REPORT ON EARLY CHILDHOOD STUDIES

QUESTION

a report critically analysing the philosophy and policies of an early yeas setting in terms of inclusive and anti-discriminatory practice.

SOLUTION

Introduction

Children have just one childhood and they deserve to be protected from harm and enjoy equal opportunity for their mental, emotional and physical development. Here we will through light on the trends of equal opportunity and diversity among children. Childhood studies revolve around the integrated approach to research and teaching around children’s lives and well-being. A good research about various aspects of children’s lives then serves as basis for policies and professional training. We will explore the truth in early childhood studies, the politics behind it and relevance of policies and philosophies behind childhood studies.

We have to delve deep into the facts, truths and developments that combine to produce concepts, texts and institutional trainings intended for effective childhood development. The report tries to evaluate that who is really advantaged and who is disadvantaged with childhood settings and programs.

The purpose of childhood studies is to consume and produce knowledge about children and early childhood education. The new understanding of children should result in effective programs and policies to best educate them and should be able to determine choices of what knowledge is best and right for proper development of children.

In this report, we analyze childhood studies in the context equality and diversity. We address following points:

• How the childhood education practitioners deal with diversity,
• What is the impact of diversity on children as well as the practitioners?
• About maintaining equality while respecting the diversity.

Equality and Diversity from Professional Perspective

It is important that all children have the right to evolve and develop with equality along with respect for diversity. Children, parents and educators have right to good quality early childhood education services, which are free from any discrimination due to race, culture, color, religion, politics, disability or social origin.

However, when practitioners work children with diverse cultures, backgrounds and abilities they experience discomfort, fear and culture shock while dealing with children lacking adequate competence.

Problems while handling diversity among children:

• If a child with additional needs enters a childhood education institution, the practitioners often feel that they need specific and expert medical knowledge and skills to deal with the needs of the special child.
• If some inter-cultural function has to be organized in a school, professionals feel the crucial need to learn about diverse cultures and to rationally deal with challenging issues associated with some sensitive cultures like Islam.
• Gender play which may be very common in many pre-schools, the practitioners may feel that addressing gender-diversity could be a big societal issue.

Should a practitioner acquire additional competence to deal with diversity?

Practitioners in childhood settings may often feel that they are ill-equipped and missing correct skill so, they need specialist assistance. An ECEC research concluded the following about the practitioners:

• Practitioners recognized the need for aptitude to be respectful to all children and they families, for which they felt the need for relevant knowledge and not necessarily the “expert” intrusion.
• Besides, the practitioners interviewed from different countries outlined certain fundamental points in order to address the issues of diversity and equality:

ü  Practitioners should accept diversity and respect it.

ü  They should not be judgmental

ü  They should be broad-minded

ü  They should have empathy and understanding of children with diverse backgrounds

ü  They should be ready for flexibility and adaptability

ü  They should be sensitive about child’s and parent’s needs and should be responsive too

ü  They should be enthusiastic and creative to find alternative solutions to the issue.

(Murray, c. and Dignan, S., n.d.)

Children Faced with Diversity

Children in their pre-school years are capable of noticing differences among people. They tend to classify more on the basis of color and size at this age. Researchers have found that some black children prefer white dolls over black dolls (Clark, 1963). Children, from their age four, begin to prefer a race recognizing color, size, eyes and hair texture. They are also often influenced by stereotype beliefs and pre-prejudices, which they observe around on their homes, and society outside.

Louise Derman-Sparks has rightly put, “The goals are to facilitate children’s awareness that their racial identity does not change, to help them understand that they are part of a large group with similar characteristics (not “different” from everyone else) and to foster their desire to be exactly who they are.” (Sparks, Derman, L.,1989).

When white children in urban and rural areas of Georgia and Tennesse were compared to children studying in all-white schools in New York, it was found that their attitude towards black children was the same. (Clark, 1963). It means that a racial attitude is not driven by contact with a different race but with a general attitude towards that race. It is the prevailing idea about the black-people that influences the concept of children.

Parents often forget the impact of their influences on their children’s opinions and therefore rarely acknowledge that they deliberately teach them to hate or repel a particular race.

Types of Diversity

This section maps the sources of knowledge about different types of diversity ion children’s lives – cultural, racial, gender and developmental diversity.

It is by now known with substantial certainty that children develop racial diversity by the age three. However, we have to acknowledge that social and individual factors highly contribute to respect for cultural diversity.

Moreover, children between three to eight years show both positive and negative towards development.

Gender awareness and identity is well established among children beginning from age three. Children at this age develop gender-stereotyped attitudes. This phenomenon is evident from diversity of childhood practices as seen in the games and toys of girls and boys. Gender diversity is very difficult to tackle with and be changed to a progressive interaction with early childhood programs.

Children in their pre-school years may also be able to understand socio-economic diversity, observing one another’s life style, personality and attitude. (Naughton, G.M.M., 2006).

Respect for Diversity and Equality

Early childhood programs must direct their policies and skills to address the issues diversity and equality with more enthusiasm and creativity.

In order to make children understand and reconstruct biased understandings, it is important that early childhood programs are designed instilling respect for diversity. Based on three useful insights, relevant pedagogical approaches can be applied.

• Studies show that children of three to eight years will not learn to be less biased without specific involvement as peer discussions and parental guidance. With positive discussions, a five-year-old may shift his view to a balanced approach towards background diversity.
• Using appropriate curriculum and teaching aids, children can be exposed to respecting diversity.  A Taiwanese study shows that when children were handed dolls showing different ethnicity of children in the classroom, they developed respect for children with diverse backgrounds.
• It has been observed that that cultural diversity among children is considered problematic. Therefore, it is necessary professionals of childhood studies should be committed to respect for diversity.
• Studies show that discontinuities among individuals and professionals involved in caring children can negatively influence the development of the children. Those children who are exposed such careless practices show poor skills and behavioral problems.
• When childcare centers adopted programs to cultivate respect for diversity. Children showed better development and progressive behavior. (Wise and Sanson, 2003, Frigo and Adams, 2002)

Developmentally Appropriate Practice

In order to optimize children’s development and encouraging equal opportunities among them child care centers and professionals need to adopt developmentally appropriate practices.

Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP) is one of the most significant catalysts for debates and framework directed towards early childhood policy and practice. The concept of DAP was formulated by the US National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) during the 1980s. The idea stressed on traditional child-centered values and respect for universal stages of development.

‘Universal stages of development’ outlines the following paradigms:

1. 1.     Child-centered values
2. 2.     Play-based programs for children
3. 3.     Activity-based learning
4. Supportive role of the skilled practitioner
5. Development and learning occur in and are influenced by multiple social and cultural contexts. (Bredekamp and Copple, 1997).

ECCE Policy And Practice

ECCE policy and practice is based on a core issue that addressed recognizing the challenges of social change, migration and multi-culturalism. The effectiveness of the policy highly varies depending on variables like level acceptance of cultural pluralism in child care centers. (Carr and May, 2000).

Assessment of Policy and Philosophy of early childhood

The significance of universal maturational processes and vulnerability of young children to adversity calls for effective reconstruction of early childhood. Socio-cultural hypothesis should indicate that respect for diversity and over all behavioral development is shaped by human actions and cultural processes. These themes serve as basis for theoretical and empirical studies child development programs and policy. However, the modern early childhood philosophy is influenced and affected much more by radical assessment of conventional theory and research. The concepts of social constructionist and post-structural perspectives should be used to liberate early childhood from narrow conceptualizations.

Analysis of relationship between kindergarten teachers’ and their principals’ belief systems about child development will help as assess the policy and programs. The result of the analysis indicates that teachers were seen to disagree with the idea of strong emphasis on academics, but instead they stressed on child-centered practices. Teachers even agreed to practicing motor activities, expressive art and physical movement in child education. Moreover, principals also showed similar beliefs. However, there was much discrepancy found in belief systems in schools headed by male principals and teachers than those headed by female principals. (Rusher, A.S., McGrevin, C.Z. and Lambiotte, J.G., 2002). The observation indicates the need of determining level of unbiased progressive developmental practices in different schools headed male or female practitioners.

The purpose of assessment is to help the teachers follow instructional decisions about to educate the children in the best possible manner to balance diversity with equal opportunities. Measurement of both assessment and evaluation of teacher’s performance and children’s development should be based upon practices that imply expected learning skills, behavior and the change to help children as they grow and develop. Young children learn better by doing than just listening unlike older children. The need for assessment is also crucial at early childhood years because growth is more rapid in the period from birth to age eight. (Haley, S. M., et.al., 1992).

Assessment of practices and childhood education settings are guided by certain professional standards and statements determined by organizations like National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC),  Division for Early Childhood (DEC)  and American Educational Research Association (AERA).

The practices undergo regular social validation and implication by experts in the field of early childhood studies. The assessment of practices and development is highly recommended as it is beneficial and very useful in shaping the growth and development of children in the right direction, which lead to equal opportunity and respect of diversity.

Assessment Tools

Here is an assessment tool to measure the special needs of children and their developmental delays among developing children. The tool may be very useful in helping children with diverse backgrounds attain equal opportunity and balanced development. It could possibly help in practicing and assessing special education programs to instill cultural-love and harmony among children belonging to different sects like backgrounds or those inflicted with certain disabilities.

Four major instruments to be used in this assessment tool is listed below in the table.

1. Adaptive Behavior Assessment Scale II (ABAS)
2. Questionnaire-Developmental
3. Questionnaire-Social/Emotional
4. Assessment, Evaluation, and Programming System

These instruments should be used from birth to childhood for close and effective monitoring development screening and individualized instrument.(Pennsylvania Early Learning Standards, 2005).

Conclusion

The report has mapped the facts, reasons and solutions to address issues of diversity, equal opportunity and delayed development in early childhood education. Now we can conclude that children began to recognize diversity of race, color and backgrounds right from their age of three. It is also seen that children who do not learn to respect diversity can develop negative behavioral patterns and be subjected to delayed development. The phenomenon also hampers the provisions of equal opportunity among children, which is not only their need but the right too. Thus, it is important that provisions are made to impart awareness among early childhood practitioners to acquire skills and enthusiasm to address this issue for effective results. Moreover, with regular assessment of policy, philosophy and researched guidelines, it should be seen that early childhood programs are contributing to sustained and balanced development of children.

References:

Build, 2005. Early Childhood Assessment for Children From Birth to Age . Journal. Strong Foundation for Pennsylvania’s Youngest Children.

Clark, K.B., 1963. Prejudices And Your Child. Wesleyan University Press.

Dunst, C., Trivette, C., Bagnato, S.J. 2001. The TRACE Center for Excellence in

Early Childhood Assessment, OSEP Research Grant, Washington, DC: US Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs.

Derman-Sparks, L., 1989, Anti-bias curriculum. National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Haley, S. M., Coster, W. J., Ludlow, L. H., Haltiwanger, J. T., & Andrellos, P. J.1992. Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory. Boston, MA: PEDI Research Group.

Mills, J. and Mills, R. 2000. Childhood Studies, A readers in Perspectives of Childhood. USA.

Naughton, G.M.M, n.d. Respect For Diversity. Early Childhood Development.

Rusher, A.S., McGrevin, C.Z., Lambiotte, J.G.,1992. Belief systems of early childhood teachers and principals regarding early childhood education. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 7 (2), pp. 277-296

Saiz. A.D.B., et.al., n.d., Diversity and Social Inclusion. Diversity in Early Childhood Education and Training.

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