Risks And Riches In A Koori Kindergarten:

Researcher Reflections

Agnes MacmillanKennece Coombe

Issues· the

subjectiveness of evaluation and interpretation in the role of the professional as researcher;

• the researcher as subjective in responding to the needs of the community

sublimating research needs;

• tolerating uncertainty and working towards fulfilment of the desire for certainty re the knowledge base

• the issue of guilt and how your own guilt stops you seeing things clearly and knowing how to act appropriately;

Research Questions• How to provide access to numeracy for

preschool Aboriginal children so that they will be equipped advantageously for a formal mathematics education environment:– Who is most at risk? – How is it being perceived by participants?– How can risk be addressed?

Defining Risk We can only ever know and

experience risks through our

specific location in a particular socio-cultural

context.(Lupton, 1999, p.

30)

What is at risk?• What are the bases of

the dilemmas as perceived by the participants?

– Pedagogical issues

– Synthesising risk dilemmas

Who is more vulnerable?

• The issue of guilt

• The politics of racism

How can risk be addressed?

• Membership of a community

• Mutual learning and understanding

• Mutual creativity, flexibility, and responsiveness

The different ways in which old-timers and newcomers establish and maintain identities conflict and

generate competing viewpoints on the practice and its development.

Newcomers are caught in a dilemma. On the one hand, they need to engage in the existing practice,

which has developed over time: to understand it, participate in it,

and to become full members of the community in which it exists.

On the other hand, they have a stake in its development as they begin to establish their own identity in its

future.