Multilingual playground: An ethnographic early childhood development study of diverse learners at Philippi children’s centre, Cape Town

Abstract

Early Childhood Development (ECD) prioritizes the foundation for children aged 0-9 years old. This program focuses on the cognitive, physical, emotional, or holistic development of a child for the child to thrive and be a functioning member of society. Recently, this initiative has been prioritized by both the national government and UNICEF (Shapley, 2014; September 2014). In the Cape Town context one finds that large population of children are frequently exposed to extreme poverty and gang violence. They also lack the communication and literacy skills they require; this includes grasping basic ideas related to reading and writing and have little to no community support system.