Culture and the Early Education of Young Children. Preparing personnel to teach
children from many cultural backgrounds
Carol Brunson Day
National Black Child Development Institute,
Washington, DC – USA
Background
A broad consensus exists among American early childhood educators that
preparing teachers to effectively teach all children including those from diverse
backgrounds is one of the most compelling challenges facing education. One
only needs to look at the changing racial, cultural, linguistic and ethnic make-up
of the country and the continuing disproportionately poor educational outcomes
associated with race, ethnicity, and social class to understand why.
While the United States has always been a diverse society, recent waves of
immigration, especially from Latin America, Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle
East, the Caribbean and Africa have made it even more so. Today nearly 41% of
the entire child population in the United States is of Latino, Asian, African
American/ African descent. By 2020, the percent of ethnic, cultural, and language
minority children is projected to grow to 47%. Over the last two decades, the
percentage of school-aged children speaking languages other than English at
home has nearly doubled, and one child in ten is now an English Language
Learner (California Tomorrow, 2006).
Gaps in school achievement among these groups are widely evident.
According to the Education Trust in Washington, DC they continue to lag behind
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their white counterparts in school achievement as indicated by scores in
mathematics and reading, with the gaps growing as they get farther along in the
school grades. This is of serious concern to the schools, given America’s
promise that every individual regardless of race, creed or culture should have
equal access to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. For schools play an
important part in insuring that guarantee as education is seen as the key to
upward economic mobility and a higher quality of life.
American schools continue to experiment with ways to improve the access
of various cultural groups to social, economic, and political opportunities.
Commencing in the 1970s an educational pedagogy emerged, called
Multicultural Education, devoted entirely to the challenges of responding to
cultural issues in the education of children. The multicultural education
movement has a rich and varied history, but a brief description of its presence in
early childhood education will serve to set the stage for our analysis of it’s
present condition and current challenges.
Briefly, through the years two basic types of multicultural education can be
observed in early childhood classrooms. The first I’ll call “cultural appreciation”
which is designed to teach people about the culture of other people (so that
people will like each other better.) The activities usually have an international
flavor, and are arbitrary about which groups are chosen for study – it may be the
teacher's favorite or the group with the most exciting and colorful culture. The
approach is a tourist one, focusing on the exotic elements of the culture --- the
things most unlike the ways of the cultural mainstream of America.
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The second type I call “cultural self-enrichment.” Its activities are
designed to teach people about themselves as opposed to others, and thus
its focus is on the culture of the group of children for whom it’s designed
(in order to change their self-image from negative to positive.) So for
example, Puerto Rican culture is taught to Puerto Rican children, Vietnamese
culture to Vietnamese children, usually focusing on the historical achievements of
the group and contemporary heroes, as well as holiday celebrations and food
practices. Though different in tactics, both these approaches have the same
underlying assumptions: if children learn information about cultural differences it
will somehow have an impact on their ability to get along, on their self-image, on
school success and subsequently on equal access to opportunity.
However, in my opinion, cultural differences are not the problem.
Rather than culture itself, it is the ways in which the major institutions of this
country have responded to people who are culturally, racially, and ethnically
diverse people that is the major source of their social, political, and economic
inequality. African Americans are not oppressed because their ancestry is African
-- they are oppressed because Blackness is responded to negatively. The child
who speaks Spanish has difficulty in school, not because of anything about
Spanish, but because he's responded to as uneducable.
It is these negative responses to children in school that is at the heart
of their failure to thrive. So unless Multicultural Education helps us respond
positively to children’s culture it will continue to miss its mark of fostering equality.
It must teach us how to recognize and use culture to make classrooms more like
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the homes where children of different cultures have learned to be powerful.
Cultural empowerment should be the goal of multicultural classrooms with
activities designed to provide an environment that is culturally consistent for
children . . . built on the values attitudes, and behavior expectations of the home
culture of the child. Unlike multicultural awareness lessons, where culture is
taught TO children, cultural empowerment seeks to TEACH CHILDREN in a
culturally consistent context.
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It means using the language of the child's family rather than
English.
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It means struggling along with parents to decide how best to
educate their children in a society which devalues them by
demanding that they give up their culture in order to achieve.
•
It means figuring out how to help children become proficient
both in their home culture and in the skills that are powerful in
mainstream culture if they so choose.
Preparing teachers to teach in schools where cultural empowerment is the goal
means preparing teachers who understand the role of culture in the development
of children and who understand how to take action to protect children by
eliminating racism and bias as obstacles to their development.
Understanding the role of culture in development
Child developmental theorists have taught us that all children are cultural
beings. Every learned behavior that children acquire is expressed in a cultural
context, and parents’ cultural values and beliefs convey to children ways of being
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in the world and affect what they say and do. Culture is the lens through which
children learn the rules of relationships that enable them to develop. Many of the
behaviors we think of as “normal behaviors for all children” are indeed culturalbound. Even simple behaviors like eye contact and gestures that signify healthy
development in one culture can mean something entirely different in another.
Take communications style. Cultures vary in many dimensions of
communication. Low context cultures for example, (such as those found in
Western Europe or the United States) are ones in which meaning is explicitly
communicated primarily through written and spoken words, conveyed in a direct,
linear fashion. High context cultures (such as those found in Asia, South
America, and Native American communities) tend to use a communication style
in which a verbal or written message is generally ambiguous, indirect, or open to
interpretation, relying on shared knowledge within the group to help convey
meaning. The message is implicit in situational, non verbal cues, such as body
language, setting, or knowledge of the relationship involved (Day & Parlakian,
2004.)
These differences do not mean that one way is right and the other wrong.
They simply demonstrate that there is a wide variety of patterns that evolve in the
developmental process that can be explained best by understanding the cultural
context in which development unfolds.
Bias as a contributor to underdevelopment
When teachers and caregivers don’t understand or ignore cultural
contexts, we put children at developmental and educational risk. Let me illustrate
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by describing a study of African American first grade children that examined
language/speech patterns (Ebonics) and their relationship to reading success.
The study found that the way teachers responded to their pupil's language (as
reflected in their teaching styles) was related to the children's success in reading.
The researchers found that the least successful teachers were those in the
"Interrupting" group, who asked children to repeat words pronounced in dialect
many times and interpreted dialect pronunciations as reading errors. They had a
repressive effect on their students' reading development, reflected not only in
lower reading scores, but also in the fact that some children withdrew from
participation in reading, speaking softly and as seldom as possible. By contrast,
the most successful teachers called "Black Artful," used cultural qualities of the
language to enhance their instruction – like rhythmic play -- and encouraged
children to participate by listening to their responses. They attended to
vocabulary differences of Black children and seemed to prevent structural conflict
by teaching children to listen for Standard English sound distinctions. Not only
did children taught by this approach participate enthusiastically in reading
classes, they also showed the highest reading scores (Piestrup, 1973.) Studies
like this show the power of cultural bias that manifests in the relationships and
interactions between teachers and children. Of less significance to children’s
development and learning were books and materials reflecting their cultural
backgrounds. What seems to matter is the teacher’s understanding of how to
situate children in their own cultural contexts.
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The call for cultural competency
There is a growing evidence among researchers in the U.S. (Foster, 2003;
Delpit, 2003; Garcia, 2005; Gay, 2000) in support of the belief that children’s
development and learning benefits from culturally competent teaching, and that
the real efficacy of this competence resides in attitudes, beliefs, motivational
intent, or emotional investment rather than in direct instructional content. Their
work supports the notions that cultural compatibility reduces misunderstandings
between students and teachers, provides a bridge between what students know
and what they are expected to learn in school, and may contribute to the
development of trust crucial to the socio-emotional climate for learning.
Within the education community there is also growing support for
promoting cultural competence for teachers in this way. In a recently released
position statement and series of recommendations, Eggers- Piércola (2002)
representing a coalition of Latino groups, advocates recruiting and retaining
Latino staff that has a heritage reflective of their Spanish speaking students.
They argue for their importance for the appropriate development of these
children, serving as cultural models, facilitating language development and
facilitating effective communication with families.
Further, in 2004 the National Education Association released a report
arguing that a glaring lack of racial and cultural diversity among teachers is
hurting the chances of success for minority students. The report cites research
showing that minorities tend to do better in class and face higher expectations
when taught by teachers from their racial or ethnic group. They conclude that
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teachers of color serve as role models and cultural brokers who help students
connect to school through shared identities.
While securing a culturally diverse teaching workforce is an important
strategy, it would be a mistake to interpret the call for cultural/racial matching of
teachers and students as a panacea for multicultural education and lose sight of
the more fundamental demand for teachers to understand their students’ culture
and incorporate it into their interactions together in class. Preparing teachers who
are good cultural matches for children is the goal and this cannot be assured just
because a teacher is from the same cultural group as the children. Unfortunately
the phenomenon of internalized oppressions is not uncommon across ethnic and
cultural groups is the US as a consequence of societal oppression. Therefore
unlearning cultural biases becomes a major component in the process of
developing cultural competence.
So, what do you do when you can’t find teachers that know and
understand how to use children’s culture in the course of instruction? And what if
you want teachers who can work competently in classroom where several
cultural groups are represented? Where does teacher preparation begin?
Cultural competence as a challenge for teacher preparation
I would like to propose several recommendations to prepare culturally
competent teachers to be thought of as some basic principles and strategies as
opposed to being a recipe for a teacher preparation curriculum. These include:
(a) providing a deep understanding of culture, (b) providing a deep understanding
of race and culture bias and how it affects schools, (c) providing strategies to
authentically learn about cultural groups, and (d) developing an activist mentality.
First we must help teachers enter practice with a deep understanding of
culture and how it influences development and learning -- culture from an
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anthropological perspective, not just an educational one. I have found that
teaching several principles about culture as a process dispels some of the myths
students have about what culture is and helps them begin thinking about its
influence on behavior and less about the artifacts that are produced, i.e.deep
structural elements rather than surface ones:
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Culture is embodied by the rules that shape behavior. Cultural rules
do not cause behavior; they influence people to behave similarly, in ways
that help them to understand each other.
•
Culture is learned. What we learn depends upon the cultural rules of the
people who raise us. Further, it can be well learned by some people in the
group and less well learned by others.
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Individual members of a culture are embedded to different degrees
within their cultural group. Usually members of a cultural group learn
the core rules of their culture, but some families are more traditionoriented, others less. (And of course, even though families and individuals
learn the cultural rules, they may not always behave according to what
they have learned)
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Culture is dynamic. Every cultural group evolves with changes over time
and those changes occur because of individuals. So while culture
influences individual behavior, individuals also influence cultural patterns.
Group changes occur for a variety of specific reasons – including contact
with the ideas and behaviors of outsiders, and thus some groups change
more rapidly than others. Yet this dynamic element coexists with another
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element – that of cultural stability, which overall is more predominant at
any one point in time. So while it is useful to know that culture is dynamic,
it is perhaps more practical to think about culture as the group
characteristics that are passed from one generation to another, although it
is individual behavior within a generation that also contributes to the
changes that cultural groups inevitably undergo. Neither process negates
the other -- they are simultaneous and interdependent.
Discussions about culture should be in-depth and long term using examples that
come from the lives of the adult students, remembering that first one must
understand how culture influences ones own life in order to understand how
culture influences others.
Second, we must help teachers enter practice with an understanding of
how racial and cultural bias contributes to children’s underdevelopment. Lisa
Delpit’s book Other people’s children: Cultural conflict in the classroom (1996)
presents a provocative discussion related to the dynamics of inequality as they
play out in cultural mismatches in the classroom. Her advice to teachers is that
they understand and addresses the intersection of race, culture and bias -- an
understanding that can be achieved through direct study. I have made a similar
case elsewhere (Derman-Sparks & Phillips, 1996) that teachers should explore
racism in depth and learn to use the same tools for exploring other forms of bias
(ethnic, class, etc.) It is what we call anti-bias education in the US and it is based
on the assumption that most educators have been taught to understand racism
and other forms of bias at a very superficial level and tend to think of its
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manifestations in the bigoted and prejudiced behavior of individuals (telling ethnic
jokes, name calling, etc.). But in order to help teachers develop a disposition to
continually work on maintaining a understanding of their personal role as a
participant in institutional oppression (racial and cultural) they must understand
the institutional forms of bias i.e
how racism affects the mission, policies,
structure and methods of education and human service programs. For instance,
the consequences of institutional forms of bias that are manifest in monocultural,
monoracial assumptions and representations in books and materials, and in
testing and tracking cause repeated and cumulative harm to children’s growth
and development.
Third, we must give teachers tools to constantly seek out authentic
sources of information about various cultural groups. This means finding
resources that come from deep within cultural communities (in their own voice),
and learning how to determine the validity of information for use with specific
children and families. Teachers need skills to know how to enter and interact with
ethnic and cultural communities, and how to create a climate for discussing
topics that they may find difficult for fear of making mistakes or sounding “racist.”
They must also know how to make the difficult but important distinction between
stereotypes and genuine cultural characteristics of groups, and know how to
weigh and use information appropriately. They must learn to make tentative
hypothesis about people – not over generalize. Finally, they must know who they
are culturally and have a healthy sense of what they do not know about others
who are culturally different from them.
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Fourth, we must help teachers understand the importance of working for
change. They must understand how to act on behalf of the oppressed and know
how to examine how to use whatever power they have as individuals to change
the oppressiveness of the larger society. For instance we must help teachers
embrace the value of having a culturally diverse workforce, both for children and
families and for the profession, and help them become advocates for this to
happen. Having culturally diverse staff helps build and maintain cultural
competence because culturally diverse staff groups have more opportunities to
dialogue about culture in the workplace. They bring diverse perspectives to
problem solving and strengthen programs’ capacity to use diverse ways of being
in the world to promote growth and benefit to all.
Helping teachers in training understand the benefits to children’s school
success will help teachers to not be threatened by representative staffing. Such
fears often make teachers minimize the importance of culture in development
and learning, and increase the potential that culturally diverse groups of
children’s need will go unmet.
Summary and Conclusions
When early childhood education settings offer children and families goals
and values and interaction styles that are culturally compatible, there is a greater
likelihood that families will develop close relationships with programs and interact
in ways that promote their children’s growth and development and school
readiness.
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Since there is still so much to learn about the role of cultural influences on
the development of children, in today’s diverse world teachers must enter
practice prepared to participate in the discovery process. They must be culturally
competent -- know who they are culturally and have a healthy sense of what they
don’t know. They must see the limitations of an education system that fails to
educate everyone, and accept responsibility for being advocates for change. And
they must remain open to observing and learning from the children, the parents
and the community, and committed to become advocates for children getting
what they deserve – a high quality learning and developmental experience.
It seems to me that promoting this kind of multicultural education will
not only create more opportunity for our children, but in the process we will also
change the society in which we live.
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REFERENCES
California Tomorrow (2006) Getting Ready for Quality: the critical importance of
developing and supporting a skilled, ethnically and linguistically diverse early
childhood workforce. Oakland, California: California Tomorrow.
Day, Monimalika and Rebecca Parlakian (2004) How culture shapes socialemotional development: Implications for practice in infant-family programs.
Washington, DC: Zero to Three.
Delpit, Lisa (1996) Other people’s children: Cultural conflict in the classroom.
New York: New Press.
Derman-Sparks, Louise and Carol Brunson Phillips (1996) Teaching/ learning
Anti-bias education: A developmental approach. New York: Teachers College
Press.
Eggers-Piérola, Constanza (2002) Connections and commitments: A Latinobased framework for early childhood educators, Washington, DC: Education
Development Center.
Gay, Geneva (2000) Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and
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Garcia, Eugene (2005) Teaching and Learning in Two Languages: Bilingualism
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Ladson-Billings, Gloria (1994) The dreamkeepers: Successful teachers of
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