Classroom as a Context for Academic and Cultural Learning

Abstract

Abstract This chapter focuses on the classroom as a context for academic and cultural learning in early childhood education. Drawing on findings from three research studies, it explores perspectives on academic and cultural learning from contemporary sociocultural theories, and national policy frameworks. The three orienting concepts are children’s peer cultures and play repertoires, children’s identities and linguistic repertoires, and children’s agency and participation in the material culture of the classroom. The classroom is understood as a dialectical place and space of inter- and intra-acting flows, where culture is deeply embedded and enacted as a way of living and being in relationship with humans and nonhumans. The chapter argues that early childhood education policies provide a basic framework of entitlements and aspirations, but may reinforce the tensions between academic and cultural learning, especially as children make the transition to compulsory education. Policies are in themselves not sufficient to encompass the diversities within children’s lives and experiences, including their linguistic, communicative, and cultural repertoires. There are diverse flows and influences that create a cultural assemblage in the classroom, including children’s peer cultures and play cultures, as well as their funds of knowledge.