Chief Investigator:

Kerrie Mackey-Smith

Research Area:

Understanding the social determinants of childhood health and development.
Community-based study

Funding Amount:

$87,317

Recipient:

Flinders University

Overview:

Young children’s literacy and numeracy capabilities are reliable indicators of future wellbeing and economic participation in society. Children marginalised by social circumstances – remoteness, poverty or culture – face increased developmental vulnerability. While enrolments in early learning sites are on the rise in remote townships, academic results are not, and remote children from Indigenous and culturally-linguistically diverse communities do not always readily identify with traditional (western) approaches. Using multi-modal storytelling as a vehicle for concept development, this project explores the enabling conditions for 3-6-year-old children to become agentive literacy and numeracy participants in their own social worlds.