Introduction

Early childhood educators understand the importance of respecting, valuing and celebrating Reconciliation and Intercultural Education. The problem is How do we actually and specifically do this in our particular contexts? How can our pedagogy reflect this?

Gems and Nuggets arose from the above concerns (more specifically highlighted throughout this book) put forward by early childhood educators who attended a professional development workshop on the topics of Reconciliation and Intercultural Education at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) in November, 2019. To answer the educators’ concerns pre-service Educators from USQ researched the topics of Reconciliation and Intercultural Education in Australia (particularly in Queensland). These students had been studying Intercultural Communication in Early Learning Contexts as part of their education degree and were inspired by the educators’ concerns and well equipped to undertake research to address their questions.

This book is divided into two parts. Part 1: Reconciliation offers pedagogical strategies to support Reconciliation in the early childhood classroom and provides links to resources that will offer specific information on Reconciliation in Australia. Part 2: Intercultural Education suggests pedagogical strategies to support intercultural and multicultural education in the early childhood classroom and includes links to resources that also offer information on the topics. Each chapter highlights the importance of respecting, valuing and celebrating cultural diversity for the Culturally Competent Educator.

Resulting from the educators’ concerns, the pre-service educators’ research offers gems of wisdom and gold nuggets of explicit resources to support and promote Reconciliation and Intercultural Education in the early childhood context. We hope that this book inspires you!