Building resilience: young children from minority ethnic backgrounds starting school in a multi-ethnic society

Abstract

This paper explores the experiences of twelve children and their parents from diverse minority ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds during their first school year. Drawing on sociological and educational conceptualisations of resilience, findings highlight protective factors for children’s resilience at four levels, including family and school strengths in supporting the emotional wellbeing and self-regulation of children. However, with significant variation in children’s educational and social/behavioural development the paper argues for a consideration of within school factors in promoting resilience, alongside individual, family and cultural factors as well as a consideration of the age of children starting school. It identifies a need to review school strategies to strengthen children’s resilience on starting school within wider calls to decolonialise the curriculum. It also demonstrates the need for schools to build strategies to engage with parents from diverse backgrounds to support the Home Learning Environment.