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Guidelines for Project Leaders
Titiro Whakamuri, Hoki Whakamua: We are the future, the present and the past: caring for self, others and the environment in early years' teaching and learning
  
Two year project, 2008-2009
 Associate Professor Jenny Ritchie and Cheryl Rau from Unitec, Dr Iris Duhn from The University of Auckland and Janita Craw from Auckland University of Technology,in partnership with kuia and kaumätua, a research facilitator and teachers from Dunedin Kindergarten Association, as well as teachers from nine other childcare centres and kindergartens from other Kindergarten Associations nation-wide.


Project aim(s)

This research will co-investigate ‘pedagogies of place’ that evolve around an ethic of care for self, others and the environment, utilising both kaupapa Māori and western perspectives to focus on global issues of ecological sustainability within a variety of local/national early childhood education contexts.

  
Project plan

This qualitative study will draw on kaupapa M˙ori (Bishop & Glynn, 1999) and ethnographic modes of research design which offer exploratory, multimodal, and interpretative approaches to the study of people and their communities (Aubrey, David, Godfrey & Thompson, 2000). The research analysis processes for data theorizing will implement dialogical negotiation of meaning and collaborative storying strategies. These processes will be used to ascertain how effective ecological sustainability practices can be integrated in early childhood educational settings. A collaborative co-researcher approach that enables ongoing reflexive and supportive research relationships between each participating centre and the academic researcher/s will be central to this process.
  

Partnerships involved

This project’s collaborative research community will include a number of teacher-researchers, academic researchers, a research facilitator (Dunedin) and kuia (Ngati Maniapoto) and kaumatua (University of Otago). The partnership centres involved will include:

  • Belmont Kindergarten (Hamilton)
  • Collectively Kids (Auckland)
  • Hawera Kindergarten (Hawera)
  • Maungatapu Kindergarten (Tauranga)
  • Marie MacFarlane Kindergarten (Wanganui)
  • Meadowbank Kindergarten (Auckland)
  • Raglan Childcare Centre (Raglan)
  • Papamoa Kindergarten (Tauranga)
  • Richard Hudson Kindergarten (Dunedin)  

Expected outcomes

This project is expected to provide:

  • a critical analysis of how both kaupapa Maori and western ecological principles can be, or currently are being, used by teachers, tamariki, and whanau, to inform and enhance a kaupapa of ecological sustainability in early childhood centres;
  • a critical analysis of how teachers currently develop ‘pedagogies of place’ that emphasise the interrelationships between ethic of care for self, others and the environment in the context of their communities;
  • an exploration of how teachers ’pedagogies of place’ can be developed to enhance effective ecological sustainable practices in early childhood education in the context of their communities.
      

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