Cultural conflicts of the child-centred approach to early childhood education in Taiwan

This paper discusses the cultural conflicts around the Western notion of child-centeredness in Taiwanese preschools. The implementation and translation of Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP) in Taiwan is highlighted as an example to understand productions of differences, norms and cultural conflicts in Taiwanese early childhood education. Throughout this paper, it is argued that multiplicities and differences are not acknowledged but instead are dangerously ignored while assumptions are made about a singular norm and homogeneous universal standard. From this perspective, it is asserted that the global circulation of a particular Western notion of child-centeredness should be (re)conceptualized as a cultural construct through which a particular system of reasoning or cultural knowledge is perpetuated. Copyright © 2008 Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business.