Australasian Journal of Early Childhood 24 Bottling the good stuff: Stories of hospitality and yarnin’ in a multi-racial kindergarten Alia Imtoual School of Education, Flinders University Barbara Kameniar Faculty of Education, University of Melbourne Debra Bradley School of Education, Flinders University DEVELOPING SUCCESSFUL SCHOOLING sites in multiracial regional town contexts can often be quite challenging. This paper examines the work done in one such pre- schooling context in a medium-sized regional town where racial and ethnic tensions are high and where many families struggle with social/emotional/economic challenges. This pre-school setting has been identified in the community and within bureaucratic structures as being successful with regard to a high level of parental engagement and a positive management of racial tensions. In order to describe this success we identify a range of practices which distinguish this educational setting from others in the town. Primarily we focus on the notion of hospitality and the practice of yarnin’. This analysis arises out of ethnographic work at the preschool. Introduction IN EARLY 2007, we began a five-year ethnographic study based at a multi-racial kindergarten in a regional town located one hour’s drive from a major Australian city. This project arose out of discussions with the district coordinator of the state government department responsible for education who identified this kindergarten as exemplary with regard to student learning and community engagement. The district coordinator invited us to undertake some work into what makes this kindergarten successful, while other educational sites in the town had been identified as facing some significant challenges around issues related to race, income and poor educational outcomes for certain identifiable groups of children. One educator familiar with the context described the town as ‘a racial powder keg just waiting to go off’ and each of the educational sites in the town were said to be ‘hotspots for community tensions’. The district coordinator’s vision was that a study at this site may elicit some ideas on how to transfer what works there to other educational sites in the town. She said she wanted to ‘bottle the good stuff’. Subsequently we began conversations at the kindergarten, where it became clear that the staff were equally as interested in sharing their stories. We formally commenced the study in the second part of 2007. A draft of this paper was sent to participants for comment, and changes were made in response. Participants have requested that their anonymity and that of the kindergarten and town be maintained. The site for the study is a government-funded kindergarten of 61 children, approximately half of whom are Aboriginal. The teaching team is headed by a non-Aboriginal director, ‘Lyn’, and is made up of seven other staff members. The staff team includes a full-time teacher (in addition to Lyn), a full-time early childhood worker, three 0.5 f/t early childhood workers, a 0.5 f/t teacher and a 0.8 f/t teacher. Some of the staff are Aboriginal, some are non- Aboriginal. The staff–student ratio at this kindergarten is lower than at most other kindergartens in the state, and lower than the official formulas employed to decide upon staffing levels. This is largely the result of endless hours of grant writing, negotiations and arguments around the needs of the children, and the kindergarten’s participation in a number of specialised programs. However, the staff have committed to lower child–staff ratios in spite of the additional work this entails because of their belief that this is a key characteristic of quality preschool education (Biddle, 2007) and because of how it enables quality relationships to be formed and maintained.