Unpacking the Mechanisms Shaping Perceptions of Quality in Early Childhood Education Research and Practice as Illuminated by Cross- Cultural Conversations Between Practitioners from Britain and Jamaica

Kinkead-Clark, Zoyah and Hardacre, Charlotte ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3155-4132 (2019) Unpacking the Mechanisms Shaping Perceptions of Quality in Early Childhood Education Research and Practice as Illuminated by Cross- Cultural Conversations Between Practitioners from Britain and Jamaica. Journal of Childhood Studies, 44 (4). pp. 6-20. ISSN 2371-4107

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Abstract

Through cross-cultural conversations between teacher educators from Jamaica and the UK, this paper explores the drivers of how quality ECD is perceived. Our dialogue is grounded in our positional contexts: one from a context that reflects the Eurocentric model of “best-practice” and one that measures itself against it. Using thematic analysis, we highlight three overlapping drivers that shape how quality is perceived. Our findings eschew the perception that quality is represented in one way. We point to dangers of homogenistic beliefs. We suggest that deficit approaches to local contexts obscure local knowledge and sociocultural factors.