Participatory story-sharing practices in the early years with Central and Eastern European families in Scotland

Since 2004 and the enlargement of the EU, increased migration from Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries to the UK necessitates sustained research on the implications for children, their families and practitioners in the early years. This paper draws upon a sociocultural approach to bring into focus family story-sharing practices. We report findings from an interpretivist study to foreground the experiences of two families living in Scotland. The findings indicate that story-sharing practices can potentially be a meeting place for early childhood practitioners to engage with children’s linguistic and cultural heritage and can provide opportunities to listen to and build upon diverse cultural traditions. The findings also highlight that children’s sense of their cultural and individual identities, as well as their sense of belonging, entail a complex set of interactions and that embedding them into curricula and pedagogy requires a sensitive criticality and open dialogue between practitioners, children and families. As a result of the findings, it is recommended that early years practitioners build upon story-sharing practices as a means to engage critically with issues of culture and identity and to facilitate the participation of CEE children and families in early years settings.