IMMIGRANT CHILDREN IN THE CONTEXT OF MULTICULTURAL EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION.

Abstract

In a multicultural country, such as New Zealand, multicultural education has become the subject of early childhood polices and research. Increased national and international attention towards minority rights has resulted in the development and implementation of multicultural practice for realizing quality early childhood education for children and families of diverse cultural backgrounds. The study addressed in this paper set out to examine the multicultural education of early childhood set- tings in New Zealand from the experiences and perspectives of Chinese immigrant young children, their teachers and parents. It analyses data in the conceptualization of children as active agents, with the emphasis on the influence of their homes and the early childhood centres, giving rise to a tension between the children's needs to fit in the centres and the children's and their parents' right to inclusion and be different.