Transitions to Early Childhood Education and Care for Indigenous Children and Families in Canada: Historical and Social Realities

Abstract

The transition into formal early learning settings, such as preschool and child care, represents a significant milestone for children and families. This paper explores the perspectives of 25 indigenous parents and family members and two caregivers reflecting on the transition of the indigenous children from their home to an early childhood development program in a large urban centre in western Canada. Our findings suggest that the transition experiences begin well before indigenous children and families join a program. There are factors that facilitate their participation, such as costs, transportation and location. How these parents negotiate their transition is impacted by their historical experiences with schooling and the place of culture and language in supporting their children and families. Early learning programs need to understand the social, cultural and historical realities that shape the transition experience for indigenous children and families. 1 ' The indigenous people of Canada are referred to as Aboriginal people. The term Aboriginal is inclusive of First Nations, Inuit and Metis people of Canada. The Aboriginal people of Canada refer to themselves by their tribal affiliations.

Engaging Indigenous families in a community-based Indigenous early childhood programme in British Columbia, Canada: A cultural safety perspective

“…Consistent with this perspective, the findings described in this article illustrate how AIDP workers took into account how caregivers' reluctance and suspicions were shaped by mistrust with systems and authority figures. In particular, and consistent with international literature (Grace & Trudgett, ; Hare & Anderson, ; Kaomea, ), workers understood how programme engagement was shaped by long‐standing and ongoing state intervention in families' lives. Moreover, in placing ‘the onus on us’ to rebuild trust and ‘being willing to move a step forward’—workers explicitly located the responsibility for programme engagement and adaptation at a programme and organisational level rather than with caregivers.…”

“…As identified in the literature from Australian and North American contexts (Fox et al., ; Halgunseth, Peterson, Stark, & Moodie, ; Hare & Anderson, ), building trust with all parents, particularly, when there is a history of involvement with child welfare authorities, is central to family engagement in early childhood programmes. An important insight from the analysis described in this article pertains to the time required to gain caregivers' trust.…”

“…Indigenous families' equitable access to early childhood programmes can be complicated and constrained by intersecting personal, social and structural factors. These factors are remarkably similar across international boundaries and include parental experiences of systemic racism; historical and ongoing forms of state surveillance and intervention; a normative (non‐Indigenous) perspective of parenting and child rearing, and the multi‐faceted effects of poverty (Guilfoyle et al., ; Hare & Anderson, ; Jackiewicz, Saggers, & Frances, ; Kaomea, ; Kitson & Bowes, ; Niles, Byers, & Krueger, ).…”

Transition of Children with Disabilities into Early Childhood Education and Care Centres

“…While there is extensive literature on transition to school, and sometimes on transition of children with disabilities into school, there is a dearth of literature on transition into ECEC centres for either typically developing children or young children with disabilities, despite this being recognised as an important transition (Hare & Anderson, 2010). Although transition to kindergarten for children with disabilities has not been widely researched, the past decade has seen far more attention being paid to this area (Fenlon, 2005;Janus, Lefort, Cameron & Kopechanski, 2007).…”

Indigenizing Vocabulary Teaching: An Example of Multiliteracies Pedagogy from Unamen Shipu

“…The residential schools contributed to this lack of recognition of Indigenous languages in schools. In addition, residential schools seriously affected family cohesion and the transmission of family traditions between generations, leading to increased mistrust of education (Hare & Anderson, 2010). Fortunately, Indigenous identity is still alive, as are the movements toward self-determination 3 and language revitalization programs (Richards & Maracle, 2002;Sarkar & Metallic, 2009;Sioui, Picard & Dorais, 2008).…”