Early Childhood Development teachers` understandings of Indigenous Knowledge and their strategies for incorporating IK in their pedagogical practices

Abstract

The article explores Early Childhood Development teachers` understandings of Indigenous Knowledge and their strategies of incorporating this knowledge into their pedagogical practices. This article is based on my PhD studies and only presents one facet of the thesis. A qualitative research paradigm was adopted because this enabled me to obtain in-depth information from the teachers in their natural setting. A case study method was followed drawing on three schools which were purposively sampled to provide rich, in-depth data. The participants drawn from these schools comprised six early childhood development teachers and three School Heads. Semi- structured interviews, surveys, observation and document analysis were used to collect data. The findings revealed that participants have mixed understandings of what constitutes IK and of its value in the ECD setting. They also at times struggled to include relevant IK into their ECD practices. Findings also revealed that though teachers could identify various strategies for incorporating IK into their classroom practice they lacked the agency to do so as they did not see themselves as important stakeholders being able to make a positive contribution to ECD classroom implementation.