Diversity and cultural contexts in early childhood education refer to different connotations of culture, languages, traditions, and lived experiences brought into the learning environments by children and families. Australia is a culturally diverse country with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, along with immigrant and refugee populations across the world. This diversity enriches early childhood settings but, at the same time, could pose challenges for culturally safe and inclusive practices (ABS, 2021). According to the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF), the recognition and respect of cultural diversity are important to the identity, belonging, and learning of children (DEEWR, 2022). Educators must understand that cultural identities are complex and ever-changing such that culture itself is dynamic and intersects with other social factors like language, religion, and family structure (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2020).
The sociological lens, of which critical multiculturalism is one, considers that early childhood services should go beyond acknowledging cultural variations and actually work to challenge inequities and power imbalances that discriminate against minority groups (May & Sleeter, 2010). The theory of intersectionality provides another perspective for educators to see how intersecting identities like race, gender, class, and economic status shape the experiences of children and their access to resources (Crenshaw, 1989).