ABSTRACT

The majority of the world’s children live in low- and middle-income countries, yet the majority of early childhood cognitive research is done with a small proportion of high-income countries. These findings cannot be assumed to apply across all contexts. It is therefore necessary to confront entrenched systems of power and privilege in early childhood cognitive development research as they relate to researchers and vulnerable communities. South Africa (SA) is a previously colonized, Majority World country with a history of white supremacy and racial segregation. Although early cognitive development is a growing field of research in SA, power and privilege in this field of research are yet to be properly considered. Within SA’s unique context, we highlight the valuable role of partnerships in shifting power asymmetries; in our case, between early cognitive development researchers and a community-based organization with a 50-year history of working in vulnerable communities to promote young children’s development. Our work together thus far has largely focused on executive function and numeracy skills (inspired by Minority World country research) in vulnerable SA children. We reflect on the authors’ positionality, the intersectionality of privilege where relevant, and discuss three themes: the assessment of young children’s development in vulnerable SA settings; formation of a more equitable partnership with individuals and communities whose voices are not often heard in this research; and translation and dissemination of research findings. We include recommendations for researchers to help with decolonizing early cognitive development research in order to add value to research from diverse settings.

摘要

世界上大多数儿童生活在低收入和中等收入国家，但大多数幼儿认知研究是在一小部分高收入国家进行的。不能假设这些发现适用于所有情况。因此，有必要面对幼儿认知发展研究中根深蒂固的权力和特权体系，因为它们与研究人员和弱势群体有关。南非 (SA) 是一个曾经被殖民的、拥有白人至上和种族隔离历史的多数世界国家。尽管早期认知发展是 SA 中一个不断发展的研究领域，但该研究领域的权力和特权尚未得到适当考虑。在南非的独特背景下，我们强调伙伴关系在改变权力不对称方面的宝贵作用；在我们的例子中，早期认知发展研究人员与一家拥有 50 年在弱势社区工作促进幼儿发展历史的社区组织合作。迄今为止，我们的合作主要集中在南澳弱势儿童的执行功能和算术技能（受到少数民族世界国家研究的启发）。我们反思了作者的立场、相关特权的交叉性，并讨论了三个主题：评估脆弱的南澳环境中幼儿的发展；与本研究中不常听到其声音的个人和社区建立更公平的伙伴关系；研究成果的翻译和传播。