Indigenous Early Childhood Educators’ Narratives: Some Methodological Considerations

Abstract

This article will discuss some methodological issues in a cross-cultural, participative research project, using a narrative approach. Our research focus was to engage Aboriginal early childhood educators in conversations about what they considered to be important practices for working effectively with young Aboriginal children with a view to broadcasting the results to wider Indigenous and non-Indigenous audiences.

Our research design included elements intended to disrupt the power disparity characteristic of past inter-cultural research, without claiming political or cultural neutrality. It outlines structures we put in place throughout the research process for promoting Aboriginal control over the knowledge generated by the research. Although as non-Indigenous researchers we set out to position ourselves on the periphery of the research process, we were embedded in the process at every level. This paper describes that process.