ERIC Number: EJ1000221
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012
Pages: 19
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1523-1615
EISSN: N/A
Building on Living Traditions: Early Childhood Education and Culture in Solomon Islands
Burton, Lindsay J.
Current Issues in Comparative Education, v15 n1 p157-175 Fall 2012
The Solomon Islands, a small developing nation in the South Pacific, demonstrates an emerging community-based kindergarten model with the potential to promote context and culture relevant early learning and development, despite deeply embedded foundations in colonial legacies. Based on the Kahua region of Makira-Ulawa Province, this collaborative, ethnographically-informed, study explores how the kindergarten is situated at the core of a cultural revolution. Findings enlighten how the kindergarten is serving as the basis to building on living traditions through cultural reinvigoration efforts, while the very essence of the kindergarten's sustainability has become dependent upon the revitalization of traditional practices historically fundamental to Kahuan society. From this, implications drawn address how community-based initiatives can facilitate early childhood education while still supporting context-specific cultures and identities through sustainable initiatives. (Contains 1 table, 2 figures and 7 endnotes.)
Descriptors: Young Children, Kindergarten, Developing Nations, Foreign Countries, Early Childhood Education, Sustainability, Ethnography, Folk Culture
Teachers College, Columbia University. International and Transcultural Studies, P.O. Box 211, 525 West 120th Street, New York, NY 10027. e-mail: info@cicejournal.org; Web site: http://www.tc.columbia.edu/cice
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Early Childhood Education; Kindergarten
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Solomon Islands
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A