ABOUT

     Contextualizing early childhood education in international schools requires a multifaceted approach to be effective in meeting the specific needs of the communities they serve. This e-portfolio brings together the contextualization of child wellbeing, language, leadership and programming within international schools to empower communities and foster positive cultural identity. Early childhood education has often been dominated by Western discourses of education and development. These processes, values, practices and systems provide power and control of educational systems through a narrow lens of what childhood, family and community represent. These practices and values around child development and communities can homogenize children resulting in a lack of diversity and representation for the millions of children worldwide (Woodhead, 2006). International schools within this environment have a unique space to engage in these systems of power and situate themselves in tension or connection within communities. They can move through complex and unclear positions within communities and these muddy waters can make it hard to decide what direction to take.

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     International schools can often provide curriculums based on Western models of expectations and outcomes, policies that exert their position as a dominant figure within the community and practices that do not honor the community they are within. They can continue to engage in discourses which focus on economic return and socialization for work, rather than the individualized potential within humans through education (Woodhead, 2006). Without reflection, analysis and change, one may see the position of an international school as another form of colonialism within communities, rather than being a true part of them. This focus of Western “civilizing” and a perception of being “higher up on the ladder”, can indeed run the risk of colonizing other cultures and societies (Pence & Benner, 2015).

 

     There are however, opportunities and ways to make ECE within international schools bloom into something beautiful. International schools have an opportunity to contextualize not only the learning within the school but every facet of their being. They can utilize the funds of knowledge families have to develop culturally responsive curriculums that use the bodies of knowledge of families, their ways of thinking and approaches to learning to encourage and develop mutual relationships between schools and home (Hedges et al., 2011). They can examine their personal values and beliefs about family practices and use these learning opportunities to not only reflect on their own biases, but also examine policies and practices that develop tension and ostracization from the community. Indeed, while daily care and nurturing of children is a cultural act, and there may be tensions between school and home, it is not inevitable that one viewpoint dominates another (Gestwicki, 2016). An international school has every possibility to be a community school that serves the community, honors the community and is a true representation of the community.