The aim of this article is to discuss how participatory methods might contribute to research concerning the development of inclusive, socially just and community-oriented pedagogical practices within the field of early childhood education, as well as contributing to shared knowledge production about relations between kindergartens1 and local communities. The article starts from a critique of dominant political and institutional approaches in Denmark to patterns of cooperation between kindergartens, parents, and local communities, which often in practice lead to top-down and compensatory approaches to cooperation, in which parents are expected to adapt to the agendas of the institutions. We argue that there is a need to develop alternatives to these approaches. This article explores how kindergartens might respond to the needs and views of parents and local communities, rather than the other way around. We explore this by asking what (local) communities for children and parents are and might be, and how kindergartens as significant shapers of children’s lives and experiences might create links between children’s lives inside and outside of the kindergarten. We discuss how communities, pedagogues and children might cooperate in pedagogical research processes and how such research processes affect (understandings of) children’s lives, communities, and kindergartens. Furthermore, we look at how these cooperations and insights might contribute to the development of more inclusive, community-oriented pedagogical practices. Our findings show that shared explorations of the many relations between kindergartens and communities have the potential to build more respectful and reciprocal dialogues and innovative pedagogical practices. Yet at the same time they show that this is an unfinished, imperfect endeavor that requires continuous attention to the complex and changing nature of communities, and to the closures and exclusions entailed by any community practice. Also, the findings point to an understanding of communities as performative phenomena that develop and grow through the very process of involvement and shared engagement. We argue that participatory, community-oriented pedagogical research methods should reflect these dynamics. The article describes and discusses research methods, showing how participatory research methods can deepen our understanding of the complex roles of early childhood education for children and communities, while also inspiring inclusive and community-oriented pedagogical practices.
This article explores how complex globalization processes play out in early childhood education (ECE) in Denmark. The article builds on two concepts of globalization: First, we understand globalization as the ways in which transnational educational policy discourses characterized by neoliberal pedagogical values affect national and local policies. Second, we understand globalization as ways in which cultural diversity as a product of global migration processes is discursively constructed as constituting specific “problems” for early childhood education. Drawing on the first concept of globalization, the article explores how a key policy document, The Strengthened Learning Plan (the SLP), is recontextualized and “put into action” in practice, and whether it leads to practices characterized by globalized neoliberal values at the cost of Nordic pedagogical ideals. We show that the SLP is enacted in very different ways in different centers, giving very different emphasis to globalized and Nordic ideals, respectively, and thus that the globalization of Danish ECE is by no means unambiguous. Looking more closely into the different enactments of the SLP, it becomes clear that they are closely connected to discursive constructions of the demography of the center: Constructions of ethnic minority children draw on culturalized categorizations where children are seen as vulnerable and as lacking, whereas constructions of ethnic majority children draw on non-culturalized categorizations where children are seen as natural and resourceful. Drawing on the second concept of globalization, we argue that the different enactments of early childhood policy build on connections between constructions of cultural diversity (or the lack thereof) and the construction of pedagogical “problems.” As such, the different enactments of the SLP—including those that prioritize Nordic ideals—represent globalization in the sense of constructions of cultural diversity that pose specific problems for early childhood education. Building on these findings, the article argues that the two globalization processes intersect, mutually shaping each other, and affecting how policies are enacted in pedagogical practice.
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