Shifting realities: Immigrant teacher transitions into early childhood settings in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

Imagine you are an immigrant early childhood teacher… this article tells your story of transition and diversity. It interweaves tensions and complex realities and explores issues and concerns for immigrant teachers in the cultural places and relational spaces of early childhood settings. Based on teacher narratives and a post-structural discourse analysis, it suggests that immigrant teachers’ realities are not always ‘rich’ or celebratory, but are often complex entanglements of struggle and contradictions. The article urges fresh considerations of early childhood relationships to allow for fluid, shifting identities and cultures – yours, ours, and the centre’s.