“You are always the educator in these small villages” – Early childhood educators’ co-narrated work and lives in the culturally diverse North

The study shed light on the work and lives of early childhood educators in the culturally diverse North from three perspectives. The perspectives explore educators’ understandings of cultural diversity and belonging, educators’ everyday work in culturally diverse settings, and educators' narrative identities.

The research material of this narrative study consists of peer interviews with 24 early childhood educators. The peer interviews were conducted in several locations in northern Finland during 2018. The study reveals that various and multilayered relations shape being an educator in the culturally diverse North as temporally embedded and place-based phenomenon.

The findings of the study illustrate how early childhood educators’ identities are shaped in between three dimensions: meaningful places, temporality, and communities. The findings also show how educators’ professional and personal everyday lives are tightly intertwined. Moreover the study illustrates how educators are balancing between belonging and unbelonging among northern culturally diverse communities.

The findings also reveal how ethical balancing permeates the educators’ pedagogical practices and daily encounters in culturally diverse educational communities.

Further, this study offers a novel methodological approach, peer interviews, to the narrative research field, in which participants encounter each other without the presence of a researcher. The study suggests that early childhood teacher training programmes should support the development of student teachers’ intercultural competence and skills related to cultural diversity for developing more equal ECEC practices. The study further introduces a new concept – narrative identities in place – which challenges the recognition of the significance of a place for educators’ evolving identities, already during their studies.