Minority parents, trust and transformative change in ECEC

Parenting and parental involvement in early education is increasingly being considered by researchers, policy makers and practitioners as the key to reducing societal inequality (e.g. Cunha & Heckmann, 2008). This approach often adheres to the logic that the parental practices of marginalized parents, especially those of ethnic minority migrant parents, are deficient. Consequently, the logic in both policy and practice is that they need to be taught how to enhance the learning of their child in order to optimize the educational output (Crozier & Davies, 2007). However, these approaches are based on narrow quasi-scientific ideas of parenting that are in line with middle-class norms. These approaches to optimizing parental strategies, therefore exacerbate unequal opportunities for participation, and inequality is reproduced rather than diminished (Matthiesen, 2018). Critical pedagogical approaches thus argue that this approach merely reproduces inequality despite good intentions due to complex power structures and narrow parenting ideals. This presentation aims to contribute to this literature by exploring the possibilities of overcoming marginalization through collaboration with practitioners in early childhood education. I will argue, that the phenomenon of trust provides the minimum foundation for an expansive and emancipatory collaboration between parents and practitioners, yet trust is increasingly being challenged in this practice (Matthiesen, Cavada-Hrepich & Tanggaard, in press).

Trust is a relational concept that emerges dynamically and spontaneously. Baier (1986) points out, trust is necessary for all kinds of cooperative activity; “It seems fairly obvious that any form of cooperative activity, including the division of labor, requires the cooperators to trust one another to do their bit” (Baier, 1986, p. 232). Trust is thus the foundation of collaboration. Although trust is fairly common-sense notion, it refers to a complex phenomenon that has become an issue of attention and scrutiny in humanities and social sciences in the last forty years (Markova & Gillespie, 2008).The Danish philosopher Løgstrup (1956) argues that to trust another is “to deliver oneself up” (p. 9) or to “lay oneself open” (p. 18). Trusting a person involves surrendering oneself in the expectation that the other will respond benevolently. Løgstrup (1968) further argues that trust is a spontaneous other-regarding phenomenon that moves the individual toward the other. Trust is thus something that we undergo, and that draws us out of ourselves. It is not at our disposal, and consequently we cannot make ourselves trust others. Human interdependency, vulnerability, risk and trust are thus inseparable, yet we have no control over it.

There has over the past few decades been an increased focus in education policy and practice on the potentials and associated risks ingrained in early life of children. There has been a change in the form of parenthood in modernity where, “parents’ new duty is to give their child ‘the best start in life’” (Beck-Gernsheim, 2002, p. 112). This new duty and increased focus on the critical and precarious nature of early childhood is based on the societal narrative which been termed “infant determinism” (Furedi, 2002, p. 24). This logic is informed by (quasi)scientific ideas underscoring the idea, that what parents do in their children’s early years has deterministic consequences for their children’s futures. Although this cultural narrative has been critiqued, the focus on risk and reducing it by optimizing the first years of childhood is still strongly embedded in colloquial understandings of good parenting. Parents are considered the key to managing this risk, and collaborating with early childhood educators supports this risk-management. However, when parents are considered inadequate as parents (including many ethnic minority migrant parents), they become a part of the notion of risk, creating the paradox that parents are both seen as risk-factors and the key to managing the risk. Professional educators are thus considered responsible for supporting parents live up to their role as parents by guiding them to parent in ways that adhere to the logics of the middle class. These parenting strategies have been termed “intensive parenting,” (Lee, 2014), “scientific parenting” (Ramaekers & Suissa, 2012) and in a Nordic contex, “psychological coaching parenting” (Matthiesen, in press).

Mutual trust (trust in the professionals, as well as trust in the parents) is under threat in this culture of risk-awareness and risk-management. And the collaboration between early childhood education practitioners and ethnic minority migrant parents is further challenged when parents are met without trust in the competencies as parents from the outset. Trust seems to be a necessary premise in order to transgress marginalization, yet, as trust is a spontaneous relational phenomenon, neither parents nor practitioners can make themselves trust. But it is possible to question and interrogate the reasonableness of ones distrust, and act openly, compassionately and respectfully in the collaboration. This may, over time, create the basis for spontaneous mutual trust.


Literature:

Baier, A. (1986). Trust and Antitrust. Ethics, 96 (2), 231-260
Beck-Gernsheim, E. (2001), Reinventing the Family. In Search of New Lifestyles. Oxford: Polity.
Cunha, F. & Heckmann, J. (2008). A Framework for the Analysis of Inequality. Macroeconomic Dynamics, 12, (2), 315–354.
Furedi, F. (2002). Paranoid Parenting. Why Ignoring the Experts may be the Best for your Child, Chicago: Chicago Review Press.
Lee, E., Bristow, J., Faircloth, C. & Macvarish, J. (2014) Parenting Culture Studies. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
Løgstrup, K. E. (1958) Den etiske fordring. [The Ethical Demand]. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.
Løgstrup, K. E. (1968) Opgør med Kierkegaard [Controverting Kierkegaard]. Copenhagen:
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Matthiesen, N. (2019), The Becoming and Changing of Parenthood: Immigrant and Refugee Parents’ Narratives of Learning Different Parenting Practices. Psychology & Society. 11 (1), 106-127.
Matthiesen, N., Cavada-Hrepich, P. & Tanggaard, T. (in press). The Trust Imperative. Conceptualizing the dynamics of trust and distrust in parent-professional collaboration in early childhood education. Educational Theory.
Matthiesen, N. (in prep). Nordic parenting as psychological coaching..