ABSTRACT
Our chapter will report on research that examines how teachers enact Reggio Emilia and culturally responsive pedagogy in Australian mainstream early learning classrooms. We investigate attempts to bring into conversation theoretical concepts offered by Reggio Emilia child rights-based pedagogical theories with culturally responsive pedagogies that have been referred to as ‘humanising pedagogy’. Reggio’s educational project and culturally responsive pedagogy are both theorised as a form of humanising pedagogy. By this, we mean in the sense that context and plurality of children’s humanity and experiences are critical to language and literacy acquisition and recognises that pedagogy is intimately linked to power, politics, history and culture. Educators committed to humanising pedagogy invoke decolonising, pluralistic learning, listening, dialogue and participation to advance approaches to languages and cultures in school for solidarity, democracy, equity and place. This chapter explores the pedagogical implications of super-diversity, particularly for educators wanting to use related child rights asset-based pedagogies with culturally and linguistically diverse learners. Drawing upon Vertovec’s (2007) concept of super-diversity, we claim that teachers are challenged by rapid diversification of many global north and south national populations due to war, poverty, pandemic, climate change and transmigration. We argue that humanising pedagogy, and therefore Reggio Emilia in dialogue with culturally responsive practice, makes more visible the cultures and histories of marginalised peoples in (post)colonial settings, while building educators confidence to transform their student–teacher relationship.
