The impact and main components of ethnopedagogy practice in culture literature: a scoping review

Ethnopedagogical practices are gaining prominence as essential components of culturally responsive education, especially in early childhood literature. This scoping review explores the impact and core components of ethnopedagogical practice within the context of children’s cultural literature. Despite increasing global recognition of culture-based pedagogy, a comprehensive understanding of its implementation remains limited. To address this gap, this study adopts Arksey and O’Malley’s six-stage scoping review methodology to systematically map empirical research from 2020 to 2025, retrieved from Web of Science, Scopus, ProQuest and ERIC databases. This review identified four key components, including cultural identity affirmation, storytelling, native language use and community participation that enhance children’s literacy, emotional well-being and cultural belonging. However, the field remains under-researched, particularly in early childhood and multicultural education settings. These findings highlight ethnopedagogy’s potential to bridge home and school knowledge systems and to foster holistic, identity-affirming learning. The study provides a conceptual foundation for integrating ethnopedagogical principles into curriculum design, teacher preparation and early literacy policy.