The Role of First Language Facilitators in Redefining Parent Involvement: Newcomer Families’ Funds of Knowledge in an Intercultural Preschool Program

Abstract

Involving immigrant and refugee families is a desirable goal of ECEprograms in Canada; however, families are typically brought into aprescriptive, defined space framed by Euro-North American standards of developmental appropriateness. Within this space, immigrant and refugee families’ funds of cultural knowledge are systematically marginalized. An intercultural preschool program, in which English was the common language alongside three otherlanguages, aimed at enhancing the children’s knowledge and pride intheir home languages and cultures; the program challenged the conventional view of parental involvement. First language facilitators and cultural brokers acted as conduits between home and preschool and supported social networking within each of the three cultural communities represented in the program. Drawing on data collected through ethnographic methods during a unit on babies as part of an emergent curriculum, the authors describe how the facilitators and brokers brought newcomer families’ knowledge funds into the classroom and curriculum, resulting in a culturally sustaining  pedagogy.