Early childhood pedagogy in a Ghanaian socio-cultural medley: A case study of two Kindergarten classrooms

Thompson Mumuni

Abstract
In a quest for quality-driven early childhood education settings, it is important to explore subtleties that define socio-culturally-relevant pedagogy that is often ignored in scholarly literature. To address this gap in literature, a qualitative multi-case study approach was used to explore four Kindergarten teachers views regarding early childhood pedagogy over a six-month in Kindergarten classrooms in Tata School and at Kariba School. This study sought to establish "Why does children's socio-cultural contexts influence choice of pedagogy in kindergarten classrooms". The study was framed by Bronfenbrenner's framework, ecological theory. The sources of data comprised semi-structured individual interviews, pair-interviews and field notes of classrooms observations. Both within and across case interpretative analysis was used. The study established that, participants in the two cases perceived that a socio-cultural context-based pedagogy such as learning materials, storytelling, traditional songs and traditional rhymes supported children's development in terms of their understanding of concepts, language development, cognitive and moral development, respectively.

Keywords
Pedagogy theory; Socio-cultural context; Teachers; Teaching; Ghanaian schools; Education; Human Ecology.

Resumo
Pedagogia da primeira infância em um mix sociocultural ganense: um estudo de caso de duas salas de aula de Jardim de Infância. Numa busca por ambientes de educação infantil voltados para a qualidade, é importante explorar sutilezas que definem a pedagogia socioculturalmente relevante que é frequentemente ignorada na literatura acadêmica. Para abordar esta lacuna na literatura, uma abordagem qualitativa de estudo de casos múltiplos foi usada para explorar quatro visões de professores de Jardim de Infância sobre a pedagogia da primeira infância durante seis meses nas salas de aula do Jardim de Infância na Escola Tata e na Escola Kariba. Este estudo procurou responder o "Porquê dos contextos socioculturais das crianças influenciam a escolha da pedagogia nas salas de aula do Jardim de Infância&quto;. O estudo foi enquadrado pelo Arcabouço de Bronfenbrenner, e pela teoria ecológica. As fontes de dados compreenderam entrevistas individuais semiestruturadas, entrevistas em pares e notas de campo das observações das salas de aula. Tanto dentro como entre a an´lise interpretativa de caso foram usados. O estudo estabeleceu que os participantes dos dois casos perceberam que uma pedagogia sociocultural baseada no contexto, como materiais didáticos, contação de histórias, canções e rimas tradicionais, apoiavam o desenvolvimento infantil em termos de compreensão de conceitos, desenvolvimento da linguagem, desenvolvimento cognitivo e moral, respectivamente.

Palavras-chave
Teoria da pedagogia; Contexto sociocultural; Professores; Ensino; Escolas ganenses; Educação; Ecologia Humana.

DOI
10.21438/rbgas.061201

Texto completo
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