Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

For this assignment, I interviewed 3 people with different cultural and educational background.  Two  people have a different culture than me.  Some of the similarities in their responses about culture are that culture refers to a group of people that shares customs and traditions including food, music, folklore and language.  Also, when they spoke about diversity, they all coincide that diversity is variety and options.  They all found that the question about diversity was more difficult to answer than the question about culture.  I noticed that when they spoke about culture they described what I learned is the “surface culture” and omitted the part of the culture that is known as “deep culture” which is what, people cannot easily tell unless they take the time to investigate and learn a culture. For diversity, no one mentioned that diversity made someone unique and was not associated with a group of choices ascribed or assumed by someone that makes his/her personal identity.

The way they define culture make me think of culture as a group of characteristics that identifies a certain group people, but also that they are there being  other options in the society that they can choose from, for example,  sports, religions, political parties, career, etc.

My Family Culture

A major catastrophe has almost completely devastated the infrastructure of your country. The emergency government has decided that the surviving citizens will be best served if they are evacuated to other countries willing to take refugees. You and your immediate family are among the survivors of this catastrophic event. However, you have absolutely no input into the final destination or in any other evacuation details. You are told that your host country’s culture is completely different from your own, and that you might have to stay there permanently. You are further told that, in addition to one change of clothes, you can only take 3 small items with you. You decide to take three items that you hold dear and that represent your family culture.

   

1.  I would take a family picture where my mom, dad, son, siblings and nieces and nephew are present because I would like to remember always how they look.

2.  I will take my grandmother’s Virgin Mary image because represents the values and beliefs of the religion that was instilled to me.

3.  Also, I will take a silver plate with my mother’s image that my husband gave me when he proposed to me.  When I met my husband my mother had already died.  My husband knew how much she meant to me, and he always wished he met her.  In that important date, to make my mother present he gave me a silver plate with my mother’s image for my silver chain.

If I were told to give up two items, I would have feel devastated because the three items have the same sentimental value to me.  They represent the 3 most important things of my life my family, my values and beliefs and my marriage.

As I was reflecting doing this exercise, I realized how strong I feel about my family and my values.  In the everyday life sometimes we do not stop to think about what makes us happy and what is important to us.  It is not until we are presented with situations such a catastrophe that we think who we are and what we want.

When I think of Research...

 Well, I have to say that I always thought about research as a long, complex and tedious project.  I thought that I would never have the skills and knowledge to do one and that research was always only for people extremely smart.  From this course, I learned that even thought is a long process that requires a lot of careful planning and designing, it is also something that can be accomplished.  I see research now as a vital and essential tool for the early childhood field, and a way to keep improving and developing best practices.

My ideas about research have changed because now I see it as something achievable.  It has a process, but the process makes sense to me in all aspects.  Before, I knew it was a lot of work, but I did not understand what it was involved in all that work.

I think that planning, designing and conducting the research will be based off your research question.  Once you have developed your research question then you can start thinking on the other steps.  Each step has special considerations that researchers cannot avoid if they want to make their research valid and reliable.

The biggest challenge I encountered during my research simulation was the research question.  Who would think that writing a question could be that difficult?  It took me 5 weeks until I last developed a research question that met all the requirements studied in the course.  Every week I refined and narrowed my question until I finally got it.

Thanks to this course I now perceive early childhood professionals as Scientifics in the early education field.  I believe that, with this knowledge any early childhood professional can be capable to conduct research that can influence the job we do in the field.

Thanks to all of you for reading and replying to my blogs.  I wish you all success in your upcoming courses.

Research Around the World

 The early childhood field is rapidly growing and expanding throughout the world.  Regardless of the country people are more interested in the well-being and healthy development of very young children.  The research topics most common around the world are quality of programs, family engagement, challenging behaviors and infants/toddlers as active learners among others.

While reviewing this week resources, I realized that other countries are as serious as USA about their youngest children development.  The information and resources available in the website Early Childhood Australia are impressive.  I found the information in the website so useful and great that I could not avoid bookmarking the website to use it as a personal resource and reference.

The Early Childhood Australia has 2 notable position statements:

1.         They have a position statement for children seeking asylum

2.         They have a position statement that acknowledges aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders people as the original inhabitants and recognizes their culture and heritage.

With these two statements, they are demonstrating that they are serious about diversity and including all children in their country regardless their origin.  Also, respecting and recognizing everyone’s cultural background.

Research that Benefits Children and Families

An area of great interest for me is zero to three.  If I conduct  research in that area, the following will be my research question “Infants healthy development: Staying home parents vs. Child Care.  I believe in quality child care, but I also believe that, for infants healthy development, there is nothing better than staying at home with mom and/or dad.  The positive results of my research will be that when infants staying at home with their parents they feel more secure and safe.  Also, that they will effortlessly create that secure attachment with his/her parents that will encourage them to strive and develop well.  Infants will grow as stable and secure children and then adults because their social-emotional needs were met at the crucial age of infancy.

There is currently an advocacy effort for policy changes about the way we take care of our babies.  The initiative started with J. Ronal Lally and Peter L. Mangione both of them are staff members of WestEd Center for Child and Family Studies and PITC(Program for Infants and Toddlers Care).  They have conducted fundamental research in the area of infants and toddlers.  Please, take a look at For Our Babies website and get involved with this effort to help the American Babies.

Personal Research Journey

When I first started this course all I knew about research was to Google information.  To my surprise I quickly learned that is not an easy task to find credible information online.  I always heard “do not believe everything you read off the internet” so I was a little skeptical.  Thanks to last week resources now I feel confident about my skills to identify credible and valuable information for my research and other reasons.

Research is a challenge, but it is a challenge I am ready to overcome.  I am excited of the new knowledge as I am a little overwhelmed.  The biggest challenge I anticipate during this process is time.  Even though, I consider myself as a person who does not procrastinate, and that manages time well I am a little concerned  the time I have assigned for studying may not be enough to complete research.  I know that all of you have busy lifestyles just as I do; and if you can give me some of the ideas of how you find extra time to research I will appreciate it.

I enrolled in this M.S program because I have a passion for the early childhood field, and I have the goal of becoming a trainer/mentor-coach for early childhood teachers.  I want to share my knowledge and skills with other teachers, and help them to growth and develop to become better teachers.  I shared my goal with you because this explains the reason of the research topic I am choosing.  I am interested in the professional development and training area of the early childhood field.  However, this is very broad area, and we can only choose a subtopic.  The subtopic I am choosing is how does professional development helps teachers.  I want to learn everything about this subtopic, and I hope I can get vital information that can help me refine my career goals.

Any resources and information regarding this topic will be greatly appreciated.