Children’s Multilingual Literacy: Fostering Childhood Literacy in Home and Community Settings [31, 1 ed.] 9789811565861, 9789811565878

Table of contents :
Acknowledgments
Contents
About the Authors
Chapter 1: Introduction – In Children’s Words
Our Study
Our Book’s Plan
Reference
Chapter 2: In Fiji
Introduction
Fiji’s Geography
Fiji’s History
First People’s Arrival and European Contact
Colonisation
Independence
Political Upheaval
Today
Peoples of Fiji
Early Childhood and School Education in Fiji
Languages and Dialects in the Pacific and Fiji
Geographic Distribution of Pacific Languages
Contact Languages
Pidgins and Creoles
Multilingualism in the Pacific
Post-Colonial Influences on Languages and Literacy in the Pacific
Effect of Formal Schooling on Pacific Languages in the Pacific
Language Status
Languages in Fiji
References
Chapter 3: Language and Literacy Learning in Multilingual Settings
Introduction
Call to Action in the Pacific
Contention over Vernacular Languages
Self-determination in Early Childhood and Language/Literacy Education
Dakar Framework for Action on Education for All
Pacific Regional Initiatives for the Delivery of Basic Education (the PRIDE Project)
Progressing Universal Early Childhood Care and Education
Na Noda Mataniciva: Fiji’s First Early Childhood Curriculum Guidelines
Young Children’s Literacy in Their Home Languages and English
Young Children’s Experiences with Code-Switching and Translanguaging
Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy
Examining Education Practices Within a CSP Framework
Implications for Informing Our Study
References
Chapter 4: Conceptualising Language, Literacy and Learning as Sociocultural Practices
Introduction
A Functional View of Language
Conceptualising Literacy as Sociocultural Practice
Sociocultural and Rights-Based Perspectives of How Language and Literacy Are Learned
Making Multilingual Books with Children – Our Conceptual Framework in Action
References
Chapter 5: Conducting Research as Transformative Encounter in Cross-Cultural Collaborations
Introduction
The People and Places in the Project
The Communities, Families and Children
Duavata
Dovubaravi
Wavu
Community Mentors
The Australian University Research Team
Project Partners
Early Childhood Education and Care Stakeholders
Research Partners and External Reference Group
Our Critical Participatory Action Research Approach
Developing Capacity in a CPAR Approach
Data Collection and Analysis Methods
Dialogic Encounters in Communities
Relationship Between Dialogic Encounters and Talanoa
Dialogic Encounters in Duavata
Dialogic Encounters in Dovubaravi
Dialogic Encounters in Wavu
Documenting and Analysing the Dialogic Encounters
Participant Observations
Artefact Collection
Benchmarking Children’s Literacy Participation and Learning
Stakeholder Interviews
Document Analysis
Ensuring Trustworthiness and Ethics of the Study
References
Chapter 6: Exploring Stakeholders’ Perspectives of Young Children’s Multilingual Literacy
Introduction
Stakeholders’ Perspectives of Preschool Children’s Literacy Development Contexts
The Place of Fiji’s Vernacular Languages and English
Differential Experiences in Languages Between Urban and Rural Areas
Tensions Between Languages and Consequences for Local and Global Identities and Participation
Language Shifts Across Home, Preschool and School
Languages for Participation in an Increasingly Diverse Nation and Global Society
Stakeholders’ Perspectives of Enablers and Constraints that Impact Preschool Children’s Multilingual Literacy Learning
Resources and Opportunities
Systemic Considerations and Teacher Education
Localised Conditions
Stakeholders’ Perspectives of Local Resources and Strategies for Fostering Preschool Children’s Literacy in their Home Languages and English
Building Bridges Between Home and School
Strengthening Families’ Role in Their Children’s Literacy Learning
Play and Other Activities
Being Culturally Sustaining
Stakeholders’ Perspectives of Effective Strategies for Developing Local Community Capacity to Support Preschool Children’s Literacy Development in Their Home Languages and English
Providing Opportunity for Communities to Witness and Value Their Children’s Learning
Recognising and Supporting Families’ Participation
Using Culturally Appropriate Practices to Engage with Communities
Talking with the Community About Sustainability and Succession Planning
Implications for Developing Community Capacity for Fostering Young Children’s Literacy
References
Chapter 7: In Duavata: Collaborating with Children and Families in an Indigenous Fijian Semi-Rural Community
Introduction
Introducing the Participating Children and Their Families of Duavata
What Are the Literacy Development Contexts for Preschool Children in Communities in Fiji That Do Not Have Access to Preschools?
The Duavata Community Methodist Church
Children’s Play Contexts In- and Outside Their Homes
What Are the Enablers and Constraints That Impact on Community Capacity to Support Their Preschool Children’s Literacy Learning?
Enablers That Support Preschool Children’s Literacy Learning in Duavata
Children Are Immersed in Rich Language-Based Cultural and Social Practices
Extensive Supportive Social Networks Within and Beyond Duavata
Community and Parent Support of Our Study
Constraints that Impact on Community Capacity to Support Preschool Children’s Literacy Learning in Duavata
What Local Resources and Strategies Can Be Used to Foster Preschool Children’s Literacy in Their Home Languages and English in Communities in Fiji that Do Not Have Access to Preschools?
Benchmarking Duavata Children’s Literacy Participation and Learning Against Na Noda Mataniciva
Listening and Communicating in Na Noda Mataniciva
Reading and Writing in Na Noda Mataniciva
Benchmarking the Children’s Engagement as Readers Against Na Noda Mataniciva’s ‘Becoming a Reader’ Outcomes
Benchmarking the Children’s Engagement as Readers Against Na Noda Mataniciva’s ‘Becoming a Writer’ Outcomes
What Strategies Are Effective in Developing Local Capacity to Support Preschool Children’s Literacy Development in Their Home Languages and English?
Deepening Internal Duavata Capacity and Sustainability
Drawing on External Expertise to Continue to Sustain and Grow the Work
References
Chapter 8: In Dovubaravi: Collaborating with Children and Families in an Indo-Fijian Rural Community
Introduction
Introducing the Participating Children and Their Families of Dovubaravi
What Are the Literacy Development Contexts for Preschool Children in Dovubaravi?
Seeing the Cultural, Relational and Linguistic Contexts of Children’s Literacy Development
Language and Literacy Contexts in Dovubaravi
Language and Literacy Practices and Texts of Participating Families and Children
What Are the Enablers and Constraints that Impact Dovubaravi’s Community Capacity to Support Their Preschool Children’s Literacy Learning?
What Local Resources and Strategies Can Be Used to Foster Preschool Children’s Literacy in Their Home Languages and English in Dovubaravi?
Dovubaravi’s Co-created Multilingual Books in and About Children’s Worlds
Enriching Dovubaravi Children’s Play with Literacy
Benchmarking Dovubaravi Children’s Literacy Participation and Learning Against Na Noda Mataniciva
Benchmarking the Children’s Engagement as Readers Against Na Noda Mataniciva’s ‘Becoming a Reader’ Outcomes
Benchmarking the Children’s Engagement as Writers Against Na Noda Mataniciva’s ‘Becoming a Writer’ Outcomes
What Strategies Are Effective in Developing Dovubaravi’s Capacity to Support Preschool Children’s Literacy Development in Their Home Languages and English?
Increasing Parents’ and Grandparents’ Reading Support Repertoires
Supporting School and Community Cultural, Language and Literacy Learning Through Providing Families’ Access to Multilingual Books About Their Worlds
Renewing Community Focus on and Discussion About Strategies to Sustain Heritage Languages
Increasing Children’s, Parents’ and Community’s Digital Literacy
Enhancing Identity Expression and Self-Esteem for Dovubaravi Children and Adults
Concluding Dovubaravi’s Community Case Study
Appendices
Appendix 8.1: Dovubaravi’s Co-created Books
Appendix 8.2: Approaches to Enriching Children Play with Literacy
References
Chapter 9: In Wavu: Collaborating with Children and Families in a Culturally Diverse Community in an Urban Setting
Introduction
Introducing the Participating Children and Their Families of Wavu
What Are the Literacy Development Contexts for Preschool Children in Wavu?
Attitudes to and Practices of Language Use in Wavu
Literacy Development Affordances of Children’s Communities
What Are the Enablers and Constraints That Impact on Wavu’s Community Capacity to Support Their Preschool Children’s Literacy Learning?
Education Aspirations for Children
What Local Resources and Strategies Can Be Used to Foster Preschool Children’s Literacy in Wavu?
Sibling Support
Media Exposure to English
What Strategies Are Effective in Developing Wavu’s Capacity to Support Preschool Children’s Literacy Development in Their Home Languages and English?
Children’s Interactions with Their Books
References
Chapter 10: Fostering Children’s Multilingual Literacy in Home and Community Settings
Introduction
RQ1: What Are the Literacy Development Contexts for Preschool Children in Communities in Fiji That Do Not Have Access to Preschools?
Place of Home Languages (Vernaculars) in Community Lives
Place of English in Community Lives and Its Relevance to Schooling
Children’s Code-Switching and Translanguaging Practices
Children’s Literacy Lives
Family Involvement in Supporting Their Children’s Literacy Participation Learning
Household and Community Texts and Technologies
RQ2: What Are the Enablers and Constraints That Impact on Community Capacity to Support Their Preschool Children’s Literacy Learning?
Enablers
Family Involvement
Children’s Resources
Community Structures
Constraints
Material Resources
Families’ Work and Other Life Commitments
Physical Amenity
RQ3: What Local Resources and Strategies Can Be Used to Foster Preschool Children’s Literacy in Their Home Languages and English, in Communities in Fiji That Do Not Have Access to Preschools?
Co-creating Multilingual Books in Children’s Vernaculars and English
Engaging with Children to Support Their Literate Encounters with Books in Children’s Vernaculars and English
Mobilising Children’s Participation
Making Children’s Literacy Participation and Learning Visible
Benchmarking Children’s Literacy Engagement Against Outcomes and Suggested Indicators for ‘Language, Literacy and Communication’ in Na Noda Mataniciva
Benchmarking the Children’s Engagement as Readers Against Na Noda Mataniciva’s ‘Becoming a Reader’ Outcomes
Benchmarking the Children’s Engagement as Readers Against Na Noda Mataniciva’s ‘Becoming a Writer’ Outcomes
Conclusions from the Benchmarking Findings
References
Chapter 11: On Effective Community Capacity Development and Sustainability
Introduction
Our Fourth Research Question: What Strategies Are Effective in Developing Local Capacity to Foster Preschool Children’s Literacy in Their Home Languages and English?
Effective Community Capacity Development Is Socioculturally, Linguistically and Historically Grounded
Effective Community Capacity Development Centres on a Community’s Collective Empowerment and Participation
Effective Community Capacity Development Is Informed by and Further Informs Related Research, Policy and Practice
Effective Community Capacity Development Documents and Makes Benefit and Impact Visible, to Those Within and Outside the Community
Effective Community Capacity Development Involves Dialogic Engagement with Communities
Effective Community Capacity Development Creates Conducive Relational Contexts
Effective Community Capacity Development Responds and Is Relevant to a Community’s Sociocultural, Linguistic and Historic Context(s)
Effective Community Capacity Development Takes Stock of a Community’s Pragmatic Realities Germane to the Focus at Hand
How Can Communities in Fiji That Do Not Have Access to Early Childhood Services Be Supported to Build Sustainable Local Capacity to Foster Their Preschool Children’s Literacy in Their Home Languages and English?
In Closing
References

Citation preview

International Perspectives on Early Childhood Education and Development 31

Pauline Harris · Cynthia Brock  Elspeth McInnes · Bec Neill  Alexandra Diamond · Jenni Carter  Ufemia Camaitoga · Meresiana Krishna  Eleni Giannakis

Children’s Multilingual Literacy Fostering Childhood Literacy in Home and Community Settings

International Perspectives on Early Childhood Education and Development Volume 31

Series Editors Marilyn Fleer, Monash University, Frankston, Australia Ingrid Pramling Samuelsson, Gothenburg University, Göteborg, Sweden Editorial Board Jane Bone, Monash University, Frankston, Australia Anne Edwards, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK Mariane Hedegaard, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark Eva Johansson, University of Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway Rebeca Mejía Arauz, ITESO, Jalisco, Mexico Cecilia Wallerstedt, Gothenburg University, Göteborg, Sweden Liang Li, Monash University, Frankston, Australia

Early childhood education in many countries has been built upon a strong tradition of a materially rich and active play-based pedagogy and environment. Yet what has become visible within the profession, is essentially a Western view of childhood preschool education and school education. It is timely that a series of books be published which present a broader view of early childhood education. This series seeks to provide an international perspective on early childhood education. In particular, the books published in this series will: • Examine how learning is organized across a range of cultures, particularly Indigenous communities • Make visible a range of ways in which early childhood pedagogy is framed and enacted across countries, including the majority poor countries • Critique how particular forms of knowledge are constructed in curriculum within and across countries • Explore policy imperatives which shape and have shaped how early childhood education is enacted across countries • Examine how early childhood education is researched locally and globally • Examine the theoretical informants driving pedagogy and practice, and seek to find alternative perspectives from those that dominate many Western heritage countries • Critique assessment practices and consider a broader set of ways of measuring children’s learning • Examine concept formation from within the context of country-specific pedagogy and learning outcomes The series will cover theoretical works, evidence-based pedagogical research, and international research studies. The series will also cover a broad range of countries, including poor majority countries. Classical areas of interest, such as play, the images of childhood, and family studies will also be examined. However the focus will be critical and international (not Western-centric). Please contact Astrid Noordermeer at [email protected] to submit a book proposal for the series. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/7601

Pauline Harris • Cynthia Brock Elspeth McInnes • Bec Neill Alexandra Diamond • Jenni Carter Ufemia Camaitoga • Meresiana Krishna Eleni Giannakis

Children’s Multilingual Literacy Fostering Childhood Literacy in Home and Community Settings

Pauline Harris University of South Australia Adelaide, SA, Australia

Cynthia Brock University of Wyoming Laramie, WY, USA

Elspeth McInnes University of South Australia Adelaide, SA, Australia

Bec Neill University of South Australia Adelaide, SA, Australia

Alexandra Diamond University of South Australia Adelaide, SA, Australia

Jenni Carter University of South Australia Adelaide, SA, Australia

Ufemia Camaitoga Lautoka, Fiji

Meresiana Krishna Valelevu, Fiji

Eleni Giannakis University of South Australia Adelaide, SA, Australia

Disclaimer  This book reports research that has been funded by the Australia Department for Foreign Affairs and Trading through the Category 1 Australian AID Development Research Awards Scheme under an award titled ‘Developing a community approach to supporting literacy for preschoolers in Fiji’. The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Commonwealth of Australia. The Commonwealth of Australia accepts no responsibility for loss, damage or injury resulting from reliance on any of the information or views contained in this publication.

ISSN 2468-8746     ISSN 2468-8754 (electronic) International Perspectives on Early Childhood Education and Development ISBN 978-981-15-6586-1    ISBN 978-981-15-6587-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6587-8 © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge: • Dr Anne Glover AO, Adjunct Lecturer at University of South Australia, for her expert advice and input to this study. • Fiji Ministry of Education for approving this study to be conducted in Fiji, noting that the views expressed herein are those of the authors and not necessarily of Fiji Ministry of Education. • National Council of Women Fiji and Ms Ufemia Camaitoga, for their support of and contribution to the study as Project Partners. • Community mentors, not named here to preserve their and their communities’ confidentiality, for their expert wisdom and guidance in the study. • Mr John Daley for the voluntary project support he provided that greatly enabled this study to become a reality. • The study’s participating children, families and communities, without whom this study would not have been possible.

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Contents

1 Introduction – In Children’s Words������������������������������������������������������    1 Our Study ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������     4 Our Book’s Plan��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������     5 Reference ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������     9 2 In Fiji��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   11 Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    11 Fiji’s Geography��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    12 Fiji’s History��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    15 First People’s Arrival and European Contact ��������������������������������������    17 Colonisation ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    18 Independence ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    20 Political Upheaval��������������������������������������������������������������������������������    21 Today����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    22 Peoples of Fiji������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    24 Early Childhood and School Education in Fiji����������������������������������������    28 Languages and Dialects in the Pacific and Fiji����������������������������������������    29 Geographic Distribution of Pacific Languages������������������������������������    30 Contact Languages������������������������������������������������������������������������������    30 Pidgins and Creoles������������������������������������������������������������������������������    31 Multilingualism in the Pacific��������������������������������������������������������������    31 Post-Colonial Influences on Languages and Literacy in the Pacific����    32 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    36 3 Language and Literacy Learning in Multilingual Settings������������������   41 Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    41 Call to Action in the Pacific ��������������������������������������������������������������������    43 Contention over Vernacular Languages ����������������������������������������������    44 Self-determination in Early Childhood and Language/Literacy Education ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    45 Dakar Framework for Action on Education for All ����������������������������    46

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Pacific Regional Initiatives for the Delivery of Basic Education (the PRIDE Project) ����������������������������������������������������������������������������    47 Progressing Universal Early Childhood Care and Education��������������    48 Na Noda Mataniciva: Fiji’s First Early Childhood Curriculum Guidelines��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    50 Young Children’s Literacy in Their Home Languages and English��������    51 Young Children’s Experiences with Code-Switching and Translanguaging����������������������������������������������������������������������������������    53 Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy��������������������������������������������������������������    57 Examining Education Practices Within a CSP Framework ����������������    60 Implications for Informing Our Study ����������������������������������������������������    67 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    68 4 Conceptualising Language, Literacy and Learning as Sociocultural Practices������������������������������������������������������������������������   77 Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    77 A Functional View of Language��������������������������������������������������������������    81 Conceptualising Literacy as Sociocultural Practice��������������������������������    85 Sociocultural and Rights-Based Perspectives of How Language and Literacy Are Learned������������������������������������������������������������������������    91 Making Multilingual Books with Children – Our Conceptual Framework in Action ������������������������������������������������������������������������������    93 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    95 5 Conducting Research as Transformative Encounter in Cross-Cultural Collaborations ����������������������������������������������������������   99 Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    99 The People and Places in the Project ������������������������������������������������������   102 The Communities, Families and Children ������������������������������������������   103 Community Mentors����������������������������������������������������������������������������   106 The Australian University Research Team������������������������������������������   107 Project Partners������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   108 Early Childhood Education and Care Stakeholders����������������������������   109 Research Partners and External Reference Group ������������������������������   110 Our Critical Participatory Action Research Approach����������������������������   110 Developing Capacity in a CPAR Approach ����������������������������������������   113 Data Collection and Analysis Methods����������������������������������������������������   114 Dialogic Encounters in Communities��������������������������������������������������   116 Participant Observations����������������������������������������������������������������������   125 Artefact Collection������������������������������������������������������������������������������   127 Benchmarking Children’s Literacy Participation and Learning����������   128 Stakeholder Interviews������������������������������������������������������������������������   130 Document Analysis������������������������������������������������������������������������������   132 Ensuring Trustworthiness and Ethics of the Study����������������������������������   133 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   135

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6 Exploring Stakeholders’ Perspectives of Young Children’s Multilingual Literacy������������������������������������������������������������������������������  139 Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   139 Stakeholders’ Perspectives of Preschool Children’s Literacy Development Contexts ����������������������������������������������������������������������������   141 The Place of Fiji’s Vernacular Languages and English������������������������   141 Differential Experiences in Languages Between Urban and Rural Areas������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   143 Tensions Between Languages and Consequences for Local and Global Identities and Participation������������������������������������������������   144 Language Shifts Across Home, Preschool and School������������������������   146 Languages for Participation in an Increasingly Diverse Nation and Global Society������������������������������������������������������������������������������   148 Stakeholders’ Perspectives of Enablers and Constraints that Impact Preschool Children’s Multilingual Literacy Learning ����������������������������   149 Resources and Opportunities ��������������������������������������������������������������   149 Systemic Considerations and Teacher Education��������������������������������   151 Localised Conditions ��������������������������������������������������������������������������   152 Stakeholders’ Perspectives of Local Resources and Strategies for Fostering Preschool Children’s Literacy in their Home Languages and English����������������������������������������������������������������������������   153 Building Bridges Between Home and School ����������������������������������������   154 Strengthening Families’ Role in Their Children’s Literacy Learning ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   155 Play and Other Activities ��������������������������������������������������������������������   156 Being Culturally Sustaining����������������������������������������������������������������   157 Stakeholders’ Perspectives of Effective Strategies for Developing Local Community Capacity to Support Preschool Children’s Literacy Development in Their Home Languages and English ��������������   159 Providing Opportunity for Communities to Witness and Value Their Children’s Learning��������������������������������������������������������������������   160 Recognising and Supporting Families’ Participation��������������������������   160 Using Culturally Appropriate Practices to Engage with Communities ��   161 Talking with the Community About Sustainability and Succession Planning ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   163 Implications for Developing Community Capacity for Fostering Young Children’s Literacy ����������������������������������������������������������������������   164 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   166 7 In Duavata: Collaborating with Children and Families in an Indigenous Fijian Semi-­Rural Community����������������������������������  169 Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   169 Introducing the Participating Children and Their Families of Duavata������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   170

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What Are the Literacy Development Contexts for Preschool Children in Communities in Fiji That Do Not Have Access to Preschools?������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   172 The Duavata Community Methodist Church ��������������������������������������   172 Children’s Play Contexts In- and Outside Their Homes����������������������   179 What Are the Enablers and Constraints That Impact on Community Capacity to Support Their Preschool Children’s Literacy Learning? ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������   184 Enablers That Support Preschool Children’s Literacy Learning in Duavata��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   184 Constraints that Impact on Community Capacity to Support Preschool Children’s Literacy Learning in Duavata����������������������������   187 What Local Resources and Strategies Can Be Used to Foster Preschool Children’s Literacy in Their Home Languages and English in Communities in Fiji that Do Not Have Access to Preschools?������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   188 Benchmarking Duavata Children’s Literacy Participation and Learning Against Na Noda Mataniciva����������������������������������������   190 Listening and Communicating in Na Noda Mataniciva����������������������   192 Reading and Writing in Na Noda Mataniciva ������������������������������������   192 Benchmarking the Children’s Engagement as Readers Against Na Noda Mataniciva’s ‘Becoming a Reader’ Outcomes��������������������   193 What Strategies Are Effective in Developing Local Capacity to Support Preschool Children’s Literacy Development in Their Home Languages and English?����������������������������������������������������������������   197 Deepening Internal Duavata Capacity and Sustainability��������������������   197 Drawing on External Expertise to Continue to Sustain and Grow the Work ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   206 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   207 8 In Dovubaravi: Collaborating with Children and Families in an Indo-­­Fijian Rural Community���������������������������������������������������������������  209 Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   209 Introducing the Participating Children and Their Families of Dovubaravi������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   210 What Are the Literacy Development Contexts for Preschool Children in Dovubaravi?��������������������������������������������������������������������������   212 Seeing the Cultural, Relational and Linguistic Contexts of Children’s Literacy Development����������������������������������������������������   213 Language and Literacy Contexts in Dovubaravi����������������������������������   215 Language and Literacy Practices and Texts of Participating Families and Children��������������������������������������������������������������������������   217 What Are the Enablers and Constraints that Impact Dovubaravi’s Community Capacity to Support Their Preschool Children’s Literacy Learning? ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������   220

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What Local Resources and Strategies Can Be Used to Foster Preschool Children’s Literacy in Their Home Languages and English in Dovubaravi?��������������������������������������������������������������������   222 Dovubaravi’s Co-created Multilingual Books in and About Children’s Worlds��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   223 Enriching Dovubaravi Children’s Play with Literacy��������������������������   225 Benchmarking Dovubaravi Children’s Literacy Participation and Learning Against Na Noda Mataniciva����������������������������������������   227 What Strategies Are Effective in Developing Dovubaravi’s Capacity to Support Preschool Children’s Literacy Development in Their Home Languages and English?��������������������������������������������������   231 Increasing Parents’ and Grandparents’ Reading Support Repertoires ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   232 Supporting School and Community Cultural, Language and Literacy Learning Through Providing Families’ Access to Multilingual Books About Their Worlds ����������������������������������������   233 Renewing Community Focus on and Discussion About Strategies to Sustain Heritage Languages��������������������������������������������   234 Increasing Children’s, Parents’ and Community’s Digital Literacy������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   234 Enhancing Identity Expression and Self-Esteem for Dovubaravi Children and Adults ����������������������������������������������������������������������������   236 Concluding Dovubaravi’s Community Case Study ��������������������������������   237 Appendices����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   237 Appendix 8.1: Dovubaravi’s Co-created Books����������������������������������   237 Appendix 8.2: Approaches to Enriching Children Play with Literacy����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   239 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   242 9 In Wavu: Collaborating with Children and Families in a Culturally Diverse Community in an Urban Setting��������������������  243 Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   243 Introducing the Participating Children and Their Families of Wavu ������   244 What Are the Literacy Development Contexts for Preschool Children in Wavu?������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   246 Attitudes to and Practices of Language Use in Wavu��������������������������   246 Literacy Development Affordances of Children’s Communities��������   249 What Are the Enablers and Constraints That Impact on Wavu’s Community Capacity to Support Their Preschool Children’s Literacy Learning? ����������������������������������������������������������������   251 Education Aspirations for Children ����������������������������������������������������   254 What Local Resources and Strategies Can Be Used to Foster Preschool Children’s Literacy in Wavu?��������������������������������������������������   256 Sibling Support������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   257 Media Exposure to English������������������������������������������������������������������   257

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What Strategies Are Effective in Developing Wavu’s Capacity to Support Preschool Children’s Literacy Development in Their Home Languages and English?����������������������������������������������������������������   261 Children’s Interactions with Their Books��������������������������������������������   266 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   268 10 Fostering Children’s Multilingual Literacy in Home and Community Settings ������������������������������������������������������������������������  269 Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   269 RQ1: What Are the Literacy Development Contexts for Preschool Children in Communities in Fiji That Do Not Have Access to Preschools? ������������������������������������������������������������������������������   270 Place of Home Languages (Vernaculars) in Community Lives ����������   270 Place of English in Community Lives and Its Relevance to Schooling ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   274 Children’s Code-Switching and Translanguaging Practices����������������   276 Children’s Literacy Lives��������������������������������������������������������������������   278 Family Involvement in Supporting Their Children’s Literacy Participation Learning��������������������������������������������������������������������������   280 RQ2: What Are the Enablers and Constraints That Impact on Community Capacity to Support Their Preschool Children’s Literacy Learning? ������������������������������������������������������������������������������   285 Enablers������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   285 Constraints ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   289 RQ3: What Local Resources and Strategies Can Be Used to Foster Preschool Children’s Literacy in Their Home Languages and English, in Communities in Fiji That Do Not Have Access to Preschools? ������������������������������������������������������������������   291 Co-creating Multilingual Books in Children’s Vernaculars and English������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   291 Engaging with Children to Support Their Literate Encounters with Books in Children’s Vernaculars and English������������������������������   294 Mobilising Children’s Participation����������������������������������������������������   295 Making Children’s Literacy Participation and Learning Visible ��������   295 Benchmarking Children’s Literacy Engagement Against Outcomes and Suggested Indicators for ‘Language, Literacy and Communication’ in Na Noda Mataniciva ������������������������������������   296 Conclusions from the Benchmarking Findings������������������������������������   298 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   300 11 On Effective Community Capacity Development and Sustainability������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  305 Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   305 Our Fourth Research Question: What Strategies Are Effective in Developing Local Capacity to Foster Preschool Children’s Literacy in Their Home Languages and English? ������   306

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Effective Community Capacity Development Is Socioculturally, Linguistically and Historically Grounded��������������������������������������������   307 Effective Community Capacity Development Centres on a Community’s Collective Empowerment and Participation����������   309 Effective Community Capacity Development Is Informed by and Further Informs Related Research, Policy and Practice����������   311 Effective Community Capacity Development Documents and Makes Benefit and Impact Visible, to Those Within and Outside the Community����������������������������������������������������������������   311 Effective Community Capacity Development Involves Dialogic Engagement with Communities����������������������������������������������������������   313 Effective Community Capacity Development Creates Conducive Relational Contexts������������������������������������������������������������   315 Effective Community Capacity Development Responds and Is Relevant to a Community’s Sociocultural, Linguistic and Historic Context(s)������������������������������������������������������������������������   317 Effective Community Capacity Development Takes Stock of a Community’s Pragmatic Realities Germane to the Focus at Hand ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   318 How Can Communities in Fiji That Do Not Have Access to Early Childhood Services Be Supported to Build Sustainable Local Capacity to Foster Their Preschool Children’s Literacy in Their Home Languages and English? ��������������������������������������   319 In Closing������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   321 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   322

About the Authors

Pauline Harris  is the Chair, Early Childhood (Research) in Education Futures at the University of South Australia, where she is an active leader and researcher in Research in Educational and Social Inclusion. Pauline specialises in children's language/s, literacies and literature, with her research spanning diverse contexts. Pauline is a strong advocate for children’s participation as active citizens, and has further developed Freirean principles of dialogic encounters for authentic engagement with children. Cynthia  Brock  holds the Wyoming Excellence in Higher Education Endowed Chair in Literacy Education at the University of Wyoming. She is particularly interested in exploring the literacy learning opportunities of elementary children from diverse cultural, linguistic and economic backgrounds, and she explores ways to work with pre- and in-service teachers to foster the literacy learning opportunities of children from non-dominant backgrounds. Jenni Carter  is Lecturer in English and Literacy, and Researcher in Research for Educational and Social Inclusion in the Education Futures Unit, University of South Australia. Her current research is concerned with arts-based approaches to literacy and alternative schooling in areas of disadvantage, the development of vocabulary within development of play-based language and literacy programs in preschool and primary settings, and literacy policy analysis. Alexandra Diamond  is Lecturer in Early Childhood in Education Futures at the University of South Australia. Using ethnographic methods, she is undertaking a doctoral investigation of very young children’s language socialisation in a rural Indo-Fijian community. Elspeth  McInnes  AM is Associate Professor of Sociology in Education in Education Futures at the University of South Australia. Her research focuses on supporting young children’s well-being and development in families and education services. xv

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About the Authors

Bec Neill  teaches across the child protection and digital technologies curricula in Education Futures at the University of South Australia and has a professional background and degree in Information Systems. She is a critical systems thinker and maternal feminist, who explores the relations between people and technology using systems-thinking concepts and practices. Bec has worked in a diverse range of educational contexts as both a systems consultant and researcher, building capacity to deliver culturally inclusive education and care. Ufemia Camaitoga  is currently a Consultant in Early Childhood Education and National President of Fiji Early Childhood Teachers Association. She continues to be involved in early childhood advocacy, leadership, mentoring and curriculum development in Fiji and the Pasifika and works to forge partnerships with organisations and people persons for early childhood education. Meresiana  Krishna  has a longstanding history of teaching in Early Childhood Education in diverse settings in Fiji. She also has worked with governmental agencies, such the Fijian Ministries of Education and Local Government, and Women as well as with non-governmental and faith-based organisations and the Fiji Early Childhood Teachers Association as an Executive member. Eleni  Giannakis  has served as Research Assistant to the de Lissa Chair at the University of South Australia and has expertise in children’s voices, participation and active citizenship; Indigenous literacies practices; and engaging with children living in marginalised circumstances.

Chapter 1

Introduction – In Children’s Words

One cannot expect positive results from an educational or political action program which fails to respect the particular view of the world held by the people. Such a program constitutes cultural invasion, good intentions notwithstanding. (Freire, 1983, p. 95)

Abstract  This chapter introduces readers to the project on which this book is based – that is, a 3-year, cross-cultural study in Fiji about understanding young children’s multilingual language and literacy practices in their homes and communities, and using these understandings to collaboratively develop strategies for fostering children’s multilingual literacy with them and their families. An overview of the project’s full team and summaries of the book’s chapters are provided. Ultimately, this chapter positions the book as a collaborative product of sustained dialogic encounters in the forms of extended talanoa in iTaukei settings and baat-chit in Indo-Fijian settings. These encounters involved a diverse range of co-investigators, children and adults alike, across time, place and setting; and led to the co-construction of knowledge and practices for developing community strategies that support young children’s multilingual literacies in their home and community settings. So wrote Paulo Freire, whose words of provocation are particularly pertinent to the focus of our book – a 3-year, cross-cultural study in Fiji about understanding young children’s multilingual language and literacy practices in their homes and communities. These understandings were used to collaboratively develop strategies for fostering children’s multilingual literacy with them and their families. We worked in and with communities that had no or limited access to kindergartens (preschools) so that communities might develop sustainable capacity for supporting their children’s literacy. The question driving this collaboration was:

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Harris et al., Children’s Multilingual Literacy, International Perspectives on Early Childhood Education and Development 31, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6587-8_1

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1  Introduction – In Children’s Words In what ways can Fiji’s communities without access to early childhood services be supported to build local capacity to assist their preschool children’s literacy development in their home languages and English?

In late October 2014, a team of researchers from the University of South Australia arrived on Viti Levu in the Republic of Fiji. Together, we brought a range of experiences. Yet, we also knew that we were, in essence, cultural apprentices embarking on collective work with research partners and communities in Fiji to build community capacity for fostering young children’s literacy in home languages and English. This trip of the Australia-based research team was the inaugural visit for our Australian AID ADRAS research project, ‘Developing a Community Approach to Supporting Literacy for Preschoolers in Fiji’.1 The Australia-based team research team comprised: –– Pauline Harris, project leader, who brought a broad range of literacies research undertakings in and across culturally and linguistically diverse settings, including engagement with myriad voices of children and their families and communities through dialogic encounters –– Anne Glover, project consultant, who has worked extensively as a researcher and consultant in Pacific early childhood education, with a focus on Papua New Guinea, Fiji and the Pacific –– Elspeth McInnes, who endowed the project with her wealth of sociological expertise in early childhood and family studies, including work she has done in Papua New Guinea –– Jenni Carter, who contributed her literacy expertise as well as insights from her experiences living, teaching and parenting as a partner of a kaivulagi senior executive employed in Fijian private industry –– Alexandra Diamond, who brought early childhood development expertise and her substantial years growing up in Fiji as a child, with a parent working as the archivist of the colonial government –– Cynthia Brock, who provided literacy expertise developed across culturally and linguistically diverse settings, including United States, Australia, England, Fiji, Thailand, Laos, Spain, Chile and Costa Rica –– Bec Neill, project officer, who contributed expertise developed across a diverse range of industry and educational contexts, including working with staff, management and children of kindergartens and early childhood organisations to build their capacity to deliver high quality early childhood education and care. The project was grounded in awareness that not all communities in Fiji had access to early childhood education services and that most children in Fiji spoke languages other than English at home, whereas schooling language is English. As confirmed with research colleagues, partners and communities in Fiji, there was an expressed

1  This research has been funded by the Australia Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade through the Category 1 Australian AID Development Research Awards Scheme under an award titled ‘Developing a community approach to supporting literacy for preschoolers in Fiji’. The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Commonwealth of Australia. The Commonwealth of Australia accepts no responsibility for loss, damage or injury resulting from reliance on any of the information or views contained in this publication.

1  Introduction – In Children’s Words

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need and desire for communities to develop strategies that would support their preschool-aged children’s literacy and later transition to school. This work would need to address literacy in the children’s heritage or home languages as well as English. This project was further grounded in previous work in Fiji and the Pacific conducted by the research team’s School of Education early childhood colleagues, including members of this project’s research team. Most particularly, the project was grounded in the imperative that arose from a meeting of Pacific Education Ministers2 for member nations to recommit to vernacular education and language learning, and to establish appropriate policies and practices to support this priority. The Australia-based  research team  engaged with two in-country Fiji research partners: Ufemia Camaitoga and the National Council of Women Fiji (NCWF). Both these partnerships were supported by the project’s ADRAS grant. Ufemia Camaitoga is an early childhood academic and consultant in Fiji and the broader Pacific. She brought to the project her long-standing history and expertise in early childhood education, early childhood teacher education and early childhood consultancy. Ufemia provided brokerage with research sites and stakeholders; assisted in identifying communities and community mentors for the study; worked with the project leader to oversight the research conducted in the case study communities; gave advice on the early childhood education and care context of Fiji and the Pacific; and provided insight in the collection and analysis of research data for the project. The NCWF is a national coordinating body of women’s organisations and groups across Fiji advocating for sustainable improvement in the lives of women and their children. Their partnership with  this project closely aligned with our collective grass roots focus on children and their families in terms of literacy practices in household and community settings. NCWF assisted in identifying communities and community mentors for the study; facilitated the researchers’ entry into communities; provided advice on cultural protocols to the Australia-based researchers; housed the study’s in-country research assistant; provided administrative support, catering and venues for project meetings; and facilitated the study’s dissemination amongst its affiliate organisations through workshops and other means. In the first in-country meeting with Ufemia Camaitoga and NCWF, the Australia-­ based research team were greeted with kind hospitality and a keen interest in the project as we all gathered around the table to formally begin this collaborative work. This was the first of many meetings in which all members of the research team met with partners and those who joined the project as our mentors who lived in the communities participating in the project. These community mentors provided the Australia-based researchers with intercultural mediation and language translations; and shared their invaluable advice and insights into cultural protocols and relations germane to their respective communities and the study at hand. The team was joined by Fulori Turaga as an in-country Research Assistant to this project. Fulori brought extensive media, communication, research, community liaison and project management experience to the project from having worked across a range of government and on-government authorities. With her purview of national issues that her professional history afforded, Fulori lent key insights to our project.  Islands Business (2012) https://www.islandsbusiness.com/2012 Retrieved 10th March 2017

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1  Introduction – In Children’s Words

Later in the project, we were joined by Meresiana Krishna as in-country research assistant. Meresiana mentored and supported the project’s work across iTaukei and Indo-Fijian settings, drawing on her long-standing lived experiences in both cultures. Meresiana has a long-standing history in Early Childhood Education in Fiji and has taught in diverse settings in Fiji, including rural and remote villages, urban and semi-urban localities and informal settlements. Meresiana also has worked with a number of government agencies and non-government organisations. The project team also included an External Reference Group. This group comprised the project’s research partners as well as a major early childhood education provider; two influential early childhood care and education individuals; an early childhood professional association; two universities in Fiji and the Pacific that were providers of early childhood teacher education; and two NGOs whose work related to early childhood care and education in Fiji and the Pacific.

Our Study Thus began a 3-year journey that would take us all down myriad highways and by-­ ways of young children’s multilingual literacy worlds in Fiji. We would come to know these worlds by entering into the folds of community and family lives in three communities3 who chose to work with us: –– Duavata, a small, semirural indigenous Fijian village where families’ first and primary languages are Bauan and other iTaukei dialects –– Dovubaravi, an Indo-Fijian cane-farming and fishing community in a rural setting, where the main home language was Fiji-Hindi, with the presence also of Tamil, and shudh Hindi and its potential to be written in Latin and Devanagari scripts –– Wavu, a culturally diverse suburban community in Fiji’s capital, with approximately 52% of the population being Indigenous Fijians whose first languages were Bauan and other iTaukei dialects, and 48% Indo-Fijians whose first languages were mostly Fiji-Hindi, with other Indian languages and dialects also spoken. In these rich and very welcoming settings, we spent time in dialogue with children and their families and communities with whom we were co-investigators. Without access to early childhood services, these communities sought to develop alternative approaches to foster their young children’s literacy. We collectively came to understand communities’ and families’ language and literacy practices and broader contexts in which these practices were situated. We also came to understand families’ aspirations for their children, and how they viewed children’s learning and their roles therein.

 The communities have been given pseudonyms to protect their privacy and confidentiality.

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Our Book’s Plan

5

Children shared their places with us. They took us on guided tours to show us what mattered to them in their communities. We heard how children named and talked about their worlds and what makes life valuable to them. Such was the start of gathering raw material through children’s words and voices for the literacy work we were beginning together. This start enabled our collective work to foster unbroken beginnings of children’s language and literacy development. We continued to ensure the strategies we developed were firmly embedded in children’s worlds across time and place, so as to sustain these worlds as they continue to evolve. Through this organic, culturally sustaining approach, the Australia-­based researchers were careful not to impose westernised ideas. Instead, the Australia-based team members  learned as cultural apprentices from and with the  community mentors, partners and participants. As we were to document, the children in this study were living rich and sophisticated literate lives – they did not need westernised ideas and materials to supplant their ways of being and becoming literate in their worlds. Thus, in this cross-cultural research collaboration, we engaged with children and their families in dialogic transactions of ideas and perspectives. Through dialogue and observations, we came to understand children’s and families’ language and literacy practices embedded in their life worlds, leading to our collective development of strategies for fostering children’s multilingual literacy within each community. An overview of the people involved in the project is shown in Fig. 1.1. Research partner, Ufemia Camaitoga, likened the team to a mixed floral bouquet, each individual piece making a unique and necessary contribution to the whole. The Australia-based researchers’ time in-country was spent in dialogue with communities, with one another, and with Fiji colleagues. It was a time for getting to know one another. It was a time for listening, a time for reflecting, and a time for examining assumptions and revisiting ideas mediated by being in-country. It was a time for making further plans and moving forward. Together. The story told in this book is everyone’s story. It is a multi-voiced account of what it has meant to collaborate on developing community approaches to fostering young children’s multilingual literacy in their home and community settings, and the benefits, challenges and outcomes of doing this work.

Our Book’s Plan Chapter 2, In Fiji, provides accounts of Fiji’s geography to provide a sense of place and orientation to the broader physical context of the study; Fiji’s history to illuminate how Fiji’s people came to be in Fiji, and changes that have affected their lives and governance, including the lives of the study’s participants; Fiji’s people to provide the demographic context of the study and to situate the study’s participants in this broader context, including an account of what economically sustains Fiji as a nation of traditional and contemporary cultures situated in an increasingly global world; early childhood and school education in Fiji to acknowledge the nation’s educational context in which researchers were engaged with early childhood

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1  Introduction – In Children’s Words

Fig. 1.1  The project team

literacy education in children’s homes and communities; and the Pacific’s and Fiji’s languages and dialects to set the study’s linguistic scene in a broad national and regional context. Chapter 3, Language and Literacy Learning in Multilingual Settings, provides a review of research related to language and literacy learning in multilingual settings. This review is presented against Fiji’s contextual backdrop and linguistic landscape that is  presented in Chap. 2. More specifically, the chapter  examines the call to action in the Pacific concerning the maintenance of Pacific languages vis-à-­vis the cultural and historic significance of Pacific languages and related cultural and linguistic rights; self-determination in Pacific early childhood care and education, with a particular focus on language and literacy as it examines key regional initiatives and frameworks (namely, the Dakar Framework, the PRIDE Project, universal access to early childhood care and education services, and Fiji’s Kindergarten curriculum guidelines); young children’s literacy in their home languages and English, with careful consideration of how children navigate different languages in terms of code-switching and translanguaging; culturally sustaining pedagogy, including an

Our Book’s Plan

7

exploration of educational practices related to language and literacy teaching and assessment; and implications of the foregoing review for informing the study at hand. Chapter 4, Conceptualising language, literacy and learning as sociocultural practices, presents the study’s conceptual framework for understanding language, literacy and learning. It does so against the backdrop of Fiji’s diverse and evolving cultural and linguistic context discussed in Chaps. 2 and 3, and in terms of Fiji’s early childhood curriculum framework, Na Noda Mataniciva. The chapter explores language in terms of a functional view of language and relates this perspective to understanding children’s multilingual language and literacy practices in the communities of the  study. Literacy is conceived in terms that situate literacy in children’s lifeworlds and broader cultural and linguistic settings. We relate learning to sociocultural and rights-based perspectives of seeing, understanding and supporting literate children and literacy learners  – recognising each child’s voice and agency and developing child-voiced strategies that foster authentic, culturally relevant and sustaining learning in the study. The chapter concludes with an example of how the project team brought together the three elements of language, literacy and learning in a key action that emerged in the three communities of the study – that is, co-creating multilingual books with children and their families in their home and community settings. Chapter 5, Research as Transformative Encounter in Cross-Cultural Collaborations, provides accounts of the research team, sites and participants and the study’s 3-year critical participatory action research approach (CPAR) (Kemmis, McTaggart & Nixon, 2014). This approach enabled participants and university researchers alike to engage as co-investigators and optimised consequence and sustainability through strategic research design, partnerships, and communication and engagement. We explicitly link this CPAR approach to how the research  defined community capacity in this study and to key considerations for building capacity within a CPAR framework. Accounts of data collection and analysis procedures are provided. Measures taken  to ensure the study’s trustworthiness and ethics are explained. Throughout the chapter, we highlight and explore the complexities of conducting a cross-cultural study in an overseas context. Drawing on examples from the study, the chapter shows how the Australia-based researchers worked with these complexities in collaboration with co-investigators, community mentors and research partners. Chapter 6, Exploring Stakeholders’ Perspectives of Young Children’s Multilingual Literacy, presents findings from interviews with influential stakeholders who have been actively involved in the development of Fiji’s and the Pacific’s early childhood education and care policies, curricula and/or programs. These interview findings highlight key considerations and complexities inherent in the  study’s focus on building community capacity for fostering preschool children’s multilingual literacy in their home and community settings. The chapter explores stakeholders’ perspectives according to the focus of each of the research questions in turn: preschool children’s literacy development contexts; enablers and constraints that impact preschool children’s literacy learning; local resources and strategies for fostering preschool children’s literacy in their home languages and English; and effective

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strategies for developing local community capacity to support preschool children’s literacy development in their home languages and English. The chapter closes with a discussion of implications for developing community capacity for fostering young children’s literacy, a matter core to the aims and focus of this study. Chapters 7, 8 and 9 present the three action research community case studies: Chapter 7, In Duavata: Collaborating with children and families in an Indigenous Fijian semi-rural community Chapter 8, In Dovubaravi: Collaborating with children and families in an Indo-­ Fijian rural community Chapter 9, In Wavu: Collaborating with children and families in a culturally diverse urban community Each of these three chapter’s accounts is distinctive to the community’s social, cultural, linguistic and historic context. The approach to each case study account is consistent across these three chapters, facilitating connections in the reader’s mind and assisting our synthesis in Chap. 10. Each account yields a research narrative and a set of new insights unique to that setting – a product of its community’s constituency, geographical setting and social, linguistic and cultural context. Supported by data extracts and images, each of these chapters provides rich, illustrated accounts of: –– The literacy development contexts for preschool children in the community –– Enablers and constraints that impact on the community’s capacity to support their preschool children’s literacy learning –– Local resources and strategies that were used to foster preschool children’s literacy in the community –– Strategies that were effective in developing the community’s capacity to support preschool children’s literacy development in their home languages and English. Chapter 10, Fostering Children’s Multilingual Literacy in Home and Community Settings, provides a synthesis of what was learned from the three community CPAR case studies and the stakeholder interviews. This synthesis pulls together recurring themes common across these data sets as well as points of difference, in terms of the first three of our four research questions: 1. What are the literacy development contexts for preschool children in communities in Fiji that do not have access to preschools? 2. What are the enablers and constraints that impact on community capacity to support their preschool children’s literacy learning? 3. What local resources and strategies can be used to foster preschool children’s literacy in their home languages and English, in communities in Fiji that do not have access to pre-schools? The chapter concludes with our conclusions for these questions. These conclusions lead into the final chapter which provides a synthesis of findings for the fourth and final research question that focuses on strategies for developing community capacity. Chapter 11, On Effective Community Capacity Development and Sustainability, provides a synthesis of findings on strategies for developing community capacity.

Reference

9

More specifically, this chapter discusses eight key strategies and their underlying principles that address the final research question about effective strategies for developing local capacity to foster preschool children’s literacy in their home languages and English. The chapter then presents the final conclusions for our central research question. How can communities in Fiji that do not have access to early childhood services be supported to build sustainable local capacity to foster their preschool children’s literacy in their home languages and English? The chapter  includes an account of the capacity that was developed in the study and the impact and benefit that grew from this capacity. Ultimately, this book is the collaborative product of extended talanoa in iTaukei settings and baat-chit in Indo-Fijian settings – a myriad of dialogic encounters with a diverse range of co-investigators, children and adults alike, across time, place and setting. This is our story.

Reference Freire, P. (1983). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.

Chapter 2

In Fiji

Abstract  This chapter provides accounts of Fiji’s geography to provide a sense of place and orientation to the broader physical context of our study; Fiji’s history to illuminate how Fiji’s people came to be in Fiji, and changes that have affected their lives and governance, including the lives of the study’s participants; Fiji’s people to provide the demographic context of the study and to situate the study’s participants in this broader context, including an account of what economically sustains Fiji as a nation of traditional and contemporary cultures situated in an increasingly global world; early childhood and school education in Fiji to acknowledge the nation’s educational context in which researchers were engaged with early childhood literacy education in children’s homes and communities; and the Pacific’s and Fiji’s languages and dialects to set the study’s linguistic scene in a broad national and regional context.

Introduction Noqu Viti - Nikua. Ni mataka Mera Fiji – Aaj Aur Kal My Fiji – Today and Tomorrow - Meresiana Krishna The Republic of the Fiji Islands lies in the Oceanic region of Melanesia, where it forms part of an archipelago in the southwest of the Pacific Ocean. Fiji is situated on the cusp between the Indo-Australian and Pacific Tectonic Plates (Rodd, 1993). It is there in relatively more recent years that Fiji’s peoples have trod the folding and faulting of rock that has brought transformation and divergence across the ages. It was on this cusp that this study was conducted in local communities that had no access to early childhood services – a cusp where people’s present realities and past histories converged as global futures beckoned. These three communities were: –– Duavata, a small, semirural indigenous Fijian village where families’ first and primary languages are Bauan and other iTaukei dialects © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Harris et al., Children’s Multilingual Literacy, International Perspectives on Early Childhood Education and Development 31, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6587-8_2

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–– Dovubaravi, an Indo-Fijian cane-farming and fishing community in a rural setting, where the main home language was Fiji-Hindi, with the presence also of Tamil, and shudh Hindi with its potential to be written in Latin and Devanagari scripts –– Wavu, a culturally diverse suburban community in Fiji’s capital, with approximately 52% of the population being indigenous Fijians whose first languages were Bauan and iTaukei dialects and 48% Indo-Fijians whose main first language was Fiji-Hindi, with other languages from the Indian subcontinent also spoken. The collective aim in these communities was to develop sustainable community approaches to fostering young children’s literacy in their vernacular languages and English. We – the children, families and communities, Fijian project partners and Australian researchers alike  – worked together to develop strategies that would maintain children’s evolving cultural identities and languages while supporting children’s transitions of change to school and later life chances. We contextualise this work in this chapter with accounts of: 1. Fiji’s geography, which provides a sense of place and orientation to the broader physical context of our study 2. Fiji’s history to illuminate how Fiji’s people came to be in Fiji, and changes that have occurred that affect their lives and governance, including our study’s participants 3. Fiji’s people to provide the demographic context of our study and to situate our study’s participants in this broader context – including an account of what economically sustains Fiji as a nation of traditional and contemporary cultures situated in an increasingly global world, with ‘culture’ referring to ‘the way of life of a people which includes their language, values and knowledge systems’ (Thaman, 2009, p. 1) 4. Early childhood and school education in Fiji, to acknowledge the nation’s educational context in which we were engaged with early childhood literacy education in children’s homes and communities 5. The Pacific’s and Fiji’s languages and dialects to set the study’s linguistic scene in a broad national and regional context

Fiji’s Geography The communities in this study were located on Fiji’s most populous and diverse island of Viti Levu. Meaning ‘Big (or Large) Fiji’ (Gatty, 2009, pp. 140, 301) and covering around 57% of the nation’s land area, Viti Levu is the largest of Fiji’s volcanic islands. It has a population of 715, 219 – 81% of Fiji’s population of 884,887 people, according to the Fiji Bureau of Statistics’ 2017 census (FBOS, 2017a, 2017b). The nation’s capital city, Suva, is situated on Viti Levu, as are the city and seaport of Lautoka, most of Fiji’s major towns, and Fiji’s international airports in Nadi and Nausori (see Fig. 2.1).

Fiji’s Geography

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Fig. 2.1  Map of Fiji, with insert showing Fiji’s location in relation to other nations in the South West Pacific

Viti Levu is one of Fiji’s 332 islands and 522 islets surrounding the Koro Sea, of which 106 islands are permanently inhabited. Sixty-four kilometres (40 miles) to the north of Viti Levu lies Vanua Levu – ‘Big Land’ – which covers around 30% of Fiji’s land area. Fiji’s other islands, including Taveuni, Kadavu and the Mamanuca, Yasawa, Lomaviti and Lau island groups, comprise about 13% of the nation’s land area and are home to around 4% of the population. Two outlying regions are

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Ceva-­i-­Ra, 450 km (280 miles) to the southwest of Viti Levu, and Rotuma, 400 km (250 miles) to the north, a relatively autonomous Fijian dependency geographically situated in Polynesia. Fiji has a tropical climate with warm weather throughout the year and an average temperature of 25 °C. A hot, humid and rainy season runs from December to April, when temperatures can exceed 30 °C (86 °F) especially in December and January. A cooler season extends from May to October, with trade winds blowing in from the south-east and temperatures dropping to 18 °C (64 °F) in July and August. Rainfall and humidity are reduced from May to October, considerably more so in the leeward west than the windward east, with Fiji’s tourist season peaking during June and July. Given Fiji’s location, the island nation is susceptible to climatic fluctuations and a range of natural hazards including cyclones, hurricanes, storm surges, coastal flooding, river flooding, droughts, earthquakes, landslides and tsunamis. These natural disasters have wreaked destruction of life, property and livelihood – especially in rural areas where Fijians’ agricultural enterprise and subsistence are made and broken by fluctuating climatic forces. Cyclone Winston in 2016, for example, struck heavy blows to sugar cane farming, as seen in Fiji Sugar Corporation’s 2016 Annual Report1 in Fig. 2.2. Fiji’s natural resources contribute to the nation’s economy, including timber, fish, gold, copper, offshore oil and hydropower. Fiji uses a range of energy sources for

‘In February 2016, Fiji was hit by the catastrophic Category 5 Cyclone Winston, the biggest to hit the Southern Hemisphere. Winston ravaged the northern and western parts of Fiji. In its path, many of our grower farms were severely impacted. Furthermore, it also negatively affected the sugar crop and our replanting initiatives. Many growers were displaced for a significant period of time. FSC’s infrastructure was not spared by Winston’s ravaging. There was substantial damage to buildings, sugar cane milling equipment and sugar in storage. The mill at Penang was the worst affected. In view of the mill’s extensive damage and poor financial prospects vis-à-vis the cost of repair, the Board decided to close the mill permanently, with a commitment to divert all sugar cane produced in Rakiraki to Ba. This has since been achieved with significant assistance provided from government financing. Penang Mill’s management and staff were redeployed to the two remaining mills on Viti Levu. Unfortunately, extreme weather conditions did not lighten and towards the latter part of the year, we faced intense dry weather conditions, again adversely impacting land preparation and replanting of the sugar crop.’ From Fiji Sugar Corporation’s 2016 Annual Report1

Fig. 2.2  An example of climatic impact on agriculture from Fiji Sugar Corporation’s 2016 Annual Report)1

1  From http://www.fsc.com.fj/reports/FSC%202016%20Annual%20Report.pdf. Retrieved 10 March 2018.

Fiji’s History

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residential and industrial purposes, including hydro, biomass, solar, wind, wave and geothermal energy.2 Fiji’s heavily mountainous terrain is mainly made up of dormant and extinct volcanoes, with other mountains formed from limestone and coral islets. Fiji’s highest point is Viti Levu’s Mt. Tomanivi, towering 1324 metres (4344 feet) above sea level. Lush tropical rainforests clad half of Fiji’s lands, mountains and lowlands alike, where abundant and diverse trees, plants and wildlife flourish. Coconut palm trees, tropical fruits and vegetables are common. Dry grasslands are found in the large islands’ western areas, mangrove swamps in the east, with sandy swimming swimming beaches, coral reefs and rocks making up most of Fiji’s shorelines. It was to these shorelines of this richly endowed archipelago in the Pacific that Fiji’s first peoples arrived around 3500 years ago, creating Fiji’s precolonial history, culture and education systems (Thaman, 2009).

Fiji’s History A timeline of Fiji’s history since first migration is shown in Table  2.1, with key highlights that we elaborate upon below. Table 2.1  Fiji history timeline Date 3500 years ago 1600s–1700s

Early-mid 1800s Late 1800s

Event First peoples begin to migrate to Fiji in waves of transpacific migrations First Europeans visit Fiji European explorers name straits, for example the archipelago was referred to as ‘Bligh Islands’ for a period of time Americans, Australians and Europeans pursue commercial interests in Fiji Fiji Island kingdom of Bau rises to dominance amidst inter-tribal conflict Bau’s ruler, Ratu Cakobau, proclaims himself as Tui Viti (King of Fiji) More Europeans arrive to establish cotton plantations Instability rises and erupts within Fijian communities and between Fijians and Europeans. Britain intervenes Ratu Cakobau renounces his Tui Viti title, signs Deed of Cession to the British, and Fiji is declared a British colony in 1874 English missionaries’ earlier work – based in Lakeba and then Rewa and eventually Bau – to develop a Latin alphabet orthography and subsequent publications in Fijian languages (Derrick, 1946/1974) facilitates the adoption of Cakobau’s Buan dialect as an colonial language (continued)

2   From Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission, 2008 at https://web.archive.org/ web/20081201144948/http://www.sopac.org/FJ+at+a+Glance Retrieved 10 March 2018

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Table 2.1 (continued) Date 1870s–1920s

1930s–1940s

1950s 1960s 1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

Event Indentured labour system imports around 61,000 people from India to work on sugar plantations (1879–1920) Fiji’s colonial government establishes communal franchise whereby the Legislative Council apportions seats on ethnic basis Colonialists refer to indentured migrants as ‘coolies’ or ‘Indians’ and. indentured migrants self-refer as girmityas (Lal, 2012a, 2012b) During World War II, Fiji contributes troops to serve in Solomon Islands campaign. ‘Indian’ citizens of Fiji refuse to serve in solidarity with Indian quest for independence from Britain Colonial government refers to indentured migrants and their descendants as ‘Indians’ Indians’ outnumber indigenous Fijians Development towards Fiji’s independence begins Fiji is declared independent on 10 October 1970 Indentured migrants and their descendants referred to as ‘Indians’, ‘Fiji Born Indians’ and ‘Fiji Indians’ Inter-racial coalition, formed by Indo-Fijian dominated National Federation Party and new indigenous Fijian-led Labour Party, wins power in 1987 Two coups perpetrated by radical Fijian nationalists, led by Lieutenant Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka, overturn the government in 1987 Fiji’s new constitution is promulgated to guarantee first Fijians’ dominance Rabuka is elected Prime Minister in 1992 Fiji elects first Indo-Fijian Prime Minister, Mahendra Chaudhry, in 1997 Term ‘Fiji Indians’ used in the 1997 constitution (Pacific Media Centre, 2011) Chaudhry and his reformist government are taken hostage and deposed in a violent civilian coup led by businessman, George Speight, in 2000 Civilian administration and coup-supporting party are victorious when Fiji United Party wins 2001 election, and again in 2006 Six months later in 2006, there was a further coup, when Commodore Frank Bainimarama, in his role as Commander of the Armed Forces, assumed military and governmental control of Fiji Term iTaukei emerges with diverse contextual meanings (Gatty, 2009) Term used to denote descendants of immigrants from the Indian subcontinent is highly contested (Radio New Zealand, 2006) Now Prime Minister, Bainimarama announces plans in 2014 to develop a new constitution that includes an independent judiciary, transparent governance and enshrinement of a selection of human and civil rights Bainimarama wins 2014 election and remains Prime Minister as of July 2018 Term Indo-Fijian emerges (Pacific Media Centre, 2011) Term iTaukei mandated by 2010 Government Decree to replace the term Fijian, where used to refer to indigenous Fijians, in all official contexts (Fiji Public Service Commission, 2010) Term Indian remains the legal term for Fijian citizens of girmitya and immigrant descent (Dodd, 2012)

Fiji’s History

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First People’s Arrival and European Contact Archaeological evidence indicates the islands now known as Fiji were populated via waves of migrations ‘by way of the chain of continental islands that extend to the north-west to Papua New Guinea and Indonesia’, and from the west by way of Samoa and Tonga, creating an ‘ethnologic frontier’ in which Austronesians, Melanesians and Polynesians ‘met and mingled’ and subsequent relations, trade and warfare developed with people from northern and central Pacific islands (Derrick, 1946/1974, pp. 4–6). Europeans’ first discovery of Fiji was recorded in 1643 when the Dutch explorer, Abel Tasman, visited the north-east fringe of the Fiji Islands (Ash, 2016). The English Captain, James Cook, sailed through the south-east islands stopping briefly at Vatoa in 1774 on his way from Tonga to the New Hebrides; Captain Bligh and his remaining crew rowed their ship’s launch through the centre of the island group, from south-east to north-west in 1789 in the aftermath of the HMS Bounty mutiny; Captain Edwards arrived in Fiji in 1791 charged with finding the Bounty mutineers; Bligh returned for further exploration in 1792; and Captain Wilson of the London Missionary society sailed through and mapped islands and reefs of the northern part of the Lau group (Derrick, 1946/1974). In 1799 after departing Australia, the American Captain Bentley stopped at Kadavu before sailing west past Beqa, Vatulele, Viti Levu and Malolo islands (Derrick, 1946/1974). At the time of this first European contact, Fijian people were living in complex hierarchical societies, often involved in inter-clan warfare (Campbell, 1989). By the beginning of the nineteenth century, commercial interest in Fiji was instigated by the discovery of sandalwood in Bua Bay in southwest Vanua Levu and strong markets for the wood in China and India. The rush of British and American trade, which was to last 10 years, saw influential chiefs adopt sandalwood traders as armourers and interpreters and, towards the end, their crews as mercenaries in internal disputes (Derrick, 1946/1974). By the end of the rush, Bau, a small island off Viti Levu’s east coast, and its chief, Nauvilou, had risen to political dominance. With sandalwood supplies dwindling, traders’ interest subsequently turned to sea slugs, harvested by large numbers of Fijians and highly valued by Chinese markets (Ash, 2016). Such trade continued precariously for the next 30  years alongside intensifying clan rivalries and inter-clan gun warfare – as did visits from French and English warships protecting trade interests and, from 1835 onwards, English missionary work. By 1839, English Protestant missionaries had developed an orthography in the Latin alphabet, imported a printing press and printed a translation of part of the Christian Catechism at Lakeba. Seeking to establish themselves in south-eastern Viti Levu, the largest population centre of the Fiji Islands, the missionaries initially approached Bau, but instead opened a new mission at Rewa in 1839, deeming it more secure and with more potential for success than Bau, whose chief was now Tanoa, Nauvilou’s younger brother (Derrick, 1946/1974). The United States appointed a Commercial Agent for Fiji, with John Brown Williams taking up the

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appointment in 1840. French Roman Catholic missionaries arrived in Lakeba, Fiji via Tonga, subsequently establishing missions there and in Lau, Taveuni and at Rewa and Levuka. It was a decade in which Tanoa and his son Cakobau extended their interests and influence across the islands, through alliances with and extended wars on their closest neighbours, Rewa and Naitasiri, and those further afield such as Cakaudrove, Lakeba, Bua and Macuata (Derrick, 1946/1974). Violent land and power disputes between the chiefs and with foreigners continued unabated. European attempts to assert governance became undone by internal factionalism and the interference of their governments and agencies (Ash, 2016). In 1854, Cakobau faced increasing political opposition locally. This opposition grew from perceptions of Cakobau’s styling as Tui Viti (King of Fiji), as well as mounting debts to foreign governments and individuals. Several thousands of pounds were owed to the English for cargo and stores; and tens of thousands of dollars were owed to US Commercial Agent, Williams, for looting his trading store in 1849, and for a more recent arson attack on his home (Derrick, 1946/1974; Ravuvu, 1983). Taking advice from his Tongan allies and Bauan chiefs, Cakobau converted to Christianity, thereby providing the populous Bauan people with long-withheld permission to engage with the religion of the Methodist missionaries in their midst. Cakobau’s conversion to Christianity was to have a lasting effect. Following the Rewa chief’s death in 1855, Cakobau led other convert-Chiefs and his Tongan allies in a decisive victory against an alliance of chiefs intent on maintaining the old ways. Subsequently, wars and desultory fighting were significantly contained. A significant population of Fijians were brought under the influence of Methodist missionaries, lessening the impact and presence of existing Roman Catholic and later Anglican missions (Ash, 2016; Derrick, 1946/1974). Cakobau’s financial debts remained, however. Moreover, Cakobau was now politically indebted to his Tongan allies who, since the turn of the century, had been courted by the Fijian high chiefs whom he sought to lead and for whom he had continued to be problematic.

Colonisation Thus was set the stage for British intervention and colonisation of Fiji. In 1874, Cakobau signed the Deed of Cession with the British. Learning from previous failures in Fiji, Britain adopted a system of indirect rule over Fiji that: emphasised the need to administer Fijians according to their customary forms of government, and on the principles of how Fijians hold rights to land. It was to be a “government within a government’ … The land and people were demarcated and grouped according to traditional political and social alignments. (Ravuvu, 1983, p. 112)

Sir Arthur Gordon, the first substantive Governor of Fiji, was tasked with arranging this governance ‘in accordance with native usage and customs’ and a land administration system which would disturb ‘as little as possible existing tenures’ whilst ensuring Fiji’s economic viability as a colony (Carnarvon to Gordon, 4

19

Fiji’s History Yasana or Provinces Made up of ‘socially related or politically affiliated kinsmen groups or vanua’. Each province led by a chief with the title, Roko Tui, ‘usually the paramount or senior chief of all the Vanua and normally appointed appointed from among the senior members of the principal landowning unit of the area.’ (Rotuma and its dependencies lie outside these divisions.) Tikina or Districts Each led by a Buli who also was ‘a senior member of the principal landowning unit when within the Vanua itself.’ Koro or Villages ‘In which the members of each Vanua normally resided.’ Led by ‘a Turaga-Ni-Koro appointed from among the villagers.’

Fig. 2.3  Arrangement of colonial governance in accord with Fijian traditional customs (based on and with quotes from Ravuvu, 1983, p. 112)

March 1875, cited in Spriggs & Scarr, 2014, p. 4). This brief was fulfilled by the hierarchical structure seen in Fig. 2.3, which shows the ‘chain of responsibility or span of control from the highest and largest unit, the Yasana, to the lowest or smallest unit, the Koro’ (Ravuvu, 1983, p. 112). To protect indigenous Fijians’ interests, bans were placed on Fijian land sales, and Fijians were taxed in agricultural produce rather than cash. At the same time, the imperative to build the new colony’s economy emerged as a high priority. To generate income, growth of the sugar industry on Crown land was encouraged. Such growth required immigrant workers because Fijian labour was confined to traditional chiefly arrangements. Thus from 1879 to 1920, an indentured labour system imported almost 61,000 Indian men, women and children to work on the sugar plantations for the prosperity of the European settlers – thereby not requiring indigenous Fijians to work on these plantations and so aiming to preserve their culture. The indentured labourers were known as girmityas  – girmit referring to the ‘Agreement’ of the British Government with the Indian labourers as to the length of stay in Fiji and when they would be allowed to go back to India. These workers from India endured exploitation, harsh treatment and high rates of disease and mortality on the plantations (Sanadhya, 2003). After their indentures ended, around 75% of the workers remained as waged labourers or tenant cane farmers (Firth, 2012). They were practising Muslims or Hindus, and their descendants became Fiji Hindi speakers (Shameen, 1998). The colony provided them no schools, and so ‘Indian’ communities set up their own schools (Lal, 2008). Indian cultural traditions of communication included centuries of production of text-based scripts, such as the Mahabahrata and Ramayana (Turco, 2013). Thus Devanagari script and the Hindu religion were added to Pacific oral communication traditions, alongside the imported English alphabet, language and Christian religion (Prescott, 2008).

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In 1929, Fiji’s British colonial government arranged ‘communal franchise’ whereby the Legislative Council comprised: three elected seats to the Indian community; three seats appointed by the governor for indigenous Fijians (although decisions for Fijians were made by the Great Council of Chiefs); and six elected seats for ‘Europeans’ (Firth, 2012; Lal, 2012a, 2012b, p. 153). Racially defining governance, this arrangement restrained Indian influence on governance, maintained European interests, and gave no voting rights to indigenous Fijians. During World War II when Fiji was occupied by Allied forces, indigenous Fijians served in the Solomon Islands campaign. Indo-Fijians refused to serve on the grounds of less pay and poorer conditions than their European counterparts in the Army (Ash, 2016). Consequently, the army, which was retained after the war, remained exclusively Fijian except for a small minority of Europeans. For similar reasons of low pay, Indo-Fijians began refusing to cut cane. In consequence of these actions, Indo-Fijians were called disloyal, and colonial authorities restructured Fiji’s administration to further reinforce traditional chiefly leadership (Ash, 2016). By the mid-twentieth century, Indo-Fijians outnumbered the indigenous population. Indo-Fijians worked in the market economy – such as in the sugar industry, small retail trade and then, with education, as salaried clerks and teachers. Conversely, indigenous Fijians mostly continued rural, village-based (mataqali) subsistent lives where exchange was organised by traditional familial obligations and chiefs (Fraenkel, 2013). Throughout the twentieth century, indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians mostly lived economically, educationally, culturally, linguistically and geographically segregated lives  – a situation perpetuated by the race-based political arrangements described above.

Independence Development towards constitutional independence began in the 1960s and has been described more as ‘a response to international pressures and British pressures than to any demand from within Fiji’ (Ash, 2016, p. 87). The existing communal franchise was extended to all Fiji’s ethnic groups. Fijian land rights, guaranteed by 1874’s Deed of Cession, was given constitutional protection. At the same time, Fijian chiefs were given the power of veto in all matters related to the status of Fijians and the constitution itself. Power thus was transferred to Fijian politicians. This power was conditional on remaining in partnership with general voters and on the continuance of a unified Fijian vote. Despite race riots, Fiji achieved independence on 10 October 1970. Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara became Fiji’s first Prime Minister, serving in that role until 1992, a brief interruption in 1987 notwithstanding. Vestiges of Fiji’s colonial history have remained – most evident in English being one of Fiji’s three official languages alongside Bauan and standard Hindi. Fiji’s flag carries both the British Union Jack and Fiji’s Coat of Arms, with the motto, ‘Fear God and Honour the Monarch.’ The flag also bears images of a peace dove, as well

Fiji’s History

21

as sugar cane, the coconut palm and bananas as sources of sustenance and economic prosperity. The national anthem, based on a Fijian hymn, is sung in English. The British Crown is still displayed on the uniforms of government offices, police and the military; and the Fijian dollar carries a portrait of Britain’s reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II.

Political Upheaval Following Fiji’s independence in 1970, a significant turn of events occurred in 1987 when an interracial coalition, formed by the Indo-Fijian dominated National Federation Party and the new indigenous Fijian-led Labour Party, won power. This coalition developed in spite of the history of racialisation of public life and had strong support from both indigenous Fijian and Indo-Fijian trade unionists. However, a post-election backlash arose from radical nationalist Fijians against the government whose legislature had an Indo-Fijian majority. This backlash led to the leaders being deposed in a coup d’état led by Lieutenant Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka a few weeks after the election. Following slow negotiations for a new constitution and new elections, Rabuka led a second coup in September 1987 and reinstated military rule. Rabuka declared Fiji a republic and revoked the 1970 constitution. These actions led to Fiji being expelled from the Commonwealth. Ratu Mara became the new republic’s President. In 1990, a new constitution guaranteed political dominance by indigenous Fijians and the chiefs (Sherlock, 1997). Rabuka was subsequently elected to parliament and became Fiji’s Prime Minister in 1992. The promulgation of a more inclusive constitution in 1997 allowed the election of Fiji’s first Indo-Fijian Prime Minister, Mahendra Chaudhry, and a reformist government. Fijian nationalists were outraged and in May 2000, Chaudhry and his government were taken hostage and deposed in a violent civilian coup led by George Speight, a businessman who alleged he was acting ‘in the name of ‘indigenous paramountcy’ (Fraenkel, 2009, p. 44). Following widespread destruction of Indo-Fijian properties and businesses, Fiji’s President Ratu Mara declared a state of emergency and took over the reins of governing Fiji. However, negotiations became deadlocked and Fiji’s army subsequently declared military rule. The military did not reinstate the elected government but instead handed government to an interim civilian administration in November 2000. Meanwhile, Chaudhry and his fellow hostages were released after being held captive for 56 days. Shortly afterwards, Fiji’s High Court declared the new government illegitimate and validated the previously ousted government. Allied with the 2000 coup-supporting party, the civilian administration achieved election victory in 2001 when the nationalist Fiji United Party was elected to office. The 2000 coup conspirators were released, and plans to downsize the military were established (Fraenkel, 2009). Over the years that followed, relationships worsened between this government and the military. Plans were made to privatise Fiji’s sugar industry in response to

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subsidy withdrawals from the European Union. The government of the day won its second election in 2006, but 7 months later, military leader Voreque Bainimarama seized power. Bainimarama previously had consolidated his position as a military leader before leading this coup (Fraenkel, 2009). In 2009, the Fiji Court of Appeal ruled that Bainimarama’s removal of the democratic government during his 2006 coup was illegal. Bainimarama consequently stepped down as interim prime minister (Ritchie, 2009). Within 24 h of this step down, the then President abolished the existing constitution and restored and enhanced Bainimarama’s executive powers as Prime Minister. In following weeks, Bainimarama publically committed to working towards restoring democratic governance and elections (Davis, 2009). In the same year, Gatty’s volume of the meanings and cultural uses of Fijian language and words documented itaukei as meaning ‘native Fijian, as in sotia itaukei native Fijan soldier’, ‘owner of something, itaukei ni motoka owner of the motorcar’ or someone with usage or disposal rights over something (Gatty, 2009, p. 259). Gatty noted the diverse emergent use of the capitalised iTaukei. iTaukei was noted as a polite way to reference indigenous Fijians; as a term referring ‘only to officially registered Fijians’; and to label dredre (hardline) political positions in relation to indigenous Fijian rights (Gatty, 2009, p. 259) reflected in earlier coups (Sherlock, 1997). In 2010, Bainimara’s government issued a decree mandating that iTaukei replace the English terms ‘Fijian’, ‘indigenous’ and ‘indigenous Fijian’ in all official legislation and documentation (Fiji Public Service Commission, 2010). Although contentious, this change in official nomenclature worked to set ‘apart the group designated as [i]taukei as a distinct category, but it can also be seen as an attempt at broadening the gloss of the word “Fijian”  – “freeing” the noun denoting Fijian nationality to usage that is devoid of ethnic connotations’ (Eräsaari, 2015, p. 240). Looking ahead in this book, we adopt this official term iTaukei to refer to indigenous Fijians, thus allowing for the inclusive use of the term Fijian to denote nationality. Whereas our Fijian co-researchers’ and participants’ voices within the text draw attention to the words and terms Fijian citizens used to discuss respective cultural identities. Later in this chapter, Table 2.1 documents our vulagi understanding of the shifting policies of nomenclature across Fiji’s history.

Today Ahead of the 2014 elections, Bainimarama implemented a new (and still current) constitution which declared ‘that indigenous people, Rotumans, and the descendants of indentured Indians and of settlers and immigrants to Fiji] are all Fijians united by common and equal citizenry’ (Republic of Fiji, 2013, p. 9). The document included principles of an independent judiciary, transparent governance and enshrinement of a selection of human and civil rights (Ash, 2016). International human rights groups criticised the proposal for curtailing several other rights and granting immunity to coup perpetrators.

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Promising to provide stronger protections for communally owned iTaukei lands, this constitution saw mining and fishing royalties being directed to the landholders. This constitution aimed to create a single national identity and provided for an open proportional list electoral system without race-based quotas or regional constituencies. The role of the hereditary Council of Chiefs was removed via abolition of the senate. The constitution’s Bill of Rights affirms children’s rights, including rights to early childhood education, although its reference to ‘resources to achieve [their] progressive realisation’ suggests some of these rights are aspirational. Bainimarama and his Fiji First Party went on to win the general election in September 2014, and this government remains multiracial and in power at the time of writing this book. Today, Fiji’s local administration sees the nation administratively organised into four divisions made up of provinces or yasana, districts and villages and, in the case of cities and towns, municipal governments, as shown in Fig. 2.4. In this administrative organisation, land – vanua – plays a significant role, with 88% of Fiji’s land being native title. While vanua literally means land, it also signifies more deeply embedded social and cultural meanings: On the social plane [land] includes the peoples and how they are socially structured and related to one another. On the cultural plane it embodies the values, beliefs and the common ways of doing things. The vanua, in the sense of the largest grouping of kinsmen who are structured into a number of social units which are related to one another, is the living soul or the human manifestation of the physical environment which the members have since claimed belongs to them, and to which they also belong. The people are the lewe ni vanua (flesh or members of the land), by which a particular vanua is known to other outside social groups. (Ravuvu, 1983, p. 76)

People and the relationships and diversity amongst them are, of course, the beating heart of Fiji, and it is to these peoples we now turn.

North, West, East and Central Divisions Each headed by a Commissioner appointed by the Fijian government (Rotuma and its dependencies lie outside these divisions.) Fourteen Yasana or Provinces make up the Divisions. Key function: to foster cooperation among member provinces for providing community services Provincial councils, each led by a Roko Tui, make bylaws and impose local taxes, subject to approval of Fijian Affairs Board

Districts and villages, based on extended family networks, with their own chiefs and councils. iTaukei villages, or koro, headed by a Turaga ni Koro elected or appointed by villagers Municipal governments for cities of Suva and Lautoka and ten towns.

Fig. 2.4  Fiji’s administration today

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Peoples of Fiji 884,887 people make up Fiji, with quite even numbers of males and females, as Table 2.2 shows. With Fiji’s median age being around 27 years – up 10 years since 1976’s statistics – children under the age of five make up just over 10% of Fiji’s population, that is, 91,987 children, including the 51 children (and their 44 families) who participated in this study, with a reach to 273 families across the communities participating in the study. These children and families participating in our study belonged to first, Indigenous or iTaukei cultures and subsequent colonial and post-colonial cultures (as described in Chap. 5), now visible in the rich and diverse blend of Fiji citizenship. Indigenous Fijians make up the majority of Fiji’s population, as seen in our demographic overview in Table 2.2. Although ethnically classified as Melanesian, the first Fijian peoples were more aligned with Polynesia in terms of their political and social structures, with a deep history of intermarriage between Fiji’s iTaukei and neighbouring vulagi chiefs from Tonga (Eräsaari, 2015), as previously discussed. Fiji’s citizens of Indian descent make up Fiji’s next largest ethnic group. Their ethnic label has been a matter of controversy, but for our study’s purpose, we use the term, Indo-Fijians. Most Indo-Fijians are descendants of the indentured sugarcane labourers brought to Fiji from the 1870s to 1920s, as this chapter previously described. A small number are descended from, or are themselves, free migrants, particularly represented in professions such as medicine, law and commerce (Ash, 2016). Fiji is a widely religious nation, with 92% of its people declaring religious affiliations. As seen in Table 2.2, Christian faiths are the most common religions, particularly the Methodist faith that stems back to Fiji’s pre-colonial missionary engagement, followed by Hinduism, and then other religions. The prevalence of Christian and Hindu faiths is materially evident in the large number of churches, temples, faith-based schools and religious billboards in Fiji’s cities, towns and villages and the shrines of worship and graves in many people’s yards that can be seen when driving or walking. Indeed, religious observances were prevalent and deeply embedded in people’s lives in the communities of our study. As Table 2.2 shows, the number of iTaukei people living in rural areas increased between 1996 and 2007, while Indo-Fijian numbers decreased. Both iTaukei and Indo-Fijian citizens increasingly migrated to urban areas during this same period, with a higher urban ratio of iTaukei to Indo-Fijian citizens in 2007 than 1996. In rural areas, iTaukei people own most farmland, while Indo-Fijians mainly tenant and/or work sugar plantations. Sugar remains a significant industry, with sugar farming and fishing the economic mainstays of one community in our study. Such communities, and more broadly Fiji, have experienced a drain on important skills and labour, as many skilled and literate Indo-Fijians emigrated after the 1987 and 2000 coups (Pande, 2011). This trend saw a decline in Fiji’s sugar industry, with Fiji’s low gross domestic product and employment growth providing insufficient

Peoples of Fiji Table 2.2  An overview of Fiji’s demographics Total Population (FBOS, 2017a, 2017b) 884,887 people Age (FBOS, 2017a, 2017b) Median age – 27.5 years (cf. 17.8 years, FBOS 1976) Under 5 years – 10% (91,987 children) Gender (FBOS, 2017a, 2017b) Males 448, 595 (51% of population) Females 436, 292 (49% of population) Ethnic groups (FBOS, 2007, latest available) iTaukei 475,739 Indo-Fijians 313,798 Other Pacific Islanders 15,311 Part European 10,771 Rotuman 10,335 Chinese – 4704 European 2953 All others 3660 Religions (FBOS, 2007, latest available) Christian 539,536 (63% of population; mostly Methodist – 289,923, 35% of population) Hindu 233,393 (29%) Muslim 52,520 Sikh 2577 Other 2172 No religion 7073 Geographic distribution (FBOS, 2017a, 2017b) Viti Levu 715, 219 (81% of population) Vanua Levu 131, 918 (15% of population) Other islands 37,750 (4% of population) Urban areas 494,252 (56% of population; cf. 37% FBOS 1976) Rural/remote areas 390,635 (44% of population; cf. 63% FBOS 1976) Geographic distribution according to ethnicity FBOS 1996 FBOS, 2007 (latest available) Rural: All 415,582 412,425 iTaukei 232,240 264,235 Indo − Fijians 170,783 135,918 Others 12,559 12,272 Urban: All 359,495 424,846 iTaukei 161,335 211,504 Indo − Fijians 168,035 177,880 Others 30,125 35,462 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) FJ$9.3 billion (US$4.63 billion) (0.01% of the world economy) FJ$8846 (US$1.6 billion) per capita Labour force participation according to gender (FBOS, 2017a, 2017b) 76% for males 37% for females Labour force participation according to ethnicity (FBOS, 2007, latest available) All 326,988 iTaukei 178,510 Indo-Fijians 129,926

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work opportunities (Fraenkel, 2013). In 2005, Former Prime Minister Chaudhry expressed alarm at this emigration: If the trend continues, Fiji will be left with a large pool of poorly educated, unskilled workforce with disastrous consequences on our social and economic infrastructure and levels of investment.3

Today, the sugar industry employs an estimated 200,000 and contributes around 1% of Fiji’s gross domestic product that is shown in Table 2.2.4 Along with tourism, the sugar cane industry is a major source of foreign exchange, generating around 18% of domestic exports and 5% of total exports in 20165  – with the European Union its largest export market. Non-sugar exports account for around 4% of domestic exports – most notably coconut and copra, along with certified organic products such as coconut and fruit products as well as bananas, pineapples, watermelons, cereal, rice, corn, ginger, cocoa and tobacco. Overall, there has been a significant population drift from rural to urban areas in recent years. This drift was reflected in researchers’ interviews with early childhood stakeholders who took part in our study, as well as the study’s communities, where mobility and urban relocation were common. Much of the study’s urban community’s population formed as an outcome of migration to the city to work in service industries (including hospitality and tourism), while the study’s semirural community saw young people moving out. Differential access to services and resources between urban and rural sectors, including early childhood services, is clearly a factor – one which would emerge in our study in terms of access to early childhood services and resources, as discussed in Chap. 6. The extension of urban boundaries also accounts for 2017’s continued urban drift. The largest number of people in urban areas lives in the capital city of Suva in south-east Viti Levu. The majority of Fiji’s tourist infrastructure is located in western Viti Levu, including numerous hotel chains. Suva is the location of the national government and a centre of industrial development. Most significantly, the urban drift has been encouraged by and contributed to agricultural decline. In total, agriculture comprises around 7% of the nation’s GDP  – a sharp contrast to times when over 75% of Fiji’s population engaged in agricultural activities.6 As a countermeasure, the Fiji government’s current ‘Fiji 2020 Agriculture Sector Policy Agenda’ aims to drive transformation of the sector to commercial scale agriculture through tax incentives that include a tax exemption for any new businesses established before 31 December 2018; zero duty for the importation of all

 From https://thediplomat.com/2017/03/indo-fijians-and-fijis-coup-culture/ Retrieved 3 March 2018 4  From https://www.export.gov/apex/article2?id=Fiji-Agricultural-Sector (2017) Retrieved 14 March 2018 5  From http://www.fsc.com.fj/reports/FSC%202017%20Annual%20Report.pdf Retrieved 14 March 2018 6  From https://www.export.gov/article?id=Fiji-Agricultural-Sector Retrieved 14 March 2018 3

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agricultural items for commercial agriculture and agro-processing establishments; and government subsidies for the cost of fertilizer, feed, and chemicals for nonsugar farmers, including ginger farmers and dairy and livestock graziers.7 Fiji’s textile industry also has declined, due to the end of the quota system under the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) and the full integration of textiles into WTO General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs. Profits from the textile industry dropped by 47% in 2005 after the ATC quotas ended, and garments now make up only 12% of the country’s exports (Adhikari & Yamamoto, 2007). Helping to restore economic balance is Fiji’s highly successful export of Fiji Still Mineral Water, primarily to the United States. By the end of 2006, this water export industry had taken in about $52 million per year, a 775% increase since 2000.8 Another significant economic counterpoint has been Fiji’s tourism industry, which contributes significantly to Fiji’s economy. Approximately 250,000 tourists visit the Fiji Islands each year, though political uncertainty, drought and other natural disasters can contribute to fluctuations in earnings from both the tourism and sugar industries. In January 2018, for example, visitors arriving for holiday purposes accounted for almost 73% of total arrivals, while around 9% came to visit their friends or relatives, 3% came for business purposes, and 15% visited Fiji for other reasons (FBOS, 2017a, 2017b). Despite a quite even distribution of males and females in Fiji’s population, there is a significant gender differential in labour force participation rates, as Table 2.2 shows. These figures carry implications for single, separated, divorced and widowed women, including mothers raising children alone. Fiji’s Ministry for Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation has developed a Women’s Plan of Action that includes promoting women’s economic rights and independence, including access to employment. This action is linked to the Ministry’s commitment to recognising and supporting mechanisms that reduce poverty levels by increasing women’s workforce participation. This action also addresses equal participation in decisionmaking and the representation of women in public decision-making bodies and the elimination of violence against women and children.9 The National Council of Women Fiji is a key national coordinating body of women’s organisations and groups across Fiji. As such, the Council ‘acts as a national forum providing women of Fiji with a collective voice to speak out and take action on issues of local, national and international concerns’.10 With a broad outreach through its affiliate organisations, one of the Council’s core aims is ‘to advocate on behalf of women and children to ensure development efforts produce sustainable and justly distributed improvements to the quality of life for all Fiji

 From https://www.export.gov/article?id=Fiji-Agricultural-Sector Retrieved 14 March 2018  From http://www.fijiwater.com.au/company.html. Retrieved 14 March 2018 9  From http://www.welfare-women.gov.fj/index.php/women1/womens-plan-of-action-2010-2019. html Retrieved 6 March 2018 10  From http://www.ncwfiji.com/index.php Retrieved 6 March 2018 7 8

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citizens.’11 Given this project’s focus on children and their families in terms of literacy practices in household and community settings  – and the pivotal role that mothers of Fiji have in raising their children – the Council was an important research partner in this study, helping Australia-based researchers, with in-country mentors and other partners, to navigate Fiji’s rich and complex linguistic landscape.

Early Childhood and School Education in Fiji There are 731 primary schools across Fiji’s 9 school districts.12 While schools fall under the jurisdiction of the Fiji Ministry of Education, Heritage and Arts, the schools are mostly locally managed by faith-based organisations and other groups. In 2015, 713 of these schools were managed by non-government organisations, 16 were private, and 2 were government schools. English is the language of schooling, and therefore families generally are keen that their children speak English in preparation for school. As for kindergartens, or preschools, in 1966, Fiji’s then Department of Education formalised the establishment of kindergartens for children aged between 3 and 5 years and developed regulations to govern their operations and practices. This development built on a grass-roots history that began in the 1930s when expatriate women ran kindergartens out of their homes – a practice taken up by many local women by the 1950s. In the absence of formal training, experience and regulations, these services provided school-like formal learning in groups numbering as many as 40–70 children. Not all Fiji communities had access to kindergartens at the time of embarking on our study in Fiji. So the research team, too, would be taking a grass-roots approach to developing opportunities for fostering children’s learning  – not by formally teaching large groups of children but by working alongside families and children to develop sustainable strategies for fostering children’s literacy that are embedded in their worlds. At the outset of this study, Fiji’s early childhood education policy stipulated that: ‘2.1 ECE in Fiji must provide developmentally and culturally appropriate, quality care and education to the 3–8 year olds and programs are to be conducted in the children’s vernacular [Vosa vaka-viti, Hindi, Rotuman, Urdu, English] or whichever applicable language, whenever necessary. Poster and charts are to be in the vernacular and the second language can be gradually introduced for the five year olds.

 From http://www.ncwfiji.com/index.php Retrieved 6 March 2018  From http://www.education.gov.fj/index.php/g/moe-statistics/school-stats February 2017

11 12

Retrieved

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‘2.2. ECE Sessions must include any of the following arrangements: 2.2.1. Half day for 3–5 year olds from 8 am – 12 pm/4 h 2.2.2. Full day for 6–8 year olds from 8 am – 3 pm/7 h. ‘2.3. ECE teachers shall work in partnership with families, communities, school managements, other government ministries and other organizations to promote the health, safety and well being of the children who are placed under their care. ‘2.4. The Ministry of Education (hereon referred to as MoENHCA) will advise and support schools, communities, organizations and individuals in the establishment and recognition of any ECE program. ‘2.5. All ECE Centers must operate only when approval of recognition is granted by the Permanent Secretary of Education (hereon referred to PSENHCA). This will be discussed in more detail in Sect. 6.1 of the document. ‘2.6 The ECE program must be based on the philosophy and principles that underpin the ECE Curriculum Framework Guidelines for the Fiji Islands [Na Noda Mataniciva] …’ (Fiji Ministry of Education, 2013)

Although this study was not situated in early childhood centres, Clauses 2.1, 2.3 and 2.6 were particularly pertinent in terms of cultural appropriateness, family and community partnerships and aligning the research work with Na Noda Mataniciva. The broader Pacific context of early childhood education in which this work was done is discussed in detail in Chap. 3, while below we discuss the Pacific’s broad linguistic context, and that of Fiji as a Pacific Island nation.

Languages and Dialects in the Pacific and Fiji The Pacific is a region with an incredible richness of language. It is considered to be the ‘most linguistically complex region in the world’ (Mugler & Lynch, 1996, p. 2) – due largely to the sheer number of vernacular languages spoken, unrelated language families, impact of contact languages and high presence of multilingualism (Mugler & Lynch, 1996). The Pacific has over a thousand distinct vernacular languages, representing around 20% of languages worldwide (Mugler & Lynch, 1996). These languages are spoken by less than 12 million people, equivalent to just 0.16% of the world’s population (Worldometers, 2018). As such, and on a per capita basis, the Pacific exhibits the highest linguistic diversity of the world (Lynch, 2016; Simons & Fennig, 2018). The Australian researchers encountered this rich tapestry of linguistic diversity in their collaborative research within the different Fijian communities of the 3-year project.

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Geographic Distribution of Pacific Languages Languages of the Pacific are broadly divided into three geographical areas  – Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia. However, it is important to highlight there are both cultural and linguistic similarities across these groups and differences within groups (Lynch, 2016). Pacific languages can be thought of geographically. Melanesia is home to the majority of the Pacific’s languages. Over 800 languages are spoken in Papua New Guinea; over 65 languages are spoken in the Solomon Islands; and over 110 languages spoken in Vanuatu (Taufe‘ulungaki, 2004; Hughes, 2004; Herrman, 2007; Lynch, 2016; Simons & Fennig, 2018). Vanuatu has the highest density of languages in the world – with a geographical area of 12,189 km2, there is an average of one language for every 104 km2 (Simons & Fennig, 2018). In sharp contrast, Polynesia and Micronesia have approximately 20 and 15 vernacular languages respectively. Several nations in these regions are monolingual  – for example, Niue, Tuvalu, Tokelau and Samoa of Polynesia and Belau, Marshall Islands, Kiribati and Nauru of Micronesia (Lynch, 1998, as cited in Lynch, 2016). Many Pacific languages belong to the Austronesian language family, specifically the Oceanic subgroup, which are considered to originate from a single ancestral language around 5000 years ago (Mugler & Lynch, 1996). Movement of people and this ancestral language through the region from west to east resulted in linguistic changes and the development of distinct vernaculars in each migrating community. Hence the vast diversity of languages apparent today, with key differences yet similarities due to their common ancestor. The remaining languages of the Pacific, which are unrelated non-Austronesian and belong to the Papuan languages, are considered to have ancient origins from ancestors over 50,000 years ago. These languages include many from Papua New Guinea and some from the Solomon Islands (Lynch, 2016; Mugler & Lynch, 1996). As the Pacific region is a vast expanse of sea with thousands of islands, the population of the region is dispersed and scattered. As a result, there are a small number of speakers per language (Mugler & Lynch, 1996). As little as 200 speakers have been recorded for many languages (n = 170), mostly in Micronesia, with the largest numbers of speakers ranging between 200,000 and 300,000 for indigenous vernaculars in Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Samoa (Mugler & Lynch, 1996).

Contact Languages Contact with foreign languages, through explorers, traders, missionaries, colonizers and indentured labourers brought over by the colonial rulers to work in plantations, has added further language complexity to the region (Spencer, 1996;

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Mugler & Lynch, 1996; Taufe‘ulungaki, 2004). These languages include English, French, German, Japanese, Spanish and Hindi. Some of these languages have become official languages – for example, English is currently considered the ‘major metropolitan language’ in use throughout the Pacific (including Fiji) (Mugler & Lynch, 2006, p.  3); and French is the official language in Tahiti, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Wallis and Futuna (Tryon, 1991; Mugler & Lynch, 2006).

Pidgins and Creoles Contact with foreign languages has resulted in the development of pidgin languages. Melanesian Pidgin, an English-derived pidgin, has the largest number of speakers in the region. It has become the first language for many (n = 500,000) and hence is now considered a creole. It is a second language for up to two million people and is used as a common language between countries in Melanesia such as Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu serving as a lingua franca (Taufe‘ulungaki, 2004; Mugler & Lynch, 1996). Other important pidgin and creole languages include Hiri Motu in Papua New Guinea initially spread by the police force; Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea; Pijin in Solomon Islands; Bislama in Vanuatu; and Fiji Hindi. Fiji Hindi is a mixture of Indian dialects, with elements of English and Fijian, and served as a lingua franca during the Indian indenture system for those from the Northern and Southern parts of India. Fiji Hindi continues to be in use today as the first language of most Indo-­ Fijians and is considered to be a unique language that is vastly different from Standard Hindi (Lynch, 2016; Mugler & Lynch, 1996; Rao & Harrington, 1997).

Multilingualism in the Pacific Due to the high density and diversity of languages spoken in the Pacific region, including vernacular and contact languages, ‘bilingualism and multilingualism are the norms’ (Taufe‘ulungaki, 2004, p. 13). This is most clearly observed in Melanesia, because of the large number of languages spoken in the region and contact with foreign languages. For example, in Vanuatu, it is not uncommon for a Ni-Vanuatu to know the national language, Bislama (pidgin), as well as English and French as the official languages of instruction within schools, in addition to their parent’s vernacular languages (Hughes, 2004; Mugler & Lynch, 1996).

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 ost-Colonial Influences on Languages and Literacy P in the Pacific Vernacular languages of the Pacific, and many other parts of the world, are declining and their vitality was considered to be endangered or vulnerable (Moseley, 2010). In fact, minority languages are at high risk of extinction (Romaine, 2015). It is predicted that greater than three-quarters of minority languages will disappear by the middle of the twenty-first century (Taufe‘ulungaki, 2004). This language crisis has serious consequences for cultural and linguistic diversity (Romaine, 2015). This loss in the Pacific has been largely attributed to the ‘pervasiveness of colonial rule in most parts of the region and its continuing legacy, especially in terms of schooling’ (Burnett, 2007, p. 262). The western education system is ‘often linked to Pacific cultural and identity loss’ and ‘language loss’ (Burnett, 2007, p.  262; Thaman, 2009; Burnett, 2013). Hence in this project, a key imperative was to engage with sustaining children’s heritage languages. Effect of Formal Schooling on Pacific Languages in the Pacific The formal schooling system in the Pacific was initially established by the missionaries to enable religious conversion (Mugler & Lynch, 1996; Low et al., 2005). As part of this ‘evangelism’, ‘a narrow band of vernacular literacy practices’ were introduced (Lotherington, 1998, p.65), as were ‘new values, ways of living, and definitions of success that could be achieved only through the learning of English’ (Low et al., 2005, p.3). Colonial governments eventually assumed the mantle of education provision and the development of resulting language policies, which have differed considerably throughout the history and regions of the Pacific (Mugler & Lynch, 1996; Low et al., 2005). Such differences have been influenced by ‘the linguistic make-up of the country and the attitude of colonial officials towards that linguistic make-up’ (Mugler & Lynch, 1996, p. 6). For example, throughout Polynesia, vernacular languages are often used in formal schooling. For example, Samoa has only one vernacular language, spoken by 250,000 people, giving that language considerable status. In contrast, vernacular languages in Melanesia are notably absent from the education system (Mugler & Lynch, 1996). With a large number of vernacular languages spoken in this region and a relatively low number of speakers, costs involved in the preparation of materials and teacher training in these languages are viewed as an obstacle. For example, whilst there are over 65 vernacular languages in the Solomon Islands, all schooling is conducted in English (Mugler & Lynch, 1996). Thus, ‘in most Pacific island nations learning in a foreign language (English or French) has become the rule rather than the exception’ (Thaman, 2009, p. 2). It is, however, clear that the historical decisions to use or promote certain languages in regions of the Pacific were less about pragmatic ‘logistical’ considerations and more about power and economic benefits to the colonial governments. In

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reference to the establishment of early schools and language use in Micronesia, Low et al. (2005. p. 3) state: Schools and language learning were strategic devices to gradually and deliberately undermine local traditions and values in order to mold the native man into someone who better reflected foreign values and, therefore, was better suited to meet the needs of the foreign power’. (Low et al., 2005, p. 3)

Language Status English thus has received preferential status throughout colonial contact history, holding rights and privileges in education, official domains of government and policy at the expense of vernacular languages. There are long-lasting implications of such a situation for ‘indigenous language and culture become devalued when the community is deprived of linguistic and cultural knowledge’ (Glasgow, 2010, p. 124). Prevailing attitudes and the mindset of Pacific people towards the vernacular reflect such sentiments – vernaculars are often viewed as ‘inferior and deficient’, ‘detrimental to [a child’s] success at school’ (Herrman, 2007, p. 40) and ‘unimportant in education’ (Lui, 1996, p. 113). Moreover, vernaculars have been viewed as ‘too limited’ because: they cannot be used outside the community, and they are often viewed as “the road to nowhere” by parents and educators looking to develop their country and to provide the next generation with a secure economic place in that country. (Mugler & Lynch, 1996, p. 7)

In contrast, English holds high status  – defined as the language of ‘prestige’ (Spencer, 1996) and ‘glamour’ (Glasgow, 2010) as it is linked with economic and social prosperity (Herrman, 2007). Within the schooling system, it is considered to be ‘the most important’ academic subject as proficiency in English is linked to scholarship opportunities required for tertiary admission (Herrman, 2007; Taufaga, 2007; Glasgow, 2010) and a ‘passport’ to international institutes (Mugler & Lynch, 1996). English is highly regarded by many families in the Pacific as it is seen to lead to academic success (Herrman, 2007) and is perceived as a way to secure one’s economic prosperity and enhance life opportunities (Lelemia, 1996). Early exposure to English therefore is valued (Taufaga, 2007). These perceptions were clearly borne out in our study. Such perceptions and myths have further marginalized the vernacular (Spencer, 1996; Taufaga, 2007) and is in stark contrast to the evidence at hand  that has identified: the best medium, psychologically, sociologically and educationally for teaching a child, particularly in the early years, is the child’s vernacular language (Herrman, 2007, p. 40).

However, vernacular subjects, if included in the curriculum, are generally non-­ examinable within the public examination systems, which has impacted the ‘value’ and time dedicated towards the subject. As teachers are assessed by exam results,

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they often ‘teach to the test’ further raising the status of English and marginalizing the vernacular (Hodges, 2007; Herrman, 2007; Taufaga, 2007). First language is important for literacy and language development (Hughes, 2004; Low et al., 2005). Building a strong vernacular language enables competence in an additional language (Cullen et al., 2009), providing an ‘effective foundation for second language literacy’ (Taufaga, 2007, p. 25). It therefore is considered important for children to learn their first language before acquiring a ‘global language’ (Herrman, 2007), with evidence demonstrating that at least 12 years is required for first language development (Herrman, 2007). However, children of the Pacific have not always had such opportunities to engage with their vernacular languages – a situation Pacific regional frameworks and initiatives for early childhood education have sought to redress, as did this study, as is explored a little later in this chapter. Languages in Fiji The complexity and significance of languages discussed here are clearly reflected in Fiji. Standard Bauan (Bauan), English and Hindi are Fiji’s three official languages, whose equal status was declared in Fiji’s 1997 constitution. In addition, Rotuman is the language of Rotuma, a small Fiji island group dependency. Fiji also sees a growing presence of Cantonese Chinese and Mandarin Chinese. Most children grow up with at least two languages, either Bauan or Fiji Hindi and English, that is the language of Fiji’s formal education, public written communication, administration and the media. Bauan – originating from the island of Bau, which dominated Fiji in pre-colonial times and was used by Christian missionaries in their Fijian language orthography and publication endeavours – was the main, but one of many, iTaukei languages or dialects spoken by our study’s participating iTaukei families. The smallest dialectic unit of these languages has been called a communalect, that is: a variety of speech with little or no apparent regional variation … in most instances, a “communalect” is a variety spoken by people who claim they speak the same speech. (Geraghty, 1984, cited in Mugler, 1996, p. 279)

According to Geraghty (1984), there are around 300 communalects spoken by iTaukei peoples. There is a sharp distinction between the communalects of Fiji’s Eastern and Western divisions, which mirror pre-colonial political alliances and disconnects (Mugler, 1996). Differences in agreement in basic vocabulary of Eastern and Western communalects are between 58 and 68% (comparable to 60% between English and German) and around 60% in grammar (similar to agreement between Māori and Rarotongan, or Hawaiian and Rarotongan), with very low mutual intelligibility between speakers of the two dialects (Pawley & Sayaba, 1971, cited in Mugler, 1996). Such diversity means that indigenous Fijian children grow up speaking many diverse dialects or communalects. Such diversity emerged in this study, as is later explored in the case studies, with significant implications for preschool children’s language and literacy education.

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Standard Hindi is used in education, while Indo-Fijian children largely grow up speaking Fiji Hindi. Fiji Hindi, the first language of most Indo-Fijians, is used to some extent in literature and has been used in a translation of the Bible, written with Latin and Devanagari scripts. However, Fiji Hindi does not enjoy high status and is neither written nor used in Fiji’s print media, where Standard Hindi is used instead. Fiji Hindi speakers consider the language to be a ‘corruption of standard Hindi’ (Mugler, 1996, p. 280), emerging as it did from girmitya experiences, in which they were barred from speaking English, and addressed by British colonial masters in the hybridised ‘Hindustani’ of their prior British India postings (Siegel, 1987). Yet, not all Indo-Fijians understand Standard Hindi well, despite a good degree of mutual intelligibility between Standard Hindi and Fiji Hindi (Mugler, 1996). These language complexities for Indo-Fijian preschool children’s language and literacy are further explored in Chap. 8 and again in Chap. 11. Standard Hindi differs from Fiji Hindi that is a koine – that is, a combination of languages resulting from contact between dialects and combining various structural and lexical features. As a koine, Fiji Hindi incorporates words from several dialects of Eastern Uttar Pradesh; Hindi dialects common to North India, Khariboli, as well as iTaukei dialects, and English (Siegel, 1987). Fiji Hindi is spoken by most Fiji citizens of Indian descent, regardless of their families’ specific Indian-heritage language – as found in the study’s Indo-Fijian families. While the term ‘vernacular’ is widely used in the literature to refer to children’s first home and community languages, in Fiji ‘vernacular’ is used more commonly to refer to community languages of Bauan and Fiji Hindi. Over time, Bauan and Fiji Hindi had remained distinct from the range of sanctioned languages for schooling such as English and Standard Hindi (Mugler, 1996), then Standard Bauan, Standard Hindi, Urdu and English (Shameem, 2002). None the less, Fiji has immense ‘hidden’ linguistic diversity (Mugler, 1996). This diversity arises from great dialectical variations in indigenous languages and from the fact that Fiji Hindi is predominantly spoken in Indo-Fijian communities and is often accompanied by home and heritage languages from diverse Indian cultures. Consequently, most families speak dialects different from, and in addition to, Fiji’s vernacular or officially nominated languages. For many Indo-Fijian children, Standard Hindi is as foreign a language as English; and for iTaukei children, Bauan will not necessarily be their mother tongue (Shameem, 2002, p. 391) – as the Australian researchers in our study were also to learn in stakeholder interviews and field work in communities. Thus many children in Fiji are taught at school in languages that are not their home language(s). This study embraced the diversity and complexity of Fiji’s linguistic landscape working collectively with children, families and communities to develop strategies that honoured children’s first languages while also incorporating Fiji’s official languages. In so doing, the  project approach aligns with Fiji’s early childhood education policy commitment to children’s preschool education occurring in their vernacular languages. This policy commitment reflects the value of diverse and differentiated literacy practices for informing early childhood education programming and

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environments (Anderson  et  al., 2010; Auleear Owodally, 2014; Bloch, 2009; Li, 2006; Reyes & Torres, 2007; Weigel et al., 2006). In embracing linguistic diversity and complexity in this research, and as noted in subsequent chapters of this book, researchers also needed to be mindful of families’ aspirations for their children. Speaking on behalf of Pacific Islanders generally, Taufaga (2007, p. 20) has written that most parents: want their children to experience the best of two worlds: the high tech cultures of the western world and the culture and tradition of their Pacific world that distinguish them from the rest of their world. Culture in this context embraces everything that distinguishes us as a people: our languages, histories, epistemologies, myths, legends, dances, art forms, artifacts, world views, values and skills.

Indeed, the research team would explore this sentiment in the interviews with education sector stakeholders and with families in the study communities. Research on multilingualism and multilingual literacy has much insight to offer on how the balance between vernacular languages and English might be found and how children might be supported to be literate in home languages and English. The next chapter presents a review of this research.

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Dodd, M.J.K. (2012). Reform of leasing regimes for customary land in Fiji. Honours thesis. Otago, New Zealand: Faculty of Law, University of Otago,. Eräsaari, M. (2015). The iTaukei Chief: Value and Alterity in Verata. Journal de la société des océanistes, 141, 239–254. Fiji Bureau of Statistics. (2007). Census 2007. http://www.statsfiji.gov.fj/ Fiji Bureau of Statistics. (2017a). Census 2017. http://www.statsfiji.gov.fj/census-2017/ census-2017-release-1 Fiji Bureau of Statistics. (2017b). Statement on ethnicity. http://www.statsfiji.gov.fj/census-2017/ census-2017-release-1 Fiji Ministry of Education. (2013). Policy in early childhood education. Ministry of Education National Heritage Culture & Arts Youth & Sports. Suva, Fiji: Republic of the Fiji Islands. Fiji Public Service Commission. (2010). iTaukei now replaces “Fijian” and “Indigenous Fijian” (Circular No. 39/2010, File 29/685/23/2). Suva, Fiji: Republic of the FIji Islands. Firth, S. (2012). Reflections on Fiji since independence. The Round Table, 101(6), 575–583. Fraenkel, J. (2009). Fiji’s December 2006 coup: Who, what, where and why? In J.  Fraenkel, S. Firth & B.V. Lal (Eds.), The 2006 Military takeover in Fiji. A coup to end all coups? (pp. 43–66) Canberra: Australian National University Press. http://press.anu.edu.au?p=7451 Fraenkel, J. (2013). The origins of military autonomy in Fiji: A tale of three coups. Australian Journal of International Affairs, 67(3), 327–341. Gatty, R. (2009). Fijjian-English dictionary with notes on Fijian culture and natural history. Suva, Fiji: University of the South Pacific. Geraghty, P. (1984). Language policy in Fiji and Rotuma. Duivosavosa: Fiji’s languages – Their use and their future. Fiji Museum Bulletin, 8, 32–34. Suva: Fiji Museum. Glasgow, A. (2010). Measures to preserve indigenous language and culture in te reo kuki airani (Cook Islands Maori language): Early-childhood education models. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 6(2), 122–133. Herrman, U. (2007). Access to language: A question of equity for all children. In P. Puamau & F. Pene (Eds.), The basics of learning: Literacy and numeracy in the Pacific (Pacific Education Series Vol. 4, pp. 32–43). Suva, Fiji: University of the South Pacific. Hodges, M. (2007). Quality of learning (in) languages and literacies: Creating effective conditions for learning. In P. Puamau & F. Pene (Eds.), The basics of learning: Literacy and numeracy in the Pacific (Pacific Education Series) (Vol. 4, pp. 44–55). Suva, Fiji: University of the South Pacific. Hughes, D. (2004). Reflecting on early literacy development in the context of Vanuatu. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 5(3), 349–360. Lal, B. V. (2008). Turnings; Fiji factions. Lautoka, Fiji: Fiji Institute of Applied Studies. Lal, B.  V. (2012a). Chalo jahaji: On a journey through indenture in Fiji. Canberra: Australian National University Press. Lal, B. V. (2012b). Trajectories of transformation: Fiji Indians from common roll to consociationalism. Diaspora Studies, 5(2), 147–169. Lelemia, K. (1996). Tuvaluan in the schools. An interview with Kasi Lelemia. In F.  Mugler & J. Lynch (Eds.), Pacific languages in education (pp. 103–110). Suva, Fiji: University of the South Pacific. Li, G. (2006). Biliteracy and trilingual practices in the home context: Case studies of Chinese-­ Canadian children. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 6(3), 355–381. Lotherington, H. (1998). Trends and tensions in post-colonial language education in the South Pacific. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 1(1), 65–75. Low, M., Penland, D. & Heine, H. (2005). The language question in Pacific education: The case of the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Research Brief, Pacific Resources for Education And Learning. Honolulu. Lui, I. B. (1996). Niuean as a medium of instruction in primary school in Niue. In F. Mugler & J. Lynch (Eds.), Pacific languages in education (pp. 111–120). Suva, Fiji: University of the South Pacific.

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Lynch, J. (2016). Introductory readings on the languages of the Pacific Islands. University of Hawai‘i. https://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/48172/11/48172%20Sato%202012.pdf Moseley, C. (Ed.). (2010). Atlas of the World’s languages in danger (3rd edn.). Paris: UNESCO Publishing. Online version: http://www.unesco.org/culture/en/endangeredlanguages/atlas Mugler, V. (1996). ‘Vernacular’ language teaching in Fiji. In F. Mugler & J. Lynch (Eds.), Pacific languages in education (pp. 273–287). Suva, Fiji: University of the South Pacific. Mugler, F., & Lynch, J. (1996). Language and education in the Pacific. In F. Mugler & J. Lynch (Eds.), Pacific languages in education (pp. 1–10). Suva, Fiji: University of the South Pacific. Pacific Media Centre. ( 2011). Fijians, I-Taukei, Indians and indo-Fijians - name changes by military decree. Auckland, NZ: Auckland University of Technology. https://pmc.aut.ac.nz/articles/ fijians-i-taukei-indians-and-indo-fijians-name-changes-military-decree-727 Pande, A. (2011). India and its diaspora in Fiji. Diaspora Studies, 4(2), 125–138. Pawley, A., & Sayaba, T. (1971). Fijian dialect divisions: Eastern and Western Fijian. Journal of the Polynesian Society, 80(4), 405–436. Prescott, S. M. (2008). Using Talanoa in Pacific business research in New Zealand: Experiences with Tongan entrepreneurs. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 4(1), 127–148. https://doi.org/10.1177/117718010800400111 Radio New Zealand. (2006). Fiji’s CFF calls for minister’s sacking over ethnicity statements. https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/163845/ fiji%27s-cff-calls-for-minister%27s-sacking-over-ethnicity-statements Rao, C., & Harrington, M. (1997). The relationship between vernacular language study and academic English proficiency in Fiji. RELC Journal, 28(1), 161–174. Ravuvu. (1983). Fijian way of life. Suva, Fiji: University of the South Pacific. Republic of Fiji. (2013). Constitution of the Republic of Fiji. Suva, Fiji: Republic of Fiji. Reyes, L. V., & Torres, M. N. (2007). Decolonizing family literacy in a culture circle: Reinventing the family literacy educator's role. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 7(1), 73–94. Ritchie, K. (2009, 10 April 2009). Fiji’s Bainimarama steps down as PM. ABC News Online. Retrieved from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-04-10/fijis-bainimarama-steps-down-aspm/1647040 Rodd, J.  A. (1993). New reef targets for oil and gas exploration in Fiji, Southwest Pacific. Geological Society of Malaysia Bulletin, 33, 313–330. Romaine, S. (2015). The global extinction of languages and its consequences for cultural diversity. In H. F. Marten, M. Riessler, J. Saarikivi, & R. Toivanen (Eds.), Cultural and linguistic minorities in the Russian Federation and the European Union (pp. 31–46). Cham, Switzerland: Springer. Sanadhya, T. (2003). My twenty-one years in the Fiji Islands. Suva, Fiji: Fiji Museum. Shameem, N. (2002). Multilingual proficiency in Fiji primary schools. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 23(5), 388–407. Shameen, S. (1998). Migration, labour and plantation women in Fiji: A historical perspective. In S. Jain & R. Reddock (Eds.), Women plantation workers: International experiences (pp. 49–65). New York: Berg. Sherlock, S. (1997). Constitutional and political change in Fiji. Canberra, Australia: Parliament of Australia. Siegel, J. (1987). Language contact in a plantation environment: A sociolinguistic history of Fiji. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Simons, G.F. & Fennig, C.D. (Eds.). (2018). Ethnologue: Languages of the world, twenty-­ first edition. Dallas, TX: SIL International. Online version: https://www.ethnologue.com/ enterprise-faq/which-major-country-has-highest-density-or-concentration-languages Spencer, M. L. (1996). And what of the Language of Micronesia? In F. Mugler & J. Lynch (Eds.), Pacific languages in education (pp. 11–35). Suva, Fiji: University of the South Pacific. Spriggs, M., & Scarr, D. (Eds.). (2014). Degei's descendants (Terra Australis 41): Spirits, place and people in pre-cession Fiji. Canberra, Australia: ANU Press.

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Chapter 3

Language and Literacy Learning in Multilingual Settings

Abstract  This chapter provides a review of research related to language and literacy learning in multilingual settings. This review is presented against Fiji’s contextual backdrop and linguistic landscape that we presented in Chap.  2. More specifically, we examine the call to action in the Pacific concerning the maintenance of Pacific languages vis-à-vis the cultural and historic significance of Pacific languages and related cultural and linguistic rights; self-determination in Pacific early childhood care and education, with a particular focus on language and literacy as we examine key regional initiatives and frameworks (viz. the Dakar Framework, the PRIDE Project, universal access to early childhood care and education services and Fiji’s Kindergarten curriculum guidelines); young children’s literacy in their home languages and English, with careful consideration of how children navigate different languages in terms of code-switching and translanguaging; culturally sustaining pedagogy, including an exploration of educational practices related to language and literacy teaching and assessment; and implications of the foregoing review for informing the study at hand.

Introduction We begin this chapter with an encounter with two young children in our study whose literacy engagement requires a deep understanding of their literacy practices and their family households and broader cultural and linguistic settings in which these practices occur. How we came to understand Ilimaina’s and Sairusi’s literacy practices and learning, embedded within their multilingual extended family household with younger and older children, is germane to the focus of this chapter. As this chapter unfolds, we make key connections to this encounter as we review related research to explore the complexities of being and becoming literate in multilingual contexts such as Fiji and the communities of Duavata, Dovubaravi and Wavu where we conducted our study. Presented against Fiji’s contextual backdrop and linguistic landscape that we explored in Chap. 2, our research review is organised as follows:

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Harris et al., Children’s Multilingual Literacy, International Perspectives on Early Childhood Education and Development 31, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6587-8_3

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Pusi Levu Three-and-a-half-year-old Ilimaina, who lives in the culturally diverse urban community of Wavu, is the middle of three children in her iTaukei family. She has an older brother and younger sister. She lives with another family of cousins in which there are four children, the youngest of whom is an infant and the oldest is in high school. Altogether three families live in the house. One day, we engaged with Ilimaina’s older cousin, Sairusi, who told the story of Pusi Levu, an oft seen stray cat in the neighbourhood – inspired by all the stray cats that wander into his community. He tells his story in his home language of Bauan as our Wavu community mentor translates into English. Ilimaina was very attentive as her cousin vividly told his story. In our next visit, Ilimaina intently watched and listened to Sairusi again tell the story of Pusi Levu. This time, the community mentor wrote the story down in Sairusi’s home language, Bauan, as well as in English. As the story was being written down, Sairusi of his own accord began to write on paper, and Ilimaina began writing on her hand, mimicking Sairusi and us in our writing and storytelling actions. Next, we took photos to use as illustrations for a story book about Pusi Levu. Judging by Ilimaina’s deep engagement, it appeared that the telling of Pusi Levu by Sairusi clearly demonstrated to her the process of telling a story, writing it down and taking pictures. We convert the ‘Pusi Levu’ story into a digital story, rendered in both Bauan and English, print it and bind it as a book. We give the book to the children and their family. Upon our next visit, we find that the family had pulled the ‘Pusi Levu’ book apart and put its pages in sequence on a household wall. The family wanted to share the book with everyone in the three families living in the house, affording them opportunity to read and view the story any time they wished. Commercially produced alphabet and shape and number charts had also appeared on the household walls. There was some dancing to celebrate our visit, with Ilimaina joining in the dancing. Sairusi’s mother commented that his language and words had been quite poor and it had been hard to understand him, but now he knew many more words and was much more confident in his home language and in English. During this visit, we also learn that Ilimaina has become more confident and willing to directly engage with us. She tells us she wants write, too, so she initiates her story called ‘My Work’. She tells us her story and we write it down directly onto our computer laptop. The children in the household enjoy watching the computer form letters on the screen as we type them and picking out and naming letters as they appear on the screen. Ilimaina then poses for photos to illustrate each part of her story – such as chores she does around the house and what they buy when she goes to the shop with her mother. After the visit, we print Ilimaina’s story and bind it as a book and present it to her when next we came to her house. She very clearly enjoys the reading of her book, pointing at the pictures and commenting on them.

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1. Call to action in the Pacific, wherein we consider the cultural and historic significance of Pacific languages and related cultural and linguistic rights, in light of our account of Pacific languages in Chap. 2 2. Self-determination in Pacific early childhood care and education, with a particular focus on language and literacy as we examine key regional initiatives and frameworks (viz. the Dakar Framework, the PRIDE Project, universal access to early childhood care and education services and Fiji’s Kindergarten curriculum guidelines) 3. Young children’s literacy in their home languages and English, with careful consideration of how children navigate different languages (specifically, children’s code-switching and translanguaging practices) 4. Culturally sustaining pedagogy, including an exploration of educational practices related to language and literacy teaching and assessment 5. Implications of the foregoing review for informing our study

Call to Action in the Pacific Vernacular languages, endowed with deep cultural and historic significance in the Pacific, have been described as ‘unique and meaningful’ (Thaman 1998, cited in Tauféulungaki, 2004, p. 22) and portrayed as ‘intrinsically interwoven with culture’ (Taufaga, 2007, p. 20): Culture determines the value systems of a group, its world view, the nature and structure of knowledge, and how it creates shared meanings, transmits knowledge, skills and values, and these are articulated and manifested through the group’s language. Language is, indeed, the universal instrument for transmission, promotion and transformation of culture. (Tauféulungaki, 2004, p. 22–23)

As such, language is considered to be the medium by which members of a community communicate; build cultural capital and competence (Glasgow, 2010); foster a sense of belonging and cultural identity (Hughes, 2004; Taufaga, 2007); and enable individuals to be active participants (Herrman, 2007) and ‘contributing members of society’ (Glasgow, 2010, p. 124). The significance of culture and language has been acknowledged by several treaties and declarations, which uphold the human right to use [one’s] own language, in private and in public, freely and without interference or any form of discrimination. (Article 2, Declaration of the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities; United Nations, 1992)

Furthermore, it is a human right to participate in a community’s cultural life (Article 27, Universal Declaration of Human Rights; United Nations, 1948; Article 2, Declaration of the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities; United Nations, 1992). Cultural and linguistic rights also have been captured in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states:

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3  Language and Literacy Learning in Multilingual Settings In those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities or persons of indigenous origin exist, a child belonging to such a minority or who is indigenous shall not be denied the right, in community with other members of his or her group, to enjoy his or her own culture, to profess and practice his or her own religion, or to use his or her own language. (Article 30; United Nations, 1989)

In Fiji’s linguistically diverse context, both vernacular and English literacy priorities for preschool children have been recognised as deeply significant. A meeting of Pacific Education Ministers1,2,3 prior to our study urged member nations to recommit to vernacular education and language learning and to establish appropriate policies to support these practices. In Fiji and throughout the Pacific region, communities are keen to preserve their cultural identities and relations, as we have discussed. At the same time, English is the language of Fiji’s government, media and schooling, along with regional economic development and global participation, and so families and communities are interested in their children’s English proficiency, as we were to learn in this study.

Contention over Vernacular Languages While there has been an overwhelming call for maintaining vernaculars in the Pacific, this call has not been without contention. Whereas vernacularising schooling is seen to foster children’s more authentic cultural identities, this action has been criticised for denying children and their families the right to determine their own language futures (Burnett, 2008). Questions have been raised about whether the role of schools is to provide cultural leadership by maintaining families’ cultural heritages or linguistic democracy by affirming families’ choices, particularly where families may or may not prioritise a Pacific vernacular over English. It has been noted that there are many living in Pacific communities who use the vernacular language of an ethnicity other than their own (Gentile, 1985). Such complexities increase in the face of mobility, such as the mobility of Indians to Fiji or Banabans to Fiji (Burnett, 2008). There also are intra-country mobilities to consider, such as Pacific people’s movement within or between regions and from rural to urban areas (Burnett, 2008), which has been a marked trend in Fiji (as noted in Chap. 2) Amidst calls to reinstate vernacular languages, English has been referred to as the language of colonisation. However, it also has been argued that, depending on a Pacific person’s gender, social position and rural or urban locations at the time of  Islands Business (2012) https://www.islandsbusiness.com/2012 Retrieved 10th March 2017.  See Mangubhai and Mugler (2006, p. 29) citing Siegel (1987) for discussion of these two literary forms of Hindi. 3  For example, a 2011 government media release referred to the ‘teaching of vernacular in […] classes one, two and three’, noting ‘teaching occurs mainly in Hindi, Fijian, Rotuman, Banaban and so forth’ (The Fijian Government, 2011, np). 1 2

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colonisation, people’s experiences of colonisation varied significantly (McConaghy, 2000). Therefore, different people have different attitudes towards English and how it has emerged in Pacific nations (Burnett, 2008). While it is acknowledged that the call for vernaculars does not displace English and the opportunities to learn English at school, it also is noted that inequalities for English learning opportunities arise from location in and across Pacific island nations (Burnett, 2008). These inequalities are reflected, for example, in discrepancies in English exam results in Fiji across region, ethnicity, gender and economic background (Narsey, 2004). In the face of these tensions and complexities, there has been some advocacy for simultaneous bilingual language programs that develop English and vernacular languages ‘as a socially just way of opening up the broadest possible life chances for Pacific learners’ (Burnett, 2008, p. 188). In response to this complex situation and debate, calls to action have risen on a number of different fronts in the Pacific. We explore these calls below in terms of: –– Calls for self-determination in relation to early childhood and language and literacy education to reconstruct, realign, redefine, reaffirm and reclaim cultural identity and education – including key Pacific initiatives and frameworks such as the Dakar Framework, the PRIDE Project and universal early childhood care and education –– Culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) to address the complexities of language and literacy learning in the Pacific, relating CSP to nurturing young children’s literacy in their home languages and English; understanding children’s experiences with translanguaging; and examining educational practices within a CSP framework

 elf-determination in Early Childhood and Language/ S Literacy Education Calls for Pacific people’s determination of their educational and linguistic futures seek to strengthen traditional practices and epistemologies – and to transform the practice of having decisions made for Pacific Islanders from outside the Pacific to decisions being made by Pacific peoples within their own region and nations (Glasgow, 2010; Taufaga, 2007). As evocatively captured below: The journey is one of revitalising and reaffirming, of redefining and reconstructing Pacific identities and pride as a people firmly anchored in Pacific uniqueness and riding the waves of modernization, or globalization at its own pace … Pacific people must reclaim their ‘ancestral cloaks’ with all the values, knowledge systems and beliefs, and reconstruct their place with confidence, competence and mana (pride and honour) in the local and global setting. (Herrman, 2007, p. 35, p. 41)

In a quest to hold back the tide of Western domination, these calls have been framed by the enactment of human rights, including Indigenous people’s

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Table 3.1  Key messages for Pacific self-determination of educational and linguistic futures Remembering the past, reclaiming future destinies and reconstructing Pacific identities, uniqueness and pride, including the Pacific child in all the myriad and diverse manifestations that make up Pacific children and childhoods (Cass, 2007; Low, 2007; Koya-Vakàuta, 2011) Reconceptualising Pacific education in new Developing curriculum frameworks that protect and promote vernacular languages, and culturally appropriate ways, blending by scoping self-determined curriculum in the best of global and local practices and terms of content, resources, and assessment appreciating the impact of language use and additional language learning on enriching and that include teaching/learning styles, expanding an individual’s meaning-making and conditions and contexts appropriate to Pacific cultures (Glasgow, 2010) – such as Fiji’s Na relationship to the world (Low, 2007) Noda Mataniciva (Fiji MOE, 2009) Realigning local and global realities by integrating Indigenous ways of knowing, values and beliefs into curriculum and pedagogy and creating opportunities to showcase Indigenous knowledge and literacies (Cass, 2007; Taufaga, 2007)

participatory rights to determine educational goals impacting them. Key messages for which there has been strong advocacy in this space are shown in Table 3.1. Amidst these calls for Pacific people’s determination of their educational and linguistic futures, Herrman (2007, pp. 33–34) articulates a vision to provide all children with the opportunity to be literate in their own language, English and/or other languages. In other words, for all children to be competent and function effectively as bilingual and biliterate (and in some cases multilingual and multi-literate) citizens of their own country.

This call has been endowed with cultural potency through the metaphor of a canoe – symbolic of Pacific indigeneity, riding in a sea of change and embodying resilience through times of colonisation, Christianisation, modernisation, globalisation and technologicalisation (Herrman, 2007). Since 2000, self-determination in education has concertedly involved each Pacific nation making its own critical and strategic decisions – including increased focus on early childhood education and language and literacy education in Fiji and the Pacific. Below, we discuss key actions and outcomes by and for Pacific nations and the region more broadly – predicated on the understanding that early childhood education in Fiji is enacted within broader Pacific Islands policy frameworks.

Dakar Framework for Action on Education for All Acting as a catalyst for increased regional and national development planning and aid funding directed towards achieving universal primary education in the Pacific and expanded access to early childhood services, UNESCO adopted the Dakar Framework for Action on Education for All in 2000. This framework included six regional frameworks for action and a collective commitment to growing the scope and quality of early childhood care and education provision (UNESCO, 2000).

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In the following year, the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS)’s Forum of Education Ministers published the Forum Basic Education Action Plan (FBEAP). PIFS member countries include Australia, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. With reference to the Dakar Framework, FBEAP articulates goals of: expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care and education, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children and ‘ensuring that by 2015 all children, with special emphasis on girls and children in difficult circumstances and from ethnic minorities, have access to and complete free and compulsory primary education of good quality. (Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, 2001, p. 2)

A key initiative of the FBEAP was the Pacific Regional Initiatives for the Delivery of Basic Education (the PRIDE Project).

 acific Regional Initiatives for the Delivery of Basic Education P (the PRIDE Project) Funded multi-laterally by the European Union and New Zealand, the University of the South Pacific conducted the PRIDE Project between 2004 and 2010 (Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, 2014). Meanwhile, in 2009, FBEAP was updated and renamed as the Pacific Education Development Framework (PEDF) (Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, 2014). Key outcomes of the PRIDE Project included the development of national strategic plans for education and the creation of knowledge bases and networks for Pacific education and educators. These outcomes addressed Pacific concerns about Pacific education systems’ alienation of students, poor student performance and the lack of a Pacific foundation to curriculum. These outcomes were situated in the creation of opportunities for children and youth to actively participate in their communities’ social, spiritual, economic and cultural development and to contribute to a sustainable future (USP Institute of Education, 2014). These opportunities promoted children’s and young people’s participatory rights that are enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations, 1989), which Pacific nations had ratified or signed, including Fiji in 1993 (United Nations, 2018). In this active policy space, the value of using indigenous and vernacular languages in the early years of education was acknowledged; and the importance of partnerships with civil society organisations and UN agencies to achieving educational outcomes in the Pacific was recognised (Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, 2001). Research by Pacific and PRIDE Project scholars documented and argued for the importance of spiritual and cultural aspects of early childhood development and education to Pacific communities (Puamau, 2006; Teasdale, 2005). For example, Fiji’s Early Childhood Development and Education Standards, supported by the UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Regions’ Early Learning Development Standards

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project, illustrate how such values shape the ongoing development of early childhood education systems in the Pacific (Miyahara & Meyers, 2008). To similar effect, the reciprocally funded New Zealand Rethinking Pacific Education Initiatives Project (RPEIP, instigated and managed by PIFS) examined Pacific educators’ and leaders’ commitment to ensuring that Pacific education systems reflect the spiritual and cultural practices of the communities they serve. The goal was to ensure that ‘related worldviews and life values and philosophies inform the work of educators’ (Nabobo-Baba, 2012, p. 82). Findings highlighted that education systems that recognise and build upon mutuality and Pacific extended family/ local language group relationships and mutuality are critical to this goal (Teasdale, 2005). At the same time, related research conversations on Pacific curricula called for (1) holistic ways of knowing, doing, being and living together to be integrated within the curricula (Puamau, 2005) and (2) education environments that reflect Pacific children’s lived experiences, communities and family environments (Puamau & Pene, 2008; Toganivalu 2008). Central to these projects’ discourses of decolonising and reclaiming Pacific education systems is children’s right to be heard and to learn in their vernacular language. Indeed, Camaitoga (2008) strongly argued that the future progress of early childhood education in the Pacific relies upon the voice, visibility and valuing of children and their advocates. This advocacy was further supported by attention to promoting and protecting women’s rights in securing gains for young children. Both the PRIDE and RPEI Projects informed the review and extension of the Pacific Islands Forum’s FBEAP, the outcome of which was the 2009–2015 Pacific Education Development Framework (PEDF). This framework documented increasing but still low levels of enrolment in early childhood care and education (ECCE); under-representation of poor and rural students in ECCE enrolments; lack of facilities and formally trained ECCE teachers; and limited evidence-based research on ECCE in the Pacific. These documented issues posed significant and ongoing challenges for early childhood development and education in the Pacific (Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, 2009).

Progressing Universal Early Childhood Care and Education In terms of children’s rights and well-being, regional evaluations of progress towards Millennium Development Goals in 2013 suggest progress was made. Child health improved across the region, and 9 of the 14 Pacific Island Countries approached 100% skilled birth attendance, the preferred Pacific measure of maternal health outcomes (Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, 2013, p. 11). By 2013, the majority of the Pacific Island Countries were on track to reach universal primary education, with 11 of the 14 Pacific Island Countries tracking towards gender parity in primary school education (Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, 2013, p. 11).

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However, concerns persisted in education systems across the Pacific about the quality of education, student outcomes, male dropout rates and capacity to include vulnerable and disadvantaged children and children with disabilities (Fox, 2011; Jourdan & Salaün, 2013; Nabobo-Baba, 2012; Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, 2009; Tavvola & Whippy, 2010). Progress towards universal early childhood care and education (ECCE) remained constrained by limited government commitment, human and financial resources and curricula that did not reflect the family and social contexts of preschool children in the Pacific (Camaitoga, 2008; Puamau, 2008; Toganivalu, 2008). Measuring progress of universal ECCE was also constrained by a lack of data on early childhood outcomes, especially for children 0–3 years, although increasing evaluation data is available for 3–5-year-old children (UNESCO & UNICEF, 2012). By 2012, Pacific research reported Pacific Island Countries national education strategies included ECCE in their scope, with country-based sub-projects being established. ECCE sub-projects included (1) three Tongan projects related to ECCE national policy, ECCE in-service teacher training and ECCE curriculum development; (2) a Fijian ECCE curriculum framework; (3) Vanuatu undertaking an early childhood book-making in the Vernacular Project; and (4) the Cook Islands establishing the Enhancing Creativity and Learning in Early Childhood Project (Puamau, 2008). These projects, aligned with Pacific ECCE research and development plans, were unified by calls to counter the push for formal literacy and numeracy instruction within preschool programs. Renewed focus was put on culturally appropriate play-based programming. Attention also was given to the continued and increased inclusion of children, family and community voices within ECCE policy, planning and delivery – with women’s well-being and rights being acknowledged which are integral to these holistic ECCE approaches (Camaitoga, 2008; Puamau, 2008; Toganivalu, 2008). A key consideration in all these initiatives has been the influence that colonial histories and a reliance on international donor agencies, NGOs and conditional financing have had on Pacific education systems. It has been argued that these influences threaten traditional epistemologies embedded within local ancestral languages (Jourdan & Salaün, 2013). For example, Fiji’s early childhood education system in the post-independence period of the 1980s heavily relied on imported programs grounded in western values and theories of education (Toganivalu, 2008). While such reliance is evident to this day, there have been key counteractions from key Pacific early childhood education leaders who advocate for learning environments that include children’s cultural contexts, ways of life and voices. This advocacy is seen to be critical to reflecting Pacific culture; promoting Pacific languages, stories, music, dance, arts and crafts; and reducing reliance on donor funding and increasing the visibility of early childhood care and education within responsible government agencies and their policy frameworks (Camaitoga, 2008; Toganivalu, 2008). From this discussion of advocacy and action for self-determination, it is clear that the Pacific Islands, as a collection of nations, have been seeking to determine

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their own destiny through processes of reconstruction, redefinition, reaffirmation and reclamation. A key aspect of this self-determination has been advocacy for education programs that honour and promote first languages – as our study sought to do in relation to young children’s literacy. While key policy initiatives have made progress, self-determination remains an ongoing journey. In Fiji, a key milestone in this journey has been the development of the nation’s first early childhood curriculum guidelines, Na Noda Mataniciva (Fiji Ministry of Education, 2009).

 a Noda Mataniciva: Fiji’s First Early Childhood N Curriculum Guidelines In the 2000s, the Fiji Government developed an action plan that prioritised the development of early childhood education during 2001–2015. A major focus in this plan was the development of national kindergarten curriculum guidelines  – what was to become Na Noda Mataniciva, meaning ‘The children are our pearls’. These guidelines were published in 2009 by the Fiji Ministry of Education. The guidelines were developed in a collaboration of the PRIDE Project financed by the European Union and NZAID, through the Pacific Forum Secretariat, and implemented by the Institute of Education at the University of the South Pacific. As stated in the foreword to Na Noda Mataniciva: The production of Na Noda Mataniciva realises the major strategy in the development of ECE in Fiji. The document sets out the vision, beliefs and values underpinning the conduct of Early Childhood education in the country. It is originally intended for teachers, but it can also be a useful resource for policy and decision-makers, parents, communities, and other stakeholders. The curriculum guidelines do not prescribe what is to be learnt but rather outline the outcomes to be achieved at this level. (Fiji Ministry of Education, 2009, p. iii)

Expectations for children’s learning and development are organised into six Foundation Areas of Learning and Development (FALD), the language and literacy elements of which we explore in Chap. 4: –– –– –– –– –– ––

Language, literacy and communication Learning to know Aesthetics, creativity and the arts Living and learning together Spiritual and moral development Physical development, health and well-being

Within and across these FALDs, teachers are expected to develop content and to contextualise outcomes according to children’s cultural and linguistic contexts, their preschool’s local conditions and the resources teachers have available to them. Avenues are thus provided for developing culturally appropriate teaching and learning practices in preschool settings and for enacting self-determination that is tailored to and within local settings. However, developing culturally appropriate

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practices that support and foster children’s language and literacy learning requires strong understanding of young children’s literacy learning in their home languages and English.

 oung Children’s Literacy in Their Home Languages Y and English More children in the world are multilingual than monolingual, and more children are being educated multilingually than monolingually. Fiji’s children, and children of the Pacific more broadly, clearly are part of the world’s majority growing up to be multilingual with respect to speaking two or more languages (including dialects). While migration has contributed to this trend, Fiji’s multilingual scenario is characterised by the nation having three official languages as well as multiple dialects and other languages (as we previously discussed in Chap. 2). Fiji’s children, and indeed Pacific children more generally, experience complex relationships between their languages and environments that are shaped by their cultural ecology – as Tagoilelagi (1995) found when documenting the significance of the Samoan culture (fa’asamoa) in the socialisation of preschoolers’ literacy skills in storybook and Bible reading and which is illustrated in Fig. 3.1. Children growing up with two or more languages develop vast funds of linguistic and cultural knowledge in their homes and communities (González et al., 2005). These funds of knowledge yield rich potential for children to become literate in and

‘Pasifika children are often intensively involved in church activities which deliver Christian living through the medium of home language. What happens at church or at extended family gatherings and early childhood centres can often become the topic of discussion at home, which provides a vehicle for learning aspects of language such as new words for the children. This discussion, like other event narratives, can be predicted to place cognitive demands on the children as they both comprehend and produce it, providing a site for developing language related to school language tasks (Beals, 2002). That is, from the many different discussions that Pasifika children are exposed to within their surroundings, the cognitive demands placed on them (from trying to make sense of what the discussions are about and taking part in these discussions) helps them not only to ‘produce discussions’ but also to ‘comprehend’ the situation. The whole process acts as a site for developing language related to school language.’ Tagoilelagi-Leota et al (2004, p.159)

Fig. 3.1  An example of the shaping of children’s languages and environments by their cultural ecology

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across their languages – hereafter referred to as multilingual literacy – if supported in children’s immediate environment. Yet these funds of knowledge often become lost through early exposure to English-only education environments (Cummins, 2000; Wong Fillmore, 1991). Comprising a significant focus for research, multilingual literacy has been studied through psycholinguistic approaches that focus on English literacy, and skills transfer from home languages to English (e.g., Jared et al., 2011). Taking a different approach, sociolinguistic studies have attended to creating biliterate spaces in educational settings (Arthur, Ashton, & Beecher, 2014; Gutiérrez et al., 2011), while sociocultural studies have documented children’s home and community contexts and interactions (Tabors et al., 2002). A few studies have documented multilingual children’s multiple literacy contexts, with greater focus on writing than other aspects such as reading (Reyes & Azuara, 2008). Key social influences on a child’s multilingual literacy development trajectory include teachers and parents, as well as other children, like siblings and friends (Gregory, 2001; Gregory et al., 2004). Clearly, as we saw in this chapter’s opening vignette, children’s influence on one another was evident in how Sairusi’s storytelling and book-making incited Ilimaina to initiate her own story to write and make into a book, as pictured in Fig. 3.2. In home and community settings, many multilingual families have been found to assist their children to be literate in the languages they are using and learning, and children are likely to be involved in literacy experiences embedded in their cultural contexts, such as religious observance, and maintaining relations with family local and further afield (Kenner et al., 2007; Kenner & Gregory, 2013). Literacy learning in multilingual families tends to be a matter of continuity and change. For example, families focus on maintaining first languages in the event of returning to one’s homeland and preserving cultural practices in their new land, while at the same time families are learning the languages of the new society they inhabit (Hirst, 1998).

Fig. 3.2  Ilimaina intently engages with her older cousin’s storytelling about the cat and emulates writing on her hand as her cousin’s story is written down by adults and Sairusi writes his own version on paper

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There is, however, great variation of experience across multilingual families. This variation arises from a range of factors that include languages spoken; immersion in one or a combination of languages with various family members’ relationship between home and local community languages; attendance at early childhood sites where curricula and language/s further shape language socialisation; and going to school where formal instruction in written language generally begins (Tabors & Snow, 2001). Multilingual literacy educational practice is necessarily framed by the particular models of multilingual learning that educators adopt. In the Pacific context, as indeed elsewhere, tensions have existed between additive and subtractive models of multilingual teaching and support (Cullen et al., 2009; Glasgow, 2010). An additive model sees a new language being slowly introduced while retaining support for vernacular language. A subtractive model sees the additional language displacing the first language/s, along with learners’ sense of cultural identity and capacity to engage in practices and communication germane to their cultural setting. However, children’s multilingual realities are more complex than additive and subtractive models might suggest. Translanguaging studies have made significant breakthrough in generating new knowledge and understanding about multilingual children’s complex and quite fluid language realities.

 oung Children’s Experiences with Code-Switching Y and Translanguaging Translanguaging – used by García (2009) to describe how young multilingual children leveraged their language and literacy practices in an informal, multilingual before-school program – posits that children communicate and create meaning by drawing seamlessly from their multiple languages. Multilingual children sometimes conform to the system of a particular language, and other times they blur boundaries to use all their available language resources (Gort, 2015; Gort & Sembiante, 2015). Children do this in any number of circumstances – including settings that are predominantly monolingual and settings that endeavour to enforce the separation of languages from one another (Axelrod & Cole, 2018). Although translanguaging has not appeared as a core concept in the Pacific literature on multilingualism and multilingual literacy, it is a notion critical to this discussion and the study at hand. Translanguaging is not to be conceptually confused with code-switching – the latter being underpinned by monolingual assumptions that treat each language as a separate system rather than an integrated repertoire that multilingual children develop. There are, however, conflicting views on code-switching that also apply to translanguaging. Some hold the view that code-switching and translanguaging distort and bastardise language, diminish sense of cultural pride and identity and signify a lack of education (Herrman, 2007; Tamata, 1996). Others view code-switching and translanguaging practices as valid, culturally attuned ways to scaffold

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multilingual children’s engagement and learning because these practices support children’s participation and communication in relaxed and natural ways (Glasgow, 2010; Herrman, 2007; Tamata, 1996). Argument has been made that translanguaging and code-switching should be viewed as strengths rather than weaknesses in one’s language practices, given the high prevalence of these practices in children’s classes at school (Herrman, 2007; Mugler & Lynch, 1996; Tamata, 1996). Such acknowledgment allows educators to leverage children’s existing practice to take a strength-based approach to children’s language and literacy development and to value what is already and quite inevitably taking place. Critically, translanguaging is a natural process for multilingual children. By this we mean that children engage in translanguaging of their own accord without being encouraged to do so – or despite being discouraged by others from doing so, such as when caregivers focus on separate languages (Axelrod & Cole, 2018; Canagarajah, 2011; García & Wei, 2014; Garrity, Aquino-Sterling, & Day, 2015). Young multilingual children are as capable of translanguaging as older children and adults – as clearly established in empirical studies in bilingual programs for infants as well as young children in early childhood and early school year settings (Bauer et al., 2017; Gort & Sembiante, 2015; María Martínez-Roldán, 2015; Pontier & Gort, 2016; Schwartz & Asli, 2014). Young children have been found to translanguage in their literacy practices. For example, Gort (2006) documented the translingual writing of young multilingual children and evidenced how translanguaging differed according to a child’s age and language dominance. A later study found that ‘even early writers are able to draw from their full linguistic repertoire, utilizing orthographic and syntactic resources consciously, and continue to do so with increasing complexity as they get older and gain greater competence’ (Axelrod & Cole, 2018, p. 129). Researchers have evidenced multilingual children expanding their meaning-­ making capacity by engaging in other semiotic modes of communication and meaning-­making. For example, Bengochea et al., (2018), in their case study of an emergent multilingual child’s multimodal choices in socio-dramatic play, show how the child’s translanguaging furthered his communication in tandem with the affordances of his visual and actional resources, depending on his play purposes and collaborators. Anthony’s case illustrates how emergent bilingual children access a variety of modes to participate in literate discourses in complex and varied ways. This article concludes with a discussion on the importance of thoroughly accounting for the contexts and multimodal supports in interactive learning spaces. (Bengochea et al., 2018, p. 38)

This child’s translanguaging practices were not random. Rather, the child made specific translanguaging and transmodal choices that suited his context, audience and purpose – as illustrated in Fig. 3.3. This study confirms research findings elsewhere. For example, young multilingual children have been found to align what and how they communicate with other children’s language resources in shared creative experiences and collaborative play (Kyratzis et al., 2009; Piker, 2013).

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Anthony used ‘multiple modes simultaneously (e.g. eliciting joint attention to an object through gaze, holding up an object to bring it into focus, and translanguaging to assign a new label to an object to advance mutual goals) and at other times successively (e.g. throwing an object to gain a peer’s attention, subsequently translanguaging to narrate a scenario, and later awaiting a peer’s actional response before delivering a follow-up verbal command). Consequently, Anthony’s resourcefulness in recognizing and employing complementary, compositional modes available to him enabled him to manipulate teacher- and child-signified objects, to conjure abstract ideas that departed from the immediate, physical context, and to use his expanding features of his trans- languaging repertoire to generate and communicate meaning with his varied play partners, while accommodating their language and play preferences’ (Bengochea et al., 2018, p.57).

Fig. 3.3  An example of a child’s translanguaging and transmodal choices

Translanguaging and transmodal practices have important implications for how we understand and nurture young multilingual children’s literacy. In general, children with a strong foundation in their home language and continuing support for that language through home activities such as book-reading generally develop skills that transfer to English after going to school (Garcia, 2003). Indeed, measures of first language reading have been found to be much stronger predictors of second language reading than second language oral proficiency in the early school years (Garcia, 2003). Studies also have shown that emerging multilingual children develop multilingual literacy across their languages within a range of formal and informal settings, using multimodal and linguistic resources that children have at their disposal (Alvarez, 2018; Gort, 2012; Kenner & Kress, 2003; Reyes, 2012). For example, multilingual children tend to write a text in all their languages, even combining words from different languages in one phrase (Kenner, 2004; MorSommerfeld, 2002). Whereas this practice of writing across languages could be taken to be problematic, it actually advantages multilingual learners by giving children strategies for negotiating texts in settings where one language dominates. An integral part of translingual writing practices for emergent bilinguals has been found to be capacity to communicate and express meaning that is nuanced to different language and cultural communities (Alvarez, 2014; Bauer et  al., 2017; Orellana et al., 2003). Children can and do transfer their learning that occurs in one language to another language  – such as letters stand for sounds and words can be inferred from the meaning of a text, when reading or writing in another language (Baker, 2011). Multilingual experiences can enrich children’s capacity for composing and interpreting meaning through the written mode, such as Sneddon (2000) found with children learning to speak Gujarati, English and Urdu in a Muslim community in

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London. These children’s storytelling was endowed with a linguistic richness from the multilingual experiences they had at the community’s recreation facility, which was not found with children who did not have these experiences. At the same time, these children were becoming literate in Urdu, a language they used for religious purposes. These children were receiving instruction in Urdu with a teaching approach that incorporated all three of their community languages, which enabled the children to successfully engage in complex text comprehension exercises. Research has found that multilingual children develop metalinguistic awareness about how their languages relate to each other and theorise ways that print can represent linguistic differences (Durán, 2016, 2017; Gort, 2006; Moll  et  al., 2001; Reyes, 2012; Reyes & Azuara, 2008). For example, evidence shows that very young multilingual children are exposed to and take notice of symbols across different language systems. Such noticing occurs in the context of the symbols’ uses and purposes, affording opportunities for children to learn about the symbol systems of writing and how they vary across languages (Kenner, 2000; Minns, 1990; Saxena, 1994). In turn, these experiences help develop young children’s capabilities for producing symbols to represent meaning according to the conventions of different languages. In a case study of 7-year-old multilingual children in a bilingual program, de la luz Reyes (2001) noted the children’s ability to read and write in languages in which they had not received formal literacy instruction. De la luz Reyes attributed this ability to children’s social play with each other and a learning environment that nurtured the children’s cultural and linguistic resources. Studies have evidenced how children’s engagement with different writing systems is framed by their cultural settings in which the systems are used. This engagement affords opportunities for children to learn about deeper cultural meanings as they encounter and negotiate texts in their multilingual, cross-cultural worlds (Datta, 2007; Kenner et al., 2007; Minns, 1990). In Minns’ study, for example, 4-year-old Gurdeep was learning cultural meanings through the texts he encountered at temple. He also was being enculturated into listening silently at home when his father read traditional Indian folk tales to his sister and himself. In these situations, Gurdeep’s father conveyed both the content of the tales and how to respectfully and silently listen to a text being read aloud in ways expected at temple. His father described these encounters as imparting gifts of cultural inheritance to his children. The research we have reviewed here on translanguaging and transmodal practices are germane to our study – as seen in Sairusi’s and Ilimaina’s extract at the beginning of this chapter where the children engaged with multiple languages and modes to create their respective books, ‘Pusi Levu’ and ‘My Work’. In this engagement, the children exercised their voice and agency, in their words, languages and images about their worlds – engaging in an encounter that was framed by tenets of culturally sustaining pedagogy.

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Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy Culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) (McCarty & Lee, 2014) grows out of earlier work on culturally relevant pedagogy that affirms students’ cultural identities while developing critical perspectives that challenge inequities (Ladson-Billings, 1995). As part of this broader culturally relevant pedagogy movement, CSP is founded on valuing and acknowledging children’s cultural and linguistic funds of knowledge to democratise the spaces where children find themselves in formal education settings. CSP comprises approaches to teaching wherein children’s cultural strengths are acknowledged and nurtured to promote learning, well-being and a sense of cultural place in the world; and conveys high expectations for all children to succeed while developing and sustaining children’s and educators’ cultural competencies  (Au, 2007; Keehne et al. 2018). Imposing a foreign language or cultural frame of reference with which children are not comfortable or familiar has been said to be a significant indicator of ‘a culturally undemocratic learning environment’ (Thaman, 2009, p. 2). Such imposition is in direct contrast to a child’s rights approach and freedom of speech, giving rise to negative consequences that include frustration, reluctance, hesitation (Gumperz and Hernandez-Chavez 1972, cited in Tamata, 1996), non-participation (Tamata, 1996) and poor vernacular and English literacy (Spencer, 1996). In turn, these consequences impact children’s self-confidence, inhibit communication and expression and result in children being given inappropriate labels. Rather than being ‘centered on White, middle-class, monolingual, and monocultural norms of educational achievement’ (Paris & Alim, 2014, p. 95), CSP seeks to sustain cultures by attending to communities’ practices and knowledge in ways that resist ‘static, unidirectional notions of culture and race’ (Paris & Alim, 2014, p. 95). CSP does so by engaging with traditional languages and cultures in evolving ways that are used and lived by contemporary young people (Paris, 2012). CSP advocates also ask that scholars of colour turn their gaze inwards to their own communities and cultural practices, using a critical lens towards the efficacy of those practices in promoting the greater good (Paris & Alim, 2017). CSP is a good fit for our study as both CSP and this study share an explicit focus on sustaining cultural worlds even as these worlds are evolving. In the Pacific context, CSP calls us to foster children’s capacities and capabilities to flexibly participate in local and global communities in their worlds where the past, present and future intersect and to include elders and community members in maintaining and promoting knowledge of cultural histories, languages and practices (Glasgow, 2010). As part of the broader culturally relevant pedagogy movement, we used CSP in a way that not only turned our gaze to the cultural realities of the children, families and communities participating in our study. We also turned this gaze to ourselves, including those of us who, as researchers based in Australia, were outsiders to the Fiji contexts in which we found ourselves working. After Ladson-Billings (1995), we examined who we are; what our personal and professional histories have been; what we believe and assume; why and how we are doing this research; and what are

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the cultural competencies we bring and need to develop – all of which impacted how we engaged as people with people, and the sense we made, in this study (Harris et al., 2018). (We further explain this aspect of the project in Chap. 5.) In culturally relevant pedagogy broadly speaking, dialogue is central (Ladson-­ Billings, 1995), and CSP is no exception. In our use of CSP in our study, Freire’s dialogic encounters (Freire, 1983) were integral to coming to understand who we all are in our new collective space created in this study and what it was that the study’s co-investigators living in Fiji communities were wishing to maintain or transform in terms of children’s literacy opportunities and cultural lives (as also we explain further in Chap. 5). In the context of this study and, more specifically CSP, reciprocal, respectful dialogue is essential to ensuring participants’ self-determination through exercising voice, agency and ownership over that which participants seek to change or maintain. By and large, the Pacific research advocacy of cultural and linguistic self-­ determination has been composed from an Indigenous perspective, noting the increasing contributions of Fijian researchers of Indo-Fijian heritage since the turn of the century. In the study at hand, we were mindful of perspectives of diaspora people living in the Pacific, including but not limited to Fiji’s Indo-Fijian and Rotuman peoples. Hence, our research approach was designed to engage indigenous and non-indigenous Fijian participants in the spirit of self-determination in equivalent ways, informed by Fijian, Pacific and broader conceptualisations of culturally sustaining pedagogies. In Fiji, where speaking two or more languages – hereafter called multilingualism – is common across families and communities, early childhood education policy is committed to children’s early year education occurring in children’s vernacular languages, as stated in Na Noda Mataniciva. This commitment reflects the valuing and acknowledgment of diverse languages, cultures and literacy practices that must inform early childhood education programming, pedagogy and environments (Anderson et al., 2010; Auleear Owodally, 2014; Bloch, 2009; Li, 2006; Reyes & Torres, 2007; Weigel et al. 2006). However, the question of vernaculars in preschools and schools is complex and shaped by historic language policy. In the Pacific, and in Fiji, national language policies stipulate official vernacular languages; however vernaculars often differ from the languages sanctioned for the purpose of education in formal settings. For example, approximately 95% of Fji’s citizens speak ‘Fijian [dialects] and Fiji Hindi’ (Mangubhai & Mugler, 2006, p.  26), yet the accepted languages for literacy and educational purposes have been ‘Bauan Fijian’ and ‘the acrolectal Standard or Shudh Hindi’ (Shameem, 2004, p. 156). In Fiji, where religious organisations are key education providers, Bauan and English, Urdu and Standard Hindi are sanctioned languages of schooling. The literary form of Hindustani taught in schools is influenced by religion, with Muslim committee schools using the north Indian Urdu, written in Perso-Arabic script for teaching, and ‘Hindu and Christian committee schools’ and those government schools that teach it as a vernacular using Standard Hindi, written in Devanagari script with Sanskrit words replacing those of Perso-Arabic origin, for teaching

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(Shameem, 2002, p. 390–391). Where Bauan is used as medium of instruction in schools, teachers are faced with a paucity of classroom resources and professional development to support its teaching, which is compounded by the limited engagement with Bauan or other iTaukei dialects in tertiary education and literary contexts (Fiji Islands Education Commission/Panel, & Fiji Ministry of Education, 2000; Goundar, 2019; Mangubhai & Mugler, 2006). While Fiji’s 2013 Constitution diversified languages afforded an equal status by the State, to include the languages of ‘i-Taukei, Rotuman, descendants of labourers from British India (Fiji Indians) and Pacific Islanders and settlers as well as migrants’ (Republic of Fiji, 2013, p. 1), education policy since 1926 has remained remarkably consistent, shaping a ‘transitional education system’ in which education instruction should initially occur in mother tongue before being phased to ‘English by Class 4’ (Nicholls, 2014, as cited in Goundar, 2019). Often the terms ‘mother tongue’, ‘vernacular’ and ‘official’ language’ are used interchangeably. For example, a 2011 government media release referred to the ‘teaching of vernacular in […] classes one, two and three’, noting ‘teaching occurs mainly in Hindi, Fijian, Rotuman, Banaban and so forth’ (The Fijian Government, 2011, np). In practice, many Fijian children are instructed in Bauan and standard Hindi, as foreign a language as English to them, their mother tongues conceivably one of a myriad of predominant and minority languages in Fiji (Goundar, 2019; Mangubhai & Mugler, 2006; Shameem, 2004). Similarly, children’s families’ aspirations and valuing of mother, vernacular and official languages may not always align with official education policy (Goundar, 2019; Mangubhai & Mugler, 2006; Shameem, 2004). In light of this linguistic complexity and the broader Pacific call for self-­ determination in education, pedagogic rethinking has focused on sustaining pedagogies to promote Pacific values and beliefs, which include valuing Indigenous knowledge and practice; promoting participation in both local and global communities, but not at the expense of the local; foregrounding different cultural ways of knowing through, for example, Indigenous community-based initiatives such as village-centred early childhood models; and ensuring that experiences are meaningful and authentic and value Indigenous knowledge. This pedagogic reconceptualisation also has seen the promotion of children’s cultural and linguistic funds of knowledge and experiences through validating children’s linguistic identities and developing Pacific identities and pride more broadly; fostering children’s sense of belonging; and building bridges between home and school experiences (Cass, 2007; Cullen et  al., 2009; Glasgow, 2010; Herrman, 2007; Hodges, 2007; Low, 2007; Naqvi & Pfitscher, 2011; Taufaga, 2007). Promoting a community of learners is integral to this pedagogic vision in the Pacific – including children, parents, families and community members and leaders – because in a community of learners, supporting first languages is seen not only to be the preserve of teachers, it is also the role of families and community (Glasgow, 2010; Hodges, 2007). In this framework of shared responsibility, the inclusion of elders and community members in preserving and promoting knowledge of traditions, cultural practices, history and dialects is vital. As has been argued:

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3  Language and Literacy Learning in Multilingual Settings Generations of people, those who have come before and those who will come after, are potential custodians, creators, motivators and innovators of the use of the local languages and cultures, and their wisdom will inform the journey into the future. (Herrman, 2007, p. 34)

In the Pacific, CSP includes engaging with oral traditions, such as the modes and forms of oral knowledge storage and transmission and the significance of storytelling (Hodges, 2007; Teasdale, 2005, p.  4). Within Fiji’s oral cultures, storytelling holds specific social meanings and psychological and communicative functions and is interwoven with cultural literacy practices. It is rendered in systems of symbols, conveying cultural and traditional knowledge, that are embodied in painting, weaving, carving, clothing, sand-drawing, tattoos and the like (Disbray, 2008; Hohepa & McNaughton, 2007) and inseparable from kin relations (Koya-Vakàuta, 2012; Puamau, 2005; Tauféulungaki, 2002; Thaman, 2012). In oral cultures, research indicates policy attention should be drawn to the purposeful and differentiated ways knowledge, and therefore language, are transferred through storytelling, dance, sign language and other embodied media between mother and child, which are not necessarily present or accommodated in western education systems (Disbray, 2008; Eickelkamp, 2008; Hohepa & McNaughton, 2007; Kelly, 2019; Wigglesworth & Simpson, 2008; Yunkaporta, 2009). Moreover, storytelling and other oral language practices provide important foundations for literacy (Hughes, 2004). The interplay between spoken and written language, as well as other modes of expression, and with the children’s home language and English, was clearly in evidence in Ilimaina’s and Sairusi’s vignette at the start of this chapter. In particular, the interplay between home language and English in particular created what Moll (2014) has called a bilingual zone of proximal development. The use of other modes of expression enriched this zone to make it a multimodal, multilingual zone of proximal development – as we consider below in our discussion of educational practices within a CSP framework.

Examining Education Practices Within a CSP Framework Following from Vygotsky’s notion of the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978) – wherein children’s learning is stretched beyond their actual development through enablers such as others’ interactional assistance and play – translanguaging has been seen as a basis for creating a zone of bilingual proximal development wherein multilingual children can realise their linguistic potential (Moll, 2014). A bilingual zone of proximal development describes how inviting bilingual children to use all of their linguistic resources can scaffold their learning generally, as well as their abilities and performance in each language specifically. For example, providing opportunities for children to use all their linguistic, modal and environmental resources in ways we have described in the previous section can scaffold children’s literacy learning. Such opportunities were afforded

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Fig. 3.4  Sairusi engages across multiple modes of talk, gesture, drawing, photos (not shown here) and writing to create his story with others, while Ilimaina uses these modes as well as dramatic play to enact her daily chores for her story

when we invited Sairusi and Ilimaina to create their stories with the languages, modes and environment resources they had at their disposal – as seen in this chapter’s opening vignette and further pictured in Fig. 3.4. Through engaging with these opportunities, Sairusi’s and Ilimaina’s capacity for creating, understanding and using text was built and to some extent realised. Through such means, too, multilingual children’s literacy knowledge specific to particular languages can inform and transform one another (Durán, 2018).

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The reality of translanguaging in multilingual children’s lives behoves all concerned with young children’s learning and education to ensure that how we teach and assess children’s language and literacy competencies – including their English proficiency in settings where English is a dominant concern – neither denies nor distorts children’s multilingual realities and identities. Ensuring, too, that first languages learning remains intact and appropriately supported and developed is paramount as children progress through the years. Since translanguaging appears to be an irrepressible reality in multilingual children’s lives, translanguaging pedagogy is necessary for linguistic competence to further develop (Canagarajah, 2011). Effective translanguaging pedagogy demonstrates: • How children’s languages inform and differ from one another, thereby fostering children’s content development • How children’s knowledge and skills in one language can support their usage in their other language(s), thereby nurturing children’s linguistic development • How to understand and communicate in different language groups and settings, thereby promoting sociocultural identity, relations and integration (Pontier & Gort, 2016) Translanguaging pedagogy has been viewed as an important way to redress hegemonic effects of dominant languages over minoritised languages, with teachers encouraged to interrogate implicit hegemonic messages even in multilingual spaces (Flores, & García, 2013; María Martínez-Roldán, 2015). The use of multilingual books and other textual media that include children’s home languages is seen to be a key aspect of culturally sustaining pedagogy – such Fig. 3.5  A page from Ilimaina’s ‘My Work’ book, with an image of her enacting one of her chores and her home language positioned prominently above the English translation of her words

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as Sneddon (2000) found in a study of young multilingual children’s development of understanding and metalinguistic skills when reading with their families or friends and focusing on a parallel text. The ‘Pusi Levu’ and ‘My Work’ books in this chapter’s opening extract, co-created with children, provided such parallel multilingual texts in our chapter’s opening extract – a feature that characterised a significant part of our work with communities in our study, with an example shown in Fig. 3.5. Co-creating and using multilingual books build on children’s cultural capital and is integral to building culturally sustaining learning communities. Such work: • Acknowledges children’s home languages and lives, and validates their linguistic and cultural identities • Promotes children’s participation in using their first languages • Encourages children’s sense of belonging • Builds bridges between children’s home and formal education settings and allows parents an opportunity to be involved in shared reading experiences • Enables teacher to learn new words, thereby further bridging the languages and cultures of home and formal education settings • Allows children to make connections to their lives and their own stories • Assists children to appreciate their own language/s and culture and those of others (Naqvi & Pfitscher, 2011) In short, co-creating and using multilingual texts uphold children’s heritage languages that are germane to children’s evolving sense of cultural and literate identities. Multilingual children’s literate identities, endowed with cultural meaning, carry significant implications for young children’s literacy growth (Keehne et al., 2018). These implications concern not only what children learn as literate people but also how children engage, their direction of engagement, and how they self-identify as literate persons across time and place. As succinctly put below: Reading identities is commonly used to describe the combination of a child’s views and feelings about reading; self-evaluations of reading ability; personal reading histories; expectations or hopes for whom one might become as a reader; negotiation of acceptance as a “reader” by others; and connection of reading identities to other aspects of their identities (or more broadly, a literate person). (Wagner, 2018, pp. 5–6)

Research studies on multilingual children’s emerging literate identities have highlighted four key considerations. First, literate identities are pivotal in influencing: how children transact with texts vis-à-vis their sense of self-efficacy as literate people; what they have experienced of literacy in their lives; and other’s expectations of them and their own aspirations as literate people (Alvermann, 2001; Hall, 2010, 2012; Harris, 2016; Johnston & Rogers, 2002; Lysaker, 2006; McCarthey, 2002; McCarthey & Moje, 2002; Rogers & Elias, 2012). A second consideration is that children from an early age gather concepts, practices and ways of talking and doing with texts that shape their growing understanding of self as a literate person and develop concurrently with other literacy competences. For example, Wagner’s study (Wagner, 2018) documents

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preschool-­aged multilingual children’s reader identities that reflect the range of experiences they have had with reading and language in their home, school and other settings. In so doing, children connect multilingualism with reading in positive ways. Third, and in relation to reading specifically, multilingual children’s reading identities are shaped by how they understand reading in relation to their multilingualism and multilingual literacy: [Multilingual children’s] reader identities are affected by responses to social and cultural attitudes towards bilingualism, beliefs about reading and learning in more than one language, choices about which languages to use to read and when, and variations in reading across languages and cultures (Day, 2002; María Martínez-Roldán & Malavé, 2004; Norton, 2013). In accounting for these varied aspects of reading and language, reading identities go beyond the skills and strategies that comprise the technical ability to read. By acknowledging that reading is also a social practice that is affected by a broader and more diverse range of factors, reading identities offer a more holistic and comprehensive view of reading and learning to read. (Wagner, 2018, p. 7)

This third consideration invokes the need for pedagogy to be informed by conceptualisations of literacy as sociocultural practice, such as we adopted in our study and explain in the following chapter. In any study on fostering multilingual children’s literacy such as this, researchers need to give their undivided attention to who children are and how they and others see themselves as readers, as writers and as literate people. A fourth consideration concerns documented differences between how multilingual and monolingual learners construct literate identities. These differences arise from children’s participation in different linguistic communities that afford different kinds of literacy practices to witness and take part in (Barac et al., 2014; Hammer, 2014; Yip & Matthews, 2007). In turn, this participation spawns perspectives of literacy embedded in the children’s cultural settings (María Martínez-Roldán & Sayer, 2006). This consideration led us to carefully develop understandings about the language and literacy practices in which children engaged in their home and community contexts (which we explain in Chap. 5). Nurturing young multilingual children’s positive literate identities requires seeing, understanding and valuing the young multilingual literate child. It has been long established in the emergent literacy field generally that from a very young age, children notice, engage with and learn from literacy artefacts and experiences in their home and community settings (e.g. Ferreiro & Teberosky, 1982; Teale & Sulzby, 1986). These encounters take various modal guises, including spoken, visual, written and multimodal forms and see children use, understand and learn literacy in ways that encompass meaning, purpose, code and critical thinking (Durán, 2018; Gillen & Hall, 2013; Rowe, 2013). Multilingual children’s activities like going shopping, going to church or temple and engaging in religious events, participating in community events and interacting with others around literacy artefacts and experiences in home languages, all contribute to children’s multilingual literacy development (Kenner & Gregory, 2013; Reyes, 2012). In this chapter’s opening vignette, Ilimaina’s and Sairusi’s

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Fig. 3.6  Children gather around computer screen and alphabet chart and make connections between the two as Sairusi’s story is being typed

interactions with others around objects and ideas assisted the creation of the children’s stories – as did the children’s connections between words in Sairusi’s story as they were being typed on the computer, and letters in the alphabet chart, as seen in Fig. 3.6. Some key considerations for fostering multilingual children’s literacy capabilities and identities in a CSP framework are shown in Fig. 3.7. Resources that support children’s multilingual literacy and help maintain children’s home languages are a key issue in the Pacific in terms of quality and quantity (Hughes, 2004; Lelemia, 1996; Spencer, 1996; Taufaga, 2007). Calls to use resources more effectively have arisen, including suggestions to engage elders; use local materials; avoid low-quality, culturally irrelevant commercial materials; develop innovative ways of using traditional local resources; and ensure resources match culture and context of learning (Glasgow, 2010; Low, 2007; Spencer, 1996). Culturally sustaining pedagogy includes culturally relevant assessment. For example, assessment tools for multilingual children provide opportunities for English and vernacular language composite assessment because assessment in one language does not provide a clear understanding of a multilingual child’s literate capabilities (Westerveld, 2014). Calls also have been made from within the Pacific context to move away from exam-driven curriculum that marginalises vernacular languages and prioritises English, with teachers being assessed by exam results, and hence often teaching to the test (Herrman, 2007; Hodges, 2007; Taufaga, 2007). More broadly, calls also have been made in the Pacific to support teachers in promoting diversity. Concerns have been raised about a lack of training for teachers, with scholarships, strategic plans and initiatives being suggested as key investment ways to address such issues (Cass, 2007; Hodges, 2007; Hughes, 2004; Lelemia, 1996; Lui, 1996; Spencer, 1996). Strongly advocated are teachers who are fluent in dialects and have knowledge of indigenous languages and styles appropriate for context – thereby redressing cultural and linguistic mismatch between teachers and the families they serve (Glasgow, 2010; Naqvi & Pfitscher, 2011). Finally, strongholds of Pacific language and culture are seen to hold a key to informing culturally sustaining pedagogy. More specifically, these strongholds

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Connect with children’s cultural and linguistic strengths ● Build on children’s existing language and literacy knowledge and capabilities ● Include culturally relevant texts, including texts in children’s home languages ● Use home languages ● Make connections between languages (e.g., compare vocabulary between languages ● Draw from different cultural sources for ideas that enrich and inform children’s imaginative worlds and creative story-making. (Cummins, 2006; Datta, 2007) Scaffold and demonstrate ● How languages function in different contexts for different purposes. (Gibbons, 2002 Provide rich oral language experiences imbued with high expectations ● Call on children to function at higher levels of thinking associated with literacy (e.g., critical and creative thinking) and are not confined only to everyday usage. (FosterCohen, 2004; van Hees, 2004). Develop literacy in home languages to redress power balance between home and dominant languages ● Create multilingual texts with children, including literacy materials from children’s homes and communities, such as newspapers, DVDs, magazines, books; and partnering with children’s families and other community members in helping to provide and resource such instruction (Cummins 2006; Edwards 2009; Kenner 2000; Young & Helot 2008). Involve families and develop relationships of reciprocity and mutual respect and benefit– for example: ● Effectiveness in first language]and second language word learning is transferable and complementary ● Families can support their child’s word learning and development in both languages, even if adults are not confident in English, in and through the first language by: o Talking in the first language about English word meanings o Encouraging and modelling enjoyment and curiosity about words, how they work and what they mean, o Providing word-rich texts and contexts in first languages o Encouraging and modelling reading o Widening their child’s experiential horizons. (van Hees, (2004)

Fig. 3.7  Some key considerations for fostering multilingual children’s literacy capabilities and identities, in a CSP framework

include isolated areas that were once considered to be a challenge to education in terms of access and are now viewed as unique opportunities for observing traditions that have been kept untouched and alive. Engaging with these strongholds is seen to provide an opportunity to reconstruct culturally appropriate models of literacy and learning (Herrman, 2007).

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Implications for Informing Our Study Key implications emerge from this review of contemporary research and policy, which informed our study on collectively developing community strategies that foster children’s multilingual literacy. More specifically, we: –– Used and developed culturally sustaining, multilingual literacy resources to support young children’s literacy learning –– Framed our study with sociocultural perspectives of language, literacy and learning that recognise diverse cultural and language practices that spawn diverse ways of being and becoming literate (as explained in the next chapter) –– Acknowledged and built on children’s language and literacy resources, practices and identities –– Deployed culturally sustaining research methods within a participatory action research framework situated in children’s homes and communities, wherein we promoted participants’ voice, agency and ownership as our co-investigators in the study (as we explain in Chap. 5). In closing this review, it is clear that multilingual children as resourceful, competent language and literacy users and learners must be at the centre of culturally sustaining pedagogies in Pacific settings. Children in their various ways carry culturally endowed ways of knowing, using and learning languages and literacy. Culturally sustaining pedagogies provide a social space wherein these ways can be acknowledged and enriched as children’s cultural resources for learning (González et al., 2005). By using these resources, pathways to new learning can be built – such as occurred with Ilimaina and Sairusi in our chapter’s opening extract where we built upon the children’s interests, observations, thinking, ideas and languages that they brought in abundance to the encounter. As Ashton-Warner wrote many years ago in the context of working with young Maori children in their first languages and English in New Zealand: To these first books, they must be made out of the stuff of the child itself. I reach a hand into the mind of the child, bring out a handful of the stuff I find there, and use that as our working material. Whether it is good or bad stuff, violent or placid stuff, coloured or dun. To effect an unbroken beginning. And in this dynamic material, within the familiarity and security of it, the child finds that words have intense meaning to him [sic], from which cannot help but arise a love of reading. (Ashton-Warner, 1963, p. 31–32)

Fast forward some 56 years, we call on van Hees’ more recent words: To truly develop the child, [educational policy and practice] must embrace involvement and inclusion in a total sense: “My place is your place. Your wealth is my wealth” and “Nau te rourou, naku te rourou ka ora te iwi” (With your food basket and my food basket, everyone will have enough). (van Hees, 2004, p86)

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Chapter 4

Conceptualising Language, Literacy and Learning as Sociocultural Practices

Abstract  In this chapter, we present our study’s conceptual framework for understanding language, literacy and learning. We do so against the backdrop of Fiji’s diverse and evolving cultural and linguistic context discussed in Chaps. 2 and 3 and in terms of Fiji’s early childhood curriculum framework, Na Noda Mataniciva. We explore language in terms of a functional view of language and relate this perspective to understanding children’s multilingual language and literacy practices in the communities of our study. Literacy is conceived in terms that situate literacy in children’s lifeworlds and broader cultural and linguistic settings. We relate learning to sociocultural and rights-based perspectives of seeing, understanding and supporting the literate child and literacy learner – recognising each child’s voice and agency and developing child-voiced strategies that foster authentic, culturally relevant and sustaining learning in our study. We close our chapter with an example of how we brought together the three elements of language, literacy and learning in a key action that emerged in the three communities of our study – that is, co-creating multilingual books with children and their families in their home and community settings.

Introduction In the previous chapter, we identified and discussed key messages from the research on language and literacy learning in multilingual settings that informed out study. Building on this review, this chapter sets out an account of our study’s conceptual framework. We begin this account with an encounter from our study with 4-year-old Kuini, who is making roti with her grandmother. We use this account to launch our exploration of how we can understand what is going on with a child’s language, literacy and learning through a holistic, sociocultural lens that frames our study.

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Harris et al., Children’s Multilingual Literacy, International Perspectives on Early Childhood Education and Development 31, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6587-8_4

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Making Roti Four-year-old Kuini lives in the iTaukei community we call Duavata. On this particular day, she is being carried by Annette, a Methodist youth who is also Kuini’s aunt working with the child to support her literacy learning in our study. They go for a walk around Kuini’s house and yard, seeking inspiration for a story they are going to create together with other family members and ourselves. In Bauan, Annette asks Kuini to talk about what she likes to do each day. When they come to the kitchen, they find Kuini’s Grandma Meli getting ready to make roti. Kuini tells Annette in Bauan that she likes to help her grandmother make roti. Annette asks in Bauan, ‘Would you like to write about that?’ and Kuini answers, ‘Yes!’ We sit down in the kitchen with Kuini and her Grandma who speaks a little English as well as Bauan. As Grandma Meli makes the roti, Kuini describes the steps for making it. Grandma Meli scaffolds Kuini with her Bauan words and her actions as they enact and discuss the roti-making process. We write down the words and take photos of the cooking process, with Kuini and her Grandma directing our attention to what is happening in each step. Thus began Kuini’s co-constructed book about making roti, written in Bauan and English, and accompanied by photos of Kuini making roti with her grandma. Here is the written text from Kuini’s book, in her own dictated Bauan words and in English, with the first and last pages from the book shown in Fig. 4.1: ‘[Page 1] Keirau buli roti kei Bu Mela. Grandma Mela and I make roti bread for our family.’ [Page 2] Matai, tokara na wai me katakata me bali kina na roti. First, we boil water and heat the roti plate. [Page 3] Karua, sova rua na bilo falawa qai sova na wai katakata ki na beseni falawa qai sova na wai katakata ki na beseni flour qai bakia me roti. Second, we fill a bowl with two cups of flour and add hot water to the flour to make dough. Then we roll the dough into small balls. [Page 4] Ni, oti ya a tekivu me bali saraga na roti. Next, we use a rolling pin to roll out the dough. [Page 5] Biuta saran a roti ki na tavutavu ni roti me buta. Then, we cook the roti bread on the roti plate. After completing her account of the steps for making roti, Kuini decides she will write herself, moving beyond observing and talking about making roti. She takes felt pen to paper as Arieta, another Methodist Youth working with her, sits next to her and writes ‘roti’ on Kuini’s page. Thus her last page reads: [Page 6] Niu kana roti jiko, au sa vola sara noqu talanoa niu buli roti! Finally, we eat the roti bread while I write about making roti bread!

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Arieta then asks Kuini if she’d like to continue writing. Kuini says, “Yes!” So, Arieta asks her what else she’d like to write about. Kuini shrugs her shoulders as if to say, “I don’t know.” Annette suggests, “Well, how about writing your name and some of the many things you showed us that were important to you as we walked around the house?” Kuini likes this idea, so Annette and Arieta take turns writing a word in front of Kuini that she then writes below their conventional printing. They begin by writing Kuini’s name, which Kuini then writes in her approximated way. Next, they write ‘aeroplane’ in Bauan – ‘waqa-vuka’, knowing she has a toy aeroplane that she loves playing with. Kuini takes the paper on which ‘waqa-vuka’ is written and walks into the living room to point to the word and the toy aeroplane that it represents. She then reads the word.

Kuini’s engagement is anchored in her familial, cultural and linguistic worlds where language, literacy and learning emerge as multimodal and intergenerational. Through language and literacy, Kuini and her family members constructed meaning alone and with one another in everyday events. In the exchanges Kuini and adults had here, their understandings of and experiences with the world were enriched. Thus our study was framed by holistic, sociocultural perspectives of language and literacy that recognize and sustain multiple language systems and pathways of being and becoming literate, as we explain in this chapter. These perspectives align with and support key early childhood education and care strategies in Fiji that are grounded in local cultures and languages and Fiji’s national kindergarten curriculum guidelines, Na Noda Mataniciva (Fiji Ministry of Education, 2009). More broadly, the sociocultural perspectives we use resonate with the Pacific’s contemporary approaches to offering holistic ways of knowing, doing, being and living together and to providing education environments that are inclusive of children’s lived experiences and their community and family settings in all their diverse richness (as we included in Chap. 2’s review). In presenting our study’s conceptual framework, and with ongoing reference to Kuini’s extract and Na Noda Mataniciva, this chapter provides conceptualisations of: 1. Language in terms of a functional view of language whereby language is defined as a resource for making meaning that is shaped by social and cultural contexts (Halliday & Hasan, 1985), which we relate to understanding and sustaining children’s language and literacy practices in our study 2. Literacy vis-à-vis a sociocultural model of literacy that situates literacy in children’s lifeworlds, shaped by children’s broader social, cultural and linguistic settings, which we connect with how children came to understand and foster literacy practices that are culturally sustaining

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Fig. 4.1  First and last pages from Kuini’s book about making roti

3. Learning according to sociocultural and rights-based perspectives of learning that relate to seeing, understanding and supporting the literate child, in which we recognise each child’s voice and agency and developed child-voiced strategies that foster authentic learning that is culturally relevant and sustaining We close our chapter with an example of how we brought together the above three elements of language, literacy and learning in a key action that emerged in our study – that is, co-creating multilingual books with children and their families in their home and community settings.

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A Functional View of Language Recalling that our study with children and their families and community members was undertaken in the three communities in Fiji, our central research question was, How can communities in Fiji that do not have access to early childhood services be supported to build sustainable local capacity to foster their preschool children’s literacy in their home languages and English? To investigate this question, it was vitally important that we attend to the language interactions that children have in their homes and communities, so as to find ways to build on these interactions as pathways to further language and literacy learning. For, as it has been argued, ‘language has its true being only in conversation, in the exercise of understanding between people … it is a living process in which a community of life is lived out’ (Gadamer, 1975, p. 404). Our study therefore draws on a systemic functional linguistics (SFL) perspective of language whereby language is defined as a resource for making meaning (Halliday & Hasan, 1985) – a semiotic or system of signs that carries meaning. In view of what is now understood about multilingualism and translanguaging, as we explored in Chap. 2, we conceptualise languages as repertoires of resources that multilingual people use and shuttle between. This shuttling between languages is at times seamless (Garc ́ıa, 2009) and is generally aligned with whom a person is communicating, what about and for what purpose (Axelrod & Cole, 2018; Bengochea et al., 2018; Gort, 2015; Gort & Sembiante, 2015; Kyratzis et al., 2009; Piker, 2013). As a resource for making meaning, language is organised as a meaning-making system – meaning being the impetus behind the evolution of human language and development of language in an individual’s lifetime (Lukin & Williams, 2004). More specifically, language is organised as a three-level system to fulfil the following three broad functions: • Using language to represent experiences and make sense of the world (experiential function of language). For example, at the outset of this chapter, we see 4-year-old Kuini using language to talk about aspects of her home life and how to make roti. • Using language to engage in interactions with others, to talk, to listen, to read, to write, and so on (interpersonal function of language). For example, Kuini uses language to interact with her Grandma Meli as she makes roti; and with Arieta, Annette and the researcher to talk about the cooking procedure. • Using language to create coherent text, whether the text is a casual face-to-face conversation, an informal letter, a quick email, a visual image, an advertisement, a written story, and so on (textual function of language). Text is defined as any meaningful stretch of language that is coherent, has unity of meaning and serves a social purpose (Halliday, 1975). For example, Kuini uses language to co-­ construct a spoken conversation about making roti and to co-create her ‘Making Roti’ book with others.

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This functional nature of language aligns with how Na Noda Mataniciva defines language: Language is the means by which individuals share ideas, and express emotions, thoughts and needs. It is through language that we come to know ourselves and each other and learn to participate in and contribute to our culturally diverse communities. Language is learned, and is used to understand and represent our life experiences as we interact and build relationships with family and members of our community. (Fiji Ministry of Education, 2009, p. 40)

Na Noda Mataniciva’s reference here to language as the means by which ‘individuals share ideas and express emotions, thoughts and needs’ and ‘we come to know ourselves and each other and learn to participate in and contribute to our culturally diverse communities’ resonates with the interpersonal function of language (Halliday & Hasan, 1985) whereby individuals project themselves onto the world and interact with others. Na Noda Mataniciva’s reference in the above extract to language as ‘the means by which individuals share ideas, and express emotions, thoughts and needs’ also connects with the experiential function (Halliday & Hasan, 1985) whereby language is used to represent ideas, emotions and experiences, as does the statement that language ‘is used to understand and represent our life experiences’. The textual function of language (Halliday & Hasan, 1985), whereby we create texts, spoken, written or in other modes, is not explicit in Na Noda Mataniciva’s statement about language. However, this function could be said to be implied in the above that implicates the production of texts as we represent our experiences and interact with others. The three functions occur simultaneously in language use after all, even though the textual function is not made explicit in Na Noda Mataniciva. In developing community approaches to supporting young children’s language, we took stock of and built upon these functions and how they are manifest in children’s daily lives. Key considerations included functions for which children and their families use language, and in what contexts, with whom, about what and for what purposes. Collecting data along these lines provided us with an evidence base on which to collaboratively build community approaches that were meaningfully and respectfully embedded in children’s day-to-day realities. The functional nature of language is further reflected in Na Noda Mataniciva’s six Foundation Areas of Learning and Development (FALD) that language cuts across: –– –– –– –– –– ––

Language, literacy and communication Learning to know Aesthetics, creativity and the arts Living and learning together Spiritual and moral development Physical development, health and well-being

For example, in the Learning to Know FALD, language is linked to ways of knowing, representing and thinking about the world around; and skills identified in Na Noda Mataniciva’s Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts FALD all invoke

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linguistic capabilities for realising these particular functions  – for example, language and literacy for participating in, using and decoding/encoding music; narrative literacy in drama; visual language and literacy in Art; language capabilities for seeing, appreciating and looking for beauty; environment care; and language of beauty and art appreciation. Therefore, we sought in our study to base community approaches on a breadth of experiences in children’s home and community contexts. We incorporated languages spoken in the community as well as languages relevant to children’s later education, participation and life chances. We viewed children’s language practices through a broad lens that encompassed multiple modalities of language (Brock & Harris, 2019; Kalantzis & Cope, 2012; New London Group, 1996), as reflected in Na Noda Mataniciva, using children’s language experiences and resources as pathways for further learning. The three functions of language are deeply embedded in social situations wherein language constructs and is constructed by situation. That is, language carries social information about the situation in which interactions occur. We show the relationship between the three functions of language (which we previously described) and context of situation in Fig. 4.2. This figure shows three variables that distinguish situations from one another and, according to Halliday and Hasan (1985): • What people are interacting about – subject matter or field – which connects with the experiential function of language. For example, the field in Kuini’s language encounter is about making roti. • The roles and relationships between the people in the interaction – tenor – which connects with the interpersonal function of language. For example, Kuini has a close relationship with her Grandma Meli, as she does with her aunt Annette – making her comfortable and supported in this situation as she engaged with others (ourselves) less familiar to her. • The part that language has in the interaction and what kind of language (spoken/ written) it is – mode – which connects with the textual function of language. For example, spoken language is central to Kuini’s language encounter, with the meaning of the spoken words heavily embedded in the actions and materials of making roti in a here-and-now situation. As she renders this experience as a written text, supported by others, she shifts to more written-like language that symbolically represents the experience through words and images that stand alone from the context in which the roti-making occurred. Together, field, tenor and mode constitute and differentiate social situations in which interactions occur, and the language choices people make in different situations. Children growing up to be multilingual have been found to make linguistic choices that align with whom children are with (tenor) and what about and for what purpose (field) (Axelrod & Cole, 2018; Bengochea et al., 2018; Gort, 2015; Gort & Sembiante, 2015; Kyratzis et al., 2009; Piker, 2013) – while also making multiple modal choices they have available to them to support their communication and construction of meaning in talking, writing, drawing and other semiotic modes (Alvarez, 2018; Bengochea et al., 2018; Gort, 2012; Kenner & Kress, 2003; Reyes, 2012).

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Interpersonal Function Using language to interact with others and project oneself into the world

Tenor Roles, status and relationships of those participating in the situation

Experiential Function Using language to represent and make sense of the world

Field What participants are engaged in as the subject matter of the situation

Textual Function Using language to create texts

Mode The part language plays in the situation and the channel of interaction used (e.g., spoken – written)

Fig. 4.2  Relationship between the three functions of language and context of situation. (After Halliday & Hasan, 1985)

Writing is not simply speech written down. SFL distinguishes between talking and writing modes as ‘different ways of saying … different modes for expressing linguistic meanings’ (Halliday & Hasan, 1985, p. 92). Key differences between spoken and written language are a matter of degree of difference rather than an ‘either/ or’ dichotomy. Consequently, in our study we think of spoken and written language in terms of a mode continuum from more spoken-like language to more written-like language (Halliday & Hasan, 1985; Painter, 1991). More spoken-like language is more embedded in the situation at hand, with information carried in the situation more than in the language; and language is more informal, dialogic, here-and-now, shared context (context-dependent), concrete, everyday terms, specific meanings  – as occurred in Kuini’s interactions as her Grandma made roti. Such language tends to be characterised by prosodic features (i.e., intonation, rhythm and phrasing) and paralinguistic qualities (i.e., voice qualities, tempo, volume, facial expression, gesture and body language) – and much that is anchored in the situation and shared amongst participants goes verbally unsaid. Prosodic features are absent in written language, where punctuation instead carries some of the function of talk’s prosodic features; and because a written text has to be able to stand alone, much more information is required to be encoded into the text that might otherwise be unspoken in a face-to-face spoken situation. More written-like language is more separated from situation, with information carried by the language itself, with language being more formal, monologic, there-­ and-­ then, decontextualized (stand-alone), abstract, technical terms, generalised meanings – as rendered in Kuini’s co-created book about making roti, supported by photos to carry additional information and context. Written language tends to be

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more lexically dense than spoken language – written language carries more words that have content meaning (as opposed to structural words like ‘is’ and ‘there’), whereas spoken language tends to be more grammatically convoluted with half-­ finished sentences, interruptions, things not said but understood between participants and so on. Written text is able to stand alone, as there is not usually the opportunity to add clarification or explanation once the text has left the writer’s hands and is in the hands of the reader/viewer. In other words, the information in a written text has to be more or less completely carried by the language in the text. The degree to which information is carried within and not outside the text is a mark of how much like spoken or written language a text is. This language mode continuum guided our work with children in navigating pathways from their spoken to their written modes and between their different languages  – such as from Kuini talking with us about making roti in Bauan to co-­ creating a book with her about making roti in Bauan and English. Navigating this pathway was supported by photographic images of making roti that bridged the spoken and written situations – a bridge that transported Kuini from the here-and-­ now of making roti to the there-and-then of making roti. The mode continuum thus framed how we thought about seeking ways to boost children’s oral language in ways that involved more literate forms of oral language, as discussed in the previous chapter (Foster-Cohen, 2004; van Hees, 2004). The language continuum also challenged us to extend its spoken/written language focus to consider possibilities in relation to texts such as image, music, song, dance and multimodal texts that emerge in children’s community settings and which are included in Na Noda Mataniciva  – as well as the complexities of shuttling between languages that may or may not have a written counterpart to their spoken modes. Our approach to using the language mode continuum aligns with Na Noda Mataniciva in terms of the document’s explicit connection between literacy and development in language and other forms of expression: Literacy has its roots in language and in the ability to communicate … Babies’ and young children’s many ways of communicating (words, gestures, drawings, movement etcetera) are pathways to becoming literate adults, and should be valued and supported both at home and school. (Fiji Ministry of Education, 2009, p. 40)

Conceptualising Literacy as Sociocultural Practice Literacy can be defined narrowly or broadly. Defined too narrowly, literacy becomes artificially fragmented and disengaging for young children. Defined too broadly, literacy becomes everything and nothing much at all. Taking a socioculturally inclusive perspective of literacy, we define literacy as social practice that involves meaningful encounter with text to fulfil purpose and construct meaning. Defined thus, we understand literacy to be situated in people’s day-to-day lives, shaped by their social, cultural, historical and linguistic contexts.

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We define text as any meaningful stretch of language situated in and shaped by context (Halliday & Hasan, 1985). We extend this definition to include visual text, texts of music, song and dance and texts that combine several modes such as speech, image and sound (e.g., film, television, the Internet, computer games, and other kinds of multimedia texts) (Brock & Harris, 2019; Kalantzis & Cope, 2012; New London Group, 1996) – for literacy (or as some would say, ‘literacy/ies’) takes various forms and serves various functions that take on particular significance relevant to cultural context – such as the many rich multimodal literacy practices found in Fiji’s communities. We thus recognised the various ways in which texts occurred in children’s homes and communities while acknowledging the kinds of texts that are privileged in Fiji’s policies and curricula for preschool and school. In defining literacy this way, we were careful to foreground children’s literate agency and use of cultural resources (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990; González, Moll, & Amanti, 2005; Thomson, 2000). Portraying literacy as social practice without foregrounding the children who engage in this practice can alienate children’s identity and agency as literate people and the place literacy has in their lives. Therefore, we position children at the heart of our framework. Resonating with a multiliteracies approach in our study, we (1) privileged children’s agency and voice; (2) situated our study in children’s lifeworlds; and (3) afforded opportunities for critical framing of ideas about children’s texts for real audiences and purposes (Brock & Harris, 2019). As literate people and literacy learners, children in our study were recognised as (1) interpreters and composers of meaning; (2) purposeful users and producers of texts; (3) decoders and encoders of texts; and (4) critical thinkers about texts. We derive these four roles from the four resources model (4RM) (Freebody & Luke, 2003) wherein these roles are elaborated as follows. Interpreting and composing meaning (text participant practices) ranges from literal to more interpretive meanings. For example, Kuini constructed a coherent literal meaning in her book about making roti. Her meaning was deeply embedded in her lived experiences and languages, with her photos open to interpretation in terms of what they show and how they relate to the words in her book. Kuini exercised agency as a meaning-maker, choosing the words and ideas she spoke, dictated, read and wrote – scaffolded by the people in Kuini’s life who knew her well and whom she trusted. Purposefully using and producing texts to fulfil social and cultural functions (text user practices) are founded on understanding the purposes, organisation and language features of different text types or genres. For example, Kuini co-constructed with her Grandma Meli and others a running procedural commentary of how to make roti. With the support of other expert text users who were present, she co-­ created her book with deliberately sequenced words and photos, which fulfilled the social purpose of a procedural text to show how to perform particular actions. Kuini assumed ownership of her text and its purpose that developed in an organically purposeful way. Decoding and encoding texts by cracking the codes of texts and putting codes into texts (text de/encoder practices respectively) involve the knowledge and use of

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symbol systems to crack the codes of texts to figure out what a text is saying and to transfer codes into texts to communicate meaning to others. For example, Kuini’s book draws on the symbol systems of two different languages, plus the symbol system of visual text, to convey meaning and fulfil purpose. In co-creating her book with others, Kuini understood that her life experiences could be written in words and pictures and read by others. Moreover, she approximated ‘aeroplane’ in writing – a word important to her that was anchored in her reality – and made connections between the printed word ‘airplane’ and the toy airplane in her living room. Critically thinking about texts (text analyst practices) entails understanding texts represent particular perspectives, voices and experiences and reflecting on how a text positions self as reader/viewer/listener or how one’s own text positions others. For example, Kuini’s understanding that her choice of ideas, words and images foregrounded and made visible to others what was important to her in her life was implicit in how she deliberated upon the choices of what to include in her co-created ‘Making Roti’ book. Taking these four roles together, 4RM advances the argument that these roles are necessary to, but not each on their own sufficient for, effectively functioning in local and global literate societies. Therefore, the community approaches we collectively developed in our study required a holistic and comprehensive approach to recognising and nurturing these four roles in children. Children develop and enact capabilities for fulfilling these literacy roles in their lifeworlds where children’s social, cultural, historic and linguistic settings shape how they are and become literate (González et al., 2005; Harris et al., 2006; Jones Díaz & Harvey, 2007; Thomson, 2000) – as pictured in Fig. 4.3 and clearly seen in this chapter’s example of Kuini’s text about making roti, an activity Kuini saw her Grandma Meli do on a daily basis, embedded in the family’s cultural reality. Socially, Kuini enjoyed a close relationship with her Grandma and her aunt Annette, who were able to scaffold her engagement. Grandma Meli spoke Bauan and English, whereas Kuini spoke very little English. Bauan was both the language of Kuini’s home and the village of Duavata. Hence in Kuini’s book, we honoured, valued and prioritised her primary home language. Thus in our study, we collectively developed community approaches to children’s literacy based first and foremost on generating shared understanding amongst researchers and participants of what literacy is and what it looks like in a community setting. It also was essential in our study to recognise the many cultural guises that children’s literacy capabilities, experiences and voices took in their homes and communities  – and acknowledge and build on children’s ways of being and doing literacy. This recognition ensured that the strategies we collectively developed in communities to foster children’s literacy, acknowledged and built on children’s resources, and were entrenched in their lifeworlds. This approach resonates with Na Noda Mataniciva, which under ‘Language, Literacy and Communication’ states: Literacy … involves understanding and using the symbol systems of a culture – not just the alphabet and number systems, but also environmental and cultural signs and symbol. (Fiji Ministry of Education, 2009, p. 40)

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Fig. 4.3  A sociocultural view of literacy

Plainly these symbol systems are not seen as objects of literacy and learning in and of themselves, but as systems to be used and understood in relevant contexts of meaning and use. Literacy involves multiple language and knowledge systems and modes of expression across diverse communities, which provides myriad pathways of being and becoming literate. As Jones Díaz and Harvey (2007, p. 212) potently argue: Models of languages learning and literacies which follow a normative, English-only, Western developmental pathway, fail to respect the multiple language and knowledge systems of multilingual and multicultural communities.

This view resonates with the statement under ‘Language, Literacy and Communication’ in Na Noda Mataniciva: Literacy learning begins at birth and continues throughout life. (Fiji Ministry of Education, 2009, p. 40)

Literacy learning therefore is not seen to be the prerogative or sole domain of educational institutions – as also acknowledged in Na Noda Mataniciva: [Children’s] pathways into literacy can be very diverse, depending on the social and cultural practices children experience in their families and communities. Some children are exposed to a lot of print from an early age, others grow up in more oral cultures where listening and talking are priorities. Many children in Fiji are also exposed to multiple languages, dialects and symbol systems. (Fiji Ministry of Education, 2009, p. 40)

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Therefore, in our study’s collective development of community approaches, we recognised and built upon literacy in the various forms and modes it took in children’s play and other situations in their social and cultural settings. This included aesthetics, creativity and arts experiences and explorations of the world around in which preschool children engage in their home and community settings – and using and further developing the symbol systems that preschool children use and engage with in their contexts and for their purposes. In terms of children as readers and writers, Na Noda Mataniciva refers to ‘Becoming a reader’ and ‘Becoming a writer’ as two key sub-strands. Under ‘Becoming a reader’, there is an emergent emphasis on readers as code-breakers and meaning-makers. There is a much less explicit focus on using texts for real-life purposes and no mention of readers as ones who exercise critical thinking and reflection. Under ‘Becoming a writer’, there is again an emphasis on writers as makers of code, encoding practices, with writers as meaning makers invoked to some extent. There is one example that implies using texts for real-life purposes, and there is no reference or implicit allusion to writers as ones who critically reflect. Provocation these insights into Mataniciva gave us in our work with communities included our consideration of: • How children as readers and writers are viewed in their home and community settings and how children view themselves • If preschool children are seen as readers and writers in their here-and-now or as becoming readers and writers later, such as when they start school • If reading and writing are viewed as activities children do already or will learn to do some time in the future such as when they go to school. Exploring and documenting the roles children have in their literacy lives was critical to developing well-informed and contextualised approaches in our study. This documentation included activities children initiate; texts they chose or created; the kinds of literacy they incorporated in their play; and the kinds of literacy they noticed and engaged with in their day-to-day settings. The sociocultural model of literacy pictured in Fig. 4.3 provided the basis for the study’s Literacy Mapping Framework1 (Harris, 2016), shown in Table 4.1. This framework afforded tools for engaging with diversity and developing relationships with children whereby we come to know who children are and their sense of literate identity and belonging. Thus we recognised, acknowledged and built on children’s literacy resources and funds of knowledge (i.e., children’s ways of being and doing literacy). We also used this framework to map how literacy and related capabilities are portrayed in Fiji’s early childhood education policy and curriculum documents, such as we capture in this chapter and in Chap. 5. So doing would help enable alignment between Na Noda Mataniciva and the community approaches.

1  The Literacy Mapping Framework was purposely developed by Pauline Harris for this ADRAS #66394 Project and included in 2014 annual report to the funding body, the Australia Department of Foreign Affairs and Trading.

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Table 4.1  Literacy mapping framework Tenet Application Literacy is defined as encounter with text to Identify and describe the nature and prominence make and construct meaning of encounters with texts that are provided or recommended in policy and curriculum and those that are evidenced in children’s community settings Text is any meaningful stretch of language Identify, categorise and describe the kinds of texts situated in and shaped by context (Halliday selected and prioritised in policy and curriculum and those that are evidenced and valued in & Hasan, 1985) and includes written, children’s communities spoken, visual and multimodal texts Explore and document the role children have in Children are agents in their own learning their literacy lives (e.g., what activities do they and their literacy identities shape and are initiate; texts they choose or create; the kinds of shaped by what they come to experience literacy they incorporate in their play; the kinds of and learn about literacy literacy they notice and engage with in their day-to-day settings; etc.) Examine the roles that ECE policy and curriculum afford children Contexts of situation and culture shape how Explore and document children’s contexts of situation in which they engage with literacy or in children are and become literate across which there is potential for such engagement, diverse settings noting setting, what the situation is about, who is involved and relationships amongst participants; and the modes of language/kinds of texts that are used Examine the pedagogic situations that are described or recommended in ECE policy and curriculum Identify and categorise literacy practices selected Four literacy practices distinguish literacy and prioritised in Fiji’s ECE policy and curriculum from other forms of social practice and documents which are necessary to, but not each on Identify and categorise literacy practices their own sufficient for, effectively evidenced and valued in Fiji’s children’s functioning in local and global literate societies (Freebody & Luke, 2003; Luke & community settings Freebody, 1990):   Using and producing texts to fulfil social and cultural function (text user practices)   Making and composing meaning (text participant practices)   Cracking the codes of texts and putting codes into texts (text de/encoder practices)   Critically reflecting on texts (text analyst practices)

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 ociocultural and Rights-Based Perspectives of How S Language and Literacy Are Learned Given that in our study we viewed language as a resource for making meaning in context for real-life purposes – as previously discussed in this chapter – it follows that language development involves learning how to mean and that such learning is shaped by context (Halliday, 1975): The intention to mean – to influence and interact with others and to explore and build up a sense of one’s environment and one’s world – is present from birth. It is developed in the very earliest relationships with parents, in particular, and it is this intention to mean that actually motivates young children to begin to use language. (Christie, 1984, p. 54)

One of the tasks of the language learner is to learn to use language effectively and appropriately across different social situations – a life-long process indeed. Young children learn context-appropriate language through their day-to-day interactions in the real world, as well as in their pretend play where they act out various roles and situations (Harris, 2009). In the case of Kuini’s encounter at the outset of this chapter, she is learning and using language in appropriate ways to make meaning about making roti as she talks and writes about this experience, shifting mode appropriately from the spoken to the written and visual text as she does so. Consistent with their social framing of language, SFL theorists tend to take social interactionist, or sociocultural views of language learning (Painter, 1991; Vygotsky, 1978). We, too, adopted a sociocultural view of language learning in this study. We acknowledged the importance of children modelling and observing language. At the same time, we recognised the contributions that interactions make to shaping and supporting children’s language in sociocultural settings, relevant in our study to exploring interactions as well as other environmental influences on children’s language and literacy learning. From this sociocultural perspective of learning, we also honoured children’s agency and voice as learners and participants, including children’s right to take part in decisions and actions affecting their lives (Article 12, United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989). This view informed our collective work in co-­ creating strategies and materials with the children and their families that incorporated children’s words, languages, ideas, experiences and imaginings. An example of how we did this is evident in the co-creation of Kuini’s procedural commentary text after she had been involved in making roti (seen at the beginning of this chapter). Through this approach, we developed strategies with children and families that fostered children’s multilingual literacy through co-creating texts with children in their words and languages about their ideas and worlds; co-constructing learning with children; co-creating and sharing reading of their multilingual books; and scaffolding children’s participation in experiences and interactions in which these strategies were used and in which we encouraged children’s ideas and initiatives. By inviting the children to use all their linguistic, modal and environmental resources to create their books with us, we sought to (1) create bilingual zones of proximal development (Moll, 2014) for the children (as discussed in Chap. 2) and

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(2) allow children’s literacy knowledges specific to particular languages to inform and transform one another (after Dura ́n, 2018). Being and becoming literate is nothing if not identity work, as we discussed in Chap. 2. Children’s development of literate identity concerns not only what children learn as literate people but also how children engage, in what they engage and how they self-identify as literate persons across time and place. Thus we define literate identity as a combination of: views of and attitudes towards literacy and engaging in literate activities; self-efficacy; personal literacy histories (e.g., interests, experiences); and aspirations for self as literate person and how they are perceived by others as such (Wagner, 2018). To recap key points on literate identity from the previous chapter, iterate identities influence how children transact with texts (Alvermann, 2001; Hall, 2010, 2012; Harris, 2016; Johnston & Rogers, 2002; Lysaker, 2006; McCarthey, 2002; McCarthey & Moje, 2002; Rogers & Elias, 2012). Children from an early age gather influences from their experiences and interactions that shape their understanding of who they are as literate people and develop concurrently with other literacy competences (Harris, 2016; Wagner, 2018). Multilingual children’s reading identities are shaped by how they understand reading in relation to their multilingualism and multilingual literacy (Kabuto, 2010). Thus the work we did with the children was shaped by and relevant to children’s enactment of their identities as literate people. We were mindful of coming to understand who children are and how they and others see themselves as readers, as writers and as literate people. For example, in Kuini’s roti-making encounter, her literate identity is being shaped by what she is experiencing and learning about story-making  – such as learning that writing can be enjoyable, meaningful and relevant. At the outset and with the encouragement and support of others in this encounter, Kuini engages with interest and attention in reconstructing an everyday event deeply embedded in her world – thereby having opportunity to see that writing can provide a means to share and validate aspects of one’s life. She appears to self-identify as a literate person insofar as she feels that making a story and writing are things she can do or learn to do, with her trust placed in those who are supporting her in this co-created event. She shows favourable dispositions to taking part, seen in her deep engagement and what she further initiates of her own accord as follow-on. Her self-efficacy is evident in this desire, scaffolded by others who are interacting with her, regarding Kuini positively and conveying high expectations for Kuini as a literate person. Our approach to our work was congruent with Na Noda Mataniciva’s portrayal of supporting language and literacy learning through the guidance of more expert others, such as through others’ interactions with children: Literacy is best supported when adults read or tell stories to children, sing songs, play games, encourage good listening practices, converse with children, help them recognise signs and symbols in the environment, and when children play with letters, dictate stories about their drawings and paintings, and have many opportunities to express themselves. (Fiji Ministry of Education, 2009, p. 40)

Making Multilingual Books with Children – Our Conceptual Framework in Action

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Moreover, Na Noda Mataniciva states  (2009, pp.  40–41), ‘Language is learned’, acknowledging that ‘children are all different and develop and learn at their own rate.’. Outcomes therefore are suggested as guidelines only, stepped from ‘about 3 years of age’ through to ‘the end of Kindergarten’. A broad sense of communities, diversity and cultural sensibilities are inherent throughout Na Noda Mataniciva, as is the explicit encouragement of children learning in their first languages and acknowledging ‘culturally diverse communities’ and ‘cultural appropriateness’ (Fiji Ministry of Education, p. 40). Situations implicated in Na Noda Mataniciva for supporting children’s language include taking part in nursery rhymes, action songs, chants and mekes; conversations with turn-taking; listening in sustained and culturally appropriate ways; active engagement with stories and information texts; following instructions; self-­ expression through drawing, painting, writing and talking; interactions with others in shared language/dialect; observing others as writers; story-writing and dictating; and symbolic and socio-dramatic play.

 aking Multilingual Books with Children – Our Conceptual M Framework in Action In this section, we illustrate how we brought together the three elements of our conceptual framework  – language, literacy and learning  – with an example of a key action in our study. This action was co-creating multilingual books with children in and about their life worlds, using their home languages and English. This action was informed by our initial data in our study’s three communities, wherein we discovered communities’ desire to have more books available to their children that were culturally and linguistically authentic. (We further explain how we discovered this desire in Chap. 5) The conceptual framing of this action is illustrated in Fig. 4.4, wherein we engaged with and further promoted the literate child. In keeping with a sociocultural and rights-based view of learning, we co-created books with and by children in ways that privileged children’s voices and agency by: –– Using children’s words and languages to depict their ideas and experiences in their lived and imagined worlds, detailing aspects of their past, present or future lives – such as we saw when Kuini co-constructed her procedural commentary on making roti with Grandma Mela, Arieta, Annette and ourselves –– Engaging with children and their families on an individual basis, supported by mentors who provided language mediation and translations (We further explain the role of community mentors in the following chapter.) –– Building on children’s ideas, experiences and imaginings for creating these books; their existing literacy capacities and experiences; and their energy and motivation to take part –– Drawing on families’ and communities’ existing resources and practices, such as making roti and all the material that goes with this entrenched domestic activity

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Fig. 4.4  Conceptual framing of co-creating multilingual books with children

The co-creation of these multilingual books engaged children in using language as a resource to make meaning for real-life functions. For example, as we’ve seen, Kuini, used language to represent the experience of making roti, detailing her representation with the naming of actions (e.g., kana, ‘eat’), objects (e.g., wai, ‘water’) and people (e.g., Bu Mela, ‘Grandma Mela’) involved in this roti-making activity. As Kuini did so, she used language to engage in interactions with her Grandma Meli as the roti was being made; and with Arieta, Annette and the researcher to talk about the cooking procedure – the adults’ interactions scaffolding Kuini’s verbal and later written construction of what was happening. Both these constructions were coherent in their meaning and structure, showing Kuini’s supported use of language to create spoken text and written/visual text across two languages. The use of linking words like matai (‘first’), karua (‘second’), ni (‘next’), biuta (‘then’) and niu (‘finally’) in her written text modelled ways of making a text flow, especially in a procedural commentary such as her book. Co-creating multilingual books with children necessarily involved children in the four literacy practices that we identified in Figs.  4.3 and 4.4. Children made meaning as they composed their texts, fulfilled their books’ respective social

References

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purposes, encoded their texts in words and pictures – noting connections between spoken and written words, between languages and between words and images – and critically reflected on what they had created. For example, Kuini engaged in all these literacy practices in the construction of her ‘Making Roti’ book, as we’ve seen in this chapter. She engaged as a: –– Text user as she co-constructed a procedural commentary of how to make roti, thereby fulfilling the social purpose of such a text to describe events in the order they occurred –– Text participant who composed detailed meaning about the making of the roti –– Text encoder who drew on the symbol systems of two different languages, plus the symbol system of visual text, to convey meaning and fulfil purpose –– Text analyst who made choices about what in her life to make visible to others in her conversation and subsequent book This organic, co-constructed, child-voiced action was firmly situated in children’s lifeworlds, shaped by their social, cultural, historical, and linguistic contexts. To make the books, we used existing resources in the community, as well as cameras, paper and printing resources provided by the study. We addressed families’ desire to have these books written in English as well as their home languages.; and we were responsive to families’ and our own observations that children were disengaged with rote-learning exercises and books that did not reflect their interests, cultures and languages. Thus our approach moved away from imported, monolingual English materials that we found in communities, to embrace children’s, families’ and communities’ social, cultural and linguistic realities. How more specifically we went about this co-creation of books and other actions, along with the broader research methodological context in which we did this study, are detailed in the next chapter – with rich descriptions provided in our three case study chapters that follow thereafter.

References Alvarez, A. (2018). Drawn and written funds of knowledge: A window into emerging bilingual children’s experiences and social interpretations through their written narratives and drawings. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 18(1), 97–128. Alvermann, D.  E. (2001). Reading adolescents’ reading identities: Looking back to see ahead. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 44(8), 676–690. Axelrod, Y., & Cole, M. W. (2018). ‘The pumpkins are coming. . .vienen las calabazas. . .That sounds funny’: Translanguaging practices of young emergent bilinguals. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 18(1), 129–153. Bengochea, I., Sembiante, S.  F., & Gort, M. (2018). An emergent bilingual child’s multimodal choices in sociodramatic play. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 18(1), 38–70. Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J.C. (1990). Reproduction in education, society and culture. Trans. Nice & Richared. London: Sage.

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Brock, C., & Harris, P. (2019). Using multiliteracies as a lens to explore young children’s engagement with multimodal texts. In A. Woods & B. Exley (Eds.), Literacies in Early Childhood. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Christie, F. (1984). The functions of language, preschool language learning and the transition to print. In Children Writing (pp. 53–66). Geelong: Deakin University Press. Dura ́n, L. (2018). Understanding young children’s everyday biliteracy: “Spontaneous” and “scientific” influences on learning. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 18(1), 71–96. Fiji Ministry of Education. (2009). Na Noda Mataniciva: Kindergarten Curriculum Guidelines for the Fiji Islands. Ministry of Education National Heritage Culture & Arts Youth & Sports. Suva, Fiji: Republic of the Fiji Islands. Foster-Cohen, S. (2004). Themes and dreams in bilingual and immersion education in Aotearoa/ New Zealand. In Language Acquisition Research Papers presented at New Zealand Ministry of Education Forum (pp. 173–181). Wellington, New Zealand: Government of New Zealand. Freebody, P., & Luke, A. (2003). Literacy as engaging with new forms of life: The 'Four Roles' model. In G.  Bull & M. Anstey (Eds.), The Literacy Lexicon (2nd ed., pp.  54-61). Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson Education. Gadamer, H.G. (1975). Truth and method. Trans. G. Barden & J. Cumming. New York: Continuum. Garc ́ıa, O. (2009). Bilingual education in the 21st century: A global perspective. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. González, N., Moll, L., & Amanti, C. (2005). Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities, and classrooms. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Gort, M. (2012). Code-switching patterns in the writing-related talk of young emergent bilinguals. Journal of Literacy Research, 44(1), 45–75. Gort, M. (Ed.). (2015). Translanguaging. Special topics issue of International. Multilingual Research Journal, 9, 1. Gort, M., & Sembiante, S.  F. (2015). Navigating hybridized language learning spaces through translanguaging pedagogy: Dual language preschool teachers’ languaging practices in support of emergent bilingual children’s performance of academic discourse. International Multilingual Research Journal, 9(1), 7–25. Hall, L. A. (2010). The negative consequences of becoming a good reader: Identity theory as a lens for understanding struggling readers, teachers, and reading instruction. Teachers College Record, 112(7), 1792–1829. Hall, L. A. (2012). Rewriting identities: Creating spaces for students and teachers to challenge the norms of what it means to be a reader in school. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 55(5), 368–373. Halliday, M. A. K. (1975). Learning how to mean: Explorations in the development of language. London: Edward Arnold. Halliday, M. A. K., & Hasan, R. (1985). Language, context and text: Aspects of language in a social-semiotic perspective. Geelong: Deakin University Press. Harris, P. (2009). Language learning in the baby and toddler years. Terrigal, NSW: David Barlow Publishing. Harris, P. (2016). In dialogue with children: Exploring children’s views of literacy practices in their early childhood settings. In C. McLachlan & A. Arrow (Eds.), Literacy in the early years: Reflections on international research and practice (pp. 21–41). Singapore: Springer. Harris, P., Turbill, J., Fitzsimmons, P., & McKenzie, B. (2006). Reading in the primary school years. Melbourne: Thomson. Johnston, P. H., & Rogers, R. (2002). Early literacy development: The case for “informed assessment”. In S. B. Neuman & D. K. Dickinson (Eds.), Handbook of early literacy research (Vol. 1, pp. 377–389). New York, NY: The Guilford Press. Jones Díaz, C., & Harvey, N. (2007). Other words, other worlds: Bilingual identities and literacy. In L. Makin, C. Jones Diaz, & C. McLachlan (Eds.), Literacies in childhood: Changing views, challenging practice (pp. 203–216). Sydney: Elsevier.

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Kabuto, B. (2010). Code-switching during parent-child reading interactions: Taking multiple theoretical perspectives. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 10(2), 131–157. Kalantzis, M., & Cope, B. (2012). Literacies. Port Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Kenner, C., & Kress, G. (2003). The multisemiotic resources of biliterate children. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 3(2), 179–202. Kyratzis, A., Tang, Y.-T., & Koymen, S.  B. (2009). Codes, code-switching, and context: Style and footing in peer group bilingual play. Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication, 28(2–3), 265–290. Luke, A., & Freebody, P. (1990). Literacies programs: Debates and demands in cultural context. Prospect: Australian Journal of TESOL, 5(7), 7–16. Lukin, A., & Williams, G. (2004). Emerging language. In G. Williams & A. Lukin (Eds.), The development of language: Functional perspectives on species and language (pp.  1–14). London: Continuum. Lysaker, J. T. (2006). Young children’s readings of wordless picture books: What’s ‘self’ got to do with it? Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 6(1), 33–55. McCarthey, S. J. (2002). Students’ identities and literacy learning. New York: Routledge. McCarthey, S.  J., & Moje, E.  B. (2002). Identity matters. Reading Research Quarterly, 37(2), 228–238. Moll, L. C. (2014). L.S. Vygotsky and education. New York: Routledge. New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66, 60–92. Painter, C. (1991). Learning the mother tongue (2nd ed.). Geelong: Deakin University Press. Piker, R. (2013). Understanding influences of play on second language learning: A microethnographic view in one head start preschool classroom. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 11(2), 184–200. Reyes, I. (2012). Biliteracy among children and youths. Reading Research Quarterly, 47(3), 307–327. Rogers, R., & Elias, M. (2012). Storied selves: A critical discourse analysis of young children’s literate identifications. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 12(3), 259–292. Thomson, P. (2000). Neighbourhood schools and the new poverty: Education dis/advantage in changing times and places. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. United Nations. (1989). United Nations convention on the rights of the child. Retrieved from http:// www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crc.aspx van Hees, J. (2004). Bilingual partnerships at the interface: Classroom, Whänau and community-­ based language and learning, for linguistically and culturally diverse learners. In Language acquisition research papers presented at New Zealand Ministry of Education forum (pp. 83–117). Wellington: New Zealand Ministry of Education. Vygotsky, L.S. (1978).  Mind in society:  The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wagner, C. L. (2018). Being bilingual, being a reader: Prekindergarten dual language learners’ reading identities. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 18(1), 5–37.

Chapter 5

Conducting Research as Transformative Encounter in Cross-Cultural Collaborations Abstract  In this chapter, we describe our research team, sites and participants and the study’s 3-year critical participatory action research approach (CPAR) (Kemmis et  al., The action research planner: doing critical participatory action research. Springer, Singapore, 2014). The action research planner: doing critical participatory action research. Springer, Singapore, 2014). This approach enabled participants and university researchers alike to engage as co-investigators and optimised consequence and sustainability through strategic research design, partnerships and communication and engagement. We explicitly link this CPAR approach to how we define community capacity in this study and to key considerations for building capacity within a CPAR framework. Research sites and communities are described in terms of: the three communities and the children and families in each community who took part; the community mentors who provided us with intercultural mediation and language translations in each community; and the early childhood stakeholders we interviewed. Descriptions of the study’s in-country research partners and external reference group, and the roles these people played in the study are also included. Accounts of data collection and analysis procedures are provided in relation to: dialogic encounters with children and their families and other community members and leaders in the participating communities; participant observations in commuities, artefact collection in communities; stakeholder interviews and document analysis of key policies and other related materials. Measures we took to ensure the study’s trustworthiness and ethics are explained. Throughout the chapter, we highlight and explore the complexities of conducting a cross-cultural study in an overseas context. Drawing on examples from our study, we show how we worked with these complexities in collaboration with our co-investigators, community mentors and research partners.

Introduction The central research question of our study is: How can communities in Fiji that do not have access to early childhood services be supported to build sustainable local capacity to foster their preschool children’s literacy in their home languages and English? © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Harris et al., Children’s Multilingual Literacy, International Perspectives on Early Childhood Education and Development 31, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6587-8_5

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Children in the Indo-Fijian cane-growing community of Dovubaravi were gathered around a book they had co-created with the assistance of other children, family and community members and researchers from this study. The name of the book was Teen Bakri, translated from Fiji-Hindi to Bauan as Tolu Na Me and to English as The Three Goats. All three languages featured in the book’s written text, provided by adult native speakers’ renditions of the tale in line with the photographic images in the storyboard. The creation of this book grew from preschool-aged Saanvi’s engagement with her grandmother’s oral telling of a Fiji-Hindi version of ‘Three Billy-­ Goats Gruff’. Saanvi eagerly participated and joined in the story’s recurring refrain. Grandparents telling stories to children were a common family practice in this community. When it came time to create the book, the community mentors and researchers negotiated the pragmatics of the activity in advance, asking the mothers to remind the children of the story. One mother found an animated YouTube version of the story in shudh Hindi. Photographs subsequently were taken with the children to illustrate the story for inclusion in the book. Three neighbouring families’ children directed the researchers photographing the goats and the grass. This direction involved deciding what to photograph and setting up the scenes to photograph. Before starting the photography, one of our Dovubaravi community mentors retold the story in Fiji Hindi to the children and the researchers talked, with the mentor’s translation support, about what photos we needed to make for the book. We collectively agreed we would need photos of dry grass, green grass and three goats. The children, with their mothers coming along, then led us to the best shots of abundant dry grass, then to green grass by the water tank and finally to the area where the goats were grazing. We took photos of all these places. Then, the preschool-aged grandchildren of Chinna – Warsha and Neharika – heard about the story from various people within their extended family. Chinna was one of our community mentor’s brothers, who with his six grandchildren and their parents and grandmother lived next door to the mentor. Neharika and Warsha, cousins, lived in adjacent homes in a family compound, within a series of adjacent compounds each inherited by one of their grandfathers’ siblings. The families are of Tamil heritage, but only speak Fiji-Hindi at home. Their fathers were tradesmen, and Warsha’s mother worked as a beautician in a nearby town, while Neharika’s mother cared for the six cousin-­ siblings, aged between 1 and 7 years. The children’s days were structured with routines, including short periods of English language conversation and instruction. Neharika’s mother read them English language stories from several carefully protected children’s books. English language learning and school success were strongly valued across Neharika and Warsha’s extended family, with one great uncle, a retired teacher, and Neharika’s maternal grandmother, a kindergarten teacher.

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These children created the troll mask with their grandfather – a prop to be used for the dramatic re-enactment, and photographing, of the remaining sections of the story. The community mentor led us all, including Warsha and Neharika and their two older brothers, to the appropriate bridge, knowing what bridge to choose as she had grown up in the area, and decided it was physically safe to take the photos. We took photos there, with decisions of what and how to take these shots being collaboratively made with the children, the mentor and us. We chose a set of original photos, checking with the mentor about goat genders for Daddy goat and Mummy goat, which were then organised and Photoshopped to create a storyboard in PowerPoint to fit the story’s requirements. One of our community mentors with our support added the Fiji-Hindi text to the photo-storyboard, guided by the photos. Thus, the multilingual children’s book, ‘The Three Goats’, a re-telling of ‘Three Billy Goats Gruff’ and a co-creation with children and their families and community members, was made.

Supporting communities to build sustainable local capacity to foster their preschool children’s literacy in their home languages and English required a collective, participatory, intergenerational approach. We situated this approach within each community’s social, cultural, linguistic, historical and material settings. In so doing, children’s, families’ and other community members’ voice, agency and ownership in building capacity were promoted. The ‘Three Goats’ vignette below typifies this approach in our study, thus setting the stage for this chapter in which we detail our approach to conducting research as a transformative encounter in cross-cultural collaborations: This ‘Three Goats’ vignette illustrates the nature of the work we collectively did in the three communities of our study on a key activity that emerged as a high priority in all three communities in our study  – that is, the co-creation of children’s multilingual books, created from children’s ideas and experiences in their words, languages and images (as explained in Chap. 4 Arising from our central research question, our four subsidiary research questions were: 1. What are the literacy development contexts for preschool children in communities in Fiji that do not have access to preschools? 2. What are the enablers and constraints that impact on community capacity to support their preschool children’s literacy learning? 3. What local resources and strategies can be used to foster preschool children’s literacy in their home languages and English in communities in Fiji that do not have access to preschools? 4. What strategies are effective in developing local capacity to support preschool children’s literacy development in their home languages and English?

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How we investigated these questions is described in the remainder of this chapter, in which we explain: 1 . The project’s team and the roles team members played in the study. 2. The project’s research sites and participants in terms of the three Fiji communities and the children and families in each community who took part, the community mentors who provided us with intercultural mediation and language translations in each community and the early childhood education sector stakeholders we interviewed. 3. The 3-year critical participatory action research approach (CPAR) (Kemmis et al., 2014) we took, which enabled participants and university researchers alike to engage as co-investigators and which saw us optimise consequence and sustainability through strategic research design, partnerships and communication and engagement. We explicitly link this CPAR approach to how we define capacity in this study and to key considerations for building capacity within a CPAR framework. 4. Data collection and analysis procedures in relation to dialogic encounters with children and their families and other community members and leaders in the participating communities, participant observations in communities, artefact collection in communities, stakeholder interviews and document analysis of key policies and other related materials. 5. Measures we took to ensure the study’s trustworthiness and ethics. Throughout the chapter, we highlight and explore the complexities of conducting a cross-cultural study in an overseas context. Drawing on examples from our study, we show how we worked with these complexities in collaboration with our co-­ investigators, community mentors and research partners.

The People and Places in the Project Funded by the Australian Government’s Australian Development Research Aid Scheme, this study is located within a bilateral, international development partnership. Our approach therefore took a people-with-people approach to the development of local community capacity in Fiji, acknowledging and upholding the cultural and historical considerations within each community and its broader context that informed our collective work in that community. Below, we describe the people and places who made up the project: 1 . The communities, families and children 2. Community mentors 3. The Australian university research team 4. Project partners 5. Early childhood care and education stakeholders 6. The project’s External Reference Group (Fig. 5.1)

The People and Places in the Project

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At the heart of the Project’s collective team were 51 children and their 44 families in three Fiji communities of Duavata, Dovubaravi and Wavu, with Project Mentors in each community. The rest of the team comprised: • Project Leader: Pauline Harris. • Project Consultant: Anne Glover. • Project Partners: Ufemia Camaitoga, Early Childhood Consultant; and National Council of Women Fiji. • Project Officer: Bec Neill. • Australian University Researchers conducting this research in-country in Fiji – Pauline Harris, Elspeth McInnes, Alexandra Diamond, Jenni Carter, Bec Neill, Cynthia Brock. • In-country Project Research Assistant. • In-country Project Administrative Assistant. • Project Voluntary Support: John Daley. • Early childhood care and education stakeholders, who took part in research interviews. • Project’s External Reference Group.

Fig. 5.1  The project team

The Communities, Families and Children At the heart of the project were 51 children and their 44 families in 3 Fiji communities of Duavata (an iTaukei semirural community), Dovubaravi (a predominantly Indo-Fijian, rural community) and Wavu (a culturally mixed, urban community), with project mentors in each community. These communities, given pseudonyms here, were all located on Fiji’s main island, Viti Levu. The main island was chosen to enable more sustained time in the selected communities to engage in data gathering and to enable research team members to move between research locations as required. The main island is well serviced by air, sea and road transport infrastructure, thus providing the most direct international and local access to research sites.

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Agreed criteria for communities to participate were: –– The community wished the study to be conducted there and followed-up with their informed consent to so engage. –– The community had a mentor to provide cultural and linguistic mediation, who could work effectively with the community’s researchers and participants, and maintain the momentum of the study’s community activities in the university research team’s absence. –– The community was neither too large that it made the research unwieldy nor too small that it weakened the credibility and transferability of the research. –– The community was readily accessible for researchers and those oversighting the research across the three communities. –– The community had no ready access to early childhood services. –– The community had a reasonable number of preschool-aged (3–5  year-old) children. –– Some English was spoken in the community. Each of the three communities comprised a case study in which we engaged with children, families and communities as co-investigators. We provide more details about each community below. Duavata Duavata is a small indigenous Fijian village in a semi-rural locality in one of Viti Levu’s provinces. The area is served by major roads and is abundant in taro, kava and a host of other agricultural produce. At the time of our study, 85 families (345 people) lived there. Some individuals were employed in government positions and as white-collar workers in various businesses, while many adults worked in bluecollar jobs such as day labourers and itinerant work such as babysitters. Fourteen Duavata families with children aged between 3 and 5 participated in our study. There were a total of 16 children from Duavata in the study. At the beginning of the study, seven of the children were 4 years old, two children were 3.5 years, three children were 3, and four children were 2.5 years old. All of the children in the study and their families spoke the standard dialect of Bauan Fiji; however, the mother in one family in the community came from a different region of Fiji, so it is likely that she spoke a different iTaukei language. Bauan was the primary language in all of the homes in the village. The only village church, a Methodist Church, was next to the Duavata Community Centre and played a central role in community life. All churchrelated events were conducted in Bauan, but selected church-related documents – such as hymnals and songbooks – also contained some English words. Consequently, young children in the study did not speak much English – except what they heard on North America DVD cartoons or from older siblings on occasion. English is the medium of instruction in schools, business and the government; consequently, all school-aged children and adults in Duavata could speak English. The community population in Duavata was stable. Only one family left during the 3 years of our

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study. This was the family whose mother came from a different region of Fiji; the family moved to the mother’s home community. Further details of Duavata’s participating children and their families are provided in Chap. 7. Dovubaravi Dovubaravi is an Indo-Fijian community in a rural setting in one of Viti Levu’s large provinces where tourism, sugarcane and manufacturing are economic mainstays. Dovubaravi is chiefly a cane-farming and fishing community, with members also working in tourism, retail and construction. At the time of the study, most families spoke Fiji-Hindi at home, a unique language emerging from diverse languages spoken by indentured cane plantation workers (girmityas) in the late nineteenth century. Extended families typically shared ‘compounds’ (colocated and often cojoined houses) within inherited tenancies accessed via dirt roads between cane fields. At Dovubaravi’s centre was a Sangam Hindu Temple. Sixteen children aged 3–5 years of age, together with adults and older siblings from their 13 families, participated in our study. At the start, six of the participating children were 5 years of age and the rest were aged 3 and 4. Eleven children were fifth-generation descendants of South Indian girmityas families, while one had North Indian girmitya heritage, one had both North and South Indian heritage, two were from an iTaukei family, and one child had Anglo-Bauan-Kiribati-North Indian girmitya heritage. All families, with the exception of the iTaukei family, spoke Fiji-Hindi in their homes, with most Indo-­ Fijian adults knowing basic phrases in Fijian communalects and a few reading and writing standard Bauan where it was the language of their schooling. Younger participants had more extensive English language skills, while oldest-generation participants spoke very little, if any, English. Thus, oldest members’ participation was facilitated by members of the temple’s three organising committees, our community mentors and eventually members of the broader community, also co-researchers in our study. Further details of Dovubaravi’s participating children and their families are provided in Chap. 8. Wavu Wavu is a culturally diverse suburban community in Fiji’s capital. Wavu’s population largely had moved to town from villages and farms, drawn to the city for work and education. At the time of the study, Wavu was a cross-cultural community with no single, culturally defined locus of leadership. With a good degree of mobility, Wavu people moved between the urban suburb and their villages to engage with family events, village events and routines and medical, work and education needs. With a population of around 575, approximately 22% were in permanent paid employment, about 3% were casually employed, 3% were self-employed, and some were engaged in commercial fishing and farming. At the study’s time, 115 families lived there, many as extended families or multiple families in single households.

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iTaukei people made up 52% of the population, and 48% were Indo-Fijian. Initially, 21 3–5-year-old children from 17 families participated, with 4 families involving 6 children withdrawing as they moved away, leaving 15 children from 13 families. The mean age of the participating children was 3 years and 6 months. Four families, involving five participant children, were Indo-Fijian; and nine families with ten participant children were iTaukei. Unlike many participants in Dovubaravi, Indo-Fijian families in Wavu did not explicitly identify with girmitya history in Fiji. Two Indo-­ Fijian families identified as Hindu, one family as Muslim and one Gujarati family  not naming any religious identity. All iTaukei families identified Christian religious observance. Seven languages were represented amongst Wavu participants: the iTaukei Bauan, Lauan, Kadavu and Tailevu languages, as well as Fiji-­ Hindi, Rotuman and English. More details of Wavu’s participating children and their families are provided in Chap. 9.

Community Mentors Along with our research partners, community mentors were critical to this study. Community mentors facilitated our field entry, fostered field relations, provided intercultural mediation and language translations and ameliorated insider/outsider tensions that characterise cross-cultural collaborations to which we previously alluded (McNess et al., 2015). Our criteria for selecting mentors included: –– Commitment to early childhood education and young children’s language and literacy development –– Ability to provide language translations between the community’s language/s and English –– Ability to provide intercultural mediation between the researchers and the community –– High-level interpersonal skills, including cross-cultural communication, to engage in positive, collaborative working relationships amongst community members and the research team –– Held in trust and high regard within the community The mentors mediated observations and dialogic encounters, assisted researchers in identifying and interpreting local community practices and what they signified for their participants and contributed to the collaborative development, implementation and monitoring of strategies for fostering children’s multilingual literacy in their home and community settings. Mentors also maintained momentum of the study’s community activities in between the researchers’ community visits. At the study’s outset, the mentors were brought together for a dialogic orientation to the study. A project orientation workshop was also conducted in each case study community. This workshop involved, amongst other things, a formal welcome and arriving at shared understanding and agreement upon the study’s objectives and processes, as well as unpacking mentors’ roles and responsibilities  and those of

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other key community participants with whom we would engage in the mentor’s community.

The Australian University Research Team The researchers based at the University of South Australia brought a range of experiences and expertise to the study, including growing up in Fiji as a very young child, with a parent working in departments of the colonial government; living, parenting and working in Fiji as a partner of a kaivulagi senior executive employed in Fijian private industry; working as a researcher and consultant in Pacific early childhood education, with a focus on Papua New Guinea and Fiji; sociology research in early childhood and family studies in Papua New Guinea; and a broad range of literacy research undertakings and participatory research approaches that are attuned to culturally and linguistically diverse settings, and which directly engage with myriad voices of children and their families and communities across a range of cultural settings. As a team of co-investigators, these researchers fostered their capacities for action and reflection as university researchers working in contexts unfamiliar to them and learning from their community mentors and partners. Recognising differences amongst themselves as university researchers in terms of their personal histories and theoretical predispositions (Harris et  al., 2018), they discussed their different perspectives in ongoing reflective dialogue in team meetings held every 2 weeks for this study. The specific development of key documents for this study, such as a Field Guide1 and a Dialogic Encounters Workbook,2 provided a basis for workshopping researchers’ processes with one another and reaching shared understandings that built collaborative research coherence and capacity. How the research team was distributed across the three communities is shown in Fig.  5.3. As can be seen in this figure, each member of the research team had a clearly delineated role in the community field work – with some members having carriage of fieldwork in one community site (as named in Fig. 5.3) and the Project leader and the Fijian project consultant oversighting and engaging in the fieldwork across all three communities. Insider/outsider tensions associated with collaborative research in other people’s places (McNess et  al., 2015) applied within the university research team’s

1  ‘Field Guide for “Developing a collaborative community approach to support preschoolers’ vernacular and English language and literacy development in Fijian communities without access to early childhood services” Project (ADRAS #66394)’ by Pauline Harris, 2015, University of South Australia. 2  ‘Dialogic Encounters Workbook for “Developing a collaborative community approach to support preschoolers’ vernacular and English language and literacy development in Fijian communities without access to early childhood services” Project (ADRAS #66394)’ by Pauline Harris, 2015, University of South Australia.

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collaborative generation of meaning from this fieldwork. These tensions characterise collaborative research but are rarely discussed (Kirova et al., 2018). For example, a researcher carrying a primary role in conducting the fieldwork in one site could be seen to be an ‘insider,’ working deeply within a particular community and not engaging across communities – while the rest of the team who contribute to that fieldwork’s data analysis and interpretation could be construed as ‘outsiders’. Those working across all sites were insiders to all three communities, in order to draw connections between the sites and synthesise data from all the sites. Thus, it was important that the university researchers ensured the effectiveness of their distributed approach by giving attention to each ‘insider’ researcher’s capability and willingness to share and articulate the fruits of their fieldwork with the rest of the team in what is essentially a collaborative undertaking. At the same time, the university researchers in each community worked deeply within their respective communities and did not engage across communities. The strength of the study’s design was that those assigned to specific communities strove to become immersed within those respective communities and keep their respective foci within those communities – realising that this community work was a collaborative undertaking within a bigger study that must be imbued with relationships of mutual respect and acknowledgment. In this spirit, the university researchers worked across each community with children, their extended families, community elders and youth groups, as co-­investigators in home and community settings, developing strategies grounded in communities’ cultural, social, linguistic and material realities.

Project Partners Partnerships are critical to capacity building, providing pathways to shared and deepened understanding that ensure the work is relevant, useful and durable (Rhodes, 2014). Our research partners played critical roles in providing expert advice, recruiting research sites and participants and brokering relationships with key stakeholders and the early childhood field at large. We engaged with two key research partners in our study. One partner was Ufemia Camaitoga, an early childhood consultant working across national and broader Asia-Pacific contexts. At the time of the study, she held the Presidency of Fiji Early Childhood Teachers’ Association and had been an early childhood academic at a local university, as well as a developer and writer on the collaborative team who developed Fiji’s early childhood curriculum, Na Noda Mataniciva (Fiji Ministry of Education, 2009). Ms. Camaitoga provided brokerage with research sites and stakeholders, assisted in identifying communities and community mentors for the study, worked with the project leader to oversight the research conducted in the case study communities, provided invaluable insight and advice on the early childhood education and care context of Fiji and the Pacific and provided insight in the collection and analysis of research data for the project.

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The National Council of Women Fiji (NCWF) was also a research partner to this study. As we described in Chap. 1, NCWF is a key national coordinating body of women’s organisations and groups across Fiji who advocate on women’s behalf for sustainable improvement in their lives and the lives of their children. Given our study’s grass roots focus on children and their families in terms of literacy practices in household and community settings – and the pivotal role that mothers of Fiji have in raising their children – the Council was a key partner. NCWF assisted in identifying communities and community mentors for the study; provided advice on cultural protocols to the Australia-based researchers; housed the study’s in-country research assistant; provided administrative support, catering and venues for project meetings; and facilitated the study’s dissemination amongst its affiliate organisations through workshops and other means.

Early Childhood Education and Care Stakeholders Eight early childhood stakeholders also participated in our study. These stakeholders included individuals from key decision-making bodies, NGOs academic institutions, as well as influential individuals participating in the early childhood field. These stakeholders were identified with the assistance of the study’s partners and External Reference Group. Agreed criteria for their selection included: –– The participant was currently involved in or had been involved in the development of early childhood education and care policy, curriculum and/or programs in Fiji. –– The participant currently held or had held a significant recognised leadership position in early childhood education and care in Fiji. –– The participant was willing to engage in the interviews. More specifically, the stakeholders who took part were: –– A former early childhood educator and lecturer who has participated in the UNICEF, committee and teacher association work and actively contributes to early childhood policy development and thinking in Fiji, including the development of Fiji’s early childhood guidelines, Na Noda Mataniciva –– An early childhood consultant, formerly an early childhood university academic and early childhood educator, currently president of teachers’ association and active contributor to early childhood professional development and policy formation, including Na Noda Mataniciva –– An early childhood university academic, formerly an early childhood educator in kindergartens in Fiji who inter alia contributed to the development of Na Noda Mataniciva –– A primary school head teacher associated with early childhood education, who is also a vice president of an early childhood teachers’ association and provider of professional development for teachers in curriculum

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–– An education manager in a Fiji-based NGO engaged in learning programs in marginalised and vulnerable communities across Fiji, who was formerly employed with Fiji’s Ministry of Education, most recently in the Ministry’s Curriculum Development Unit –– An early childhood academic and program coordinator across the Pacific, formerly a trained primary and early childhood teacher, and teachers’ college lecturer –– An early childhood development adviser with an NGO serving all 13 Pacific Islands, based in Fiji and fulfilling an advocacy role while also supporting specific early childhood goals that a nation’s government has developed

Research Partners and External Reference Group We engaged with an External Reference Group that included our research partners as well as a key early childhood education provider, two influential early childhood care and education individuals, an early childhood professional association, two universities in Fiji and the Pacific and two NGOs whose work related to early childhood care and education in Fiji and the Pacific.

Our Critical Participatory Action Research Approach Consistent with our study’s and its funding body’s bilateral partnership approach, community agency in this study was promoted and supported through a critical participatory action research (CPAR) approach (Kemmis et  al., 2014). CPAR involves research that is undertaken with and by people in their own settings to build knowledge for understanding and transforming practice. Situated in the participatory research paradigm (Lincoln  et  al., 2011), CPAR afforded  opportunity for researchers and participants – children and adults alike – to engage as co-­investigators and collectively own the research. In this collaboration, we recognised and fostered our co-investigators’ capacities for action and reflection germane to developing strategies that foster children’s multilingual literacy. This collaboration extended across all phases of the study, from research planning to data collection, analysis and interpretation, through to dissemination. The three phases of the study are overviewed in Fig. 5.2. The 3-year research structure allowed the development of a research plan with time to engage in repeat visits to Fiji and stage the research process. Over time, research visits evolved into relationships with participating families, witnessing and participating in community events as well as observing the ways children and families engaged with the literacy resources developed with researchers and other resources in their environment. The intervals between visits allowed researchers and participants to reflect and engage with the outcomes of each research visit and

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Fig. 5.2  Overview of the study

provided participating families with insights into their own capacities to support their children’s language and literacy development. Our choice of CPAR deeply resonates with the study’s location in human rights and bilateral development contexts. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Articles 25 and 26 (United Nations General Assembly, 1948), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (United Nations General Assembly, 1979), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations General Assembly, 1989) and the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (United Nations General Assembly, 2007) all highlight the criticality of: –– Building reciprocity and recognising cultural pluralism amongst those involved with our study (Kurasawa, 2007) –– Adopting a research approach that privileges children’s voices (Harris & Manatakis, 2013; Toganivalu, 2008) –– Establishing literacy frameworks that acknowledge the deep dialectic between culture and language (Skutnabb-Kangas & Dunbar, 2010; Watahomigie, 1998) –– Being inclusive of the social and cultural values of preschoolers’ communities and families (Jourdan & Salaün, 2013; Puamau, 2005; Taufe’ulungaki, 2002) We are cognisant of tensions that can arise between the views of western and majority worlds (i.e. non-western views that reflect the views of the world’s

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majority population) in relation to human rights (Nimmo et al., 2018). However, we are also mindful that the rights we have identified here are advocated by Pacific writers (as our citations here indicate), and Fiji is party to these rights, including the nations ratifying the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1993 (United Nations, 2018). CPAR provided a means for creating a democratic participatory context wherein we could build relationships of reciprocity (Koirala-Azad  et  al., 2018). As co-­ investigators, we all brought expertise to our collective research table. At that metaphorical table, we engaged together in processes for action, interaction and reflection to develop strategies for fostering children’s literacy, grounded in deep, contextual understandings of children’s realities and lifeworlds. These processes enabled us all to develop practices that were productive, sustainable and inclusive. In so doing, the participating communities engaged in what Kemmis and his colleagues describe as ‘individually and collectively transform[ing] the conduct and consequences of their practices to meet the needs of changing times and circumstances’ (Kemmis et al., 2014, p. 12). The ultimate purpose of critical participatory action research is: to create (recreate) new possibilities for what Orlando Fals Borda calls vivéncia (humane forms of social life) through revitalisation of the public sphere and to promote decolonisation of lifeworlds that have become saturated with bureaucratic discourses, routinised practices and institutionalised forms of social relationships, the characteristic of social systems that see the world only through the prism of organisation, not the human and humane living of social lives. (Kemmis et al., 2014, p. 12)

To create these new possibilities, our study was mindfully embedded in and with communities. We strategically chose to work directly with communities because they have an inherently critical role in promoting children’s languages and literacy education as part of maintaining their cultural identities and progressing their aspirations. Communities also were key sites for realising impact and understanding sustainability of practices that would develop from the study. To these ends, our study realised a participative ontology  – a core assumption of all participatory research (Lincoln et al., 2011) – whereby reality is seen to be created through people collectively and critically reflecting and acting on their world in order to understand and transform it (Freire, 1983). In accord with participatory research, our study enacted participative epistemology as critical subjectivity, whereby participants co-constructed experiential, propositional and practical ways of knowing, which led to co-created findings. As importantly, we mutually aligned our work in communities with Fiji’s early childhood curriculum and stakeholder perspectives and priorities – one informing the other. So doing attended to the importance of optimising parity between formal preschool education programs and the work we collectively developed in communities, with a view to children’s effective transitions to school – supported by research evidencing the importance of curriculum continuity, children’s social development (including language and literacy) and parents’ roles to support Pacific children’s effective transitions (Tiko, 2008).

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Developing Capacity in a CPAR Approach A key premise of our study that informed our choice of a CPAR approach is that no one can build another’s capacity – it has to be done by people themselves, as Rhodes (2014) asserts in her strengths-based approach to building capacity across cultures in the Pacific. To paraphrase the proverb, ‘Give a man fish and he’ll eat for a day. Teach him to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime’, give a community literacy strategies and the community might teach their children for a day – but engage with the community in co-developing the strategies together, and they can position themselves to build long-term and evolving capacities. Changes in capacity are largely driven from within, and although there are many influences on capacity change at the level of individual, community or organisation, the process of effective capacity building is largely one of self-determination. Thus, we engaged in research processes that supported self-determination through voice, agency and ownership – three key tenets of a CPAR approach. As is clear in the literature on capacity building in the Pacific, shared meaning and a collective participatory approach are essential to the success of capacity development (Rhodes, 2014). We were also mindful of the complexities of capacity issues that we would need to embrace and just how we were construing ‘capacity’. Capacity has been thought of in terms of empowerment, collective ability, a state of potential and creation of value for the greater common good (Baser & Morgan, 2008). More recently, capacity has been conceived in terms of specific capabilities, such as capabilities to commit, engage and self-organise, carry out particular tasks, relate, access and attract resources, adapt and self-renew and balance diversity with coherence of approach (Rhodes, 2014). All these aspects of capacity were germane to our study. Operationalised for our study in relation to community capacity to foster young children’s literacy, community capacity concerned a community’s collective ability in terms of the community’s: –– Funds of linguistic and literate knowledge germane to children’s literacy engagement and learning and to strategies that enhance literacy learning –– Awareness, development and deployment of strategies that foster young children’s literacy in home languages and English –– Access to literacy resources and potential to create and/or attract resources, which would assist children’s literacy engagement and learning –– Commitment and scope to contribute to children’s literacy growth –– Ability to work across children’s diverse households and circumstances while developing a coherent community approach –– Structures, leaders and mentors within the community to assist organisation and momentum of related tasks and enhance sustainable capacity development As we joined with communities to build their capacity along these lines, we were aware of the need to build understandings of the contexts in which we would be immersed – and the long history of resilience and survival for which Fiji and indeed

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Fig. 5.3  Distribution of research team members across the community fieldwork

Pacific communities are known (Rhodes, 2014). Developing these understandings required our deeper analysis of communities’ complex cultural, linguistic, historic and geographic contexts. Within these contexts, we needed to understand cultural values that are critical to developing capacity – including sensitivity to different and perhaps divergent frames of reference. We deliberately reflected on our own western cultural lenses so that we would be aware of à priori assumptions we were carrying into the study. Rather than impose western views, we took a strengths-based approach to capacity development, which is integral to doing CPAR. We also recognised what communities know, practise and value about languages and literacy in their contexts; how families and communities view children’s language and literacy learning; what families and communities perceive their roles are or could be in fostering their young children’s literacy in home languages and English; families’ aspirations for their children now and in their future lives, including schooling and later life chances; and enablers and constraints impacting communities’ capacity to support their children’s literacy. Hence, our first three research questions, stated at the outset of this chapter, sought to get at the heart of these insights (Fig. 5.3).

Data Collection and Analysis Methods As is the case with research that falls within the participatory paradigm, data collection and analysis were ongoing, recursive processes where data collection and analysis dialectically informed each other. The specific methods we used are overviewed in Fig. 5.4. We undertook three community-based, in-depth, participatory action research case studies that we triangulated with early childhood document analyses and interviews with Fiji’s key early childhood stakeholders. Throughout the case study fieldwork in communities, we used dialogic encounters and participant observations as the main means of data collection, supported by artefact collection. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with key early childhood stakeholders outside these communities, supported by document analyses of relevant early childhood policies and curricula. In the triangulation between the community case studies and the

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Fig. 5.4  Overview of the study’s research methods

stakeholder interviews/policy analyses, we sought to develop a dialectic between early childhood guidelines on the one hand and communities’ realities and approaches to supporting preschool language and literacy on the other hand. To support the study’s implementation, build research capacity, and ensure consistency and rigour across sites, methods and the large team of researchers, mentors and partners, the project leader developed a field guide for the study. This guide became our constant source of reference for the study’s duration. It described and operationalised the study’s background, aims, questions, significance and outcomes, all elements of research design and the specifics of the field work to be done in each phase of the study. Below, we describe each method of data collection and analysis that we used in the study.

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Dialogic Encounters in Communities Dialogic encounters were at the heart of our research approach (Harris et al., 2018), defined as interactions with people in and about their worlds in order to transform their reality that involve: the united reflection and action of the dialoguers [that] are addressed to the world which is to be transformed … dialogue is an encounter among [people] who name the world … It is an act of creation. (Freire, 1983, p. 76)

Derived from Paulo Freire’s seminal work (Freire, 1983), dialogic encounters were adapted in our study to the cultural protocols, values and processes extant in each community. Through dialogic encounters and with the collaboration of our community mentors and partners, we collectively developed understandings and strategies related to children’s languages and literacy from within traditions that shape them. These understandings and strategies encompassed how children and their families viewed their community lives and the place of literacy therein, their multilingual literacy and language practices and the value they attached to these and what more broadly they valued and aspired to. More specific focal areas that we explored in these encounters are shown in Table 5.1. For Freire (1983), dialogue is the critical means by which people can mobilise their capacity to effect change – and change was central to the communities’ aspirations in terms of developing community strategies that would foster their children’s multilingual literacy. Dialogic encounters provided an effective initial framework for collectively developing a relational context of co-construction for problem-­ solving and engaging with participants as co-investigators so they might mobilise their voice, agency and ownership – as strongly called for in the literature that we reviewed in Chap. 3. As Freire (1983, p. 84) has written: One cannot expect positive results from an educational or political action program which fails to respect the particular view of the world held by the people. Such a program constitutes cultural invasion, good intentions notwithstanding.

Dialogic encounters were critical to how we progressed with one another on the basis of shared understanding of our collective goals, processes, interpretations and outcomes. The goal was not to strive for consensus which can be elusive at best, but to instead attain a ‘fusion of horizons’ – the ‘horizon’ signifying ‘the range of vision that includes everything that can be seen from a particular standpoint’ (Gadamer, 1989, p. 302). Each person involved in this study had a particular standpoint. But it was in finding a common standpoint where our visions could come together that new insight and ways of knowing and doing emerged. These new understandings encompassed how children and their families viewed their community lives and the place of literacy therein, their multilingual literacy and language practices and the value they attached to these and what more broadly they valued and aspired to. This fusion of vision, supported by community mentors’ mediation and translations, helped address insider/outsider tensions. Only in this way could we ensure our research methods were culturally  relevant and sustaining, while keeping our

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Table 5.1  Focal areas explored in dialogic encounters and participant observations Phase I, RQ1: What are the literacy development contexts for preschool children in their communities? The community’s language and literacy practices  Orientation to the community  Languages spoken in the community  Community members’ views of and values attached to these languages  Functions served by language and literacy in the community  Contexts in which language and literacy occur in the community  Language modes that are commonly used and for what purposes  Texts used, created and valued in the community Children’s language and literacy practices  Languages spoken by children and their families  Symbol systems used by children (e.g. spoken, written, visual, gestural, music, song, dance, environmental, the environment, etc.), where, what for  Contexts in which children’s language and literacy occur in their home and community settings  Functions that children’s language and literacy serve  Language modes that are commonly experienced and used by children and for what purposes  Texts and other artefacts of children’s home and community lives  How children view themselves as readers and writers  Literacy activities children initiate and texts children choose or create  Kinds of literacy, if any, children incorporate in their play and engage with in their day-to-day settings  How, if at all, children engage as text decoders/encoders, meaning makers, text users and text analysts. Phase I RQ2: What enablers and constraints impact on community capacity to support children’s literacy learning in their home languages and English?  Encouragement or otherwise of children’s first languages in their homes and community (why, how)  Encouragement or otherwise of other languages in homes and community? (why, how)  Children’s parents and caregivers’ perspectives of their children’s language development  Parents/caregivers’ perspectives of their roles and children’s roles in their children’s language development  Supports of children’s language development apparent in their homes and communities  Constraints of children’s language development in their homes and communities. Phases I and II RQ3: What local resources and strategies can be used to foster preschool children’s literacy in their home languages and English?  Available resources for fostering children’s language and literacy development  Resources that could be procured or created with participants  Opportunities for the community to foster children’s language and literacy  Identifying potential strategies and activities for foster children’s literacy  Documenting co-creation of multilingual books as a key strategy that emerged in all communities  Collaboratively planning, developing, implementing, evaluating and modifying strategies identified in Phase I (supported by workshop at beginning of Phase II)  Challenges and successes – what did/did not work; what was particularly effective and engaging  Observable benefits and consequences for children’s literacy engagement  How strategies are progressed between in-country visits and further strategies that the community evolved  Likely sustainability and further supports that are needed. (continued)

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Table 5.1 (continued) Phase II, RQ4: What strategies are effective in developing local capacity to support preschool children’s literacy development in their home languages and English?  Examining effectiveness of dialogic encounters within a participatory action research approach, community mentors, strategies that make literacy and support strategies visible, community voice and agency  Identifying factors that contribute to sustainability

western lenses in check to avoid the trappings of western imperialism visited upon research in majority world settings (Thapa et al., 2018). As we embarked on developing our approach to dialogue in communities, we were mindful of using culturally appropriate structures and processes for the research purposes at hand. Cultural protocols and relations consequently shaped and redefined dialogic encounters in each community in our study – the encounters themselves becoming transformed as well as transformative as ways of being, knowing, learning and effecting change in communities that recognised, acknowledged and respected community aspirations and desires. We built on the indigenous Fijian practice of talanoa while also differentiating our approach to fit Indo-Fijian protocols of baat chit or consultative conversation. In such encounters, participants’ voices are critical. However, as Arndt and Tesar (2018) rightly remind us, voice as a cultural construct does not automatically equate with agency when voice is not authentically engaged. In our study, voice was authentically embedded in dialogic encounters that provided the means for enacting self-determination and identity through participants’ voiced reflections and actions. How we ensured this authenticity was guided by key principles that are overviewed in Fig. 5.5, enacted in a relational context characterised by qualities also shown in Fig. 5.5. These principles grew from Harris’ previous research on operationalising Freire’s principles of authentic dialogic encounters, which were originally cast for adults (Freire, 1983), for engaging with young children (Harris & Manatakis, 2013). These principles strongly resonate with cross-cultural understandings of ‘cultural dialogue for change’ (Rhodes, 2014, p. 164). We identify these understandings below and connect each understanding to the principles of dialogic encounter that we used in our study: –– Values and beliefs in communities influence people’s behaviours (Lewis, 2006), which resonates with our principles of tuning into and acting in accord with what is culturally appropriate to develop shared meanings in dialogic encounters. –– The more people come together, the more likely they will come to understand and develop affinity amongst one another (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006), which connects with our principle of developing shared clarity and understanding of purpose, processes, outcomes, roles and how we each name what makes up our world, in dialogic encounters. –– People are more likely to identify with one another and take on active roles and responsibilities when they articulate and share their values (Rhodes & Antoine,

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RELATIONAL CONTEXT Appropriateness We were guided by community mentors and research partners to ensure our encounters were culturally, linguistically and individually appropriate.

Apposite setting We talked with children and their families in their home and community settings; and with early childhood stakeholders in their settings of choice.

Shared meaning and understanding We took time and, with mentors’ mediation & translations, we established and monitored shared clarity of collective purpose, processes, outcomes

Agency and voice We affirmed and built one another’s capacities as co-investigators, mobilising participants’ agency and voice.

Multiple modes of expression We engaged with participants’ languages through translations, & used expressive modes such as words, photos, visual art, song, music, movement

Inclusion We structured encounters in ways to ensure inclusion of all wishing to participate, and to support sustained dialogue over time and place

Deep, visible listening We actively listened to what was overtly expressed as well as to what was implied, and to the silences

Trustworthy documentation We worked with mentors’ translations & mediation; cross-checked documentation with participants to ensure accuracy and comprehensiveness

Consequence and benefit We collectively worked together to monitor and ensure transparent consequence and benefit, both intended and unintended Ethics of Care and Commitment Empathy – Faith – Hope – Humility – Love – Optimism – Patience – Protection – – Reciprocity – Respect – Trust

Fig. 5.5  How we engaged in dialogic encounters

2015), which aligns with our principles of encouraging and mobilising participants’ agency and engaging in deep visible listening in our dialogic encounters. –– People’s motivation to work towards self-determined positive change grows from having their strengths and values recognised and valued (e.g. Cooperrider and Whitney (2005)), which relates to our principles of agency and consequence. –– Interactions amongst people are optimised by deep trust and mutual respect (Freire, 1983), which resonates with our principle of relational context (which we elaborate upon a little later in this chapter). As we enacted these encounters, we engaged with children as well as adults’ voices  – acknowledging children’s right to have a voice in decisions affecting their lives, as affirmed in Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations, 1989), which Fiji ratified in 1993 (United Nations, 2018).

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Throughout our study, we engaged with children’s voices according to the principles in Fig. 5.5. We engaged through talk; through play; through song, music and dance; through image; and through written words. As English-only speaking vulagi researchers, this multimodal engagement, alongside community mentors’ mediation and translation, was essential to bridging the cultural and linguistic chasms between multilingual iTaukei and Indo-Fijian children and families and our monolingual selves. In these contexts, children and families were language teachers and we preschooler-like learners. We followed children’s leads and initiative and attended to the emotional, social and cultural content of this engagement as much as the academic or literal content (as Nimmo et al. 2018, also found was necessary in their cross-cultural children’s voice research). This engagement with children informed our understandings of children’s literate lives and lived experiences – and shaped the co-creation of multilingual books with children, along with co-constructed learning related to these texts and multilingual literacy support strategies with children, such as this chapter’s opening vignette illustrates. Relationship Between Dialogic Encounters and Talanoa Dialogic encounters resonate with indigenous Fijians’ practice of talanoa within research, when talanoa is used to problematise the world and effect change. While the term is used colloquially to refer to both informal and formal conversations, within research settings, cultural protocols of talanoa have been used to teach, solve problems, build and maintain relationships and gather information (Johansson, 2014). Most importantly, appropriate conduct of a talanoa is determined by the particular context in which it occurs. Increasingly, talanoa has been used as a culturally appropriate Pacific research tool with decolonising underpinnings (Nabobo-Baba, 2006; Vaioleti, 2006). Used thus, talanoa, like dialogic encounters, operates from a constructivist perspective where knowledge is socially constructed through dialogue where participants are approached ‘with an idea that [they] are asked to muse, to reflect upon, to talk about, to critique, to argue, to confirm, and express their conceptualisation in accordance with their beliefs and experiences’ (Johansson, 2014, p. 56). In its early implementation as an indigenous Pacific research tool, talanoa provided a significant departure from western research interviews that: created only anxiety and silence. They were like targeted interrogations of an individual by a stranger. If a researcher – local or not – wanted to find out something, then it had to be through talking in a group, ideally a group configuration that matched everyday practice. Thus, talanoa was identified as a time-honoured tradition of group talk in the Pacific that was both commonly accepted and socially relaxed. Here, the researcher could be inside rather than outside the talk’. (Tagicakiverata & Nilan, 2018, p. 547)

However, talanoa for research purposes has been critiqued by some for its perceived limitations and lack of focus if implemented as unstructured yarning (Otsuka, 2006). In response to this critique, talanoa was developed into veivosaki-yaga,

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meaning the yarn has a worthwhile purpose and is more formally structured and focused than a talanoa (Tagicakiverata & Nilan, 2018). Such critique has highlighted the need for rigorous use of talanoa for research purposes. Hence, we use principles of authentic encounter, shown in Table  5.1, to ensure the rigour and authenticity of the dialogue we had within and across diverse settings  – further developing and adapting these principles with reference to cultural norms and protocols for talanoa in iTaukei settings and baat chit in Indo-Fijian settings. In iTaukei settings, we aimed to use dialogic encounters in ways that reflected i valavala vakavanua  – that is, traditional values, protocols and behaviours  – that defines vanua research practice and which is key to enacting indigenous epistemologies (Nabobo-Baba, 2006; Thaman, 2009). As Ratuva (2007) has described, researchers using a vanua framework acknowledge three levels of knowledge in such settings: (1) kila ni vuravura, knowledge about the empirical world; (2) kila ni bula vakaveiwekeni kei na itovo, knowledge about social order and sociocultural relationships; and (3) kila ni bulavakayalo, knowledge about the cosmos. In our study, we sought to co-construct knowledge and change in and about participants’ empirical worlds that were contextualised by sociocultural relationships and understandings embedded in these worlds – including understandings about literacy as sociocultural practices. Indeed, we sought to develop this knowledge in both iTaukei and Indo-Fijian community settings wherein we learned discursive and cultural norms through apprenticeship (Lave & Wenger, 1999) with our participants and co-investigators. Learning to use dialogue protocols specific to each community’s cultural context was complex as we navigated differences between our own and each community’s languages and cultural frames. Protocols shifted within and across settings depending on who was in attendance, social relations amongst participants, men’s presence or absence and people’s confidence to speak in the presence of vulagi researchers. It was important we reassured participants of the value of their contributions, reinforced through our engagement with them as co-investigators. Over time, participants’ confidence and capacity grew. This work both demanded and fostered cultural competences and dexterity, assisted by community mentors and in-country research partners, as we describe below for each community in our study. Dialogic Encounters in Duavata In Duavata, we learned discursive and cultural norms relevant to iTaukei cultural contexts. In addition to talanoa, another key concept critical to our learning about dialogue and how to enact indigenous epistemologies was vanua – that is, cultural norms or ways of being Fijian that embody indigenous Fijian values, protocols of relationships, knowledge and ways of knowing (Nabobo-Baba, 2006; Thaman, 2009). As described in Chap. 1, vanua embodies a deep sense of Fijian identity and belonging to land and clan, embracing social, cultural and cosmological meanings. In the context of dialogic encounters in iTaukei settings, vanua required us to deeply honour and respect community’s people and their cultural ways of knowing and

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being (Nabobo-Baba, 2006). Vanua provided the cultural framework within which we related with iTaukei participants and from within which talanoa, culturally ordained ways of communicating, could begin. We learned the deep significance of vanua in Duavata. Before beginning fieldwork there, our Duavata community mentor and research partner had followed appropriate vanua protocol to meet with the chief, present him with ceremonial yaqona root and formally ask his permission to research in his community. As we began the Duavata fieldwork, we engaged in respectful listening (McVee & Boyd, 2016) to the community mentor and followed her lead on how, when and where we collected data. At an initial Methodist Youth Fellowship (MYF) Group meeting, we learned members were encouraged to engage in community service. Consequently, we asked the MYF leader if any members would like to help with our study. Four members volunteered to work with us. Amongst other tasks, they collaborated with us on developing a plan to sustain Duavata work between our first and second in-country visits. However, upon our second visit to Duavata, we learned the MYF volunteers had not implemented the work plan. Talanoa with the community mentor, a Duavata community leader and our research partner, revealed our plan failed because we overlooked vanua in terms of developing our plans with the community leader. Duavata’s chief and his relatives were part of Duavata’s original landowners and therefore the recognised leaders. People living in Duavata were there by his permission. Although it was subsequently deemed appropriate for MYF volunteers to help implement our plan, we had erred by not developing the plan with Duavata’s leader, who holds cultural responsibility for planning for the community. Embedding our new-found understanding in our approach, we successfully developed and enacted future plans in Duavata. Dialogic Encounters in Dovubaravi In Dovubaravi, an Indo-Fijian community, the community’s Sangam temple committees – particularly the Mother Sangam (women’s) committee – were supportive, but could not speak on behalf of all community families. Indo-Fijian consents, for example, were negotiated family by family, as, unlike Duavata, there was no singular leader of the community. Decision-making throughout our study necessarily took time as we needed to seek, consider and respond to numerous views on how best to proceed. We also needed to work around the mentors, families and community’s devotional obligations. This meant, for example, adhering to vegetarianism on temple visit days and being mindful of our mentors’ spiritual obligations when making plans. Many of our dialogic encounters took place in family homes, organised in advance with our mentors’ support and for which we needed to learn protocols for visiting family homes. Most of the Indo-Fijian mothers and grandmothers told us that they wanted to communicate with us in English, although some faced difficulties in doing so. Children’s mothers were typically the people with the most facility in English in their families. Generally, although extended family members sat in on

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dialogic encounters, the mothers were accorded authority by elders to speak on behalf of their family in matters pertaining to their young children. Mothers’ comprehension and expression of nuanced ideas in English varied considerably, and so community mentors’ support with translating and contextualising various ideas was crucial to these rich dialogic encounters. Of the iTaukei families participating in the Dovubaravi community, one family belonged to Nadi, Bauan and Lauan yavusas, and the other family’s mother was of Bauan/European/Kiribati heritage married into an Indo-Fijian family. Our dialogic encounters with the first mother were brokered in Phase 1 by the project consultant and over the duration of the project by her increasing trust in our presence, the presence of other family members and friends during conversations and her English language skills. Opportunities to engage with the children from this family were culturally mediated by the time the children spent travelling to, and spending time with, extended family. The latter mother was one of the few to confidently voice views during group dialogic encounters with mothers in both English and Fiji-Hindi at the end of our study’s Phase 1. With hindsight, we learned smaller groups were more conducive to authentic dialogic in community encounters, with group dialogic encounters in latter phases structured to provide space for multiple small group, rather than singular large group, dialogues. Other challenges arose from the dispersed nature of Dovubaravi’s rural sugarcane farming community that made bringing families together for collective dialogic encounters difficult, especially in the hottest months. Additionally, mothers typically had responsibility to their extended families, so usually they needed to negotiate time away from home. It was agreed that we would hold collective encounters at the community’s centrally located Sangam temple. Temple elders emphasised their wish to include and welcome Dovubaravi’s iTaukei and Indo-Fijian families alike within the project. As our study progressed, however, we found ourselves brokering logistical details, such as spiciness of shared meals, that were mandated by the protocols of all participating cultural groups, for talanoa or baat chit. Additionally, mothers and grandmothers with young children who typically lived some distance apart had opportunities to meet – sometimes for the first time – and strengthen relationships with one another and amongst the children. Dialogic Encounters in Wavu In Wavu, a culturally diverse community, Fijian culture required us as visitors to be formally welcomed by the iTaukei  community leaders with a presentation of the ceremonial yaqona root and sharing of kava to establish relationships  – as also occurred and was required in Duavata. Wavu’s leadership was divided between iTaukei and Indo-Fijian people. Christian churches provided community buildings for iTaukei to assemble, while Indo-Fijians attended Sangam temples. Neither group felt they belonged in the spaces of the other. Indeed, religion (Christian and Hindu faiths) and men’s sports (specifically rugby and soccer) reinscribed boundaries across the calendar year and sporting schedules. There was no apparent expectation

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that community activities would engage with both Wavu’s cultures or be culturally neutral. There was no enmity between Wavu’s cultural groups – rather, there was a tacit assumption that each cultural group progressed its own business and social networks, as in Dovubaravi. While each group might live side by side and was able to express their preferences, obligations to their own cultural community and social networks were privileged. In consequence, our study’s dialogic encounters were mainly conducted in participants’ homes. The encounters held at the beginning and end of each in-country visit were collective. However, Indo-Fijian families did not all attend these events because the venue  – the Methodist Hall  – was culturally identified with iTaukei families, where they felt at home, but which was not a space Indo-Fijians normally entered. The two most successful collective encounters included a participant meeting held in an iTaukei participant’s home which also operated as a retail outlet and another participant meeting held to distribute a batch of the finished books that the children had co-created with their families and community members and university researchers. Wavu’s community mentor for our study was fluent in Wavu’s languages and so managed the dialogue at these participant meetings. As in Dovubaravi, separateness between Wavu’s cultural groups appeared to be reduced through our shared encounters. For example, our Wavu community mentor commented that before the project, she had not really engaged with Indo-Fijian families, but through the dialogic encounters, she had come to see that all preschool children had similar needs for education that transcended cultural differences. This mentor noted that the community had come together more across cultures to recognise other common issues, particularly dangerous roads and the long distance to the nearest preschool. She observed that the study’s dialogic encounters broke down these barriers as participants from both cultural groups met each other and shared the experiences of their participation. Common ground was the shared need to develop strategies that would support their children’s literacy  – and beyond that objective obtain or develop better access to preschool services. Documenting and Analysing the Dialogic Encounters The dialogic encounters were recorded as observational field notes, supported by selected audio and video recordings and still photographs, and were analysed on an ongoing basis. We made collective sense of the data in dialogue with one another and participants as our co-investigators. This collaboration and cross-checking with participants as those living the data were essential to the trustworthiness and authenticity of our study. This collaborative work generated cross-cultural understandings to inform our ongoing data collection and actions, ensuring strategies for fostering children’s literacy were embedded in their lives. This sense-making dialogue occurred in individual households, as well as in whole-of-community events at the start and close of each in-country visit where researchers and participants shared their ongoing learning. In this dialogue, we found ourselves negotiating shared understandings and words we variously use to talk about our lifeworlds.

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We used interpretive techniques of emergent thematisation (Glesne, 2015; Strauss & Corbin, 1990) to identify and categorise themes in the dialogic encounter data. Our attention to emergent themes was guided by our study’s research questions, conceptual framework as we analysed the community and, more specifically, children’s language and literacy practices against the Literacy Mapping Framework and a functional model of language described in Chap. 4, enablers and constraints of supporting children’s literacy, local resources and opportunities for supporting children’s literacy and effectiveness, appropriateness and sustainability of strategies that were collectively developed in this study for fostering children’s multilingual literacy. These themes provided the basis for deepening the dialogue as we worked with communities towards larger ideas these themes signified or suggested for developing community strategies to support children’s language and literacy, and to even more general meanings about developing a coordinated, sustainable community approach to same.

Participant Observations Equally important to addressing our study’s research questions was our first-hand in situ observations of children and families’ language and literacy practices. These observations enabled us to develop rich understanding that we brought to and triangulated with the dialogic encounters. Specific focal areas for what we observed and documented are shown in Table 5.1. As introduced by Malinowski, participant observation provides a means to understanding participants’ ‘point of view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of his world’ (Malinowski, 1922, p. 25). As such, participant observation in community research is often thought to involve the researcher living in the community and sharing in participants’ lives and activities, learning their language and interpreting their behaviour. However, it was useful for us in this study to think about participant observation as a continuum (DeWalt et al., 1998): • Complete participation in which the researcher is already a participant in the setting and active participation in which the researcher becomes part of the community by fully embracing their customs and practices. These roles run the risk of ‘going native’ and losing critical perspective on what is being observed. We therefore eschewed these roles in the main, limiting our participation to engaging in some of the community’s customs and practices, such as attending temple and religious festivals in Dovubaravi. • Moderate participation, with the researcher adopting a ‘participant as observer’ role. Although involved in the community for the research, researchers maintain a certain detachment and perspective, balancing their ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ roles. This role best characterises our approach in communities where our case study fieldwork was particularly intense during our in-country visits. Our com-

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munity involvement extended to data collection and engagement with participants, but otherwise we remained relatively detached so as not to overidentify with participants or lose focus and critical perspective on what we were observing. We also needed to find time and distance in our daily fieldwork schedules to write up, analyse, interpret and reflect upon the data to inform next steps and maintain manageability of complex data. • Non-participatory roles that see the researcher removed from any form of participation so that the purposes of the research are not revealed and passive participation roles that see researchers as bystanders. Such roles clearly were not conducive to addressing our research questions within our collective action research approach and to the need for full disclosure given we were spending extended time in communities to work with participants on achieving their aspirations to better support their young children’s literacy learning. We found the first two forms of observation – complete and moderate participation – to be the most consistent with our CPAR approach. Interrogating the obvious and remaining open to more obscure possibilities were all important in this study (Wolcott, 1994). As co-investigators, we collectively identified what was salient and reflected on these perceptions in terms of relevance to and potential for supporting children’s language and literacy. For example, we were particularly struck by the preponderance of western imports of monolingual reading material and literacy resources for children written in English  – such as alphabet charts, basic skill workbooks, colouring books and picture books. Equally salient to us was the paucity of resource materials produced in and reflecting children’s physical, social and cultural worlds. At the same time, we had to expect elements to emerge that perhaps were not initially obvious to us in terms of literacy but which we could consider more deeply for their implications for supporting children’s language and literacy. For example, participants’ attention to clouds in the sky and other weather signs became known to us as an important literacy skill in terms of reading the environment – particularly relevant in a region prone to cyclones. This co-investigation extended to drawing on general ideas emerging from observational and artefact data collected in the study as springboards to ongoing dialogic encounters. The most significant of these bigger ideas was co-creating multilingual books with children and their families – such as what we saw in this chapter’s opening vignette. Co-creating these books emerged as a core community strategy for fostering children’s multilingual literacy while redressing the scarcity of books that families strongly desired to do. We therefore collaboratively developed strategies for creating books with children and families, using children’s words, images and worlds as material for their literacy learning and engagement. How this work was undertaken in each community is illustrated in the ‘Three Goats’ extract at the beginning of this chapter. We further detailed this work in our later case study chapters.

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We documented observations as field notes, audio transcripts, still photographs and video recordings. We worked with community mentors to document keywords and phrases that prompted later recall. Delamont (2002, p. 138) rightly cautioned that ‘ten minutes of good observation well written up is worth an hour’s notes lying forgotten in an unopened notebook’. Researchers invited participants to contribute to the observational data by taking photos of activities, events or situations that were important to them and which did or could play a part in children’s literacy lives. Ongoing member checking of data records occurred with participants for collaborative input on data interpretation. As with the dialogic encounter data, we used interpretive techniques of emergent thematisation (Glesne, 2015; Strauss & Corbin, 1990) to identify and categorise themes in the observational data. We triangulated these themes with what emerged in the dialogic encounters vis-à-vis our four research questions and in collaboration with participants as our co-investigators, framed by our study’s Literacy Mapping Framework and a functional model of language.

Artefact Collection We defined artefacts in this study as material objects that people make or procure for their own use: Examples of artifacts include photographs, memorabilia, tools, buildings, toys, pottery, jewelry, clothing, weapons, gifts, paintings, graffiti, furniture, and tombstones … They can be religious, artistic, technological, or functional in nature. Artifacts may also be in the form of film, television, and music. Besides being items that people have created (e.g., notes, diaries, journals, jewelry, pottery), artifacts can also be things that people have worn away. For example, paths created in grass where people commonly walk and the shine worn away from heavily trafficked areas of a floor would be artifacts that reveal how people navigate a space. Artifacts can also be researcher-generated. For example, the researcher may ask participants in the study to keep a journal. The journal would become an artifact of the study. (Norum, 2008, p. 26)

Artefacts included the physical texts of children’s lives and photos that participants were invited to take that documented community and children’s language and literacy practices. What artefacts to document could not be predetermined – their relevance to the study emerged as the case studies unfolded and was often embedded in situations being observed or spoken about. Thus, we remained alert to the presence and relevance of artefacts, be they directly under the researchers’ noses or absent in but relevant to a situation being observed or spoken about in dialogic encounters. Rather than taking artefacts away from the community, we photographed from as many different angles as needed to capture the item in its entirety for the study’s purposes – and did so only with the consent of the participants concerned.

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Our documentation of artefacts included an account of the context in which a particular item was created or used, as observed by the researchers and/or described by the participants: • The situation in which the artefact was created or used – location, date, time, what the situation was about (e.g. activity or thematic focus), who was involved and relationship amongst those involved and the modes and media of language used – cross-referenced to observational data records where appropriate. • The broader cultural setting in which the situation was located – cross-referenced to observational data records where appropriate. We documented artefacts for the insights they revealed about the language and literacy practices of communities and their children – and their underlying ideas, assumptions, values, beliefs, knowledge and opinions. Examples are shown in Figs. 5.5, 5.6 and 5.7. We were initially surprised that these were in English, but as we continued our observations and dialogic encounters in the community, we noted that English was the main language for written communication in a range of contexts such as shopping, schooling and employment routines  – labelling shops, streets, bus destinations, purchases and medications. When asked, community leaders in Dovubaravi indicated English, rather than shudh Hindi, was preferable for written communication. These observations reflected Fiji’s broader language environment where English is the default language for official written communication and schooling (Fig. 5.8). As such, artefacts provided a rich source of data that complemented data gathered through participant observations and dialogic encounters. Triangulated with participant observations and dialogic encounters, artefacts supported and challenged these other data types, generated further questions for us to explore, confirmed interpretations being made and contributed to thick descriptions of children’s language and literacy practices and community strategies for fostering these practices with children.

Benchmarking Children’s Literacy Participation and Learning To ensure alignment with key official priorities, we used the outcomes of Na Noda Mataniciva’s language, literacy and communication foundation area of learning and development. Portraying language learning in terms of the individual, Mataniciva’s learning outcomes are suggested as guidelines only. These outcomes are broken down into three phases that visually resemble steps of what children might do, going up from ‘by about 3 years of age’ to ‘then’ to ‘by the end of kindergarten’. These outcomes build on the construction of language as deeply social and culturally embedded, using the texts of children’s cultures. In consequence, language is conveyed as multimodal – that is, involving many forms of text such as song, dance, music, art, craft, drama, play, the environment as well as spoken and written words, social, multilingual, play-oriented and culturally embedded.

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Fig. 5.6  Artefacts in Dovubaravi

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Fig. 5.7  Artefacts in Wavu Fig. 5.8 Artefact in Duavata

We applied this benchmarking to our data records. This work included the development of learning stories that provided descriptive interpretive accounts of children’s experiences combined with interpretation of the children’s learning (Harris, 2009). This approach allowed us to identify and contextualise children’s literacy learning and participation against Na Noda Mataniciva’s outcomes. An example is shown in Fig. 5.9.

Stakeholder Interviews The purpose of interviews with key early childhood stakeholders was to explore early childhood policy priorities and perspectives that would inform this study’s development of community strategies for fostering children’s multilingual literacy

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Fig. 5.9  An example of a learning story

in their communities. The interviews illuminated key early childhood imperatives and priorities and contributed to generating criteria for sustainability of community approaches. These semi-structured interviews (Brenner, 2006; Charmaz & Belgrave, 2012) followed a preprepared guide of questions that allowed follow-up discussions (Ayres, 2008) to happen in a talanoa- or baat-chit-like fashion suited to the participants’ cultural dispositions. This format provided consistency across researchers doing the interviews and comparability of interview data across participants – while being flexible at the same time. Questions related to our four research questions in terms of focusing on: 1. Children’s literacy development contexts, with attention given to systemic priorities, strengths and issues facing early childhood and early years literacy ­education in Fiji and current policies, curriculum guidelines and practices in place for early childhood and literacy education in Fiji

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2. Enablers and constraints in terms of resources available for supporting young children’s literacy in their home languages and English and barriers to children developing literacy in their home languages and English 3. Strategies for fostering children’s literacy in their home languages and English, in terms of key considerations for developing strategies that foster young children’s literacy 4. Strategies for developing community capacity to foster their children’s literacy vis-a-vis key considerations for developing and evaluating sustainable capacity The purpose of these interviews with key early childhood stakeholders was to explore early childhood policy priorities and perspectives that would inform this study’s development of community strategies for fostering children’s multilingual literacy in their communities. The interviews illuminated key early childhood imperatives and priorities and contributed to generating criteria for sustainability of community approaches. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with individual stakeholders and audio-­ recorded using two recorders for later transcription. Notes were taken unobtrusively during the interviews as an additional back-up to the recordings. We used interpretive techniques to identify and categorise themes in the data (Glesne, 2015; Strauss & Corbin, 1990), drawing on the study’s conceptual framework. These themes pertained to stakeholders’ perspectives and experiences of early childhood and literacy education in Fiji; current policies, curricula and guidelines; what they perceive to be resources and opportunities for and barriers to supporting young children’s literacy in English and their vernacular languages; and frameworks and criteria for appraising effectiveness and sustainability of such strategies.

Document Analysis Document analysis (Bowen, 2009) provided a means to gather data on key priorities and initiatives that we gleaned from Fiji and the Pacific’s early childhood and language/literacy education policies, reports and frameworks. As with the stakeholder interviews, document analysis informed our development of a dialectic relationship between the case studies and Fiji’s early childhood education (ECE) policies and curriculum guidelines. Document analysis provided us with an understanding of the broad context of early childhood education policy and curriculum guidelines in which community capacity and strategies were developed. Document analysis also afforded opportunity to triangulate the findings of analysis of these documents with the study’s early childhood stakeholder interviews. This work developed understanding of key early childhood guidelines and communities’ realities and approaches to supporting preschool language and literacy, contributed to generating criteria for sustainability of community approaches and documented stakeholders’ feedback and uptake of the community approaches that were developed. We have included key findings of our analyses of these documents in our literature review

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presented in Chap. 3 and the conceptual framework provided in Chap. 4, wherein we cite the documents collected for this purpose.

Ensuring Trustworthiness and Ethics of the Study In undertaking participant observer roles in communities, we maintained the trustworthiness of our data collection, documentation, analysis and interpretation as ongoing processes that took time, mental energy and clarity and social and physical distance on a daily basis. We lived in accommodation outside but nearby our respective communities, where we could attend to this critical part of the research. We also recognised that our presence in the community could influence participants’ behaviour – for example, participants may act and speak differently, possibly in accordance with what they believe the researcher expects. We needed to remain alert to such reactions, noting shifts that could occur as participants became accustomed (or not) to having researchers in their midst. Thus, measures we took to ensure trustworthiness were critical to the rigour of this study. We have overviewed these measures in Fig. 5.10, which we identified and implemented in accord with the rules of the research paradigm in which our study was situated (Lincoln et al., 2011).

Fig. 5.10  Measures to ensure the study’s trustworthiness

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This study complied with and was approved by the University of South Australia’s ethics protocols as regulated and monitored by the University’s Human Research Ethics Committee and with Fiji Ministry of Education’s Research Approval protocols. We stored and maintained data in accordance with the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research (2007) and South Australia legislation. Protocols of confidentiality and security were applied to all data records. We replaced the names of locations with pseudonyms and ensured all artefacts and their documentation remained secure and intact at all times, including the password-protected share point where we stored and shared our electronic data records within the research team with password authorisation. All parents of participating children in each community asked that their child’s real name be used to recognise their contribution to the storybooks generated through the research process. We conducted this study in a relational context characterised by an ethics of care and commitment (Rhodes, 2014; Thapa et al., 2018). In iTaukei and Indo Fijian settings alike, we honoured relational values of veidokai (respect), veidolei (reciprocity), veimaroroi (protectiveness) and vosota (patience), all carrying equal weight in our encounters (Tagicakiverata & Nilan, 2018). This was not without its challenges as learners in new cultures. For example, in Dovubaravi, these values were modelled and taught to the researchers during Phase 1. Community elders and mentors drew to the researchers’ attention the danger posed with respect to impatience and how patience ensures all community members’ protection. We endeavoured to bring to these encounters the empathy, faith, hope, humility, love, optimism and trust that Freire (1983) argues are all essential to the authenticity of dialogic encounters. We endowed our collective work with community agency, voice and ownership, resonant with calls for Pacific people’s ownership over education and change – people as actors in their world  – developing and carrying out actions, materials and instruments from their cultural heritage that reflect their cultural, social, material and linguistic realities. Doing so was as much an ethical obligation as it was a methodological consideration. In effecting this reconstruction, we invited participants to muse and reflect on ideas and problems as a basis for informed action, ensuring that genuine consequence could come from this study as participants desired it would. We ensured that adults and children’s participation was voluntary, respectful, relevant, inclusive, child-friendly, safe and sensitive to risk, meaningful and informed with shared understanding of the purpose, process and outcomes (Harcourt & Conroy, 2009; Lansdown, 2011). Adult participants were invited initially through oral and translated dialogue and subsequently through informed written consent, assisted by community mentors. First languages were usually not English, so mentors were important translators and mediators, explaining concepts such as ‘consent forms’ and translating research questions and participant answers given in another language. When we invited children to participate, supported by mentors, mothers and grandmothers, we were transparent with children about our study’s purposes and processes, obtained their informed verbal assent to so engage, building upon, and privileging their voice within, their parents/legal guardians’ informed written consent. We monitored all participants’ agreement to continue throughout the study, noting the equal importance of children’s assent and dissent, and non-verbal ways

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children have of showing these positions as a study proceeds – such as restlessness indicating dissent and engagement showing assent (Dockett et al., 2012). We also respected children’s agency within a rights-based approach by giving them opportunity and support to shape the processes that involved them in our study – including co-creating texts and multilingual literacy support strategies with children, as was illustrated in this chapter’s opening vignette. We all – researchers, children, families, mentors and partners alike – went into this study on the understanding that the study must be consequential and beneficial for all involved. Consequence and benefit, after all, were core to our focal concern with developing community literacy strategies that were sustainable and which benefited children’s multilingual literacy learning – aligning with the assertion underpinning the research form of talanoa as veivosaki-yaga that ‘there must be veivakatorocaketaki, which means enhancement. The research must benefit the community’ (Tagicakiverata & Nilan, 2018, p. 554). It is to Fiji’s broad community of key early childhood stakeholders that our next chapter gives its attention, followed by three chapters that provide in-depth case study accounts of Duavata, Dovubaravi and Wavu communities.

References Arndt, S., & Tesar, M. (2018). Narrative methodologies: Challenging and elevating cross-cultural complexities. In S.  M. Akpovo, M.  J. Moran, & R.  Brookshire (Eds.), Collaborative cross-­ cultural research methodologies in early childhood care and education contexts (pp. 47–62). New York: Routledge. Ayres, L. (2008). Semi-structured interviews. In L. M. Given (Ed.), The SAGE encyclopedia of qualitative research methods (pp. 811–813). Thousand Oaks: Sage. Baser, H., & Morgan, P. (2008). Study on capacity, change and performance (ECDPM Discussion Paper 59B). Maastricht: European Centre for Development Policy Management. https://ecdpm. org/publications/capacity-change-performance-study-report/ Bowen, G. A. (2009). Document analysis as a qualitative research method. Qualitative Research Journal, 9(2), 27–40. Brenner, M. (2006). Interviewing in educational research. In J. L. Green, G. Camilli, & P. B. Elmore (Eds.), Handbook of complementary methods in education research (pp. 357–370). Washington: Lawrence Erlbaum and American Education Research Association. Charmaz, K., & Belgrave, L. L. (2012). Qualitative interviewing and grounded theory analysis. In J. F. Gubrium, J. Holstein, A. Marvasti, & K. D. McKinney (Eds.), Handbook of interview research: The complexity of the craft (2nd ed., pp. 347–366). Los Angeles: Sage. Cooperrider, D., & Whitney, D. (2005). Appreciative inquiry: A positive revolution in change. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler. Delamont, S. (2002). Fieldwork in educational settings: Methods, pitfalls and perspectives. London: Routledge. DeWalt, K. M., DeWalt, B. R., & Wayland, C. B. (1998). Participant observation. In H. R. Bernard (Ed.), Handbook of methods in cultural anthropology (pp.  259–299). Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press. Dockett, S., Einarsdóttir, J., & Perry, B. (2012). Young children’s decisions about research participation: Opting out. International Journal of Early Years Education, 20(3), 244–256.

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Fiji Ministry of Education. (2009). Na Noda Mataniciva: Kindergarten curriculum guidelines for the Fiji Islands. Ministry of Education National Heritage Culture & Arts Youth & Sports. Suva, Fiji: Republic of the Fiji Islands. Freire, P. (1983). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum. Gadamer, H.G. (1989). Truth and method. New York: Crossroad. Glesne, C. (2015). Becoming qualitative researchers: An introduction. Boston: Pearson. Harcourt, D., & Conroy, H. (2009). Informed agreement to participate. Early Childhood Development & Care, 179(2), 157–165. Harris, P. (2009). Language learning in the baby and toddler years. Terrigal, NSW: David Barlow Publishing. Harris, P., Brock, C., Diamond, A., McInnes, E., Neill, B., Camaitoga, U., & Krishna, M. (2018). “You, Us and a Bus”: Exploring analysis as cross-cultural colloboration in Fiji. In S. M. Akpovo, M. J. Moran, & R. Brookshire (Eds.), Collaborative cross-cultural research methodologies in early childhood care and education contexts (pp. 169–186). New York: Routledge. https://doi. org/10.4324/9781315460772 Harris, P., & Manatakis, H. (2013). Children as citizens: Engaging with the child’s voice in educational settings. London: Routledge. Johansson, F. (2014). Kakala research framework. In M. Otunuki, U. Nabobo-Baba, & F. Johansson (Eds.), Of waves, winds and wonderful things: A decade of rethinking Pacific education. Suva: University of South Pacific Press. Jourdan, C., & Salaün, M. (2013). Vernacular and culturally based education in Oceania today: Articulating global, national and local agendas. Current Issues in Language Planning, 14(2), 205–216. Kemmis, S., McTaggart, R., & Nixon, R. (2014). The action research planner: Doing critical participatory action research. Singapore: Springer. Kirova, A., Massing, C., Cleghorn, A., & Prochner, L. (2018). Complexities of insider-­outsider positioning in a comparative study of early childhood teacher education programs. In S. M. Akpovo, M. J. Moran, & R. Brookshire (Eds.), Collaborative cross-cultural research methodologies in early childhood care and education contexts (pp.  99–114). New  York: Routledge. Koirala-Azad, S., Zanoni, K., & Argenal, A. (2018). Critical reflections on the positionality of human rights educators working in diverse contexts. In S.  M. Akpovo, M.  J. Moran, & R. Brookshire (Eds.), Collaborative cross-cultural research methodologies in early childhood care and education contexts (pp. 81–98). New York: Routledge. Kurasawa, F. (2007). The work of global justice: Human rights as practices. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lansdown, G. (2011). A framework for Monitoring & Evaluating Children’s Participation. Save the Children, UNICEF, Plan, World Vision. https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/ node/4733/pdf/4733.pdf Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1999). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. New York: Cambridge University Press. Lewis, R. (2006). When cultures collide: Leading across cultures. Boston: Nicholas Brealey International. Lincoln, Y. S., Lynham, S. A., & Guba, E. G. (2011). Paradigmatic controversies contradictions and emerging confluences. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (pp. 97–128). Thousand Oaks: Sage. Malinowski, B. (1922). Argonauts of the Western Pacific. London: Routledge/Kegan Paul. McNess, E. M., Arthur, L., & Crossley, M. W. (2015). ‘Ethnographic dazzle’ and the construction of the ‘other’: Revisiting dimensions of insider and outsider research for international and comparative education. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 45(2), 295–316. McVee, M., & Boyd, F. (2016). Exploring diversity through multimodality, narrative, and dialogue: A framework for teacher reflection. New York: Routledge.

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Nabobo-Baba, U. (2006). Knowing and learning: An indigenous Fijian approach. Suva, Fiji: University of the South Pacific. Nimmo, J., Marcilio, A., Fowler, A., & Goyal, V. (2018). Voices of children: Intercultural collaborations in understanding and documenting the meaning of children’s rights through dialogue and video. In S.  M. Akpovo, M.  J. Moran, & R.  Brookshire (Eds.), Collaborative cross-­ cultural research methodologies in early childhood care and education contexts (pp. 151–168). New York: Routledge. Norum, K. E. (2008). Artifacts and artifact analysis. In L. M. Given (Ed.), The SAGE encyclopedia of qualitative research methods (pp. 23–26). Thousand Oaks: Sage. Otsuka, S. (2006). Talanoa: Culturally appropriate research design in Fiji. In Proceedings of the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) 2005 International Education Research Conference: Creative Dissent-Constructive Solutions. Melbourne, Australia: AARE. https://www.aare.edu.au/data/publications/2005/ots05506.pdf Pettigrew, T., & Tropp, L. (2006). A meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90(5), 751–783. Puamau, P. (2005, 30th May–1st June). Rethinking educational reform: A Pacific perspective. Keynote address presented at the  Redesigning pedagogy: Research, policy & practice International Conference, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Ratuva, S. (2007). Na kilaka a vaka-Viti ni veikabula: Indigenous knowledge and the Fijian cosmos: Implications on bio-prospecting. In A. T. P. Mead & S. Ratuva (Eds.), Pacific genes & life patents: Pacific indigenous experience & analysis of commodification & ownership of life (pp. 90–101). Wellington: Call of Earth Llamado de la Tierra and the United Nations University of Advanced Studies. Rhodes, D. (2014). Capacity across cultures: Global lessons from Pacific experiences. Ballarat West: Inkshed Press. Rhodes, D., & Antoine, E. (2015). Practitioners’ handbook for capacity development: A cross-­ cultural approach (3rd ed.). Gisborne: Inkshed Press & Leadership Strategies. Skutnabb-Kangas, T., & Dunbar, R. (2010). Indigenous children’s education as linguistic genocide and a crime against humanity? A global view. Gáldu Journal of Indigenous People’s Rights, 1. Kautokeino: Resource Centre for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of qualitative research – Grounded theory procedures and techniques. Newbury Park: Sage. Tagicakiverata, I.  W., & Nilan, P. (2018). Veivosaki-yaga: A culturally appropriate indigenous research method in Fiji. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 31(6), 545–556. Taufe’ulungaki, A. (2002). Pacific education at the crossroads: Are there alternatives? In F. Pene, A.  Taufe’ulungaki & C.  Benson (Eds.), Tree of opportunity: Rethinking Pacific education (pp. 5–21). Suva: University of South Pacific. Thaman, K. (2009). Towards cultural democracy in teaching and learning with special references to Pacific Island nations (PINs). International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 3(2), 1–9. Thapa, S., Akpovo, S. M., & Young, D. (2018). Collaboration as a healing and decolonizing research tool: The narratives of three early childhood researchers. In S. M. Akpovo, M. J. Moran, & R. Brookshire (Eds.), Collaborative cross-cultural research methodologies in early childhood care and education contexts (pp. 63–78). New York: Routledge. Tiko, L. (2008). Research on the transition of children from preschool to primary grade one in Fiji. In J. Dorovolomo, C. F. Koya, H. P. Phan, J. Varamu, & U. Nabobo-Baba (Eds.), Pacific education: Issues and perspectives (pp. 126–149). Lautoka: University of the South Pacific. Toganivalu, D. (2008). Early childhood care and education in the Pacific: Reflections of our past, our present and our future. In P. Puamau & F. Pene (Eds.), Early childhood care and education in the Pacific  (pp. 19–43). Suva, Fiji: University of the South Pacific. http://www.usp.ac.fj/ index.php?id=ecce

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Chapter 6

Exploring Stakeholders’ Perspectives of Young Children’s Multilingual Literacy

Abstract  This chapter presents findings from our interviews with influential stakeholders who have been actively involved in the development of Fiji’s and the Pacific’s early childhood education and care policies, curricula and/or programs. These interview findings highlight key considerations and complexities inherent in our study’s focus on building community capacity for fostering preschool children’s multilingual literacy in their home and community settings. We explore stakeholders’ perspectives according to the focus of each of our research questions in turn: preschool children’s literacy development contexts; enablers and constraints that impact preschool children’s literacy learning; local resources and strategies for fostering preschool children’s literacy in their home languages and English; and effective strategies for developing local community capacity to support preschool children’s literacy development in their home languages and English. The chapter closes with a discussion of implications for developing community capacity for fostering young children’s literacy, a matter core to the aims and focus of our study.

Introduction Key stakeholders in early childhood education in Fiji engaged in dialogue with us to share their insights into the language and literacy contexts of Fiji’s children. In the insights they shared, the complexities and richness of children’s lives came to the fore most vividly  – as did the challenges inherent in fostering literacy with young children who inhabit their local worlds while global realities knock on their door. Such complexity and challenge are illustrated in excerpts below from our interviews with early childhood education and care stakeholders: ‘We are colonised people and we need to change our mindset to think that our ways of our doings are also important as that of the rest.’

‘Families are grappling with their cultural heritage.’

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Harris et al., Children’s Multilingual Literacy, International Perspectives on Early Childhood Education and Development 31, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6587-8_6

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‘It’s always like this, as soon you leave your Fijian-ness outside and you walk in.’

‘There’s so little resources in our local languages.’

‘There are so many resources around our homes, around the villages, around the communities. That means working with parents.’

‘Whether it’s out there on the verandah, out there under the trees, or in a building … you can run a program anywhere. Two children, three children, fifteen children, thirty children, twenty-five children … Learning can take place anywhere in the community, not just in a house.’

‘The Fijian ways of learning and the western must come together … because we cannot be left behind with all these things’. As these excerpts suggest, our dialogue with stakeholders revealed key considerations and complexities that are germane our project’s focus on building community capacity for fostering preschool children’s multilingual literacy in their home and community settings. The stakeholders with whom we had this dialogue on an individual basis had been actively involved in the development of Fiji’s and the Pacific’s early childhood education and care policies, curricula and/or programs, as profiled in Chap. 5. This chapter presents findings from these interviews, which we organise according to the focus of each of our research questions in turn: 1 . Stakeholders’ perspectives of preschool children’s literacy development contexts 2. Stakeholders’ perspectives of enablers and constraints that impact preschool children’s literacy learning 3. Stakeholders’ perspectives of local resources and strategies for fostering preschool children’s literacy in their home languages and English 4. Stakeholders’ perspectives of effective strategies for developing local community capacity to support preschool children’s literacy development in their home languages and English 5. Implications for developing community capacity for fostering young children’s literacy. As we discuss these findings, we make links to the research and policy literature that we reviewed in Chap. 3.

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 takeholders’ Perspectives of Preschool Children’s Literacy S Development Contexts Focusing on young children’s literacy development contexts, stakeholder comments generated themes related to: –– The place of Fiji’s vernacular languages and English –– Differential experiences in languages between urban and rural areas –– Tensions between languages and consequences for local and global identities and participation –– Language shifts across home, preschool and school –– Languages for participation in an increasingly diverse nation and global society. We explore each of these themes below, supported by extracts from the stakeholder interviews.

The Place of Fiji’s Vernacular Languages and English Stakeholders all agreed that the question of languages in Fiji is complex and presents a significant challenge to Early Childhood Education in Fiji – with all stakeholders expressing concerns over maintaining vernacular languages and dialects while teaching the English language. Stakeholders noted the erosion of vernacular languages, especially dialects, through the prevalence of westernised texts and technologies in English in Fiji. Some stakeholders were resigned to what they saw as the inevitability of the passing of vernacular languages, while others embraced English as an imperative for participating local and global societies. Yet other stakeholders advocated action to counter the diminishment of vernacular languages, placing premium value on the relationship between vernacular languages, and cultural identities and relations. Across this range of views, the relative place of vernaculars and English were seen to be bound with past, present and future lives and mobilities. All stakeholders recognised that vernacular languages support the maintenance of heritage cultures and relations, as also highlighted in the literature (Herrman, 2007; Spencer, 1996). Loss of vernacular languages emerged as a highly prevalent reality amongst the stakeholders: Parents and grandparents are actually expressing some concern that their children aren’t learning their vernacular languages, they’re learning English. They go to school where English is obviously the language being taught. Parents and grandparents have been expressing some concern that children are losing their vernacular languages. It’s a bit patchy in schools. In some schools, teachers are continuing to help to maintain vernacular languages. In other schools, that’s not happening. It very much seems to depend on the schools. Parents also talk about technology helping to contribute to English development but not contributing to vernacular.

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[English is] such an overpowering language … when children go into a learning centre like where my grandchildren go, I was amazed at the end of the first week, they were picking up bits in English, like “Mum”, “Dad”.

This sense of English as an ‘overpowering language’ whose increasing presence is conveyed through information, communication and entertainment technology resonates with English as the language of government, education, media and communication in Fiji. As such, English exists in a hegemonic relationship with Fiji’s vernacular languages and dialects that, like elsewhere in the Pacific, Indigenous peoples are seeking to reclaim and maintain, as we discussed in Chap. 3 (Puamau & Pene, 2008; Toganivalu, 2008) and is reflected in this stakeholder’s comment: You know that we are colonised people and we need to change our mindset to think that our ways of our doings are also important as that of the rest.

Losing one’s culture was a poignant concern that came through these interviews, for example: I personally see now that traditional practices like tapa painting and weaving are fading away, ceasing away now. Not like twenty, thirty, forty years ago. Now there’s less emphasis on those practices. I know when I went to primary school, we were taught to weave mats and plant all these things, do some craft work. Not now. Where does the culture come into it? Like sitting round and weaving together. Or sleeping on a mat, you need a mat, you bring your mat, you sit on it outside. When people come, you spread out a mat because everybody will sit around the mat. How does that culture retain its value and importance in early childhood settings?

On the other hand, English was seen to have an important role as Fiji’s lingua franca: I still think that the vernacular is important but at the same time, there’s a lot of asking for the English language, particularly from the parents because now Fiji is such a multilingual, multiracial country that you can’t afford not to speak English. Wherever you go, you should speak English if there is another ethnic group there. The only language we can understand each other by is English. The only language that we can understand each other by is English. So with the Indian community, I don’t know what percentage would want their children to speak their own vernacular as well as the Fijian community, but as it is, you really can’t help it. Parents [who speak English] and parents who can just speak a little English, love to teach their children English. Some children, because of their exposure to TV, just pick up English very, very easily. Preschools that have multi-ethnic children can’t afford to not speak English. That would be the common instruction that would be used in these centres. Some of the teachers speak their own vernacular at home, but when they come to school, they have to speak English.

All the stakeholders conveyed the primacy of teaching English as an expectation of families and communities – for example: It’s a big challenge because you do have parents who don’t have previous experience with preschool. Their understanding of school is what they have experienced, which is going into Year One Primary and having English immediately – and being forced to read and write

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English. So when they send their child to preschool, that’s what they expect to see, the reading and writing of English.

Stakeholders’ mixed views resonate with the overwhelming call for maintaining vernaculars in the research literature (Glasgow, 2010; Herrman, 2007; Taufe‘ulungaki, 2004; Thaman, 2009) and key Pacific regional initiatives (e.g. Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, 2014; UNESCO, 2000) that we discussed in Chap. 3. This review also revealed that this call was offset by contention on the other side of the vernacular/English debate that advocate for families to determine their own linguistic futures and for English learning opportunities to be made more equitably available across ethnicity, gender, economic background and rural, remote and urban locations (Burnett, 2008; McConaghy, 2000; Narsey, 2004).

 ifferential Experiences in Languages Between Urban D and Rural Areas A recurring theme throughout the stakeholder interviews concerned differential experiences of languages between urban and rural locations. The drift to Fiji’s urban areas, which we identified in Chap. 2 (FBOS, 2017), has been accompanied by cultural shifts to different ways of being and interacting: There’s a big cultural shift now. All those things that used to happen about ten, twenty years ago, they’re just losing it slowly. There’s a lot of people drifting, longing to come to the urban areas. They tend to copy all that is happening here [in the urban areas].

This urban drift inevitably has been accompanied by language shifts, with stakeholders reporting that vernacular languages prevail in Fiji’s rural and remote areas: In rural communities, the conversation is always in vernacular, and they also have their own community dialect. At home they have their own dialect, then they go to Kindy and have the community dialect, then they go to school and learn English.

Whereas English was said to be more commonplace in urban areas: Now in the urban areas, English is the language of conversation and teaching.

Information, communication and entertainment technologies were seen to have an impact on cultural and linguistic shifts. These technologies are encountered more often in Fiji’s urban areas than rural areas and do not necessarily connect with a group’s own cultural origins. Greater urban access to these technologies, usually originating from English-speaking sources, was seen to contribute to the urban/rural differential in languages: People like to go to the cinemas. There are all these technologies [in urban places]. Sometimes I feel it’s lonely to be at home because everyone is focusing on their own device. And when you talk to them sometimes they have earphones here and no one answers. I tell my husband, ‘Well, I think the two of us can just sit aside and just talk on our own because all these children don’t want to listen to us’. And then we hear, ‘Hey’, and then they say, ‘Oh

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you’re talking to me?’ I see the movies and it’s happening there, and it’s happening in our very own living room with all our children. It’s changed traditions about talking and ­community. Adults can do that, but with children, they are focused on other things, they are not part of community conversations. Even in the preschools, some of them bring their iPads or whatever they call it.

According to the stakeholders with whom we spoke, this urban/rural differential in languages presents some challenges for teachers: Now as far as the vernacular is concerned, we have tried to make sure that if the teachers who come out [as new graduates] go to the villages, [the teaching] is all in Fijian. If they go to the Hindi settlements, [the teaching’s] all in Hindi. Now when the teachers come to the urban centres, they have to use English then. And if you’re going to speak a language, you’ve got to speak accurately. You have to model your language so that you’re speaking it correctly, and I think that’s where we have some of the problems. If English is not your first language, you’re going to have a problem trying to use English for Fijian, Indian, European, Chinese, mixed-race children. I think that’s where some of the parents will probably feel they would like to have some say in what goes on in the preschool. My children spoke the vernacular Fijian until they went to primary school and they are very comfortable in both languages. Very comfortable.

This comment is indicative of the complexities of turning the policy rhetoric of using vernaculars in early childhood centres into reality. Adding to this complexity are prevailing tensions between vernaculars and English amidst other inter-­linguistic intricacies, as we explore below.

 ensions Between Languages and Consequences for Local T and Global Identities and Participation Tensions between languages emerged in our stakeholder interviews, particularly in regard to tensions between vernacular languages/dialects and English. A prevalent question for the stakeholders was whether or not it is best to focus on vernaculars first in children’s first years of life in order to build foundations and optimise later proficiency in English. This question on stakeholders’ lips echoes tensions in the Pacific context at large regarding the relative merits of additive and subtractive models of multilingual teaching and support, as we discussed in Chap. 3 (Cullen et al., 2009; Glasgow, 2010). Whereas an additive approach sees a new language being slowly introduced while retaining support for vernacular language, a subtractive approach sees the additional language displacing the first language/s, along with learners’ sense of cultural identity and capacity to engage in practices and communication germane to their cultural setting. The additive model was favoured clearly by the stakeholders we interviewed and is consistent with Na Noda Mataniciva’s focus on maintaining children’s vernacular languages/dialects, as discussed in Chap. 4 (Fiji Ministry of Education, 2009).

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Stakeholders also noted that they had witnessed those who do not speaking home languages well or at being ostracised, and those attempting broken English being scorned: When people speak, those who speak good English are ridiculed, and they are laughed at if we have broken English. That has to stop, and we need to put ourselves first, speak in our dialect … At home, I emphasise that my dialect comes first, then the National Fijian Language, then the English. So I speak with my children in my own mother tongue, my dialect.

These tensions highlight the complexities of children preserving cultural traditions through their home languages while engaging in the here-and-now of their local lives that include technologies and schooling that privilege English. These tensions are inevitably inherent in living in multiple cultural worlds, reflecting the differential value placed on particular languages in terms of local and global realities: The importance of indigenous Fijian children’s ways of learning and learning in the indigenous Fijian context is great. But at the same time, they must be western, must come together. It has to be a hybrid because we cannot be left behind with all of these things.

Tensions between vernaculars and English hold critical implications for cultural relations and identity, as stakeholders noted: We’re picking up in our communities that parents and grandparents have been expressing concern about loss of cultural identity. So there needs to be aspirations in all communities that all children preserve their vernaculars, their cultural identity that goes with language. There’s also a concern that when children go to school, it becomes predominantly English. Families are grappling with their cultural heritage … Families know it’s important to hang on to their identity because it just comes up naturally, and they only have to say something to know then that English is sort of where their identity comes in. It’s almost like a struggle within, and if we do not work hard with our little ones [shakes head]. You know, I am always looking back at my childhood. Here I was, whisked off to my grandparents, to the village, to learn my dialect.

This loss or diminishment of identity from erosion of one’s vernaculars resonates strongly with the research literature on the inextricable binding of language and identity, as we discussed in Chap. 3. Beyond identity, however, stakeholders also named alienation that arises when one does not speak a language the way others might expect – be that language a vernacular or English. Moreover, this alienation was not confined to losing ability to maintain relations within one’s cultural or kinship group because of loss of the vernaculars of that group. As this stakeholder vividly explained: People [who ridicule you for speaking broken English] have seen the western world as number one in their eyes and they have to speak good English. Even for me – and I grew up in a school system – if I speak wrong English, I would be ridiculed. And if I speak my own language, I will be asked to go outside and do some picking up of rubbish, or run around the playground for speaking English or speaking in Fijian or speaking in my vernacular. So it’s always like that in the village. [I know] because I was brought up in the village. I went to the village school. It’s always like this, as soon you leave your Fijian-ness outside and you walk in.

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Language complexities were further highlighted for families traversing languages on two sides of a marriage, such as this stakeholder discussed from personal experience: I’m not Fijian ethnically. So I speak my own language that’s different from the Fijian language. I have two sons. The older one speaks Rotuman. My husband is Fijian, so the older one can speak Rotuman, can speak Fijian, not fluently, but he understands and he can speak it so that you understand what he’s saying. My little one doesn’t speak Rotuman or Fijian. He just speaks English. And for me personally, I would like him to know and to speak Rotuman or Fijian. Like it was for me, I want that in my children. I would like that to be preserved. I speak Fijian. I speak just conversation Fijian. I can’t pray in Fijian. But I can speak to [name of an in-law relative] in Fijian. She laughs at some of my words. It’s not fluent, it’s not proper sometimes, but she’ll understand what I say.

Clearly, living in and across different cultural worlds is linguistically complex and can be relationally difficult – as, too, are the language shifts young children face when they transition to preschool and school, as we now discuss.

Language Shifts Across Home, Preschool and School Another key theme emerging in the stakeholder interviews concerned the significant and potentially complex shift that occurs when children move from home and/or preschool to school. The language transition that is involved in this shift could be relatively straightforward – for example: We are a Fijian school. When children come into our primary school, we concentrate on English. We converse in English. Our only vernacular conversation is during our vernacular subject. For pre-school, it’s totally in vernacular. [Teachers introduce] English with alphabets. Sometimes they have songs and rhymes in English. But the conversation is always in vernacular because in the community that is what is spoken. Their vernacular is quite close to the village dialect, quite easy to understand. And then their mums at home use that dialect.

However, the language transition could be quite complex, as in the case below where there was a marked linguistic difference between community and preschool: In a community [that our school serves], the children have their own mother tongue, their village dialect. When they come into the centre, it’s like another step forward for them to speak in the centre’s dialect. So they’re learning three languages [their village dialect, their community’s vernacular language, and English]. It is really hard. There’s not much intermarriage – they marry somebody from next door. The conversation is always in their own dialect. When they come into the ECE centre, learning the Bauan dialect is hard, just like speaking in English [is hard]. They have their own village dialect, then they go to kindy and do the Bauan dialect, then they go to school and learn English.

Taken together, these two scenarios above demonstrate the dialectic diversity that characterises Fiji’s ‘hidden linguistic diversity’ that we discussed in Chap. 2 (Mugler, 1996, p. 278). While this diversity might be said to be ‘hidden’, it is none the less highly visible to teachers, children and families who experience the challenges of transitions as illustrated above. Moreover, code-switching that can be

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commonplace in Fiji schools (Tamata, 1996) is not necessarily a straightforward matter – determined as code-switching is by variable local conditions such as those depicted above. In the face of working with differences between communities, an uneven playing field for educators to negotiate was highlighted by stakeholders: I service two communities which are completely opposite from each other. In one of the communities, the males come out to the city. They marry educated young ladies and they take them back there. So the ladies are there with their children and the men are down in the cities working. [The men] only come up on Saturday and come down again on Sunday. While the ladies are at home, you visit their home and you will see evidence of academic and visual literacy in their homes. And when they do come into school, when they come into early childhood centres, they’re sort of more advanced – they are more advanced. Whereas on the other side, I have another community which is very much traditional, and even though they are traditional, they’ve mixed things up with westernisation. In that I mean to say that they go looking for money for their family. So what they do, what their normal lifestyle is that the Dads go to the farm to do the farming, while the Mums on Monday leave their homes to come down to the city to come and sell vegetables. [The men] are vegetable farmers. So the Dad will be working full time on the farm. The Mums stay in the cities [because they] won’t be able to come back –to their rural homes]. So the children are left behind with the grandparents.

In the face of Fiji’s diversity across community settings, stakeholders expressed strong commitment to a curriculum for early childhood, and their hope that Fiji’s Na Noda Mataniciva (Fiji Ministry of Education, 2009) would have a significant influence on the offering of early childhood education: With Early Childhood in Fiji, I believe that if the teachers and parents, and our Minister of Educations’ officers – our superiors – really focus on this curriculum, there’s so many positive things that can come out of it.

Stakeholders portrayed Na Noda Matanicivaa (which we described in Chaps. 3 and 4) as consistent with the social and cultural values and practices that are shared in Fijian communities and identified the document’s focus on the holistic development of the child. The innovation of providing such guidelines in Fiji was noted: Now we have the guide of Na Noda Mataniciva and this is really good because we never used anything like that. Teachers were just asked to plan their own programs, not basing them on observations or anything, but just what they see is suitable for the children. But now we have this, teachers are able to see that there is something that they can lean on and that can guide them through. Maybe not really dictating them to do this and do that, but at least they can see that there’s something that they can extract from, that they can maybe follow, different strategies that are there.

Stakeholders described different early childhood education approaches to language in different community settings – with perceived pressure from parents for children to learn English but also to build connections to families and communities through their vernacular languages and cultural practices. In this duality, we see tensions for Fiji’s people participating in local and global worlds.

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 anguages for Participation in an Increasingly Diverse Nation L and Global Society We previously saw that stakeholders held a range of views about the relative merits of maintaining vernacular languages versus prioritising English. However, all stakeholders acknowledged the need to position young people in Fiji to be successful within a global context through the learning of English  – seeing this demand in constant tension with the commitment to maintaining Fiji’s cultures and languages. Some stakeholders noted tensions between rhetoric and reality on the matter of preserving vernacular languages, despite Fiji’s and the Pacific’s official commitment to vernaculars as discussed in Chap. 3 (Fiji Ministry of Education, 2009; Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, 2014; UNESCO, 2008). As this stakeholder expressed: Even though the Government or the Minister for Education’s bringing out that vernacular is compulsory, the move now is more to English. Some parents are saying that’s fine. But in reality, I’m just thinking that the vernaculars are going to be done away very soon.

However, hope and a way forward also were expressed through embracing linguistic diversity and realities: I find that it’s very easy to maintain your own local language in a community where everybody’s either Fijian or a little bit of a mix there and everything is run in Fijian. I told the teachers that you don’t have to speak in English when you’re teaching your children, speak in the language that they feel comfortable. If they’re asking about the books they can read to children, I say, whatever they feel comfortable with. A lot of teachers are reading in English because there’s so little resources in our local languages.

This concern over vernacular resources clearly aligns with the research on the benefits of providing multilingual books to children growing up with two or more household languages/dialects while also learning English. As we saw in Chap. 3, these benefits include honouring and fostering children’s first languages; acknowledging children’s cultural and linguistic/literate identities; encouraging literate participation in first languages while encouraging English learning (the latter not displacing the former); promoting children’s sense of belonging; building bridges between children’s home, (pre)school experiences; assisting children to appreciate their languages and cultures and those of others; and allowing teachers to learn vernacular language and dialects when different from their own (particularly germane to our previous conversations about teachers supporting children’s language shifts across home, preschool and school settings) (Naqvi & Pfitscher, 2011; Sneddon, 2000). While some stakeholders believed vernacular languages were an endangered species in Fiji, others thought otherwise and indeed embraced languages that originated from other places beyond Fiji or the Pacific: I don’t think maintaining vernaculars is a big problem because now everybody’s trying to learn English and other languages that are now in Fiji. They have French, they have Japanese and people are moving into that. I find a barrier of language is not a problem. Even with preschools, parents want their children to learn English, and even in the homes, you’ll be amazed [to hear English] when you go into a Fijian family. English is spoken everywhere, whether it’s good English or bad English, correct or not correct. It’s happened because of

Stakeholders’ Perspectives of Enablers and Constraints that Impact Preschool Children’s… 149 the multi-ethnic group that we are. You need to be understood by other ethnic groups. Otherwise, if you stick to your own language, it could be good in your own ethnic group, but not when you go across to other groups.

Such a perspective recognised the pragmatics of communicating outside one’s own cultural/language group in an increasingly culturally diverse nation – pragmatics that impact inter alia children’s multilingual literacy engagement and learning, as we now explore below.

 takeholders’ Perspectives of Enablers and Constraints that S Impact Preschool Children’s Multilingual Literacy Learning In how stakeholders talked about what helped and what hindered children’s literacy, enablers and constraints emerged as closely entwined concerns in relation to emerging themes of: –– Resources and opportunities, offset by teachers’ resourcefulness and innovation –– Systemic considerations and teacher education –– Localised conditions (such as families’ changing lifestyles, technology and urban and rural differences) We explore each of these themes below.

Resources and Opportunities Resource support for Fiji’s children’s multilingual literacy development emerged as an area of significant thematic interest and concern. While stakeholders noted resourcing issues for supporting the implementation of Na Noda Mataniciva (Fiji Ministry of Education, 2009), they acknowledged the opportunity to develop programs framed by Na Noda Mataniciva in teachers’ local contexts: I think the early childhood teachers are very rich. They know how to use materials they have around them as resources. There are so many resources around our homes, around the villages, around the communities. That means working with parents.

Stakeholders particularly noted the paucity of resources that used Fiji’s vernacular languages, which they reported to be a significant barrier to children becoming literate in their home languages and English: [Resources in vernacular languages are] the largest gap. There are no young children’s books in vernacular. The youngest book that you will find are often primary readers and the bible. And these are often the only books that are in children’s homes. There’s so little resources in our local languages. There are extremely poor resources available in vernacular.

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If we are going to stress the importance of vernacular to help language and literacy development, how can we say that if we have no resources? Yes, they can draw pictures, they can tell stories, they can tell what they have done in their own language and then that can be documented. Parents should be involved as well. Really we have less resources as you would have seen. There’s not enough resources in vernacular to improve our literacy in areas of our vernacular languages.

In the face of resource shortfalls, stakeholders recognised the importance and value of early childhood educators’ resourcefulness, as illustrated in this stakeholder’s examples from her own work: There’s a kindergarten that I have gone to where the teacher uses natural resources … She’s got coconuts with numbers written on them and letters written on them, just to get the children to learn those things. There was a picture that I had seen of using a table with snakes and ladders drawn on the table. Just something visual like that. At one of our centres in the north, the teacher has drawn numbers and things on the floor. So in terms of developing that for children, it’s dependent on the teacher’s resourcefulness and initiative to be able to do that. The communities we’re working in are informal communities [that is, they have no formal village structure or funding]. So that they don’t have a lot in terms of money to get library books and all that. But I’ve seen the teachers using natural resources to be able to develop children’s reading and speaking skills. They’re mostly Fijian communities where the dialect is different in the north and in the west. But on their walls, they’ve got charts and all the charts are in English. So there’s a picture of a cat and “cat” is written on that. So they’ve got it written in English but they speak it in their dialect.

A significant constraint was what stakeholders perceived as a loss with the changing use of vernaculars in family, community and official settings, as previously discussed. Stakeholders felt this loss was exacerbated by and fed into the lack of vernacular resources and a vernacular focus in formal education settings. Even the vernacular children’s songs, they’re not doing that anymore. The biggest barrier or the biggest challenge facing our families of the children is the overwhelming exposure to English with the IT world coming in and taking over the little vernacular that is being spoken in the home. It’s happening even in the schools, although it’s a matter of policy to maintain vernaculars. Fijian and English and Hindustani are the three official languages.

However, some stakeholders believed constraints were more pronounced for learning English than vernaculars, wherein again Fiji’s urban/rural differential emerged as a key factor: I think there is a barrier in English more than in the vernaculars. Because children in our communities learn the vernacular very quickly from parents, grandmothers, grandparents, aunties and uncles. And if the teacher is from that community, more often than not, she will speak in the vernacular to them. So the children are more able to speak, express themselves in their vernacular. In English is where I see barriers. I think this is because in the communities that we work in, some of them are quite far away from the urban areas. So English is not spoken very often. Our teachers are still trying to get themselves up-skilled in early childhood education in English. So I see that is the barrier – that they don’t get in contact with materials there, books, reading books in English. In the urban area, it’s not a problem.

Stakeholders’ Perspectives of Enablers and Constraints that Impact Preschool Children’s… 151 Like some of our kindergartens in the bigger Suva area and in Labasa where the children don’t hesitate to speak in English and all of that. It’s just the communities in the rural areas.

Yet, English was felt to have an over-powering presence, as we earlier saw in this chapter. Stakeholders’ concerns about the prevalence of imported monolingual English materials and programs that fragment literacy and are not culturally sustaining for young children recurred across the stakeholders. These perspectives affirmed our choice of a comprehensive sociocultural perspective of literacy, as we explained in Chap. 4. A strong view expressed by all stakeholders was the need for Fiji to draw on and develop its own resources that would optimise relevance, meaningfulness and engagement for Fiji’s young children. Moreover, stakeholders were of the firm view that these resources should be multilingual, incorporating vernacular languages as well as English – aligning with the literature on culturally sustaining pedagogy that we discussed at length in Chap. 3. Stakeholders acknowledged the power of early childhood educators’ innovative thinking and practice to overcome material constraints: It’s fighting the lack of resources and materials and encouraging teachers to have a print-­ rich environment. Even if they don’t have a lot of resources, you can still take the leaf right there. You write a vernacular word for “door” and tape it over the door. And do likewise for a window or shelf or blackboard. Just trying to encourage the concept between objects and words – that print has meaning – and then start sparking that interest in children. I think programs will improve if we have quality teachers. Teachers who could develop programs whether it’s out there on the verandah, out there under the trees or in a building. We say to the teachers, ‘You can run a program anywhere. Two children, three children, fifteen children, thirty children, twenty-five children. As long as you have a few things and know what is suitable for these children and that they’re kept safe, and they’re able to enjoy their learning’.

The use of technology and access to resources was identified as an issue for the future. Within urban areas, children have access to an increasing array of experiences, through television (both local and satellite channels), film, and the Internet. There was a view amongst stakeholders located in urban areas that everyone has TV and at least a mobile if not a smart phone. In the shops, particularly in Suva, there are many western style toys, including those that have characters from popular children’s movies. In these stores, there also is a predominance of children’s books in English, which are valued by parents who aspire to their children becoming proficient in English for school success and later life chances: A lot of the parents would like their children to learn more about western learning, so things in English are very popular.

Systemic Considerations and Teacher Education Tensions that can arise between providing universal access to early childhood services for all young children in Fiji and ensuring quality of such a large number of services emerged as a concern that could make the difference between enabling or

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constraining children’s early childhood education – including their literacy learning in their first languages and English: It comes down to access versus quality – the issue of, on the one hand, putting finances and such toward increasing access to the most disadvantaged, to those children who are currently not accessing services. How children can access services by increasing either the number of teachers or the number of schools versus, how do you improve the quality of the existing programs, how do you improve the resources, how do you improve the teacher training, etc. So it’s a really fine balancing act.

The stakeholders identified teacher education as significant for the future of early childhood education in Fiji: I think one of the areas in which we have failed before is teacher training. The preservice teachers didn’t have good prac teaching where they could see what you learn from the classroom, to practise it, or watch the teacher apply the teaching. For many years, we didn’t have good kindergartens, good preschools, where preservice teachers could see positive behaviour being modelled. We have guidelines called Na Noda Mataniciva now. So at least we get the students who come through us would be able, you know, could become ambassadors or whatever of Mataniciva. There is a need to strengthen teacher education programs for early childhood teachers, working towards a minimum standard of a Bachelor of Education. The cohort in early childhood teacher education is normally small because early childhood is still very new, as some traditional views are that this is family time.

Stakeholders also saw the need for approaches to teacher education to be inclusive of families and communities and to include ongoing professional development: Our courses need to cater for the needs that are in the community and especially the changes that are coming. My concern is for families. A component of any program must include families and communities, indigenous knowledge, and sustainability. Teachers need to be able to unpack the curriculum documents and develop activities. We have a ‘tool kit’, manuals to support teachers and their communities with management and how committees should work.

Saturday morning workshops and conferences offered by the universities were popular with teachers, and it was identified that they have an important role to play. There was concern about the cost of professional development, as there is little funding. It was also identified that NGOs have an important role to play in providing professional development, particularly if they are able to provide funding for travel.

Localised Conditions Localised conditions, such as urban/rural differences (previously discussed), families’ changing lifestyles and access to and use of information, communication and entertainment technology, nuanced stakeholders’ discussion of what they perceived

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enabled and constrained Fiji children’s literacy development in their home languages and English. While urban preschools have access to a range of resources and materials, as previously described, those in rural and remote areas may not have power connected to the building they are using, or if they do it is expensive to use. There was therefore concern that funding models should acknowledge the disadvantage that rural and remote setting experiences with regard to access: What an urban centre might need is very much different from a rural centre.

Stakeholders also highlighted the impact that changing ways of life in Fiji is having on the ways in which families and communities engage with young children and the expectations of what children will do in early childhood settings: I know a lot of parents work, and when they come home, they don’t have time to sit with the children. They’re tired, depending on the type of work they do. Some parents prefer to buy video tapes and make children sit and watch them. More parents prefer to send their children to preschool because they believe that they go there and are more engaged. But it all depends on the kind of preschool. One of the little children right up in the hills, up in the highlands had been given homework to do by the preschool teacher. It is the pressure of work. Some parents come home and they prefer to sit and watch the TV to ease off their day. But some will take their children out for shopping on Saturdays and take them out to Albert Park. That’s a very popular park that we have in front here in Suva.

Stakeholders perceived that these changes to home practices constrained multilingual literacy learning: Not many parents are reading to their children or even singing which is important in the Fijian culture. Even the Fijian, the vernacular songs, they’re not doing that anymore because some parents don’t have time to communicate with the children, even do some little games or little talking or discussion or some activities at home.

Understanding home practices would be integral to our work with communities in our project. Below, we explore key considerations for this work in terms of deploying local resources and strategies.

 takeholders’ Perspectives of Local Resources and Strategies S for Fostering Preschool Children’s Literacy in their Home Languages and English A wide-ranging discussion emerged around the deployment of local resources and strategies for fostering preschool children’s literacy in their home languages and English. Themes focused on: –– Building bridges between home and school –– Strengthening families’ roles in their children’s literacy learning

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–– Incorporating play and other activities –– Being culturally sustaining (notably, being inclusive of a community’s cultural practices while building pathways to new learning)

Building Bridges Between Home and School Stakeholders highlighted the need to build bridges between home and school, with implications for aligning our community work with Fiji’s national early childhood frameworks – namely, Na Noda Mataniciva Mataniciva (Fiji Ministry of Education, 2009). However, some dissonance emerged between maintaining family- and community-­oriented approaches located within cultural traditions on the one hand and taking a nationwide systemic approach on the other hand. Some stakeholders expressed concern about developing national systems that are operationalised in line with what they see as international standards of governance, whereas, as one stakeholder noted, ‘in an ideal world you would define minimum standards’ and have ‘monitoring to ensure they meet quality’. Other stakeholders commented: We need to think about how we can encourage communities to keep up their community based-centres, at a minimum to meet the standards, but hopefully encourage them to improve further. It’s very important for governments to have some sort of system in place, so as a government you can feel your investment is being done properly. And so that you can feel confident that you know children’s needs are being met by a quality program based on how you’ve defined them. The Ministry now have education advisers in the education districts and we have a curriculum officer for early childhood. The importance of early childhood is emphasised in all of the documents that are coming out now. Early Childhood is where everything begins. In urban communities, English is the language of teaching and conversation. As far as the vernacular is concerned, we have tried to make sure that teachers who go to the villages, it’s all in Fijian. If they go to the Hindi Settlements, it’s all in Hindi. Children can sing in the vernacular, do the dances and also be comfortable in speaking to the parents telling them what exactly is happening. So the local language is very important.

These concerns echoed the need expressed in the literature for balancing local realities with global realities and ensuring the latter does not overshadow the former (Cass, 2007; Taufaga, 2007). Amidst navigating these realities, stakeholders perceived that strengthening families’ roles in supporting their children’s literacy learning was paramount.

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 trengthening Families’ Role in Their Children’s S Literacy Learning Stakeholders recognised the imperative for early childhood policy and practice to be inclusive of families: I think policy also needs to strengthen the families so that their role is not diminished when children go on to school. What is the role of the families to develop those values and creativity, the confidence, the independence and to be able to support their children once they come into those institutions, learning institutions like schools? And also making sure what kind of support the government or the public can provide to ensure that the families are supported with their child-rearing. Children are our most valuable assets that we have, and I think the contribution that I have had is just really to be one of the team players in trying to put early childhood in the focus here in Fiji and the Pacific. That it is important and we should not really brush it aside to think it’s not important, because learning doesn’t just start when you turn five or six. It starts well before that, and we need to capture that.

Within communities, stakeholders recognized families’ inherited assumptions about teaching and learning that relate how parents were schooled by formal traditional approaches that inform parents’ expectations of preschool for their children. Stakeholders considered the inclusion of parents in contributing to children’s learning to be vital: Families need to know what to do with their children, to read to children, and children just being part of daily life instead of being left there. We need a lot of awareness in communities so that they can know that learning can take place anywhere in the community. The role of early childhood has got to be a key in the home … in home and in the community so that the communities can also appreciate these are the future of tomorrow; our future will be our children. Literacy has got to be brought in as part of natural development, it’s not just something you go and teach in school. The parents have got to realise talking with children is really the foundation of literacy. Children have got to be able to feel comfortable in talking, getting that confidence in speaking and talking and getting used to handling the tools, looking at books, looking at pictures, talking about them.

These views resonated with our family/community based approach and clearly aligned with the multilingual literacy research we reviewed in Chap. 3 that shows how family involvement shapes children’s multilingual literate learning and identity (Anderson et al., 2010; Au, 2000; Kenner & Gregory, 2003). The imperative to build on children’s activities and lives in their multilingual settings is also highlighted by stakeholders and the research at hand alike, as explored below.

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Play and Other Activities Stakeholders upheld the value of play in children’s lives and learning – concurring with the widely documented value of play and other child-initiated activities in the research on children’s multilingual literacy development (Alvarez, 2018; Bengochea et al., 2018; Gort, 2012). At the same time, stakeholders noted a dissonance between play-based learning, which is consistent with traditional forms of learning in Fiji, and the increasing emphasis on pedagogical approaches considered to be formal and more school-like: There are so many parents, which also include some Minister of Education officials, who are always focused on the formal kind of learning. They think it is a better way of learning for Kindy. They think that play-based is just like being in the village and playing around. I find the very fact that the ministry has suggested that the preschools be part of primary school, I was a little concerned about that because of the focus on children sitting at desks and that sort of thing. And the other thing is the concept of play  – how much does that appear in any of the programs? I remember when I was very new when I started teaching, the concept of vouli in Fijian means learning, and learning means sitting at a desk. ‘You’re going to vouli’. There’s nothing about play in there, and we worked hard to say children are learning from their play – they learn to make friends, they learn to do drawings, and out of the drawings will come the merging of letters and firm handwriting with their fingers. And that took such a long time to come through.

These concerns about play-based approaches being displaced by formal learning were illustrated by stakeholders who described and compared different centres’ approaches: In one centre, everything is play-based. There is no assessment for children – there is no test, and there are no exams. There are certain outcomes to achieve but the teacher doesn’t force the children to achieve those outcomes, as long as whatever work she does in the centre is working towards those outcomes. I feel the children feel free to learn. When this group were in Year 4 they had moved from 30% to 76% above the national average. Whereas in the other centre, there are certain objectives to be achieved, and the teacher is really focusing on achieving those objectives. And I feel that along the way the children may lose interest in study. This is what I feel has happened. When they reach Year 4 in school, the whole group, 100%, were below the national average. In that first community that I was talking about where everything was play-based, even when the mums or the grandmas had arranged the pillows nicely, and then these small children would like to come in. They’ll be chased away by the adults and told not to touch those things. And there is nothing there that the parents have provided for the children to play on. There’s no provision for children’s play.

Stakeholders also highlighted approaches to situating children’s cultural learning: The women would be really focused, they’re very supportive. The women would come together and help their children in the big community hall. On one side, the ladies would be weaving the mats, and the children would be learning on the other side of the hall. The children are observing what the women are doing. Weaving those large mats for the hall. There’s a lot of things that they do that the children help them with at the same time.

Ideas also emerged for intentional and observant teaching approaches we might take to working with communities to develop children’s multilingual literacy, such as:

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I often tell the teachers you don’t just set up a program. You should be sitting there with the children, listening to their conversation, building on what they’re talking about, clarifying some of the misconceptions. Maybe doing some local cooking activities for children to be able to be involved in. Or even some chores at home like washing, maybe washing in the river, doing local gardening. The children can draw pictures about it, then they can tell stories, or tell what have they done in their own language and then that can also be documented, and parents should be able to be involved as well. Help parents, encourage them, too. They did that once in Lautoka where there were parents working together with their own children. That would be one idea. Maybe making their own stories and telling stories. We really need to help parents to know that it’s always good to talk to their children, share their experiences with their children. There may be some experiences at home, some exciting things that they’ve done at home and they would talk about it. Maybe going for a picnic.

The multimodal nature of play and activities such as those described here is seen in the research literature to support multilingual children’s multimodal engagement (Bengochea et al., 2018). This support comes from modes acting in synergy with one another in such activity, creating a zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978) that is as much multilingual (Moll, 2014) as it is multimodal. The stakeholders’ views of play and everyday activities align with Na Noda Mataniciva’s supportive activities that include but are not limited to engaging with these texts, as well as actively engaging in conversations with turn-taking; listening in sustained and culturally appropriate ways; active engagement with stories and information texts; following instructions; self-expression through drawing, painting, writing and talking; interactions with others in shared language/dialect; observing others as writers; story-writing and dictating; and symbolic and socio-dramatic play (Fiji Ministry of Education, 2009). In Na Noda Mataniciva, early concrete experiences are seen to lay foundations for higher-order thinking later in life. Suggested outcomes construct language as multimodal, social, multilingual, play-oriented and culturally embedded. Subject matter is deeply culturally embedded, with advocacy for including the texts of children’s cultures. What specifically children might use language for and about, or read and write about is left open to educators’ informed professional judgment, as is what specifically children might learn about language. Such openness, however, is premised on culturally sustaining approaches that, as we previously saw in Chap. 4, imbue Na Noda Mataniciva.

Being Culturally Sustaining Stakeholders who were or had been directly involved with communities highlighted the value communities place on teaching approaches that are both inclusive of their cultural practices and provide new opportunities for children in using print: Families love singing, music, the drums, and they love rhythm and of course talking. But as far as putting things on the surface like writing, that is something that I see the preschools can play a key role in. Where they just put a table low on the ground, where you have pieces

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of paper and colours. And I find that for a lot of children, that’s probably the first time they come into contact with anything to do with drawings.

Stakeholders saw the inclusion of cultural language practices as an important aspect of literacy – that is, ways of speaking with others so that children know how to relate to others and how to speak, which one stakeholder referred to as ‘a part of learning the language’. These views strongly resonated with Fiji’s and the Pacific’s official emphasis on vernaculars and vernacular learning in the early years that we saw in Chap. 3. Underlining the views expressed in these interviews was a sense of the power of English for advancing in a global world and not being left behind: The Fijian ways of learning … and the western must come together … because we cannot be left behind with all these things.

Stakeholders also included Fijian ways of knowing in a culturally sustaining approach, resonant with Nabobo-Baba (2006), for example: We are more practical in how we learn. Back in my days when I was young, my learning was with my mother. I have to do it with her, look at how it works and do it. It is more guided and scaffolded than left to learn on their own.

In recommending culturally sustaining approaches, stakeholders stated that priority needs to be given to literacy in terms of going beyond the mechanics of recitation and rote learning to develop children’s deeper literate understanding and capability: Literacy is really a priority area that we need to maybe try to improve and find out more ways and methods of helping children learn through … When the children go to Class One, Class One teachers would expect them to be able to write their names, to be able to read A-B-C up to Z, 1, 2, 3 up to maybe 20 or 50 or whatever they can recite there but not actually helping them to know the concept of how much is 1 and how much is 2 …

Our choice of a socioculturally situated comprehensive approach to literacy resonated with this need for developing children’s deeper understanding, thinking and engagement in early years literacy approaches (Freebody & Luke, 2003). Inclusion of families and communities was also seen to be a priority in a culturally sustaining approach – resonant with our acknowledgment that children’s diverse home and community settings give rise to multiple pathways for being and becoming literate (González et al., 2005; Jones-Diaz & Harvey, 2007; Thomson, 2000). Talking about teacher education, stakeholders saw the need for approaches to teacher education to be inclusive of families and communities and to include ongoing professional development: Our courses need to cater for the needs that are in the community and especially the changes that are coming. My concern is for families. A component of any program must include families and communities, Indigenous knowledge, and sustainability.

Although our study was not directly focused on teacher education, we were cognisant that our work in communities would have implications for preservice and in-­service early childhood educators alike. There was a strong commitment amongst the stakeholders to developing a strong, well-funded, well-resourced, systemic

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approach to early childhood education, with an emphasis on the provision of quality teacher education. Within this context, tension emerged in regard to maintaining cultural understandings and meeting expectations of international policy contexts and aid agencies: It’s fighting the balance of different interests and expectations. It’s fighting the lack of resources and materials, and it’s encouraging teachers to have print-rich environments. NGOs, I don’t know how much influence they have. They do programs and a lot of modelling and a lot of fostering conversations around issues. They have a role in providing resources and learning materials for children. They have relationships with the ministry, not just in terms of the direct relationship with senior education officers in early childhood education. They also try to encourage the conversation for early childhood improvement and quality and investment in Fiji. There is the investment in early childhood that is both good for the young ones but it’s also for contributing to the development of TVET (training) and adult training for teachers. You will improve, upscale their skills when they have the improved ability to earn more money and then impact the number of children who get qualified teachers.

The use of wide-ranging texts as reflected in Na Noda Mataniciva was also implicated in the stakeholder interviews. As noted in Mataniciva, texts for supporting children’s language and literacy learning include but are not limited to gestures and sign systems of children’s cultures; self-talk; conversations; simple to more complex nursery rhymes; simple to more complex action songs, chants and mekes; songs; simple to more complex spoken instructions; stories, including story read-­alouds and storytellings and re-tellings; books for enjoyment; books for information; children’s paintings, drawings and craft constructions; pictures and illustrations in books; environmental labels and signs; environment as text and signs therein (e.g., changes in weather, animal movement; shopping lists; and recipes (Fiji Ministry of Education, 2009). These texts are multimodal in nature and provide opportunity to create multilingual zones of proximal development for the young child learning to be literate in their home languages and English (Moll, 2014).

 takeholders’ Perspectives of Effective Strategies S for Developing Local Community Capacity to Support Preschool Children’s Literacy Development in Their Home Languages and English Our focus on strategies that are effective for developing local community capacity generated four key themes: –– Providing opportunity for communities to witness and value their children’s learning –– Recognising and supporting families’ participation

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–– Using culturally appropriate practices to engage with communities –– Talking with the community about sustainability and succession planning Each of these themes is discussed below.

 roviding Opportunity for Communities to Witness and Value P Their Children’s Learning The importance of families and communities witnessing and valuing their children’s learning emerged as a key consideration in developing sustainable community-­ based approaches: I went to one of the rural communities to do a community awareness program there, and it was good to see that the parents were forthcoming. They were all sitting in the community hall and they were talking about how they saw their children progressing in the kindergarten that is already set up by what they said were very old ladies. This is something good that they’ve never seen in the past years for their younger children to be involved in learning, and they feel that children should be exposed to this kind of learning which they have never gone through. The recognition of what children are doing in drawing, talking about a particular topic, and then children can go back home and share with their parents. They would be able to draw, whether they’re using crayons, chalk, some of them can even use pens. They all bring those drawings from home and bring them to the kindergarten, to the teacher and the children can start sharing their stories.

Stakeholders also recommended the use of literacy indicators such as found in Na Noda Mataniciva as frameworks for evaluating effectiveness by benchmarking children’s literacy achievements against these documents’ outcomes. As for effectiveness and sustainability of community approaches to fostering their young children’s literacy, the need to continue engaging with key influentials and decision-makers with visible benefit to support sustainability emerged. In the words of one stakeholder: The most important thing is being able to negotiate the dialogue with different partners that you come in contact with.

Recognising and Supporting Families’ Participation Reprising their emphasis on engaging with families, stakeholders expressed a very strong commitment to ensuring the recognition of families and communities and their participation in their children’s learning. This was expressed as a way of maintaining some traditional cultural practices while also sharing the responsibility of working though new demands that were perceived to be made on early childhood education:

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Communities see early childhood as the responsibility of the family. Early childhood as institutionalised is a new concept to many communities but they are getting there. They have decided to use the church halls or build buildings to cater for the young ones especially for the three-, four- and five-year-olds. The Ministry of Education have only identified five-­ year-­olds as their priority.

The need to share and understand families’ values, understandings and expectations associated with developing their community’s capacity to foster children’s literacy was expressed – resonating with key principles for effectively developing capacity that we considered in Chap. 5 (Rhodes, 2014): What are the expectations of the families that are involved in this? What do they understand about the project, and at the end of it or during it and after it, what do they expect to get out of it? What do families in these three settings understand about literacy? Do they see it as something important, or do they see it as something totally isolated from their role? Or do they see it as something that they can be involved with quite comfortably? I mean, I’d like to understand what they see, what does literacy mean to them?

Building a community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1999) also was seen to support and grow family involvement through situated learning, for example: We’re trying to encourage our teachers to get the grandmothers to come because they’re good weavers. That’s how you have parent or family involvement. Bring in the people, the best people who do weaving or stencilling.

This insight was germane to our thinking about how we might go about building, and who might be involved in supporting, a community of practice within each community that supports young children’s literacy learning in their home languages and English. These communities of practice would need to be nuanced to and draw on each community’s cultural practices and knowledge. For, as one stakeholder succinctly said: You need to include the community’s knowledge in a community-based approach.

 sing Culturally Appropriate Practices to Engage U with Communities Stakeholders emphasised the importance of using culturally sustaining research and culturally appropriate practices to engage with communities that build on their cultural ways of knowing and doing. These views strongly concurred with the research on culturally sustaining engagement in communities, such as we reviewed in Chap. 3 (Thapa  et  al., 2018), and outlined in terms of our methods in Chap. 5 (Freire, 1983; Nabobo-Baba, 2006; Rhodes, 2014). The importance of following a community’s cultural protocols was highlighted, as this stakeholder found in her own research: Fully respect your elders here, respect for the vanua. So I used that frame to allow me to go into the villages where I was going to collect data. It was amazing because at times I have to sit back and allow the elders – my spokesperson – to speak on my behalf because I cannot

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speak to the elders in that forum because I was engaging with elders in the community trying to gather the data for my childhood study. The clan elders particularly see we want to preserve our culture and they have witnessed how the western world has influence on their village where they tend to speak English all the time. But they really want to preserve their culture, their own culture in their own district, so they speak their own mother tongue.

This advice connected with the literature on research in Fiji communities (Nabobo-­Baba, 2006; Ratuva, 2007; Thaman, 2009) and clearly confirmed our proposed development of the study’s relational context characterised by respect and reciprocity amongst other key qualities (Tagicakiverata & Nilan, 2018). The benefits of engaging with community leaders were explained: It also helps to identify who might be the leader for the topic that you’re discussing. And really involve them in the conversation and have that person as your liaison. You have at the community level whoever the leaders or village chiefs are, even though they may not have political roles anymore within the current government system. They still have lot of cultural leadership or cultural sway within the community.

Developing shared understanding and engaging in deep listening was seen to be crucial: What makes it work is actually listening to the community. You can’t go in and be prescriptive. You can’t go in and say, ‘Okay this is what we are doing and these are the issues that we see’. [You need to ask], ‘What are the issues that you see and what do you think?’ and then begin a dialogue from there.

Again, this emphasis resonated most deeply with our approach to engaging with communities through a critical participatory approach (Kemmis, McTaggart, & Nixon, 2014) that used dialogic encounters (Freire, 1983) in the spirit of rigorous talanoa in iTaukei communities and baat-chit in Indo-Fijian communities, as explained in Chap. 5. Gauging the level of a community’s investment in building their local capacity also came to the fore: You need to gauge a community’s level of investment – you know, level of how do they take what they’re doing and implement it at home. So if you’re talking in a community setting, talking about the importance of literacy, do they sit there agree, nod, yes, it’s important? And then not do anything at home? Or do they maybe draw a simple five-page sequence of pictures and develop a homemade book to then use with their child at home?

The usefulness of finding local champions to help ‘secure community buy-in from the start’, as one stakeholder put it, was also highlighted: It helps when you go into communities to identify from the community who might be the leader for the topic that you’re discussing. And really engage them in the conversation, and you can even do that at an initial community meeting, and then have that person be your liaison on a more ongoing basis. But really having the community choosing who that will be because then they’ll have a better interaction with that person. Rather than you say, okay here’s the person who knows what you’re doing.

This advice aligned with the literature we considered in Chap. 5 on developing capacity form a cross-cultural perspective – particularly in relation to the enhancement of people’s involvement when they are given opportunity to share and express

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their values (Rhodes & Antoine, 2015); when people’s values and beliefs are acknowledged and taken into account in the work being done (Lewis, 2006); and when people’s strengths are recognised and incorporated (Cooperrider & Whitney, 2005). The advice on ‘buy-in’ also resonated with our identification of community mentors to provide mediation and translations, as explained in Chap. 5. Although we established criteria for choosing the mentors to match our study’s needs (as identified in Chap. 5), the selection of mentors was made in negotiation with each community’s leaders.

 alking with the Community About Sustainability T and Succession Planning Stakeholders encouraged talking realistically with communities about whether or not and to what extent communities can sustain the capacity built by the study after the study ends: I think sustainability has been a word that’s been thrown around so much. How do you sustain anything? I think when your research is done that your researchers are making sure that they are asking your group, ‘Is this something that you believe you can keep doing after we leave you or is this something you think that once we go, it’s going to end with our going?’ I think this sustainability issue has really got to come from the community, from the people. I think that’s the way the sustainability is going to come. We’ve got to have mechanisms where the community can do it for themselves, like saying, ‘How best we can do it together kind of thing?’ Just imagine if I was not here, how would you deal with this?’ If we can create some kind of positive environments within the homes, within small communities that’s going to enable them to do their child-rearing and support, I think that’s all we can hope for.

In creating such environments, stakeholders spoke of working with what’s available and being mindful of the physical location where learning happens: So a community-based approach, according to my understanding, would be for example, if you go out into the communities some of them will say, ‘No, we don’t have buildings.’ It doesn’t have to happen in a building, it can happen under a tree. We need to take away those sorts of thinking that the people say, ‘Learning takes place over here in a well constructed house’ … Learning can take place anywhere at any time, even under a big shade of a tree, learning can take place there. But we have to make our awareness of that known to the communities out there, so that they can know that learning can take place anywhere in the community, not just in a house.

Succession planning was also considered to be necessary to sustainability: A community-based approach would mean that the whole village people should be able to take that up. When an elder dies, somebody is there. Because actually we do a lot of that, we do a lot of mentoring within the community so we can sustain it. It’s the people that need to know that this is important. The awareness is very important. Because it’s village-based or community-based, it can be sustained.

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Mobility of people out of their communities, associated with urban drift discussed earlier in this chapter and Chap. 2, was identified as a significant challenge to sustainability: The challenge with working with communities, especially informal ones, is the high turnover of the contact people that we work with. So like the CEC committee that are management, sometimes we come and this is the person that’s in charge, and then the next visit we come, he’s gone and somebody else is there. That has been a challenge for us, either that or the formal governance structure is not there in the informal community. So for us, you know, trying to ensure that what we do in there is effective or will last has been a challenge. We try and get one person who is committed to ensure that this program runs. From last year, we are trying to get organisations to adopt centres for us so that when the project finishes and we don’t visit as often as we do, we have someone who looks after the centres and sustains them.

Imbuing stakeholders’ talk about sustainability and other aspects of our study was an appreciation of the need for Pacific-based research to authentically inform Pacific and, more specifically, Fiji’s, early childhood education, care and development, emerged as a priority in the stakeholder interviews: There is very little research that is Pacific Island-based. And I think trying to think to spark that interest in the research here will also give the evidence here why they should invest in their children.

The recognition of our study in this light brought with it a sense of community empowerment: So this approach that the project is taking is really wonderful, really empowering the parents, giving them that sense of participation, empowerment, and belonging, as the first teachers in their children’s lives. They can then realise what they can do that at home, not necessarily just waiting to send them to kindergartens and all that. I think that’s going to be the real ice breaker for this project here in Fiji, in the communities.

Thus was highlighted the importance and impact of communities’ self-­ determination  – embracing community identity, agency and ownership  – which elsewhere has been highlighted as a key priority for Fiji and the Pacific, as we saw in Chap. 3 (Cass, 2007; Glasgow, 2010; Koya-Vaka’uta, 2011; Low, 2007; Taufaga, 2007).

I mplications for Developing Community Capacity for Fostering Young Children’s Literacy Our dialogue with stakeholders revealed important complexities inherent in our study’s focus on developing community capacity for fostering young children’s literacy in their home languages and English. We took these complexities into account and explored them further in the community case studies that are reported in the next three chapters.

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A key consideration that emerged concerned the place of vernacular languages in children’s present and future lives. While English might be seen to be part and parcel of school education and later life chances, how does a priority on English square with a priority on children’s cultural identity and belonging? While some stakeholders constructed English as a means to keeping up versus falling behind, keeping up was seen by others to come at a price where English takes over and sees loss of cultural identity. Therefore, some stakeholders advocated for vernacular proficiency to both preserve cultural identity and provide a good foundation for later English learning. Clearly, Na Noda Mataniciva upholds children’s home languages in the preschool years while keeping open the question of whether or not vernaculars should be the primary or only focus in these early years. Regardless of what view we might adopt about the primacy of vernaculars first, English second, children’s realities in Fiji are such that they can find themselves experiencing vernaculars and English at the same time – as our stakeholder interviews revealed and as documented in the literature we reviewed in Chaps. 2 and 3 that highlight a range of various language experiences in Pacific families and communities. Thus in our community case studies, we paid careful attention to the language practices of children and their families and communities in our three community case studies – noting that a key message from the literature that families and communities have the right to determine their own destinies aligns with families and communities deciding their linguistic futures (Burnett, 2008), but might not necessarily sit comfortably within broader frameworks of self-determination in the Pacific that chiefly focus on preserving vernaculars (Glasgow, 2010; Taufaga, 2007). In our community case studies, we also explored English as the lingua franca that provides a bridge between Fiji’s speakers of different languages, as the next three chapters reveal. Thus children learn the dexterous art of code-switching as they shuttle (or translanguage) across languages and communalects to suit their situations. Indeed, stakeholders’ accounts reflected how children’s early lives are filled with significant language transitions and crossovers – as also borne out in the literature we reviewed in Chap. 3, and which we learned more about in our case study communities. A closely related issue that emerged from our stakeholder interviews concerns the lack of literacy resources and texts in children’s home languages. In the materials that were available, there was a prevalence of monolingual English materials and programs imported from non-Fiji, non-Pacific places. These materials convey a dominant representation of western worlds; provide workbooks that fragment literacy; and have questionable cultural relevance for the young children of Fiji. Addressing the need for Fiji to draw on and develop their own resources that optimise relevance, meaningfulness and engagement for young children strongly resonates with the Pacific call for self-determination we discussed in Chap. 3. In our work with communities reported in the next three chapters, we engaged with community views and experiences regarding literacy resources for young children and explored local production of culturally sustaining resources with children and their families – mindful of enablers and constraints impacting this work.

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But first and foremost, we learned about the rich resources in our study’s communities, including those that may not be readily thought of as literacy resources but indeed were germane. In so doing, we would honour children’s and communities’ voices, languages and cultural heritages  – using children’s language experiences and resources as pathways for further learning, informed by how children’s first and other languages (including English) are nurtured in their home and community settings and by whom (including children themselves). The importance of parents’ and caregivers’ involvement in their children’s language and literacy learning, also highlighted by the stakeholders, strongly resonated with our approach of working with children’s families in this study. We had built this approach into our research design and how we would engage with children and their families in their community settings. More specifically, we attended to how young children’s language learning is supported deliberately and incidentally in their home and community settings and therein identify enablers and constraints of children’s language development. We also sought to understand and encourage parents’ and caregivers’ perceptions of their vital roles in their children’s language development while collaboratively and explicitly developing with parents and caregivers their strategies for fostering their children’s language development. In short, this early years literacy work we embarked on in communities was founded on a breadth of experiences that featured in children’s lives and the social, cultural, linguistic, historic and material settings in which these experiences were embedded. It is to these community case studies that the next three chapters now turn.

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Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat. (2014). Strategic partnerships and coordination: Education. Suva, Fiji: Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat. http://www.forumsec.org/pages.cfm/ strategic-partnerships-coordination/education/%3E Puamau, P. Q., & Pene, F. (Eds.). (2008). Early childhood care and education in the Pacific. Suva, Fiji: University of the South Pacific. Ratuva, S. (2007). Na kilaka a vaka-Viti ni veikabula: Indigenous knowledge and the Fijian cosmos: Implications on bio-prospecting. In A. T. P. Mead & S. Ratuva (Eds.), Pacific genes & life patents: Pacific indigenous experience & analysis of commodification & ownership of life (pp. 90–101). Wellington, New Zealand: Call of Earth Llamado de la Tierra and the United Nations University of Advanced Studies. Rhodes, D. (2014). Capacity across cultures: Global lessons from Pacific experiences. Ballarat West, VIC: Inkshed Press. Rhodes, D., & Antoine, E. (2015). Practitioners’ handbook for capacity development: A cross-­ cultural approach (3rd ed.). Gisborne, New Zealand: Inkshed Press & Leadership Strategies. Sneddon, R. (2000). Language and literacy: children’s experiences in multilingual environments. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 3(4), 265–282. Spencer, M. L. (1996). And what of the language of Micronesia? In F. Mugler & J. Lynch (Eds.), Pacific languages in education  (Pacific Education Series Vol. 4, pp.  11–35). Suva, Fiji: University of the South Pacific. Tagicakiverata, I.  W., & Nilan, P. (2018). Veivosaki-Yaga: A culturally appropriate Indigenous research method in Fiji. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 31(6), 545–556. Tamata, A. (1996). Code switching in Fiji’s schools. In F. Mugler & J. Lynch (Eds.), Pacific languages in education (pp. 93–102). Suva, Fiji: University of the South Pacific. Taufaga, L. (2007). Between two worlds: Taking control of our destiny through relevant literacy. In P.  Puamau & F.  Pene (Eds.), The basics of learning: Literacy and numeracy in the Pacific (Pacific Education Series Vol. 4, pp. 19–31). Suva, Fiji: University of the South Pacific. Taufe‘ulungaki, A. (2004). Language and culture in the Pacific region: Issues, practices, and alternatives. Directions: Journal of Educational Studies, 27(1), 12–42. Thaman, K. (2009). Towards cultural democracy in teaching and learning with special references to Pacific Island nations (PINs). International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 3(2), 1–9. Thapa, S., Akpovo, S. M., & Young, D. (2018). Collaboration as a healing and decolonizing research tool: The narratives of three early childhood researchers. In S. M. Akpovo, M. J. Moran, & R. Brookshire (Eds.), Collaborative cross-cultural research methodologies in early childhood care and education contexts (pp. 63–78). New York: Routledge. Thomson, P. (2000). Neighbourhood schools and the new poverty: Education dis/advantage in changing times and places. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. Toganivalu, D. (2008). Early childhood care and education in the Pacific: Reflections of our past, our present and our future. In P. Puamau & F. Pene (Eds.), Early childhood care and education in the Pacific (pp.  19–43). Suva, Fiji: University of the South Pacific. http://www.usp.ac.fj/ index.php?id=ecc UNESCO. (2000). The Dakar framework for action – Education for All: Meeting our collective commitments. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001211/121147e.pdf UNESCO. (2008). Education for All by 2015: Will we make it? EFA global monitoring report, 2008. Paris: UNESCO. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000154743 Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in society:  The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Chapter 7

In Duavata: Collaborating with Children and Families in an Indigenous Fijian Semi-­Rural Community Abstract  This chapter provides a rich, in-depth account of insights about literacy learning in Duavata. We begin with an introduction to the participating children and their families of Duavata, followed by Duavata findings for each of our study’s four research questions: (1) What are the literacy development contexts for preschool children in Duavata? (2) What are the enablers and constraints that impact on Duavata’s capacity to support their preschool children’s literacy learning? (3) What local resources and strategies can be used to foster preschool children’s literacy in their home languages and English in Duavata? (4) What strategies are effective in developing Duavata’s local capacity to support preschool children’s literacy development in their home languages and English? In addressing these questions in the context of the Duavata community case study, we illustrate literacy learning possibilities and their realisation for young children in Duavata and evidence how Duavata’s community capacity developed to support their children’s literacy.

Introduction We begin this chapter with an account of how ‘Duavata’ came to be as an agreed pseudonym for this community: At one point in the midst of our collaborative work together, two of the Australian members of the research team and the Fijian project consultant sat around a table discussing possible pseudonyms for the semi-rural Fijian community that is the focus of this chapter. We wanted to choose an authentic name, and we wanted to make sure that the name represented our understanding of the community. After discussing many different characteristics of this community, the project consultant exclaimed, ‘I know the perfect pseudonym for this community: Duavata! It means “working together” in Bauan.’ We all readily agreed that the notion of ‘working together’ beautifully characterised the people of this community. We made this suggestion to the community for their consideration, and they readily endorsed this name

So it was that the name ‘Duavata’ came into being. This chapter provides a rich, in-depth account of insights about literacy learning distinctive to Duavata. This case is a product of Duavata’s unique setting in terms of its community’s constituency, geographical setting, and social, linguistic and cultural context. This chapter begins © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Harris et al., Children’s Multilingual Literacy, International Perspectives on Early Childhood Education and Development 31, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6587-8_7

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with an introduction to the participating children of Duavata, followed by Duavata findings for each of our study’s four research questions: –– Introducing the participating children and their families of Duavata. –– What are the literacy development contexts for preschool children in Duavata? –– What are the enablers and constraints that impact Duavata’s capacity to support their preschool children’s literacy learning? –– What local resources and strategies can be used to foster preschool children’s literacy in their home languages and English in Duavata? –– What strategies are effective in developing Duavata’s local capacity to support preschool children’s literacy development in their home languages and English? In addressing these questions in the context of the Duavata community case study, we illustrate literacy learning possibilities and their realisation for young children in Duavata and evidence how Duavata’s community capacity developed to support their children’s literacy.

I ntroducing the Participating Children and Their Families of Duavata Fourteen Duavata families with children in the approximate age range of 3 to 5 years participated in this project. A 15th family was involved with the project, but this family moved from Duavata part-way through the project. All of the families in Duavata are iTaukei, and most families speak the Bauan dialect at home. Some parents worked in government or service jobs; other parents worked as day labourers. Kuini and Nemani are first cousins and were both three when the project started. Kuini, Nemani and their families live in the same household with their parents, siblings and Grandma Meli. Kuini and Nemani’s parents work outside the home during the day, and Grandma Meli cares for them, and their older siblings, when the siblings are not in school. Grandma Meli engages in countless daily household tasks such as cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry. Kuini and Nemani often help Grandma Meli complete household chores. Grandma Meli and her family are extremely involved in the activities of the Duavata Methodist church throughout the week and on weekends. Jerry, Taniela and Jone are all first cousins. They and their families lived together in one home at the beginning of the project. Jerry, his sister and his parents moved to Jerry’s mother’s home island of Vanua Levu part way through the project. Jerry and Taniela were four at the onset of the project, and Jone was five. Jerry’s mother, Jone’s mother and their grandfather stayed home to take care of the children and maintain the home during the day. Jerry’s and Jone’s mothers were staunch supporters of project work and were always quick to invite us to spend considerable time in their home working with them and their children to support the children’s literacy development.

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Sophia was almost three at the onset of the study. She lived with her mother, father, older brother and a younger sibling who was born during the time we worked in Duavata. Sophia’s father worked at the local post office, and her mum stayed home to take care of the home and children. Sophia’s mum was a leader in the Duavata community and an ardent project supporter; she saved Sophia’s writing samples between our community visits and we often discussed Sophia’s literacy learning as we studied her writing and discussed her literacy practices. Sophia’s mum played a central role collaborating on project work across the entire community and in developing long-term sustainability plans for the project. For example, she led the weekly play meetings the community decided to conduct during the second phase of the project, and, towards the end of the project, she went back to school to earn a certificate in early childhood education. Iliasa lived with his father and grandparents. He was three at the beginning of the project. Iliasa’s father was a soldier, and his grandmother worked outside the home. Iliasa’s grandfather took care of him during the day. Iliasa’s grandfather displayed a keen interest in Iliasa’s literacy learning opportunities. His grandfather made a point of attending all project-related community functions. Arieta was four at the onset of the project. Arieta lived at home with her mother, grandmother, older sister and younger brother. Arieta’s mum worked outside the home, and her grandmother took care of the children and home during the day. Arieta was mature for her age and loved working on her bilingual book about her daily life and her alphabet chart. She and her family were very involved in the local Methodist church. Arieta’s Sunday school teachers often asked Arieta to help with younger children at Sunday school and during church-related activities. Arieta strikes us as a young teacher-in-the-making! Iliasa Q. and Seru are cousins who live in different homes but have similar home situations. Their fathers are both nephews of the chief of Duavata; thus, these fathers played leadership roles in the community. Both fathers worked outside the home in government positions, the mothers in both families stayed home to take care of the children, and a grandmother lived at home with each family to help with raising the children as well as household chores. Iliasa Q. was four at the start of the project, and Seru was two. Both families were staunch supporters of project work, attended project-related community events and often spoke out at these events about the importance of project work in Duavata. Both Iliasa Q. and Seru were excited to see us and engage in project work when we visited their homes. Four-year-old Jone L. was best friends with Iliasa Q. They often played together, and they opted to write their bilingual book together. Jone L. lived at home with his mother and father. Jone’s father worked outside the home, and his mother stayed home to take care of Jone and the home. Jone’s mum was very engaged in community activities, and she and Jone’s father were ardent supporters of this project and Jone’s involvement in it. Maria was 4 years old at the onset of the project. She was the youngest of three siblings  – all girls. Maria’s parents both worked during the day, and her grandmother lived with the family staying home to take care of the children and the home. Even though Maria’s parents both worked all day during the week, they made it a

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point to attend all evening project-related functions in the community centre. They were highly supportive of Maria’s literacy learning opportunities through project-­ related work. Rupeni was four at the start of the project. He is the son of the Duavata Methodist minister. Both of Rupeni’s parents demonstrated an intense commitment to Rupeni’s literacy learning opportunities, and they were both vocal and adamant project supporters. Rupeni has one younger sister. Whereas Rupeni’s mum takes care of the children and home each day, she is also extremely involved in the Duavata community and Methodist church work in the community. Rupeni’s father works long hours running the Duavata Methodist church. Kinisimere was almost three at the onset of the project. She lives at home with her mother, father, grandfather and four siblings. Kinisimere’s father works outside the home, her mother takes care of the children and home, and her grandfather is the turaga-ni-koro for Duavata. Thus, as the Fijian government’s appointed community liaison, and the second in command in Duavata, Kinisimere’s grandfather plays an important role in community governance and affairs. Like other project family leaders, Kinisimere’s grandfather was a close friend of the Duavata community mentor and her husband; he was also an ardent supporter of the project work in Duavata. Isimeli was three when the project started. He lived with his grandparents, brother and two older cousins next door to the village chief. Isimeli’s grandmother worked outside the home, and his grandfather took care of the children during the day. Isimeli’s grandmother was very involved in Duavata Methodist church activities, and she made sure that her grandchildren were involved in church-related activities during the week and on the weekends.

 hat Are the Literacy Development Contexts for Preschool W Children in Communities in Fiji That Do Not Have Access to Preschools? Duavata provides a fertile environment for language and literacy development. Whereas language and literacy practices permeate all aspects of community life at Duavata, two contexts – the community Methodist church and children’s play contexts in- and outside the home – stand out as particularly salient.

The Duavata Community Methodist Church The Methodist church in Duavata is a central hub of the community, and like other church contexts, it serves as a rich site for language and literacy practices (McMillon & Edwards, 2000, 2008). The vast majority of the residents in Duavata are Methodist, and residents tend to be highly involved in church-related events. For example, most

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residents attend services on Sunday mornings, Sunday evenings and Wednesday evenings. Duavata residents are alerted to the fact that church services are about to begin with the sounding of a lali, which is a large Fijian drum made of a hollowed log that is used in ceremonies and to summon people to church. All church services are conducted in Bauan. The Sunday morning service lasts for approximately 2 hours; Sunday and Wednesday evening services each last between an hour and an hour and a half. As congregants enter into the church, the men sit on the left, women sit on the right, and children all sit in the middle near the front of the church. (Very young children sit with either parent  – usually their mothers.) The church choir members (all women) sit in the right front of the church. The village chief – a man who is highly respected in the village – sits in a place of honour in the front of the church. The minister sits near the church altar in the front of the church unless he is preaching; when preaching, he stands at the pulpit. The singing during church services, which occurs multiple times throughout each service, is a fundamental multimodal language and literacy-related event (Barton & Unsworth, 2014). Hymnals written in Bauan are located in the pews throughout the church. Whereas hymnals are available to all congregants, and congregants – including school-aged children – do use the hymnals during singing, it also appears that congregants have some songs memorized because congregants can be seen singing without referring to the hymnals at times. The singing during church services is nothing short of breathtaking; as congregants sing, they harmonize beautifully with one another. Although we could not understand the words of the hymns sung during church services because they were written and sung in Bauan, many of the songs were common Christian songs that the researchers did recognize. Thus, our background knowledge together with the translation assistance provided by the project consultant, the Duavata community mentor and adults in Duavata, helped us understand the topics of the songs – stories and information from both the Old and the New Testament. Consequently, from a systemic functional linguistics perspective (Halliday, 1978), through singing in church, children in Duavata were exposed to participants, processes and circumstances involving narratives, themes and motifs in the Christian Bible. The singing about Bible stories, events and Christian beliefs also influences the interpersonal and interactive meanings (Halliday, 1978) that all congregants, including children, construct while singing. Interestingly, research on singing in groups reveals that there are both physiological and psychological benefits to choral singing that can shape and impact the meaning-making process; these benefits include, but are not limited to, calming heart rates and boosting endorphin levels as well as enhancing one’s self-esteem, sensitivity towards others and sense of purpose and meaning (Barton & Unsworth, 2014; Sanal & Gorsev, 2013). In short, the act of choral singing itself positively shapes and influences the collaborative meaning-­ making process around spiritual beliefs enacted by congregants. Moreover, church participants – including young children – are acquiring important literacies as they engage in text participant and text user practices through singing in church (Freebody & Luke, 2003).

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Like church hymnals, bibles are written in Bauan and located in the pews throughout the church. Congregants also read bibles during church services. During a typical church service, the minister refers congregants to various locations in the Bible, they find those locations in their bibles, and they follow along silently as the pastor reads various excerpts of text aloud. As congregants use hymnals and Bibles during church services, the children of Duavata are exposed to numerous school-­ based literate practices. For example, with respect to Luke and Freebody’s (1990) Four Resources Model, young children witness text user practices that involve adults and school-aged children reading along in their Bibles silently as the pastor reads aloud fluently; additionally, they witness text user practices as congregants use their hymnals while singing during services. Young children are also exposed to meaning-making practices as the minister interprets Bible passages and preaches during church services and as the congregation engages in choral singing (Freebody & Luke, 2003). Listening is another important literate practice that children experience and develop during church services. Congregants spend over 3 hours in services (morning and evening) on Sundays and approximately 1–1.5 hours on Wednesday evenings; most of that time is spent listening – to the Bible being read aloud and to the pastor’s sermon. Even though children sit in a different location from their parents during church services, they are expected to sit and listen quietly – although they are sometimes ‘wiggly’ – during church services. Thoughtful listening is an important school- and life-based skill that serves as a foundation for language acquisition and communication ability; as well, it can help children to learn to develop important grammar, vocabulary, topic and genre competence (Rost & Wilson, 2013). Whereas church services involve singing, listening to the minister’s sermon and reading the Bible, practices vary from these ‘normal routines’ at times. For example, Sunday, May 8, 2016, was Mother’s Day in Fiji. During the Sunday evening service on this day, the children sat in rapt attention as the mothers in the church performed a skit based on a story in the Gospel of John. Literacy scholars have known for decades the powerful manner in which drama can influence young children’s language and literacy learning; for example, drama is an effective medium for developing vocabulary and rich background knowledge on which young children can draw in future print-based reading. As well, drama can help to build a foundation for the development of symbolic representation, an important precursor for grasping the alphabetic principle – that symbols represent sounds, which have meaning (McMaster, 1998). Moreover, through drama, children can engage in the literate practice of a text analyst as they interpret and interrogate meanings of texts that they then enact through dramatic representations (Freebody & Luke, 2003). Finally, drama can help children to develop basic listening skills, such as listening for cues, as well as evaluative listening skills, such as ‘tuning in’ to elements in narrative story structure (McMaster, 1998; Rost & Wilson, 2013). Additional church-related groups include the Methodist Youth Group (which is composed of several dozen members who are unmarried congregants whose ages range from their upper teens to their early 1930s), the church choir (composed of approximately 15 women congregants) and Sunday school. Because Sunday school

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is most directly relevant to the young children in Duavata, we elaborate on it in the remainder of this sub-section. Sunday school is held for approximately an hour prior to church services on Sunday morning. Sunday school activities occur in two locations: the back of the church and next door to the church in the community centre. The picture in Fig. 7.1 is taken in the community centre. Notice in Fig. 7.1 that children of various ages (many of whom are sitting with their parents) are receiving plastic-covered copies of the Duavata Sunday school booklet. Whereas most pages of the Sunday school booklet are in Bauan, some pages are in both English and Bauan. Many pages in the Sunday school booklet consist of Christian songs that the children are learning in Sunday school. Although the children sing some songs in English, the entire remainder of the Sunday school experience is in Bauan. The picture represented in Fig. 7.1 was taken on June 21, 2015. On this day, as was typical for most Sunday school sessions, the children began Sunday school in the community centre where they sang songs from their Sunday school booklet. Then, the children walked next door to the church. The older children sat on the left-hand side of the church and were taught by one Sunday school teacher. The younger children, as depicted in Fig. 7.2, sat on the right-hand side of the church and were taught by a different Sunday school teacher. While working with their teacher as shown in Fig. 7.2, the children listened to the teacher share stories from the Bible, worked with her to memorize Bible verses, and engaged in ‘call and response’ as the teacher asked the children questions about the information she taught them and they primarily responded in unison to her questions. In the two aforementioned activities (e.g. singing songs and listening to, and participating orally in, Sunday school lessons), the young Duavata children are engaging with literate practices through legitimate peripheral participation as text

Fig. 7.1  Children and their parents receiving Duavata Sunday school booklets

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Fig. 7.2  Younger Duavata children in Sunday school at the back of the church

participants and text users (Freebody & Luke, 2003; Lave & Wenger, 1991). By legitimate peripheral participation, we mean that children are in the process of learning to acquire conventional literacy through social engagement in their community, but they have not yet acquired these norms such that they can use them on their own (Lave & Wenger, 1991). With respect to the singing using songbooks, whereas most young children can’t yet decode the words in the songbooks, as they sing together with adults and older children during Sunday school, young children are demonstrating voice and agency by participating in one important mode of literacy (music/singing) and seeing texts used to construct shared meaning through the singing of songs (Harris & Manatakis, 2013). By participating in oral lessons, young children are engaging in important meaning making and decoding literate practices; they are learning the norms and expectations for Christians in their community, and they are learning to decode and encode these norms and expectations through their lived behaviours as members of Duavata (Freebody & Luke, 2003). As these young children gain more independent control of formal alphabetic literacy, they will learn to read and write about these shared social experiences. For the final set of Sunday school activities, all of the children returned to the community centre. The purpose of this final experience was twofold. First each group of children (the older children and the younger children who had just worked with different teachers in the back of the church) took turns sharing with an elder from the church about what they had learned in Sunday school that morning. The demonstrations of the children’s learning took various forms. Children performed songs and/or brief skits, shared memorized Bible verses and answered questions posed by the elder. Second, the children were given snacks. This latter activity was particularly important since the children went directly from Sunday school to Sunday morning church service, which typically lasted 2 hours. This final Sunday

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school activity of performing in front of an elder is a particularly salient example of text analyst practices (Freebody & Luke, 2003) because young children are being asked to interrogate and reflect on their learning across the day in Sunday school and then to represent this learning to an important member of their community. The children’s Sunday school experiences are rich in language and literacy-­ related experiences that inform both their apprenticeship into their Duavata Christian community as well as school-based language and literacy practices (Lave & Wenger, 1991). For example, in Sunday school the children are learning the ‘big D’ Discourse (Gee, 2015) of their Christian community. Drawing on Gee (2015), ‘big D’ Discourse is much more than just language-in-use; it does refer to language-in-use, but it also includes all of the cultural trappings of beliefs, values, norms and situated practices associated with language-in-use. In Sunday school the young children learn (through memorization, hearing, performing, and answering questions about) the same bible events and stories they will hear about – and later read themselves – during church services. They also learn many of the same songs that are sung during church services with the rest of the congregation. Moreover, through their scaffolded participation in Sunday school – as well as their participation in church services – they learn the values, norms and beliefs associated with being a Methodist Christian in Duavata. The discourse practices (Gee, 2015) around apprenticeship into the Duavata Methodist Christian community through church services and Sunday school also serve to apprentice children into school-based literacy practices. McMillon and Edwards (2008) have identified important shared domains that often exist between church-related language and literacy practices and school-related language and literacy practices; the following practices were evident in our data set. Duavata church and Sunday school practices provided opportunities for children to learn about ‘concepts of print’. That is, young children engage in authentic opportunities to witness print used in meaningful ways and they ‘see’ that reading occurs from top to bottom and left to right as they watch older children and congregants engage with print in hymnals, bibles and Duavata Sunday school booklets. Young Duavata children begin to develop phonemic awareness as they learn and sing songs and memorize Bible verses often written in poetic forms associated with biblical genres (Johnson, 2010). They develop oral language and comprehension skills by listening to bible stories and responding to them through retellings by creating skits as well as answering questions. Also important, through their apprenticeship into the Duavata Methodist community, the children learn essential social norms that are expected in schools and in the broader Fijian society (Nabobo-Baba, 2006). Finally, through participation in their Methodist community, some children like Rupeni, shown in Fig.  7.3, draw on their community experiences as they consider their future careers. Figure 7.3 is a picture taken from the first page of a personal book that the researchers co-wrote with Rupeni. (As we explained in Chap. 5, the researchers co-­ created multilingual books with each participating child in the child’s home languages and English.) Each child chose the focus and content of his or her story. Rupeni’s father is the Methodist minister in Duavata. Rupeni’s story is about his career aspiration to become a minister like his father.

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Fig. 7.3  The first page of Rupeni’s personal book

Fig. 7.4 Iliasa playing soldier

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Children’s Play Contexts In- and Outside Their Homes Children’s play both inside and outside their homes provides another rich context for language and literacy development. In this section, we provide examples of the different kinds of play we witnessed over the years we worked in Duavata. We begin with examples from inside two different children’s homes: Iliasa and Maria. Figure 7.4 shows Iliasa playing with a toy gun. Notice the coloured pencils in the bottom right-hand portion of the picture. When we asked Iliasa what he was playing, he told us that he was being a soldier like his father. After Iliasa answered this question, we turned our attention to a discussion with Iliasa’s grandfather who babysits him during the day. A few minutes after playing soldier, Iliasa sought our attention by handing us the paper shown in Fig.  7.5. He had used the coloured pencils seen on the floor in Fig. 7.4 to draw a picture. We asked Iliasa to tell us about the paper he handed to us. He explained in Bauan that he drew a picture of himself in a soldier’s uniform. Here Iliasa is displaying voice and agency as he uses multiple modes (e.g. dramatic and symbolic play plus drawing) to illustrate future aspirations – becoming a soldier like his father (Harris & Manatakis, 2013). The young children in our study spoke in Bauan; most children spoke little or no English. The Australian-based researchers did not speak Bauan and relied on in-­ country participants to translate. When visiting homes across the 3  years of the study, we always visited homes accompanied by a team member fluent in Bauan and English. These translators included our early childhood consultant, the community

Fig. 7.5  Iliasa’s drawing of himself wearing a soldier’s uniform

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mentor for the project and members of the Duavata Methodist Youth who volunteered to visit homes with us and translate as needed. As a brief reminder from Chap. 2, schooling and business in Fiji are conducted in English; thus, secondary school-aged children and adults are fluent in English. A second example of play occurred inside Maria’s home. On one occasion, Maria and her older sister used coloured plastic dishes to cook a ‘pretend’ meal and set the table for their family to eat the meal. Maria and her sister placed plastic plates, bowls and cups on a piece of cloth – likely representing a table cloth – on the floor. Then they pretended to serve food and eat. Several points are worth noting regarding the kinds of play these examples represent and the manner in which they represent language and literacy practice opportunities. In both of these instances, children were engaged in pretend play. In pretend play, children ‘use symbolism to create “as if” situations…transforming objects, actions, and situations making them other than what they really are…’ (Harris, 2013, p. 155). Iliasa, mentioned earlier in the chapter, pretended to be a soldier like his father, and he even drew himself dressed in a soldier’s uniform. Maria and her sister pretended to cook and set the table  – likely mimicking the work of their mother and grandmother. (Maria’s grandmother lived with the family. She babysat Maria and her two sisters while both parents worked during the day.) Pretend play, as represented by the examples we have shared, affords children opportunities to use language to assume the identity of a member of their social group (e.g. a soldier or a cook) and to explore the enactment of these identities as children negotiate the construction of meaning through the play (Harris, 2013). Iliasa engaged with his role as a soldier at the level of metacommunication (Bateson, 1976, as cited in Harris, 2013). Metacommunication refers to a child’s ability to step outside the pretend play frame to reflect on it. In Iliasa’s case, he used symbols (i.e. his drawing of himself in his soldier’s uniform) to represent his play as a soldier. Maria and her sister explored the enactment of their identities as cooks in their household as they engaged in their pretend play scenario. In both cases presented here (i.e. Iliasa’s and Maria’s play), the children are displaying voice and agency as they choose to use multiple modes (e.g. dramatic and symbolic play with artefacts and/or drawing) to illustrate important life experiences (Harris & Manatakis, 2013). In Iliasa’s case, he enacted and drew about a future aspiration – becoming a soldier like his father. In Maria’s case, she enacted a ‘typical’ scenario in her family: preparing, serving and eating a family meal. As we walked from home to home across the years we spent in Duavata, we continuously witnessed children playing outside, perhaps because the tropical climate of Fiji is conducive to outdoor activity. We share a few representative examples of the myriad instances of outside play we observed across the years. We begin with examples of sports-related play. Then, we share instances of other kinds of outdoor play. Finally, we unpack these instances of play as they relate to language and literacy learning. One day as we were walking through Duavata, we witnessed two cousins, Kuini and Neimani, playing in their front yard. We asked them to tell us about their play, and they explained that they were playing rugby. Rugby is arguably the most

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Fig. 7.6  Older children teaching Silivia how to hold a bat

popular sport in Fiji amongst iTaukei people. The 2016 summer Olympics occurred during our final year of this research project. The Fijian rugby team won the gold medal. This was Fiji’s first Olympic gold medal. It was an important national event that didn’t go unnoticed by even the very young children in Duavata. Another day we observed children playing a game with a bat and ball as depicted in Fig. 7.6. We assume that they were playing cricket, which is also a sport that is common in Fiji. Figure 7.6 portrays a phenomenon we witnessed countless times as we watched children play outside; older children played with younger children and spent time explicitly teaching younger children how to play various games. In Fig. 7.6, 3-year-old Silivia is in the centre of the picture with pink shorts holding a bat. The older children are showing her how to hold the bat to swing at a ball. Then, the other children have moved out of the way, and Silivia practices swinging the bat to hit the ball. Just as we witnessed children playing their ‘versions’ of more formal sports games such as rugby and cricket, we also witnessed children playing less structured games and activities. For example, we introduced Maria earlier in this chapter and wrote about her cooking and eating a pretend family meal with one of her older sisters. Maria, her sisters and her neighbours were often seen playing chase in Maria’s front garden. One day while walking through Duavata, we heard our names being called out, but we couldn’t quite place where the greeting was coming from until we looked high in a tree where we saw (and heard) Poasa waving to us and greeting us! Another

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Fig. 7.7  Children climbing a tree in Duavata

favourite activity for Duavata children is climbing trees, and as illustrated in Fig. 7.7, the children are quite good at it – even though it looks harrowing to us because there are few or no branches on the lower trunks of most trees. In addition to games such as playing chase and climbing trees, children made up games with various items available within the community. In Fig. 7.8, the children are playing a game whereby there are two teams  – each team with several tires. Figure 7.8 depicts a camera shot of one team. Whereas we aren’t sure about ‘rules’ for the game being played in Fig. 7.8, it appeared to us that teams took turns rolling tires towards the other team. Members of the opposite team appeared to ‘catch’ the tires as they rolled towards them. As with other games and activities, we noticed that children of many ages are playing together in Fig. 7.8. Thus, even very young children are scaffolded into the process of playing various games and activities in the

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Fig. 7.8  Children playing a game with old tires in Duavata

village. We discerned that children of different ages did have different roles in the game represented in Fig.  7.8, however. For example, the older children were the ones who rolled the tires to the other team and often caught them, and the younger children often went to retrieve the tires that rolled out of bounds. The numerous outdoor games and activities such as those we have shared in this portion of Chapter 7 represent a sample of the many different games/activities we witnessed in Duavata over the years we worked there. The aforementioned functions of play (e.g. using language to engage in symbolic activity, assuming and enacting various identities, exercising voice and agency in the construction and enactment of games, etc.) that accrue language and literacy benefits for indoor play also serve additional important functions (Harris & Manatakis, 2013). Creating and navigating the ‘rules’ or ‘norms’ for play can help children to develop social and emotional intelligence relative to reasoning, imagining, creating and understanding the world in which they live; there is also evidence that cognitive ability is enhanced with physical exercise (Gilkey & Kilts, 2018). As well, if we consider Derrida’s notion that all the world’s a text (Scholes, 1991), then both indoor and outdoor play are texts (albeit, not paper ones!) subject to textual analysis. For example, in Fig. 7.8, the children are engaging in text analysis practices as they consider ‘traditional’ games and modify them based on the materials available to them in Duavata to create ‘new’ versions of games with rules, norms and expectations. Figure 7.6 reveals older children teaching Silivia how to decode the practice of holding a bat to swing at a cricket ball. All of the games, indoor and outdoor, involve children participating

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in text participant practices as they engaged in these textual activities to make meaning for themselves (Freebody & Luke, 2003).

 hat Are the Enablers and Constraints That Impact W on Community Capacity to Support Their Preschool Children’s Literacy Learning? Here we present key enablers and constraints that impact on community capacity to support preschool children’s literacy learning in Duavata. We begin by discussing three enablers, followed by an account of two constraints.

 nablers That Support Preschool Children’s Literacy Learning E in Duavata Whereas we witnessed countless enablers for promoting and supporting children’s literacy learning across the years we spent in Duavata, three stand out as especially salient: children are immersed in rich language and cultural practices; there are extensive supportive social networks within and beyond Duavata; and the community, in general, and project parents, in particular, chose to support engagement in the extended work of this literacy project.  hildren Are Immersed in Rich Language-Based Cultural C and Social Practices The famous James Britton (1970) quote, ‘Literacy floats on a sea of words,’ alludes to the central role that oral language plays in more formal literacy teaching and learning. Through oral language use children learn that words have meaning; words are used to communicate emotions, get needs met, engage with others, etc. Oral language provides the foundation for children’s later learning to read and write. The children of Duavata are immersed in rich language-based social and cultural practices upon which later reading and writing practices can be built. For example, consider the examples shared earlier in this chapter. Young children witness older children and adults reading from bibles and hymnals in church; thus, from birth, children witness text use practices (e.g. Freebody & Luke, 2003), in the form of printed materials for important events such as attending church. Young children also both witness and participate in church-related dramatic enactments of bible stories. For example, children watched mothers perform a skit based on a story in the Gospel of John. As well, children, themselves, performed skits for a Duavata community elder to show what they had learned in Sunday

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school. Consequently, children are scaffolded into meaning-maker practices (e.g. Freebody & Luke, 2003) as they watch and participate in the construction of dramatic events related to bible stories. Finally, as depicted in Fig. 7.3, when 4-year-old Rupeni was asked to co-write a story, he chose to draw on the rich language-based social and cultural practices of his Duavata Methodist community to write an aspirational story about becoming a minister like his father who is the Methodist minister in Duavata. In this way, Rupeni is a text analyst (Luke & Freebody, 2003); he analyses various community- and family-related texts and applies them to his future life plans. Extensive Supportive Social Networks Within and Beyond Duavata Children in Duavata are embedded in powerful social and cultural networks within and beyond their community. Intricately connected kinship networks and ties are a central feature of Fijian society (Nabobo-Baba, 2006). One instantiation of kinship ties that we witnessed in all but two of the project homes in Duavata is that grandparents live in the homes with their children and grandchildren. As parents go out to work each day (sometimes fathers and mothers, and sometimes just fathers), grandparents stay at home to maintain, or help to maintain, the homes and babysit the young children who are not yet in school. For example, Maria’s mother and father both go to work each day, and their grandmother babysits young Maria and her sisters (except when Maria’s older sisters are in school) also cooking, cleaning and doing laundry during the day. Earlier in this chapter we discussed Kuini and Neimani playing rugby. These children are cousins and their extended family lives together. Grandma Meli babysits Kuini and Neimani and engages in household chores each day, while their parents all leave the village to go to work and their older siblings attend school. Figure 4.1 in Chap. 4 shows an example of interactions between grandparents and their grandchildren in the normal course of a day’s events, as we also detailed in Chap. 4’s opening vignette of Kuini and her grandmother making roti. In this picture, Grandma Meli is scaffolding Kuini’s understanding of making roti. Grandma Meli’s scaffolding includes both the physical act of showing Kuini how to make roti, as well as talking her through the process of doing so. Important kinship networks also extend in many directions beyond Duavata. A child of the project community mentor for Duavata is married to a sibling of a member of the in-country project team, while another two siblings were connected with the Duavata community mentor through the Fiji National Catholic Women’s League movement. Moreover, a niece was one of the community leaders in Duavata, and one of the parent leaders in the research project. The Duavata community mentor organized a set of books donated by the Fiji Catholic Women’s League to the Duavata children’s library, which was created as a result of this project work. As a second example, the Duavata community mentor is a personal friend of the Liuliu-Ni-Koro (i.e. the village chief) of Duavata as well as the Turaga-Ni-Koro (i.e. the government-appointed second in command) of Duavata. The Duavata

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community mentor explains that there are traditional friendship ties between the land-­owning group from which she is a descendent of the Lau Islands and the landowning group of the chief of Duavata. Thus, when the community mentor for the research project and the in-country research team member sought a ceremonial audience with the chief of Duavata to seek permission to engage in the research project, there were many intricate kinship ties already in place that helped to ensure a positive outcome of the request (Nabobo-Baba, 2006). Community and Parent Support of Our Study The last example above makes reference to the importance of the role of the support of the chief of Duavata to the (a) ability to conduct the work in Duavata, and (b) the outcomes of this research project itself. After receiving the chief’s permission to engage in project work in Duavata, Duavata community leaders and project leaders held a community event to explain the project and provide a brief description of it. Over 70 people from Duavata attended this evening’s event. For the next few days after the community informational event, we walked around the village with the Duavata community mentor to describe the study in more detail to parents with young children between the ages of 3 and 5 and to invite them to participate in the study. When parents expressed an interest in participating in the project, the researcher and the Duavata community mentor shared the University of South Australia Ethics form with them, described the project in more detail, and discussed participants’ rights to leave the project any time. Parents stated that they would be happy to sign the university ethics form, but that they considered the university form merely a formality since the authority that was most significant to them, their chief, had already provided his blessing of the project. Fig. 7.9  Jerry drawing an ‘8’ and various letters on his hand

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Not only was there community-wide support for the project, parents and children who signed up for the project engaged in project work with gusto. Jerry’s mum and dad worked in creative ways to teach Jerry the alphabet and numbers. For example, we witnessed Jerry’s father using his fingers to demonstrate the shape of the letter ‘F’ to 4-year-old Jerry. Shortly after Jerry’s father spent time showing him letters and numbers, we saw Jerry practicing writing letters and numbers on his hand as evident in Fig. 7.9 whereby Jerry is drawing an ‘8’ and various letters – which are a bit difficult to read – on his hand. One day Maria’s grandmother showed us the letters and numbers that Maria had practiced on an old plastic glove. Thus, project children in Duavata used various media to name and label abstract entities such as numbers and letters (Harris, 2013). In doing so, children demonstrated their developing understanding of code breaking (Freebody & Luke, 2003). That is, they demonstrated that letters and numbers have meaning and that these abstract entities can be represented by various socially agreed-upon codes or marks.

 onstraints that Impact on Community Capacity to Support C Preschool Children’s Literacy Learning in Duavata The examples we have just shared illustrate enablers to children’s literacy learning in Duavata because they reveal that children and parents demonstrate a strong desire to practise and learn literacy as well as ingenuity in finding materials on which to write; these data also reveal constraints to the community’s capacity to support preschool children’s literacy learning in Duavata. That is, there exists a lack of meaningful material resources in Duavata. For example, most homes do not have paper, pens, pencils, markers, crayons and writing paper with which the children can write and create. As well, very few homes have children’s books or learning materials. The books and learning materials that do exist are often from other countries and cultures. For example, many Duavata homes with young children have alphabet charts hanging on the walls in the living/dining rooms; however, these alphabet charts are from either Australia or the United States. Materials such as alphabet charts from other countries can be problematic for young Fijian children learning the alphabet because many of the items on the alphabet charts represent objects (e.g. apples, igloos and kangaroos) that are not common or relatable to children in Fiji. Thus, when literacy-related materials (such as children’s books and alphabet charts) are not culturally authentic and meaningful to children, it is more difficult for children to learn from and with them since they do not represent children’s backgrounds or funds of knowledge (Flores-Dueñas, 2004; Li, 2013; Gonzalez et al., 2005). Another constraint in some households is the sheer number of children under the care of any one parent or grandparent at a given time. That is, one, or both, parents may work long hours outside the home and either grandparents or the parent who is

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staying home to help with children may be watching a large number of children. For example, at one point, Silivia’s mum and siblings were living with their cousin, Taniela’s mum and siblings as well as their grandfather. When both the mother and father in a neighbouring home had to work outside the home, and there was no grandparent available to help, the three neighbour children as well as Taniela, Silivia and their siblings were being watched by Taniela’s mom. With nine young children being watched by one parent, plus the responsibility for household chores, there was little time for Taniela’s mum to work on literacy-related skills or activities with him and other children.

 hat Local Resources and Strategies Can Be Used to Foster W Preschool Children’s Literacy in Their Home Languages and English in Communities in Fiji that Do Not Have Access to Preschools? Phase I of our research study involved developing an understanding of the Duavata community and its literacy practices and contexts. As we transitioned from Phase I to Phase II of the project, we transitioned to implementing community development processes and literacy strategies. During Phase I, we learned that Duavata was a rich context for children’s language and literacy learning, but that there was a paucity of literacy-related materials available to children and their families. Moreover, the literacy-­related materials that were available to families were not culturally relevant for Duavata children. Consequently, as we began Phase II of the project, we worked collaboratively with Duavata children and their families, and our community mentor, to begin to develop culturally and linguistically authentic literacy materials – including child-authored books and alphabet charts. As we began co-developing these culturally and linguistically authentic literacy materials, we also worked collaboratively with children and their families to discuss the meaningful use of these materials. It is important to note here that what we learned from Phase I of the research project became the material on which we built the literate practices during Phase II of the project. For example, as discussed earlier in this chapter, the Duavata Methodist Church played a huge role in the lives of Duavata community members. When asked what he wanted to write a book about, 4-year-old Peni decided to write about his aspiration to become a minister like his father. Moreover, when we co-­ constructed alphabet charts with children, their lives and experiences were the examples that the children chose to include in their alphabet charts. One example of a way that we modelled the effective use of the materials occurred at a whole-community event the evening of November 23, 2015. By this point during Phase II of the project, we had co-created children’s books with most of the project children, and we had started developing authentic alphabet charts with most of the children. Whereas we had done some modelling of the use of the literacy materials as we visited each home during this particular trip to Duavata and during

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Table 7.1  Overview of November 23, 2015, plans at the Duavata community centre Event focus: exhibition and celebration Time: Event: 7:00 p.m. Opening prayer 7:05 p.m. Welcome 7:10 p.m. Profile of current successful practices with the alphabet charts 7:25 p.m. Model read-aloud interactions with children’s books 7:35 p.m. Parent-child interactions 7:50 p.m. Final debriefing and next steps 8:00 p.m. Concluding thanks, remarks, song and benediction by pastor

Person leading event: Methodist minister Kini: MC for the event Ufemia Ufemia Ufemia, Cindy and Methodist Youth Ufemia and Duavata community Mentor Concluding comments by: The MC for the event A Methodist Youth Representative The Duavata community mentor Pauline’s thanks and comments Duavata children sing a song Methodist minister: final thanks

the previous visit, we found we needed to do more structured scaffolding for parents and grandparents. Consequently, we planned an evening community event that featured lots of discussing and modelling. We called the evening event an ‘Exhibition & Celebration’. The project consultant, with insider-expertise in early childhood literacy education in Fiji, led the modelling and scaffolding during the community event in Bauan. Table 7.1 provides an overview of the plans we enacted at the community event in the Duavata Community Centre. Referring to Table 7.1, at 7:10 p.m., the study’s in-country partner invited several parents with children to showcase effective parent/child interactions pertaining to the alphabet charts. During the next event at approximately 7:25 p.m., the children who were a part of the project gathered around her in the centre of the community hall as she read aloud several of the children’s books, interacting with the children about their stories. The reading process showed caregivers positive ways to engage with the books which had been co-creating with their children. (Figure 7.3 provides an example of a page in Rupeni’s book.) She debriefed by telling the parents what she was doing and providing a rationale for the nature of her interactions. Our intent was to model reading and discussion practices that the parents and grandparents could appropriate in their own interactions with their children as they read books with them. After these first two modelled events, parents were invited to move to different locations around the community hall where we had already organized displays of their children’s books and partially finished alphabet charts. At this point, we asked parents and/or grandparents to interact with their children practicing the various kinds of interactions around the books and alphabet charts that had been modelled. As the parents and/or grandparents worked with their

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children, research team members offered positive support to them. Our goal was to be unobtrusive and provide a few positive comments to each family. Then, we wrapped up the evening noting the positive practices we had just witnessed and sharing next steps in our work with project families. Next steps included continued work with the Duavata Methodist Youth as they would visit homes to work with caregivers and children to further develop the personal alphabet charts that we had started co-­creating with children. The event ended with thanks and concluding remarks, a song, and a benediction by the Duavata minister. As was typical during all of our visits to Duavata, we spent many hours each day visiting participating families, and we visited participating families numerous times during each visit. As we visited project families during our subsequent visit to Duavata, caregivers told us that whereas they appreciated the scaffolding and modelling for using the culturally and linguistically relevant materials we were co-­ creating, it was difficult to remember all of the different ideas that were shared and practised that one evening. Consequently, we built in more scaffolding during this next visit in the following ways. First, as we visited and re-visited families in their homes during this next visit, we modelled engagement with the children around the alphabet charts and multilingual books we had created. Second, since a normal practice was to have a closing whole-community event at the end of each Duavata visit, we created an event similar to the prior closing event whereby we engaged in modelling and think-alouds about using the culturally relevant materials with children. This time, however, we invited various caregivers to model with their children for the rest of the community. (In the last section of this chapter, we elaborate on the roles that these various caregivers played in sustainability plans as the project drew to a close.) Finally, we created the ‘Parent Information Sheets’ depicted in Table 7.2 for each project family. We presented these ‘Parent Information Sheets’ in plastic sleeves to each project family at the final community event for this next visit suggesting that parents hang these information sheets up in a convenient place in their homes as reminders of ways to interact with their children.

 enchmarking Duavata Children’s Literacy Participation B and Learning Against Na Noda Mataniciva This section provides evidence of children’s literacy participation and learning with reference to Na Noda Mataniciva’s outcomes in its Language, Literacy and Communication Foundation Area of Learning and Development (FALD) (described in Chaps. 3 & 4). This FALD is divided into two strands including ‘Listening and Communicating’ and ‘Reading and Writing’. Each of these two strands is further subdivided into two additional sub-strands. Below, we discuss the benchmarks for Duavata children’s engagement in these strands and sub-strand. As we proceed, we link these benchmarks for Duavata children to the Four Resources Model (4RM)

What Local Resources and Strategies Can Be Used to Foster Preschool Children’s… Table 7.2  Duavata parent literacy information sheets Duavata Parent Information Sheet Reading books with your child: 1. Please keep all interactions fun, positive, and authentic! 2. Please keep interactions short. 3. Read through your child’s book in an engaging way. 4. Let your child take the lead in talking about her/his book. 5. Listen to your child. Ask questions. For example: • Tell me more. • What happens next? • How does this picture connect to your daily life? 6. Please keep all interactions fun, positive and authentic!

Discussing the alphabet chart with your child: 1. Please keep all interactions fun and positive! 2. Please keep interactions short! 3. Encourage your child to point to letters of the alphabet chart while she/he sings the alphabet song. 4. Ask your child to find the first letter of her/his name on the alphabet chart. (Once your child can do this, ask her/him to point to other letters in her/his name.) You can do this same activity with other words that are important to your child in her/his life. 5. Find 3 to 4 things that begin with the first letter of your child’s name. Name these items. Show your child how other things (besides her/his name) start with the same letter as her/his name. 6. Ask your child to identify an important word from her/his book. Ask her/him to find the letters on the alphabet chart that match the letters in the word. Provide guidance as needed. 7. What other ideas might you try? 8. Please keep all interactions fun and positive!

Some things to look for to see if your child is making reading progress: 1. Is your child asking and answering questions as you read together? 2. Is your child telling, retelling, and/or enacting stories? 3. Is your child volunteering comments during reading? 4. Is your child reading other texts in her/his environment. [Examples include: newspapers, the bible, other books, words and pictures on television, DVDs, cell phones, etc.] 5. Is your child starting to recognize letters and words? 6. Is your child pretend reading? Some things to look for to see if your child is making writing progress: 1. Is your child pretend writing using scribbles? 2. Is your child observing others write and joining in? (If so, try to keep these writings. Please put a date on the pages. You will start to notice changes in the child’s work across time.) 3. Is your child writing the first letter of her/his name? (Is your child writing more letters in her/his name as time goes on and noticing that these letters are also on her/his alphabet chart?) 4. Is your child starting to notice that letters she/he writes represent sounds? (For example, when your child writes the first letter of her/his name, does she know the sound associated with that letter?) 5. Is your child asking you for help to write words/stories?

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presented in Chap. 4 in terms of making meaning (text participant practices), using literacy and texts to fulfil purposes (text user practices), cracking text codes and transferring codes into texts (text decoder and text encoder practices), and critically reflecting on texts (text analyst practices).

Listening and Communicating in Na Noda Mataniciva The outcome of the listening and communicating strand of Na Noda Mataniciva (hereafter NNM) refers to children’s ability to listen, understand and respond to non-verbal and verbal communication (NNM, 2009, p. 41). This strand is further divided into ‘listening and responding’ and ‘speaking and communicating.’ Researchers witnessed countless examples of project children’s abilities to listen and communicate across the years of working with them. Examples were given earlier in this chapter, such as children watching and listening to their mothers perform a skit based on the Gospel of John, children listening and responding to their Sunday school teacher, children preparing to communicate (through words, songs and/or skits) with a village elder what they have learned in Sunday school. Duavata children – even very young children – sit and listen at church for 1 to 2 hours at a time – depending on the church service that they are attending. Researchers witnessed countless examples of children identifying beginning letters and sounds in their alphabet charts. Thus, through just these few examples detailed here, it is apparent that children are identifying and playing with different sounds, repeating and creating songs and skits, listening to and following directions, posing questions and telling an retelling stories.

Reading and Writing in Na Noda Mataniciva The outcome of the reading and writing strand of NNM refers to children’s ability to ‘recognise that print conveys meaning and begin to use writing materials with purpose’ (NNM, 2009, p.  41). This strand is further divided into ‘Becoming a reader’ and ‘Becoming a writer.’ As with the previous NNM strand just discussed, researchers witnessed countless examples of project children demonstrating the characteristics of children who are becoming readers and writers. For example, in Fig. 7.3, Rupeni has co-authored a book about his ambition to become a minister like his father. Figure 7.4 reveals Iliasa showing us how he wants to become a soldier like his father and then drawing himself as a soldier (Fig. 7.5). Earlier in the chapter, we described how Jerry watched intently as his father showed him the letter ‘F.’ Then, in Fig. 7.9, Jerry is drawing letters and numbers on his hand. We described how Maria has drawn letters and numbers on an old plastic glove, and how Rupeni

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worked with us to co-create his own alphabet chart. Taken together, these examples illustrate how Duavata project children are showing an interest in having their stories written down and dictating stories for adults to write down; showing an interest in letters, sounds, and words; pretending to write and using letter- and number-like shapes, using some letters to represent sounds; and participating in the telling and discussing of stories.

 enchmarking the Children’s Engagement as Readers Against B Na Noda Mataniciva’s ‘Becoming a Reader’ Outcomes The children’s identity as being and becoming readers – including children seeing themselves as readers – clearly was fostered in the experiences this study afforded. For example, Duavata children explained to one another and their families how they created their alphabet charts. With their families and one another, they shared the books they had made. For example, Jone showed Arieta how he created his alphabet chart. In so doing, children were promoting and engaging in a community of practice in which children enacted their identities as readers, writers – as literate people – engaged with others. In being and becoming readers, the children showed apparent enjoyment of books and stories and hearing them read aloud, and actively engaged in their creation and interpretation. In Duavata, researchers directly observed and photographed the participating children: totally engaged as text participants and users in listening to the stories that they and their fellow participating children created during whole community events; reading their own books and the books of their friends during community events; and reading their books and alphabet charts during organised play events that were developed at Duavata as a result of the research process. Children’s increased participation as meaning-makers and purposeful users of texts became apparent over the course of this study – as evidenced in their comments and questions, as well as telling, retelling and acting out stories and giving stories sequence. Children’s pretend play provided a means for children as text participants to develop their ideas for their stories and for creating photographed images for their books. Telling and enacting stories was amply evidenced in how Duavata children created their books. For example, Rupeni, who created a story about his aspirations to be a minister, dressed in his Sunday best, went to the church and stood at the pulpit where his father, a minister, preaches each Sunday. In this way, he developed the ideas for his story, spoke his text to be written down in English and Bauan and had his photos taken to accompany his words. As children’s participation as readers grew, they asked and answered questions, made comments, and predicted what came next in a text. This outcome pertains to text participant, user and analyst practices, in which researchers

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witnessed Duavata children engage and learn. For example, Sophie, not quite 3 years old, had just received a copy of her illustrated book called Jim: Na Noqu Bula Kei Sophie (Jim: My Life with Sophie), co-written with Sophie and her brother Jim in Bauan and English. Sophie and her mother delighted in the book as they made comments about the pictures and sibling antics written about in Sophie’s book. Children’s participation with texts extended to engaging with the language of a book. We have many examples of Duavata children re-reading stories they had written in their own words after their books were completed and copies were given to them – engaging simultaneously in decoding and making meaning from text. For example, during one of the closing community events in Duavata, there are many pictures of children ‘reading’ their stories to one another and their families. During closing community events as well as Thursday play group meetings, researchers took pictures of children delighting in the child-authored books as community and playgroup leaders read them aloud to and discussed them the children in the project. In their participation in the language of texts, Duavata children clearly showed interest in words, letters, sounds. Researchers captured examples of children explaining how to create alphabet charts to other children and ‘reading’ their alphabet charts in the process and collected many examples of children reading their alphabet charts and books to one another during community events and Thursday play sessions. Children were observed making and learning important connections between reading and writing as text decoders and encoders. For instance, Taniela moved a plastic crate under his alphabet chart so that he could see and read his alphabet chart from eye level. He pointed to the words and pictures on his alphabet chart and read them just as we had practised. This simple action showed the child’s desire to engage with the chart, as well as his understanding that such materials need to be at his eye level to read and view them. In this moment, he connected his drawings of a bear with the word ‘bear’ and its first letter ‘b’, and the object itself that both his drawings and word represented. Making these new connections saw the child reflect on his text and what he had learned. This reflection resonates with text analyst practices insofar as providing opportunity for the child to reflect on how text constructs worlds and how he as an author of text can construct his world and reflect on a text’s personal relevance. It is important to note here that this engagement with words, letters and sounds was in context where such engagement made sense – as illustrated and evidenced in the examples above. As an additional example, in Duavata, children’s alphabet charts were transformed from Westernised imports with which children were largely disengaged to an organically co-constructed text of and about each child’s world in his or her own words. In consequence, the transformed chart and how it was co-­ constructed with the child became transformational – it made the value and processes of co-constructing texts with children as active literate people visible – and generated new understandings with the family about the importance of

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incorporating a child’s life world and languages in strategies for fostering their literacy. The children clearly engaged with these charts in their home languages and English, in ways that were purposeful for building their decoding skills with words that had deep meaning for them.  enchmarking the Children’s Engagement as Readers Against Na Noda B Mataniciva’s ‘Becoming a Writer’ Outcomes In terms of being and becoming writers, the children realised their identities as writers in their engagement with book production. For example, there were instances of Duavata children’s written work (scribbles) in their homes across time (e.g. Silivia) as they realised that they are writers. Silivia’s mother began collecting and dating her scribbles when she realized that this was evidence of Silivia becoming a writer. Researchers also captured pictures of children writing their own words/stories (sometimes scribbles and sometimes images that resemble letters) during Thursday organised play events that were developed in this community as a result of the research project work there. As Duavata children participated as writers in these ways, they communicated their ideas and thinking through scribbling, drawing, and coloring; they wrote their own stories with help. Thus, they were intensely involved in literacy as makers and communicators of meaning, and purposeful users and producers of texts – all clearly related also to the ‘Representations’ sub-strand of the ‘Representing and Symbolic Thinking’ strand in Na Noda Mataniciva (Fiji Ministry of Education, p. 34). Duavata children demonstate outcomes such as  ‘Name their scribbles, drawings and constructions when asked’, and ‘Begin to express their ideas in a variety of ways such as painting, drawing, dancing, modelling, construction’  – often using multiple modes for their symbolic representation. As children enacted their identities of being and becoming writers, children engaged in telling stories and giving information for an adult to write down, and attempted to copy some of the writing, observing adults and others writing and trying to copy and join in. In this Duavata children were observed to deeply engage with meaning and purpose as text participants and users. For example, Kuini, after some deliberation, decided she wanted to create a book about making roti (as in Chap. 4’s opening vignette). Her grandmother was making roti in the kitchen at the time. As she made the roti, Kuini recounted the steps in making it. Her grandmother provided scaffolding to Kuini both in words (Bauan) and actions as they enacted and discussed the process of making roti. After explaining the steps for making roti in a procedural commentary for her book, Kuini decided as a text user, participant and encoder that she would write about the process herself. Arieta (a Methodist youth group member working with the children in the study) sat next to Kuini and wrote the word ‘roti’ on the page where Kuini was writing about making roti. Kuini appeared to have so much fun writing about making roti bread that Arieta asked her

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if she’d like to continue writing. Kuini said, ‘Yes!’ Arieta wrote Kuini’s name and things she had pointed out that she liked in her house and yard, in English and Bauan – such as the word ‘airplane’ and Kuini’s toy plane it represented. Kuini copied these words. The stories children created were deeply, personally significant to them  – as illustrated in the aforementioned examples, which required deep thinking and critical reflection on what was important and what to make visible to others. This significance spanned time as well as lived and imagined realities, with children constructing stories about their present, past and future lives, retelling familiar tales and creating imaginary stories. For example, Jerry created a text about his family’s history. Another child created his book for the purpose of expressing what he saw was a significant part of his life and aspirations – being a minister when he grows up. He created his written text with Bauan and English words and their meaning anchored in his here-and-now and future life. The text made visible how similar meaning could be expressed in these two different languages and how the words encoded in these two languages connect with each other and the book’s images. Jerry exercised discernment and judgment in deciding what he wished to write about and what he would include and make visible in his story  – choices resonant with what a text analyst does. Indeed, a key turning point in the literacy transformation occurred when Jerry found a subject he wanted to write about  – realising he could write a book about something that really mattered to him. It was only then that he deeply, meaningfully engaged as a literate person making his book, assisted by others to do what he could not yet do alone (Vygotsky, 1978). Engaging in dialogue to create his book, Jerry could see that his life, experiences, hopes and dreams could be transformed into words and images he chose and were important to him. Permeating all this literacy engagement as readers and writers was Duavata children’s deep, meaningful listening to, understanding of and responding to non-­verbal and verbal communication. For example, when the researcher/community mentor worked with children to choose book topics and write books, communication happened in both English and Bauan. The completed books about the children’s lives and experiences provide evidence of mutual communication and listening between the children and adults. This same deep listening happened as the researcher/community mentor co-constructed the children’s alphabet charts. They shared these words with the researcher/community mentor as, together, the children and adults made the children’s alphabet charts. In all Duavata’s literacy engagement in this study, the children chose words that had meaning in their lives  – and used their words to compose their texts through oral encoding that was scribed by youth or adults. In so doing, Duavata children co-created purposeful, coherent, engaging books for themselves and other children to enjoy. Children’s engagement as readers and writers in creating their books and reading one another’s saw the children engage intently, often for prolonged periods of time. For example, in Duavata, as we worked with children on their individual alphabet

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charts, they stayed focused on reading and writing for extended periods of time. For instance, Rupeni was totally engaged for a 50-minute period of time as he selected pictures for his alphabet chart and wrote and read the words that represented his pictures.

 hat Strategies Are Effective in Developing Local Capacity W to Support Preschool Children’s Literacy Development in Their Home Languages and English? As the research project moved towards the end of its second and final phase, all partners worked together to deepen and build on the local capacity of Duavata families to understand, sustain and continue to develop the literacy-related practices that had been developing collaboratively across Phase II of the project. The research team enacted a two-pronged approach to sustainability plans. First, researchers continued to build internal community expertise and plans to sustain and grow the work. Second, we drew on external expertise to continue to sustain and grow the work. Each of these approaches is addressed in turn.

Deepening Internal Duavata Capacity and Sustainability Researchers continued to deepen internal Duavata capacity and sustainability plans in two ways towards the ‘official’ end of the project. First, we persisted in fine-­ tuning literacy-related materials and deepening community members’ understanding of the meaningful use of these materials during our final visits to Duavata. Second, we supported local Duavata community members as they planned and implemented a weekly playgroup in Duavata. Each visit to Duavata included working to refine the culturally and linguistically appropriate materials we had co-developed with children and their families. Visits also involved deepening project participants’ understanding of effective and meaningful use of these materials. Researchers engaged in this work in two ways: first, by visiting – and working with – project families in their homes multiple times during each visit, and second, by providing community-wide culminating events towards the end of each visit. Both sorts of interactions afforded opportunities to model and scaffold parents’ uses of materials with their children. Figure 7.10 offers an example of a Duavata mother working with her child as researchers provided scaffolding to the mother during a culminating community event. The mother depicted in Fig.  7.10 was reading to her child in a laborious syllable-by-syllable manner. Here, Silivia’s mother was focusing heavily on text decoding practices;

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Fig. 7.10  A Duavata mother reading to her child

while acknowledging that text decoding matters, researchers sought to help Silvia’s mother to foreground meaningful text participant practices emphasizing the importance of decoding in the service of meaning making (Freebody & Luke, 2003). Consequently, after noticing Silivia’s mother foregrounding text decoding, we respectfully demonstrated prosodic reading in a meaningful and engaged manner, which the mother quickly appropriated in her own reading with her child. (Please note that this mother was at work as we visited this home during the daytime; an aunt watched this child during the day. Consequently, community literacy events in the evening provided opportunities to work with parents, like this mother, who worked during the daytime.) The design, construction and use of culturally and linguistically authentic alphabet charts proved to be problematic; thus, researchers continued to refine our development of them across time. Because we didn’t have time to finish entire alphabet charts for each project child during our visits to Duavata, we started these alphabet charts with each family, left sufficient materials to complete the remainder of the alphabet charts and proposed that families finish these charts with their children between the researchers’ visits to Duavata. Subsequently returning to Duavata we learned that families had not completed the alphabet charts, and many of those which had been started did`not last because they were made of flimsy materials. Talking with project families, we learned that (a) many parents weren’t sure how to finish the alphabet charts with their children, and (b) many parents worked long hours and simply didn’t have the time to do so. Consequently, we developed an alternate plan. Reasoning that these alphabet charts could still be culturally and linguistically authentic with one Duavata-community alphabet chart, rather than a different

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Fig. 7.11 Choosing images and words for Duavata community alphabet chart

alphabet chart for each child in the project, we co-created (with children and their families) one Duavata alphabet chart that included people and things that were culturally and linguistically relevant for all Duavata children. Figure  7.11 depicts a Duavata mother working with a group of children to make decisions about the words and images to include on the Duavata community alphabet chart. Figure 7.11 is significant because it represents a parent teaching children text decoding practices drawing on people, events and circumstances meaningful to children in the Duavata community (Freebody & Luke, 2003). The alphabet charts were laminated so they would be durable. Finally, we provided continued scaffolding and support to project families on child-centred use of these alphabet charts. It was thrilling to witness Duavata parents modelling with their children the same kinds of scaffolding that had been modelled to the parents at various culminating community events. It was especially heartening to see the young children themselves appropriate the different ways of engaging with books and alphabet charts that had been modelled to them by their parents and by researchers. Figure  7.12 illustrates Kuini and Neimani identifying images and initial letter sounds on the Duavata community alphabet chart as Iliasa holds up the chart. This is significant because it shows children exercising voice and agency as they use their community alphabet charts to decode initial letters and sounds (Freebody & Luke, 2003; Harris & Manatakis, 2013). Later during the same community event depicted in Fig. 7.12, the same three children (i.e. Kuini, Neimani and Iliasa) were reading one of their co-authored books. In doing so the children are text participants, composing meaning from the

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Fig. 7.12  Kuini and Neimani identifying images and initial sounds on the Duavata community alphabet chart

texts that they co-constructed with adults in both Bauan and English (Freebody & Luke, 2003). In addition to continually refining and improving Duavata literacy materials, and providing scaffolding regarding the use of these materials with caregivers, researchers continued to refine Duavata parent-materials. Having created a parent literacy information sheet during an early visit to Duavata, researchers revised this document towards the end of the project to reflect specific connections to NNM as well as the Four Roles model that had been enacted across the project. The revised parent information sheet would be more culturally authentic in Fiji if it was specifically connected to NNM. Table 7.3 provides an example of the revised parent literacy information sheet. The latter half of the document links literacy practices to NNM as well as the Four Roles Model emphasized across the duration of the Project (Freebody & Luke, 2003). During the final few visits to Duavata, researchers sought information about parents’/caregivers’ learning to recognize and scaffold their children’s language and literacy learning. Nine of the project families in Duavata filled out end-of-project questionnaires. These identified that parents/caregivers (a) noticed their children’s language and literacy learning progress, and (b) appropriated NNM and Four Roles (Freebody & Luke, 2003) norms and understandings when working with their children around literacy. One parent, for example, mentioned her understanding that her

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Table 7.3  Revised parent literacy information sheet Duavata Parent Information Sheet (Revised) Reading books with your child:

Discussing the alphabet chart with your child:

1. Please keep all interactions fun, positive, and authentic! 2. Please keep interactions engaging for your child. 3. Read through your child’s book in an engaging way. 4. Let your child take the lead in talking about her/his book. 5. Listen to your child. Ask questions. For example: • Tell me more. • What happens next? • How does this picture connect to your daily life? 6. Please keep all interactions fun, positive and authentic!

1. Please keep all interactions fun and positive! 2. Please keep interactions engaging for your child. 3. Encourage your child to point to letters of the alphabet chart while she/he sings the alphabet song. 4. Ask your child to find the first letter of her/his name on the alphabet chart. (Once your child can do this, ask her/him to point to other letters in her/his name.) You can do this same activity with other words that are important to your child in her/his life. 5. Find 3 to 4 things that begin with the first letter of your child’s name. Name these items. Show your child how other things (besides her/his name) start with the same letter as her/his name. 6. Ask your child to identify an important word from her/his book. Ask her/him to find the letters on the alphabet chart that match the letters in the word. Provide guidance as needed. 7. What other ideas might you try? 8. Please keep all interactions fun and positive!

Information from Na Noda Mataniciva (NNM) is included with Luke and Freebody’s (1990) Four Resources Model below. Key questions/suggestions for parents to consider are listed below:  Meaning-making practices related to understanding, interpreting and constructing meaning in texts:  Possible indicators for reading from NNM include: answering simple questions about a story; talking about their drawings and paintings; participating more in stories through comments and questions; showing interest in having their stories written down; participating in stories; asking and answering questions; volunteering comments; predicting what comes next; telling, retelling and enacting stories; reading other texts in their environment important to maintaining their culture; join in reading stories they dictate; ...  Possible indicators for writing from NNM include: observing others writing and joining in; pretending to write; using play writing; dictating stories; writing their own stories; writing their first name.  Is your child transferring these meaning-making capabilities from the texts they created to other literacy texts?

(continued)

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Table 7.3 (continued) 

Text-using practices related to recognising, using and producing texts to fulfill particular social purposes:  Possible indicators for reading from NNM include: enjoying books and stories; asking adults to tell or read stories; showing interest in having their stories written down;  Possible indicators for writing from NNM include: using play writing for different purposes (e.g., shopping lists, recipes, signs)  Does there appear to be transference of these text-using capabilities from the texts children created to other literacy engagement? What are the purposes children use texts for?



Text decoding and encoding practices related to recognising, cracking and replicating the codes of texts:  Possible decoding indicators for reading from NNM include: recognising basic book features; turning pages; using illustrations to guess text; understanding print carries a message; recognising own name in print; recognising common print labels and signs in environment; being interested in letters, sounds and words; making letter/word matches; recognising and naming some letters in their names and the environment; reading stories they dictate;  Possible encoding indicators for writing from NNM include: pretending to write using letter-like marks; pretending to write using scribble writing and letter-like symbols; writing some letters in their names; becoming aware that writing and drawing are different; pointing to print and asking what it says; writing some recognisable letters; attempting to copy some of the writing in stories they dictated; correctly using some letters to represent sounds; attempting some invented spelling of familiar words; asking for help to write words when writing stories; writing their first name; ...  Does your child use rhymes or other patterns in spoken and written language, songs, and/or mekes?  Does your child appear to transfer decoding/encoding capabilities from the texts they created to other literacy engagement?



Text analyst practices related to interrogating and reflecting upon texts Possible indicators for reading and writing from NNM do not appear in this category.



(continued)

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Table 7.3 (continued)

Protocol for Attribution and Acknowledgment on Duavata Parent Information Sheet The research that informs the creation of this parent information sheet has been funded by AustralianAID through the AustralianAID Development Research Awards Scheme under an award titled ‘Developing a collaborative community approach to support preschoolers’ vernacular and English language and literacy development in Fijian communities without access to early childhood services’ Project (ADRAS #66394). The views presented in this parent information sheet are those of the researchers working on (or overseeing) the Duavata portion of the research project in collaboration with the Duavata participants and not necessarily those of the Commonwealth of Australia. The Commonwealth of Australia accepts no responsibility for any loss, damage or injury resulting from reliance on any of the information or views contained in this information sheet. The researchers acknowledge the Project’s partners, mentors and participants. This parent information sheet is strictly for the purposes the abovementioned Project and not to be used for any other purpose and is not to be distributed beyond those conducting and taking part in this Project.

child is engaging in pretend writing, recognizing that writing conveys meaning and articulating the meanings that her child intends to convey through his writing. Moreover, this parent is encouraging and supporting her child in his language and literacy development. The formation of the Duavata Literacy Planning Committee was another central way that internal Duavata capacity and sustainability for literacy was enacted. This committee consisted of a project parent who was a leader in the Duavata community and four other parents/community members. The central goal of this committee was to create and enact a weekly playgroup for young preschool children in Duavata. Figure 7.13 shows playgroup members as well as attendance for the first few months of the playgroup. The goal of the Duavata Literacy Planning Committee was to get this group registered with the Fiji Ministry of Education. This required keeping careful records of playgroup attendance. Researchers visited the playgroup multiple times towards the end of the project. This section provides a brief overview of a ‘typical’ playgroup sessions. First, playgroup time started with highly engaged group singing of songs such as Hokey Pokey, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Dua Nasipi Sa Yali (a song in Bauan about the parable of finding lost sheep in the Bible) and Roly, Poly. Listening to, and watching children sing these songs, it appeared that most children knew them because they sang the words and engaged in various actions with the different songs – such as moving body parts during the Hokey Pokey song and making sheep sounds during the Dua Nasipi Sa Yali song.

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Fig. 7.13  Duavata playgroup attendance records

Next, the playgroup leader does read-alouds of several children’s books – including the children’s books co-written with project children. Figure 7.14 illustrates an interactive read-aloud using a co-constructed project book (Lennox, 2013; Pantaleo, 2007; Wiseman, 2011). Watching the interactive read-alouds, researchers witnessed the leader’s incorporation of NNM and Four Roles guidelines in her interactions with children (Freebody & Luke, 2003). For example, children asked and answered questions about stories, volunteered comments, predicted what might come next in stories, and so forth. With respect to the books used during interactive read-alouds, a goal for Duavata was to develop a children’s community library of books that Duavata parents could check out and use with their children. This required extra copies of the co-authored project books. As well, as previously depicted, various organizations – such as the Fiji Catholic Women’s League – donated books for the Duavata community children’s library. The playgroup leader housed the library books in her home and managed the use of the library books in the community. During each playgroup meeting, the playgroup leader spends time working on text decoding and encoding practices using the Duavata community alphabet chart co-created with community members. The alphabet charts are used to help children recognize letters, learn the letters of the alphabet, connect letters to initial sounds in familiar Duavata pictures next to each letter, and so forth (Freebody & Luke, 2003). Then, children have the opportunity to write and draw. Parents provide children with huge sheets of butcher paper and colour crayons. There are often three to four

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Fig. 7.14  Frances conducting an interactive read-aloud during Duavata playgroup time

children to a huge sheet of paper working together to write and draw. As children were writing and drawing, they talked with one another about their work. When researchers asked about their work, Jone, for example, replied that he had written his name. He pointed to letters he wrote. This example provides evidence of the literate practice of decoding (Freebody & Luke, 2003). Children are showing an interest in letters, they are able to name some letters, they pretend-write and make letter-like shapes, they recognize that pictures and print convey meaning, and so forth (Freebody & Luke, 2003). Playgroup time ends with children engaging in free-play time. Parents bring tubs of toys that they disperse in the community hall. Children select toys, and they choose the other children with whom they wish to play. As discussed earlier in this chapter, play is important ‘work’ for children; play provides a rich context for children’s language and literacy learning (Harris, 2013). Whereas the literacy-related events described above provide an overview of ‘typical’ playgroup sessions, there were variations in playgroup activities from time to time. For example, during a playgroup session on August 25, 2016, the mothers decided to help an older child, Arieta, lead the younger children to learn a meke (i.e. a traditional Fijian dance) for an upcoming whole-community event. The mothers coached Arieta (only in Kindergarten) to teach the younger children the meke. This example is similar to the discussion provided around Fig. 7.14; as older children

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were often scaffolding younger children’s learning. This meke example illustrates that parents likely play a central role in teaching older children to teach younger children.

 rawing on External Expertise to Continue to Sustain D and Grow the Work Whereas the previous sub-section of this chapter reveals the extensive work and effort that went into the development of sustainability plans within Duavata, work also occurred outside Duavata. For example, the Duavata community mentor on this project is also a community activist with the Fiji Catholic Women’s League and other organisations in Fiji. The Duavata community mentor proposed the development of an external community reference group to continue to maintain and sustain literacy-related work in Duavata. Because of her own background and expertise in community activism work, she offered her support for the development and implementation of this external group. Additionally, the Duavata Literacy Planning Committee discussed plans to continue to teach parents to interact meaningfully with their children around literacy events and activities deciding to bring in Fijian literacy experts to provide ongoing professional learning opportunities for Duavata parents. Finally, the leader of the Duavata playgroup decided to further develop her own expertise in early childhood education. She applied and was accepted to the Australia Pacific Technical College (APTC) in Suva to become a certified early childhood educator. As of the writing of this chapter, she had finished her formal training and brought a great deal more early childhood literacy expertise back to her work with Duavata children and their families. Reflecting back across the years spent visiting Duavata, it was heartening to see children, parents and community members using culturally and linguistically authentic materials with their children as everyone  – adults and children alike  – appropriated important norms from both NNM and the Four Roles Model (Freebody & Luke, 2003). Children also exercised agency and voice in the construction and use of the culturally and linguistically authentic literacy materials they helped to create (Harris & Manatakis, 2013). Thus, adults (in Duavata as well as the adults on the research team) and the children in Duavata experienced firsthand what can happen when children are afforded the space, time, resources and respect to exercise agency and voice: children are deeply involved in their learning and highly motivated to learn. There were myriad instances across the years of this project when children demonstrated intense excitement and engagement with their learning  – such as the time that 4-year-old Rupeni worked non-stop on for 50 minutes on his personal alphabet chart because he was exercising agency and voice in the construction of his chart. The memories and experiences of children’s intense personal engagement with literacy will hopefully go a long way in sustaining the collaborative work undertaken during the 3 years of the project.

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References Barton, G., & Unsworth, L. (2014). Music, multiliteracies and multimodality: Exploring the book and movie versions of Shaun Tan’s ‘The Lost Thing’. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 31(1), 3–20. Bateson, G. (1976). A theory of play and fantasy. In J. Bruner, A. Jolly, & K. Sylva (Eds.), Play: Its role in development and evolution (pp. 119–129). New York: Basic Books. Britton, J. (1970). Language and learning. London: Penguin Books. Flores-Dueñas, L. (2004). Reader response, culturally familiar literature, and reading comprehension: The case of four Latina(o) students. In F.  Boyd, C.  Brock, & M.  Rozendal (Eds.), Multicultural and multilingual literacy and language practices: Constructing contexts for empowerment (pp. 180–206). New York: Guilford. Gee, J. (2015). Social linguistics and literacies: Ideology in discourses (5th ed.). New  York: Routledge. Gilkey, R., & Kilts, C. (2018). Cognitive fitness. In Harvard Business Review Press (Ed.), On mental toughness (pp. 37–53). Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing Corp. Gonzalez, N., Moll, L., & Amanti, C. (2005). Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities, and classrooms. New York: Routledge. Halliday, M. A. K. (1978). Language as social semiotic: The social interpretation of language and meaning. London: Edward Arnold. Harris, P. (2013). Language learning in the baby and toddler years. Macksville, Australia: David Barlow Publishing. Harris, P., & Manatakis, H. (2013). Children as citizens: Engaging with the child’s voice in educational settings. London: Routledge. Johnson, L. T. (2010). The writings of the new testament: An interpretation (3rd ed.). Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. New York: Cambridge University Press. Lennox, S. (2013). Interactive read-alouds—An avenue for enhancing children’s language for thinking and understanding: A review of recent research. Early Childhood Education Journal, 41(5), 381–389. Li, G. (2013). Promoting teachers of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students as change agents: A cultural approach to professional learning. Theory Into Practice, 52(2), 136–143. Luke, A., & Freebody, P. (1990). Literacies programs: Debates & demands in cultural context. Prospect, 5(7), 7–16. Freebody, P., & Luke, A. (2003). Literacy as engaging with new forms of life: The ‘Four Roles’ model. In G.  Bull & M. Anstey (Eds.), The Literacy Lexicon (2nd ed., pp.  54-61). Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson Education.  McMaster, J. C. (1998). “Doing” literature: Using drama to build literacy. The Reading Teacher, 51(7), 574–584. McMillon, G., & Edwards, P. (2000). Why does Joshua “hate” school…but love Sunday school? Language Arts, 78(2), 111–120. McMillon, G., & Edwards, P. (2008). Examining shared domains of literacy in the church and school of African American children. In J. Flood, D. Lapp, & S. B. Heath (Eds.), Handbook of research on teaching literacy through the communicative and visual arts, II (pp. 319–328). New York: Routledge. Nabobo-Baba, U. (2006). Knowing and learning: An indigenous Fijian approach. Suva, Fiji: University of the South Pacific. Pantaleo, S. (2007). Interthinking: Young children using language to think collectively during interactive read-alouds. Early Childhood Education Journal, 34(6), 439–447. Rost, M., & Wilson, J. (2013). Active listening. New York: Routledge. Sanal, A. M., & Gorsev, S. (2013). Psychological and physiological effects of singing in a choir. Psychology of Music, 42(3), 420–429. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305735613477181

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Scholes, R. (1991). Protocols of reading. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wiseman, A. (2011). Interactive read alouds: Teachers and students constructing knowledge and literacy together. Early Childhood Education Journal, 38(6), 431–438.

Chapter 8

In Dovubaravi: Collaborating with Children and Families in an Indo-­Fijian Rural Community

Abstract  In this chapter, we present our study’s community case developed in the Indo-Fijian rural community of Dovubaravi. The chapter begins with an introduction to the participating children of Dovubaravi, followed by accounts of Dovubaravi findings for each of our study’s four research questions: (1) What are the literacy development contexts for preschool children in Dovubaravi? (2) What are the enablers and constraints that impact Dovubaravi’s community capacity to support their preschool children’s literacy learning? (3) What local resources and strategies can be used to foster preschool children’s literacy in Dovubaravi? (4) What strategies are effective in developing Dovubaravi’s capacity to support preschool children’s literacy development in their home languages and English?

Introduction In this chapter, we present our study’s community case developed in the Indo-Fijian rural community that was given the pseudonym Dovubaravi: with the aid of an online ‘Fijian’ dictionary- ‘dovu’ means ‘sugar cane’ and ‘baravi’ means ‘coast’. Together, these two words aptly describe the Dovubaravi community in which we developed this case study.

Dovubaravi sits on the western coast of Fiji’s largest island, halfway between two iTaukei villages off the main highway, with a bus stop, supermarket and several produce stalls marking the turnoff. It is a sugar cane farming and fishing community comprised of a patchwork of cane fields and housing compounds with fishing boat trailers and nets. Adults also work in tourism, retail and construction. Largely served by gravel roads and tracks, homes usually have access to piped water and electricity. On one such gravel road stands the community’s Sangam Hindu temple, established in the early 1930s, which follows the South Indian approach to Hinduism practised by most of Dovubaravi’s inhabitants. Our introduction to Dovubaravi was brokered by our project partners, particularly NCWF’s affiliate organisation TISI Sangam. We are indebted to these organisations and the Dovubaravi Sangam Temple and © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Harris et al., Children’s Multilingual Literacy, International Perspectives on Early Childhood Education and Development 31, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6587-8_8

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Temple Mothers committees for their support and mentorship throughout our research collaboration with the community. We begin this chapter with an introduction to the participating children of Dovubaravi, followed by accounts of Dovubaravi findings for each of our study’s four research questions: 1. What are the literacy development contexts for preschool children in Dovubaravi? 2. What are the enablers and constraints that impact Dovubaravi’s community capacity to support their preschool children’s literacy learning? 3. What local resources and strategies can be used to foster preschool children’s literacy in Dovubaravi? 4. What strategies are effective in developing Dovubaravi’s capacity to support preschool children’s literacy development in their home languages and English?

I ntroducing the Participating Children and Their Families of Dovubaravi Sixteen children 3 to 5 years of age, together with adults and older siblings from their 13 families, participated in our study. At the start of our project, six of the preschoolers were 5 years of age, and the rest were aged 3 and 4. Their participation was supported by members of the temple’s organising committees, our community mentors, members of the broader community, and also co-researchers in our study. Ten children were fifth-generation descendants of South Indian girmityas families, one child had North Indian girmitya heritage, two had both North and South Indian heritage, two were from an iTaukei family, and one child had Anglo-iTaukei-­ Kiribati-North Indian girmitya heritage. All families, with the exception of the iTaukei family, spoke Fiji-Hindi in their homes, with most Indo-Fijian adults knowing basic phrases in Fijian communalects and a few reading and writing standard Bauan when it was the language of their schooling. Younger participants had more extensive English language skills, while oldest-generation participants spoke very little, if any, English. Some adults, especially those with North Indian heritage, read and wrote shudh Hindi using the Latin alphabet, while fewer, typically described by peers as ‘good scholars’, read and wrote shudh Hindi in Devanagari script. Families’ diverse linguistic values, knowledges and skills were mediated by their various heritages and generational and geographic differences in formal education. All families valued oral literacy in multiple languages for connecting children with extended family, their cultural heritages and local communities and oral and written English for academic and economic success. Mere and Malakai, siblings in the participating iTaukei family, as well as Shekoufe, of Anglo-iTaukei-Kiribati-North Indian heritage, were living poly-lingual lives. Mere and Malakai’s parents were born to two different vanua, Bau and Lau, with their mother’s matrilineal vanua being near Nadi. Bauan was their primary

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home language; however their father spoke Lauan to them so they could sustain language, cultural and kin connections to his vanua. They lived alongside a Nadrogan family with similar aged children. Hence, they spoke Bauan and Lauan communalects of the eastern Fijian dialect (see Pawley & Sayaba, 1971) and Nadrogan and Nadi communalects of the western dialect. Additionally, Mere and Malakai understood some English. Their mother observed teaching methods at Malackai’s kindergarten and implemented them at home. Shekoufe’s mother spoke English, Bauan, Kiribati and Fiji-Hindi fluently. She lived, as the norm for Indo-Fijian families, in her husband’s family compound, with his parents and brothers’ families. Shekoufe and siblings understood Fiji-Hindi, English and Bauan. Shekoufe spoke regularly via telephone to her Kiribati grandmother, the hour long conversations occurring in Bauan, the language of her grandfather (and grandmother’s husband). Avinal and Arav, 4 and 5 years of age respectively, were from families of North Indian heritage, with Arav’s family compound on the same inherited tenancy as Avinal’s. Their mothers worked at home, while their fathers worked on cane farms and fished. Their fathers’ families’ Hindu religious practices differed somewhat from the predominant (South Indian) Sangam Hindu practices in the community. Avinal’s mother was from a pundit family and emphasised the importance of her children learning shudh Hindi, in both Latin and Devanagari scripts. Arav’s mother provided English language children’s books and literacy and numeracy activity/ work books to support his future school learning. Arav’s detailed drawings reflected the time he spent tending the garden with his grandmother and observing his father and male relatives work with the family fishing boat. Of families with South Indian heritage, only Keshav’s family actively spoke their pre-girmitya heritage language. Keshav lived with his parents, paternal grandparents and younger brother on a cane farm. Lated families lived in adjoining compounds. Keshav’s father worked in tourism while also helping on the family farm. His great-grandmother and grandfather grew up speaking village Tamil at home and remained fluent Tamil speakers. Keshav’s father understood some, but spoke less Tamil. Keshav’s parents and grandparents, deeply involved in the local Sangam temple, wanted Keshav to learn Tamil, seeing this language as integral to sustaining their family religion. English was Keshav’s father language of work, while Keshav’s mother positioned English as the language required for his schooling success. Neharika and Warsha, cousins, lived in adjacent homes in a family compound, within a series of adjacent compounds, each inherited by one of their grandfathers’ siblings. Also of Tamil heritage, the families only speak Fiji-Hindi at home. Their fathers were tradesmen and Warsha’s mother worked intermittently as a beautician in a nearby town. When Warsha’s mother was working, Neharika’s mother cared for the six cousin-siblings, aged between 1 and 7 years. The children’s days were structured with routines, including short periods of English language conversation and instruction. Neharika’s mother read English language stories to them from several carefully protected children’s books. English language learning and school success were strongly valued across Neharika and Warsha’s extended family, with one great-uncle being a retired teacher and Neharika’s maternal grandmother being a kindergarten teacher.

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Sonakshi and Nathan are the youngest of seven siblings of South Indian heritage. They lived in a one-room house, which was under extension, with their mother at home full-time, their father working as a labourer and older brothers attending school and working at community religious events on weekends. A teenage brother sometimes chaperoned Sonakshi and Nathan at project events. Sonakshi enjoyed participating in her mother’s daily tasks, such as roti making. Nathan preferred running and playing outside with his brothers. Rishita and Tanisha lived in rented accommodation with their parents and teenage sister. Their mother was at home full-time, while their father worked in wedding venue construction. They spent significant time playing with their same-aged neighbour Princy, all three enjoying physically active play outdoors. Tanisha attended and enjoyed kindergarten when her health, potentially affected by the family’s frequently interrupted water supply, allowed. At Princy’s house, water supply was also intermittent, and her infant sibling also experienced poor health. Princy’s mother was also at home full-time and her father supplemented work for a local company with work on the family cane farm. Princy’s mother emphasised teaching Princy her place and appropriate behaviour within the family’s kin relations. She sometimes spoke to Princy in English and supplied Princy with blackboard and chalk, which she noted was more cost-effective than pencils and paper. Chaya and her cousin Kavitesh were also supplied with blackboard and chalk, pen and paper-type materials for drawing and writing and some commercial toys. They lived in adjoining houses in their family compound, with Chaya’s paternal grandmother caring for her, and her mother working as a local manager for an international company. Chaya and Kavitesh’s grandmother, who was also a fluent speaker, reader and writer of Bauan, instructed them in spoken English to support their future school success. The cousins understood English language conversations, confidently making contributions in Fiji-Hindi, with kindergarten-attending Kavitesh also contributing with some English words. Saanvi and her toddler brother also had plentiful home access to drawing and writing resources and commercial toys. A child-size writing desk was featured in their main living space. Saanvi’s father had his own electrical company housed on their extended family compound, and her mother handled the administration of the business. Saanvi’s family were devout Hindus, with the children participating in significant pujas (Hindu prayer rituals) alongside adult family members.

 hat Are the Literacy Development Contexts for Preschool W Children in Dovubaravi? In this section, we describe how we came to see the Indo-Fijian social and spiritual practices that contextualise Dovubaravi children’s literacy learning. We then move on to describe language and text-based practices across Dovubaravi, before zooming in on the particular practices of participating families and children.

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 eeing the Cultural, Relational and Linguistic Contexts S of Children’s Literacy Development Dovubaravi’s Sangam Hindu temple is where we first met with community members. This was the springboard for many dialogic encounters with co-researchers across the community. Both mothers of preschool children and senior members of the Temple Mothers committee were present at the first meeting. The Temple Mothers were crucial to our understanding of community practices and parents’ hopes for their children’s linguistic futures. Their invitations to, and guidance within and about, temple meetings and pujas allowed us to witness a rich and diverse range of literacies and texts embedded in the spiritual and daily lives of Temple Mothers and their children and grandchildren. Figure  8.1 provides views of the Temple Mothers chaperoning and meeting with members of the research team. Our study is similarly indebted to ‘Master’, a retired school teacher and husband of one of our community mentors whose brokering of the researchers’ relationship with the men’s Temple Committee was crucial to subsequent involvement of adult males as project co-researchers. Just as Temple Mothers did, ‘Master’ guided the researchers through the community’s gender-differentiated cultural and social protocols, so dissimilar to the researchers’ lifeworlds. Additionally, he volunteered his invaluable knowledge and skills in shudh Hindi and Tamil (as spoken in early twentieth-­century South Indian villages), and his insights to Fiji’s primary education language policy and delivery over the last half century. Thus, we came to see and experience the daily, weekly, monthly and seasonal routines and rhythms of Dovubaravi, structured as they were by the spiritual and cultural inheritances and practices of community members. Kin relations are central to cultural and family practices in Dovubaravi. For example, one of the largest pujas

Fig. 8.1 Rain puja and talking culture and language with TISI Sangam facilitator and Dovubaravi Temple Mothers

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Fig. 8.2  Keshav at karghamm in preparation for the Mariamman puja, and the temple’s associated puja flyer

held in the community annually celebrates Mariamman, ‘the god Divine Mother’. The flyer for the event (see Fig. 8.2) noted that mother is ‘the one who is first known to you’, ‘your first Guru (teacher)’, and ‘all kindness, love and mercy’. Another day in the Hindu calendar of the community is Raksha Bandhan in which sisters tie a rakhee on their brothers’ wrists, symbolising a relationship whereby brothers protect them. Our Dovubaravi community mentors were as crucial as the Temple Mothers to developing understanding of Dovubaravi’s cultures and spiritual practices, additionally providing invaluable guidance in kin protocols and facets of broader cultural protocols as we engaged with children and families. Our two mentors were sisters, who after living elsewhere in Fiji, were back living on tenancies inherited from their forebearers. Thus, they had extensive knowledge about participants’ sociocultural circumstances, family histories and home languages; they helped the project team members to understand social interactions and protocols in Dovubaravi. Such knowledge and guidance ensured that research participation included a range of cultural and linguistic heritages in Dovubaravi and reflected community leaders’ emphasis on protocols which sought to balance community and individual interests in the research project.

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Language and Literacy Contexts in Dovubaravi Fiji-English and Fiji-Hindi were Dovubaravi’s main shared languages. Fiji-English includes standard Bauan and Fiji-Hindi words (Shameem, 2002)1 and is the lingua franca when iTaukei and Indo-Fijian community members speak with each other or when English-only speakers are present. Fiji-Hindi is an oral language, and the home language of all but one family participating in the study. Hence, the children’s literacy development occurs within family cultures that are largely oral, through ways of knowing that are likely to be qualitatively different from those emerging from ‘read-write’ cultures (Bell, 1998; Gee, 2015). Such literacy development challenges assumptions about literacy growth being a transition from more spoken-like to more written-like language, as we discussed in Chap. 4. Indo-Fijian residents of Dovubaravi explained that Fiji-Hindi is part of their identity and viewed maintenance of the language as integral to transferring and maintaining cultural knowledge to younger generations. Further sources of transference and maintenance of cultural knowledge were their symbolic and ritual Hindu ‘texts’. Paintings and statues signified tales of gods. Rituals articulated and enacted spirituality, in which all generations of families and temple members engaged. For key pujas, symbolic dramatic and musical texts are also spoken, sung or dramatised in Tamil. Children in musician families actively participated in such performances (see Fig. 8.2). In all these incarnations, text, and the literacy resources required to engage with such texts served significant and deeply embedded social and cultural functions. Families and children’s literacy practices in multiple languages became apparent as we asked about, and the mothers shared their families’ language and literacy practices. In addition to  Fiji-Hindi, Tamil, Bauan, Lauan, Nadrogan and Nadi communalects and Kiribati were seen as fundamental to sustaining cultural and kinship ties. Alongside the oral practice of these languages, English and shudh Hindi were read and written by some members of the community – indicating that learning to be literate entailed engaging with diverse ways of encoding text and involved complex interplay amongst different languages and the modes through which they are represented  (see Canagarajah (2013) for discussion of translanguaging practices). English was the main language for written communication. For example, at the Sangam temple, English text painted on the walls acknowledged temple donors, and printed flyers provided information about upcoming events, as Fig. 8.2 illustrates. Via shopping, schooling, and employment routines, family members encountered a range of written texts, largely in English; for example, English was used to label shops, streets, bus destinations, purchases and medications. When asked, community leaders indicated English, rather than shudh Hindi, was preferable for written communication. These observations reflect Fiji’s broader linguistic environment, as portrayed in Chap. 2. English is the default language for written communication in,  Fiji-English which includes standard Bauan and Fiji-Hindi words.

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for example, newspapers, business documentation, government websites and policy documents and signage. English is the main language of schooling and the language of the internet and computer technologies within Fiji. While very few community members owned computers, the more resourced families had smartphones, and the less resourced families used English-text mobile phones. The complexity of language modes in Dovubaravi became further evident as we considered the place of shudh Hindi, a less prevalent read-write language in the community. Within some puja rituals, pundits read shudh Hindi aloud to devotees, often with pauses to translate into Fiji Hindi and expound on meaning. North Indian heritage families were more interested in promoting their children’s shudh Hindi literacy. The project’s shudh Hindi volunteer expert and some other men in the community regularly bought a Devanagari script Hindi newspaper, which guests often read during visits. Some mothers had learnt to read and write in shudh Hindi to a senior secondary level at school. For example, Avinal’s (North Indian) mother had learnt shudh Hindi to a high level both in her childhood home and at school and was keen that her children learn to read and write it, in both Latin and Devanagari script. While Fiji’s constitution states ‘Conversational and contemporary iTaukei and Fiji Hindi languages shall be taught as compulsory subjects in all primary schools’ (Republic of Fiji, 2013, p. 23), shudh Hindi, in the form of Modern Standard Hindi, is the Hindi language currently taught in schools. Neither of the two Bauan families in Dovubaravi explicitly discussed the use of Bauan in written form nor was there any visible Bauan writing in their homes. One of the Indo-Fijian mothers, however, expressed interest in learning to spell the Bauan she spoke, while an Indo-Fijian grandmother could read and write Bauan. A few older members of the community also read and wrote Tamil. The complex written literacy practices in Dovubaravi reflect the influence of Fiji’s education policies and practices over the last hundred years. The early twentieth-­century colonial government made no provisions for ‘Indian’ schools (Lal, 2008), so the Dovubaravi community set up a small school in its newly inaugurated temple, where Keshav’s great grandmother learnt to read and write in Tamil. Then Dovubaravi and other local ‘Indian’ communities set up and funded the pseudonymously named Koroiasa School. Dovubaravi’s locally born grandparents attended this school where the language of instruction was in shudh Hindi. Thus, for example, the Temple Mothers President did not learn English until adulthood. Chaya’s grandmother, however, grew up in a Telugu-speaking family in a predominantly iTaukei area, and therefore learnt in Fijian (standard Bauan) at an iTaukei school, and could neither speak nor read shudh Hindi. Dovubaravi’s current generation of parents, who attended increasingly multiracial schools, has mostly learnt in English, with Modern Standard Hindi and standard Bauan delivered as separate classes in the weekly timetable. Fiji-Hindi has never been taught in Fiji’s schools.

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 anguage and Literacy Practices and Texts of Participating L Families and Children In Dovubaravi homes, calendars and the occasional wall poster in English or Devanagari script were the main written texts visible. A few homes had children’s books or books of any kind, Spoken Modern Standard Hindi was heard in some family homes via TV shows and DVDs from India. Popular soap operas, often subtitled in English, were sumptuous renditions of well-known tales of Hindu gods. While such dramatic texts had reinvigorated interest in stories of the gods, community members noticed that these soap operas were eclipsing oral renditions of these stories provided by elders. Not all families had access to TV or videos, and Keshav’s family did not approve of values expressed in soap operas and therefore limited them at home. Many other texts, such as stories, recipes and religious rituals, were present in oral and visual modes in children’s homes. Keshav’s family owned a laptop on which they watched recordings of Tamil performances at the local temple. While few families had access to ICT devices such as laptops or tablets, even the least resourced families had access to mobile phones. Family members working in non-primary production jobs were more likely to have smart phones. Younger adults with smart phones used Facebook to communicate with family and friends beyond their geographic community, switching between English and Fiji-Hindi as they did so. iTaukei children spoke their parents’ home communalects. The majority of participating children however were from Indo-Fijian families, thus speaking Fiji-­Hindi as their home language. Within the temple setting, children used religious symbol systems, including hand gestures, face markings and offerings, to participate in Hindu puja rituals alongside their mothers and/or grandmothers. When playing, Tanisha displayed a series of hand movements included in Hindu dance and yogic practices. At home, children mostly engaged with oral language texts, which took the form of daily instructional and participatory interactions. Children, whose grandparents also told them stories in Fiji-Hindi, enjoyed participating in the texts. For example, Saanvi joined in on the refrain during her grandmother’s telling of a Fiji-Hindi version of ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’. Most mothers taught girls to make roti (Indian flat bread), as shown in Fig. 8.3, babakau (Fijian ‘doughnuts’), and other regularly made dishes (see Kumar (2010) for disucssion of Fiji-Hindi use and practice). Although some mothers said their boys enjoyed cooking, most referred to their girls’ engagement in such texts, with Neharika’s mother saying Neharika rises at 5 o’clock in the morning to watch her make roti: ‘She will learn because she is a daughter’. Boys were more typically included in farming routines such as harvesting cane or taking animals to pasture. Arav enjoyed watering flowers and tending the garden with his grandmother. Indo-Fijian families’ instructional communication extended to the teaching of Bauan words and phrases to children so they could engage in respectful and effective communication with the broader community. For example, we observed Warsha’s mother prompting her children to greet an iTaukei passer-by in Bauan.

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Fig. 8.3  Sonakshi making roti with her mother, Saanvi’s writing being guided by her grandmother

Before starting kindergarten mothers spoke to their children in English, at least occasionally, as preparation for school environments in English. For example, Neharika’s mother described speaking school-based commands in English to her children such as ‘No running’ and ‘Sit down’, explaining, ‘It can help them in class, because they don’t use vernacular in Class 1; they speak in English’. For families with televisions, efforts to transfer English language knowledge to children also included allowing them to watch English language cartoons and Australian children’s television programming. Many preschool children were also schooled in the English alphabet and numerals, through finger-counting, via read/write based modes of English language learning using commercially produced charts and children’s activity ‘workbooks’ (in families with the financial resources) and in Keshav’s family via a laptop using software designed to support children’s English oral and written comprehension. Thus, text production occurred in English between children and parents as they worked to prepare for formal education. Although mothers said that if a teacher happens to speak a child’s home language, then that child may sometimes be addressed in that language, all adult participants emphasised the importance of English preparation to their children’s transition to school and opportunities for academic success. Mothers focused on, and expressed concern about, school testing regimes, reporting that testing was increasingly included at the end of children’s kindergarten year and sometimes used to accept children into Class 1. Some children resisted English instruction. Keshav told his mother, who was using charts to support his reading skills, ‘No. When I go to school then I will study there’. Three-year-old Mere’s mother spoke of her concern about Mere’s disinterest in chart-based learning. Children did, however, show interest in such charts when the topic was of interest to them. Keshav, otherwise resistant to his mother’s attempts to engage him in learning English from his chart, would ask his mother about its days-of-the-week section, asking her and his grandmother: ‘What is today? What day is tomorrow?

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and ‘Patti (grandma), which day is Sunday? After how many days will Sunday come?’ Sunday was the day Keshav’s father was likely to be at home. Warsha’s older brother shared his Class 2 end-of-year tests with us. These ‘exams’ were entirely in English, with the exception of the Hindi exam which was in both Latin and Devanagari script, and covered aspects of literacy, numeracy, social studies and science curricula. Over time, our discussions with mothers revealed disconnects between the Hindi of home language and the Hindi of their schooling, perhaps illuminating why most families focused on English in preparing their children for school, rather than both English and shudh Hindi. For example, Keshav’s mother said she was teaching him to count in English. When asked about teaching Keshav numbers in Hindi, she replied that while her mother, a well-known singer within and across Indo-Fijian communities of Viti Levu, ‘was smart in Hindi’, she had only taken shudh Hindi to Class 6 and could not count past 10. Warsha’s mother compared her own shudh Hindi with her sister-in-law’s, indicating while she knew very little shudh Hindi because she had only learnt it to primary level at school, her sister-in-law had studied it at secondary level and, therefore, could read and write it. Avinal’s mother, from a pundit family, learnt to read and write Devanagari script to a senior-secondary-school level, with support from her uncle. Thus, for the current generation of Dovubaravi mothers, their own home and schooling experiences in shudh Hindi, and whether they had subsequently sustained read/write literacy in it, mediated their valuing of and support for their children’s read-write shudh Hindi literacy. Many children in the community readily translanguaged between their home languages and English across and within conversations. Preschool children’s ability to understand and converse in English was influenced by their family context, for example, the presence of school-aged siblings, parents’ education and whether they had started kindergarten. Children were keen to demonstrate their English language skills where they saw it contextually appropriate, using action-song and numeric symbol systems. For example, Neharika and Warsha used English when first meeting one of our researchers, initiating a series of action-songs in English. They were dressed in kindergarten uniforms, having just arrived home on the bus. Later that day, they spoke to the same researcher in Fiji-Hindi, and declining an invitation to sing an English action-song, Warsha declared they were in play clothes now. Action-­ songs were also a key system of play between children. While sung in Fiji-Hindi, these were not necessarily of Indian origin. For example, Princy, Rishita and Tanisha invited the researcher to sing-play Ring-a-Ring-a-Rosy in Fiji-Hindi. Read-write language and literacy experiences were less accessible to Dovubaravi children than oral ones. We did not observe children have opportunities to see or hear books read in their home languages (Fiji Hindi or Bauan). A few homes had books for children in English, but most did not. Where children’s books were present, they were largely kept out of reach of children and were handled and read to children by adults at specific times. Neharika’s mother commented that children ‘can’t play with the books, they’re special. They will tear the book’. Typically books in homes were Disney-styled fairy tales or commercial letter and word recognition texts. Cousins Warsha, Neharika and their four siblings had everyday access to their

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great aunt and uncle’s home in an adjacent compound and therefore saw their daily newspapers. For example, Warsha aged 4 was seen closely examining a catalogue flyer  – with product pictures annotated in English  – folded into the day’s paper. Children were keen to use mobile ICT devices and some, such as Neharika, Warsha and Princy, appeared adept at swiping, tapping and scrolling through screens of content, as well as recognizing key application and interface symbols in order to reach the (mostly English language) content they desired. Malakai showed keen interest using an iPad and digital camera to take photos, quickly learning how to use them after observing the researcher’s demonstration. Many of the preschool children had opportunities to learn about writing from observing their older siblings’ or cousins’ completing homework. Those children attending kindergarten were assigned homework that included drawing or colouring-­in. Most mothers said they supervised their kindergarten and school-aged children’s homework, implicitly communicating to younger children in their families the importance of these activities. Kindergarten and school-aged children also brought home English nursery rhymes; kindergarten children in families that also had school-aged children had rich and wide-ranging song repertoires. Some children were seen adding writing, such as their name or numbers, to the pictures they drew. The symbols they drew reflected visual elements of their home and community environments, such as boats, cars, dogs, mountains, planes, toys, plants, shapes and religious symbols – thereby encoding key elements of their worlds that were meaningful and salient to them.

 hat Are the Enablers and Constraints that Impact W Dovubaravi’s Community Capacity to Support Their Preschool Children’s Literacy Learning? The two preceding sections described community and family language and literacy practices. This section explicitly describes enablers and constraints to young children’s language and literacy learning. All participating children were primarily cared for by mothers, aunties and grandmothers whose cultural and familial foci were the care and education of children; the presence of children was assumed – and integrated within – family, religious and community work and events. Participating children were socially capable with known peers, older children and adults, as well as with the Australian visitors to their community. Children, whose families regularly participated in temple life, were immersed in symbolic texts in which visual, numeric, musical and dramatic literacies predominated. Mere and Malakai, whose family paid close attention to maintaining cultural and linguistic ties to vanua, and were devout Christians, were similarly immersed in symbolic and embodied texts and imbued with social, musical and making literacies. Children viewed themselves as active readers and writers and were keen to demonstrate their mastery of oral and embodied texts (songs and actions, religious

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rituals) and their ability to switch language codes and their written literacy (in digital and paper-based contexts). Children’s play mainly used spoken language, although when provided with materials, they readily engaged with more writtenlike language, with play often incorporating real life tasks and modelling modes of text production observed in their homes. Community and family members acknowledged and commended children for their use, or production, of texts across multiple modes, and time was devoted to such learning across daily home routines. For example, we observed 3-year-old Chaya purchasing vegetables from the door-to-­ door vendor, and Rishita’s mother smiled proudly when 3-year-old Rishita thanked us for taking her photo. Other aspects of community life constrained preschool children’s literacy learning. Adults expressed concern that the modes and text of information, communication and entertainment technologies overshadowed/obscured historic but still practised social and cultural texts. Most families could not afford children’s unfettered use of writing implements or paper. When adults gave pens and paper to children, they often guided children’s hands or told them to write letters or numerals. Some children had no books at home, and no children had books depicting their life-worlds in their home or heritage languages. Arav’s mother read aloud to him in English, wanting him ‘to see and learn the words’, while translating, sentence-by-­ sentence into Fiji-Hindi, ‘so it is interesting for him’. When we asked her if she would prefer to read to Arav from a book which had both Hindi and English text on each page, she replied ‘I don’t think that, here, Hindi story books are being provided’. Similarly, adults placed value on and directed available resources to support their children’s literacy learning in ways that were influenced by their own educational experiences. Hence, formal, structured writing activities were perceived as the key to children’s English language literacy, with adults communicating to their children their expectations that they focus on learning at school. Adults largely viewed children’s reading and writing as English language, rather than home or heritage language, activities requiring adults’ formal attention, explicit instruction and resourcing. Preschool children who responded negatively to formal/explicit instruction or who refused to practise writing letters or numerals were described as ‘naughty’ or ‘not interested in education’. Yet Avinal’s and Arav’s mothers both reported that these cousins were keen scholars, with one mother providing artefact evidence for this claim and the other reporting the boys were also prone to be ‘naughty’ together. On the whole Dovubaravi children were surrounded by rich natural, familial, social and cultural environments in which their development and well-being were privileged. While financial challenges in some participating Dovubaravi families appeared as a key constraint to the availability of formal literacy resources for their children’s language and literacy development, this was mediated by Dovubaravi’s community leaders’ strong advocacy for all families’ equivalent participation and access to literacy-building resources and experiences throughout our study. Families’ valuing of learning, albeit focused on English language learning, and the time made available to children by adults, provided diverse opportunities for

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engaging children, families and the broader community in supporting preschool children’s home and English language literacies.

 hat Local Resources and Strategies Can Be Used to Foster W Preschool Children’s Literacy in Their Home Languages and English in Dovubaravi? Given our study’s focus on building sustainable community strategies to foster preschool children’s language and literacy development, our planned activities in Dovubaravi used already-available resources wherever possible. With this in mind, we collaboratively identified and then developed a series of activities that aimed to build on what children already knew, did, and enjoyed in Dovubaravi. As well, we sought to build bridges to school, later life chances and other aspirations. The informing principle, and core message, of each set of activities was that literacy learning can occur where Dovubaravi children spent time (e.g. in the temple, indoors and outdoors at home and on visits), employing texts and languages (including English) already used and valued in Dovubaravi, within the children’s interests and favoured activities, and involving children’s families and community. We collectively conceived and developed two main action cycles with our community mentors and participants: making books together about children’s worlds in home and valued languages (as explained in Chap. 5) as well as enriching children’s play with literacy. Each action sought to build on enablers while reducing identified constraints to preschool children’s literacy learning in their home and community lives. Thus, and as explained elsewhere in our book, the co-creation of books with children aimed to redress the absence of home language children’s books in Dovubaravi and introduce content connected to the children’s life worlds. By enriching children’s play with literacy strategies, we sought to alleviate the preschool children’s frustration with formal or explicit instructional approaches to literacy learning in their homes. We also sought to build families’ repertoires of play-based literacy learning approaches. Across these two main sets of action, we enacted four supporting activities. These were: (1) exploring and using Dovubaravi’s texts, (2) engaging family and community members in talking- and doing-based literacy learning, (3) playing with the everyday to support literacy, and (4) exploring digital literacies. These activities were designed to sustain the community’s capacity to support preschool children’s literacy and language development through knowledge sharing and skills development. They were also designed to and support families to integrate literacy learning activities into daily routines, acknowledging family and community economic and material constraints. The exploring digital literacies strategy was designed to facilitate family and community agentic inquiry into culturally responsive and age-­ appropriate ways for children to engage with digital technologies and to provide

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opportunities for preschool children to explore digital literacies, now integral to their future schooling experiences and later life opportunities. In the following two sections, we describe how each of the two major sets of actions were undertaken in collaboration with children and adults and how the four supporting activities were implemented within the two major actions.

 ovubaravi’s Co-created Multilingual Books in and About D Children’s Worlds Co-creating books with children and families in and about children’s worlds was actioned in collaboration with our Dovubaravi co-researchers during Phase I and Phase II of our study. With children, families and mentors in Dovubaravi, we co-­ created 11 multilingual books to reflect individual children’s interests, their connections to the place, their daily lives and experiences and their families’ home languages and language goals. As we co-created these books, we designed opportunities to promote Dovubaravi’s adults’ and children’s active learning about computers and digital cameras. Making books in collaboration with children and families was an integrative, iterative process involving many conversations about literacy learning and modelling and discussing ways to support children’s literacy engagement, including through play. Such conversations and experiences occurred throughout the conceptualisation, creation and subsequent use of the books. Involvement and contributions to the co-construction of books and activities varied with the interests and capacities of individual participants. For example, a How to Make a Kite book was co-created after observing Warsha and Neharika’s grandfather making a kite with his grandchildren from brown paper, glue made from rice, fishing line, a recycled plastic water bottle and a flour bag. Building on the children’s interest in this activity – which relied upon readily available, no-cost resources and was therefore replicable by other families regardless of their financial resources – we photographed the children and their grandfather making the kite. Warsha’s brother, aged 7, provided the Fiji-Hindi text for the procedure and, with researcher support, typed his text into a PowerPoint storyboard we created with the kite-making images. Similarly, other books, Mere Makes Doughnuts and Making Roti, were based on routine activities and readily available community resources. Building upon community resources and oral texts was a focus of these book making activities. The Teen Bakri book – the creation of which we shared as Chap. 5’s opening vignette – was conceived after observing Saanvi’s engagement in her grandmother’s oral Fiji-Hindi rendition of the ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’ story. Its construction provided opportunities for children and families to learn about digital cameras and computers. Children from three neighbouring families and their mothers directed researchers and mentors in an excursion to photograph goats, and green and dry grass, in the local area. Children from Warsha’s and Neharika’s

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Fig. 8.4  The Teen Bakri/The Three Goats book cover and production team

families were involved in the creation of the ‘troll’ mask and taking photos of the ‘troll’ and the bridge. The research team then organised and photoshopped these images into a ‘Three Goats’ storyboard, with adults providing the Fiji-Hindi and standard Bauan and English texts, which were overlaid onto the picture story. This book, shown in Fig. 8.4, with its already-familiar story, was a favourite among child and adult readers alike in Dovubaravi. Other books reflected the specific interests and development of individual children. For example, Keshav’s Week was premised on Keshav’s interest in the days of the week that were listed on the alphabet chart in his home. While otherwise disinterested in the chart’s content, Keshav’s grandmother noted he was interested in the days of the week and knowing which days corresponded to the days his father’s did not work. Keshav’s mother took digital photographs of Keshav’s daily routines and activities across a 1-week period and then working on the family laptop with support from her husband and the researchers, provided and typed in accompanying Fiji-Hindi and English text. This family placed importance on the continuation of their heritage language of Tamil, and so Keshav’s grandfather and great-­grandmother additionally provided Tamil text to accompany the story of Keshav’s Week. Similarly, Arav’s Book was aligned to his interest in shapes, which we observed in our first meeting with him and his family. Arav took the photographs for his book, and it was his Fiji-Hindi words about these photos that he and his mother typed into the storyboard made from his photos. His family placed importance on Arav becoming literate in shudh Hindi, so his book included both English and shudh Hindi (in Latin and Devanagari scripts) translations of his Fiji-Hindi words. The table in Appendix 8.1 lists each co-created book developed in Dovubaravi, names the languages in which they were written and details about the co-construction of each book. As the production of the books progressed, it became apparent that family representation within the first ten books was somewhat uneven, depending on family connections and circumstances. For example, some children, due to family involvement in the Sangam temple and/or the co-location of their family compound to other participating children, appeared in multiple books. Consequently and as previously discussed, Dovubaravi’s community leaders were concerned that all participating families’ and their cultural and spiritual practices were equivalently acknowledged

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across the set of books. While The Temple could have been construed as a community book, it neither included the whole of the Dovubaravi community nor represented those who were not Hindu. Community leaders emphasised to us the importance of protocols to balance community and individual interests and prioritised the making of a community book, A Year in Our Community (see Appendix 8.1), which would represent and value the diversity of cultural heritages and spiritual practices of all families in the community. Through the books’ graphic design, we sought to privilege children’s home, community and heritage languages and engage children with English language texts which reflected their everyday lives. Hence, primary home-language text appeared first, followed by secondary family-language text and then English on each page. Book production considered the environmental conditions of their use, such as the likelihood of water damage, and very young children’s physical manipulation skills. Production choices such as printing and binding materials and processes considered the potential for the community to replicate the process to produce more Dovubaravi-­ based books. Our water-resistant books were created by colour-printing pages on paper and then laminating pages with a machine designed for home-use using locally available laminating sleeves. The pages were printed and books bound using local stationers’ services accessible during community members’ regular visits to town. Phase II of our fieldwork in Dovubaravi was crucial to engaging families and the community in literacy learning. In this phase we provided copies of the co-created books to participating children and their families, with mentors and researchers modelling to family members approaches to sharing, reading aloud and talking about them with young children. A full set was chaperoned by Master, our conduit to the men’s Temple Committee, who sought community member feedback and initiated community level discussion about preschool children’s language and literacy learning. The whole-of-community book was constructed during this phase, providing children and families with consolidating experiences of their home-­ language being scribed to describe their worlds and opportunities to practice and experiment with more engaging literacy-support activities.

Enriching Dovubaravi Children’s Play with Literacy This set of actions involved modelling play with everyday language to support literacy and identifying opportunities to enrich children’s play with literacy. It relied upon dialogues with co-researchers’ about our learning and children’s interests. We played with children and talked with them about what they were doing, seeing and hearing, what they liked and their future aspirations. We modelled and involved children’s carers in adding literacy learning to children’s play and connecting multimodal literacy supporting activities to children’s interests; together we discussed these approaches.

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Fig. 8.5  Playing pilots and planes with Kavesh and his grandmother

For example, with Keshav, who resisted his mother’s explicit English language instruction, we planned and implemented a play session based on his interest in planes and flying, as depicted in Fig. 8.5. He told us he wanted to be a pilot and fly to New Zealand, Canada and Australia. (He had relatives who travelled to and from such destinations and planes flew over his home daily.) Using some paper, his drawing supplies and sticky tape, he made a pilot’s hat with us, with his grandmother keenly observing Keshav’s engagement. We used chairs to simulate the inside of a plane, and recycled boarding passes and sticky notes to identify seats’ letters and numbers. With Keshav’s grandmother and teddy, we played passengers, each with a boarding pass matching a seat number. Pilot Keshav boarded the passengers, confidently identifying and matching boarding passes with seats’ English letters and numbers. A key aspect of this strategy responded to mothers’ existing instruction to children about the Latin alphabet. While children recited it from memory, we did not see mothers connecting letter names to their sounds. With mothers we identified and modelled play-based ways to build connections between letters and their sounds, explaining how such connections can support children’s future reading success. Connection building considered the range of sounds denoted by the Latin alphabet in English, Bauan and Latin transliteration of shudh Hindi and Fiji-Hindi pronunciations. Hence, with children who were already confident in reciting the Latin alphabet, such as Chaya, Kavitesh and Arav, we introduced the question ‘What begins with the sound… (e.g. ‘a’ or ‘ch’)?’ into our play interactions with them. For example, Arav, talking with the researchers about starting school, identified his family and friends whose names, like his own, started with an ‘a’ sound in response to this question. Further connections between letters and sounds were made through the singing, saying and writing of rhyming songs and games, which also built upon our observations of children’s interest in reciting and playing English-origin songs and games in both English and Fiji-Hindi. For example, we observed Tanisha, Rishita and Princy playing Ring-A-Ring-A-Rosie in Fiji-Hindi. Talking with parents and grandparents, we identified opportunities to re-introduce home heritage songs with rhyming sounds. We discussed with family members the role of rhyme to help children notice sounds within words. For example, Ittna Ittna Paani is a repetitive action-rhyme, which involves a fair, fair queen (gor gor rani) and rising flood waters (paani). We

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Fig. 8.6  Ittna Ittna Paani poster and playing the game at project celebration

played this game with three generations of one family, and with Tanisha, Rishita and Princy and their mothers, connecting with their previously observed enjoyment of physical games and play. With the first family, after playing Ittna Ittna Paani, we spent time with Neharika and Warsha making Ittna Ittna Paani poster, using paper and textas to colour code the rhymes and alliteration in the Fiji Hindi text. At the end of project celebration, all participating families were provided with a laminated A4 copy of Neharika’s and Warsha’s poster for their homes with many of the attending children and mothers joining in to play the game on the day – as portrayed in Fig. 8.6. Such opportunities to enrich children’s play with literacy were iteratively identified through the researchers’ interactions with children and discussion with community mentors. Literacy-enriched play opportunities were planned and actioned collaboratively with children’s mothers and varied according to the interests, capacities and resources within individual families. A more comprehensive view of our approaches to enriching children’s play with literacy is provided in the table in Appendix 8.2.

 enchmarking Dovubaravi Children’s Literacy Participation B and Learning Against Na Noda Mataniciva For some children in Dovubaravi, the multilingual books about their life worlds that they co-created with their families and us were the first they were allowed to handle. This meant young children could actively learn about turning pages and orienting books to follow story sequences. Children showed more enjoyment of reading and initiated more reading activity when they had access to their own books. For example, Tanisha and Rishita often asked their father to read their books to them. Later, Tanisha read Teen Bakri to her new-born brother, supported by her familiarity with the story. Through the processes of co-creating these books, children experienced for the first time their spoken words being connected to writing, discovering ‘that one can draw not only things but also speech’ (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 115). Evidence includes Arav typing his own words for page in his book; Saanvi pausing in her dictation when she observed the researchers struggling to keep up with her spoken words

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Fig. 8.7  Centre: Scribing Rishita and Tanesha’s words; Left: Tanisha’s subsequent ‘transcription’; Right: Neharika’s younger sister’s ‘reading’ success

when contributing to the whole-of-community book; and Rishita, as illustrated in Fig. 8.7, adding her own ‘mnemotechnic’ symbols soon after dictating her words for the final draft of her book (see Luria cited in Vygotsky, 1978, pp. 114–115). Using children’s own words to create text in books meant that even very young children could successfully ‘read’ their books. For example, when seeing a photo of people praying, Neharika’s 2-year-old sister ‘read’ aloud: Puja kare. (They are praying.) These same words appeared on the page (see Fig.  8.4). Not only did Neharika’s young sister experience pre-reading ‘success’, but she was allowed to handle the books and turn their pages. Previously, even older children in her family were prohibited from handling books. For very active children, the books’ content provided pathways for engagement with the more stationary activities of reading and writing. Nathan, with four older brothers, had little interest in inside, seated activities; however, his interest in both Teen Bakri and How to Make a Kite books led to an increased attention span and interest in the more sedentary activity of reading. Mere, whose mother described her as the most physically active of her three children and uninterested in writing, used her babakau book to build upon an activity she enjoyed with her mother, tracing and copying letters onto book pages in texta, which could then be wiped off the laminated pages. Below, we more specifically benchmark the literacy outcomes evident in Dovubaravi children’s participation and learning in our study, in relation to Na Noda Mataniciva’s ‘Becoming a reader’ and ‘Becoming a writer’.  enchmarking the Children’s Engagement as Readers Against Na Noda B Mataniciva’s ‘Becoming a Reader’ Outcomes Dovubaravi children’s identities as being and becoming readers – including children seeing themselves as readers – were clearly fostered in the experiences this study afforded. For example, children first saw the completed ‘The Temple (Mandir/ Kovil)’ book when the community mentor read it aloud to them. She turned to the page showing a woman hanging up washed clothes. The written text was ‘Kapda

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jurawe’. (‘She is drying the clothes.’) Before the mentor had time to read the text, 3-year-old Vivan said, ‘Kapda jurawe’. The mentor replied, ‘Oh!’, looking at Vivan with raised eyebrows and a smile. Everyone laughed. Vivan’s older female cousin clapped, and Vivan smiled broadly. The mentor called Vivan a ‘smart boy’. In being and becoming readers, the children showed apparent enjoyment of books and stories and hearing them read aloud, and actively engaged in their creation and interpretation. For example, when Arav was asked by a mentor which of the books he liked best, he replied, ‘The Goats’. When the mentor asked Arav to tell her the story, Arav began by announcing the title of the story as ‘The Three Goats’ in English. He then told the mentor the story in Fiji Hindi. As he told the story, he swayed very markedly in the chair – a physical expression of deep effort and engagement in the task. In this he showed his deep engagement as text participant and user – creating meaning with purpose. Children’s increased participation as meaning-makers and purposeful users of texts became apparent over the course of this study – as evidenced by their comments and questions, as well as telling, re-telling and acting out stories and giving stories sequence. Dovubaravi children’s pretend play provided a means for children to engage as meaning-makers and creators of texts that fulfil social purposes. For example, at the end-of-project celebration, one of the primary school-aged brothers of a preschool-aged participant suggested he could use his onesie as a dress-up costume for the troll, so that the children could enact the ‘Three Goats’ story. With some help from the adults to create a bridge, the kindergarten children became the baby, mummy and daddy goat who needed to cross the bridge and get past the troll to eat the green grass. While adults helped with narrating the ‘play’, the children supplied the characters’ words from their memory of the story. As Dovubaravi children’s participation as readers grew, they asked and answered questions, made comments, and predicted what came next in a text. As children did so, we witnessed their capacities for decoding texts in connection to making meaning come to the fore. For example, when reading the co-created book about making roti with her mother, a child was able to ‘read’ the text of the story using her knowledge of roti-making and her recall of the words used, now inscribed as the book’s text, to describe each step. Dovubaravi children’s participation with texts extended to engaging with the language of a book – seeing children focus on the codes of written text and bringing decoding together with meaning that was embedded in their lives. For example, several mothers told us they were attempting to teach the alphabet to their children, using letter names and pictures on charts (e.g. ‘A is for Apple’). However, their children resisted this exercise and did not use ‘A is for Apple’ knowledge to decode written text. We discussed how children’s attention to sound structures of their language (such as attention to rhyme) can support children’s reading development. Rhymes subsequently became an important means for children engaging with the language of a written text. Akka Booka came to our attention as a rhyming game that adults had chanted as children to decide who would perform a particular task (similar to ‘eeny meeny miney mo’). Most adults in the community knew Akka Booka, but its potential for supporting children’s phonological awareness had not been recognised. This shared knowledge provided a path for co-constructing with families the value of traditional rhymes in home language for children’s literacy learning. We

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played Akka Booka and another rhyming game with several families and created posters with colours highlighting rhymes and alliteration. These posters provided opportunities for children’s de/encoding competences to be fostered, seeing their rhymes written down and exploring rhyming words and alliteration. In Dovubaravi children’s participation in the language of texts, the children clearly showed interest in words, letters, sounds – building reading/writing connections as they engaged with texts. For example, many of 4-year-old Arav’s family members’ names begin with ‘A’. A researcher commented to Arav that his name starts with the sound ‘ah’ and his mummy’s name starts with ‘ah’. Then the mentor playfully asked in Hindi about what other words start with ‘ah’. Arav’s mother then said: ‘“A” (ay) is for…?’ Arav answered ‘apple’ and then said ‘B for ball’, indicating he knows the Dovubaravi ABC routine and thought we were asking for a rendition. After the researcher and mentor provided some more examples of Fiji Hindi words beginning with the ‘ah’ sound, Arav started to name family members whose names begin with ‘ah’. When they moved onto words starting with ‘ruh’, they provided more initial examples (e.g. rajah, rani) and then Arav quickly provided rasta (road). Dovubaravi children’s engagement with words, letters and sounds occurred in context where such engagement made sense and served real-life purposes – as illustrated and evidenced in the examples above and throughout this chapter. As an additional example, a child who had told his mother she was not his teacher and resisted her attempts to test him on numbers, letters and colours in English, readily engaged in play about being an international jet pilot and demonstrated his decoding skills to match his ‘passengers’ seat number on their ticket to their ‘seats’ on his plane. Another child, whose mother previously reported had shown no interest in learning the alphabet, spent time with her book which recorded how she and her mother made babakau, and copied and wrote letters and ‘words’ onto its laminated pages in addition to the formal text of the book.  enchmarking the Children’s Engagement as Writers Against Na Noda B Mataniciva’s ‘Becoming a Writer’ Outcomes In terms of being and becoming writers, the children realised their identities as writers in their engagement with book production. For example, at the end-of-project celebration, children were provided with chalk and a space on which to draw. Older preschool children added text (or written characters) to the pictures they drew. For example, Avinal added both English words and Devanagari script characters to his drawings. In other examples from this community, Vivan (aged 29 months) named his drawing as bhard (a mountain); and a kindergarten child made playdough versions of the religious icons/symbols used within religious rituals at the temple. As Dovubaravi children participated as writers in these ways, they communicated their ideas and thinking through scribbling; drawing, and painting and endeavoured to write their own stories with help – bringing together their resources for creating meaning for real-life purposes. In doing so, they also demonstrated their capacity for representing, which as a sub-strand of Na Noda Mataniciva (p. 34)’s ‘Representing and Symbolic Thinking’ strand, by naming their scribbles, drawings

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and constructions when asked and beginning to express their ideas in a variety of ways such as painting, drawing, dancing, modelling, construction  – often using multiple modes for their symbolic representation. As Dovubaravi children enacted their identities of being and becoming writers, children meaningfully and purposefully engaged in telling stories and giving information for an adult to write down, and attempting to copy some of the writing, observing adults and others writing and trying to copy and join in. For example, Saanvi had provided commentary on photos for inclusion in her ‘My Lovely Home’ (Mera Pyara Ghar) book. Six months later, during dictation of her words for the kargham pages of the Gaon Mei Saal Ke Karikaram book, she regularly paused to allow the researcher time to write, before continuing. In doing so, she showed understanding that writing is spoken words written down. In another example, after seeing her dictated words being scribed by the researchers for Firewalking festival (Aagi la Pooja) pages in the ‘A Year in Our Community’ (Gaon Mei Saal Ke Karikaram) book, Rishita asked to use a pen and paper to write, too, making writing-­ like marks on the paper. The stories children created were deeply, personally significant to them – as illustrated in the above examples. Dovubaravi children’s deep, meaningful listening to, understanding of, and responding to non-verbal and verbal communication characterised their literacy engagement as readers and writers – affording opportunity for them to engage with meaning, purpose and critical reflection. For example, 4-year-old Rishita attended a Firewalking ceremony with her family. We took photos of the ceremony and her engagement with it. She engaged in conversation in Fiji-Hindi about the photos, including answering questions about what each photo depicted. Her older sister, Tanisha, was with Rishita, and while Tanisha named things in the photos, Rishita added descriptive and action words. For example, Tanisha said, ‘Sapram’, and Rishita added ‘uttawe’ – meaning ‘They are carrying the sapram’. Children’s engagement as readers and writers in creating their books and reading one another’s books saw the children engage intently, often for prolonged periods of time. For example, we observed new early reading behaviours in 4-year-old Nathan. Our earlier observations suggested that he struggled to concentrate and sit still long enough to engage in reading/writing activities. With access to two books in his home language, one about something that happens daily in his house, and another reflecting an oral story commonly told to children in the community, he was able to sit for extended periods and engage with the books. He, too, could ‘read’ his favourite parts or pages of each story.

 hat Strategies Are Effective in Developing Dovubaravi’s W Capacity to Support Preschool Children’s Literacy Development in Their Home Languages and English? The impacts of our co-constructed, holistic strategies for developing sustainable local capacity to foster preschool children’s multilingual literacies in Dovubaravi include augmentation of:

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–– Participating children’s multilingual literacy learning at family and community levels –– Community heritage language maintenance strategies –– Digital literacy learning –– Confidence and sense of citizenship in Fiji We believe that such community-wide learnings are critical to making our project’s outcomes sustainable into the future. Accordingly, we integrate the discussion of these impacts in our findings below that focus on: –– Increasing parents’ and grandparents’ reading support repertoires –– Supporting school and community cultural, language and literacy learning through providing families’ access to multilingual books about their worlds –– Renewing community focus on and discussion about strategies to sustain heritage languages –– Increasing children’s, parents’ and community’s digital literacy –– Enhancing identity expression and self-esteem for Dovubaravi children and adults

I ncreasing Parents’ and Grandparents’ Reading Support Repertoires In Hindi ‘pardho’ means both ‘read’ and ‘teach’. So when we first suggested parents read the books to the children, some thought we wanted them to teach children to chant the text. After our mentors modelled lively book-reading and sharing, parents took more relaxed approaches involving dialogue between parent and child. During a third phase visit to Dovubaravi, Warsha’s mother read a book to her youngest child, asking him questions about each page as she did so. As she modelled her new reading strategies, she explained to us that it was good to ask children questions as you read to them. The supporting strategy of exploring and using Dovubaravi’s texts provided some parents opportunities to participate in previously inaccessible reading support activities with their children. Tanisha and Rishita’s mother reported their father read books with the girls by ‘talking to the pictures’, while the children shared their memorised versions of the texts. Book-making provided other previously inaccessible opportunities. In Nathan and Sonaski’s home, the co-created books were placed where the children could access them. Interactions with the books in the presence of family members instigated family-wide interest in learning about reading. Sonakshi’s intense interest in physical aspects of the book, such as rethreading the spiral binding, led to family discussion of, and pride in, her early pre-reading behaviours. The supporting strategy of ‘learning by talking and doing’ was designed to accommodate modes of knowledge transfer we observed in Dovubaravi whereby home and community learning occurs through ‘modelling practice, and animation’

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(Battiste 2002, p.  2 cited in Castagno & Brayboy, 2008), which Castagno and Brayboy (2008) argue is fundamental to cultural-responsive approaches to learning. Modelling, practice and animation offered parents ideas for engaging with their children’s literacy learning. Shekoufe’s mother told us that after reading and talking about ‘The Three Goats’ with Shekoufe, they had gone on an excursion to visit the cane train (troll’s) bridge that appears in the book. She said the project had helped her feel more connected to Shekoufe’s literacy learning, contrasting this feeling with her experience of alienation from her two school-aged sons’ learning. Within traditional kinship structures, parents co-located with paternal grandparents. Paternal grandmothers’ involvement in learning by talking and doing provided multiple interpretations and perspectives on introduced reading support activities and strategies, as well as additional human resources to subsequently enact them. Kavitesh and Chaya’s grandmother played an influential role in the care of Kavitesh and she was the main daytime carer for Chaya while her mother worked. We observed and were told of her scaffolding and extending discussions with their mothers about engaging children in literacy rich activities. Keshav’s paternal grandmother was an active participant and observer in the play-based literacy experiences we designed for Keshav and provided her husband and son with synopses of discussions and experiences we shared. While we were not privy to these briefings, Keshav’s father and grandfather’s engagement with project activities subsequently increased.

 upporting School and Community Cultural, Language S and Literacy Learning Through Providing Families’ Access to Multilingual Books About Their Worlds We heard school-aged siblings using the books to read aloud in English and observed an adult, who had limited formal education, reading aloud a book’s Fiji-Hindi text with help from someone who knew the text well. The multilingual nature of texts supported families in extending their multilingual literacies. Chaya’s grandmother chose to read aloud both the standard Bauan and Fiji-Hindi texts in her grandchildren’s books. Nathan’s mother valued reading the standard Bauan text in her children’s books, telling us that now she could learn to spell some of the Fijian she could speak. Mere’s mother’s Samoan friend with a young daughter reported she was learning Bauan from our books. Beyond Dovubaravi, preschool educators’ and community development workers’ feedback gathered at the National Council for Women Fiji workshop suggested that ‘The Temple’ and ‘A Year in our Community’ books were valuable ‘karikaram’ or ‘curriculum’ for introducing and educating Fijian families and children of non-­Indian heritage about cultural practices of the 32% of Fiji’s citizens (Fiji Bureau of Statistics, 2016) who continue to practice their Indian heritages in their Fijian lives.

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 enewing Community Focus on and Discussion About R Strategies to Sustain Heritage Languages Community-wide discussions about the maintenance of family/heritage practices, languages, and literacy were reinvigorated by privileging home and family heritage languages in the books-about-our-world. For example, ‘The Temple’, a trilingual book (in Fiji-Hindi, shudh Hindi and English) about a Dovubaravi temple washing day, links strongly to the forms of South Indian religious expression prevalent in Dovubaravi. People of Tamil heritage in Dovubaravi, including Keshav’s great grandmother whose first language had been Tamil, appreciated the two books with Tamil text. They read them aloud together, asked if they could purchase copies and vigorously discussed further strategies to reinvigorate Tamil in Dovubaravi and other South-­ Indian communities in Fiji (see Fig. 8.8). Some parents reported children were now asking for the Tamil word for objects beyond the books, and the teenage son of a Temple Mother was seen avidly reading the Temple book while walking along the road. The home and family language focus of Mere’s and Malakai’s books generated discussions between the family and church friends about how creation of home/ heritage language books might be supported in places across the Pacific where the diversity of home languages, small populations and limited finances make large-­ scale production of such books unlikely to be economically sustainable. One suggestion was for books to include space for the home language to be added by each family.

I ncreasing Children’s, Parents’ and Community’s Digital Literacy The ‘exploring digital literacies’ supporting strategy arose from understanding that culturally responsive digital literacies are critical for Dovubaravi’s children’s and families’ access to economic opportunities and global citizenship. Rigney (2018) argues that family involvement and the honouring of Pacific cultures, cosmologies, epistemologies and languages is fundamental to creating critical access to opportunities. In Dovubaravi, family involvement and placing community and family cultures at the centre of ‘exploring digital literacies’ activities created diverse outcomes. Digital literacy skills were developed through mothers’ and children’s participation in the digital production of books. Several children witnessed their words being transcribed directly into books’ text, Arav and Keshav’s mothers digitally produced some of their children’s texts, and Arav and Manav typed their own words. Here the potential for sustainability into children’s futures was clear. For example, Manav’s 3-year-old brother, when given an opportunity to produce text on a researcher’s

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Fig. 8.8   Keshav’s great-grandmother inspects The Temple book, and Master reads The Temple book’s Tamil text to a Tamil-heritage community member

laptop, typed random letter combinations, then searched for the text colour button on the toolbar of the word processor, and said he wanted to alter the colour of his text. The community mentors’ involvement in making books helped develop digital literacies that could be shared across the community and increased confidence in using mobile-phone enabled social media, facilitating interactions across the Pacific. For one mentor, who left school earlier than she had wished, exposure to internet-­ enabled applications and resources built understanding of digitally accessible shudh Hindi, a formal language of her religion, and other learning resources. The process of creating Teen Bakri developed critical digital literacies in the community. The digital editing processes used to place goats and the troll on and under the bridge modelled to participants and community members how digital images can be manipulated. The capacity to manipulate and publish digital images was a keen topic of discussion amongst men in the community on viewing Teen Bakri. We subsequently observed that participants active on social media no longer shared blatantly manipulated images of genetic aberrations or over-sized reptiles consuming humans. A further outcome of exploring digital literacies was the engagement of Dovubaravi boys and men in broader literacy practices. During family visits, participating preschoolers and their older siblings expressed interest in researchers’ digital devices (cameras, tablets and laptops), which was further facilitated by providing them with guided play with the devices. At the Mariamman puja, a group of upper-primary-school and early-secondary-­ school aged kin of participating preschoolers approached Bec, requesting access to the digital cameras. She briefed them on taking turns and what to do if sharing negotiations broke down, with this interaction observed by some of the

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community’s men. This broader access to digital cameras expressed the Australian co-­researchers’ trust in Dovubaravi’s sibling co-researchers; trust that was noted and appreciated by adult males in their families. One boy took a picture of the karghamm procession into the temple, which was subsequently to be used in Gaon Mei Saal Ke Karikaram. Our seeking of permission to reproduce their images engaged further men in our project.

 nhancing Identity Expression and Self-Esteem for Dovubaravi E Children and Adults Children, family and community members’ authoring and representation within the books-about-our-world stimulated a shift in individual and community identity. During the iterative process of consent making in relation to the digital and physical rendering of children’s words, images and stories, Saanvi’s father questioned the research’s privacy protocols and worked with us to negotiate against imposed bi-­ lateral privacy protections to assert his daughter’s authorship claim to her now ‘fixed’ telling of her world (Davis, 2004, p. 5), affirming on her behalf the ‘version of self’ or ‘symbolic package’ (Davis, 2004, p.  19) now rendered and fixed in Saanvi’s book. Following this renegotiation, most participating families also chose to assert their children’s authorship of books while balancing privacy requirements by using their given names in lieu of pseudonyms. Older sibling’s engagement in digital photography during the Mariamma puja also served as a vehicle for identity expression. A group of boy photographers named their selfie ‘We Are Fiji’, echoing a slogan from the Fiji government’s unification strategy; connecting their digital image making with their sense of belonging to Fiji. One of Sonakshi’s older brothers took a photograph of the firewalking walking pit. When later seeing his photograph in the published version of Gaon Mei Saal Ke Karikaram (A Year in Our Community) he proudly said, ‘I took that photo’. Gaon Mei Saal Ke Karikaram provided another example of how book creation with children and families, underpinned by emancipatory research epistemes, shifted identity positions. The book’s title more literally translates to ‘The Program of our Year’. Its content includes all community members’ cultures and illustrates seasonal activities across Dovubaravi’s year. The book showcases Dovubaravi’s various cultural, spiritual, social and family values and practices, community leaders’ wisdom and care and the agency and voices of the youngest generation. The Temple President attested to the identity-building outcomes of locating and reflecting Dovubaravi’s cultures within this book, noting Dovubaravi community members had begun to see themselves ‘not just as farmers and fishermen’ but ‘as someone’, becoming a ‘medium’ through which ‘new generational perspectives on identity, community, belonging and selfhood’ were constituted (Weis  et  al., 2002, p.  159). The whole-of-community book was itself an outcome of critical discussions and dialogue about the community’s histories, cultures and values

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between co-researchers, which here proved to be a significant resource for the framing of community narratives and identity (Weis et al., 2002).

Concluding Dovubaravi’s Community Case Study Dovubaravi’s preschool children’s literacies develop within complex, multilingual, multi-textual, and multimedia contexts, rooted in various families’ spiritual and cultural practices and histories and influenced by material circumstances and visions of children’s futures. The two main literacy support strategies collaboratively developed in response to these contexts – making books-about-our-world in home and valued languages and enriching children’s play with literacy  – were enacted by using Dovubaravi’s texts, building digital literacies and engaging family and community members in talking-doing- and playing-based literacy learning within the everyday. Engagement in these strategies supported both the development of individual children’s literacy learning and sustained community capacity to foster preschool children’s multilingual literacies into the future.

Appendices Appendix 8.1: Dovubaravi’s Co-created Books

The 3 goats Languages: Fiji-Hindi, standard Bauan, English ‘The three goats’ (Teen Bakri) book emerged from hearing Saanvi’s participation in her grandmother’s Fiji-Hindi rendition of ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’. Photograph production involved two groups of children. Three neighbouring families’ children directed the researchers in the goat and green/dry grass photography. Warsha’s and Neharika’s grandfather created the troll’s mask, and the girls and two older brothers participated in the troll and bridge photos. We used Photoshop to position photos of goats on and the troll underneath the bridge. The book’s three language texts were adult native speakers’ renditions of the tale following photographs sequenced to tell the story (storyboard), rather than translation from any particular language. Arav’s book Languages: Fiji-Hindi, shudh Hindi (in Devanagari script), English Arav’s own words about particular photographs, taken by himself and the researchers, were directly typed in Fiji-Hindi by Arav and his mother on one of our laptops. The book also included photographs and text sourced from an audio recording as Arav searched at home for environmental script. The book built upon Arav’s interest in shapes (e.g. he was fascinated by the concentric circles of our digital camera’s zoom lens, replicating them in his drawings) and the software’s shape icons he noticed while typing his book’s script. The book’s text was then translated into English and shudh Hindi in Devanagari handwriting by Master. To enhance interest and nascent reading comprehension, we made each shape a different colour to match the corresponding shape’s name in the text and added text asking the reader to find shapes at home. Devanagari script was typed by a paid external provider because we had no access to Devanagari software.

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My lovely book

Languages: Fiji-Hindi, shudh Hindi (in Latin and Devanagari scripts), English Avinal had taken his own photos using the project’s digital camera during an earlier visit. From these we selected eight representative and higher-quality photos and provided printed copies to Avinal’s mother, asking her to look at them with Avinal and write down what he said about each photo in Fiji-Hindi. However, Avinal’s words were provided in shudh Hindi in Devanagari and Latin scripts and in English. Master added translation back into Fiji-Hindi. To these pictures and text, we added photographs taken when we and a mentor accompanied Avinal, his mother and siblings to the beach. Fiji-Hindi text for these photographs was derived from audio recording of the outing and translated into shudh Hindi in Devanagari and Latin scripts, and English. My lovely home Languages: Fiji-Hindi, English A researcher and a mentor had taken photos of Saanvi playing at home. They printed and gave to Saanvi’s mother the most representative high-quality photos, with a request that she write whatever Saanvi said about each, so that Saanvi would see her spoken words being written. Saanvi’s words were provided, but only as translated into English. A mentor and master added translation back from English to Fiji-Hindi. Me and my family Languages: Fiji-Hindi, English In response to photos taken earlier by one of the researchers, Chaya’s and Kavitesh’s Fiji-Hindi words were elicited by their grandmother and Kavitesh’s mother. Extracts of this audio recording were transcribed in Fiji-Hindi and then translated into English by a researcher and a mentor to produce some of the book’s text. Some of the book’s photographs and corresponding texts came from audio recording and our photography of Chaya and her grandmother’s search for environmental script at home and Chaya’s drawing on a blackboard. Images and text about environmental script documented and modelled opportunities for playing with the everyday to support literacy. How to make a kite Languages: Fiji-Hindi, standard Bauan, English Alexandra photographed Warsha and Neharika’s grandfather making a kite with them, documenting an embodied text that employed already-available resources (i.e. glue made from rice, fishing line, brown paper, a recycled plastic drink bottle and a flour bag) to make the kite, its string and controller. Warsha’s brother Manav, aged 7, provided the Fiji-Hindi text to describe the resources and procedure for kite-making, with master translating into English. Manav typed a page or two of the book’s text each day with our support. The kite-making procedure was replicable by other families without purchasing materials, used an existing Dovubaravi procedural text and when enacted by families could generate new play opportunities for children. For these reasons, we added standard Bauan translation of the procedure by the project consultant, so that all participating families could read it in home language. Keshav’s week Languages: Fiji-Hindi, Tamil, English This book emerged from Keshav’s mother commenting on, and his grandmother discussing, Keshav’s sole interest in his alphabet chart, the days of the week. Keshav’s mother took daily photographs of Keshav’s play and routines across 1 week. With support from Keshav’s father, and ourselves, Keshav’s mother pasted the photos into PowerPoint and provided and typed the Fiji-Hindi text and English translation. This booking-making process was designed as a digital skill-building exercise for the family who had access to a laptop computer at home. As the family wanted Keshav to continue the family’s Tamil language heritage, Tamil translation was provided by Keshav’s grandfather and great-grandmother and typed by Keshav’s mother. Mere makes doughnuts Languages: Standard Bauan, English This book emerged from Mere’s mother’s revelation that Mere was uninterested in learning to read but enjoyed cooking with her. A time was arranged with Mere’s mother for the project consultant and a researcher to observe and photograph a babakau cooking session. We selected and sequenced photographs to depict the procedure (storyboard). The project consultant provided the standard Bauan text, and English translation.

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Making roti Languages: Fiji-Hindi, English This book emerged from Sonakshi and Nathan’s mother’s revelation that Sonakshi enjoyed cooking roti with her. A mentor and a researcher audio recorded and photographed a roti cooking session at their home, selected photographs to depict the procedure (storyboard) and used transcriptions of Sonakshi’s mother’s and Nathan’s speech from the audio recording to provide the Fiji Hindi text. This text was then translated into English. The temple Languages: Fiji-Hindi, Tamil, English We selected representative photographs taken at the Dovubaravi temple-washing day. With their families as audience, these were shown to Neharika and Warsha, audio recording their words about each picture and directly typing into PowerPoint for the girls to see. In this scenario, the girls were more taciturn than usual. The same photos were printed and given to Keshav’s father to share with Keshav sitting close; the conversation audio recorded for later transcription. This approach worked better and produced most of the Fiji-Hindi text. English translation was provided by master. Tamil translation was provided by Keshav’s grandfather and great-­ grandmother and scribed by Keshav’s mother. Mentors helped to type the book’s text, using a computer for the first time. A year in our Languages: Fiji-Hindi, English community Responding to community leaders wish to produce a single book which equivalently represented and included all families’ cultures and practices, a whole-of-community book was conceptualised and titled Gaon Mei Saal Ke Karikaram (A Year in Our Community). Photographs were taken by mentors across the year. Events included cane cutting, Divali, Christmas, Holi, catching whitebait, the Mariamman puja and firewalking festival and a wedding. Words were provided by children and mentors in Fiji-Hindi and translated into English. Mere and her family were away from Dovubaravi visiting family during text production and were the only project family not involved in text production.

 ppendix 8.2: Approaches to Enriching Children Play A with Literacy

Finding and playing with literacy in Children: Keshav, Chaya, Tanisha and children’s environments Rishita Keshav Keshav resisted his mother’s explicit English language instruction. However, via his grandmother’s translations, he told Bec he wanted to be a pilot and fly to New Zealand, Canada and Australia. He had relatives who travelled to and from such destinations and planes flew over his home daily. We planned and implemented a play session with Keshav. He made a pilot’s hat with us and some paper, his drawing supplies and sticky tape, with his grandmother keenly observing Keshav’s engagement. We used chairs to simulate the inside of a plane, recycled boarding passes and sticky notes to identify seats’ letters and numbers. Keshav’s grandmother, teddy and Alexandra played passengers, each with a boarding pass matching a seat number. Pilot Keshav boarded the passengers, confidently identifying and matching boarding passes with seats’ letters and numbers. Tanisha and Rishita

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We had not observed Tanisha and Rishita having access to writing materials at home. When given access to our own writing materials, 5-year-old Tanisha wrote numbers, and letters associated with her own and Rishita’s names. Their mother, with a new baby approaching, had few resources to devote to literacy-enriching activities. We discussed with her how reading bus, street and building signage aloud can build literacy. Chaya, Kavitesh and Arav Chaya, Kavitesh and Arav lived in families who provided literacy materials such as pencils, paper, activity books and blackboards. Each could recite the English alphabet and confidently wrote their names. We introduced the question ‘what begins with the sound (e.g. ‘r’)?’ into playful interactions with each child. For example, Arav identified friends and family whose names started with sound ‘a’. Responding to Chaya writing her own name on a blackboard, we broke her name into sounds, and asked her: ‘What else around us starts with “ch”?’ Chaya’s grandmother introduced this game to Chaya’s cousin Kavitesh who lives in the same family compound and discussed with their mothers how this activity could help build sound connections to letter names, in both home and community languages. Sharing procedures and texts in literacyChildren: All participating children, their rich play siblings and some similarly aged kin Each participating preschooler received a copy of their own book and with permission from all participants and community members involved or represented in book production, another book corresponding to their expressed interests. These provided families with concrete examples of play-based literacy-rich experiences that could be actioned at home. The co-created books provided opportunities for easily replicable literacy-rich play and for children to initiate literacy activities with family members. For example, after receiving ‘how to make a kite’, Tanisha and Rishita asked their father to make kites with them. Singing/saying/writing rhyming songs and Children: All participating children, games to build phonemic awareness particularly Sonakshi, Neharika, Warsha, Princy, Rishita and Tanisha Building on children’s interest in reciting/playing English-origin songs, and games in both English and Fiji Hindi, we talked with parents, grandparents and mentors to identify home heritage songs with rhyming sounds and to build connections between letter sounds and names. The following song-based games were identified. Akka Booka Akka Booka was a rhyming game traditionally used by children to decide who would perform a particular task (similar to ‘Eeny meeny miney mo’). Bec and a mentor played Akka Booka with Sonakshi, her mother and some siblings, while Alexandra video recorded. Sonakshi and Nathan’s family had almost no environmental text or books in their home. We digitally constructed an Akka Booka poster, using a still taken from the video recording of our game with them and colours to highlight rhymes and alliteration in the text. We printed and laminated A4 sized posters for all participating families to develop shared understandings about how familiar rhymes help children notice sounds within words. We also discussed and played Akka Booka at Neharika’s and Warsha’s, and Rishita’s, Tanisha’s and Princy’s compounds. Ittna Ittna Paani Ittna Ittna Paani is a repetitive action rhyme, involving a fair-fair queen (gor gor rani) and rising flood water (paani). We visited Neharika’s and Warsha’s compound to play it with the children, their mothers and by the end their grandmother, with all three generations running and shrieking with laughter. Later Neharika and Warsha made an Ittna Ittna Paani poster with us, using paper and textas, with the girls adding drawings and tracing the letters over our shadow writing of the rhyme’s Fiji Hindi text. As with the Akka Booka poster, rhymes and alliteration were colour-­ coded. We introduced Ittna Ittna Paani when visiting Princy, Rishita, Tanisha and their mothers. The physically active nature of the game connected to their, previously noted, enjoyment of physical games and play, and we noticed Princy became more vocal than before. All participating families were provided with a laminated A4 copy of Neharika’s and Warsha’s poster for their homes.

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Antakshri When talking about how rhyming can support children to build sound-letter connections, Warsha’s mother recalled that her family played Antakshri during cyclones and power outages. Antakshri participants each sing a song-verse which begins with the sound with which the previous participant’s song-verse ended. Mentors explained Antakshri allows inclusion of modern and traditional songs in any language. This multigenerational and multilingual inclusive game was also discussed with Keshav’s family as it builds literacy into music-making, important for both maternal and paternal extended families. Drawing, writing, dramatizing and sculpting Children: All participating children local texts using readily available resources Drawing and writing at the Temple and at home and the beach The temple, where some children spent regular and extended periods of time, had concrete floors in unsanctified zones on which chalk-drawing could occur. To model playful approaches to preschool children’s writing development and at the same time take this seriously, the first project workshop at the temple included chalk for children to draw with. We asked children about their inscriptions, labelled drawings with children’s names (sounding their names aloud as she did) and photographed them. With families and temple members, we discussed the value of allowing children to self-direct their scribing activities. After this we saw chalk as a drawing material in several children’s homes, and were careful to notice, honour and build on children’s engagement with it. Images in Avinal’s book of his drawings in the sand reminded family and community readers of a locally accessible, free way to support children’s writing development. At the final celebration of the project, held again at the temple, children freely accessed chalk, chose the timing of their engagement with it and more readily drew palm trees, goats, flowers and other things in their environment, shapes, and letters from Latin and Devanagari scripts. Children’s celebration bags also included a ‘Mandir’ colouring-in book inspired by temple renovations we witnessed while in Dovubaravi. The first page included pictures of the paint pots, brushes and painters at work and invited children to help the men paint the temple, in both Fiji-Hindi and English, asking them about their favourite colours. The colouring-in pages comprised images of gods and symbols found on the temple walls that had been converted into black and white line drawings. Making and playing with playdough Considering the visual and embodied aspects of Dovubaravi’s cultures, Bec and Alexandra identified home-made playdough as a potential literacy resource; one which mothers could make from ingredients already in their pantries. Prior to the final community consultation, and celebration workshop, we adapted a playdough recipe to source locally available ingredients. We made large batches of four colours for the workshop and a take-home pack for each child. Mothers and children readily engaged in sculpting play, with Shekoufe and her mother making furniture, people, cars and other objects in their world. When we showed Tanisha and Rishita how they could sculpt letters with playdough, Mere’s mother added Mere’s name in playdough to the sculptures they were making together. We discussed with mothers how three-dimensional experiences can support children’s connection to written literacy. Mothers were keen to learn the recipe as the story of making the playdough emerged through conversation. We wrote the recipe in chalk on a free area of concrete, and mothers with smart phones photographed it. The playdough recipe provided mothers with a further activity-based and playful procedural text, building upon the making kites, roti and babakau texts of children’s books-about-their-world. Shekoufe’s mother passed the recipe on to Shekoufe’s kindergarten teacher. Dramatizing texts At the last project workshop, Warsha’s older brother Manav arrived in a brown furry onesie, telling us he was the troll from Teen Bakri (The Three Goats). The children decided to stage a Teen Bakri play with us. A bench was brought down to the grass, and children, with adult support, organised themselves into characters (little goats being younger children and so on). We narrated the story from the book, with the troll at one end of the bench-bridge and the goats making their way to their meeting with him. There were several iterations of the play, with quieter children participating by sitting with the narrator, while more outgoing children provided highly expressive and comic performances as goats or trolls.

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References Bell, D. (1998). Ngarrindjeri wurruwarrin: A world that is, was and will be. Melbourne, Australia: Spinifex Press. Canagarajah, A. S. (2013). Translingual practice, global Englishes and cosmopolitan relations. New York: Routledge. Castagno, A., & Brayboy, B. (2008). Culturally responsive schooling for Indigenous youth. A review of the literature. Review of Educational Research, 78(4), 941–993. Davis, A. (2004). Co-authoring identity: Digital storytelling in an urban middle school. THEN Journal: Technology, Humanities, Education, and Narrative, 1(1), 1–21. Fiji Bureau of Statistics. (2016). Key statistics: March 2016, Population. Suva, Fiji: Fiji Bureau of Statistics. Gee, J. (2015). Orality and literacy: The great divide. In Social linguistics and literacies: Ideology in discourses (5th ed., pp. 55–66). New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315722511 Kumar, S. (2010). Fiji Hindi: Spoken but unloved. Suva, Fiji: University of the South Pacific. http://repository.usp.ac.fj/5820/ Lal, B. V. (2008). Turnings: Fiji factions. Lautoka, Fiji: Fiji Institute of Applied Studies. Pawley, A., & Sayaba, T. (1971). Fijian dialect divisions: Eastern and Western Fijian. Journal of the Polynesian Society, 80(4), 405–436. Republic of Fiji. (2013). Constitution of the Republic of Fiji. Suva, Fiji: Republic of Fiji. Rigney, L. (2018). Defining culturally responsive digital education for classrooms: Writing from Oceania to build indigenous Pacific futures. In E. A. McKinley & L. T. Smith (Eds.), Handbook of Indigenous education (pp. 1–17). Singapore: Springer. Shameem, N. (2002). Multilingual proficiency in Fiji primary schools. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 23(5), 388–407. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434630208666476 Vygotsky, L.  S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Weis, T., Benmayor, R., O’Leary, C., & Eynon, B. (2002). Digital technologies and pedagogies. Social Justice, 29(4), 153–167.

Chapter 9

In Wavu: Collaborating with Children and Families in a Culturally Diverse Community in an Urban Setting Abstract  This chapter presents the findings of the Wavu case study on developing strategies and community capacity to foster young children’s multilingual literacy. It begins with an introduction to the participating children and their families of Wavu, followed by Wavu findings for the study’s four research questions: (1) What are the literacy development contexts for preschool children in Wavu? (2) What are the enablers and constraints that impact Wavu’s community capacity to support their preschool children’s literacy learning? (3) What local resources and strategies can be used to foster preschool children’s literacy in Wavu? (4) What strategies are effective in developing Wavu’s capacity to support preschool children’s literacy development in their home languages and English?

Introduction We come now to Wavu, a community that was given this pseudonym because: Wavu is the Bauan word for ‘bridge’. We identified the word as reflecting the means of coming together from different places and making links with one another. It readily crosses linguistic boundaries because of the many different languages found in Wavu. Collaborators working on this research project agreed Wavu was an appropriate pseudonym for a community comprised of people who had arrived in Suva from many different parts of Fiji and the Pacific.

Wavu is a culturally diverse urban community in Fiji’s capital, Suva, on Viti Levu. Most of the estimated 575 residents of Wavu have moved there from farms and villages for work and education. It is an area intersected by major roads, with housing extending into narrow one-lane roads and footpaths across a hillside. Wavu is a community where iTaukei and Indo-Fijian cultures intersect. It is with these children and their families and community that we now explore the Wavu findings on developing strategies and community capacity to develop young children’s multilingual literacy. The chapter begins with an introduction to the participating children and their families of Wavu, followed by Wavu findings for the study’s four research questions: 1. What are the literacy development contexts for preschool children in Wavu? © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Harris et al., Children’s Multilingual Literacy, International Perspectives on Early Childhood Education and Development 31, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6587-8_9

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2. What are the enablers and constraints that impact Wavu’s community capacity to support their preschool children’s literacy learning? 3. What local resources and strategies can be used to foster preschool children’s literacy in Wavu? 4. What strategies are effective in developing Wavu’s capacity to support preschool children’s literacy development in their home languages and English?

I ntroducing the Participating Children and Their Families of Wavu Thirteen Wavu families and fifteen children took part in the study. Four families, involving five participating children, were Indo-Fijian; and nine families with ten participating children were iTaukei. Wavu experiences a good deal of population mobility, and so during the study, another four families, involving six participating children, withdrew. Eight languages altogether were represented amongst the participants. The fifteen children and their families are introduced as follows: Helen is the third of four children. Her iTaukei family came to Suva from the Lau group of Fiji Islands for education. Helen’s father is a lawyer and her mum cares for the children at home. The two eldest children go to school. Helen’s family lives on the lower floor or a two-storey house. The family has storybooks, paints, paper, felt pens and toys including a Barbie doll and Lego. Helen has access to a laptop computer and her mother’s smart phone. Helen can write the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. She wants to go to university and be a doctor. Josua’s family also migrated to the capital from Lau. He is the younger of two sons. He lives with his mother, and his father works overseas. His mother runs a shop selling kava from her home. The shop opens in the evening, and customers gather to drink kava in a large room furnished with Fijian grass matting. Josua learns jokes from the customers and gleans some pocket money from them. He likes running, climbing and playing with neighbouring children. Krishnika is an only child who lives with her mother and father in a two-­bedroom house. Her father drives a taxi and works long hours. Her mother stays home to care for Krishnika. The family is Indo-Fijian and Hindu. Krishnika waits up late for her dad to come home and sleeps late. Krishnika has many toys including stuffed toys, a plastic hoop, a pink bicycle and a red chair. Mohammad is the youngest of three children and lives with his mum and dad in a small house with no electricity connection. The family are Muslim IndoFijians. Mohammad’s father works as a carpenter and his mother works in a restaurant. His older siblings attend school. Mohammad plays with neighbourhood children and loves to play street soccer. He likes to watch cartoons on a neighbour’s television. Aaron and Aarav are the only children of their Indo-Fijian family. They live with their mother and father, as well as their aunt and her baby daughter. A neighbour’s

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son comes over after school on weekdays until his father gets home from work. Their mother is studying to become a preschool teacher; she stays home with the children when she isn’t in class. Father works as a carpenter. The family has a small Hindu temple in their front garden. The boys have bicycles and balls to play with. Their pet dog is a guard dog and doesn’t play with the children. Sairusi, Ilimaina and Josevate are from an extended co-resident iTaukei family of two brothers and their wives and children – all from Kadavu, an island to the south of Viti Levu. One family lives at the front of the house and the other at the back with a shared garden in the gully alongside the house. Sairusi has two older brothers at school. Josevate and Ilimaina have a little sister. Sairusi’s father works as a security officer, and his mother cares for the children at home. Josevate and Ilimaina’s father works as a concreter, and their mother cares for the children at home. Their grandparents also live with the families. Music is a big part of family life, with one wall of the front living room taken up by speakers and a radio cassette player. Both fathers play guitars. The children play together, dance together and help with family chores such as gardening and tidying up. Jokapeci is the younger of two daughters, and she also has a baby brother. She spends most of her time with her cousin of the same age. Her family is from Kadavu. They live in a village in the countryside, but they come to Jokapeci’s grandmother’s house in town to access medical care and other services. Her father works for a timber company, and her mother cares for the children. Their village home is large with a lush garden with a large tree holding up a hammock in front. Jokapeci’s aunt lives with them in the village. Simione has an older sister and lives with his mother and father, his aunt and her three children. His iTaukei family came to the city from Gau Island for employment. Simione’s father works as a policeman and his mother cares for the children. One of Simione’s cousins is a similar age and the boys constantly play together. They play chasings, hide-and-seek and ball games. Simione goes to Sunday school every week and wants to be a church minister. Seci is an only child of a single mother of iTaukei heritage. His grandmother cares for him during the day while his mother is at work. His grandfather works as a security guard. Seci goes to Sunday school some weeks. Seci is interested in all forms of transport – planes, cars and buses. He loves to ride on the bus and hangs on to the seat when it is time to get off because he does not want the ride to end. Mereseini is the elder of two daughters of an iTaukei family from Lau who came to the city for work and education opportunities. Her father works as a telephone network engineer and her mother works as a policewoman. Her father also plays on the local rugby team. The family lives with Mereseini’s grandmother, and her uncle’s house is nearby. The family are highly involved in their local church and have a Lauan hymn book. During a research visit, Mereseini and her father sang a hymn in Lau together. The family has a computer which they use to play movies and sport available on the Internet. Edward and William are the two eldest children with a baby sister. Their father is Gujarati, a speaker of Gujarati language, and he works as a carpenter. Their

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mother is a Hindi-speaking Indo-Fijian and looks after the children at home. The family speaks English at home to bridge their first language differences. The boys have many toys and are very fond of trucks. They play in the house and in a sandpit in the garden. They have a number of storybooks, and their mother practises reading and writing with them every day. The family has a pet cat. They do not actively follow a religion.

 hat Are the Literacy Development Contexts for Preschool W Children in Wavu? Early visits in Wavu provided opportunities to identify household members and their relationships, the languages spoken by family members and the contexts of their use, the daily routines and favourite activities of participant children and family members’ aspirations for their children. Researchers also documented the resources in the home which involved aspects of literacy including pencils and paper, colouring books, storybooks, number and letter charts, toys, televisions, tablets, smart phones and computers. Table 9.1 provides a broad summary of observed aspects of community life for preschool children and their families in Wavu. The column titled ‘Literacy Experiences’ simply names the kinds of communicative experiences observed being conducted by children and their household members. The second column titled ‘Household Inputs’ lists the human and material resources and home-based routines which provided opportunities for literacy experiences. The third column titled ‘Community Inputs’ lists the sites, events, people, routines and activities which were featured in family life and would be familiar reference points for children in the community. The fourth column lists observations regarding language usage; values; common life circumstances; access to health, education and transport; and the ways in which families managed daily life. Taken together, this table provides a window onto Wavu children’s embedded literacy contexts in the spirit of Bronfenbrenner (Bowes et al. 2009).

Attitudes to and Practices of Language Use in Wavu Although Fiji has three official languages, Bauan, Fiji Hindi and English, many iTaukei families living in Wavu also spoke a dialect from their home village. When each parent had come from different Fijian villages, there were up to four language variations in circulation in the home  – each parent’s home dialect, Bauan and English. As noted in earlier chapters, English is the language of government, schooling and imported media, such as cartoons and Disney movies. The everyday

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Table 9.1  Children’s literacy contexts Literacy experiences Speaking

Household inputs and resources Parents

Listening

Other resident adults, siblings TV – cartoons top the charts Phone-based games DVD/USB Tablets

Colouring

Holding pen/ pencil

Screen swiping Writing

Community inputs School and preschool

Language and culture Bau is the dialect known as ‘Fijian’. People from other islands/provinces have and speak their own dialect Sunday school/ Most people don’t drive and rely on temple buses, taxis, walking Rugby Colouring books and other learning (I-Taukei) resources are all western – no Fijian Soccer (Indo-Fijian)

Colouring books

Shopping Bus rides

Drawing

Alphabet/number/ shape charts Label books Storybooks

Dancing

Exercise books

Singing

Photographs

Painting

Cultural artefacts such as baskets, fans and mats

Swimming pool Park playground

Radio Toys Chores – food prep, tidying, gardening, rubbish collection

Parents’ work

Body language/ signing Playing guitar/ Ukulele (adult)

Neighbours (children) Other non-resident family Movies

English is used as a language of instructions, school and government and to converse across iTaukei and Hindi Children are expected to behave and be quiet around adults Health clinic first aid is free, immunisations are free, hospital treatment is expensive Cartoons are in English Parents use DVD downloads USBs to control screen content Children are prolific with phone games and movies Resources (clothing, containers) are recycled and reused Home gardens supplement food

Religious observance is a priority – Christian churches and Hindu temples School and school transport are free

language at home for iTaukei families was either Bauan or their home village dialect. No iTaukei participants spoke Fijian-Hindi. Indo-Fijian families spoke Fiji Hindi at home, and a couple of families had taught their children some Bauan words. English was mainly used outside the home as a cross-over language when speaking with a person from a different culture. One iTaukei father commented that he wanted his children to attend an Indo-­ Fijian school so they would speak English with classmates at recess and lunch, rather than Fijian. Only one family usually used English at home and in public. The

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Indo-Fijian mother was raised speaking Hindi, and the father’s family spoke Gujarati originating from a locale in India known for its traders and thus different from the majority of Indian immigrants from the Gangetic plain. The two participant brothers from this family had a number of English storybooks in the home, unlike the majority of participant families. The densely populated streets of Wavu offered opportunities for frequent interactions with families living in neighbouring houses. Warm weather, garden areas and small houses, often housing extended family, meant people were often outside and interacting with other community members. When neighbours were from a different culture, mothers noted that their children used the language of their neighbours or English to communicate: They speak Hindi but when they go to play with the Fijian family next door they speak Fijian. (Aaron and Aarov’s mother) Josua speaks Fijian and English sometimes because the neighbours are from Tuvalu and they speak English but not Fijian. (Josua’s mother)

One Indo-Fijian family had no working television, and the child would go to his iTaukei neighbour’s house to watch cartoons: We don’t have power here. We have lived 14 years with no power. Mohammad watches cartoons at the neighbour’s. He likes Tom and Jerry. (Mohammad’s mother)

In another instance, Indo-Fijian children used Bauan to ask their neighbour if they could recover their ball from their yard. In the verbal exchange before recovering their ball, the children were able to aurally identify available spoken languages and select a cross-cultural language to suit their needs. The linguistic complexity of urban Fiji afforded rich opportunities for children as text users (Freebody  & Freebody, 2003), making sense of spoken language used in different contexts. The majority of Wavu’s children lived with their siblings and parents and sometimes a grandparent or uncle or aunt and their family. Household membership was often mobile as families visited relatives elsewhere or hosted visitors arriving in the city for health services or family events. These busy households provided multiple opportunities for children to listen to, and engage in, conversations. Krishnika’s home context illustrates the diversity of available languages in her daily life. Her father teaches her to count one to ten in Fijian and she knows her name in Fijian. I can’t speak Fijian but I can understand it. Our home language is Hindi but with some English. My sister-in-law is from Kiribati and they understand English. When she was a small baby my sister in law would speak Kiribati to her and she replied in Hindi. (Krishnika’s mother)

iTaukei families were keen to stay connected to the languages of their village before coming to the capital. The village dialects are the living expression of their local oral culture. Loss of dialect would weaken the family and vanua relationships of their origin, ties which sustain key support for these families even after they move to townships for work and education: Our family is from Kadavu so we speak Kadavu between ourselves but when we go out we speak Bauan Fijian or English. (Ilimaina’s mother)

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We came from Lau in 1993. We came for education. We have 3 languages at home. When we are at home we speak Lauan. When we go out we speak Fijian – the Bau dialect. We also speak English. (Mereseini’s father) We speak Fijian language every day. Sometimes Jokapeci wants to use English. I follow her lead. (Jokapeci’s mother)

Parents were active in trying to coach their children in what they saw as basics for starting school. This included understanding counting, the alphabet and instructions: We usually speak Fijian but we speak English words like ‘come here’, ‘stop it’ ‘don’t do that’ so when he grows up he needs to learn to understand things he might hear. (Seci’s mother) I count with them in Hindi and English. They go to school the year after next. (Aaron and Aarov’s mother) Jokapeci plays lego, drawing and colouring. When she stays in town with her grandmother she has an early childhood program on the laptop. (Jokapeci’s mother) Josua can say his numbers one to ten and the ABC. He likes colouring but he hides his colouring. (Josua’s mother) I do lessons with her ABC and counting in Fijian and English. I want a school that helps her learning, teaching her to write, speak and converse in English. In a Fijian school she will only speak Fijian at lunch break. I want her to go to an Indian school so she has to speak English. (Mereseini’s father)

Families made specific and active choices in relation to language use for a range of purposes in the mixed community of their urban setting. Language and dialect selection was used to communicate with people from a different culture and to engage with formal institutions of education, government and media, as a claim to cultural continuity with their family origins, as well as a strategy to sustain communication and cultural links to family members living elsewhere. Language selection was also a strategy to prepare children for formal schooling conducted in English. The school language environment was a matter which families considered in making decisions about their children’s schooling. The complex linguistic environment in Wavu promoted multilingualism as a routine aspect of neighbourhood life, within which families made choices consistent with their sense of cultural identity, neighbourhood engagement and aspirations for children’s success at school, underpinned by English knowledge and use.

Literacy Development Affordances of Children’s Communities Children’s engagement with their communities outside of their home involved social and cultural practices centred around education, sport and recreation, religion and consumption. Each of these contexts offered literacy development opportunities for children. School and preschool directly addressed literacy development through

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engagement with peers and siblings, English language instruction and access to text-based resources. Outings and routines such as taking children to and from school, shopping, visiting relatives and participating in sporting, religious and community events provided preschool children with experiences different from their home environment. Religion was prominent in the lives of both iTaukei and Indo-Fijian families with participants variously attending Hindu Temples, Muslim mosques and Christian churches. We go to Temple. She likes to pray. She doesn’t have a favourite God but eats the fruit. When there is prayer at the Temple we take her. Temple is on Fridays. We like to celebrate Diwali but sometimes she wants to dress up and do songs and dances with her Nana. (Krishnika’s mother) We hardly go out to Temple because we have our own in the front garden. [See Fig. 9.3.] We do Christmas, too. (Aaron and Aarov’s mother)

At Sunday school (pictured in Fig. 9.1), iTaukei children dress up in their best clothes and engage in singing songs and listening to prayers and Bible readings in both English and Bauan. Adults led the Sunday school, and older children contributed by performing the readings, thereby demonstrating their skills as text users. Younger children listened and joined in where they had memorised the words: Some Sundays he goes to Sunday School. (Seci’s mother) He goes to Sunday School. The Bible song CDs are his favourite. He joins in with the songs. (Simione’s mother)

Fig. 9.1  Sunday school in Wavu

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Sporting events were also important to the cultural life of the community. Children would attend school-based sporting events as well as games of soccer and rugby union. iTaukei families generally followed Rugby, while Indo-Fijian families largely followed soccer matches. Children attended weekend matches in their community to watch family members and friends play. These gatherings provided social opportunities for children to share and reinforce friendships and the community identity of cheering their local team: He roams around with the neighbours and plays soccer with the big kids. He is his own best soccer player! (Mohammad’s mother) She goes to Sunday School, she goes shopping. I play rugby and the children come to watch the games on Saturday. Sometimes we take the bus, sometimes a taxi. (Mereseini’s father)

Because very few families have a private vehicle, most travel by bus or taxi to access destinations. The public transport system serves all communities to and from their destinations. Such bus trips bring children into regular contact with a wide range of people: It is fifteen minutes to town on the bus. (Mohammad’s mother) The children go out mostly with dad to shops, on the bus. They go to soccer games, Nana’s house, no church. They like the children’s park. (William and Eddie’s mother) He goes to town to the shop on the bus and home again. He loves riding on the bus. He loves it. He refuses to get off and hangs on to the bus seat. (Seci’s mother) The children go to town shopping and to the park. We go on the bus. We shop every week. (Ilimaina’s mother) He goes to town for shopping, playing at the park and going to Motorcity. We go to town on the bus and come back by taxi. We go to the village by boat for Christmas and New Year. (Simione’s mother) We have to catch a taxi to the health centre if they get sick. (Aaron and Aarov’s mother)

Shopping trips also exposed children to incidental environmental print such as bus routes, street and shop signs and texts on food and grocery packaging.

 hat Are the Enablers and Constraints That Impact W on Wavu’s Community Capacity to Support Their Preschool Children’s Literacy Learning? The Wavu community’s cultural diversity provided both constraints and enablers impacting on community capacity to support their preschool children’s literacy learning. The urban setting in the capital city, accommodating immigrant residents from all over the nation and other Pacific countries, offered a rich language environment, but this also constrained the emergence of any singular community leadership. Traditional iTaukei communities in Fiji are led by chiefs, and Indo-Fijian communities have Temple leaders. Wavu’s cultural communities similarly tended to cluster around religious groupings. This diversity and the consequent absence of

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unifying leadership made it a more complex context for residents to instigate community-­wide actions to benefit the whole community. The cultural differences between Indo-Fijian and iTaukei populations are expressed in their home languages, religious observances, preferred football codes, dress, furnishings, customs and rituals and land rights. The two communities live side by side and come together in shared services such as education sites, health services and public transport but relate to their own strong social and family networks. The cultural differences inscribed public spaces variously as shared or culturally specific spaces. For example, fewer Indo-Fijian families attended researcher entry and exit meetings in the local church hall – a venue linked with iTaukei cultures. The grass mats on the floor and yangona welcome ritual for researchers reflected iTaukei cultures. As the project proceeded over time, more participating Indo-Fijian families attended an exit meeting at the church hall (26 November 2015) to receive book resources generated by the project as well as a talanoa (3 May 2016) held at an iTaukei participant’s local business to discuss the ongoing future of the research project. The strong social networks of both iTaukei and Indo-Fijian communities are important enablers as families help each other by sharing accommodation, child care, garden produce and other resources: I don’t leave her with anyone but Rajamama [grandmother]. Her dad is ok when she is sleeping. Mum has chickens so when she goes there she plays with the chickens. (Krishnika’s mother)

Across the cultural communities, close family relationships provided two key enablers for children’s literacy development. Firstly, relationships with parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles provided constant exposure to conversations with and between others, supporting children’s development of vocabulary and listening and speaking skills. Some family units shared households, like Josevate, Sai Rusi and Ilamaina, or were within walking distance of each other, so children like Krishnika and Jokapeci would often spend time at their grandmother’s house. A second related consequent factor is the secure attachment relationships of participant children as members of their family and community networks. As identified in No Noda Mataniciva (2009), children’s development and learning require a family and community environment supporting their sense of identity and belonging. Living in community with others ensured that young children were always able to find comfort, a cuddle or a smile from a known and trusted older person. As noted earlier, religion and sport each attracted regular attendance and participation by community members. Religion provided an important component of community belonging and identity. The Methodist Church was prominent amongst iTaukei residents in Wavu. It had a large local church engaging many iTaukei families, as well as a large hall, able to accommodate community events. Across the road from the hall, the Indo-Fijian Mariamman Temple also provided a key local space for Indo-Fijian families. Like religious calendars, sporting codes also provided a program of regular event fixtures where followers of rugby or soccer came together

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to cheer for their team and support players. These regular communal activities reinforced children’s familiarity with the cultural codes of participation embedded in the clothing, routines, rules, songs and texts of religious and sporting fixtures. Low wages were a constraint on community capacity to purchase resources such as stationery and storybooks. In 2013, 28 percent of the population lived below the poverty line.1 The minimum wage in Fiji was raised to 2.68 Fiji dollars per hour in July 2017.2 Imported manufactured and packaged goods are priced to reflect prices of the supplying country. At the time of our study, the Australian dollar exchange rate bought one and a half Fiji dollars, so an imported packaged item, such as a chocolate snack costing two dollars in Australia, would cost three Fijian dollars – more than an hour’s pay at the minimum rate.3 It was not uncommon for homes to have limited water and electricity supplies. As noted earlier, many families shared accommodation with extended family and supplemented their diets from home gardens. Family homes in the Wavu neighbourhood were often made from sheets of corrugated iron, with curtains serving as doors between rooms. Families routinely recycled clothing, shoes, food containers and mended household items where possible. Locally produced products were more affordable, but many families worked long hours to make ends meet. Some families had access to pencils and paper in their homes but these were relatively scarce. Food, transport and housing costs were prioritised. Few families owned books of any sort. Books are imported and thus expensive and printed in English  – a language which is different from the everyday language at home. Storytelling in iTaukei cultures has an oral, rather than written, tradition. He has no books. He does not know any stories. (Mohammad’s mother) Seci doesn’t have any books. I am with him while mum works but he doesn’t know any stories. (Seci’s grandmother)

Three families owned English storybooks (as illustrated in Fig.  9.2). These included a participating family the research team gifted with a selection of children’s storybooks after a house fire destroyed their home. Low wages also meant that most families did not have their own car. Car ownership in Fiji was 188 per 1000 population in 2010 according to the World Bank Data on Motor Vehicles, compared to 740 per 1000 in Australia. Most families walked or used public transport, providing opportunities to be with others and for children to be exposed to a diverse language environment. Walking along the road together or sharing a bus ride were opportunities for conversations about the happenings in the shared environment and meeting up with friends and family on the way.

1   According to the Asian Development Bank at https://www.adb.org/countries/fiji/poverty. Retrieved 11th May 2018. 2  From ABC News 10th July 2017. 3  From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita. Retrieved 11th May 2018.

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Fig. 9.2  Engaging with a storybook

Education Aspirations for Children Parents were all keen to help their children learn, but they also looked to teachers to develop their child’s academic skills: I worry about him saying his English words. We speak our Kadavu at home so it is hard to know if he is saying them right. (Josevate’s mother) Eddie knows he has to study his books. I force him but he gets cross with me. (Edward and William’s mother). I want her to do proper study. Kindergarten has the same learning as a care-giver. I will look for somewhere to send her. Everyone says she is a very clever girl. (Krishnika’s mother) I want him to be well educated. I work hard to look after the children but it is hard times and I am busy running the grog (yangona) shop. (Josua’s mother) The best school is where the kind of teacher and the environment is safe. The teacher should be a graduate qualified at the University of South Pacific with a certificate up there on the wall. (Simione’s mother)

Families’ strategies ranged from trying to make their children practise writing and recognising alphabet letters and numbers through to searching out what they saw as ‘the best school’. Regardless of family time and income resources, all families had high aspirations for their children, and success at school was important: She wants to be a teacher when she grows up. (Mereseini’s father) Helen wants to be a doctor. (Helen’s mother)

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We want them to go to university. (Ilimaina’s mother) Jokapeci wants to be a teacher, like grandma. (Jokapeci’s mother) Simi wants to be a church minister when he grows up. (Simione’s mother) I think he would like to be a pilot. He loves aeroplanes, buses and cars. (Seci’s grandmother)

Wavu’s narrow, busy streets offered access to a close knit neighbourhood but also posed challenges for children to access preschools in surrounding areas. There were high volumes of traffic on main streets with few safe crossings. Places for children could be hard to find in full preschools, and parents had to find time to walk with their children to and from the site: You need to be able to walk so the school is close to home. (Simione’s mother) There is transport to school on the bus but we need somewhere not too far. They play in the house mostly. The afternoons on the road are busy so we keep them inside. (Edward and William’s mother)

The families of Wavu were ambitious for their children and keen to support their literacy development. Some iTaukei families rehearsed their children in performances for researchers of a hymn or a Psalm to demonstrate their child’s learning abilities. ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ and Bible songs were popular performance pieces in these families, reflecting the centrality of religious observance in family life, as also illustrated in Fig. 9.3.

Fig. 9.3  Simione with his Bible

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As the next section discusses in more detail, all parents made efforts to prepare their children for education success through encouragement and exposure to learning enough English to cope with attending school in English language.

 hat Local Resources and Strategies Can Be Used to Foster W Preschool Children’s Literacy in Wavu? Parents and family members made use of their local environment in various ways to foster children’s multilingual literacy. As noted earlier, conversation between household members was common in young children’s home settings with numerous family residents. Routine household and garden tasks, such as picking and washing vegetables, provided opportunities for children to help their elders, regularly using familiar words for plants and foods and food preparation. Figure 9.4 includes an image to illustrate how adults and children shared spaces while undertaking routine tasks such as food preparation. The image of pawpaw trees and washing drying also included in Fig. 9.4 illustrates the usage of home surrounds to grow food and process laundry. Children engaged in gardening, washing dishes and helping with the

Fig. 9.4  Using and sharing space for household routines. (top left) Preparing vegetables; (top right) papaya trees with laundry drying on the line; (lower left) children wash the dishes

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laundry as part of their daily routines with family members, learning the words to describe these tasks.

Sibling Support Children were often at home with more than one adult, and there were only two participating households where the child lived without siblings. Older siblings were especially important to their preschool sisters and brothers because they had experience of school and brought home books from school along with paper and pencils. The younger children watched, copied and mimicked the school children doing their homework: Mohammad’s sister wants to be a lawyer and his brother wants to join the police force. His sister brought home the storybook “Duck and Babies” from the school library for him and he sits with them while they do their homework. I want him to go to school but he has to wait one more year. (Mohammad’s mother) We speak mostly Fijian. The children are doing their school studies in English. They bring their homework, read their books. We stay together at home with Simione. He understands ‘last warning’ in English. Simi does homework with his brother and sister. (Simione’s mother) The little ones watch the older children doing homework and they fight for books and pens. (Sai Rusi’s mother) When her cousin does her homework, Jokapeci watches and sometimes corrects her. Mostly her ‘corrections’ are wrong. (Jokapeci’s mother)

Media Exposure to English Conscious that their children would need to use English at school, many parents had actively sought to support their children’s language and literacy development by purchasing colouring books and number and alphabet charts and ensuring children had regular access to English language programs on televisions and digital screens including mobile phones, tablets and computers. Although a minority had computers or tablets, every family had a mobile phone, and children were quick to engage with these to play games and watch videos: Josua watches cartoons on the laptop  – all in English. There are no cartoons in Fijian. (Josua’s mother) Helen loves to tie 2 scarves together and play at ‘Frozen’. She sings ‘Let it Go’. It is about princesses Elsa and Anna in the ice. We have the song on a laptop. On the weekend she watches it. She knows all the words of the song. (Helen’s mother) She knows the mobile phone and can get the Facebook. (Krishnika’s mother)

Children’s engagement with screen media was clearly involving children as text users, text encoders and meaning-makers (Luke & Freebody 2003). As text users they watched and listened and performed texts. As text encoders they were moving

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between technologies to access targeted texts. Televisions, mobile phones, DVDs and computers involve different modes of access from selecting a time and a channel to websites and downloads, as illustrated in Fig. 9.5, along with images of children dancing to the radio and watching television. Radios were usually tuned to a channel reflecting the family’s culture: Pani Pani (Water Water) is a Hindi song. She loves to dance to it. If she hears it on the TV or radio, she is dancing. (Krishnika’s mother) They like to dance to the radio. Hindi tunes are their favourites. (Aaron and Arav’s mother)

Most households had a television. On weekdays, a popular Indo-Fijian soap opera in Hindi featured with English subtitles. In some homes, neighbours would gather in a house with a television to share the program. Nearly all children’s daily routines included watching an hour of American cartoons on television after school. Through conversation and television, most children were exposed to all three official languages of Fiji most days. A couple of families had computers which children used to watch DVDs. In addition, every family had a mobile phone which children used to watch downloaded content, apps and photographs. Perry and Moses’ (2011) study identified that television was effective in scaffolding additional language acquisition.

Fig. 9.5  Information, communication and entertainment technology in Wavu homes. (top left) A child playing games on his mother’s mobile phone; (top right) children dance to the music on the radio; (lower left) watching cartoons and DVDs on television; (lower right) television in a home

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As Fig. 9.5 shows, televisions were usually in a prominent space in the shared living area. The following quotes illustrate parents’ views about television screens and children’s exposure to spoken English. The popularity of cartoons with the children meant they happily participated in watching and listening to English, as pictured in Fig. 9.5: We speak Fijian at home. They watch children’s DVDs. They get some English from that. I speak English. Because Sairusi is starting school next year he knows 20–30 English words. (Sai Rusi’s mother) She likes Tom and Jerry on TV. She tells my mum the TV programs. She is always right. (Krishnika’s mother) Mostly I put on CDs and cartoons. I don’t like them watching TV. She watches CD cartoons on TV. She has Sponge Bob Square Pants. Tinkerbell is a favourite. They watch when they want. They hear Hindi in Wavu but they don’t understand it. (Jokapeci’s mother) He watches cartoons. He likes Batman the best. (Josua’s mother) We watch TV in English. Seci watches Play School programs. We have CDs of Play School and Sesame Street. We bought the CDs in the shop to help with school. (Seci’s mother) We have a DVD of The Jungle Book in Hindi language. We speak mainly Hindi every day but also some Fijian and English. (Aaron and Aarov’s mother)

Indo-Fijians could access Hindi language media content across radio, television, DVDs and website content, but only local radio and television offered Bauan media content. This difference is shaped by the sheer numbers of the global Hindi-speaking market and the relatively tiny Bauan market, concentrated in Fiji. As a culture of oral narratives, artefacts, rituals, dance and song, Fijians have a history of oral storytelling and embodied textual generation and interaction, such as mekes. Some households featured colouring books and pencils so children could practise colouring in, drawing and writing letters, as shown in Fig. 9.6. The colouring books’ illustrations typically did not feature items which children would recognise from their daily context. For example, the saxophone pictured in Fig. 9.7 was not a common instrument in Fiji. Nevertheless, children were able to practise their pencil-holds and control using these resources. Many families acted to boost their children’s literacy by encouraging them to learn the letters of the alphabet from purchased English letter charts pinned to the wall in a prominent place, such as also seen in Fig. 9.7. Some children could chant the alphabet song but often did not appear to connect the letters of the song with the letters on the charts or the letter sounds. The alphabet chart illustrations typically depicted contents which were not familiar in Fiji, such as a queen for the letter Q or a lion for the letter L, as can be seen in Fig. 9.7. Alphabet awareness was also complicated because written Fijian language uses the English alphabet but pronounces sounds differently (Schutz, 1972): B is pronounced “mb” as in ‘bamboo’. C is a “th” as in ‘leather’. D is pronounced “nd” as in ‘panda’. Dr is pronounced “ndr” as in ‘laundry’. G is pronounced “ng” as in ‘ring’. Q is pronounced “ng” as in ‘mango’.

Fig. 9.6  Writing practice

Fig. 9.7  A colour-in book and an alphabet chart

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These differences in the sounds of letters, depending on the language in which they were being used, presented a hurdle for children using alphabet charts at home to switch between letter sounds. The colouring books and alphabet charts were evidence of parents’ desires for their children to succeed in their education. The imported content which did not reference children’s everyday environments exposed the limits of access to culturally meaningful learning resources. Parents used the resources which were accessible, even though they referenced unfamiliar environments. As noted earlier church and temple attendances were weekly events for many children in the study. Children were familiar with characters and events in the Christian Bible and in the Ramayana and Mahabharata of Hindi Indo-Fijian families. Christian children attended Sunday school and participated in singing and prayers, while Hindi Indo-Fijian families participated in puja (Indian prayers) in temples at their homes. These contexts offered children repeat opportunities to engage with familiar characters and texts. Other familiar routines with embedded literacies included shopping trips. Children travelled to the shops on public transport, learning bus routes and the names of common household foods and groceries. Such shopping trips required children to respond to different language contexts and offered opportunities to learn about money and coins and the cost of different items.

 hat Strategies Are Effective in Developing Wavu’s Capacity W to Support Preschool Children’s Literacy Development in Their Home Languages and English? Our study’s collectively agreed approach to develop books related to children’s worlds in their home language and English addressed the absence of books in most households. The two families with a stock of books featured titles referencing European culture, such as The Elves and the Shoemaker (Grimm & Grimm, 1806). Thus together we aimed to ensure that the books that were co-created with children and their families would have recognisable elements drawn from the children’s sociocultural contexts. Various strategies were used to select topics or narratives of the books made in Wavu. Drawing on a principle of familiarity, children were initially asked to identify their favourite stories. The children with access to storybooks and older siblings were more able to name a story, but not all children could name any stories. The second strategy involved asking children to tell a story about their daily life or a family member, with researchers documenting and translating the children’s words. Three stories nominated were Colonial tales – Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Red Riding Hood and Jack and the Beanstalk (for the latter, see Fig. 9.8). One child named the meke of The Breadfruit Tree which is an indigenous Fijian song and dance celebrating the tree, which is a seasonal source of food (also shown in

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Fig. 9.8  Examples of children’s re-tellings of tales they chose across three different cultural sources. (top left) A child reads and sees himself in Jack and the Beanstalk, (top right) The Breadfruit Tree (lower) Rama and Sita book

Fig. 9.8). It is interesting to note that this family actively valued indigenous Fijian culture and ensured they spoke their village dialect daily. They also owned Bibles and hymn books in Lauan dialect and commented on the value of traditional indigenous Fijian cultures. Two brothers from an Indo-Fijian family named the Ramayana story of Rama and Sita – their story informing the annual Hindu festival of Diwali (see also Fig. 9.8).

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Children’s stories were also derived from aspects of their lives. One child detailed the attributes of a local kitten they played with (Pusi Levu); another gave information about his grandfather and his garden. Children’s perceptions of their occupations informed some book choices  – for example, one boy’s book related to his desire to be a church minister when he grew up. One girl’s book, ‘My Work’, provided an account of food shopping with her mother. One child detailed her favourite possessions for her book. A pair of brothers who loved to play with their toy trucks developed stories about playing with trucks at home and another depicting trucks of different types and colours. Three boys received Jack and the Beanstalk books (see Fig.  9.9), and two of these were sons of single mothers. The boys living in single mother homes strongly identified with the hardship of living without their father and in poverty, and each experienced great joy at the story ending where the family became wealthy. Each book was personalised with photographs of the boys in the role of Jack in the story. One boy used his family home architecture to climb to the ceiling, as if it was a beanstalk to help illustrate his book (as we can see in Fig. 9.9). Socio-dramatic play was a way for children to engage with the story elements and develop an identification with the text. Korat et al. (2003) note the links children make between play and literacy development. Children and researchers variously used toys, household items, clothing and family members as props for their stories. Family members took on roles as grandma and the woodcutters in Red Riding Hood, as we can also see in Fig. 9.9. Researchers provided a simple text of around 200 words, converting unfamiliar concepts to recognisable elements. For example, the goose that laid the golden eggs in Jack and the Beanstalk became a chicken. Many families have chickens but there are no geese in Fiji. Similarly, the rhyme of ‘Fee fie fo fum’ was omitted as it

Fig. 9.9  Re-enacting known tales for the children’s books. (left) Climbing the beanstalk, acting out the story of Jack. (right) The girls’ uncle posed with his machete to illustrate the woodcutter in Red Riding Hood

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referenced violence and Englishmen’s bones – neither of which was appropriate for young children’s experience. The modified English text is copied below. Jack lived with his mother and their pet cow. They had no money to buy food, so Mum sent Jack to sell the cow. A man offered Jack five magic beans for his cow. But Mum needed money, not beans, and she threw the beans out the window. Next day there was a beanstalk growing as high as the clouds. Jack climbed the beanstalk and found a castle in the clouds. Inside the castle lived a scary giant who owned a chicken that laid golden money. Jack hid until the giant fell asleep and scooped up the chicken and the gold. The chicken screeched and the giant woke up to see Jack running away. The giant chased Jack down the beanstalk. Jack’s mum quickly chopped down the beanstalk and the giant crashed to the ground. Jack and his mum lived happily ever after with lots of money from the giant.

Children’s words, family members acting out characters, household surroundings, toys and the wider Fijian environment yielded text and images for the books. As an example of the children’s stories, the text of the book about the kitten, ‘Pusi Levu,’ is provided below with its Bauan translation. Levu is the word for ‘big’ in Bauan. We previously shared this bookmaking encounter in Chap. 3’s opening vignette. Pusi Levu Created with Sairusi and Ilimaina. Our pet cat is Pusi Levu. Na neirau manumanu mareqeti ko Pusi Levu. We play with Pusi all day through. Keirau dau qito vata kei Pusi Levu ena veisiga. Pusi Levu is a cat that likes to eat a big fat rat! Ko Pusi Levu e dua vei ira na Pusi E taleitaka me kania na kalovo levulevu. Pusi likes rice and coconut too. Yummy food for Pusi Levu. Ko Pusi e taleitaka na raisi kei na niu talega. Uuu- totoko na kakana kei Pusi Levu. We play with Pusi all day long. We sing a Pusi Levu Song. Keirau dau qito vata kei Pusi Levu e na veigauna. Ka dau lagata na kena sere. Pusi is a cat who likes to scratch. She has four white legs to run and catch. Pusi dreams as she sleeps on the mat, How she loves to catch a big fat rat! Ko Pusi Levu e dua vei ira na Pusi. Ka dau kusikusi,yava vula na yavana. Me cici ka kadruva na nona i caba. Pusi Levu sa na davo e na ibe levu. Me moce ka tadra nai wali levu, Me toboki na Kalavo levulevu.

A third example is the English text for one child’s book about her favourite possessions and activities. THINGS I LIKE by Krishnika I like my book, “Kisses for Daddy”. I like my red bicycle. I like watching television. I like my teddy bear. I like my pink chair. I like my hula hoop. Most of all, I like ME.

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Each sentence had its own page and a picture of the nominated toy. The book pages were laminated for durability and bound using plastic spirals. In Wavu, books were completed and given to children at the concluding community meetings, as shown in Fig. 9.10. Children were pleased and excited to receive their books. At the first distribution, children swapped books around so they could read each other’s, once they had read their own. Families’ ways of using the books varied. Some carefully stored them away from potential damage so that children could only use the books while being supervised. Others made them continuously available. In two households with multiple children, the book pages were pulled apart and stuck to the house walls – as we saw in the Pusi Levu encounter that opened Chap. 3, with a detail seen in Fig. 9.11, along with another book’s pages put on the wall. The mothers commented that this strategy enabled more than one child to engage with the book at once. The idea of sticking the pages to the wall was congruent with iTaukei cultural practices of sharing.

Fig. 9.10  Children reading the multilingual books they made at Wavu’s book-sharing event

Fig. 9.11  Pusi Levu pages on the wall

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Children’s Interactions with Their Books Once children received their books, researchers waited until the next visit to see how they had been received. On our return, one child said he had thrown his book away. He was sad that he now had no book. We provided another copy of the book, which he was very happy to receive. His family had tried using the book to teach him reading, but he had become angry and frustrated. The in-country member of the research team explained to parents that reading the book with the child would provide positive experiences of attention, closeness and the pleasure of the story, without any need to pressure him to learn. At our next visit, this child and his family were very happy with the new book. Many mothers reported better relationships with their children, improved child attitudes to reading books (as seen in Fig. 9.12) and a wider vocabulary as a result of reading with their child. One mother said the presence of the book had been important to initiating reading. She had not initially taken much notice of the book, but it provided a stimulus to start reading with her son, with her own mother’s encouragement: My mother said to me that the book was there and I should use it, so I did. (Mohammad’s mother)

Mohammad’s enjoyment of his book is captured in Fig. 9.12. One mother noted that her son had not been looking forward to going to school but was now very keen to go. His book had changed his feelings about reading. His mother said he had been reluctant to sit and read with her and preferred to run around. The book which showed him as Jack, and his uncle as a giant, had proved interesting to him. Sitting with his mother and reading the book had brought them closer together and changed his feelings about reading. Another said she had noticed her child’s verbal expression improve with the practice offered by the book. She had been worried that she could sometimes not understand the child’s speech, but he was now speaking much better. The co-creation of multilingual books with children also opened opportunities for families. One mother said her child had been refused a place at a preschool until Fig. 9.12 Mohammad enjoys his book

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she spoke about the project and he was then admitted. Popular preschools were able to select children for enrolment, with a preference for children perceived to be successful. This child was living in a single parent family, and his mother struggled to provide for the family. Participation in the project reportedly changed the preschool staff perception of the child for the better, and he was given a place. As well as talking to families about the usage of the books, researchers asked children to read the book with us. In every case the children were keen to participate, as seen, for example, in Fig. 9.13, variously demonstrating familiarity with the texts by finishing sentences, pointing to words and images as the story progressed and having conversations about aspects of the texts. The child’s familiarity with, and ownership of, the book content allowed them to assume an authorial relationship to their book, reinforcing a sense of identity and pride. By the time of the final research visit, some participating children had gained places in the closest local school. Their teachers noted that compared with other children commencing school, the project children were noticeably more confident in their use of English language, more responsive to teacher’s requests and directions in English and better able to verbally engage with their peers. There was also evidence that involvement in the project imparted a sense of being valued, both to children and their families. The project activity provided the resource of the book, but the activity of visiting, talking, noticing and taking interest in their lives, as well as linking participant families across cultural and religious groups, imparted a sense of having significance as members of a community. Our final visit in Wavu formally concluded with a talanoa and sevu sevu at the residence of a participating family with a kava business. The talanoa participants noted that the project had brought local residents with preschool children into an intercultural community with shared problems of no local preschool, busy dangerous roads and limited spaces and a need for change. The group resolved to apply to the Ministry of Education to establish a local community-based preschool in the Methodist Church hall with the support of volunteer mothers. The preschool, depicted in Fig. 9.14, had commenced operation by the time of our final visit, with 17 children attending, including children who had not been involved in the project. The study’s activity in Wavu received positive feedback from individual families, but the actions going forwards demonstrated that participating parents had

Fig. 9.13  Children deeply engage with their books as they watch and read

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Fig. 9.14  The new preschool instigated in Wavu by project participant families

deepened the links between neighbourhood families with preschool children from both iTaukei and Indo-Fijian cultures. Taking the initiative to establish a community preschool reflected a level of community empowerment with the capacity to continue to develop sustainable opportunities and resources for their preschool children’s literacy development.

References Bowes, J., Grace, R., & Hayes, A. (2009). Contexts and consequences: Impacts on children, families and communities. In J.  Bowes & R.  Grace (Eds.), Children, families and communities: Contexts and consequences (3rd ed., pp.  3–21). South Melbourne, Australia: Oxford University Press. Korat, O., Bahar, E., & Snapir, M. (2003). Sociodramatic play as opportunity for literacy development: The teacher’s role. The Reading Teacher, 56(4), 386–393. Freebody, P., & Luke, A. (2003). Literacy as engaging with new forms of life: The 'Four Roles' model. In G. Bull & M. l. Anstey (Eds.), The Literacy Lexicon (2nd ed., pp. 54-61). Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson Education. Perry, K.  H., & Moses, A.  M. (2011). Television, language, and literacy practices in Sudanese refugee families: “I learned how to spell English on Channel 18”. Research in the Teaching of English, 45(3), 278–307. Schutz, A. J. (1972). Say it in Fijian: An entertaining introduction to the language of Fiji. Sydney, Australia: Pacific Publications.

Chapter 10

Fostering Children’s Multilingual Literacy in Home and Community Settings

Abstract  In this chapter, we provide a synthesis of what we learned from the three community CPAR case studies and the stakeholder interviews. This synthesis pulls together recurring themes common across these data sets as well as points of difference, in terms of the first three of our four research questions: (1) What are the literacy development contexts for preschool children in communities in Fiji that do not have access to preschools? (2) What are the enablers and constraints that impact on community capacity to support their preschool children’s literacy learning? and (3) What local resources and strategies can be used to foster preschool children’s literacy in their home languages and English, in communities in Fiji that do not have access to preschools? We close the chapter with our conclusions for these questions. These conclusions lead us into the final chapter where we provide a synthesis of findings for our fourth and final research question that focuses on strategies for developing community capacity.

Introduction At the point of encounter, there are neither utter ignoramuses nor perfect sages; there are only [people] who are attempting, together, to learn more than they now know (Freire, 1983, p. 79).

Authentically engaging with children’s languages, cultures and voices was central to developing strategies with families and communities that foster children’s literacy in their home languages and English in this study. Through this engagement, we all collectively learned with and from one another as we developed new insights into what it means to authentically and dialogically undertake this kind of work in children’s home and community worlds. In this chapter, we provide a synthesis of what we learned from the three community CPAR case studies and the stakeholder interviews. This synthesis pulls together recurring themes common across these data sets as well as points of difference, in terms of the first three of our four research questions. We synthesise findings for our fourth and final research question that focuses on strategies for developing community capacity in the following chapter, along with our overall conclusions about supporting community capacity development that is sustainable. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Harris et al., Children’s Multilingual Literacy, International Perspectives on Early Childhood Education and Development 31, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6587-8_10

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This chapter is organised as follows: –– What are the literacy development contexts for preschool children in communities in Fiji that do not have access to preschools? –– What are the enablers and constraints that impact on community capacity to support their preschool children’s literacy learning? –– What local resources and strategies can be used to foster preschool children’s literacy in their home languages and English, in communities in Fiji that do not have access to preschools?

 Q1: What Are the Literacy Development Contexts R for Preschool Children in Communities in Fiji That Do Not Have Access to Preschools? Understanding children’s literacy contexts was critical to informing our culturally sustaining approaches to children’s literacy and to communities’ capacity development (Freebody & Luke, 2003; Ladson-Billings, 1995; McCarty  & Lee, 2014; Rhodes, 2014). So doing aligned with and further supports Pacific’s key early childhood education and care strategies that are grounded in local cultures and languages (Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, 2009); contemporary approaches calling for holistic ways of knowing, doing, being and living together (Puamau, 2005); and education environments that reflect children’s lived experiences and their community and family settings (Puamau & Pene, 2008; Toganivalu, 2008). Table 10.1 provides an overview of our synthesis of findings for this question in relation to themes that emerged across the data. We explore these synthesised themes below.

Place of Home Languages (Vernaculars) in Community Lives Overwhelmingly, the evidence of our study confirmed the central place that vernacular languages and dialects occupy in iTaukei and Indo-Fijian community lives in both rural and urban settings. Vernaculars, dialectically interwoven with culture, were seen to be germane to iTaukei and Indo-Fijian groups’ respective cultural identities, relations, communication, participation, values, world views, knowledge and ways of knowing and doing. This finding is not surprising but significant none the less, strongly resonating with what we already understood to be complex linguistic contexts well documented in Pacific literature (Glasgow, 2010; Herrman, 2007; Hughes, 2004; Taufaga, 2007; Taufe’ulungaki, 2002; Thaman, 2009). The value of vernaculars was acknowledged across all stakeholders, as indeed it is in Fiji’s Na Noda Mataniciva and the Pacific frameworks we reviewed in Chap. 3 (Fiji Ministry of Education, 2009; Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, 2014; UNESCO, 2000).

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Table 10.1  Overview of findings for RQ1: What are the literacy development contexts for preschool children in communities in Fiji that do not have access to preschools? Stakeholders

Duavata

Dovubaravi

Wavu

Themes: Place of home languages (vernaculars) in community lives

Vernacular languages and dialects are central to familial relations and cultural identity. Linguistic and dialectic diversity is complex Vernacular languages and dialects imbue everything Place of vernaculars varies from everyday experiences to the religious to one’s cultural identity and belonging, now and into the future across communities and between urban and rural areas Used for adults’ literacy, and as Rarely used but Place of English Variable across lingua franca across language communities. seen to be very in community groups, and seen to be very important, with lives and its Children face important and promoted through children exposed relevance to highly variable to English mainly parents’ intentional instruction schooling language shifts when transitioning through US DVDs to (pre)school Occurs Occurs between Can be helpful but Rarely occurs Children’s between home and also can cause code-switching preschool/school different relational tensions and language settings and within and translanguaging between language groups in a between cultural practices culturally groups groups diverse community Children live rich, multimodal literacy lives, situated in Children’s Children literacy lives experience diverse their everyday realities. Written texts are scarce, as are literacy resources of any kind, particularly resources literacy lives, rendered in children’s vernaculars affordances and pathways. Their literacy lives can be devoid of print and other surface literacies and texts in their vernaculars Families showed commitment but were unsure about Family Family involvement needs their role and what to do. They were eager to learn involvement in to be strengthened, more. Older school-aged siblings influence their supporting their younger siblings who observe their older brothers’ and children’s literacy with support for literacy situated in sisters’ literacy practices such as their homework participation everyday lives learning Family outings provided Family outings Need to situate opportunity to be exposed to literacy learning in were mainly in iTaukei languages different languages everyday and dialects experiences, including outings (continued)

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Table 10.1 (continued) Household and community texts and technologies (in addition to spoken texts)

Stakeholders Paucity of literacy resources for children, especially in vernaculars ICT particularly present in urban areas, seeing the growing presence of English through ICT

Duavata Written texts were rare

Dovubaravi Written texts were rare. No written texts in home languages

Few televisions. Prevalence of US DVDs

Television, with English language children’s programming, some standard Hindi. DVDs from India

Mobile phones (not smart phones). Intermittent power

Mobile phones, including smart phones. Intermittent power.

Community signage and posters

Community signage and posters

Wavu Songs, Bible stories, prayers, hymns in iTaukei homes Alphabet charts and number wall charts in Indo-Fijian homes. Storybooks in two homes Television – American cartoons and Indian soap operas and smart phones Community signage and posters

Moreover, linguistic and dialectic diversity was found to be complex beyond the presence of different vernacular languages and many dialects. This diversity that we documented in and across the three communities resonated with stakeholder findings that noted that the place of vernaculars substantially varies across communities as well as between urban and rural areas. Clearly, the communities participating in our study were linguistically diverse over and beyond their dominant cultural labelling as iTaukei or Indo-Fijian. In the semi-rural iTaukei village of Duavata, people’s first and primary language was Bauan. Most Duavata adults and older children who had been to school also could speak English. However, home and community-based interactions in Duavata all occurred in Bauan and other iTaukei dialects; and all church-related interactions occurred in Bauan. Young children spoke Bauan, which was used for all interactions in the village. There existed strong connections between home languages and the languages of a community’s religious practices. The Methodist Church played a central role in the life of the Duavata community, with church services and activities conducted in Bauan. Some church materials, such as hymnals and songbooks, also included some English words, although we did not hear any singing in English when we attended services. Children were told stories in Bauan. In the rural Indo-Fijian community of Dovubaravi, Fiji-Hindi was the most common language spoken in households, although some households spoke Bauan, Lauan or Kiribati. Dovubaravi’s iTaukei families placed importance on children knowing the communalects of their home vanua, while Indo-Fijian families placed

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importance on children learning/knowing pre-girmitya heritage languages such as Tamil. In some Dovubaravi families with Fiji-Hindi as their home language, older members (whose forebears originated from Tamil Nadu) also spoke Tamil and actively encouraged children to learn Tamil. Families with North Indian forebears placed more emphasis on the learning of shudh (formal or pure) Hindi. The relationship between languages spoken in households and for religious participation was less clear-cut than in Duavata. Dovubaravi’s South Indian temple and religious texts were written in shudh Hindi (formal or pure Hindi) while home language was Fiji-­ Hindi, and schooling language equivalent was Modern Standard Hindi. Moreover, movement between languages was apparent during Hindu religious events, with some proceedings occurring in Fiji-Hindi and pandits or pujalis conducting other parts in shudh Hindi or Tamil, respectively. North Indian families were more likely to read and write shudh Hindi, but in these families shudh Hindi was still a second language to the home language of Fiji-Hindi – although these families’ Fiji-Hindi was more likely to contain more North Indian words than the Tamil words more likely to be heard in the Fiji-Hindi of families of South Indian descent. Even in iTaukei families, the Bible might be read or accessed in English or Bauan – however, Bauan was not necessarily the home language of families from the western side of Viti Levu, or islands of the broader archipelago of Fiji. In Dovubaravi, movement between languages was apparent during Hindu religious events with some parts of proceedings occurring in Fiji-Hindi but with pandits or pujalis conducting other parts in shudh Hindi or Tamil, respectively. Like Dovubaravi, in the culturally diverse community of Wavu, Fiji-Hindi was the primary language of Indo-Fijian households; and like Duavata, Bauan was the predominant home language of iTaukei households. As the language of formal schooling, western media content and government, English was also common in urban Wavu. iTaukei dialects and other Pacific languages were also spoken, including Kadavu, Rotuman, Tailevu and Tuvalu. iTaukei families in Wavu wished their children to know their home dialects as a means of maintaining vanua and family relations with now distant villages and families. For example, some families spoke Bauan outside home and Lauan at home; and one father made conscious efforts to speak Rotuman to his child because the child did not often visit her distant relatives. Wavu’s Indo-Fijian families were more fluent in English than Bauan, with both iTaukei and Indo-Fijian children using English as a preferred language with non-Indo-Fijians in their neighbourhood. In Wavu’s temple where Indo-Fijian families celebrated, languages followed a similar pattern to the temple in Dovubaravi, whereas the Methodist Church in Wavu conducted its services in Bauan, like the Methodist Church in Duavata. In the face of this linguistic diversity – which is part of Fiji’s ‘hidden linguistic diversity’ that we discussed in Chap. 2 (Mugler, 1996, p. 278) – it is not surprising that children confront highly variable language shifts when they transition to preschool and school, as noted and documented in our stakeholder interviews. As we saw in these interviews, the language shift involved in this transition could be relatively straightforward where there is a reasonable match between home and preschool/school languages or dialects, or it could be quite complex where there is a

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marked linguistic diversity – and, more particularly, dialect difference – between community and preschool. Such ‘hidden’ diversity is highly visible to the teachers, children and families who experience the linguistic challenges of transitions when they are complex. Amidst this linguistic diversity and complexity reflected in and across the study’s three communities, the most striking recurring theme was families’ desire to support children maintaining their home languages and provincial communalects. This was perceived as fundamental to children’s cultural identities, and relations within their extended families and broader cultural groups. Families also wished their children to learn English to prepare for school and, more generally, life in a world beyond family and community. This desire resonated with and was supported by Na Noda Mataniciva, wherein nurturing children’s first languages is an explicit priority, as we previously saw in Chap. 4. However, this same desire presented a complex issue that provoked a range of responses from the stakeholders we interviewed. Concerns over maintaining vernacular languages and dialects and the teaching of English language were expressed by all stakeholders. As we saw, stakeholders held a range of views from advocating action to counter the diminishment of vernacular languages to seeing that embracing English was both an imperative and an inevitability. Across this range of views, the relative place of vernaculars and English was seen to be bound with past, present and future lives and mobilities. All stakeholders recognised that vernacular languages support maintenance of heritage cultures and relations and agreed that the question of languages in Fiji is complex and presents a significant challenge to early childhood care and education in their nation.

 lace of English in Community Lives and Its Relevance P to Schooling The place of English in community lives varied considerably across communities, as noted by stakeholders when sharing their experiences and their observations of Fiji’s broader linguistic landscape. This variability was borne out in our community case studies. In Duavata, English was rarely used, even though families explained they wanted their young children to learn English for school. Their children’s primary exposure to English came through US Disney movies on DVDs. In Dovubaravi, while multiple languages were spoken within the community, English was the main language of reading and writing for the children’s parents, unlike Duavata. English was seen by all Dovubaravi community members as the language of education, business and work and communication with those from other language backgrounds. While English in Dovubaravi could serve as a bridge, some Indo-Fijian family members were as fluent, if not more fluent, in Bauan due

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to their schooling background. Thus Bauan often was used in Dovubaravi to address indigenous Fijian community members and people from outside the community. In Duavata, English was rarely spoken as everyone in the village spoke Bauan. The only times we heard English used in Duavata was when we saw children watching DVDs in English or if someone was speaking directly to us. Some church materials in Duavata included some English translations, but we did not hear English being used in church or community events. When we asked Duavata participants about iTaukei dialects, we were told people in the village mostly spoke Bauan; however, one family of our participating children (Jerry) moved out of Duavata to the other major island where Jerry’s mother came from. Jerry’s mother spoke a different dialect, but she and her family were living in a home with two other Duavata families, so Bauan was spoken mostly in that home when Jerry lived there. In Wavu, we found that English was mainly used outside the home as a crossover language when speaking with a person from a different culture, noting that Wavu’s Indo-Fijian families were more fluent in English than Bauan. No iTaukei participants in Wavu spoke Fijian-­Hindi; and Indo-Fijian families in Wavu spoke Fiji-Hindi at home, with some families teaching their children some Bauan words. Only one Wavu family usually used English at home and in public – the mother was Indo-Fijian and the father’s family was from Gujarat, India. The two participant brothers from this family had a number of English storybooks in the home, unlike the majority of participant families. English also was used for public written communication in the Wavu community and was seen as the language of schooling and, in some instances, used to instruct children and regulate their behaviour. All participating families across the three communities saw their home languages being important to fostering familial, social and cultural identities and relations, while English was valued for children’s success at school. For example, in Wavu, a Lauan family spoke Lauan and Bauan at home but wanted their children to go to an Indo-Fijian school, so they would use English rather than Bauan as a cross-over language with Indo-Fijian children at recess and lunch. As the language of Fiji’s government, education, media and communication, English in Fiji clearly has a powerful if not contentious presence in communities’ lives and the lives of their young children. English is connected to children’s school success and later life chances, as seen also in the literature where English is also linked with power and economic and social prosperity (Glasgow, 2010; Herrman, 2007; Taufaga, 2007). The drift to Fiji’s urban areas – as observed by stakeholders and ourselves in the study’s communities and statistically evidenced in Chap. 2 (FBOS, 2017)1  – has enhanced the profile of English. Given English in Fiji is most prevalent in urban areas, English clearly is increasing in its presence and its relevance for living and

 Fiji Bureau of Statistics (2017). Census 2017. http://www.statsfiji.gov.fj/census-2017/census2017-release-1. Retrieved 18 January 2018.

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being employed in urban areas – and elsewhere, too, such as Fiji’s tourism industry that is one of the nation’s economic mainstays (as noted in Chap. 2, FBOS, 2017).2 However, in the Pacific literature, English is a highly contentious issue. Whereas English is acknowledged as key to school success and later life chances, given schooling in Pacific nations such as Fiji is delivered in English, English is also seen to displace and overpower vernaculars. Yet vernaculars are seen by many to be the best medium for teaching and learning success (Herrman, 2007). Rather than adopt an either/or position on vernaculars and English, and recognising our communities’ desires to include both, we went about the collective business of creating multilingual resources that would promote children’s literacy in both their vernaculars and English. In so doing, we sought to redress hegemonic messages about English while sustaining multilingual spaces (Flores & García, 2013; Martínez-Roldán, 2015). We also acknowledged children’s code-switching and translanguaging practices, as we explore below.

Children’s Code-Switching and Translanguaging Practices Children’s code-switching and translanguaging emerged as realities that are none the less held in contention in the literature (Herrman, 2007; Glasgow, 2010; Tamata, 1996). On the one hand, these practices are seen by some to undermine vernacular competence; diminish cultural and linguistic identity; and cause relational tensions within and between cultural groups  – the latter being vividly described by some stakeholders in our interviews. On the other hand, these practices are seen to constitute valid means to scaffold multilingual children’s engagement and learning because they support children’s participation and communication in relaxed and natural ways. In our study’s communities of Dovubaravi and Wavu, where people from different language and cultural groups lived side by side, we often saw children readily code-switching (Tamata, 1996) and translanguaging (Gort, 2006) between their home languages and English across and within conversations – aligning their language choices to those with whom they were communicating, as also found in other studies (Bengochea et al., 2018; Kyratzis et al., 2009; Piker, 2013). In Dovubaravi, children would speak the language most common to the situation. For example, one family’s children would speak Bauan or Lauan at home but then would switch to Nadrogan when playing with neighbours’ children whose home language was Nadrogan. The children had learned this language through living alongside their neighbours. In Wavu, an iTaukei boy spoke English with his neighbour from Tuvalu because they both knew English, while a pair of Indo-Fijian brothers used Bauan language

 Fiji Bureau of Statistics (2017). Census 2017. http://www.statsfiji.gov.fj/census-2017/census2017-release-1. Retrieved 18 January 2018.

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with their iTaukei neighbours. Across the three communities, preschool children’s ability to understand and converse in English was influenced by their family context  – for example, the presence of school-aged siblings, parents’ education and whether the children had started kindergarten. Children were keen to demonstrate their English language skills where they saw it contextually appropriate, such as by singing action songs and playing number games. When Wavu neighbours were from different cultures, children used the language of their neighbours or English to communicate. One Indo-Fijian family in Wavu had no working television, and the child of this family would go to his iTaukei neighbour’s house to watch cartoons. In another instance, Indo-Fijian children used Bauan to ask their iTaukei neighbour if they could recover their ball from their yard. Children were able to aurally identify available spoken languages and select a cross-cultural language to suit their needs. However, code-switching and translanguaging were not prevalent in Duavata, where young children spoke Bauan that was used for all interactions in the village, such as interactions in homes and church services and for all community events. Children’s code-switching and translanguaging practices appeared to be at odds with advocacy in the literature that vernacular language should be learned first and foremost, with later attention been given to English (Herrman, 2007). As we saw in Chap. 3, this advocacy is based on the importance of first language for literacy and language development (Hughes, 2004; Low, 2007) and the contribution of a strong vernacular language to enabling competence in an additional language and additional language literacy (Cullen et al., 2009; Taufaga, 2007). Counter-argument has been made that translanguaging and code-switching should be viewed as strengths rather than weaknesses in one’s language practices, as also discussed in Chap. 3 (Herrman, 2007; Mugler & Lynch, 1996; Tamata, 1996). Such acknowledgement allows educators to leverage children’s existing practice to take a strengths-based approach to children’s language and literacy development and to value what is already and quite inevitably and naturally taking place. Children have been found to engage in translanguaging to expand their meaning-­ making and communicative capacities in their language and literacy encounters without being encouraged to do so – or despite being discouraged from doing so, such as when caregivers try to focus on separate languages (Axelrod & Cole, 2018; Bengochea et  al., 2018; Canagarajah, 2011; García & Wei, 2014; Garrity et al., 2015; Gort, 2006). What we directly observed in communities strongly confirms these empirically based findings from the translanguaging research. Compelled as we were to consider all the evidence at hand, we proceeded on the basis of acknowledging children’s lived realities and initiatives in this complex linguistic space  – as richly documented in our case study chapters and as we will discuss further when we reach our synthesis of findings on local resources and strategies for our third research question.

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Children’s Literacy Lives Multiple languages and ways of knowing across diverse settings provide myriad pathways of being and becoming literate. Therefore, our focus on developing community approaches for fostering children’s literacy required us to develop shared understanding amongst us all of what literacy is and what it looks like in each community setting. To do so, we worked with a socioculturally inclusive perspective literacy as social practice, as explained in Chap. 4 (Freebody & Luke, 2003; Harris et al., 2006). This perspective allowed us to: –– Document and understand literacy in children’s home and community worlds –– Acknowledge and build on children’s ways of being and doing literacy –– Embed community approaches in literacy experiences and interactions in children’s home and community languages and lives –– Respect and foreground children’s agency and identities in their own learning and literate lives –– Recognise text in its various modes, including written, spoken, visual and multimodal texts –– Comprehensively map literacy practices that distinguish literacy from other forms of social practice Within this frame, the realities we were privileged to see and engage with in children’s literacy lives endorse the research literature on children’s funds of literate knowledge they develop in their home and community settings (Gonzalez et  al., 2005); multiple pathways to being and becoming literate that come from culturally and linguistically diverse language and literacy practices (Jones Díaz & Harvey, 2007); and the place that a range of modes of expression and communication have in children’s literate lives (Brock & Harris, 2019; Kalantzis & Cope, 2012; New London Group, 1996). Whereas multimodalities often are thought of in terms of information, communication and entertainment technologies, here in these Fiji communities, and elsewhere too, the multimodal has long been in existence in traditional forms. Our study clearly evidenced that children live rich and sophisticated literacy lives in their homes and communities in Fiji, which we have encapsulated in Fig. 10.1. Children’s literacy has many uses and takes many forms, including a wide range of modes and media found across a vast array of situations, deeply imbued with purpose and meaning. Children’s literate lives are rich and diverse, with information, communication and entertainment technologies co-existing with songs, rhymes, mekes and traditional arts and crafts – all forming part of the rich fabric of children’s literate lives. In children’s literacy lives, children viewed themselves as readers and writers, as came to the fore when they engaged with us, particularly in the co-creation of their books. At no time did children say to us that they could not make these books – and at no time did families and communities express doubts in children’s capacity to do so. High expectations worthy of the children were key in our approach.

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Fig. 10.1  Children’s literacy practices

The children’s literacy development occurred within family cultures that were largely oral, and whose ways of knowing were therefore likely to be qualitatively different from those emerging from ‘read-write’ cultures. In Duavata, there were few written materials in the homes, although there were English alphabet charts on walls in homes and a few children’s books in English. Some of the church materials included some English translations, but the vast majority of church materials were in Bauan. A plethora of literate practices were evident through church-related activities, such as plays that the children witnessed adults perform, or plays they performed themselves. Children memorised Bible verses, sang songs at church  and engaged in Sunday school. All these literate activities were done in Bauan. In Dovubaravi, Fiji-Hindi is an oral language and the home language of all but one family participating in the study. Neither of the iTaukei heritage families in Dovubaravi explicitly discussed the use of Bauan in written form nor was there any visible Bauan writing in their homes. One of the Indo-Fijian mothers, however, expressed interest in learning to spell the Bauan she spoke. An Indo-Fijian grandmother of Telugu-speaking heritage could read and write Bauan. Some older members of the Dovubaravi community also read and wrote Tamil. Dovubaravi families and children were literate in multiple languages that, like Fiji-Hindi, were seen as fundamental to sustaining cultural and kinship ties. Hence, in addition to Fiji-Hindi, Tamil, the Bauan, Lauan, Nadrogan and Nadi dialects and Kiribati were spoken within particular families. Alongside the oral practice of these languages, English and shudh Hindi were read and written by some members of the community. Some adults in Dovubaravi, who had continued studying standard Hindi at school, particularly in families of North Indian descent, also valued and practised reading and writing in shudh Hindi in both Latin and Devanagari scripts.

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Wavu families and children also developed literacy in multiple languages derived from family members living in distant Fijian and Pacific locations, as well as the three official languages of the country  – Bauan, Fiji-Hindi and English. Home learning resources such as storybooks, colouring books and number and letter charts were all in English language, with the exception of Bible and religious hymn books which some families possessed in Lauan and another in Tuvalu. As with Duavata, Christian practices at church and Sunday school, singing hymns, Bible readings, prayers and Bible-based plays were expressed in Bauan language. Popular television shows were available in English as well as Bauan or Fiji-Hindi with English subtitles, exposing children to bilingual resources. Families could also access radio programs in the official language of their preference. Complex linguistic environments were a normal feature of children’s daily lives. Locating language and literacy in contexts of culture, a broad sense of communities, diversity and cultural sensibilities reflected in our community data is also inherent in Na Noda Mataniciva – providing the basis for encouraging children’s literacy learning in their first languages. In Na Noda Mataniciva, context of culture is clearly acknowledged. The need for cultural appropriateness is prioritised in this document, as is the preservation of children’s first languages and dialects and the recognition of various symbol systems germane to various cultures. NNM provides scope for educators to exercise their localised, informed judgment about how they culturally contextualise these practices for children with whom they work and know well – appropriately so, given the localised variations in children’s home and community settings that we documented in our study.

 amily Involvement in Supporting Their Children’s Literacy F Participation Learning Our focused engagement with families in their communities in our study resonates with the Pacific literature that advocates for education systems to recognise and build on mutuality and extended family/local language group relationships amongst Pacific peoples (Teasdale, 2005) and reflect Pacific children’s lived experiences, communities and family environments (Camaitoga, 2008; Puamau & Pene, 2008; Toganivalu, 2008). While we were not operating within an education system as such, there was a parallel with developing local capacity to provide community-­ based educational strategies for children’s literacy. Family involvement is well established in the literature from the Pacific and further afield for the affordances it provides multilingual children’s language and literacy development, as we considered in Chap. 3 (Au, 2000; Gregory et al., 2004; Kenner et  al., 2007; Kenner & Gregory, 2013; Tagoilelagi-Leota et  al., 2004). However, noteworthy in our study were families’ expressed concerns about their confidence and knowledge for providing support for their young literacy learners. Even though affordances for supporting children’s literacy were available in their

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households and out and about, parents and caregivers were not necessarily aware of these affordances or how to capitalise on them, as we now discuss below. In Duavata, families were creative in responding to literacy shortages such as pens and paper. For example, families improvised on writing surfaces, such as rubber gloves to write and draw on. Families had also procured a few books and alphabet charts produced outside the Pacific, making them less culturally relevant and sustaining. None the less, Duavata children and parents demonstrated a strong desire for children to practise and learn literacy. In enacting this desire in Duavata, families could be constrained by the sheer number of children under the care of any one parent or grandparent at a given time. Many parents worked long hours outside the home, sometimes both parents from the same household  – which meant that either the parent remaining home or grandparents were looking after a large number of children. Kuini, for example, who we saw making roti at the beginning of Chap. 4, lived with her cousin and their extended family, with their grandmother babysitting the children and doing household chores each day while the children’s parents went to work. However, it is what unintentionally happens in the often unnoticed everyday lives of children’s households that shaped opportunity for literacy participation and learning in hidden ways that we sought to make visible. Children, for example, based their play on what they noticed happening in their families – such as preparing meals, making roti and enacting their parents’ occupations such as being a soldier or a religious minister. The majority of children in Wavu lived with siblings and parents and sometimes a grandparent, or uncle or aunt and their family. Household membership was often mobile as families visited relatives elsewhere or hosted visitors arriving for health services or family events. These busy households provided multiple opportunities for children to listen to and engage in conversations. Children were often at home with more than one adult, and there were only two participating households where the child lived without siblings. Older siblings were especially important to their preschool sisters and brothers because they had experience of school and brought home books from school along with paper and pencils. The younger children watched, copied and mimicked the school children doing their homework. Many of Dovubaravi’s participating preschool children had opportunities to learn about writing from observing their older siblings’ or cousins’ participation in homework, and those attending kindergarten were sent homework such as drawing or colouring in. Most mothers said they supervised their kindergarten and school-­ aged children’s homework, implicitly communicating to younger children in their families the importance of these activities. Kindergarten and school-aged children also bring home English nursery rhymes, with kindergarten children in families that also had school-aged children having rich song repertoires. We observed some children, when drawing, adding writing to their pictures, such as their name or numbers. The symbols they drew reflected visual elements of their home and community environments, such as boats, cars, dogs, mountains, planes, toys, plants, shapes and religious symbols.

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Even before kindergarten, Dovubaravi’s participating children were spoken to by their mothers in English, at least occasionally, as preparation for the school environment. The mode of texts thus created focused on the transfer of English language knowledge to children. Much of this mode occurred orally. Within this instructional mode, text production occurred in English between children and parents as they work to prepare for formal education. Although Dovubaravi mothers told us that if the teacher happens to speak a child’s home language, then that child may sometimes be addressed in that language, all adult participants emphasised the importance of such preparation to their children’s transition to school and opportunities for academic success. Mothers focused on, and expressed concern about, school testing regimes, reporting that testing was increasingly included at the end of children’s kindergarten year and sometimes used to accept children into Class 1. Some children resisted such instruction, as we also found in Wavu. This was not found to be the case in Duavata, where speaking in English to young children was not very common. However, similar school-readiness-focused English interactions occurred in Wavu where children practised writing English letters, singing the ‘alphabet song’ and colouring in as well as following English words being read to them. Wavu’s iTaukei families used English phrases of instruction such as ‘stop that’ so children would understand directions from the teacher. Cartoons in English were also seen as a regular English exposure. Wavu’s Indo-Fijian families, in addition to watching cartoons in English, practised English writing and reading instruction with their children to ready them for school. Family interactions in day-to-day routines provided literacy development support in all three communities, making use of families’ local environment in various ways to foster children’s multilingual literacy. Routine household and garden tasks, such as picking and washing vegetables, cooking and gardening, working cane fields, maintaining fishing boats and tending goats, provided opportunities for children to help their elders, regularly using familiar words to name what they were doing and the objects (such as plants) with which they were in contact. Family involvement also included outings with the children, such as taking children to and from school, shopping, visiting relatives and participating in community events. These outings could involve cross-language interactions beyond the community’s language setting – therefore extending a child’s language world, especially when the community is characterised by one predominant vernacular usage, as were Duavata and, to only a slightly lesser extent, Dovubaravi. Wavu’s culturally diverse community opened up linguistic worlds to children within the community as well as beyond. It was not that Wavu’s two main cultural groups routinely socialised with one another, but their paths routinely crossed in the interactions and conversations that day-to-day neighbourhood living brings. Children regularly engaged in code-switching and translanguaging practices. Outings could provide preschool children with opportunities to listen to conversations in languages different from their home environment. However, in semirural Duavata, while outings to nearby semiurban and urban areas made possible experiences of listening to other language conversations, children were immersed in

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Bauan and other iTaukei dialects largely spoken in these areas. Clearly, multilingual children’s activities, like going shopping, going to church or temple and engaging in religious events, participating in community events and interacting with others around literacy artefacts and experiences in home languages, all contributed to children’s multilingual literacy development (Durán, 2018; Gillen & Hall, 2013; Kenner & Gregory, 2013; Reyes, 2012; Rowe, 2013). Household and Community Texts and Technologies Although there were rich oral texts of children’s lives, written texts were relatively scarce in all three communities. This scarcity was clearly reflected in the stakeholder interviews where a paucity of literacy resources for children, particularly resources in children’s vernaculars and cultures, was noted. Information, communication and entertainment technologies were more common than print-based written texts. In light of stakeholder interviews and conflicting views in the literature about the relative place and value of vernaculars and English (as previously discussed in this chapter and Chap. 3), these technologies in communities could be viewed as a window to the global world and a purveyor of English as a welcome guest or unwanted intruder. In Dovubaravi homes, calendars and the occasional wall poster in English or Devanagari script were the main written texts visible, with very few homes having children’s, or any, books. The majority of Dovubaravi’s participating children were from Indo-Fijian families however, speaking Fiji-Hindi as their home language. Within the temple setting, children used religious symbol systems, including hand gestures, face markings and offerings, to participate in Hindu puja rituals alongside their mothers and/or grandmothers. At home in Dovubaravi, many texts in which children engaged were in oral instructional and participatory forms, via day-to-day communication, as also found in Duavata. Children whose grandparents also told them stories in Fiji-Hindi enjoyed participating in the texts. In Wavu, texts included alphabet and number wall charts – involving the alphabet song and number and letter recognition. Storybook texts were present in two homes. Colour-in books were popular. In iTaukei families, participatory texts included songs, Bible stories, prayers and hymns. Duavata’s children memorised Bible verses, watched and engaged in dramatizations of parts of the Bible and performed mekes at community events. Read-write language and literacy experiences were less accessible to Dovubaravi children than oral ones. Researchers did not observe children have any opportunities to see or hear books read in their home language, be it Fiji-Hindi or Bauan. A few homes had books for children in English, but most did not. Where children’s books were present, they were largely kept out of reach of children and were handled and read to children by adults at specific times. In contrast, when home language books were made accessible to Wavu and Duavata families, literacy materials were shared. In Wavu, two families had dismantled a book to put pages on a wall for all to share and enjoy in iTaukei households, while in Dovubaravi researchers observed participating families allowing children unsupervised or play-based access to books.

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Across all communities, the range of literacy experiences with information, communication and entertainment technology was variable. A few Duavata families had radios and listened to local Bauan language radio stations that included songs and news. Some households in Duavata also had televisions, other households had computers with DVDs rather than televisions, and some families had neither. Some of Duavata’s participating families had DVD players and a selection of different US Disney movies in English, giving young children’s primary exposure to English. In Dovubaravi, many families had television. More religious families watched Hindi TV programming including movies and series that told stories of the gods. Dovubaravi children often were allowed to watch English language children’s programming such as cartoons and Australian Broadcasting Commission Children’s content. Most households had a television in Wavu, where neighbours would often gather around a popular weekday Indo-Fijian soap opera with English subtitles. Such practice, however, was not found to occur in Dovubaravi or be common in Duavata. Spoken standard Hindi was heard in some Wavu and Dovubaravi family homes via television shows and DVDs from India. These were popular soap operas often subtitled in English and sumptuous renditions of well-known tales of Hindu gods. While such dramatic texts had reinvigorated interest in stories of the gods, community members noticed it was eclipsing oral renditions of these stories provided by elders. Not all families, however, had access to television or videos. Nearly all Wavu children’s daily routines included watching an hour of American cartoons on television after school. We did not witness this in Duavata where there were few televisions. In Dovubaravi, after-school time included outdoor play and homework. We only saw television/DVD on during daytime in one Dovubaravi house regularly and in another Dovubaravi home when it was Rugby World Cup. Through conversation and television, most Wavu children were exposed to all three official languages of Fiji most days. A couple of Wavu families had computers that children used to watch DVDs. Only one Dovubaravi family had a computer – but most Dovubaravi families had DVD players because TV reception was, like the power and water, intermittent. This was also the case in Duavata. In addition, every Wavu family had a mobile phone which children used to watch downloaded content, apps and photographs. In Dovubaravi, while every family had a mobile phone, not all were smart phones. Some Duavata families had mobile phones, but we did not see any smart phones enabling families and children to watch downloaded content. Some Dovubaravi children used their parent’s phone to access content, learning apps and other online content. While multiple languages were spoken within the community of Dovubaravi, English was the main language of communication and of reading and writing for the children’s parents. English was seen by all community members as the language of education, business/work and communication with those from other language backgrounds. In addition to reading and writing in English, some adults who had continued studying standard Hindi at school, particularly in families of North Indian descent, also valued and practised reading and writing in shudh Hindi in both Latin and Devanagari scripts.

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A further source of transference and maintenance of cultural knowledge in Dovubaravi was the symbolic and ritual Hindu ‘texts’. Paintings and statues signified tales of gods. Rituals articulated and enacted spirituality, in which all generations of families and temple members engaged. For key pujas, symbolic dramatic and musical texts are also spoken, sung or dramatized in Tamil. Children in musician families actively participated in such performances.

 Q2: What Are the Enablers and Constraints That Impact R on Community Capacity to Support Their Preschool Children’s Literacy Learning? Examining communities’ enablers and constraints for developing their capacity to support young children’s literacy was critical if we were to collectively and adequately scope, support and mobilise self-determination as a key approach to action (Cass, 2007; Glasgow, 2010; Koya-Vaka’uta, 2011; Low, 2007; Taufaga, 2007). We have overviewed our synthesis of findings for enablers and constraints in Table 10.2.

Enablers Below we synthesise our findings on enablers according to the enabler themes shown in Table 10.2. Family Involvement Family involvement emerged as an enabler, for their commitment to and desire for supporting their children’s literacy and success at school were palpable. Parents strongly associated English with a successful start at school for their children. That said, stakeholders’ views that family involvement needed strengthening were borne out in our study’s communities where families expressed uncertainty about what exactly they could or should do. What support some families provided reflected a code-emphasis, rote-learning, English-focused approach, sometimes at the expense of child agency and aspects of meaning, purpose and critical reflection that also make up literacy (Freebody & Luke, 2003) – all highlighted by stakeholders and the literature as necessary to understanding and to fostering literacy as a holistic, socially situated and culturally embedded practice (e.g. Gee, 1992, 2004; González et al., 2005). Many Wavu and Duavata families acted to boost their children’s literacy by encouraging them to learn the letters of the alphabet from purchased English letter charts pinned to the wall in a prominent place. Some children could chant the

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Table 10.2  Overview of findings for RQ2: What are the enablers and constraints that impact on community capacity to support their preschool children’s literacy learning? Stakeholders Enabler themes: Family roles Family involvement in need to be supported and and desire to strengthened and support should embed children’s language and literacy support in everyday literacy experiences and learning children’s play Children’s resources and initiatives Community Engaging with structures traditional leadership and community elders is both a necessity and an enabler

Duavata

Wavu

Families are committed but are unsure about their role and what to do. They generally provide English instruction and support materials, most notably, alphabet charts. Their interactions with their children in shared everyday activities provide opportunities for language development and a basis to foster children’s literacy in home languages and English

Children have a rich range of linguistic and modal resources to draw on for their literacy participation and learning Traditional iTaukei leadership. Methodist community centre that provides the community’s gathering place Methodist Youth Group

Village layout amenable to interactions

Constraint themes: Material Work with what resources there is. Know that learning can occur anywhere at any time in a community, even under the shade of a tree

Dovubaravi

Community leaders

Self-activating

Temple and temple committee long distances between compounds Local, regional and internationally attended pujas

iTaukei and Indo-Fijian groups each having their own leadership structures and leaders Methodist Church and the temple, as well as soccer and rugby fixtures Narrow streets and proximity of houses that were conducive to interactions, plus shopping centres, buses and urban amenities

Print resources, such as books, paper, pens, pencils, crayons, paints and so on, for literacy are scarce. However, this scarcity was offset by the richness of the children’s physical, social and cultural environments and children’s engagement in a wide range of modally diverse literacies

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Table 10.2 (continued) Stakeholders Families’ work Impact of and other life changing commitments lifestyles and work patterns on parents’ availability to be with their children, talk with them and support their literacy learning Physical amenity

Duavata Dovubaravi Wavu Work commitments and transience saw uneven parental presence in homes where children were sometimes raised by grandparents. This situation was offset by extended family households or compounds. Families’ and community members’ mobility from one community to another, such as the rural to urban drift, was a constraining factor for continuity of community capacity, development and sustainability

Distance within the village was not an issue, but there were no roads and only footpaths within the village. There was no car ownership, and the nearest town of Lami was within walking distance, with Suva a 20 minute or so bus ride away

Physical distance was a significant issue in this large, geographically dispersed community with long distances between households and compounds

Narrow streets and busy traffic with few safe crossings for children posed a daily challenge that constrained day-to-day movement in and out of the community

alphabet song but did not appear to connect the letters of the song with the letters on the charts or the letter sounds. The alphabet chart illustrations typically depicted contents which were not familiar in Fiji, such as a queen for the letter Q, or a lion for the letter L. Another cultural variation is the absence of the letter N from the Bauan alphabet. Alphabet charts were not prominent in Dovubaravi homes, where oral teaching was more common (as we described in the previous section). Formal, structured writing activities were also perceived in Dovubaravi as a key to children’s English language literacy, with adults communicating to their children their expectations that they focus on learning at school. Adults largely viewed children’s reading and writing as English language activities requiring adults’ formal attention, explicit instruction and resourcing. Also, families wished their children to learn and understand their home languages – home languages being the source of families’ cultural and linguistic heritage and identity, and means for children relating to others in their extended family and cultural groups, as previously discussed. Parents and grandparents and other members of extended families were also available to engage in supporting young children’s literacy. Also, other community members were willing to be involved– such as Duavata’s Methodist Youth Group. This range of participation enabled an intergenerational approach to fostering children’s literacy.

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Children’s Resources As we directly witnessed and documented in the study’s three communities, young children have a range of linguistic and modal resources to draw on for promoting their literacy participation and learning. Whereas they tended to be disengaged by rote-learning, code-focused approaches, their disposition towards more meaningful, participatory approaches was to be borne out as we went about co-creating their books with them. Co-creation honoured children’s voice, agency and funds of knowledge (Gonzalez et al., 2005; Harris & Manatakis, 2013). Children bring to this work tremendous capacity and disposition to engage in literacy experiences when these experiences are grounded in their lives; value and respect the languages children speak; and engage children as active participants in their own learning. Children abundantly demonstrated their rich range of linguistic and modal resources to draw on for their literacy participation and learning, along with their observations, ideas and imagination and their play and engagement with other children and adults in everyday situations and outings. Children’s engagement in diverse literacies would afford rich opportunities for developing embedded strategies that foster children’s literacy in their home languages and English in their everyday settings. Community Structures Enablers also were provided by community structures, which could be used to grow and sustain community capacity – such as leadership, gathering places, community groups, physical layout of the residences and measures for harnessing resources and sustaining and possible expanding community practice. Stakeholders’ advice to engage with a community’s traditional leadership and elders was well heeded as both a necessity and an enabler. In Duavata, we engaged with the community’s traditional iTaukei leadership, the community chief. The community’s Methodist Church and the community centre next door provided the community’s gathering place – for the purposes of this study, enabling the community to meet to engage in dialogic encounters and progress the capacity building work of the study. For this work, Duavata’s Methodist Youth Group was identified and later proved to be a key support. Members of this group actively participated to co-create the multilingual books with children – at the same time, learning important skills for their own lives. The village’s layout was amenable to interactions between households, and amongst children on open grassy grounds in the village. Dovubaravi’s community leaders advocated strongly for equivalent participation and access to other local families during and beyond our study and thus helped to mobilise our study’s reach throughout the community. The temple provided a gathering place, including gathering for our dialogic encounters and progressing the study’s work. The temple committee was a key enabler in this work and provided a means for harnessing resources and sustainability. The committee’s support was

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critical, particularly as the Dovubaravi community is very spread out with long distances between compounds where houses were grouped close together. This committee proved to be instrumental in creating plans for providing a community library to sustain and expand the capacity developed in this study. Described as a self-activating community, Wavu’s iTaukei and Indo-Fijian groups each had their own leadership structures and leaders with whom to engage. Interestingly, the Wavu community’s cultural diversity was seen to provide both perceived constraints and enablers that impacted community capacity to support their preschool children’s literacy learning. More specifically, Wavu’s suburban setting in a metropolitan city, accommodating immigrant residents from all over the nation and other Pacific countries, constrained the emergence of any singular community leadership. Whereas iTaukei and Indo-Fijian communities were led by chiefs and temple leaders, respectively, Wavu’s communities tended to cluster around religious groupings. This diversity and absence of a unifying leadership made it difficult for residents to instigate community-wide actions to benefit the whole community. Wavu’s Methodist Church and the Hindu temple provided each group with their respective gathering place. Whereas the church was identified as the gathering place for our study, meetings actually occurred most often with families in their households. Wavu’s narrow streets and proximity of houses were conducive to interactions amongst families and children – including for the purposes of our study. None the less, the church was enabling as it provided a building to house a community preschool to sustain and expand community capacity after the study concluded, while the preschool sought official status and government funding.

Constraints Below we synthesise our findings on constraints for each constraint theme shown in Table 10.2. Material Resources As clearly borne out in the literature and across stakeholder interviews and our own direct observations in the three communities, there was a paucity of print resources, such as books, paper, pens, pencils, crayons, paints and so on. What few literacy resources there were for children mainly comprised English text and westernised views of the world – thereby highlighting the need for culturally sustaining materials to be developed. This need resonates with the broader Pacific experience of resources for maintaining children’s vernaculars and fostering their multilingual literacy being poor in terms of quality and quantity (Hughes, 2004; Lelemia, 1996; Taufaga, 2007). Calls to create and use resources more effectively have therefore

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arisen (Glasgow, 2010; Hodges, 2007; Low, 2007; Spencer, 1996), as we discussed in Chap. 3. That said, the scarcity of resources, let alone culturally sustaining resources, was offset by the richness of the children’s physical, social and cultural environments, and children’s engagement in a wide range of modally diverse literacies. Thus it was important to offset what could be construed as a defining constraint with the recognition of these rich resources and their potential for harnessing these resources to develop and equip local strategies for fostering children’s literacy. A more significant constraint was that the books and workbooks that were available were westernised, monolingual English imports that did not always engage children and therefore were not conducive to their learning. All communities wished to redress the scarcity of books and sought materials that included their languages and cultures. This desire strongly resonated with our stakeholders’ interviews, wherein concerns recurred across the interviews about the prevalence of imported, western, monolingual English materials and programs that fragmented literacy, and were not culturally sustaining or appropriate for young children. These imports sharply contrasted with the rich resources that this study found to be readily available in local communities, but which may not be immediately thought of as literacy resources. A strong view expressed by all stakeholders was the need for Fiji to draw on and develop their own resources that would optimize relevance, meaningfulness and engagement for Fiji’s young children and should be multilingual in incorporating vernacular languages as well as English. Families’ Work and Other Life Commitments While families’ work and other life commitments did not emerge in the literature we reviewed, this was a compelling factor with which we needed to work. Women account for 37.4% of Fiji’s labour force, which is construed as still ‘a significant gender differential in labour force participation rates’ (FBOS 2017).2 However, work patterns not only pertained to women’s own employment but also to men’s employment away from home, as stakeholders described in Chap. 6. While traditionally child-rearing is seen to be women’s business in Fiji, women were sometimes pulled away from home to assist their husbands’ work – such as selling the produce in town that their husbands had farmed on rural land where they lived. Many adults worked long hours during the day. Adults who stayed home with the children included grandparents who engaged in household chores throughout the day and parents who may stay home to babysit their children and neighbours’ or relatives’ children while other parents (in the same house or neighbours’ houses) worked outside the home. Because there were often many children to one adult, the adults did not have much time to work with their children on literacy-related activities. Transience and mobility of families could also constrain or at least change the dynamic and continuity of community capacity.

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Physical Amenity Physical amenity also emerged as a problem when there was limited space where children, families and communities could gather to share resources and talk about ways of supporting their children’s literacy and engage in activities to build their capacity to support their children’s literacy. This problem was exacerbated by long distances between households in the large, geographically dispersed community of Dovubaravi. On the other hand, the narrow and busy streets of Wavu also posed challenges for children to access preschools in surrounding areas. Children were exposed to high volumes of traffic on main streets with few safe crossings. Places for children could be hard to find in full preschools, and parents had to find time to walk with their children to and from the site. The cultural diversity of the neighbourhood inhibited community opportunities to find a community space which was ‘owned’ by all groups. For example, Indo-Fijians did not attend the Christian churches where iTaukei families gathered and iTaukei families were not comfortable attending the Hindu temple which was the gathering place for Indo-Fijians. Physical distance to school amenities was an issue in Dovubaravi and Wavu, but not in Duavata, which was within walking distance to a township. There were no roads within the village itself – only footpaths. We were not aware of anyone in the village who owned a car.

 Q3: What Local Resources and Strategies Can Be Used R to Foster Preschool Children’s Literacy in Their Home Languages and English, in Communities in Fiji That Do Not Have Access to Preschools? Below, we discuss our findings’ synthesis in terms of the four themes shown in Table 10.3.

 o-creating Multilingual Books in Children’s Vernaculars C and English This study provided children with books written with the children, by the children, in the children’s words, languages and worlds. Choosing this strategy was informed by our findings in relation to our first two research questions above  – that is, an understanding of each community’s and family’s language and literacy practices, values and aspirations, and enablers and constraints in each context. In our community dialogic encounters, it became clear that families desired to have books for their children and to have these books written in English as well as their home

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Table 10.3  Overview of findings for RQ3: What local resources and strategies can be used to foster preschool children’s literacy in their home languages and English, in communities in Fiji that do not have access to preschools? Themes Co-creating multilingual books and other materials (e.g. alphabet charts) in children’s vernaculars and English Engaging with children to support their literate encounters with books in children’s vernaculars and English Mobilising children’s participation

Making children’s literacy participation and learning visible

Stakeholders

Duavata

Need to honour vernaculars and English

Co-creating multilingual books and other materials with children and their families, supported by community leadership, our community mentors and other community members Making these books available to the child’s wider community

Strengthening families’ roles in supporting their children’s literacy

Using the processes of co-creating the books to make literacy processes visible to families and demonstrating strategies with families for engaging with children around these books

Need to go beyond rote learning to develop children’s deeper literate understanding and capabilities

The co-creation of children’s multilingual books invited children to draw on all their linguistic and modal resources. These activities drew on children’s meaning-making resources to initiate ideas, develop content and express meaning through dramatic play, construction play, image, talk and written words. Activities also incorporated children’s multiple languages and dialects Gauging children’s literacy participation and learning in our study by benchmarking against Na Noda Mataniciva’s ‘Becoming a reader’ and ‘Becoming a writer’ outcomes (see Chap. 5)

Using Na Noda Mataniciva’s Language, Literacy and Communication and C’s outcomes

Dovubaravi

Wavu

languages. It also became clear that children could be disengaged with rote-learning exercises and books that did not reflect their interests, cultures and languages. Through this strategy of co-creating multilingual books with children, our study provided participating children for the first time with access to multilingual books co-created with them in and about their life worlds, using their home languages and English. These bookmaking practices were framed by principles of culturally sustaining pedagogy, as discussed in Chap. 3 (McCarty & Lee, 2014), transported from formal educational settings and recast in Fiji’s home and community places. Creating these books thus built on children’s and their families’ and communities’ resources, including children’s languages, environments, activities, ideas, observations and imagination. This work also built upon oral storytelling traditions in the children’s communities, significant to Fiji cultures (and the Pacific more broadly) and to laying foundations for children’s literacy participation and learning (Disbray, 2008;

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Hohepa & McNaughton, 2007). This collective work was framed by sociocultural understandings of language, literacy and learning that we explained in Chap. 4, whereby we acknowledged, built on and further nurtured and diversified children’s resources and, as importantly, recognised that the children in our study were embedded within a collectivist culture in each community setting. In this work, children were positioned as capable writers and readers – as competent literate people. We thereby affirmed children’s literate and cultural identities in the languages germane to their lives (see also Wagner, 2018). Fostering children’s identities augments children’s sense of belonging in their worlds  – of which we were in no doubt as children took the helm and guided us through the worlds they inhabited and the lives they lived there. At the same time, this work contributed to building bridges to school in relation to English and literacy expectations there. These multilingual books afforded benefits that have been found elsewhere (Naqvi & Pfitscher, 2011). The difference between this body of research and ours, however, is that these multilingual books were made with and by the children, rather than being created by others for the children. This was a difference borne of necessity perhaps, but we could have bypassed the children and simply engaged with the community mentors to create the stories. However, if we had done that, we would have missed out in the children’s wonderful ideas and imaginings – and we would not have optimised children’s engagement and cultural relevance through creating the books. Co-creating these books honoured and promoted children’s cultural and linguistic/literate identities and encouraged their literate participation and learning in both home languages and English. Being inclusive of these languages aligned with calls to maintain Pacific vernaculars and advance English learning opportunities to support children’s home/preschool/school transitions and participation in local and global realities – as we discussed in Chap. 3. We also provided opportunity to raise children’s metalinguistic awareness of their languages as they engaged with the different translations of their words on the pages of their books, such as illustrated in Fig. 10.2 (see also Sneddon, 2000). Extending Moll’s notion of the bilingual zone of proximal development (Moll, 2014, after Vygotsky, 1978), we engaged with children in their multimodal, multilingual zones created by giving children scope to call on their linguistic and modal resources as they co-created their books and other materials such as alphabet charts in their own languages and images. So it was that they engaged in dramatic play (enacting their texts and re-enacting traditional tales that were photographed for their books’ images), construction play (making props for their enactments), talk, drawing, photographing and the written word to create their books – supported well by the synergies amongst the modes the children chose. This outcome extends the work of Bengochea et al. (2018) by showing how children’s play and creating multilingual texts can be intentionally brought together in a co-constructed space of literacy participation and learning. Critical to creating this zone were the community mentors and other community members who knew or developed rapport with the children and provided intercultural mediation and language translations during the interactions that supported the co-creation of the books and in the translations of the written texts that resulted.

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Fig. 10.2  An example of a page from the children’s multilingual books

 ngaging with Children to Support Their Literate Encounters E with Books in Children’s Vernaculars and English What is written so can be read and makes visible the processes of both. It has been said that literate identities influence how children transact with texts (Alvermann, 2001; Hall, 2012; Rogers & Elias, 2012) – most notably for this study, multilingual children understanding reading in relation to their languages (Kabuto, 2010). Affirming children’s literate identities in this space clearly encouraged their participation as both readers and writers and the learning that came from their engagement.

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Mobilising Children’s Participation In the strategies we developed, we called on all of the children’s resources, not just those predetermined by adults. We left choices about content and process open to children, lending our assistance and guidance and that of the children’s families and our community mentors and other community members who became involved (such as Duavata’s Methodist Youth Group). In so doing, we honoured children’s right to have voice and help shape the encounters and their outcomes that would impact their lives (United Nations, 1989).

Making Children’s Literacy Participation and Learning Visible Making not only the processes above visible, but also the learning outcomes that children achieved in consequence of being involved in these processes, was critical to family, community and stakeholder engagement. By inviting the children to use all their linguistic, modal and environmental resources to create their books with us, we sought to create bilingual zones of proximal development (Moll, 2014) for the children, as previously discussed. In these zones we created with each child, children’s literacy and language capabilities and capacities were both revealed and nurtured – their voices at the heart of it all. Co-creating these books affords opportunities to: –– Foster children’s content development by showing how children’s languages inform and differ from one another –– Nurture children’s linguistic development by allowing knowledge and skills in one language to support usage in another language –– Promote sociocultural identity, relations and integration by building on what children understand and how they communicate in different settings (after Poniter & Gort, 2016) At the same time, we made efforts to restore some power balance between vernaculars and English by prioritising home languages, and foregrounding these languages on the pages in children’s books – thereby working to redress hegemonic effects of dominant languages (Flores & García, 2013; Martínez-Roldán, 2015). It was not surprising, then, that in these bilingual zones of proximal development, the young children’s literacy grew in consequence of the strategies we implemented with children and their families – as we now explore below.

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 enchmarking Children’s Literacy Engagement Against B Outcomes and Suggested Indicators for ‘Language, Literacy and Communication’ in Na Noda Mataniciva Learning stories were developed that evidenced the children’s literacy engagement and learning in these bookmaking encounters (as explained in Chap. 5). These learning stories provided a recognised means for documenting, analysing and interpreting individual children’s literacy learning and engagement. In these learning stories, we document the children making and talking about meaning; creating and using texts for real-life purposes; critically reflecting on texts; and cracking the codes of, and transferring codes into, texts. We benchmarked the literacy engagement and learning evidenced in these learning stories against the literacy outcomes in Na Noda Mataniciva, Fiji’s national kindergarten curriculum guidelines, as we described in Chap. 5. This benchmarking reveals that children’s multilingual literacy developed to a standard not only concomitant with but indeed exceeding these outcomes. As explained earlier in our book, ‘Language, Literacy and Communication’ is one of the six Foundation Areas of Learning and Development (FALD) in Na Noda Mataniciva (hereafter NNM). The main outcome for Language, Literacy and Communication is that ‘children become effective communicators in their first language and develop the foundations for literacy’ (p. 40). These FALD are divided into a ‘Speaking & Listening Strand’ and a ‘Reading & Writing Strand’ – the latter strand forms the focus of this benchmarking exercise for children’s literacy. The outcome for the Reading & Writing Strand is that ‘children recognise that print conveys meaning and begin to use writing materials with purpose’ (p. 41). More specific outcomes for ‘Becoming a reader’ and ‘Becoming a writer’ are shown in Fig. 10.3.  enchmarking the Children’s Engagement as Readers Against Na Noda B Mataniciva’s ‘Becoming a Reader’ Outcomes Drawing on the data and literacy accounts presented in the three community case study chapters, we present children’s literacy engagement as readers in terms of Na Noda Mataniciva’s outcomes that we have highlighted in italics: –– The children’s identity as being and becoming readers – including children seeing themselves as readers  – clearly was fostered in the experiences this study afforded. –– The children showed enjoyment of books and stories and hearing them read aloud and actively engaged in their creation and interpretation. –– Children’s increased participation as meaning-makers and purposeful users of texts became apparent over the course of this study, as evidenced by their comments and questions, as well as telling, re-telling and acting out stories and

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By 3 years: Enjoying books and stories being read aloud; Pretending to read; Recognising basic features of a book; Answering simple questions about a story; Talking about drawings and paintings when asked. Then: Participating more in stories through comments and questions. By end of Kindergarten: Telling, re-telling and acting out stories and giving stories sequence; Participating in stories; asking/answering questions, making comments, predicting what comes next; Using books for enjoyment and information; Recognising common print signs and labels in the environment; Be interested in words, letters, sounds; Identify some letters and make some letter/sound matches; Dictate stories for adults to write down, and join in reading these. Becoming a Writer

By 3 years: Communicating their ideas and thinking through scribbling; drawing and painting, observing adults and others writing and trying to copy and join in; pretending to write and scribble. Then: Pretending to write, using some letter-like shapes; writing some letters in their names, especially the first letter, which may be reversed; talking about writing and drawing being different. By end of Kindergarten: Using pretend writing in play activities such as writing signs for block play or writing a shopping list for pretend play; write some recognisable letters, although these may not be formed correctly, and may be reversed; telling stories or giving information for an adult to write down, and attempting to copy some of the writing; using some letters to represent sounds; trying to write their own stories with help; writing their first name.

Fig. 10.3  ‘Becoming a reader’ and ‘Becoming a writer’ outcomes from Na Noda Mataniciva

g­ iving stories sequence. Across the study’s three communities, children’s pretend play provided a means for children developing their ideas for their stories and for creating photographed images for their books. –– As children’s participation as readers grew, they asked and answered questions, made comments and predicted what came next in a text. –– Children’s participation with texts extended to engaging with the language of a book, as seen in their dramatic re-enactments. –– In their participation in the language of texts, the children clearly showed interest in words, letters and sounds. It is important to note here that this engagement with words, letters and sounds was in context where such engagement made sense.

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 enchmarking the Children’s Engagement as Readers Against Na Noda B Mataniciva’s ‘Becoming a Writer’ Outcomes In terms of being and becoming writers, and again drawing on the data accounts in the case study chapters, children engaged as writers in the following ways: –– The children realised their identities as writers in their engagement with book production. –– As the children participated as writers in these ways, they communicated their ideas and thinking through scribbling, drawing and painting and tried to write their own stories with help. Their participation  clearly related also to the ‘Representations’ sub-strand of the ‘Representing and Symbolic Thinking’ strand in Na Noda Mataniciva (p. 34), in terms of outcomes, ‘Name their scribbles, drawings and constructions when asked’, and ‘Begin to express their ideas in a variety of ways such as painting, drawing, dancing, modelling, construction’ – often using multiple modes for their symbolic representation. –– As children enacted their identities of being and becoming writers, children engaged in telling stories and giving information for an adult to write down and attempted to copy some of the writing, observing adults and others writing and trying to copy and join in. –– The stories children created were deeply, personally significant to them. –– Permeating all this literacy engagement as readers and writers was the children’s deep, meaningful listening to, understanding of and responding to non-verbal and verbal communication. –– Children’s engagement as readers and writers in creating their books and reading one another’s saw the children engage intently, often for prolonged periods of time.

Conclusions from the Benchmarking Findings In direct consequence of co-creating these multilingual picture books with children and families, and the approach we took to this work, children in the project’s communities were for the first time given access to multilingual books written in and about their life worlds, using their home languages and English. Also in consequence of this work, an important shift was made from privileging imported, monolingual English, literacy materials, to valuing and making available materials that are inclusive of children’s and their communities’ social, cultural and linguistic norms, practices and values. In so doing, this work aligned with Na Noda Mataniciva’s recognition of children’s diverse linguistic and cultural contexts, with these children’s literacy having its roots in the languages of their homes and communities – acknowledging that literacy ‘involves understanding and using the symbol systems of a culture’ (Na Noda Mataniciva, p. 40).

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Mobilising children’s voice, agency and participation to redress the absence of multilingual books in children’s lives, in the literacy activities of this study, was highly conducive to children’s engagement and learning as readers and writers. In consequence of this work, all children engaged and developed as readers and writers who, after Freebody and Luke (2003): –– Made and talked about meaning as text participants, supported by dialogue with children in which adults noticed, observed, prompted, scaffolded and responded to children’s thinking and development of their ideas for their books, and their interpretation and discussion of their own and other children’s completed books. –– Created and used texts for real-life purposes as text users, informed by knowing what texts and genres were germane to children’s lives and the functions these texts served for children and their families. Children created books for various purposes such as providing narrative entertainment, re-telling stories or presenting personal recounts and did so with a sense of audience as they realised their purposes for having their spoken languages written down. –– Critically reflected on texts as text analysts, in which children made life-to-text and text-to-life connections. In so doing, they expressed opinions, developed and projected their perspectives and experiences and reflected on their present and future lives. Children made connections to new learning – such as connecting objects and experiences in their worlds with how they can be symbolically represented in texts written down and drawn. Children also learned how as authors they could construct their worlds and reflect on a text’s relevance to themselves and others. –– Cracked the codes of texts as text decoders, and transferred codes into texts as text encoders, supported by the development of children’s personalised word banks, dictionaries, and alphabet charts; song charts and books; and labelled scrapbooks of images and artefacts in children’s lives. This work fostered children’s understandings of spoken/written word relationships, vocabulary and phonemic awareness, based on children’s experiences and words in their home languages and English. These understandings were constructed by and with children and fed into and grew out of the books they made. These findings from the benchmarking exercise clearly demonstrate that children’s literacy grew in consequence of the strategies we implemented with the 51 children and their families. Through these strategies, the study provided participating children for the first time with access to multilingual books co-created with them in and about their life worlds, using their home languages and English and, as importantly, provided families and communities with the means for using strategies that foster children’s reading and writing capabilities in the context of children making and reading and talking about these books. Finally, in allowing the work we did with the children to be shaped by and be relevant to children’s enactment of their identities as literate people, children’s understandings of themselves as readers and writers – as literate people – came to

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the fore and were further fostered. This identity work extended to the children’s families and communities and the affirmation of their languages and cultures they expressed as an outcome of participating in this study. This outcome contributed in no small way to the capacity we as a collective developed in the three communities. It is to a consideration of effective strategies for developing this capacity that we now turn in the next chapter.

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Chapter 11

On Effective Community Capacity Development and Sustainability

Abstract  This chapter provides a synthesis of findings on strategies for developing community capacity. More specifically, in this chapter we discuss eight key strategies and their underlying principles that address our final research question about effective strategies for developing local capacity to foster preschool children’s literacy in their home languages and English. We then present our final conclusions for our central research question about how communities in Fiji that do not have access to early childhood services can be supported to build sustainable local capacity to foster their preschool children’s literacy in their home languages and English. We include an account of the capacity that was developed in the study, and the impact and benefit that grew from this capacity.

Introduction No-one can build another’s capacity (Morgan, 2006), and the “holder” of capacity is always in charge of their own changes – their capacity journey or pathway – despite others’ perceptions that they, personally, are bringing about change. Changes in capacity are largely driven from within. (Rhodes, 2014, p. 7)

The process of effectively developing local community capacity is a dialogic process of collective self-determination. In the Pacific context, calls for Pacific people’s determination of their educational and linguistic futures have been framed by the enactment of human rights, including people’s participatory rights to determine educational goals impacting them – as we discussed in Chap. 2. We reiterate four key messages from our work. First, it is imperative to realign local and global realities by integrating Pacific ways of knowing, values and beliefs into curriculum and pedagogy and creating opportunities to showcase Pacific knowledge and literacies (Cass, 2007; Taufaga, 2007). Second, we must remember the past, reclaim future destinies and reconstruct Pacific identities, including the Pacific child in all the myriad and diverse manifestations that make up Pacific children and childhoods (Cass, 2007; Koya-Vaka’uta, 2011; Low, 2007). Third, Pacific education must be reconceptualised in new and culturally appropriate ways, blending the best of global and © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Harris et al., Children’s Multilingual Literacy, International Perspectives on Early Childhood Education and Development 31, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6587-8_11

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local practices and appreciating the impact of language use and additional language learning on enriching and expanding an individual’s meaning-making and relationship to the world (Low, 2007). Fourth, curriculum frameworks must protect and promote vernacular languages, such as Glasgow (2010) advocated when protecting Cook Islands Māori language. Vernacular languages may be protected and promoted by scoping self-determined curriculum in terms of content, resources and assessment, including ‘styles, conditions and contexts of teaching and learning appropriate to the culture. Such scoping is evidenced in Pacific Nations’ early childhood curriculum frameworks including Fiji’s Na Noda Mataniciva (Fiji Ministry of Education, 2009). These imperatives were all germane to our study in terms of what we attended to regarding children’s literacy development contexts in their sociocultural, linguistic and historic settings and community enablers and constraints; the resources and strategies we collectively developed for fostering children’s literacy in their home languages and English; the strategies we used to develop community capacity with communities; and the principles underpinning these strategies. Whilst we have discussed our synthesis of findings in relation to the above points on contexts and resources/strategies in the previous chapter, in this chapter we synthesise our findings for the last point on strategies we used to develop community capacity. More specifically, we structure the remainder of this chapter in three major sections. In the section that immediately follows, we discuss eight key strategies and their underlying principles that address our fourth and final research question: What strategies are effective in developing local capacity to foster preschool children’s literacy in their home languages and English? Then, we present our final conclusions for the central research question: How can communities in Fiji that do not have access to early childhood services be supported to build sustainable local capacity to foster their preschool children’s literacy in their home languages and English? Here we include an account of the capacity that was developed and the impact and benefit that grew. Finally, we conclude this chapter and our book.

 ur Fourth Research Question: What Strategies Are Effective O in Developing Local Capacity to Foster Preschool Children’s Literacy in Their Home Languages and English? For some years, capacity has been thought of in terms of empowerment, collective ability, a state of potential and creation of value for the greater common good (Baser & Morgan, 2008, cited in Rhodes, 2014). These aspects of capacity clearly resonate with our study, where communities were empowered to harness their collective ability through our participatory, dialogic approach and methods. Through this empowerment, communities further realised their potential to support their children’s multilingual literacy  – thereby creating value for children’s and communities’

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greater good and indeed that of the nation and region insofar as this study could be taken to inform key policy priorities and directions. More recently, capacity has been conceived in terms of specific capabilities, such as capabilities to commit, engage and self-organise; carry out particular tasks; relate; access and attract resources; adapt and self-renew; and balance diversity with coherence of approach (Rhodes, 2014). Each of these aforementioned capabilities was germane to our study. For example, we found participants’ capability to commit to be critical, as was the support we provided through committed community mentors, research partners and ourselves as researchers  – commitment, after all, is a two-way street. Capability to engage and self-organise was likewise important. Drawing on this capability was nothing if not an exercise in cross-cultural competences as we learned to harness and enrich this capability through culturally appropriate protocols. Otherwise our efforts were doomed to fail, as we were to discover. The tasks that were involved in building and enacting capacity were identified and developed through collaborative dialogue combining action and reflection. This dialogue created the relational context in which capability to relate to one another was further developed in us all. In each community’s relational context, we were mindful of the community’s cultural protocols – such as vanua in the context of relating to community leaders and chiefs in indigenous Fijian settings and kinship relations and structures in Indo-Fijian settings. Balancing diversity with coherence of approach was a key feature of our study. We took a systematically principled approach to action that was nuanced to the particular community and household contexts wherein we engaged in this collective. Capabilities to access and attract resources and to adapt and self-renew proved more challenging, as we later explore in this chapter. As we further reflect on what proved effective for developing local capacity in our study, eight key strategies and their underlying principles emerged. These principles are showcased in Table 11.1 and further discussed below.

 ffective Community Capacity Development Is Socioculturally, E Linguistically and Historically Grounded As we engaged in our collaborative work, we found that developing community capacity to foster young children’s literacy must (a) be situated in children’s lifeworlds; (b) use the ways children name their worlds, with their voices, images, words, languages; and (c) involve the co-creation of multilingual texts that honour and carry on the cultural identities of children’s lives, present and future. Doing so accords with sociocultural theory and research on language, literacy and learning, such as that we presented in Chap. 3 (e.g. Freebody & Luke, 2003; González et al., 2005; Gort, 2006; Halliday & Hasan, 1985; Jones Díaz & Harvey, 2007; Kalantzis & Cope, 2012; Moll, 2014).

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Table 11.1  Strategies and their underlying principles for effectively developing community capacity to foster their children’s literacy on their home languages and English Principle Effective community capacity development is socioculturally, linguistically and historically grounded

Strategy Applying sociocultural understandings of language, literacy and learning to understanding and documenting children’s literacy development contexts in their homes and communities Deploying a strengths-based, critical participatory Effective community capacity development centres on a community’s approach to reflection and action (e.g. critical participatory action research) collective empowerment and participation Developing and implementing a strategic Effective community capacity communication, engagement and dissemination plan, development documents and makes fit for purpose, audience and scope and reach of benefit and impact visible to those distribution within and outside the community Engaging with key stakeholders, policies, priorities and Effective community capacity frameworks of the nation (Fiji) and its broader regional development is informed by and further informs related research, policy context (Pacific Islands) and using extant research situated in the project’s context to inform the work and practice Engaging in authentic dialogic encounters Effective community capacity development involves dialogic engagement with communities Engendering respect, reciprocity, trust, love, faith, Effective community capacity hope, optimism and humility development creates conducive relational contexts Deploying culturally sustaining approaches Effective community capacity development responds and is relevant to a community’s sociocultural, linguistic and historic context(s) Documenting and incorporating a community’s Effective community capacity relevant enablers and constraints development takes stock of a community’s pragmatic realities germane to the focus at hand

The frameworks presented in Chap. 3 provided the study with tools for holistically and comprehensively mapping language and literacy practices and competences across diverse contexts, situations, languages, texts and modes. It was important to recognise the many cultural guises that children’s literacy competence and voices take, ensuring the strategies collectively developed to foster children’s multilingual literacy acknowledged and built on their resources, and were entrenched in their lifeworlds (González et al., 2005). The study’s conceptual framework provided a clear guide for researchers’ collective actions and reflections. The framework endowed these actions and reflections with rigour and consistency across communities, as well as within communities where the conceptually informed actions and reflections were nuanced to each community’s context and participants. In Chap. 3, we articulated three tenets of this framework. First, language is defined as a resource for making meaning (Halliday & Hasan, 1985), with children growing up with two or more languages having

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multiple linguistic resources for making meaning (Gort, 2006), as well as other modes that include imagery, play, gesture, facial expressions, body language, music, dance, song and multimodal texts (Brock & Harris, 2019; Kalantzis & Cope, 2012; New London Group, 1996) – all relevant to understanding and fostering young children’s language and literacy participation and learning. Second, literacy is a social practice that is situated in people’s, including children’s, lifeworlds, shaped by people’s broader social, cultural and linguistic settings, wherein children develop their socioculturally influenced funds of literate knowledge over time (Freebody & Luke, 2003; González et al., 2005; Gort, 2006; Halliday & Hasan, 1985; Jones Díaz & Harvey, 2007). Third, learning is both a human right and a sociocultural undertaking that calls on researchers, early childhood stakeholders and parents to see, understand and support the literate child, recognising each child’s voice and agency and developing child-voiced strategies that foster authentic, culturally relevant learning (Harris & Manatakis, 2013; Moll, 2014; United Nations, 1989; Vygotsky, 1978). This conceptual framework was operationalized in a way that allowed for effective capacity development. This involved structuring the topics for discussion in dialogic encounters into (a) exploring communities’ languages, (b) children’s literacy development contexts and (c) enablers and constraints acting on a community’s capacity to foster children’s literacy. In so doing, the research team developed shared meanings about these topics, embedded in each community’s contexts. The key tenets of this framework could make visible the language and literacy participation that was happening for children; identify the resources that were available in communities that were, or could be, relevant to children’s literacy; and see the potential that could be harnessed from children’s literacy participation and community resources for developing strategies and building community capacity – all leading to further discussions about what those strategies might be and how to engage in the work.

 ffective Community Capacity Development Centres E on a Community’s Collective Empowerment and Participation Developing local community capacity for fostering young children’s multilingual literacy rests on deep engagement with communities framed by a strengths-based approach. Critical participatory action research (Kemmis, McTaggart, & Nixon, 2014) – hereafter CPAR – provided the project with such an approach. Developing this approach in a cross-cultural, intergenerational context, researchers engaged in dialogic action and reflection with children, families and other community members such as youth groups, as co-investigators with the university researchers – further enhanced by community mentors who mobilised, supported, facilitated, mediated, translated and monitored actions. This approach ensured a collective ‘learning together’ that nurtured a communal sense of doing, ownership

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and sharing. As importantly, this approach acknowledged the strengths of all participants as co-investigators, along with resources to be called upon, discovered anew or (re)purposed, in their community worlds. As clearly evidenced in the approach taken and validated in this study, and which Rhodes (2014, p. 229) more recently wrote about in the context of the Pacific Islands: Reflecting on strengths in each setting will help to generate motivation, confidence and positive energy towards improvements in capacity, because there is recognition of existing capacity as a basis for future objectives.

Harnessing this energy, researchers prioritised processes for understanding and developing practices from within traditions that shaped and informed such practices in the communities wherein we worked. Doing so allowed all taking part as co-­ investigators to negotiate and develop shared languages and communities of practices grounded in the local context. This approach framed each community’s families and children as co-investigators with university researchers. It recognised and fostered children’s and families’ capacities for action and reflection germane to developing strategies that foster children’s literacies. Ongoing, authentic dialogue amongst all involved was at the heart of this approach – seeing all co-investigators learning from one another on an ongoing basis. To invoke Freire (1983) again, the research team could not expect positive results if we used an approach that failed to respect the worldviews, values and aspirations of participants and their communities. Individual and collective realities and aspirations must be acknowledged and used to inform approaches that are developed. Therefore, deep engagement to develop strategies to support children’s literacy required researchers from Australia to enter into dialogue with children and members of their families and communities. This dialogue enabled the development of shared understanding about: children’s situations and cultural settings; how literacy is practised in these settings; children’s and families’ aspirations for children’s lives; and how a collective participatory approach to developing community approaches might work in a particular community. Communities were involved from the beginning of the study, to jointly plan and identify and agree on shared project goals, processes and outcomes in each community. Children, families and communities subsequently continued to be involved in enacting, reflecting on and talking about: the strategies they were implementing; how effective those strategies were in meeting their objectives; problems that arose; how these problems might be resolved; and so on. Ultimately and as it should be, the strategies developed were informed by and optimised children’s and their families’ and communities’ voices, agency and ownership. Researchers doing this cross-cultural work within a CPAR approach need to be: open to learning; culturally competent, able to recognise, learn and understand local community practices and what they signify for their participants; use this information to collaboratively develop approaches to support literacy that build on and augment existing practices; and be open to learning from, and being assisted by, community mentors who provide cultural mediation and language translation.

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 ffective Community Capacity Development Is Informed by E and Further Informs Related Research, Policy and Practice Aligning efforts to build community capacity with relevant research messages, policy priorities and stakeholder needs are germane to supporting the building of community capacity. The research team undertook an exhaustive review of related research literature, particularly research conducted in Fiji and the Pacific, presented in Chaps. 3 and 4, with ongoing references throughout this book, as we did throughout the study, to assist the interpretation of the data at hand. The research plan also aligned capacity building and strategy development for fostering young children’s multilingual literacy with Fiji’s and the Pacific’s early childhood policies, priorities and guidelines on early childhood, languages and literacy. Researchers were able to build this alignment through detailed and comprehensive analyses of relevant documents, as reported in Chap. 3 and elsewhere in the book as relevant, by engaging with key stakeholders through interviews and by drawing on the insights and experience of our research partners. In consequence of key points that emerged from these aspects of our study, the research team ensured that the community capacity that developed centred on: –– Holistic and culturally situated views of language –– Contextual understandings of how language is learned –– Children’s everyday situations and the functions language serves children and others in their lives –– Literacy as understanding and using symbol systems of a culture that include, but are not limited to, alphabet and number systems –– Children’s multiple pathways to being and becoming literate –– Children’s agency in being and becoming literate –– Family and community voice, agency and participation in building their capacity as part of self-determination –– Creation and use of materials that are culturally, linguistically and personally relevant, meaningful and engaging for children –– Learning together with and from educators and scholars within and outside Fiji, ensuring that any ideas used in Fiji build on, honour and respect Fiji’s languages and cultures

 ffective Community Capacity Development Documents E and Makes Benefit and Impact Visible, to Those Within and Outside the Community The research process reinforced that it is important to community capacity development to make benefits of the collective work visible and tangible to those directly involved; others in the same community; and stakeholders outside the community.

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So doing profiles the work and helps engender greater interest and involvement in sustaining the work after the study’s conclusion. Therefore, we planned and implemented a plan for conducting strategic communication, engagement and dissemination of this work as it proceeded and after study’s end. With each output from the study differentially geared to its particular audience, the communication, engagement and dissemination have been designed to reach: –– –– –– ––

The study’s participating communities, their leaders and our community mentors The study’s research partners and External Reference Group The study’s funding body (Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) The early childhood profession, particularly the profession in Fiji and the Pacific, and also Australia and further afield –– The researchers’ university’s Human Research Ethics Committee –– Fiji’s Ministry of Education –– Academics, particularly those working in early years and language and literacy research and teacher education Community workshops were an integral part of this study’s sustainable and collaborative community approach to fostering children’s literacy in their home languages and English. In combination with the study’s ongoing fieldwork with children, families and other community members as co-investigators, these workshops contributed significantly to the development of community capacity for fostering their children’s multilingual literacy. These dialogic workshops were held in each community at the beginning and end of each in-country visit. These workshops were prepared and conducted by members of the university research team in conjunction with our study’s partners and community mentors who provided translations. Each workshop was unique, nuanced to the specific findings from the fieldwork conducted in each community. There was strong attendance by community members, including community leaders, groups, youth, families and their children. Workshop participation showed strong engagement with, and uptake of, the considerations and strategies that the workshops explored and developed – to the extent that the workshops fuelled ongoing conversations in between workshops where ideas were promulgated and shaped and their support was further garnered. Combined with participation in the ongoing actions, reflections and dialogue of this action research study, the workshops provided opportunities to make links between community literacy experiences and strategies on the one hand and Fiji’s early childhood guidelines, Na Noda Mataniciva, on the other hand. The workshops were designed to be dialogic and to encourage collective learning from one another. Together with the other action research processes in this study, the workshops generated reciprocal learning amongst university researchers, community members and partners. In no small way, this study, and all who participated in it, contributed to the development of new sociocultural knowledge of, and strategies for, fostering preschool multilingual literacy in community settings, which has fed into the study’s communication and engagement with key stakeholders.

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Networking with NGOs or communities through strategic communication and engagement also provided a way forward to build and sustain local capacity. For example, at the end of the study, the research team engaged the National Council of Women Fiji and their affiliate organisations in a 1-day workshop on working with families to foster young children’s literacies in their home languages and English. Following input from the research, the workshop divided into three rotating discussion groups, each one focused on one of the study’s community case studies. Researchers presented learning stories that documented children’s literacy learning and engagement with strategies that had been developed with them and their families in their home and community settings, as a basis for workshop participants to identify key points of relevance and application to their own work with children and families. Engaging with relevant professional bodies also supports capacity building and sustainability. In addition to invited conference keynote addresses, researchers presented a 2-day Fiji Early Childhood Teachers Association (FECTA) workshop and shared findings about children’s literate worlds and experiences, and strategies that align with those developed in communities, for educators to consider in their literacy work with young children in their early childhood settings. We used a structured roundtable approach to scaffold and build this capacity for making these research-­ informed considerations. Individuals were initially asked to think about and write down what they saw as key messages from the research we presented in the workshop. In pairs, they then shared their key messages and how they could put these ideas into practice at their centres. Then pairs formed groups of four to talk about challenges they might find in putting these messages into practice, and how they could deal with these challenges. Finally, groups of four formed groups of eight, to discuss what they would do when they return to their early childhood centres, in terms of what they would keep doing, what they would do differently and what they would stop doing. Discussion was lively and robust, and feedback from FECTA and individual educators on the content, as well as the processes whereby we engaged educators, was very positive.

 ffective Community Capacity Development Involves Dialogic E Engagement with Communities Engaging in authentic dialogic encounters proved to be pivotal to developing community capacity to foster young children’s literacy. These encounters provided an avenue for enacting self-determination through praxis (action plus reflection) founded on problematising what communities were seeking to transform. To be authentic, dialogue with children and their family and community members takes time. The 3-year duration of the project with regular 2-week visits by researchers allowed time for communities and researchers to reflect and engage with learnings from our times together. Researchers looked to discern insights from

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their data, as families engaged with their books and their experiences with researchers. Each time we came together, researchers and participants carried our memories of previous meetings and activities, which  generated familiarity and recognition alongside demonstrations of new literacy practices and achievements by children and community participants. To recap from Chap. 5, authentic dialogue is founded on principles of cultural appropriateness, apposite setting, shared meaning and understanding, participants’ agency and voice, multiple modes of expression, inclusion, deep and visible listening, trustworthy documentation and consequence and benefit for those involved and/or holding a stake. Insights developed from these encounters ensured that the many cultural and linguistic guises that children’s literacy and related competences take were recognised. Insights also informed the development of strategies that were feasible, sustainable and appropriate in families’ contexts. Ongoing dialogue afforded opportunities for families to discuss their implementation of the strategies and how well they were working (or not) for the children. Children’s voice and agency were key features of these dialogic encounters – as they must be in any work that involves and impacts children’s lives, given their participatory rights as enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). Literacy education is a matter affecting children’s present and future lives – it is germane to children’s well-being and life chances. Yet literacy education is a matter in which children’s voices are often kept quite silent – a concern shared by Toganivalu (2008) who wrote that the continued silence of children’s voices in policies and programs seeking to enhance their well-being and education is based on assumptions, rather than actually knowing what children do know and understand. As Camaitoga (2008) likewise has argued, the future progress of early childhood education in the Pacific relies upon the voice, visibility and valuing of children and those who advocate on children’s behalf, including children’s families, caregivers, educators and members of their communities. The dialogic encounters in our study positioned children as key informants and active participants in this study. The children capably contributed to the collaborative development of strategies to foster their multilingual literacy - as plainly evidenced in children’s selection and development of ideas for creating their books; their active involvement in producing the books; and their subsequent engagement with the books once they were completed. Indeed, if children’s voices are not engaged or heeded, then their disengagement, even resistance, may well result – as was found in some instances at the outset of our time in communities. The research team came to understand children’s voices through multimodal engagement in co-creating books and optimising opportunity for children to voice their perspectives in dialogue, in the books they co-created, and through the photos they took or asked to be taken of themselves and their worlds. Grounding this work in children’s worlds and languages, as has been described at length in this book, is highly conducive to fostering both children’s literacy and community capacity for supporting children’s literacy  – as evidenced in the co-creation of multilingual books with children, written in and about their lifeworlds, using their words, languages, ideas, experiences and imaginings for creating these books.

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In the context of co-creating these books (or similarly principled child-voiced, participatory activity), dialogic encounters make literacy and strategies for fostering literacy visible, tangible and possible to families and communities. Such visibility is crucial to motivating communities to develop and continue to grow their local capacity. The communities in this study embraced and integrally contributed to this work, in which we explicitly talked about the principles and processes behind the approach being collectively operationalised. As the project unfolded, dialogic encounters became a more open, direct discussion of language and literacy practices, as community members actively contributed and evaluated outcomes and articulated learning. It was in the context of making and reading these books with children that researchers identified strategies with families that they can use to develop their children’s reading and writing capabilities.

 ffective Community Capacity Development Creates Conducive E Relational Contexts The importance of relational context to effectively developing community capacity cannot be emphasised enough – particularly in a study such as this that was both a cross-cultural and intergenerational undertaking (Harris et al., 2018). The research team strove to ensure that the relational context wherein this collective work was undertaken was characterised by an ethics of care and commitment comprising respect, reciprocity, protection, patience, trust, love, faith, hope, optimism and humility, as described in Chap. 2 (Freire, 1983; Nabobo-Baba, 2006; Tagicakiverata & Nilan, 2018). In iTaukei settings where researchers abided by vanua and talanoa, and Indo-Fijian settings where we abided by protocols for baat chit, we honoured relational values of veidokai (respect), veidolei (reciprocity), veimaroroi (protectiveness) and vosota (patience), all carrying equal weight in each encounter (Tagicakiverata & Nilan, 2018). We also sought to bring to these encounters qualities of empathy, faith, hope, humility, love, optimism and trust that Freire (1983) argues are all essential to the authenticity of dialogic encounters. Establishing and maintaining strong and appropriate research partnerships is critical to optimising capacity development and its likely sustainability through the inclusion of key stakeholders, such as the children, families, community leaders and members, mentors, partners, External Reference Group members and university researchers in this study. Strong and appropriate partnerships require as much ongoing attention as the research itself if capacity building is to succeed and flourish. The project’s in-­ country research partners knew how and with whom to mobilise desired actions, and provided invaluable advice and translation germane to the contexts of this collective work. The in-country research partners assisted Australia-based researchers to know about and follow appropriate protocols and processes and to be mindful of existing social structures and relations in actions and interactions.

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These partnerships extend to working with effective mentors in communities to support the development and sustainability of community approaches. It is important that these mentors are well regarded in their community and have the skills for mediating and translating interactions and relations, mobilising action and inspiring and facilitating future measures for sustainable practice. In so doing, mentors can assist in bringing a community together as they work with researchers in building community capacity – such as was done in this study with a focus on community capacity for fostering children’s literacy. Through apprenticeship (Lave & Wenger, 1999) with community mentors, we sought to honour cultural and discursive norms, protocols and community relationships. In the Fijian context of this study, the university researchers learned these customs with respect to the specific groups with whom they worked. With respect to iTaukei families, indigenous Fijian discursive and cultural norms related to vanua and talanoa were key to enacting indigenous epistemologies. We learned these norms from our iTaukei colleagues. Vanua refers to cultural norms or ways of being Fijian – with vanua research taking ‘into account indigenous Fijian values, protocols of relationships, knowledge and ways of knowing’ (Nabobo-Baba, 2006, p. 24). Attending to vanua means affording deep honour and respect to a community’s people and their cultural ways of knowing and being (Nabobo-Baba, 2006). Whereas vanua refers to the cultural framework for interacting, talanoa, as previously described, refers to culturally ordained ways of interacting. With respect to Indo-Fijian families, the central importance of honorary kinship to knowledge exchange and cross-cultural analysis with the wider community emerged. This finding was evidenced in Dovubaravi’s creation of a whole-of-­ community book, Gaon Mei Saal Ke Karikaram (A Year in our Community). Dovubaravi’s community leaders’ concern for community cohesion in tandem with family-­specific practices meant making books together prioritised equitable participatory opportunities for all children and families within the community as well as the whole community. Creating the whole-of-community book deepened knowledge of the community’s cultural practices and extended engagement with and ownership of the work to build local capacity beyond the study’s participating families to the broader community. In consequence, trust and reciprocity amongst all involved were strengthened. Dialogic encounters became more open, direct discussions of language and literacy practices, with community members actively contributing and evaluating outcomes and articulated learning. With these real and honorary kinship relations in place, local capacity for fostering children’s multilingual literacy could be developed substantially. A key support for this cultural apprenticeship was provided by community mentors who worked with the researchers, children and families in developing literacy support strategies. These mentors were critical in helping to inspire, mobilise, support, facilitate, mediate and monitor actions. Mentors also enabled researchers from outside to understand the cultural context of a community they were working in, as they provided the researchers with language translations and intercultural mediation.

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 ffective Community Capacity Development Responds and Is E Relevant to a Community’s Sociocultural, Linguistic and Historic Context(s) Understanding cultural values of the context in which capacity is being built is critical to the success of the capacity building exercise (Rhodes, 2014). In this study, contexts were multilayered and included: children’s local family settings and lifeworlds contexts in their households, neighbourhoods and further afield; the local sociocultural and linguistic contexts of each community where children lived; Fiji’s demographic and policy environments in which these communities were situated; and the broader Pacific context in which Fiji resides and on which global forces impinge. The community strategies that result from initiatives such as this study therefore should be collaboratively developed and situated in children’s multi-layered contexts, as previously described in this chapter and elsewhere in this book. There is a need to mind children’s lifeworlds as well as broader contextual influences, such as: the place and valuing of vernacular languages and dialects and English on their own merits and in relation to each other; cultural identities and relations and the impact language has therein; and the importance of self-determination. Strategies need to be culturally appropriate and significant, such as the texts we used and created with and for children, while being relevant to children’s, families’ and communities’ everyday lives and purpose. To ensure the research strategies were culturally sustaining in Fiji, we drew on a host of principles and practices of culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogy, as reviewed in Chaps. 3 and 4 and revisited briefly here (Ladson-Billings, 1995; McCarthy & Lee, 2014). Several principles were clustered around our beliefs about language literacy and learning. We framed our work with the children with sociocultural understandings of literacy, recognising and building on many guises literacy takes in children’s lives and inviting children to call on and develop their literacy resources regarding meaning, purpose, code and reflection in activity that was embedded in their world – drawing on culturally situated understandings of literacy and learning. Also, we recognised children’s linguistic identities and supported children’s/families’ home languages and English learning aspirations – thereby validating children’s linguistic identities, supporting first languages and acknowledging children’s language resources (e.g. code-switching, translanguaging). Another set of principles were clustered around ways that we engaged with children and their families. These principles included spending time learning about the children’s cultural settings and literacy practices – thereby valuing and building on children’s cultural strengths and literacy resources (funds of knowledge). We also built on and valued the children’s linguistic and literate strengths, ways of knowing and what they notice in their worlds; and we supported the children’s sense of identity and place by situating our collective literacy work in their worlds. We engaged in collective encounters with the children where they could individually functioned and be supported – thereby promoting communities of learners locally and globally.

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We engaged over time with children and their families/communities in and about children’s worlds – thereby building bridges between home and future/current (pre) school settings. Finally, we related to children as literate people capable of stepping up to co-create their multimodal books  – thereby conveying high and positive expectations. A final set of principles were  clustered around the manner in which we marshalled the use of literacy practices with the children. For example, we co-created culturally relevant texts containing words and images in and about the children’s worlds and languages  – thereby providing culturally  sustaining literacy environments and texts. We used strategies that engaged with the children’s voices and agency; used multiple modes that supported the co-creation of their books; and gauged the children’s learning and knowledge against their nation’s EC framework (Na Noda Mataniciva) – thereby using teaching/learning strategies and assessments that authentically gauge children’s learning and knowledge and their voice and agency. These considerations are all critical to developing community capacity for fostering children’s literacy in their home languages and English – such as in Fiji where multilingualism is common across families and communities and early childhood education policy is committed to children’s preschool education occurring in their vernacular languages. In doing so, the diverse and differentiated ways of life and family literacy practices that are so well documented in the literature (as discussed in Chap. 3), and indeed in this study, are valued and inform capacity development.

 ffective Community Capacity Development Takes Stock E of a Community’s Pragmatic Realities Germane to the Focus at Hand The strategies for fostering children’s multilingual literacy that were developed in this study used existing resources in the communities  – heeding stakeholders’ advice from our interviews that researchers and educators need to work with what is there. The development and deployment of these strategies occurred in familiar indoor and outdoor places with materials and topics relevant and enjoyable to the children; and we used English and home languages in ways that made sense and had purpose in participants’ lives. Resources used to develop and sustain the strategies need to be likely available into the future. Affordability of strategies where initial and ongoing material costs are involved needs to be considered. Durability of materials that are used or developed as part of the strategies also needs to be assured. Building in the capacity for strategies to evolve and remain relevant (future-­ proofing) is essential. For example, we collaboratively identified local champions and successors to carry work forward; recruited sustained capacity support from community organisations, such as playgroups and collaboration with organisations

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who work with children and families; and tracked uptake of strategies by compatible local infrastructure providers.

 ow Can Communities in Fiji That Do Not Have Access H to Early Childhood Services Be Supported to Build Sustainable Local Capacity to Foster Their Preschool Children’s Literacy in Their Home Languages and English? This study set out with the aim of building sustainable local capacity in communities in Fiji without access to early childhood services to foster their preschool children’s literacy in their home languages and English. While thus far in this chapter we have written about strategies that proved effective for building local capacity, the question of sustainability of that capacity is another matter. As Rhodes (2014) points out when writing about building capacity in the Pacific Islands, there is little or reduced likelihood of sustainable changes in capacity if (1) there is no shared meaning; (2) capacity building is, in reality or as perception, ‘done to’ rather than ‘done with’ Pacific Islanders; (3) capacity development is messaged as skills transfer and organisational development rather than also considering cultural, community and sectoral capacity; (4) outside lenses focus on a lack of Pacific Islanders’ capacity that is blind to the capacities that exist, instead of taking strengths-based approaches; and (5) there are different expectations of capacity development processes. Clearly, the strategies and their underlying principles synthesised above and described throughout this book address these requirements, thereby enhancing the likelihood of sustainable change. In consequence of the strategies that proved effective in building local community capacity for fostering young children’s multilingual literacy, benefit and impact came into evidence in terms of: –– Children’s literacy engagement and learning, benchmarked against outcomes of Fiji’s early childhood curriculum, Na Noda Mataniciva –– Children’s increased access to culturally meaningful, multilingual texts written in their home languages and English, along with strategies for engaging with and fostering multilingual literacy in their daily lives –– Family and community awareness and understanding of the significance and processes of young children’s multilingual literacy development and strategies for supporting this development –– Effective use of local resources for supporting early literacy development –– Empowerment of communities and their local capacity to foster their children’s literacy in their home languages and English –– Implementation of measures initiated and put in place by communities to sustain and distribute the work beyond the life of the study

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Increased family capacity was evidenced in parents’ new confidence, knowledge and strategies for supporting their children’s literacy in their home languages and English – including how to engage children with abstract concepts such as alphabetical and phonemic awareness in child-appropriate ways. There was a marked increase in family members’ levels of involvement in their children’s literacy learning in each community. This increase is attributable to more family members, including fathers and grandparents, learning and taking on the roles they can play in promoting their children’s language and literacy. This increased family capacity contributed to developing community capacity for fostering children’s multilingual literacy. In one piece of evidence of this contribution to community capacity, parents have shared the multilingual books and their new confidence, knowledge and strategies learned from the study, beyond the study’s participants through their relational networks in their communities and beyond. For example, one mother’s learning about ways literacy experiences can be embedded into children’s play has been shared back into her children’s kindergarten environment and embraced by their kindergarten teacher, also a community member with a younger child. In a second piece of evidence of increased community capacity, the communities who took part in the study have begun to implement initiatives for sustaining and expanding community capacity built in this study. Clearly the study’s approach assisted communities to move beyond the life of the study itself, evidenced in the sustainability measures and initiatives each community has subsequently undertaken. In Wavu, for example, plans have progressed for the community to establish their own preschool in a church building, which the church was willing to make available for the purpose free of charge. The community held a well-attended community-­wide event, hosted by a family participating in our study. Noting our study’s research processes had brought the community together, attendees from both the Indo-Fijian and iTaukei communities spoke in support of establishing their own preschool. This would enable the study’s work to be sustained while also addressing the problem of hazards of distance and dangerous roads that local children faced in trying to get to a preschool further away. The preschool was up and running by the time of the last visit in the project with 17 children attending regularly, including 9 children who had not participated in the research study, but whose families had brought them to the new preschool. Mothers volunteered time to support the educators with supervision of children while the community applied to the government for funds and other resources to formally commence a preschool service. Meanwhile, children have started to make new books developed from previous ones – such as Pusi Levu now having a second book called Koli Levu. In Duavata, the community established a playgroup to sustain the study’s work, led by a key community and study participant supported by two other participating parents who help run the group. Children’s recorded attendance has been excellent; and once the group can show it has had consistent attendance, it will be officially registered. In addition, the leader of the group has applied to the Australia-Pacific Technical College (APTC) in Suva to become a certified early childhood educator. Community members mobilised their networks by engaging Duavata’s leader and

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the Catholic Women’s League to secure the playgroup’s resources and approached Save the Children to renew resources when the resources were depleted. The group leader also developed an informal community library whereby families from Duavata can check out copies of the books we created to read and share in their own homes. This access includes the study’s families whose children want to read the other books created in the study, as well as other families and children who did not take part, but want to read the books created by Duavata children. In Dovubaravi, the community’s temple committee is investigating avenues and partners with which to establish a community library service within the community such that children and families have access to books in their homes and English languages that are relevant to their worlds and extend and further develop children’s access to literacy resources and experiences. These community initiatives provide evidence that the strategies developed during the project for fostering children’s multilingual literacy were in reach of actual and potential community capacity. That is, the strategies used existing resources in the communities, they occurred in familiar places with materials and topics relevant and enjoyable to their children, and they used English and home languages in ways that made sense and had purpose in participants’ lives.

In Closing Through this cross-cultural, intergenerational, action research study, all who took part contributed to collectively building communities’ capacity for fostering their preschool children’s literacy in their home languages and English. We engaged deeply with children’s rich and diverse language and literacy lives in their familial and community contexts, where we found resources with which to effect ‘an unbroken beginning’ (Ashton-Warner, 1963, p. 32) for fostering children’s multilingual literacy. Children’s voices were listened to and documented, as were the voices of families and communities. Through these voices, researchers were able to understand children’s, families’ and communities’ language and literacy realities. From these understandings came the strategies developed in this study for co-creating books and other materials with children, using children’s words, languages, ideas, experiences and images. We must gratefully acknowledge the generosity and commitment of all those who assisted the project in Fiji. The research success was underpinned by members of the project reference group, the host organisation National Council of Women Fiji, the early childhood consultant Ufemia Camaitoga, the research assistants and community mentors, community leaders and other members, as well as the children and families themselves. The logistic necessity of containing the research project on Viti Levu leaves opportunity open for the nation’s early childhood educators to find effective and sustainable ways to carry the strategies and resources developed by the project to the other island communities of Fiji that may benefit.

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The research team was privileged to be supported by the Australian government funders and our Fijian partners and participants in the project to respectfully encounter each child and their family and community. It took time, careful planning, rigorous thinking and genuine collaboration to authentically and appropriately develop strategies with children and their families and communities that effectively foster young ones’ multilingual literacy. In consequence, not only did young children’s literacy develop and local community capacity grow, community members came to view their languages with renewed power, affirming their individual and collective cultural identities. Participants attributed these changes to the study valuing and documenting home languages in the books created with children, whilst also acknowledging families’ aspirations for their children’s educational futures that necessarily involve English proficiency. As one participant group expressed: Before this project, we were just fishermen and farmers. Now, we are somebody.

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