Introduction

This article analyses the affordances of drawing and storytelling in a community kindergarten and an education and care centre in supporting a sense of belonging for immigrant children in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ). Data are drawn from a larger research project (Mitchell et al., 2018) that explored the role of early childhood education (ECE) and pedagogical strategies in four ECE services for constructing pathways to belonging for refugee and immigrant children and families. The overall research focus was on the potential of early childhood services to be sites for social justice for these children and families, laying a foundation for their confident transition to a bicultural Aotearoa NZ, additional to their own culture.

A main argument is that developing a sense of belonging, of membership, of feeling “suitable” in the new context (Brooker, 2014, p. 32), is a primary task for refugee and immigrant children and families. An ECE setting may be the first institutional setting that families with young children experience and is well placed to address challenges in settlement for both children and their wider families. Belonging includes pride and dignity, genuine participation, and having agency. A premise of our research, discussed in this article, is that ECE can build on family ‘funds of knowledge’ (Moll et al., 1992) to construct positive outcomes for belonging and participating in Aotearoa NZ.

Our arguments are linked to ideas of ECE settings as democratic communities. A democratic community can be a place where all participants are able to belong and make a contribution that makes a difference for learning…where they collectively “create a world” (Bruner, 1998, p. 6). In this sense, democracy can be understood as a way of being in the world, as a form of living together, and more than a form of government. Rather, democracy is “a way of life controlled by a working faith in the possibilities of human nature…[and] faith in the capacity of human beings for intelligent judgement and action if proper conditions are furnished.” (Dewey, 1939, p. 2). This requires opportunities for sharing, exchanging and negotiating perspectives and opinions. Moss (2011) sums up democracy as a way of relating to oneself and others, an ethical, political and educational relationship that can and should pervade all aspects of life.

This article offers a micro-level analysis of democratic practice, within two ECE contexts and a curriculum framework that provides enabling conditions for democratic practice to flourish. We return to discuss these conditions in our conclusion. Our findings build on prior work regarding the co-construction of knowledge between teacher and child (Bateman, 2016) through culturally nuanced and multimodal ways (Mitchell & Bateman, 2018). In further work within an ECE refugee centre, we illustrated the importance of a culture of caring, in offering an environment for children to engage in compassionate caretaking activities for and with others (Bateman & Mitchell, 2022).

Here, we use an ethnomethodological framework (Garfinkel, 1967) and a conversation analysis (CA) approach (Sacks et al., 1974) to explore interactions between children from immigrant backgrounds and EC teachers around drawing activities. In the examples, teachers prompted children to talk about their experiences and interactions with others by encouraging them to simultaneously draw pictures about their family, favourite places and activities, and talk about their drawings. We explore how the children respond to these teacher prompts by drawing specific characters engaging in activities in places that they value in their new location and restricting their tellings to include only the characters they have drawn.

Although teacher prompts have been found to encourage children to elaborate on their tellings (Bateman & Carr, 2017), there is always the possibility that teachers may unintentionally ‘hijack’ children’s working theories about the world when listening and responding to their tellings (Davis & Peters, 2008). Here, through a detailed CA approach, we find that a child’s deliberate restriction of talk associated with the exact pictures she had drawn presents the drawing-telling activity as a unique resource which mitigates possible unintentional ‘hijacking’. A second finding reveals how touch and talk intertwine to co-construct a systematic unfolding of a story where characters are identified prior to any telling of activities and location. As such, the drawings act as tangible resources which facilitate talk about an abstract concept such as belonging.

Early childhood settings have the ability to support a sense of belonging for young refugee and immigrant children through multimodal engagement where the affordances of drawing and telling ensure enhanced awareness and consciousness of children’s connection with the family and wider world. Our findings demonstrate how readily available resources, such as art supplies, facilitated by careful asking by the teacher, provide a platform for these children to identify the people, places and things that are of significance to them in Aotearoa NZ. Findings also show the opportunity for small groups of children to work together with the teacher in a dedicated space, where they explore concepts of interest in great detail, enable children and teacher to ‘dive deep’ and build relationships, a characteristic of ‘slow pedagogy’ discussed by Clark (2023).

The Research Context and Approach

The examples discussed in this article focus on immigrant children in ECE and pedagogical approaches that build on the child’s interests and home and community experiences. Immigrant families may face challenges of dealing with racism, language barriers, and with different patterns of childrearing, gender roles, and social values (Broome & Kindon, 2008). New Zealand is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), and in 2018, 27% of New Zealanders were born overseas (Statistics New Zealand, 2019). Ethnicity is defined as the ethnic group or groups a person identifies with or has a sense of belonging to. The 2018 New Zealand census found that European comprise 70.2% of the population, Māori comprise 16.5%, Asian 15.1%, Pacific peoples 8.1% and Middle Eastern, Latin American and African 1.5%. However, responsiveness to ethnic diversity is often not evident in the education system. A 2003 Education Review Office report in schools found “widespread racism, isolation, and lack of cultural understanding” and that “education is not always reflecting what New Zealand’s ethnic communities want” (Education Review Office, 2023).

The ECE curriculum (Ministry of Education, 1996, 2017), published in 1996, and updated in 2017 (aspirations, principles and strands remained), offers a visionary platform for inclusive and socially just pedagogies. The curriculum conveys a sociocultural approach and defines education as about relationships and participation. It begins with four curriculum principles: Family and Community, Relationships, Holistic Development, Empowerment. The curriculum aspirations are elaborated in five strands or forms of Mana (a Māori concept meaning ‘prestige’ or ‘power’) to embody areas of learning and development within early childhood. These are Belonging—Mana Whenua, Wellbeing—Mana Atua, Exploration—Mana Aotūroa, Communication—Mana Reo and Contribution—Mana Tangata. The research focused on the strand Belonging—Mana Whenua, described as:

Belonging|Children know they belong and have a sense of connection to others and the environment Mana whenua|Children’s relationship to Papatūānuku (earth, earth mother) is based on whakapapa (lineage, genealogy, ancestry), respect and aroha (love, compassion, respect, empathy) (Ministry of Education, 2017, p. 31).

Participation is a core idea in the portrayal of belonging in Te Whāriki—children “know that they are accepted for who they are and that they can make a difference” and “whānau feel welcome and able to participate in the day-to-day curriculum and to curriculum decision-making” (p. 31). Teachers in ECE settings weave together the principles and strands, in collaboration with children, whānau or wider family and community to create a local curriculum for their setting. Understood in this way, the curriculum or whāriki is a woven mat for all to stand on. The curriculum emphasises children and families having agency in their own lives, and cultural and contextual relevance.

Methodology

In this article, we focus on the affordances of drawing and storytelling to enable children from immigrant backgrounds to communicate experiences from their home life that are meaningful to them. Data are drawn from a larger research study which asked, ‘For children from refugee and immigrant backgrounds: How can the people, places and practices in early childhood settings support a sense of bicultural belonging to Aotearoa NZ, and sustain children’s connections to homelands and people?’.

For the purpose of this article, we consider the following sub-questions.

How do drawing, storytelling and play provide opportunities for:

  • Children to sustain connections with people and experiences from their home country?

  • Children to develop new connections in and sense of belonging with Aotearoa NZ?

The research took place over two years in four culturally diverse ECE centres in two cities in the North Island of Aotearoa NZ. Within each centre, four families and their children were invited at the start of the project to participate as case studies. They were chosen according to the age of the children (3 years at date of selection, so they could be followed over time), and because they were of differing ethnicities, their families had come to Aotearoa New Zealand as refugees or immigrants and were keen to be involved. An interpreter was employed to discuss the study, carry out interviews, and translate information for one family who requested this.

Teachers were ‘teacher-researchers’ and funded with release time through the project grant to research alongside academic researchers. The research followed an iterative process used in design-based research which “aims to develop theories of the process of learning and the means of supporting these processes” (Penuel, 2014, p. 99). These are “local instructional theories” aimed at specific goals. Teaching and learning strategies were developed, trialled, and evaluated by teachers and researchers.

There were two cycles of design-based research. In the first cycle, within each centre, data were gathered through drawing and talking, video recordings of curriculum events, interview data and documentation (wall displays, information and assessment documentation relevant to the research aims). Family members were given a copy of their child’s video and then invited to comment, in a semi-structured interview, on the learning that they valued, their child’s strengths, interests and strategies as learners, family funds of knowledge and continuity between the home and centre.

Two examples, from a community kindergarten and an education and care (childcare) centre, of drawing and talking with children are analysed in this article. Teachers prompted children to talk about their experiences and interactions with others through simultaneously drawing pictures about a specific topic and talking about their drawing. The drawings were collected and the narratives recorded by video or written down by the teacher. This method was used previously by teachers at Pakuranga Baptist Kindergarten to find out about communication among children from linguistically diverse backgrounds (Lees, 2016; Mitchell et al., 2016).

Ethical approval was gained through the Division of Education University of Waikato Research Ethics Committee. The teacher participants gave written consent for video recording and their own interview and for their real names to be used. Teacher interpreters were employed where necessary, but were not needed for the families and children who are the focus in this article. Researchers attended a parent meeting to explain the research and seek consent for participation. Parents gave written consent for their child to be video recorded, and for specific documentation, including learning stories, drawings, and recorded talk of their child to be gathered and used in analysis and publications. Parents and teachers explained the project to children and sought the child’s verbal agreement to take part. The researchers spent time in the centres over a period of several months and were familiar to children. Some children tried out using the video recorder. Pseudonyms have been used for the children in this article.

Analysis

Our analysis is informed by our prior research (Mitchell et al., 2016) that belonging is enhanced when connections are made with family values and funds of knowledge and interests from home. González et al. (2005) describe the concept of ‘funds of knowledge’ as ‘based on a simple premise: people are competent and have knowledge, and their life experiences have given them that knowledge’. Pedagogical approaches used in our study enabled teachers to find out about the funds of knowledge that children bring from their home and community experiences and use the understanding to explore and deepen learning.

An ethnomethodology framework (Garfinkel, 1967) was used to inductively reveal how teacher–child interactions were coproduced as a collaborative action in situ during the video recorded interactions. Once moments of significance were identified, conversation analysis (Sacks et al., 1974) was used to transcribe and analyse these interactions in detail to reveal the systematic ways in which the drawing and telling were collaboratively achieved through turns of talk and gesture (see appendix for transcription conventions used in this article). This ethnomethodological conversation analysis (EMCA) approach is most useful in revealing how tellings are achieved in systematic ways during the drawing activity, offering insight into how each participant contributes to the coproduction of the activity with demonstrations of their experience and knowledge of the world as they see it. An EMCA approach to research with children then offers potential to hear children’s voices, directly informing teaching practices on strategies that afford and prohibit children’s contribution of knowledge (Bateman, 2017).

Findings

Example 1

The focus for Example 1 is a church-based community kindergarten in NZ’s largest city. It caters for children aged 2–5 years. It has a large population of immigrant families, many from China, and some from South East Asia, Samoa, African countries, India, Middle East and Europe. Just under half the families are NZ European/Pākehā, and a small number are Māori. The teachers have drawn on ideas from Reggio Emelia about the role of Atelierista and Olivia, a teacher and fluent Mandarin speaker, works with small groups of children in artwork and discussions in the dedicated space of the ‘studio’. The two case study children in this article were Child A, aged 4 years, whose family immigrated from China; and Child B, also aged 4 years, who is New Zealand born.

Olivia (OLI) the teacher has initiated a discussion with two children, Child A (CHA) and Child B (CHB) about where their families are from, and their favourite place to be in New Zealand. She facilitates the discussion by asking the children to draw pictures of their favourite places. The subsequent interaction begins by Olivia establishing who the characters in Child A’s drawing are, and their relationship to one another. To do this, Olivia uses verbal prompts through her questions and gesture as she touches the drawing to specifically identify each drawn character; wait time is noticeable where time is given for Child A to respond.

Extract 1: Initiating drawing talk

figure a
figure b

To begin this interaction, a tangible support for the telling is secured, initiated by the teacher as she offers the opportunity for drawing, which the children take up. The systematic process involved in telling a story about belonging then follows, initiated by Olivia’s questions in relation to the characters Child A has drawn. Olivia prompts talk about the drawn characters (lines 01, 03, 06–09 and 11), offering opportunity for Child A to be in control of identifying the people whom she has perceived as important enough to draw. An important element of this interaction is ensuring that there is a shared understanding around who the characters are, where this intersubjectivity is secured through simultaneous gesture and talk. Olivia uses gesture here to maximise intersubjective understanding of who the characters are, as she points to each character whilst identifying them—‘this is you’ whilst pointing to a specific character (lines 6 and 7) ‘and your sister’ moving her point to a next figure (lines 8 and 9). This initial identification is treated as important by the participants through these actions—just like a story where the introduction of characters is essential to subsequent plot lines.

Once the characters are identified, the telling progresses, again prompted by the teacher (lines 11–13) as she asks questions about what the figures are doing. Elsewhere, we see that assigning predicated actions to characters can be an important and challenging process for young children in storytelling activities where they have to make imagined connecting activities between tangible figures (Bateman & Carr, 2017). Olivia prompts talk about a possible activity by asking Child A what she likes to do in her new location and with whom, moving her finger in a circular motion when asking what Child A and her sister are doing, enacting a collective gesture and making it observable that the children are engaged in a collaborative activity. The activity of drawing specific people and these people being recognised as belonging together is evident here. Child A responds by vocalising the importance of an environmental feature—the swings—again evident in her picture.

Extract 2: People of Importance

figure c
figure d

The importance of ensuring a shared understanding (intersubjectivity) around who the characters are is initially established in Extract 1, and further elaborated on here with orientation to Child A’s Grandad figure. Again, Olivia accomplishes a clear understanding of who the characters are, and their relationship to one another through simultaneous touch of the figures and talk, as she draws a connecting line with her finger between the grandpa figure and the figures of Child A and her sister, progressing connections between Child A, her sister and now their Grandad.

The introduction of predicated actions that the figures are involved in now becomes systematically relevant, as Olivia suggests that Grandad might want to play with Child A and her sister (lines 20–22), with a smile and talk that frames this possibility as an enjoyable activity. However, this is not taken up by Child A, and so not oriented to as part of her story. Olivia then extends her guess work around Grandad’s role—that he takes Child A and her sister to the park (line 25–28). This time Child A does align with Olivia’s suggestion, observable with ‘yeah’ and nod of her head (lines 29–30).

Child A then returns to her drawing of Grandad, adding more detail whilst saying, ‘my Grandad has a pocket’ (line 33). This additional information may seem like extraneous detail but is markedly important enough to Child A for her to not only tell about it, but to take time to work on including this pocket detail in her picture. This detailed insight and deep connection to personal knowledge of a person who is of importance to Child A is not picked up by Olivia though, leaving a turn allocation space for Child B who orients to the specifics of the drawing as she makes a comment about Grandad’s ‘big moustache’ (line 35). Child A’s rigid orientation to only what is drawn shows the potential for drawing pictures to facilitate talk about specific features that are of significance to the child artist. When an important detail is mentioned in the talk—such as Grandad’s pocket—it is also included in the drawing. This finding suggests that talk stimulated through orientation to children’s pictures (and only what they have drawn) could help to prevent unintentional ‘hijacking’ of children’s working theories about their world (Peters & Davis, 2011). This finding is explored further in the next section of the interaction, Extract 3.

Extract 3: Focus on Child A and absent people

figure e
figure f

The prior interaction demonstrates Child A and Olivia establishing main characters and the predicated actions that connect them. Here, we see Child B contributing to the drawing activity talk, as she narrates about her own picture (lines 41, 47 & 50-51), but we also see that her utterances are not responded to by Olivia, apart from a very brief nod and sideways glance (line 52). Instead, we see Olivia’s clear focus on only Child A’s picture. This is demonstrated when Child B offers information about her drawing of a ‘baby swing’ (line 41) and Olivia’s quick (marked by the = sign) orientation to Child A’s picture, as she probes about the time they spend together in the park (line 42). Whilst asking Child A this question, Olivia lightly brushes her finger over the picture, rather than pointing to a specific drawn figure, demonstrating a continuous focus on the picture but orientation to a less tangible topic of talk—time. As such, the subsequent response from Child A is to move around the picture as she continues drawing, with no verbal response to Olivia’s question (lines 45). Child B once again attempts to insert herself into the ongoing interaction with further elaboration on her drawing (line 47) but once again Olivia restricts the focus to Child A, this time orienting to figures who have not been drawn in Child A’s picture, her mum and dad.

Here, we see again the affordances of children’s drawings to offer a clear focus on what is specifically important to them through who/what they choose to include in their drawing and what to leave out. Olivia’s attempt to bring Child A’s mum and dad into the talk (lines 53–57) is immediately closed down by Child A, who cleverly states ‘no’ (line 58) and orients Olivia’s attention to the fact that it’s only Grandpa who has been drawn ‘there’, moving her pencil over her picture to place it in the centre of the interaction. The significance of drawing only the people she is willing to talk about becomes even more evident here. When considering how we might listen to children in a democratic and socially just way that gives them the opportunity to disclose information that is important to them, prompting them to draw what is important to them and to talk about these people, places and things is clearly an effective method.

Example 2

Building on example 1, we now turn to another interaction in a different NZ ECE centre where the same observations can be made about children being the authority in their drawing activity, where they will only include drawings of people, places, things and activities that they deem as important to them. Along with the family talk we observed in Example 1, here, we see the teacher also orienting to opportunities to extend the drawing and talk to include culturally relevant terminology.

The context is a multi-cultural, multi-religion community and early childhood centre in an urban area of a medium-sized city in New Zealand. The centre is located next to the local mosque and caters for the needs of children from migrant and refugee families. Although a large proportion of children attending were of the Muslim faith, families from other faiths and cultures also chose to attend the centre. The children were mostly from families with English as an additional language. Child C, aged 4 years, is the focus child in this example, whose parents came to New Zealand from India.

The teacher, Sophia, has close relationships with the family and understands the importance to them of the practice of praying. Her understanding was reinforced in our interview with Child C’s parents. These parents said they chose the centre for Child C because it was close to the mosque and home, and because cultural activities, visiting the mosque, openness to children praying and wearing the hijab, were consistent with home values and practices. They considered that these practices engendered a sense of belonging.

The interaction begins with two children Child C (CHC) and Child D (CHD) (CHD out of camera-shot) sitting at the art table with their teacher, Sophia (TCH), drawing and painting pictures. The teacher prompts the children to draw pictures of their family. There follows a conversation that includes specific cultural items, marking these as important artefacts to the people present. The sequential unfolding of the interaction demonstrates how the teacher offers items to draw, such as the activity of praying, but that it is the child’s choice as to what is included as relevant and important.

Extract 1: Drawing cultural activities

figure g
figure h

As with Example 1, we see here the teacher sitting with the children, watching them draw and talking to them about their drawings as they create them. However, unlike Example 1, as Child C begins a new drawing, the teacher suggests a possible idea for what the child might draw. This is an activity in Child C’s life that the teacher knows the child and family engage with—praying. Here, Child C accepts this suggestion, as she agrees verbally and begins including the activity of praying in her drawing, assigning the praying activity to her dad (line 06). As such, Child C offers insight into her world, where praying is valued, and also explicitly connected to her father.

The teacher then demonstrates her own cultural knowledge of the activity of praying Allahu, as she incorporates further cultural reference ‘on your Musallah’ (line 09). The shared intersubjectivity between the teacher and Child C around these cultural items is visible, where there is no need for further explanation or conversational repair—Child C simply replies with ‘yeah’ (line 10) and then orients to including these in her drawing ‘I’ll draw it’ (line 12). The importance of cultural content knowledge is clearly visible here, where the smooth flow of the drawing interaction and shared understanding of cultural artifacts makes connections between the teacher and child, supporting a sense of belonging around shared cultural knowledge. The drawing of these culturally significant features demonstrates their importance and also offer a tangible resource which facilitates joint attention around which to build an interaction (Kidwell & Zimmerman, 2007).

Extract 2: Extending insight

figure i

The teacher’s enquiry into how the praying is accomplished in these subsequent lines of talk offers opportunity for further insight into Child C’s world in New Zealand, and how her cultural practices are accommodated. Once again, Child C takes this opportunity to not only demonstrate in multimodal ways how she prays, but also to orient to her Dad as a significant person in this praying activity. The teacher’s response is important for establishing solidarity in the activity of praying, where she orients to everyone praying ‘the same’ (line 28) ‘together’ (line 30) and ‘with the family’ (line 32). This prompts Child D to also join in by naming a family member who is important in this discussion, his mum (line 34) and the teacher acknowledging his contribution as important as she includes him in the conversation. The talk around praying prompts the engagement of both children here, where their interaction is coproduced around the cultural activity.

Discussion

The pedagogical work in these ECE settings is inspirational for the care, thinking and debate given by teachers to analysing, discussing and questioning their own practice and their commitment to enabling young children to think and act for themselves and with others in an ethical relationship. The detailed examples analysed in this article make explicit a pedagogy that has at its heart an openness to exploring the world of the child and using multimodal methods to enable children to express their views. Notable is the teachers’ commitment to finding out about the funds of knowledge children bring with them from their experiences in participating in their home and communities. Moll et al., (1992, p. 134) portray ‘funds of knowledge’ as ‘containing ample cultural and cognitive resources with great, potential utility for classroom instruction’. Funds of knowledge are recognised in the Aotearoa New Zealand curriculum in the Family and Community principle which recognises that ‘The wider world of family and community is an integral part of early childhood curriculum’ (Ministry of Education, 2017, p, 20). In both examples, the teachers encouraged children to express their experiences through the medium of drawing, talk and gesture. The teachers’ willingness to attend to the children’s expressions enabled greater understanding of home and cultural experiences.

In the kindergarten, the use of a dedicated ‘studio’ space, with attractively displayed and plentiful art materials, a small number of children and attentive teacher provided a facilitating environment for children and adults to work and think together. In particular, the studio environment offered scope for relationships with other children and the teacher to be deepened, as work in the studio was not constrained by time pressures or competing interests. In the education and care centre, the teacher found a separate table to work with a small group.

Alison Clark (2023) discusses the value and need for ‘slow pedagogies’ which she describes as having three characteristics: ‘being with’ where ‘the emphasis is on ‘engagement between the teacher, children and the environment' (p. 39), ‘going off track’ and valuing the unexpected, and ‘diving deep’, the possibility of exploring in depth. Whilst the interactions described in both examples were short excerpts only, they conveyed interest, full attention and absorption by child and teacher in the drawing and the child’s talk. We argue that slow pedagogy and attention to multimodal methods of communication are pedagogical approaches that enable a deep understanding of and respect for the whole child and their home and community contexts. This is an inclusive pedagogy that supports democratic citizenship by giving value and making visible the child’s diverse knowledges rather than assimilating to norms of what counts as valued knowledge. It is particularly valuable in contexts where a teacher from the dominant culture may not recognise the home and community experiences of children from other ethnic backgrounds.

The methods of video recording and use of an EMCA analytical approach exemplify a ‘slow research’ approach that offers tools in creating democratic space for revisiting episodes with others, who could be for example researchers, teachers, children, families. It allows close attention to be paid to fine details of interactions and environments, and demonstrates how talk is attuned to recipients, to fit their knowledge and understanding.

Conclusion

In these two examples, we see how readily available resources such as art supplies provide a platform and a tangible support for telling about important people, places and things in NZ, initiated by the teachers as they offer the opportunity for drawing, and this is taken up by the children. The children demonstrate agency in their drawing, choosing to restrict talk to only what they have drawn, identify what is significant to them in their new NZ locations, and people of importance that often (in all cases here) are family members who share their culture with them. A sense of belonging can be observed through connections to these people (e.g. sister and grandparents), the places visited with them and cultural activities they deem important enough to include in their drawing. By orienting explicitly to only what the children have drawn, teachers can encourage children to elaborate on their tellings (Bateman & Carr, 2017) where they can elicit talk about belonging. An important finding here is that when teachers attempt to elicit talk about people who have not been drawn, children then have the option to either include the suggested addition or not, demonstrating drawing as a unique resource which restricts possible unintentional ‘hijacking’ (Peters & Davis 2011).

These findings contribute to the wider body of research developed as part of this project, focused on how early childhood settings can better support a sense of belonging for young immigrant and refugee children and families. Teachers in these ECE centres responded to their communities, accessing and building understanding of families’ funds of knowledge, and inviting their contribution and participation. These socially just and inclusive pedagogies in each local context enable cultures of peace, hope and democratic citizenship with families living under complex conditions.