Producing "Confident" Children

Negotiating Childhood in Fijian Kindergartens

Bibliographic Data

ID2280500
AuthorsKaren J Brison (Union College, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume42
Issue3
Pages230-244
Publication date2011-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAnthropology & Education Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0161-7761 • E-ISSN: 1548-1492
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1548-1492.2011.01129.x
OpenAlexW1929091969
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited15

Kindergartens in Fiji contribute to incipient class-based identities in a society traditionally structured by ethnicity. Teachers emphasize making children confident, but define confidence differently with varying student groups, building class-based orientations toward person and society. Parental expectations also differ with many upwardly mobile professional parents preferring schools that promote identification with a transnational middle class, and fluency in English. These schools define confidence as the ability to monitor one's own actions to conform to the demands of a larger corporate structure. Kindergartens serving children from less affluent families, in contrast, often equate confidence with grounding in ethnic cultures and languages. One implication is that preserving ethnic languages and cultures becomes associated with being lower class. [kindergarten, Fiji, social class, globalization]

Class (philosophy · Ethnic group · Fluency · Globalization · Mathematics education · Negotiation · Pedagogy · Political science · Social class · Social science · Sociology · Anthropology · Early Childhood Education and Development · Gender Studies · Island Studies and Pacific Affairs · Parental Involvement in Education · Psychology · Social Psychology

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