The Role of Cultural Artefacts in Play as Tools to Mediate Learning in an Intercultural Preschool Programme

Abstract

Starting with the research question ‘What is the role of play as a means of genuine inclusion of home language and cultural traditions in an intercultural early learning programme?’, the article focuses on the role of cultural artefacts in a programme in which the majority of the children were refugees from Africa. The sociocultural theory of learning of Vygotsky and the activity theory of Leontiev provided the theoretical framework for the study. From a sociocultural perspective, materials are cultural objects within the social context and their use and functions are adaptive, depending on the activities that are also social. By engaging in these habitual activities and interactions, children become a part of their cultural world. Ethnographic data collection methods were employed to address the research question. A description of a play episode was used as an example of a young child's use of her appropriated knowledge of a particular cultural practice (singing while doing housework) and a cultural object (artefact) as a tool to mediate her learning. The authors argue that the example demonstrates that the presence of cultural artefacts allowed the child's home culture to emerge as the dominant one in the early childhood setting. The authors believe that the mindful, deliberate introduction of cultural artefacts by the first-language facilitators and cultural brokers who were members of the classroom teaching team allowed the child to consolidate her learning from both her home and her school environments in a manner consistent with her cultural background. The study suggests possible tools and forms of analysis that provoke early childhood educators to extend themselves outside of their own knowledge systems so that they can better facilitate children's ongoing negotiations among their multiple worlds.