Abstract
This paper reports on Aboriginal parents’ perceptions about their involvement in a Western Australian pilot initiative called KindiLink. The program seeks to support parents as their child’s first teacher and thereby enhance Aboriginal children’s early-years development, while strengthening relationships between families and schools. A constructivist paradigm was used to inform the methodology which placed Aboriginal voices at the centre of the research. Data were collected from 125 participating family members, over two years and across 37 school-based KindiLink sites. The results show that parent contribution to and engagement in KindiLink provided a powerful context to acknowledge, encourage, and support parents. Parents identified the development of strong and mutually respectful relationships; the engagement in working with their child; and the incorporation of families’ cultural and linguistic knowledge into the program as positive contributing factors. The paper concludes with recommendations and implications for the further development, implementation, and evaluation of Kindilink and other programs targeted at disadvantaged communities.
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Notes
We note that in reporting the findings, the word ‘parent/s’ is used to indicate survey respondents, who include mothers/fathers, grandmothers, aunties and other members of the community that have responsibility for the child.
Where percentages are presented in tables, the actual sum of the categories may not add exactly to 100 due to rounding. Where open-ended survey items are reported, the sum of categorised comments may exceed the number of participants since respondents often provided more than one comment.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge the lands on which this research took place and pay our respects to Aboriginal Elders past, present and emerging. We would like to thank all the families who took time to complete the survey and share their experiences and perceptions of KindiLink with us. The authors would like to thank Cindy McLean for her contribution to the research project. Funding for this research was received from the Education Department of Western Australia.
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Barratt-Pugh, C., Barblett, L., Knaus, M. et al. Supporting Parents as their Child’s First Teacher: Aboriginal Parents’ Perceptions of KindiLink. Early Childhood Educ J 50, 903–912 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-021-01221-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-021-01221-1