1
Susan Eliason
Introduction
After reading Chapter 1 and completing the activities you will
- List the cultural values that determine early childhood education and care practices in MA. (As assessed by discussion)
- Identify ways that children’s development is impacted by the early childhood workforce. (As assessed by discussion)
- Describe the diversity of the early childhood education and care workforce in relationship to the factors or indicators of quality often used to compare programs. (As assessed by discussion)
Culture broadly refers to a group’s shared attitudes, traditions, beliefs and practices that are transmitted across generations. Cultures shape children’s experiences. We are cultural beings who understand the world through the context of languages, traditions, behaviors, beliefs and values. Our cultural experiences and values shape the way we see ourselves and what we think is important. As children we learn the ways of a culture, which enable us to feel like we belong to a community. Cultural perspectives influence how we understand children, how we help them grow, and how we teach.
Through culture, children gain a sense of identity, a feeling of belonging, and beliefs about what is important, what is right and wrong, how to care, and what to celebrate, eat, and wear. When children are raised only in their home culture, they learn these lessons effortlessly. However, for children in childcare settings the learning of cultural lessons becomes more complex with caregivers from different cultural backgrounds than the child’s home background.
For caregivers or the Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) workforce, their can be difficultly in knowing how to provide care that is consistent with family culture because of diversity in communities. Ideally, childcare providers should support the child’s primary language and culture; because culturally sensitive care positively influences the development of self-esteem, social competence, language, and intellectual competence.
What cultural values determine early childhood education and care practices in USA?
Cultural values are the beliefs, practices, symbols, specific norms, and personal values that individuals in a society share. Cultural values guide behavior. How do cultural value influence early education and care practices?
Here are some examples. Many classrooms stress uniformity. Think about the 25 apples you’ve seen on September bulletin boards in many classrooms. How often do teachers say “We all do …..”. The emphasis on uniformity creates disadvantages for children whose home culture is different than the schools. Children whose families value collaboration are told by USA ECEC childcare providers to be independent; families and children who value spontaneity are told to exercise self- control; children rewarded in their families for being social are told to work quietly and alone. This cultural mismatch often causes struggles when individual strengths are not valued or respected.
Classroom management influences the emotional climate of the classroom. The values of the early educator will determine the classroom expectations for behaviors and responses from the children. Many educators I observe demonstrate the value that children are expected to obey their teachers. Why may this be problematic for some children?
In the United States (USA), we tend to place priority on their personal identity first, and belong to other groups by choice. This is a an individualistic perspective. Some cultures value group membership more. In collectivist cultures, people identify themselves as part of a group. In classroom I observe , educators tend to address questions to individual children as well as praise and reward individuals.
The USA tends to be more masculine in its cultural values. In the USA and other “masculine” societies, school failure equals disaster for a child. As for teachers in masculine societies, the best students are praised much more than any other students.
Cultural values are important to consider as studies find that by age eight, enthusiasm for learning and self confidence in the ability to learn could be significantly negatively affected due to the cultural mismatch between their school and home culture.
As we move through the course we will compare practices in Massachusetts (MA) and the USA to other countries. To compare ECEC between countries, you first need to figure out what criteria you want to focus on in comparing countries. Frequently researchers use the criteria, factors or indicators of: curriculum, workforce, cost, quality, and outcomes to make comparisons between programs.
| Factor or Indicator | USA | Country | Country |
| Curriculum | |||
| Workforce | |||
| Cost | |||
| Quality | |||
| Outcomes |
Before we move on let’s define terms for clarity. You may wonder what is Early Childhood Education? What determines quality? What are outcomes?
Definitions
- Early Childhood Education includes formal and licensed early education and care provision for young children from birth up to the age of primary education. Programs may be publicly funded such as Head Start and public school preschool and kindergarten programs or private center based or family childcare programs.
- Curriculum The topics within the areas of English language arts, mathematics, science, technology and engineering, history and social science, comprehensive health, and the arts that will be addressed through planned and unplanned program activities. (From the Standards for the Licensure or Approval of Family Child Care; Small Group and School Age and Large Group and School Age Child Care Programs)
- Workforce Any person approved by the Department for the regular care and education of children unrelated to the educator in a location outside the children’s own home for all or part of the day, regardless of his/her level of certification. (From the Standards for the Licensure or Approval of Family Child Care; Small Group and School Age and Large Group and School Age Child Care Programs)
- Cost Childcare programs have many expenses. Up to 80 percent of child care business expenses are for payroll and payroll-related expenditures even though the ECEC workforce is one of the lowest paying professions. Childcare programs must maintain small group sizes with low teacher to child ratio to provide safe, healthy, educational environments. With limited funds, child care programs often pay low staff wages and provide only limited benefits, making it difficult to recruit and retain qualified staff. Income for childcare programs comes from primarily from parent fees.
A major hidden funding source for child care is the teacher wages in child care centers and family child care homes. (Childcare Aware, 2014, p.27[1])
- Quality is measured using criteria for regulating program including staff qualifications and training; group size and ratios; health, safety and child protection; ECE curriculum and assessment; and quality assurance, inspections, reporting and accountability. In MA licensing standards show that a program meets minimal standards for health and safety. The Quality Rating Improvement System (QRIS) is similar to rating systems for restaurants and hotels. QRIS award quality ratings to early and school-age care and education programs that meet a set of defined program standards. Even programs meeting the standards of the lowest levels have achieved levels of quality that are beyond the minimum requirements to operate. In MA the QRIS system has 4 levels of quality. NAEYC accreditation is a national standard of quality. Accredited programs meet 10 standards for high-quality early childhood education; they provide a safe and healthy environment for children, have teachers who are well-trained, have access to excellent teaching materials, and work with a curriculum that is appropriately challenging and developmentally sound.
- Outcomes – In many countries, ECE focuses particularly on nurturing children’s social and emotional, physical and language development. Some countries including the USA also focus more specifically on developing children’s early literacy and numeracy skills, with the intention of ensuring “school readiness.”
What is the state of ECEC in the USA?
The Raising of America: Early Childhood and the Future of Our Nation is a five-part documentary series and companion tools available at http://www.raisingofamerica.org illustrate how a strong start for all children can lead to better individual outcomes AND a healthier, safer, more prosperous and equitable America. The BSU Maxwell library owns the Raising of America DVD which is available to watch from Blackboard. Please view the first episode of the series.
Discussion Question
What did you discover about the factors or indicators used to compare ECEC after viewing or exploring the Raising of America website?
What is happening in other countries?
To begin a cross cultural investigation of ECEC, start by reading Chapters 1 and 2 of the textbook:
Georgeson, J. & Payler, J. (2013). International Perspectives on Early Childhood Education and Care. New York. Open University Press.
Additionally, to discover more about educational policies and ECEC in other countries begin to explore the following list of resources. Select one country to focus your research for the first project in our class.
Blackboard Discussion
Discuss these questions either in class or in an online discussion forum.
- How are the criteria for comparison culturally determined? Provide specific examples.
- How does culture impact early education and care? Provide specific examples.
References
Adelman, L. (2015). The raising of America : early childhood and the future of our nation. [San Francisco, California] :California Newsreel,
Reid, J. L. & Kagan, S. L., & (2015, April). A Better Start: Why Classroom Diversity Matters in Early Education (Rep.). Retrieved March, 2018, from Poverty & Race Research Action Council website: http://www.prrac.org/pdf/A_Better_Start.pdf
Glynn, S. J. (2012) Child Care Families Need More Help to Care for Their Children. Available at the Center for American Progress website at https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/ChildCareFactsheet.pdf
Monroe, L. & Ruan, J. (2018) Increasing early childhood preservice teachers’ intercultural sensitivity through the ABCs. Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education 39, (1), 1-15. DOI: 10.1080/10901027.2017.1389787.
eNotes.com, Inc. (n.d.) Cultural Values & Their Impact on Education. Research Starters eNotes.com available at https://www.enotes.com/research-starters/cultural-values-their-impact-education
- Childcare Aware (2014) report: Parents and the High Cost of Child Care: 2014 available at https://www.ncsl.org/documents/cyf/2014_Parents_and_the_High_Cost_of_Child_Care.pdf ↵
