More Than One Bridge is Built: The benefits of an academic research project in a small rural preschool

Abstract

This collaborative paper describes the intersection between the need of a preschool to provide younger local Indigenous women with skills to take over the teaching of the preschool, with the needs of the researchers to develop a collaborative fieldwork plan. It documents the collision between the "funds of knowledge" (Moll 2000), the expectations of the university researchers and those of the associate researchers at the preschool. Out of the disequilibrium of this "cultural contact zone" (Pratt 1992) arose surprising findings for both the university researchers and the preschool community.