Honouring the home in homework: An investigation into my professional practice

Action research methodology afforded me the opportunity to place myself at the centre of my own research as I sought to simultaneously investigate and improve my own professional practice as a kindergarten teacher, particularly in relation to homework. Through a recursive and cyclical process I located my homework practices in the broader professional and academic context, and sought to resolve the "living contradiction" existing between my current professional practices and my ideological stance on inclusion.;Informed by the work of Merttens, Newland and Webb, I strove to diminish the socially divisive nature of homework by designing homework assignments which honoured diverse homes as particular contexts for learning, acknowledged home pedagogies, and invited parents and children to evaluate the assignments. The data, collected during the conduct of my daily work, comprised: completed homework assignments, my professional reflective journal, and notes on parent meetings.;During the course of my investigation, I found that parents value homework work which is enjoyable, educational, reflective of their teaching strategies, and inclusive of which is enjoyable, educational, reflective of their teaching strategies, and inclusive of other family members' learning. Parent are willing to develop parent-teacher partnerships which use written and oral dialogues to replace the school-home hierarchy long associated with homework practices.;I was able to move towards a more inclusive approach to homework, one which has enabled me to theorize a dialogic relationship between parents and professionals, and challenge the assumptions which typically surround homework.