Early childhood education and care as a space for social support in urban contexts of diversity

Abstract

The present study illustrates that social support in ECEC settings can take place across several socio-economical and cultural borders. The presence of children as brokers of relations plays a fundamental role in the creation of social networks, in the processes of parenting support and community building. ‘Free confrontations’ between parents and children can foster daily learning processes, despite/thanks to the contradictions and tensions that occur. This suggests that a meeting place can be a space where the experiment of democracy sporadically can emerge. In this experiment, parents, children and professionals are actors in the construction processes of parenting and community building. In so doing, parenting and living together, the pedagogical and the social, coincide.