Abstract:

This communication shares preliminary results from an ongoing research conducted in Quebec (Canada) in the context of preschool education. Preschool is part of Early Childhood Education services offered in Quebec. It is the first contact with school for most children of 4 or 5 years old in the province. In order to ensure that these children's first contact with school is a positive and supportive experience, continuity is needed between the child’s key environments: family, school and community. To achieve this, a strong partnership must be established between the actors of these three environments.

However, studies highlight numerous relational and organizational challenges underlying this partnership. With intention to search for solutions to overcome these challenges, a literature review revealed the need to focus on the early stages of partnership development, when collaboration among stakeholders first emerges in preschool. It is useful to analyze the emergence of partnership from a theoretical perspective as this period can be very challenging and demanding for adults, especially when the development of some preschooler raises concerns. Indeed, some children in preschool have developmental vulnerabilities (for example, languages vulnerabilities), which may require special partnership between parents, teachers and complementary staff members (for example, speech therapist).

Our research therefore aims to explore how partnerships begin to form among parents, preschool teachers and complementary staff members when concerns arise regarding a child’s development. The methodology is based on a collaborative qualitative research model. The collaborative research creates theory-practice links through co-construction of knowledge between researchers and practitioners. Practitioners (preschool teachers and complementary staff members) and parents participated in the project through semi-structured interviews and reflective group meetings. The project has three phases.

In this communication, we share preliminary results from the first phase. This phase focuses on describing the stories of a parent, a teacher and a complementary staff member, all involved in an emerging partnership in preschool when concerns on a child's development are raised. By giving a voice to these individuals, the study offers an understanding of each participant's perspective. A narrative approach is used to recreate the narrative of these three participants. Each narrative includes critical incidents such as significant moments of tensions or disruptions that shaped the course of the partnership. The three narratives share common elements such as key moments, triggering events and influential people. These patterns help deepen our understanding of the complex dynamics in an emerging school-family-community partnership in a preschool setting.

Keywords:

Partnership, school-family-community partnership, growing partnership, preschool education, empowering voices.