Abstract:
This paper examines how early childhood and primary schools can be constructed as enabling spaces to improve the learning and well-being of children aged six to nine who live in multidimensionally poor, low-resourced rural communities in South Africa. Quality early childhood development and education (ECDE) can be the catalyst to break the cycle of poverty for many young children in rural areas. A systematic review was conducted based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses flowchart. A comprehensive search strategy using electronic databases and hand searches systematically whittled down an initial database of 30,080 articles to 16 articles for this study. A thematic analysis identified enablers and constraints for supporting children’s learning and well-being across three themes: (1) infrastructure, educational resources and child agency (2) initial teacher education (ITE) and (3) socioeconomic status. The findings and discussion highlight child agency as an enabler to learning and well-being and the structural and pedagogical challenges of implementing ITE curricula specific to rural educational contexts.
