Multicultural Education in Early Childhood
Multicultural Education in Early Childhood
Multicultural Education in Early Childhood
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Abstract
The writer is proposing that multicultural education be made an important
component in early childhood education. The current trend in demography in most
countries is one of increasing heterogeneity which gives rise to racial tensions
and cultural conflicts. People need to come to terms with the fact that we need
to co-exist in harmony, and this can only happen if there is genuine respect and
acceptance of differences. Attitudinal and value systems can change only with
knowledge and understanding. Education therefore plays a key role in bringing
about these changes, and the best time to start this process of education is right
from early childhood. This article explores the issues and challenges of doing
just that. As crucial as it is that we embark on this path, we must be aware of the
obstacles and difficulties that lie in front of us in order to circumvent hurdles and
strategise our efforts in the most optimum manner.
Background
The theme of this paper was chosen because of the current scenario in the writer’s
home country, i.e. Malaysia, where after 51 years of independence and the implementation
of numerous programmes targeting national unity and inter-ethnic integration, a pattern
of increasing polarization seems to be on the up-trend (Najeemah 2005; Hazri et al. 2004;
Nik et al. 2003). In the latest attempts to reverse this trend, the government has made
compulsory a course on ethnic relations for all undergraduates enrolled in universities;
as well as organized a national service programme for selected high school leavers.
This programme is not a conscription exercise but meant more to encourage increased
interaction between adolescents from different ethnic groups. The impact of such efforts is
still questionable, but any developmental psychologist or educationist will point out that
such programmes targetting late adolescents and young adults might just be a case of “too
little, too late” as it would be very difficult to undo pre-existing prejudices, attitudes and
bias internalised in these individuals which will affect their behavior and interaction with
people of different ethnicity and culture. Well documented literature on child development
has shown that such critical attitudes will be better nurtured in the early years (and this is
elaborated further in a subsequent section of the paper).
The writer then set out to see what other countries were doing in the field of early
childhood in terms of multicultural education, with the aim of gathering information
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on the what, why and how of implementing multicultural education in early childhood.
This effort took her to Australia and Japan,1 where through field visits, observations and
conversations with both early childhood experts and practitioners, valuable insights were
obtained regarding multicultural education in the early years.
It is within this context then, that the writer sets out to present the issues and
challenges of implementing multicultural education in early childhood. These challenges
are discussed in relation to four main provisions advocated for implementing multicultural
education. However it must be noted that this paper is not meant to be prescriptive as
situations differ in different settings, and therefore nowhere in this paper is an attempt
made to emphasize particularistic solutions to individual problems. Instead some
guidelines and approaches are discussed to be viewed more as possible considerations for
those interested in these initiatives but only after assessing their appropriateness to local
contexts.
1
In Australia, the writer visited and had discussions with experts in Macquarie University, University
of Queensland and Queensland University of Technology; as well as early childhood care providers in
on-campus as well as off-campus centers in Sydney and Brisbane. In Japan, structured conversations
were held with experts in the Faculty of Education, Hiroshima University; and Toyo Eiwa Women’s
University. Visits and discussions were also held with early childcare providers at Hiroshima University
kindergarten, Kaede Yochien (center affiliated with Toyo Eiwa University); and Machida Shizen
Hoikuen. The writer was also fortunate to have been invited to the Seminar on Multicultural Education
In Kindergarten and Elementary School in Okubu Yochien and Okubo Shogakko, Tokyo where she
witnessed first-hand some of the pedagogy and approaches used in these classes.
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Multicultural Education in Early Childhood: Issues and Challenges
other cultures. This myth is pervasive in such societies. However with the phenomenon
of transmigration, the world becoming a borderless village, increasing interdependence
among countries, and more tragic and spectacular events like 9/11 and the ominous
threat of a “clash of civilizations” the issue of multiculturalism and its place in education
is becoming more important. A deliberate and conscious effort has to be undertaken to
promote respect and not just mere tolerance for differences, including cultural ones which
make up the most contentious of differences amongst mankind. This imperative was
officially declared even as early as the Swann Report (DES, 1985) which emphasized the
need to teach all young people how to respect ethnic and cultural differences and to accept
them as part of the cultural richness of life in our modern world, and not as a threat.
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early childhood services, and the mass media play a vital role in developing children’s
attitudes and behaviors towards differences. Children learn to treat others differently
on the basis of race, gender, age, ability, religion and cultural heritage either directly or
vicariously through the gradual process of socialisation and enculturation.
Additionally, it is important that we catch them young, when the likelihood of
them having been socialized or enculturated with negative stereotypes and biases is less.
Children also are capable of being “teachers” or influencing adults when they transfer
what they learn in early childhood care centers. Children have been known to reprimand
their smoker-parents that “smoking is bad and it can kill you.” Similarly if and when they
hear negative comments about culturally different people, they can then either correct
their parents’ perceptions or ask why they say these things, and therefore perhaps even get
them to re-examine their prejudices.
In this section a discussion of the issues and challenges will be linked to the
provisions advocated for implementing multicultural education in early childhood
education settings. These provisions include the following:
• Services recognize that every child, family and staff member has a right to
access early childhood services which support their cultural identity and their
community.
• Services are to be planned, implemented and evaluated through ongoing
discussion with service users and the wider community to reflect the diversity of
that community.
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Multicultural Education in Early Childhood: Issues and Challenges
• Within each service, information is provided in a variety of ways, for example oral,
visual and written.
• Information about the service for families is accessible. This is facilitated by
multilingual translations and/or interpreter services relevant to the families.
• Families who are disadvantaged by the particular circumstance of recent arrival in
the country or community are provided with special consideration regarding access
and support. (Early Childhood Australia National Council 2007)
Until and unless the government or some other agency undertakes to provide free
service for all who need it, it is very difficult to realize this provision. Early childhood
education is costly as it may range from half day-care to full day-care, from nursery to
kindergartens and preschool. Besides this, there is the usual perception (and in most cases,
true) that “free” services are inferior in quality compared to the paid-for services normally
operated by private enterprise which are far beyond the reach of those in the lower socio-
economic strata of society (normally the minority cultural groups). Hence there is the
further possibility of enrollment in certain services to be segregated along ethnic or socio-
economic lines. In Malaysia this is certainly true where there is a marked pattern of racial
segregation, not so much policy-driven, but mirroring the preferences of parents to send
their children to centers that cater to their language of choice, which in most cases is their
first language. This of course has serious implications for national integration as it does
not contribute to a conducive environment for young children learning to live and interact
with others from a different cultural background. It is mostly in the urban areas that there
is a better mix of children from different cultural backgrounds. Another issue pertaining
to enrollment by ethnicity is that most times enrollment is determined by location or
proximity and if the population is naturally ethnically segregated by area of domicile, then
the chances are that centers will also see the admission of relatively homogenous pupils.
For example in some Australian cities such as Sydney or Melbourne, there are certain
localities that are clearly identifiable as Vietnamese, Lebanese, Greek, Chinese etc. Also,
it is possible that some parents might be influenced by the idea to enroll their children
where there is a greater likelihood of their children having peers speaking the same home
language.
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the curriculum are changed so that students can view concepts, issues, events, and themes
from the perspectives of diverse ethnic and cultural groups.
For an example of this approach we can look to the New South Wales’s curriculum
framework for Children’s Services (Stonehouse 2002). This framework advocates a firm
and true commitment to multiculturalism. The curriculum framework consists of four
“major obligations” which are the central focus of practice and provisions. One of these
four obligations is: honouring diversity. Here diversity is understood not only in terms of
cultural and linguistic background but also all other forms such as gender, lifestyle, socio-
economic status, family composition, abilities, and personal beliefs and values.
…teachers also model and discuss behaviors that value diversity by drawing on
children’s home and community experiences when negotiating curriculum. They
engage children in learning experiences in familiar community settings. (p.17)
It is generally upheld that good early childhood pedagogy reflects and empowers the
diverse cultural backgrounds of the children and families with whom they work (Robinson
& Jones Diaz 2006). This positive representation of the diversity of children’s identity
in the daily programming and planning of early childhood education is considered to be
crucial for developing individual children’s positive self-esteem as well as fostering their
appreciation for the diversity that exists more broadly in society.
• Children in the classroom are seated or carry out their activities in mixed (ethnic/
cultural) groupings if possible
• Posters, books, CDs, images, songs and other resources used in either the classroom
or playroom setting represent realistic linguistic, cultural and social practices of the
children.
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Multicultural Education in Early Childhood: Issues and Challenges
• Stereotypic images are avoided and there is a careful balance of resources that
represent both traditional and contemporary images of cultural and language
practices.
• Texts in children’s languages, including books, newspapers, games, electronic media
and popular culture texts are used throughout the day across different curriculum
areas.
• Programs provide opportunities for all children, staff and families to use a variety of
communication forms including languages other than the majority language. (The
provision for language development will be discussed in greater detail in the next
section).
• Programs reflect the diversity of cultures represented by the broader community and
extend both children’s knowledge of their own culture and knowledge of cultures
other than their own.
• Programs, policies, practices and curricula are not only culturally inclusive but
consciously work to recognise and take action against bias, combat racism and reject
stereotyping.
• Parents and community are consulted in developing programs and value differences
are clearly identified and discussed.
• Where bias occurs, staff will intervene where bias occurs to teach children how to
advocate for justice and equity.
Some of the possible issues and challenges that are related to the provisions above
include the choice of children’s books. It is a common misconception that children’s books
about another culture are usually authentic. Teachers who want to share other cultures
may unintentionally choose books that are racist or not representative of a particular
group. The Council on Interracial Books for Children published Guidelines for Selecting
Bias-Free Textbooks and Storybooks in 1980 (see Derman-Sparks 1989). The guidelines
suggest: 1) checking illustrations for stereotypes or tokenism, 2) checking the story line,
3) looking at the lifestyles (watching out for the “cute-natives-in-costumes” syndrome, for
example), 4) weighing relationships between people, 5) noting the heroes, 6) considering
the effect on a child’s self-image, 7) considering the author’s or illustrator’s background, 8)
examining the author’s perspective, and 9) watching for loaded words.
Secondly, most teachers tend to utilize the “tour and detour” approaches when
teaching multicultural education. Louise Derman-Sparks (1993) uses the phrase “tourist-
multiculturalism” to describe approaches that merely visit a culture. The tour approach
to education involves a curriculum that is dictated primarily by months or seasons of the
year. For example, some teachers believe an appropriate time to study festivals of other
cultures is during those times the festivals are celebrated; or dedicate a week to getting to
know other cultures, and then invite everyone to bring items from home that reflect their
particular culture. These tour and detour methods trivialize, patronize, and stereotype
cultures by emphasizing traditional costumes, foods, and dances while avoiding the
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true picture of the everyday life of the people from that culture (Derman-Sparks 1993).
Students often come away from such teaching with even more biases.
According to the Inner London Education Authority (1985, cited in Glover 1996),
materials facilitate bias against groups through invisibility, tokenism and/or low status
presentation. Invisibility occurs when the teacher omits certain groups or cultures from
the classroom so that these become invisible as though they do not exist. If cultures are
brought into the classroom and merely given tokenistic treatment, to be discussed or
viewed for the sake of being made visible, then no authentic representations are made
available. Bias and stereotypes are propagated also when cultures are represented in
situations or contexts of an inferior status compared to the majority culture. Similarly
inappropriate use of resources and materials in a trivialized or tokenistic manner, centerd
on cultural artefacts, e.g. language, food, music, clothing, celebrations without developing
understanding of their true meaning and significance of the values and beliefs underlying
them, does not bring about learning that is useful.
While resources and materials play an important role, the caregiver’s role is critical.
Lane (1988, p.3 cited in Glover 1996) states this point strongly:
It is no good having black dolls if black people themselves are not valued, if racist
remarks and graffiti are not recognized and challenged, if factual questions about
racial differences are not answered correctly, if no attempt is made to find out
what children are learning, feeling, believing and if strategies are not devised to
openly discuss with children, in ways they can understand, why racism is wrong.
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Multicultural Education in Early Childhood: Issues and Challenges
direct tuition, indirect tuition and role-learning (Milner 1983). In direct tuition, parents
and other family members tell children what is “right” and what is “wrong”; what they
should say and do in specific situations (for example: do not play with the Indian boy next
door, as he is different from us). Indirect tuition occurs unintentionally when children
spontaneously imitate a family member’s behavior, while role-learning involves teaching
children who they are and how to behave towards others and an understanding of the roles
of others. For example their role as a member of the Catholic Church is to treat others as
God’s creation and to “Love their neighbours as themselves”. Thus families can contribute
either positively or negatively to the development of multicultural attitudes of their
children.
Language development
Generally, the educational system in most countries utilises the national language
(usually the majority language) as the medium of instruction. However multiculturalism
and the recognition of the pivotal role of language in learning makes it obligatory for a
diversity of language, literacies and communication styles to be recognised, valued and
used within all early childhood services. The provision for children to learn the majority
language whilst maintaining their first language should be supported and encouraged.
This of course is to propose bilingualism or at least support for the home language as a
policy even at the early childhood education level. Research has shown that there can
only be advantages to the child besides protecting and respecting the home language. For
example, since the 1960s, research has shown that multiple language skills do not confuse
the mind. Instead, Hakuta (1986) reported that such skills when well developed, seem to
provide cognitive advantages, although such effects are complex and difficult to measure.
This main issue and challenge for the provision of bilingual education is one
of human resources. Not many countries will have the personnel who themselves are
bilingual or multilingual, and specifically in the target languages. Very few countries,
including the USA and Malaysia, do have at least at the preschool and elementary
school levels education systems that cater to the home languages of their pupils. Hence
children with languages other than the national language are supported with resources
and appropriate speakers of the relevant language to maintain, to develop and extend their
language and concept development within early childhood services.
In other countries such as Australia, although there is no official provision for early
childhood education to provide services that offer instruction in the home languages of
children (coming from non-English speaking families), there is a stated policy that all
languages are honoured and respected. This means that children are not reprimanded
when they use their home languages in these settings. Families (usually fathers, mothers,
grandparents) are invited to come in and share or tell stories using their home languages
to the other children or families. All children have the opportunities to listen to, use and
learn the majority language in a supportive environment where resources, materials and
people are used to scaffold their learning of the majority language. There is ongoing
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advocacy as well as practice in those centers where resources and bilingual staff are
available to provide relevant experiences to children in their home languages as well.
This is because it is recognized that children’s use and development of their first or
home language is as critical to their language and cognitive development. By gathering
information from families about the different social contexts in which the home language
is used, practitioners can gain a better appreciation of children’s experiences with their
home language. The information collected about children’s use of language is integrated
across different curriculum areas and implemented in daily experiences. Needless to say,
the availability of staff who are competent in supporting children’s language learning,
both the majority and home languages is an important prerequisite. The contribution
of multilingual and bilingual staff is an asset to any children’s service. Therefore, it is
essential that early childhood services personnel from diverse cultural and linguistic
backgrounds are employed wherever possible. Where the culture and language of staff is
representative of the local community the program explicitly recognizes and incorporates
these skills.
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Multicultural Education in Early Childhood: Issues and Challenges
Courses need to recognize and reflect differing beliefs about childhood held by
different cultures. Within relevant courses, particular emphasis is to be given to the
understanding of how children develop language, and teachers ought to be provided
practical experiences in teaching a second language. Besides pre-service training,
continuing education on multicultural issues should be made readily available for all staff
working with young children. Service staff are to be assisted to engage in professional
development, which enables them to examine their own values and assumptions in
relation to race, culture, class, sexuality and gender and the impact these may have
on their practice. Once again, this provision will differ depending on the state of
development of early childhood education in that country. Additionally the commitment
to staff’s continuing professional development will also be dependent on the centers’ own
philosophy and belief in this critical pedagogy and reflective practice which underlies an
authentic perspective of diversity.
And finally as mentioned in the preceding section on language development, the
processes and criteria for the selection of staff and student-teachers should reflect and be
responsive to the diversity of cultures that make up the society. All children’s services
should, in their employment practices, seek to employ staff members who reflect the
cultural diversity of the country even if the actual enrollment of pupils does not reflect it.
In societies which are multi-ethnic and multi-cultural, there is usually a corresponding
representation of early childhood personnel that are available for engagement in the
services. However there might be concerns regarding the balanced representation of “all
cultures” at all levels of responsibility or category of service. In other countries, there
might also be issues with such cultural representation, for example if certain categories
of early childhood services are dominated by a specific cultural group. Such a situation
is evident in Malaysia where there tends to be a preponderance of the majority group in
government or “public” early childhood services. Hence there is relative invisibility of the
other minority groups in the role of early childhood teachers or caregivers in these centers.
This section discusses some implications and possible dilemmas that may arise
related to the issues and challenges discussed above. These implications and dilemmas
need to be addressed and made visible to those involved in the business of providing early
childhood education while being committed to multiculturalism. Only when these matters
are resolved, can multicultural education then have a fighting chance of successfully being
implemented.
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The skills, knowledge and attitudes of the staff are the most important influence
on the quality of the program….the success of their efforts to take into account
the …. .diversity that characterizes the community depends not mainly on their
knowledge of other cultures…..but on their willingness to be flexible, to change,
to look critically at their own biases and prejudices, and their appreciation of
diversity. (Stonehouse 1991, p.40)
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Multicultural Education in Early Childhood: Issues and Challenges
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How are these to be done? – In order to achieve the above, early childhood settings
need to prepare an environment which presents diversity positively through resources and
materials that do not perpetuate stereotypes. Offensive images are avoided and careful
consideration of sensitive religious and cultural values are always maintained. Staff build
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Multicultural Education in Early Childhood: Issues and Challenges
up children’s self-esteem and confidence in their self-identity so that they are comfortable
with themselves and in this way also less likely to be prejudiced against others. The use
of cognitive approaches where children are guided to develop higher order thinking skills
and specific vocabulary to be able to recognize generalizations and bias and to defend
themselves and others in the face of injustice.
In addition, cooperative learning situations can be provided so that children share
common problems, goals, tasks and success with individuals from groups other than their
own. This can be in the form of excursions, experiments, problem-based projects, and
even learning from inter-school exchange visits, or even inclusion of professionals from
cultural minorities. Children will benefit from such inter-group relations and develop a
host of interpersonal competencies including respect, empathy and perspective-taking.
To complement direct approaches, where children are “coached” in the “right” thing
to say or do in specific problematic situations, activities where children themselves are
encouraged to speak on aspects of diversity should be provided. In such situations, they
are facilitated to explore and ask questions about the differences they notice, and their
questions are answered accurately and honestly in a manner commensurate to their levels
of understanding.
Another option is the whole-school approach which involve changing school or
center structures and conditions to reflect and promote diversity, and challenging all
negative attitudes and behaviors. No matter how unpleasant it may be, any discriminatory
behavior by staff, children or parents must be confronted. Ignorance and avoidance will
only send a message that such negative behavior is acceptable and a naturally occurring
“teachable” opportunity is lost.
In the final analysis, for multiculturalism to succeed in the early childhood
classroom the onus seems to fall largely on the shoulders of the teacher/caregiver who
are the individuals that the children look up to as role models as well as for guidance and
affirmation. Hence it is expecting a lot of the teacher if it means a change in paradigm,
or even deep-seated beliefs and values to accommodate one of respect for diversity.
But then anything less will mean short-changing an authentic and genuine regard for
multiculturalism.
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Multicultural Education in Early Childhood: Issues and Challenges
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