Awareness of Microaggressions

I can recall a situation from High School where I was a target of microaggression. I was a target of verbal unintentional microaggression. My field hockey team and I were working on posters for our team. We were each to make our own and I was hesitant about mine. I had made people aware of this verbally. Another team member came over and told me mine should be great because I was left-handed and left-handed people are artists. At this moment I felt unsure of my poster and that I had more to prove because I was left handed.

Reflecting back on this scenario I feel as if the person who made that comment to me had a stereotype about left-handed people and how they are good artists. Thinking about this makes me realize the number of stereotypes that people have and how it seems one can have a stereotype for anything.

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

 I asked four different people what their definitions of diversity and culture were. These are the responses I received.

Jeremy- There are many things that make up a culture; food, language, traditions, beliefs, surroundings, morality, personality, attitudes, etc. The people one is surrounded by, their heritage, language, food etc. Diversity is the separation between different cultures due to every aspect that makes up a culture as well as political, geographical, and mental boundaries.

Sean-Culture is the sum of all behavior; learned or innate. Diversity means that there are cultures that are just different from each other.

Heidi- Culture is a way of life. Diversity is different ways of doing things.

Ricky- Culture is all aspects of a given society that defines society. Diversity is the differences in the physical, financial, and mental qualities of a population.

I found many aspects of what I have learned in this course have been included in these definitions provided above. For example Jeremy's definition of culture includes all aspects of what makes up a culture. When it comes to the definition of diversity Ricky pointed out that diversity includes differences in physical, financial, and mental qualities of a population. I do not feel at this point much has been left out in these answers other than going into specifics about what the physical aspects are or the different religions that can be included in culture.

Thinking and reflecting on these definitions has truly impacted my way of looking at culture and diversity. Diversity is shown in the answers given as they are all different. I also never looked at mental qualities and boundaries as being an aspect of diversity before completing this assignment.

My Family Culture

If my family were to be evacuated to another country and I could only bring three small items that represented my family culture I would bring my bible, my phone, and a family scrapbook. I would bring my bible, because it shows the beliefs of my family for many generations. I would explain to others the meaning of my bible but talking to them about my religion and beliefs. I would bring my phone as it represents how my family has adopted what the dominant culture had brought to my family of using technology for daily occurrences. I would explain to others about how I used this in my day to day life to contact people, as a calendar, for social media, and to take pictures and videos. Finally, I would bring a scrapbook as it would show the closeness of my family. As part of our culture we spend a lot of time with family. I would explain this to others by showing them the pictures of family gatherings. When they looked at the pictures they would also see the physical piece of our culture; Caucasian Americans.

If upon arrival I was told I could only keep one of these items I would be okay, because I could still keep my bible. My bible is what has given me a solid foundation of values, attitudes, and beliefs to live by.

This assignment was difficult for me to complete as I had a hard time coming up with three items to represent my family culture. The more I thought about it the more I understood about my family culture. I found myself asking family members the same questions. The common answer was “this is difficult”, but the first item anyone said would be the bible or a cross.

Week 8

     On my first day of this course I was very apprehensive as I knew the bare minimum about research. Over the past eight weeks I have learned about ethics and equity in research, different types of research, and how to read a research paper.

      I have always looked at conducting research as a daunting task as it needs to be very precise. I have found this to be true as I have taken this course, but the task is no longer as daunting to me. The knowledge I have gained from this course has eased my anxieties and shown broken down the pieces of research for me in a way that I understand.

      Throughout this course we have conducted three research simulations. As I created these designs based upon my research topic I have learned about the ways in which one needs to plan, design, and conduct research. Research needs to begin with a general idea in mind and from there one needs to plan out the variables, possibly write out a hypothesis, define who or what will be studied etc.

      The biggest challenge I faced during this course was understanding the difference between qualitative and quantitative research. I was able to understand what the textbook said, but when I applied it to my research I had a difficult time figuring out how it applied. Once I broke it down step by step I was able to complete my research simulations.

      As a result of this course I have grown as an early childhood professional. As I receive research articles at work I am able to read them without getting confused with the “big words” and understanding what the research means to my work in the early childhood field.

Research Around the World EDUC 6163

This week I chose to take a look at the following website: http://www.ecdvu.org/ssa/major_reports.php

This website has the links to major reports and thesis of students of the “School of Child and Youth Care University of Victoria”. There were many different topics; integrated early childhood development, the status of coordination and supervision in Ghana, improving the quality of child care, using community resources in curriculum development, and so much more.

            As I read the paper titled “The Status of Coordination and Supervision of Early Childhood Education in Ghana” The study found that policy’s work better when there is a team collaborating and making decisions (Amponsa, 2003). It was found specifically in Ghana there is a gap of the absence of policy statements for coordinators and supervisors (Amponsa, 2003). It was concluded there must be more training and support offered to these coordinators and supervisors in order to decrease the gap and provide quality child care (Amponsa, 2003).

            Taking a look at these reports and thesis of students at the University of Victoria helped me to see how countries can support one another with the research they conduct for their early childhood programs. The research which is conducted is specifically focused towards that one country, but the results can be taken into consideration for early childhood programs around the world. I was surprised by the number of topics that were reviewed that I have read studies on here in the U.S.

            It was very beneficial for me to look at this website this week to see that countries can help one another through research to provide high-quality early childhood programming.

References

Amponsa, M. (2003). The Status of Coordination and Supervision of Early Childhood Education in Ghana . University of Victoria.

EDUC 6163 Week 3 Option 2

If I could choose any topic in the early childhood field to conduct research on I would have to choose to research health in early childhood education. My experience in the early childhood field has led me to believe that there needs to be a greater partnership between public health officials and early childhood providers. I believe that research should be conducted to see what more can be done to prevent health concerns such as childhood obesity, the effect smoking has on children etc. If one were to conduct research on this topic one would be comparing results of programs that partner with public health officials and the effects it has on the children and families of that program compared to one that has not partnered with public health officials.

EDUC 6163 Week 2

I put a lot of thought into my research topic for this course. I wanted it to be meaningful for the early childhood field, but even more so I wanted it to be meaningful for the Head Start program. I work for. As I prepared for the topic I spoke to the executive director of my program who is my supervisor as well about my thoughts and we discussed what direction would be best to take this research in. I chose to research the topic of cultural experiences in the classroom and best practices for keeping continuity between home and school.

As I become more familiar with the research of this topic I would like to answer three questions.

1.      What are some way’s to keep a family’s culture alive in the classroom?

2.      What can we do to respect a family’s discipline techniques while ensuring developmentally appropriate practice both at home and school?

3.      Are there cultural differences amongst people of the same ethnic background who live in the same community?

Question number three I am not completely satisfied with. I want to find a way to reformat this question to have deeper meaning for the research I will be conducting. As I worked on the “Understanding Research” chart this week I began to reflect upon the type of data I would collect with this. I believe I would be researching quantitative approaches.

One of the resources I used in part two of our first assignment this week talks about this topic very well. You can find it in the Walden Library. It had some great insights on this topic.

References

Cheatham, G. A., & Ostrosky, M. M. (2013). Goal setting during early childhood parent-teacher conferences: A comparison of three groups of parents. Journal of Research in Early Childhood Education 27(2), 166-189.