Complicating classroom community in early childhood
Abstract
In the dominant early childhood education discourse, creating and maintaining a
classroom community is recognized as a vital component of successful teaching and
learning. Community is valued and discussed through the discourses of democracy, care,
and inclusion in early childhood education. The purpose of this study is to explore the
meanings and experiences of classroom community with a teacher and her students
within an early childhood setting. This aim of the study is to contextualize the life
experiences in classroom community, thus highlighting the tensions and complexities.
This qualitative case study employs a multitheoretical interpretivist analysis that
interrupts the current discourses of community as a coherent cohesiveness and offers up
the possibility of examining community critically. The guiding questions of the study
are: 1) How do the members of an early childhood classroom experience and come to
understand community?, 2) What are the tensions of community in an early childhood
setting?, and 3)What are the (im)possibilities of classroom community in early childhood
education?
The data show that through classroom members defined community in the
following terms: Classroom community 1) provides a place that is safe and comfortable
without conflict, 2) requires working together and helping one another, 3) offers spaces to
address issues of inclusion and exclusion, and 4) involves learning to be good citizens in
a democracy. However, these ideals of community are interrupted within the context of
the discipline of a public elementary school that insists upon control and conformity.
Tensions are identified around the incompatibility of the different participants’ ideas of
community, the conflicting roles different members play, and social issues based on
difference. The ideals of community become another discourse to control, categorize, and
exclude others. Yet, the struggles within this exploration allow participants to find
opportunities to reflect and question their interpretations of community and take social
action. The researcher concludes that building community in early childhood classrooms
is not the answer to our educational goals, but rather is a point of departure for
questioning contentious issues in our lives so we can learn about others, our selves, and
make change in the world.
Department
Description
text