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Ana Kirova, Christine Massing,
Larry Prochner and Ailie Cleghorn
Educating early childhood educators in
Canada: a bridging program for immigrant
and refugee childcare practitioners
Abstract: Increasing diversity in cities in North America in general and Canada in particular requires
recruitment and training of early childhood educators representing those groups, including immigrant
and refugee women who see child care work as accessible to newcomers. In the context of Canada where
multiculturalism has been an official federal policy since 1985, Early Childhood Teacher Education
(ECTE) programs aim to prepare students to work with culturally diverse children and their families.
Paradoxically, however, students in ECTE programs who come from culturally and linguistically diverse
backgrounds are not recognized as possessing cultural competence because their skills and knowledges
are marginalized in the dominant discourse. Data from a Bridging program specifically designed both
to meet immigrant and refugee participants’ particular learning needs and to build on their strengths,
are presented in order to demonstrate the main tensions between personal/cultural and professional
knowledge the students experienced in the program as they encountered the dominant Early Childhood
Education (ECE) discourses as part of their courses. The findings elucidate issues and strategies that
are most likely to be effective for teacher education programs in multiethnic/multicultural contexts. The
research contributes to the body of literature that aims at reconceptualising the existing framework for
ECTE so that students from diverse cultural, linguistic, ethnic, and religious backgrounds are seen as
holders of knowledge alongside the theorists and experts in the field of ECE.
Key words: early childhood education in Canada, early childhood teacher education in Canada, immigrant and refugee childcare practitioners, training program for immigrant and refugee childcare workers
UDC: 37.011.3-051:373.2
Scientific article
Anna Kirova, Ph.D., full professor, Department of Elementary Education, 551 Education South, University of
Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; e-mail: [email protected]
Christine Massing, Ph.D., associate professor, University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
Larry Prochner, Ph.D., full professor, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Ailie Cleghorn, Ph.D., full professor, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY EDUCATIONAL STUDIES 2/2016, 64–82
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Introduction
The authors carried out a comparative qualitative study in an early childhood
teacher education (ECTE) university program in Namibia, a community-based
training program in an indigenous community in Colombia, and in a worksiteembedded training program for immigrant childcare educators in Canada (Prochner
et al. 2015b. The primary objective of the study was to provide in-depth understanding of the ways in which differing conceptions of what children need in the
preschool years are played out in teacher training programs in social contexts
where the participants are experiencing rapid social and personal change. For
the purposes of this article, we will focus only on the Canadian site—a Bridging
program in a large city in the province of Alberta, Canada that was specifically
designed both to meet immigrant and refugee participants’ particular learning
needs and to build on their strengths.
Professionalization of Early Childhood Education Workforce: Trends
and Issues
The field of early childhood education (ECE) is characterized by disparate
settings, curricula, goals, teacher qualifications, and educational levels. As a result, in many Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
countries including Canada, ECE educators have marginalized status and low
pay. In the last couple of decades, efforts have been made to professionalize the
workforce by drawing upon a rigorous expert knowledge base in the field. In recent
years, neo-liberal discourses circulating both locally and globally have resulted in a
plethora of policies and regulations designed to ensure program quality (Woodrow,
2008). These standards have led to an increased focus in global and national
policy agendas to ensure children’s well-being in the critical early years as a way
of contributing to a nation’s economic competitiveness (Moss, 2006). At the same
time, such quality standards are criticised by scholars as being decontextualized
and inflexible to the needs and demands of local settings (Tobin, 2005). Van Laere,
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Peeters, and Vandenbroeck (2012), for example, expressed a concern that such
policies and practices are “schoolifying” the field as Early Childhood Education
and Care (ECEC) “is increasingly conceptualized as preparation for compulsory
schooling and the didactics of compulsory schooling therefore tend to determine
ECEC programs” (p. 527).
In the context of schoolification, the prevailing image of the teacher becomes
that of a technician (Moss, 2006), engaging in “performative professionalism”
whereby the “correct action is determined in relation to universal competence
standards and codes of practice” (Taggert, 2011, p. 88). The United States National
Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) professional standards
for ECE teachers (2009) reinforce this notion by deeming practices as appropriate
or inappropriate based on assumed universal stages of child development. Educators are therefore excluded from the production of knowledge governing the field,
which erodes their authority and professional status (Krieg, 2010; Langford, 2010).
Privileging a universal view of child development “has resulted in the silencing of
human voices that are not ours” (Cannella, 1997, p. 3): children, parents, community
members with rich and diverse cultural strengths and life histories. Early Childhood
Teacher Education (ECTE) students or teachers with prior parenting or caregiving
experience thus risk being viewed as “unprofessional” if they draw on this expertise
in their field placements or workplaces. The recent shift to professionalization of
the field of ECE therefore, leads to further marginalization of educators’ practical
knowledges and experiences, especially in relation to care, and impedes their abilities to adapt their practice to the local context. As Miller, Dalli, and Urban (2012)
elaborate: Professionalism in early childhood practice cannot be defined in simple
universalistic and immutable terms, or through finite lists and attributes. Rather . . .
professionalism is something whose meaning appears to be embedded in local
contexts, visible in relational interactions, ethical and political in nature, and involving multiple layers of knowledge, judgement, and influences from the broader
societal context. (p. 6)
These multiple layers need to be understood in the context of the composition
of the child care workforce.
There are apparently opposing patterns that impede the establishment of
ECTE programs that are broadly effective and locally adapted. In fact, it seems
that, despite efforts to recognize local cultures as valuable resources for planning
appropriate education programs, it is still the case that ECTE planners in nonwestern contexts “are taking their cues from imported models that reinforce value
shifts towards the individualistic, production oriented cultures of the west” (Myers,
1992, p. 29). Our research asks whether this is the most desirable direction for all.
Our research is thus situated in the body of literature that aims at reconceptualising the existing framework for ECTE so that students from diverse cultural,
linguistic, ethnic, and religious backgrounds are seen as holders of knowledge
alongside the theorists and experts in the field of ECE.
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Educational Qualifications for Early Childhood Educators in Canada:
An Overview
Although it is recognized among researchers, practitioners, and the general public that the educational qualifications for early childhood educators and
kindergarten teachers are associated with high quality services (OECD, 2001),
Canada is among the countries in which early childhood educators working with
children below kindergarten age are not required to be certificated teachers. The
educational qualifications of educators working in non-school settings—generally
childcare—vary from province to province, including entry-level (short courses),
certificates (1 year), and diplomas (2 years)1. More specifically, nearly all of the
10 provinces and two territories require childcare staff to complete a minimum
entry-level qualification, typically an orientation to childcare course or a collegelevel child development course. Staff with entry-level qualifications are sometimes
considered to be “assistants.” A certificate typically involves 1 year of formal
education. Many Canadian provinces require a 2-year diploma for a certain proportion of the staff.
While educational qualifications for staff working in child care settings is
different from province to province, this is not the case for kindergarten teachers
who must have professional teacher certification in accordance with government
(provincial or territorial) standards.2 Early childhood educator preparation usually
includes applied child study, i.e., focused observations of individual children and
children in groups as a means to link theory (child development theory, learning
theory, etc.) to practice. Observation in this case is employed as an educational
method, that is, a basis for both planning and assessment. In most training
programs, students have one or more opportunities to teach children under the
occasional supervision of a teacher educator, or the more intensive supervision
of an experienced classroom teacher in a community school or other ECE setting.
The aims are to practice skills, apply theory, and develop a professional identity
in a real-world context.
There are sometimes assumed to be personality variables or dispositions that
make some individuals more naturally suited to teaching very young children,
mostly those that involve gender-related beliefs (Bushnell, 2002). Since Bowlby’s
(1969) original attachment theory that advanced the notion that the young child
is biologically determined to need exclusive maternal care (Dahlberg et al. 1999),
the ideal of the maternal teacher who nurtures children’s development along a
known pathway is a central trope in ECE. Yet, although ECE has traditionally
been conceived of as a care profession—an extension of the mothering role—care
is generally excluded from regulatory and policy documents. It cannot easily be
measured or defined (Osgood, 2012) unless one were to simply assess managed,
predetermined, routinized care for children’s physical needs—eating, dressing and
All of these are equivalent to ISCED 4 – post secondary programmes.
In Canada, education is decentralized with each province and territory having its own education
system.
1
2
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undressing, diapering, toileting, and napping (Rockel, 2009).3 In spite of this, EC
educators still emphasize the importance of love, care, intimacy, and emotion in
their work with young children (Harwood et al. 2012; Madrid and Dunn-Kenney,
2010; Quan-McGimpsey et al. 2011). However, they may cite the need to restrain
and manage their emotions in order to display professional behaviour (e.g. Vincent
and Braun, 2010). References to care in their work may utilize less emotion-laden
terms such as “presence,” “connection,” and “relationality” (e.g., Harwood et al.,
2012; Urban and Dalli, 2012; Warren, 2014). These terms imply care and openness
for others—part of the affective dimension of professionalism—without excessive
emotionality. As Moyles (2001) found in her study with early childhood teachers
in England, they feel unprofessional when they take on a caring or maternalistic
role—even though it is integral to their work—as they are “convinced that what
is inside them is not valid, only personal and equated with emotional responses”
(p. 89).
In the context of Canada where multiculturalism has been an official federal
policy since 1985, ECTE programs also aim to prepare students to work with culturally diverse children and their families. Popular approaches in North America,
including Canada, are usually situated within a multicultural education paradigm
and involve stand-alone diversity courses, guest speakers, field trips, practica,
or immersion experiences in culturally and linguistically diverse community or
school settings (Howry and Whelan-Kim, 2009; Keengwe, 2010; Owen, 2007).
The intention of these approaches is to help White middle-class students from
the dominant culture to gain cultural competencies to apply to their work with
children from diverse backgrounds (Nuttall and Ortlipp, 2012). Because additive
approaches are superficial and risk essentializing cultures, cultural competence
becomes yet another technical skill students must acquire.
Paradoxically, students who come from culturally and linguistically diverse
backgrounds are not recognized as possessing this competence because their skills
and knowledges are marginalized in the dominant discourse. Immigrant/refugee
educators’ experience as parents is not seen as professional in the dominant discourse in ECE, and they are expected to discard their parental values, beliefs,
and cultural practices in the workplace (Adair et al. 2012; Hujibregts et al. 2008;
Massing, 2015) and distance themselves from practices of parents from similar
backgrounds (Wilgus, 2006). In other words, for immigrant EC educators to be
considered as professionals, they must detach themselves from their experiential,
tacit, and intuitive ways of knowing (Jipson, 1991).
The Study: Uncovering Global-Local Tensions
In Alberta, newcomers who have prior education and experience (i.e., teaching
certificates and experiences in their home countries) may qualify for Child Care
3
Van Laere et al. (2012) state that the European Commission and UNESCO recognize that
education and care are inseparable, though technical conceptualizations of the professional teacher
means this caring dimension is marginalized in practice.
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Worker or Child Care Supervisor levels of certification if they meet specific English or French language requirements. Those who have no prior training but draw
upon their experiences with children may be able to enter the early childhood
workforce with a 58-hour orientation course at the Child Care Assistant level.
Many of these newcomers, most of whom are women, would like to advance in
the field through further training but are unable to do so because they lack the
English skills to be accepted in accredited training programs (Citizenship and
Immigration Canada, 2010) and do not have the financial means to participate
in training programs. Additionally, their life circumstances often make it difficult
for them to pursue their studies in formal settings (Blank, 2010). The Bridging
Program for Immigrant Child Care Educators evolved from the recognition that
the Alberta workforce includes a large proportion of childcare educators who are
immigrants or refugees, and these educators need to be provided with learning
opportunities that will serve as a career ladder. As noted, the primary objective
of the study was to provide in-depth understanding of the ways in which differing
conceptions of what children need in the preschool years are played out in teacher
training programs in social contexts where the participants are experiencing rapid
social and personal change.
Canadian Research Site and Participants
Concerned about the lack of options for immigrant early childhood educators, an immigrant-serving agency attached to a childcare centre sought and
was granted government funding to pilot a 2-year program to bridge immigrant
early childhood educators into the post-secondary system. The overall aims of the
program, as defined by the funding agreement, were to improve upon students’
skills in the English language and teach the dominant theory and practice in the
field of ECE. In addition, the goals of the program dictated a learner-centred approach to curriculum, with the realities of the participants impacting decisions
about content, learning outcomes, instructional strategies, and assessment. In
the Bridging program, the characteristics that learners brought to the classroom
included their pre-migration and settlement status, their current life realities,
their level of English proficiency, and their earlier educational and work experiences. Instructional and assessment strategies were heavily influenced by learner
realities. Content and learning outcomes grew from an analysis of the curricula
of post-secondary programs in Early Learning and Child Care (ELCC), and were
less influenced by student characteristics.
Nineteen immigrant or refugee women originally coming from one of nine
different countries (Ethiopia, Eritrea, Morocco, Senegal, Somalia, El Salvador, Sri
Lanka, Nepal, and Vietnam) participated in the research. They were all employed
full time as child care educators at one of seven different child care programs. The
volunteer mentors, mainly retired or semi-retired educators (teachers, consultants,
or professors) assigned to work individually with these women, also participated
in the study. The students met weekly for a 3-hour class as part of their regular
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work day. The mentors worked with their assigned students during or following
the class.
Theoretical Grounding of the Program: Critical Pedagogy
The Bridging program was grounded in critical pedagogy as its main purpose
was to encourage the participating immigrant and refugee women to voice their
knowledges and ideas in order to influence their existing practice and plan proactively for their own futures. Thus, in Freire’s terms (1970), it aimed at freeing
people from the “culture of silence” through an authentic exchange between individuals. Freire’s emphasis on the importance of dialogue in which persons are
acting with, rather than on, one another were central to the pedagogical practice
in the program. Critical theory’s focus on “how injustice and subjugation shape
people’s experiences and understandings of the world” (Patton, 2002, p. 130) was
central in understanding how the participants’ double marginalization: first, as
recent newcomers to Canada who were not fully integrated into the mainstream
society and were still in the early stages of learning English and second, as child
care workers who lacked educational qualifications in the Canadian context,
shaped their understandings of their own positions in relation to the professional
discourse in ECE and the society at large.
Critical pedagogy also allows researchers to rethink the purpose of schooling/
education and the ways in which one can fight for social justice. It promotes examination of the relationship between knowledge and power and thus it challenges
the traditional theories of education based on the view that there is only one way
of knowing. The view that all knowledge is shaped within a historical framework
and this historical perspective provides life and meaning to human experiences, is
central to critical pedagogy. Students and their experiences were thus understood
as a historical moment under particular circumstances (Darder et al., 2009).
In our particular research, understanding and defining culture played an
important role. More specifically, our understanding of how the concept of know-
ledge is connected to culture shaped our interpretation of the views expressed
by the participants in the program. Because critical pedagogy has a dialectical
view of knowledge, it aims to uncover the relations among cultural norms, values,
standards of the society, and the purpose of knowledge. Critical pedagogy therefore
tries to create a dialectical understanding of the world through the critical understanding of the hidden effects of power and privilege in a multicultural society
that claims to offer equal opportunities to all its members (Darder et al., 2009;
McLaren, 2003). In critical pedagogy, in order to know how culture is reproduced
and made visible in social relations it is very important to find out which group
or individual has power.
In the case of the Bridging program, the power of the majority culture was
present in two distinct ways. First, in its embodied and personal way it was present
in participants’ daily struggles with the language and the differences in relation
to the everyday cultural practices they encountered as they adjusted to the new
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(Canadian) culture. Second, the power of the dominant professional ECE discourse
was present in both the policies and practices in the participants’ workplaces, as
well as in the course content that the participants were exposed to in the Bridging
program and were expected to learn and apply. This interplay between cultural
knowledge and power as experienced by the immigrant and refugee women in the
Bridging program was made visible in the form of a number of tensions.
Study Design
A participatory action research component was an integral part of the design
of this program. Participatory action research methodology falls under the larger
umbrella of action research, which also includes practitioner research, collaborative action research, cooperative inquiry, community-based participatory research,
and feminist action research. While as researchers we held privileged/insider
access to the dominant early childhood education discourse being taught in the
program’s curriculum, we were situated as outsiders to the participants’ own “insider” cultural perspectives on childrearing. Therefore, as Canadian researchers,
we not only needed to interpret the participants’ culturally-bound perspectives,
but also to understand the ways in which the dominant professional discourses
were re-interpreted in the local context. It was necessary, therefore, as required
by the research process, for all participants to become co-researchers. The team
approach utilized in the Canadian research site involved close collaboration with
local early childhood teacher educators, researchers, and two research assistants.
The research was guided by principles of ethical conduct including reciprocity
and equity. The research process was constantly evolving through an interacting
spiral of look, think, and act, and could change directions throughout the course
of the study. Consistent with participatory research methodology, qualitative data
were co-constructed and generated collectively during all phases of the process.
Since the Bridging program was a unique pilot program that could not be
guaranteed to be repeated, data collection commenced in September 2012, the
first year of this program, in order to follow the student teachers from the first
day in their program. Data-gathering strategies included observations, video
and audio recordings of coursework and practice, and follow-up interviews with
teacher educators and student teachers. The cyclic nature of participatory research
methodologies requires data to be analyzed on an on-going basis. Thus, after an
analysis of each of the data sources, significant items of information were to be
identified and shared among the co-researchers. Clustering of similar items in
categories and themes allowed for the identification of group-similar items which
served to guide a group decision-making process leading to concrete solutions to
the identified practical problems (Creswell, 2007). Particular attention was given
to “cultural tensions” arising from “clashes” between Euro-centric course content
and students’ personal cultural knowledges and beliefs about what was “good for
children” and what constituted professional early childhood practice.
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Cultural Tensions in the ECE Context
Although there is no clear or agreed upon definition of cultural tension, in
literature (Hasson & Gonen, 1997) the term has been used to describe the perception of what happens when individuals from different cultures come into contact
with one another regarding educational, occupational, parental, religious, and
other issues. At an individual/group level, different descriptions of cultural tension focused on process, power, and identity formation (Kanu, 2005; Lee, 2013;
Pepper and Larson, 2006). In education and occupation literature, a cultural
tension is described as occurring at the intersection between personal and ethnic
identity (values), and dominant values embedded and expressed in occupational,
educational, and societal (colonial) contexts (Tarry, 2011). This perspective
suggests that it is a liminal phase of negotiation that is generally undertaken by a
subjugated or marginalized individual or group in their relation to the dominant
culture or occupation and thus it tends to have a negative connotation. However,
there is also recognition that tensions do not necessarily lead to adoption of the
dominant view; rather individuals in educational contexts are agentic, in that they
can and do make choices as to what to reject, adapt, or simply subvert within the
context (Chang, 2007; Lee, 2013; Pepper and Larson, 2006; Tarry, 2011). In terms
of cultural tensions in the development of programs or curriculum, recognition
of the need to adapt materials, approaches, and curriculum (dominant) to the
context of the individuals from other (usually subjugated) cultural/ethnic/racial
backgrounds to support what is hoped for outcomes (e.g., educational/occupational
outcomes typically based on western educational philosophies, etc.) is strong in
the literature (Kahn and Kelly, 2001).
Research (e.g., Rogoff, 2003) indicates that, consistent with positivist perspectives, the Western system of education, including teacher education programs,
is based on abstract, scientific modes of thinking that prioritize critical thinking
and literacy as ways of understanding the world. More specifically, the Western
system of education reflects cultural assumptions such as students must become
independent learners and are held individually accountable for their work. These
assumptions may not resonate for individuals who have not experienced this
model of education. Their schooling may have been interrupted or limited by their
pre-migration experiences, and they may have different ways of perceiving the
world, along with a great deal of practical knowledge (DeCapua and Marshall,
2010). For example, they may come from cultures that view interconnectedness
and social relationships as more important than focusing on individual achievement (Kâgitçibasi, 2007).
The Findings: Tensions Between Students’ Cultural and Professional
Knowledges
The research at the Bridging program identified areas of tensions or discontinuities at each stage of the curriculum cycle: cultural perspectives challenged
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accepted professional practice with respect to the content of the program. These
tensions raised many questions about approaches to ELCC curriculum and its
ability to meet the needs of diverse learners. For the purposes of this article, only
the tensions between the cultural knowledge that immigrant child care educators
brought to their work and the professional knowledge in the early childhood care
and education community of practice will be discussed in the following section.
Tensions regarding values: Showing respect
Our research identified that the course content in the area of adult-child
relationships carried tension and ambivalence for the participants in the Bridging
program. Their own early experiences and normative structures of family life,
embodied values, beliefs, and child-rearing goals and expectations suggested a
relatively greater hierarchical relationship between adults and children, and within
parental-child roles (Rubin & Chung, 2006) than are prevalent in Canadian society
and are expected in ELCC professional practice (Papatheodorou, 2010). Many of
the participants saw respect (parental/adult authority) as an important value for
children to learn and to express in their relationship with adults. However, some
of the participants did not see this to be the case in Canada:
It is so different from here and where I come from, the interest of the child. So,
there is no way I (as a child) can express my interest. But it’s always there that my
mom put us this, this (slaps her hand), . . .if I ask my daughter to do this, I have to
explain why, you know, prepare an explanation. Of course, I have to respect them.
At the same time, maybe I don’t like it. There is no way, they [say] “you hurt my
feeling.” There is no way, no way, no way (lots of agreement in background). (Tersit)
Unvaryingly, the cultural expectations were that relationships with parents
were to be respectful, as revealed in this discussion of eye contact:
I don’t know the other culture, but in my culture you don’t look (at) your
mother like this. (Phyllis)
Yeah [my culture is the] same. We learn eye contact here in Canada. In our
culture you are not allowed to fix your eyes on your parent or even any adult because
it’s disrespectful. That’s why it was so hard when we are here studying or doing
some kind of interview. Because here maybe they were thinking you are shy. (Laila)
Another student adds, “or hiding something.”
Many participants perceived that they, themselves, were not being treated
respectfully by the children in their workplace, which contrasted sharply with
their own early experiences where the teacher and parent were equally respected
and the parent would reinforce the teacher’s discipline:
When we were in school you have to look at the teacher and have to respect her
like a mom because if not you are spanked from teacher plus mom. (Sofia)
We listened to our parents and . . . when I started working in daycare ooohhhh,
I love children but still you’re thinking where are these children coming from, why
are they acting that way. (Daniella)
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Tensions regarding praxis: Interacting with children
Communication and guidance seemed to have particular significance to immigrant and refugee childcare educators because the Western ways of communicating and of relating to children were culturally unfamiliar to the participants.
Since the participants’ early socialization has taught them to respect elders and
authorities and not to challenge or ask questions (Cunningham & Burt, 2001),
the ideas of listening to children’s questions, respecting their ideas and feelings,
and explaining reasons for requests provoked a great deal of class discussion.
This tension was amplified by the expectations placed on the participants by
their employers who required them to use “professional” language and indirect
ways of speaking to children. Examples provided in class, such as saying, “I see
that there’s water on the floor and I’m worried that someone might slip and hurt
themselves” rather than, “Wipe up the water,” were seen as unnatural and very
challenging for most participants.
In addition, the dominant discourse of early childhood—developmentally appro-
priate practices and western normative developmental theories—is frequently
operationalized as a binary between “appropriate” and “inappropriate” teaching
and assessment practices. Mirroring this conception, a PowerPoint slide used in
the class on guidance and communications is shown in Figure 1. The slide affirms
prescriptive (Western) ways of speaking to children and guiding their behaviors:
Descripve feedback
Praise
... is specific
... is vague
»You picked up all the puzzle pieces!«
»Good job!«
... focuses on behaviour
»You cleared the table all on
your own!«
... emphasizes process
»Youʹve been working hard building
that fort all morning!«
... evaluates the person
»Good boy!«
... evaluates product
»That is a great fort!«
Figure 1. Descriptive Feedback versus Praise (Source: PPT slide November 6, 2013)
Rigidity is implicit in the slide’s layout. There is one right (and one wrong)
way and the happy and sad faces communicate this to students.
As some of the participants pointed out, this way of communicating was not
only culturally dissonant but also difficult for an educator who is not proficient
in English.
“I don’t know about other people, but for me, because this is a second language
for me, it’s easier for me to shorten the thing instead of sitting there and explaining to
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the kid all of this. It’s slow but if I say “good job,” “good girl” it’s short. [Classmates
are agreeing with her.] But to explain is so slow.” (Hansa) [Classmates laugh.]
Tensions regarding ways of learning: Learning through play
Although the idea of learning though play has long been at the core of ELCC
practice in the global North and/or industrialized nations, as well as at the majority
of the Western research and accessible literature on play and child development
(Fleer et al. 2005), the participants in the Bridging program had come from environments in which there was a sharp division between play and learning. The
participants generally described play as an activity done by children and with
other children. In their experiences, children played without adult oversight or
intervention, just with the “children off together”. A student statement below
sums up their common experiences:
“When I was a child, I played outside freely. We played with our friends and
nobody cared about where I went unlike in Canada. We were free to stay alone from
an early age. I spent my childhood as a very happy girl.”
Students referred to only rare occasions in their childhood when play involved
interaction between children and adults. Perhaps because the participants were
already working in child care centres, they were aware of the expectation that
they would play with children in their care. However, they had differing attitudes
towards the role of learning through play (Chan, 2011). The idea that they would
play with the children was uncomfortable to some. In their work, the participants
tended to ask the children knowledge test type questions while they were playing,
such as, “What colour is it?”, “How many [blocks] do you see?,” etc. Based on the
participants’ experiences of learning in their own cultural contexts, such direct
content-testing questions were appropriate since the play with blocks was expected
to help children develop mathematical skills. The tensions arose when the two
concepts of free play and learning math were put together as learning though play
and the participants could not reconcile the difference in their experiences of play
and of learning as children.
Discussion and Conclusion: The Learning Process and Implications for
Early Childhood Teacher Education
In traditional ECTE programs, students are led to believe that such authoritative knowledge will transform them into professionals. By foregrounding
students’ cultural knowledges, different cultural backgrounds and life experiences, the Bridging program aimed to challenge the common expectation that all
students accept the western cultural assumptions based on child development
theories. The program exemplified our conviction that “scientific” approaches to
child development “necessarily eliminate culturally-based understandings about
teaching and learning that teacher candidates bring to their teacher preparation”
(Montecinos as cited in Wilgus, 2013, p. 7). Furthermore, since we believe that it
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is not only the bodies of knowledge shaping teacher education programs which
must be interrogated, but also the ways in which instructors and programs represent and impart these understandings to students, we deliberately selected our
pedagogical approaches. For example, we minimized the use of PowerPoint as it
enhanced western authoritative ways of being through its modes of communication and representation, means of organizing information, forms of representing
content and pedagogical approaches, thus displacing immigrant/refugee students’
own indigenous ways of knowing (Kirova et al. in press). Yet, as our study demonstrated, for immigrants or refugees students, some aspects of the dominant
discourses in the field of early childhood education were still a source of tension
and affected their performance as students.
It must also be noted that the learners in the Bridging program had specific
(English) language needs that shaped the ways in which the ECE content was
delivered. As described in the report prepared for the funding ministries (Massing
and Shortreed, 2014), the main ECE concepts were identified and illustrated in
weekly lesson plans and on-site delivery as key messages. Messages given in class,
to and from the instructor and the students, were mediated by several factors
including English proficiency, prior educational experiences in home countries
and in Canada, past and present work experiences, cultural beliefs and practices,
family responsibilities, economic realities, and, in the case of some students,
concurrent enrolment in other educational programs. The key messages were
processed immediately after the class between the mentor and student where the
same mediating influences were present but with the advantage of a one-to-one
interaction. The students then took their understanding of the message to their
workplace and applied it in their practice. This process was further influenced by
additional mediating influences, particularly the child or children involved, but
also the physical setting, co-workers and supervisors, families, and professional
expectations.
All of these interactions occurred within an environment of inquiry, reflection,
and co-creation. The learning environment encouraged sharing of personal and
cultural experiences with a view to comparing these with professional expectations. It also supported students in reflecting on the course process and providing
input about learning strategies that “worked” for them. Students reflected on the
effectiveness of their actions in their workplace and brought their reflections back
to the classroom. These, along with the instructors’ ongoing reflections, formed
the basis for planning subsequent classes in a process that was emergent and
recursive.
Educating early childhood educators in Canada: a bridging program for immigrant ...
77
C
Future Planning
ion
eat
r
c
o(a)
Mediating Influences
English proficiency
Prior educational experience
• Past and present
work experiences
• Cultural beliefs and practices
• Family responsibilities
• Economic realities
• Concurrent enrolment in
other programs
•
I
Š
M
P
=
=
=
=
Instructor
Student
Mentor
Practice
n
in
Re
fl e
g
•
cti
on
Q
s
ue
tio
(b)
Child
Physical setting
• Co-workers
• Supervisiors
• Families
• Professional expectations
•
•
Figure 2: The Learning Process (Massing and Shortreed, 2014, p. 10)
The research identified important tensions between the dominant ECE
discourse and immigrant and refugee cultural knowledges and child rearing
practices they brought to ECTE programs, including the Bridging program
studies for the purposes of this research project. In addition to identifying the
main points of tension, the research also documented approaches to curriculum
and pedagogy that have the potential to minimize the impact of these tensions on
the immigrant and refugee students in ECTE programs developing professional
identity. However, although the Bridging program’s instructors worked very hard
to bring to the forefront the cultural knowledge and practices of the students in
the program, their final remarks regarding the changes they were able to identify demonstrated that the dominant discourse in the field of ECE has motivated
them to become more “professional” in their practice by appropriating a new way
of being and communicating with children. Thus the need to develop what Wilgus
(2013) called “alternative canons” (p. 177) must become a task for the entire field
of early childhood teacher education in order for students’ cultural, historical,
social, and political knowledges and experiences to be incorporated as legitimate
“texts” in ECTE programs.
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