern, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Oxford, Wien, 2016. 223 pp.
- Product Safety
- Peter Lang Group AG
