Bringing Children’s and Teachers’ Agency Together to Create Meaningful Learning That Matters in a Diverse Preschool

• Published in: International journal of early childhood 2023-12, Vol.55 (3), p.387-402
• Main Author: Sisson, J. H.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Academic readiness; Child development; Children & youth; Curricula; Early Childhood Education; Education; International and Comparative Education; Learning; Literacy; Multiculturalism & pluralism; Neoliberalism; Pedagogy; Phonics; S.I: Reimagining cultures of peace and democratic citizenship
• ISSN: 0020-7187; 1878-4658
• DOI: 10.1007/s13158-023-00364-z

This article addresses children living and learning under difficult circumstances by problematising taken-for-granted views of what counts as learning and school readiness that perpetuate deficit views of children who have been impacted by forced migration. Drawing from a larger study focused on exploring how early childhood teachers re-design their pedagogy in culturally responsive ways, this article presents the findings of one team who shifted their views about a group of children impacted by forced migration who resisted planned learning experiences. The analysis focuses on how an assemblage of knowledge, actors, expressions and experiences came together to constitute children’s play and digital worlds as matter(ing) in teachers’ planning and pedagogy and teachers’ planning and pedagogy as matter(ing) in children’s play, demonstrating how children and their mediators of learning re-imagined their repertoires, identities and agencies to co-construct meaningful learning.