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Building parents’ understandings of quality early childhood education and care and early learning and development: changing constructions to change conversations
Fenech, Marianne Salamon, Andi Stratigos, Tina
Fenech, Marianne
Salamon, Andi
Stratigos, Tina
Abstract
Educator-parent partnerships have long been constructed in a discourse of improving outcomes for children. Notwithstanding the value of parent engagement for children's learning, development and wellbeing, this paper calls for a broader construction. In the context of marketised provisioning in which parents generally operate as uninformed consumers, the paper proposes a positioning of parent engagement that builds parents' understandings about quality ECEC and early learning and development, and which operates from a strengths-based platform. Findings from an Australian study that explored such a positioning from the perspective of five centre directors highlight the challenges involved, with participants exercising different degrees of intentionality. Those who actively sought to build parents' understandings demonstrated a professionalism that viewed parents from a strengths-based perspective, and strategically used time with parents and educators to undertake this work as part of their daily practice. In contrast, the less intentional participants appeared to comply with a marketised framing of parents as consumers, whose real or perceived needs took priority.
Keywords
early childhood education, parent partnerships, advocacy, child care choice, quality
Date
2019
Type
Journal article
Journal
European Early Childhood Education Research Journal
Book
Volume
27
Issue
5
Page Range
706-721
Article Number
ACU Department
Collections
Relation URI
Source URL
Event URL
Open Access Status
License
All rights reserved
File Access
Controlled