VOICES HEARD AND LESSONS LEARNT: EXPLORING MULTIPLE KNOWLEDGES AND LOCAL PARTICIPATION IN A COMMUNITY-BASED INTEGRATED EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT PROJECT IN RURAL SOUTH AFRICA

• Authors: Murray Jaclyn , Rudolph Norma
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Following calls for diverse and contextual perspectives of the rich lives of young children, their families and communities from/in the Global South, this paper presents critical reflections emerging from a three-year (2016-2019) community based Integrated Approach to Early Childhood Development (ECD) project implemented in the rural Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. It explores the critical relationship established between ranges of stakeholders involved in this project as reflected on by two community activists working together in the area of early childhood in the province for thirty years. This article highlights the importance of situating any community development initiative aimed at addressing early childhood provision in marginalised communities within a social justice framework. This includes identifying constraints inherent in unequal relations of power that risk undermining solidarity and agency for community stakeholders. It foregrounds accountability measures that emerge from local initiatives rather than from narrow predetermined project outcomes. This provides an opportunity to learn from, and engage with, experiences from the margins, thereby challenging some dominant narratives circulating, and often informing, early childhood policy and provision.

Keywords

EN

EARLY CHILDHOOD; COMMUNITY; SOUTH AFRICA; NON-PROFIT ORGANISATIONS; ECD

• Publisher: Faculty of Education, Trnava University
• Journal: Pedagogický časopis (Journal of Pedagogy)
• Year: 2019
• Volume: 10
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 13 – 32

Contributors

author

Murray Jaclyn

• University of Winchester, Department of Education Studies and Liberal Arts, Sparkford Road, Winchester, Hampshire SO22 4NR, UK

author

Rudolph Norma

Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/jped-2019-0001