The Role of First Language Facilitators in Redefining Parent Involvement: Newcomer Families’ Funds of Knowledge in an Intercultural Preschool Program

Christine Massing; Anna Kirova; Kelly Hennig

doi:10.18357/jcs.v38i2.15445

The Role of First Language Facilitators in Redefining Parent Involvement: Newcomer Families’ Funds of Knowledge in an Intercultural Preschool Program

Authors

Christine Massing University of Alberta
Anna Kirova University of Alberta
Kelly Hennig Alberta Ministry of Education

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18357/jcs.v38i2.15445

Abstract

Involving immigrant and refugee families is a desirable goal of ECE
programs in Canada; however, families are typically brought into a
prescriptive, defined space framed by Euro-North American standards of developmental appropriateness. Within this space, immigrant and refugee families’ funds of cultural knowledge are systematically marginalized. An intercultural preschool program, in which English was the common language alongside three other
languages, aimed at enhancing the children’s knowledge and pride in
their home languages and cultures; the program challenged the conventional view of parental involvement. First language facilitators and cultural brokers acted as conduits between home and preschool and supported social networking within each of the three cultural communities represented in the program. Drawing on data collected through ethnographic methods during a unit on babies as part of an emergent curriculum, the authors describe how the facilitators and brokers brought newcomer families’ knowledge funds into the classroom and curriculum, resulting in a culturally sustaining pedagogy.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

Christine Massing, University of Alberta

Christine Massing is a fourth-year doctoral student in the department of elementary education at the University of Alberta, specializing in early childhood education. She also instructs in the early learning and child care program at Grant MacEwan University. Her doctoral research focuses on immigrant and refugee women’s knowledge construction in early childhood teacher education programs.

Anna Kirova, University of Alberta

Anna Kirova, PhD, is professor of early childhood education at the University of Alberta. Her research interests include understanding culturally and linguistically diverse children’s experiences of loneliness and isolation at school, and the possibility such an understanding offers for culturally sensitive pedagogy. Most recently, her research focuses on collaborative research with children, use of arts-based methodologies with vulnerable children, and community-based participatory research aimed at developing an intercultural early learning program for immigrant and refugee children in which children maintain their home language and culture while learning English.

Kelly Hennig, Alberta Ministry of Education

Kelly Hennig has worked in a variety of roles for Edmonton Head Start programs over the last 16 years. He has worked as an early learning teacher, a Head Start supervisor and a planning and evaluation coordinator. He is currently a senior manager with the Alberta Ministry of Education. His work has included planning for responsive program delivery, developmental evaluation, and policy development. His research interests include exploring alternative means of representing young children’s learning, and social policy related to poverty reduction.

Downloads

Published

2016-02-17

How to Cite

Massing, C., Kirova, A., & Hennig, K. (2016). The Role of First Language Facilitators in Redefining Parent Involvement: Newcomer Families’ Funds of Knowledge in an Intercultural Preschool Program. Journal of Childhood Studies, 38(2), 4–13. https://doi.org/10.18357/jcs.v38i2.15445

Issue

Vol. 38 No. 2 (Fall 2013) Canadian Children

Section

Invitational Articles and Urgent Conversations

License

Authors contributing to the Journal of Childhood Studies agree to release their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International license. This licence allows anyone to share their work (copy, distribute, transmit) and to adapt it for non-commercial purposes provided that appropriate attribution is given, and that in the event of reuse or distribution, the terms of this license are made clear.

Authors retain copyright of their work and grant the journal right of first publication.

Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.