As you have learned from the discussions in the first two weeks of class, there are many factors to consider when working to support families of diverse lear

The Family’s Culture

Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

▸▸ Describe the difference between the melting pot, salad bowl, and cultural pluralism views of diversity.

▸▸ Explain the complex constructs of culture and cultural contexts.

▸▸ Explore how cultural contexts influence the early education setting and how teachers and caregivers respond to families and children.

▸▸ Describe how families’ child-rearing practices are an expression of their culture, includ- ing independence and interdependence.

▸▸ Explain how to resolve conflicts between parent values and program practices by using the RERUN process.

▸▸ Apply the anti-bias and ecological diversity model.

5

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The Melting Pot, Salad Bowl, and Cultural Pluralism Chapter 5

Introduction Each one of us is a unique individual comprising a variety of cultural characteristics. These include gender (what it means to be male and female in different cultures; the ways dif- ferent societies and cultures acculturate girls and boys), age (generation), where one was raised, profession, income, race, ethnicity, religion, education, sexual orientation, abilities and disabilities, and so on. Further, our personal characteristics are influenced by situations and experience, including our job, family/partnership, groups we belong to, personal interests, hobbies, politics, and issues we avidly support. While these characteristics may be shared by many other people, our own combination of them is unique. When you enter an early care and education program—as a teacher, caregiver, administrator, or other position—you bring this unique combination with you.

By the same token, each family you serve—children, parents, and other adults—bring to the program their unique combination of cultural characteristics, which may be the same as or different from yours. For example, teachers and parents may have the same gender and race or ethnicity; in other cases, they may differ with respect to language, age (generation), and religion. This chapter examines these different contexts and explores ways the early care and education program and the families they serve must work together closely to honor and sup- port these differences, while collaborating to provide for the children they serve.

The United States has been a multicultural nation since its inception. During recent years, however, many early childhood classrooms have seen an increase of diversity in the children and families they serve. For early care and education teachers and caregivers to be able to work effectively with children in their classrooms, they need to understand diversity and how it affects children and their families.

5.1 The Melting Pot, Salad Bowl, and Cultural Pluralism The United States is a multicultural nation, much like Brazil and the countries of contemporary Europe. People came to the United States from all over the world and brought with them a rich diversity of languages, foods, customs, religions, and traditions. However, U.S. history also includes the persecution of Native Americans; discrimination against Mexican residents who lived legally in the Southwest before it became part of the country; slavery of Africans; discrimination against Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino immigrants; internment of Japanese people in camps during WWII; and persecution of the Irish. Both the rich cultural characteris- tics that immigrants brought to the United States and its history of racism and discrimination comprise the multicultural nature of this society.

The original European settlers to the United States wanted to make sure everyone who came to live there would become what they viewed as true Americans (Spickard, 1989). They viewed America as a radical experiment in democracy and religious freedom and did not want people bringing bad ideas, habits, and loyalties from their home countries. Thus, new immigrants were expected to become Americans—to reject their previous loyalties and melt into an over- all American identity. Out of this belief developed the concept of the melting pot.

The United States became known as a melting pot. Immigrants came from Northern Europe, Southern Europe, and Eastern Europe; from China, Japan, and the Philippines; and from

The Melting Pot, Salad Bowl, and Cultural Pluralism Chapter 5

Ireland and the Scandinavian countries. After they arrived, they were expected to learn English, have their children attend public schools and learn about American history and val- ues, and become loyal Americans. Many actually changed their names on entering America through Ellis Island. American thinkers and political leaders felt this shift to an American identity, and loyalty was critical for the very survival of the new country (Spickard, 1989). Americans observed other new countries and disapproved of what happened when immi- grants maintained a loyalty and alliance to their old-world homelands (Ladle, 1999). The concept of all immigrants leaving behind their own culture to become Americans is assimi- lation. U.S. schools focused on teaching children of immigrants what it meant to be an American and how this new country superseded the countries and cultures from which they came (Wiles & Bondi, 1989).

These new Americans tended to gravitate to parts of the country and neighborhoods in large cities where people like them lived—Italians, Jews, Scandinavians, Germans, Chinese, Slavs, Irish—but they were still expected to become true Americans and to change their primary loy- alty to their new country. However, this new America began to look very much like Northern Europe—white, male, and Protestant (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2010). Thus, what was thought to be a melting pot became instead a push to become Northern European—what we now call the dominant culture.

This also had a profound impact on minorities, including Mexicans and Native Americans. Many Native American children were taken away from their homes and tribes and placed in Christian mission boarding schools, and certain Native American customs—such as burial, worship, and dress—were outlawed as being uncivilized (un-American) (Wilson, 1992). Non- English languages were banned in public schools (Crawford, 2008; Crawford & Krashen, 2008). African slaves, of course, posed their own dilemma to a country that proudly professed equality and the right to individual happiness to people in the rest of the world.

The concept of the melting pot as a metaphor for the United States’ multicultural population and vision was perpetuated until the civil right movements of the 1960s.

Cultural Pluralism

Today, advocates of diversity and educational equality use the term salad bowl instead of melting pot. According to Nieto (2004), the salad bowl metaphor is “a model based on the premise that people of all backgrounds have a right to maintain their languages and cultures while combining with others to form a new society reflective of our differences” (p. 437). Another term that has the same mean- ing is cultural pluralism. The idea is that the United States is made up of distinct cultural groups that should be empowered to main- tain their unique identity, customs, values, and languages. Individuals are expected to remain tied to their unique cultural groups (for identity, meaning, and belonging), while also

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▲ The term “salad bowl” is now used to represent the array of culturally distinct groups living in the United States.

The Melting Pot, Salad Bowl, and Cultural Pluralism Chapter 5

identifying with U.S. society. They are then considered bicultural—functioning within two cultures simultaneously and effectively (U.S. HHS, 2010).

Thus, the trend today is for new immigrants to maintain their home language, culture, religion, and traditions; to celebrate their unique cultural identity; and to raise their children within this unique set of cultural attributes (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2010; U.S. HHS, 2010). However, certain legislation, such as that supporting more rigid educational and early childhood stan- dards, is making this difficult to achieve, especially within the early care and education pro- gram (DuBois, 2007).

Cultural Pluralism and Early Care and Education Programs

The public school was an important place where immigrant children and their families could be socialized into the American way—the melting pot (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2010). New immigrant students and their families intermixed with a wide variety of other families, and American traditional values and expectations were stressed in these schools. New families and members of existing minority groups were forced to learn the dominant ways of doing things as quickly as possible, from learning English to learning about school rules, athletics, cheerleading, and assemblies (Bang, 2009; Ngo, 2008).

Early care and education programs, while much more diverse than public schools (Neugebauer, 2008), still functioned as a place where new immigrant families and those not belonging to the dominant society were socialized with ideas about how to raise and educate their children. Licensing requirements required children to be immunized, child abuse laws set discipline expectations, and USDA food programs assumed everyone had the same food preferences. State licensing regulations supported a dominant cultural view; state health policies similarly perpetuated a Western concept of health. Head Start’s federal performance standards per- petuated a single, universal view of development and education, and teachers believed in the view of care and education taught in their college education classes (Dyson, 2003; Howard, 2007). Immigrant families were expected to learn the rules, policies, and norms of local early care and education programs (Bang, 2009).

Now, with the shift from the melting pot to cultural pluralism, the role of the early care and education program is changing. The programs are still community agencies responsible for disseminating information about raising children, from referrals to Child Find (the agency attached to local public schools to identify children who may need special education services), to immunization information and advice about reading to children and limiting young chil- dren’s exposure to inappropriate media. But the challenge now is that there is no one agreed- upon way to raise and educate children in the United States; there is no universal approach. Early care and education programs are now expected to respond sensitively and effectively to the cultural diversity of all of the families who use the program and to address a range of cultural ideals about families, children, discipline, food, health care, and religion (Bang, 2009; Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2010; Lee, 2005; Ngo, 2008). This new role of the early care and education program can result in conflicts, disagreements, and even arguments with local government agencies, which are still required to enforce a dominant view of how to care for and educate young children.

Culture Chapter 5

5.2 Culture Although culture can be defined in a variety of ways, there is no universally agreed-upon definition (see Chapter 2). In general, definitions point to the impact groups of people have on the values, behaviors, interactions, and symbols of individuals within those groups. One of the central ways cultures manifest in families is how children are raised (U.S. HHS, 2010). To understand culture and its impact on families and children, consider Bronfenbrenner’s (1979, 1995) ecological systems theory (see Chapter 1), and specifically the concept of macrosys- tem, which includes the cultural context, or broad cultural conditions, of a society. Cultural contexts can be the product of a vast variety of groups, including but not limited to geo- graphic regions, ethnic and racial groups, national peoples, Native American nations, nation of origin, professional associations, and economic and religious groups (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2010; U.S. HHS, 2010). Each one of us operates within a variety of cultural contexts at the same time. For example, a person may be a woman, a U.S. citizen, Jewish, and a member of a specific profession.

However, cultures are not static—they are dynamic (Bang, 2009; Bhabha, 1994; S. Hall, 1989). In part, this is caused by cultures continually encountering other cultures and changing as a result. This is particularly true of diverse cultures such as Brazil and the United States, where dif- ferent cultural groups coexist and continually interact with each other (Alves-Silva, et al., 2000; HHS 2010). Many factors have led to the creation of cultural groups. One of these was the need for people to band together to fend off hostility from dominant and powerful groups. In the United States, such groups have included Native Americans, blacks, Hispanics, and women. While laws and progress have lessened discrimination, there is still prejudice in the United States, and some believe these groups still must band together for their survival and progress (Smedley, 2002; Tatum, 1997).

However, minority and majority groups differ from coun- try to country. For example, while Latinos are considered a minority group in the United States, they are the ruling class in Guatemala and also part of the ruling class in Brazil and other countries in South America (Alves-Silva et al., 2000).

Some cultural contexts change over the lifespan. This includes age-based contexts, such as teenage culture and the specific cultures of young parents and of seniors. One’s cultural con- text can also change due to educational attainment, marriage, job advancement, and chang- ing religion. Further, the influence of specific cultural contexts changes over historical time (Bronfenbrenner, 1967). For example, women in the United States today have more freedoms than they did 100 years ago. African-American cultural frameworks have radically changed since the 1960s (the civil rights movement), and everyone’s contexts have been affected by the advancement of technology during the last 20 years. The U.S. Census Bureau predicts that

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▲ Culture grows out of cultural contexts such as racial groups, professional associations, and religious groups. Culture manifests in families most notably in the way children are raised.

Various Cultural Contexts of Children Chapter 5

by 2040, whites in the United States will be a numerical minority, which will change cultural dynamics (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2011).

For the individual, contexts can change by traveling to different regions of the United States or the world. For example, when a biracial person who is considered black in the United States travels to Brazil, that person’s race changes to pardo (brown-mixed race) (Fish, 2002). When American minorities travel to Europe, Europeans tend to see them less as belonging to a minority group and more as an American. Some American multiracial children—those belonging to more than one racial category—who immigrate to Europe have discovered they are viewed differently by Europeans.

Cultural Contexts of Individuals

Each of us places differing weight on each of our cultural contexts due to a variety of factors, including upbringing, where we live, and our parents. For some, gender is the most important context; for others, it is family; and for still others, nationality, race, ethnicity, or disability is paramount. Some of this emphasis is determined by society in the 21st-century United States, but it also can be influenced by other cultural contexts and individual behaviors (West, 2001). Each cultural context affects all other cultural contexts. For example, religion influences the concept of gender roles, gender roles affect views of family, and professional education tends to change values. No cultural context operates in total isolation of all others. Further, any single cultural attribute—e.g., gender, religion, race, or nationality—has within it tremendous variability. Thus, while we are all products of a variety of cultural contexts, it is inappropriate to stereotype someone based on the cultural contexts to which they belong and adhere (Ngo, 2006, 2008).

All the different contexts we have experienced are integrated within our own unique identity (West, 2001). While some of these contexts are imposed from outside, each of us still con- tinually negotiates our own unique view of how these contexts define who we are and how we view the world (Bowman, 1994; Root, 1996). Even the impact of contexts that are fairly stable—e.g., race and gender—change as society and individuals change. Other contexts, such as economic status, fluctuate radically due to a variety of factors (e.g., the economy, divorce, losing a job, marrying, and so on); still others can be manipulated by personal choice (e.g., changing one’s religion, marrying someone from another racial background, or moving to another country).

Values embedded within different cultural contexts often conflict with values in other cultural contexts. For example, some religious groups oppose gay marriage and believe in strict and sometimes unequal gender roles, and individuals in some racial and ethnic groups are preju- dicial toward those in other groups. Colorism is also powerful for many members of minority groups. This is a hierarchy of color and facial features, with white skin and European features viewed as superior to dark skin and Indian or African features, a preference also prevalent in Latin American racial coding systems (Fish, 2002; Haizlip, 1994).

5.3 Various Cultural Contexts of Children Families that attend early care and education programs throughout the United States come with a vast diversity of cultural contexts that interact differently, providing rich complexity within ECE programs. Here, a few of the main cultural contexts are described; however, it

Various Cultural Contexts of Children Chapter 5

is critical to remember that no context operates by itself. Each family integrates a variety of contexts differently, and every person within a family, including the parents and children, are unique individuals (West, 2001).

Immigrant Status

Immigrants bring to early care and education programs a rich diversity of cultural contexts. First, they have not lived within the overall U.S. cultural framework for their entire lives and thus may have different views and behaviors regarding democracy, religion, education, and gender equality (Bang, 2009; Ngo, 2006). Immigrants may not subscribe to the official view of race and ethnicity codified by the U.S. Census categories (Bang, 2009; Ngo, 2006, 2008). For example, while Somalis living in the United States are African, they may or may not consider themselves African American (Fish, 2002). Mayan immigrants, categorized by the U.S. Census as Latinos, may consider themselves indigenous people of South Mexico and Central America (Wardle & Cruz-Janzen, 2004). In fact, when new immigrants settle in the United States, they tend to settle near others from their own national or religious groups, rather than in racial groups: Somalis with Somalis, West Africans with West Africans, Koreans with Koreans, and Brazilians with Brazilians (Bang, 2009; Ngo, 2006). Jewish immigrants from Eastern Russia and Eastern Europe are fully embraced within existing Jewish communities in cities throughout the country, and other groups settle within neighborhoods of similar national backgrounds.

Some of the cultural richness and possible challenges that some immigrant families bring to early care and education programs include the following:

• Food preferences and rules about what their children can and cannot eat

• Different religious traditions and practices

• Differing views on gender roles, both for children and their parents

• A variety of non-English languages

• A range of expectations regarding appropriate behavioral and the academic skills to be taught (Ahmad & Szpara, 2003; Syed, 2007)

• Differing views regarding the role of religion in education, which may conflict with traditional views of religious neutrality in schools

• Conflicting views about teachers and toward female teachers (as opposed to male teachers) (Bang, 2009; Rodriguez, 2008)

Income Status

In the first two decades of the 21st century, the number of poor families has increased. Some of these are single, female-headed households; others are families in which both parents have lost their jobs. Poverty causes a variety of problems that can affect young children attending early care and education programs and their families. Poverty can have a dramatic impact on how families are able to provide necessities for their children, the choices they have for early care and education, and their ability to support their children’s programs (Engle & Black, 2008). Furthermore, many low-income families cannot access quality early care and education programs (Boyd-Zaharias & Pate-Bain, 2009; Howard, 2007; Rothstein, 2008) and many can- not easily participate in quality parent-involvement programs (Hill & Craft, 2003).

Many programs serve low-income families. The best known is Head Start and Early Head Start. Most states also have some form of low-income state-funded preschool program (Scott-Little,

Various Cultural Contexts of Children Chapter 5

Kagan, & Frelow, 2006); young children with disabilities can receive free and reduced-cost educational services. The federal government provides free and reduced child care. While Head Start and state-funded programs are mostly part time, subsidized child care is full day. Some programs provide wrap-around care and education, with a child attending Head Start and state-funded or disability programs for part of the day and then subsidized child care for the remainder of the day. Other services for low-income families include free and reduced fee lunches, commodity foods, food banks, child health insurance, and mental health services. Early care and education programs usually can provide information regarding these agencies and programs.

Religious Status

Religion is an important cultural context for many families (Lippy, 2004). Religion determines a person’s values, religious traditions, behaviors, and attitudes. Further, a person’s religion tends to determine the kinds of people one interacts with socially, through churches, syna-

gogues, temples, and mosques, both for religious services and for important community and even political activities. Some people attend colleges and universities supported by their religious faith. Many parents have their children attend religious early care and education programs.

Historically, the United States has recognized a vari- ety of mostly Christian religions, including Protestant, Quaker, Catholic, and Jehovah’s Witness, in addition to the Jewish religion and some Native American practices. Now, with more recent immigrants, this list includes Confucian, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Shinto, Sikh, Taoist, and other religions. Further, as mentioned earlier, some new immigrants do not believe religion and the state (e.g., schools and early childhood programs) should be separate. This includes people from Brazil and other parts of South America, whose Catholic faith intertwines with the practices of their local and national governments and public schools (Ladle, 1999).

As noted by Neugebauer (2005), nearly 1.5 million children attend early care and education programs

housed in religious facilities; almost one in four early childhood centers is operated in a reli- gious facility, and the largest providers of child care services in the United States are the Roman Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention. While many of these programs accept children from other faiths, program practices reflect the religious values, traditions, and rituals of the particular faith (Neugebauer, 2005).

Depending on how devoted parents are, religion can have a very strong influence on how they raise their children, from educational goals and gender expectations, to moral values and beliefs. These parents’ values can have a dramatic influence on the early care and education program.

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▲ More than 1 million children attend an early care program that operates in a religious facility.

Various Cultural Contexts of Children Chapter 5

Race and Ethnicity

The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which is the federal agency that deter- mines employment, school entry, and the U.S. Census’s racial and ethnic categories, specifies five racial categories and one ethnic category. The racial categories are American Indian or Alaskan Native, Asian, black or African American, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, and white. A person can also select more than one race or “some other race.” The ethnic category is Hispanic or Latino (which can be any race) (U.S. Census, 2011). The U.S. Census categories are unique to the history, politics, and social dynamics of the United States. Every country collects demographic information on its citizens using its own unique system of cat- egories (Fish, 2002).

Further, wide diversity exists within each of these very broad U.S. Census categories. Whites include Germans, English, Irish, Eastern Russians, French, Italians, European Jews, and so on. Hispanics include Cubans, Puerto Ricans, people from Argentina and Mexico, and Hispanics who have lived in the Southwest of the United States of America for generations. African Americans include people from the rural south, the Caribbean, and South America. Asians include people from China, Vietnam, Japan, Korea, Cambodia, and the Philippines, along with Asians from South America. Native Americans include all of the tribes/nations recognized by the federal government, along with native peoples from Canada, the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central and South America. Each of these groups has a very different history and culture (and often language). Some countries that exist within the same broad racial category have long histories of animosity (for example, Korea and Japan, or Japan and China) (Lee, 2005; Ngo, 2006).

Two trends are blurring views of race and ethnicity in the United States. The first has already been mentioned: increasing numbers of immigrants who view race from the perspective of their own nation and culture, and not that of the U.S. government or society. The second is an increasing number of interracial marriages, resulting in children who do not identify with a single racial or ethnic group. According to Hodgkinson (2000-2001), it is estimated that 40% of American citizens have some racial mixing in the last three generations. Of this group, young people are the fastest-growing segment.

Many argue that the broad terms so popular in U.S. parlance, such as black and Hispanic, are over- generalizations that obscure real diversity, variation, and deep cultural understanding (Fish, 2002; Ngo, 2006, 2008; West, 2001). Further, these terms do not recognize the number of immigrants and multi- racial children who do not fit neatly into these broad groups (Baxley, 2008).

Language

According to the U.S. Department of Education, more than 400 languages are spoken in K-12 schools (U.S. Census, 2007). According to David et al. (2005), the average Head Start program has 10 different languages spoken by families served. Language

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▲ The continued prevalence of immigration as well as an increase in interracial marriages has some- what blurred the perception of race and ethnicity as rigid categories in the United States.

Various Cultural Contexts of Children Chapter 5

diversity in early care and education programs can be very challenging, with the most dif- ficult part being communication. Most curricular materials are not produced in all of the languages used by children attending a program, and communication and language issues greatly confound a program’s ability to accurately assess a child who may have a develop- mental delay and needs targeted services, because assessment instruments for young children are available in very few languages (NAEYC, 1996). Some suggestions to address language diversity in early care and education programs include the following:

• Teach English language classes to parents who wish to learn. Make sure to teach func- tional language (for example, teach the language needed to function in the program and to communicate with teachers) (Bang, 2009).

• Recruit people who can help translate in parents’ home languages. These may be peo- ple associated with local churches or businesses where the same language is spoken, members of language clubs, or international students attending local colleges.

• Make your own curricular materials. With the availability of computers, digital cameras, and printers, it is now easy to make classroom materials (see Think About it: Materials and Activities Checklist).

• Use parents to help teach caregivers and teachers some basic words and phrases in the child’s language.

• View non-English language use in the program as an asset to the English-speaking students. Research is clear regarding the positive impact of second-language learning; it is also a wonderful multicultural tool (NAEYC, 1996). <

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