2023 NZIRECE Journal (Vol. 25)

FULL REFERENCE: Summers, T. & Kamp, A.  (2023).  Female social justice leaders in the early childhood profession: A narrative inquiry on the origins of leadership.  NZ International Research in Early Childhood Education Journal, 25, pp.  29 – 43.

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ABSTRACT: Sonja Davies, Kai Tahu, 1923-2005, was dedicated to social justice in Aotearoa New Zealand (Aotearoa) across various arenas, including early childhood education. She received the Queen’s Service award in 1987 and was a member of Parliament from 1987 to 1993. This article, drawn from kaupapa Māori, narrative research, investigates Sonja’s life with a focus on her upbringing, family, and contributions to early childhood. Sonja’s story, compiled from autobiographies, interview and document sources, was analysed thematically to explore the origins of her leadership. The analysis revealed that the origins of Sonja’s leadership are found in role models, personal struggles, mana wahine and social norms. Her leadership had a cost and was influenced by gender and generational contexts. Sonja’s leadership skills, combined with the social, economic, and cultural context that existed for her generation, enabled her to address inequities and to achieve change in the social justice sphere. Sonja’s story is important due to its place in time and history and because female leaders are underrepresented in the leadership literature. Drawing on Sonja’s story and the literature this article argues that the origins of Sonja’s leadership offer insights for the development of current and future leaders in early childhood education and beyond.

KEY WORDS:  Sonja Davies, early childhood leadership, social justice, politics of childcare.

INTRODUCTION

Lyman et al (2012) states that “there is no universal understanding of social justice leadership amongst scholars” (p.4). Despite this lack of common understanding, the importance of leadership is acknowledged in the early childhood education sector in Aotearoa. Scholars also recognise that historical narratives of early childhood leaders have the potential to make an important contribution to leadership and practice (May et al., 2021). Sonja Davies has influenced early childhood education from a historical perspective in Aotearoa, New Zealand. When Sonja learned about her Māori ancestry and discovered her whakapapa (see Glossary for Māori terms) later in life she learnt the importance of identity for supporting her leadership. Given Sonja’s identity as a Māori woman the research reported on in this article draws on Māori leadership literature and reflects a kaupapa Māori perspective. The focus on Te ao Māori in this article also reflects the context of Aotearoa as a bicultural nation and the researcher’s identity as a wahine Māori.

FULL REFERENCE: Afrin, T. (2023).  Cultural components of early childhood teacher education in Aotearoa New Zealand.  NZ International Research in Early Childhood Education Journal, 25, pp. 1 – 16.

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ABSTRACT: A number of Tertiary Education Organisations (TEOs) deliver early childhood teacher education programmes, where teaching and learning takes place between student-teachers and lecturers. Although several research reports aim to explore cultural diversity and inclusive practice with young children, very few do so from the perspective of teacher education. It is important that the tertiary sector is studied so that the student-teachers’ classroom encounter aligns with the placement experience. This study aims to address this gap. Within a socio-cultural framework, the research objectives were to ascertain the cultural components of early childhood teacher education programmes and to explore how the identified components impact on teaching and learning. Twelve lecturers from three TEOs and three cohorts of student-teachers participated via interviews and focus group discussions. Using manual thematic coding, nine broad areas of emerged. These are bicultural contexts of Aotearoa, multi-culturalism, individual identities, cross-cultural interactions, comfort zone, female majority, socio-economic struggles, spirituality, and technology. Student-teachers reported feeling empowered when they shared components from their culture. Lecturers acknowledged these components and affirmed that they contributed to their own emotional and professional growth. The findings led to the development of a reusable reflection framework for the lecturers of early childhood teacher education programmes to promote cultural competence.

KEY WORDS: Culture, teacher education, early childhood, reflection, teaching as inquiry.

INTRODUCTION

If we believe in the quote “We teach who we are” (Palmer, 1998, p. 1), curiosity about cultural components arises. Our own cultural contexts influence us as individuals and as educators. As an immigrant early childhood teacher educator from Bangladesh, working in Aotearoa New Zealand for the last twelve years, my curiosity led me to explore how lecturers relate to the student-teachers within the diverse cultural context. This query led to a Master of Philosophy study where I aimed to understand the cultural components of early childhood teacher education classrooms and the possible impact they may have on lecturers and student-teachers. In this study, I have condensed the infinite components of culture present in early childhood teacher education classrooms. Culture itself is polysemous. This is because culture is influenced by multiple variables such social and political contexts, as well as individual aspects such as, age, gender, and ethnicities (Eberly, Joshi, & Konzal, 2007). Anthropologically, people may denote artefacts from many different identities even within the same individual. For the study, I have narrowed down the investigation to the following subjects:

FULL REFERENCE: Griffiths, V., Hall, E., Hartley, D., Hohaia-Rollinson, F., Malcolm J., Purdue, K. and Tate, A.  (2023). Working towards culturally safe and inclusive early childhood work environments.  NZ International Research in Early Childhood Education Journal, 25, pp. 17 – 28.

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ABSTRACT: Priority 1 of the National Education and Learning Priorities (NELP) requires early childhood education (ECE) services to ensure their educational environments are “safe, inclusive and free from racism, discrimination and bullying” (New Zealand Government, 2019, p. 2). However, recent media reports and research indicate that ECE teachers/kaiako do not experience safe, inclusive workplaces. This research supports a key action identified in the NELP namely to “ask…staff about their experience of racism, discrimination and bullying, and use that information to reduce these behaviours” (New Zealand Government, 2019, p. 2). We used a survey containing open-ended questions administered through Survey Monkey to gather information on diverse ECE teacher experiences in their work environments. The 233 respondents reported a range of positive and negative attitudes and behaviours to their differences, examples of which appear in this article. The study suggests that work is still needed to ensure early childhood workplaces are inclusive of culture and diversity. Our recommendations call on adults working in New Zealand early childhood services to help counter such experiences by honouring the Treaty of Waitangi/Te Tiriti o Waitangi, engaging in critical self and team reflection, increasing cultural and diversity capability through professional learning and development, and practicing continuous improvement.

Key words:  Policy, discrimination, inclusion, early childhood workplaces.

INTRODUCTION