Supporting Young Children of Immigrants and Refugees: The Promise and Practices of Early Care and Learning

This text offers a comprehensive portfolio of approaches to support young children with refugee backgrounds. It covers trauma-informed pedagogies, transitioning to school, authentic inclusion, play, social and emotional learning, and intergenerational trauma.

In early childhood centres around the world, teachers and directors can be uncertain of how to meet the needs of newly arrived children. Based on empirical research in five countries, this book offers insights from early childhood educators who are working hard to support families and young children with refugee and asylum-seeker experiences. It illustrates the link between theory and practice and the importance of developing culturally sensitive classroom strategies to effectively support the emotional and cognitive needs of multilingual, multicultural students whose common experiences may only include displacement, trauma, and loss. Rather than offering a measure for ’success, ’ this book shares the knowledge and experience of practitioners who understand the work and the very particular circumstances of these children’s lives. The authors bring these perspectives together in order to inspire other professionals who face this challenging work, encouraging the reader to reflect, to consider how relevant some of the ideas may be in their own contexts, and to contemplate the principles which allow their professional actions to make a difference.

This book is an essential resource for early childhood educators and leaders who want to ’open the door’ to genuinely inclusive, empathetic, and supportive practice. It will be of great interest to researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of early childhood and primary education.

Maura Sellars has thirty years’ experience as a classroom teacher, followed by over twenty years as a university lecturer. She works within the fields of pedagogy, leadership, cognition, mathematics and inclusion. She has published widely on numeracy across the curriculum, inclusive school culture, teacher practices, and educating refugee students.

Scott Imig is Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of Newcastle (AUS). His current research focuses on creating welcoming, safe and engaging classroom environments for all students. Prior to university life, Scott was a primary teacher and a middle school science teacher in the United States.

Doug Imig is a staff member at Early Childhood Action Strategy, a collective impact organization in Hawai’i (USA) focused on the health, wellbeing and school readiness of young children. Previously, he taught political science and public policy at the University of Memphis.