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Unit: Diversity: Children, Families and Communities (Bachelor of Early Childhood education) This course/unit is for the Age group: 0-6 years old Assessment 1: Reflection Word/time limit: 750 words (+/- 10%) Note: the reference list is not included in the word count. Assessment overview This assessment asks you to critically reflect your personal views on human difference from an education perspective. Assessment details Follow the steps outlined to complete this assessment. Step 1: Select an experience You will need to select a scenario or personal experience where you encountered differences that made you feel uncomfortable. You will need to both: · reflect on the factors that contributed to this feeling · consider how this might impact your teaching. Scenarios can include (but are not limited to) educational settings, working with peers and other colleagues at work or in community settings, or even social gatherings. Step 2: Read your key text Read your key text Chapter 9 The challenges of diversity and difference in early childhood education (Robinson, 2006, pp. 168-179), in particular, the following paragraph: However, it is important that a reflexive approach is incorporated into pedagogy and practice with children and families in order to understand how their subject positions in discourses can perpetuate, consciously or unconsciously, the social inequalities that prevail in society. In other words, as pointed out previously, reflexivity is about developing a critical self-conscious awareness of one’s relationship with the Other. As stated by the EYLF (DEEWR 2009: 13), ‘Reflective practice is a form of ongoing learning that involves engaging with questions of philosophy ethics and practice.’ We feel that this is the crucial starting point for anyone who is involved in doing diversity and difference within a social justice education agenda. A reflexive approach to diversity and difference is primarily about deconstructing the discourse of ‘tolerance’ and ‘inclusion’ in order to refocus more on the discourse of ‘respect’ and a deeper critique of what ‘inclusive practice’ should look like, engaging with minorities on their terms. Many educators and community-based professionals view ‘tolerance’ as the reflection of the success of their practices. The concepts of ‘tolerance’ and ‘inclusion’ are constraining, as they are always about a precarious hierarchical power relationship that has its limits in terms of how long one can ‘tolerate’ the existence of someone else who is often perceived as an annoyance or irritation. In contrast, respect and building ethical relationships are about accepting people’s rights to choose to be who they are in the world that sit equally beside different ways of being, knowing and doing. — (Robinson, 2006, p. 168) Step 3: Critically analyse your chosen scenario Use this chapter to help you critically reflect on the human differences in your chosen scenario and your own reactions to the disruptions from an educational perspective. When analysing, consider how comfortable are you personally in dealing with these differences. Remember there are no right and wrong answers when critically reflecting on educational perspectives, as the reflection is about your own comfort and discomfort in dealing with children/adults from marginalised or various diverse cultural groups. Step 4: Develop your reflection You should use the Gibbs Reflective Thinking Cycle (Gibbs, 1988) to inform your reflection. Use the reflective thinking model headings (description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion, action plan) to present your assessment. Description: Outline what happened in your chosen scenario. Feelings: Detail what you were thinking and feeling at the time. Evaluation: Evaluate the scenario i.e. ask yourself what was good and what was bad about the experience. Analysis: Analyse your scenario i.e. what sense can you make of the scenario? Conclusion: Ensure you include a conclusive final statement in your reflection, outlining what else you could have done. See the following examples: · I will ensure I read more on the topic that made me feel uncomfortable. · I will talk to more experienced professionals on how they learnt to deal with their discomfort. · I think of some professional development opportunities I can seek out from my centre manager. Action plan: Outline what you would do if a similiar scenario arose in the future. Note: the reference list is not included in the word count. Assessment criteria 1. Description of chosen scenario. 2. Feelings/evaluation of chosen scenario. 3. Analysis of chosen scenario. 4. Conclusion and action plan. 5. Academic conventions. Your work will be assessed using the following marking guide: someTitle 9 THE CHALLENGE OF DIVERSITY AND DIFFERENCE TO EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION Introduction Our research and work with early childhood educators and pre-service teachers shows that social justice education is generally considered an important aspect of children’s early education. However, throughout this book we have high- lighted many of the contradictions and complexities facing early childhood educators in doing this with children, families and communities. We have also acknowledged that doing social justice education in practice can be difficult work, as it frequently involves taking perceived and ‘real’ personal and pro- fessional risks, which can challenge many educators’ subjective positions in the world, particularly in relation to their understandings of childhood and in terms of how they view difference (Robinson 2005d). We started this book with a discussion of what we have called a hierarchy of differences. What is meant by this is that some areas of social justice are considered personally and professionally more relevant and worthy of sup- port and consideration than others. This personal and professional preference for taking up certain areas of social justice over others is primarily based on individual (dis)comfort levels around doing work in various areas of social justice. As pointed out in Chapter 1, how comfortable one feels addressing specific equity areas will be related to a number of different issues, including level of expertise across social justice issues and one’s subjective location in discourses of diversity and difference. One’s location in these discourses will be influenced by personal experiences and cultural and religious beliefs, among other factors. Social justice education around sexuality issues, for instance, is an area that many early childhood educators feel uncomfortable addressing, primarily due to its controversial status and the perceived risks involved in incorporating these issues into programmes. As some early childhood educators have pointed out to us, it is much easier and personally less risky to take up the discourse of the irrelevance of sexuality issues to Robinson, K., Jones, D. C., & Robinson, K. (2005). Diversity and difference in early childhood education : Issues for theory and practice. McGraw-Hill Education. Created from ballarat on 2024-07-22 13:39:06. C op yr ig ht © 2 00 5. M cG ra w -H ill E du ca tio n. A ll rig ht s re se rv ed . young children and to pass the responsibility on to secondary educators working with older children. Furthermore, like sexuality issues, other equity issues faced by single parents, or those associated with family poverty, can also be marginalized and silenced in the discourse that positions these issues as ‘private’ family matters. Consequently, many equity issues are placed in the ‘too hard’ basket and are not included in children’s early education, even when children bring issues up themselves. Children receive strong contra- dictory messages from individuals and institutions. Where children dis- cursively locate themselves in terms of difference and equity, and how this is played out in their lives, is very much influenced by educators’ discursive practices and the contradictory messages they receive. In many respects, early childhood education, as a microcosm of the broader society, operates to perpetuate the status quo in society; that is, through everyday practices it maintains the social order or power relations that cur- rently exist in the world. As Kobayashi and Ray (2000) argue, social institu- tions, such as education, actively participate in defining which social justice issues will be recognized, taken up and challenged and which social inequalities will continue to be publicly tolerated. However, we share Dahl- berg et al.’s (1999) vision of early childhood institutions as potential ‘civil forums’, and perceive that through collective community action we can actively foster and create more democratic philosophies and practices between adults and children, as well as across and within different socio- cultural groups throughout the world. Through an awareness of the com- plexities and contradictions that operate for early childhood educators around diversity and difference, as a community of educators, we can col- lectively begin to deconstruct the barriers that currently exist and that pre- vent the full inclusion of socio-cultural Others. Individual early childhood educators are a critical component of this democratic project, as their daily work with children and their families is crucial in terms of disrupting the normalizing discourses that perpetuate power inequalities that are experi- enced by those who are not part of the dominant culture. However, it is important that all educators take a reflexive approach to their practice with children and families in order to understand how their subject positions in discourses can perpetuate, consciously or unconsciously, the social inequalities that prevail in society. In other words, as pointed out previously, reflexivity is about developing a critical self-conscious awareness of one’s relationship with the Other (McNay 2000). We feel that this is the crucial starting point for anyone who is involved in doing social justice education. A reflexive approach to diversity and difference is primarily about deconstructing the discourse of ‘tolerance’ in order to refocus more on the discourse of ‘respect’. Many educators view tolerance as the reflection of the success of their practices; however, we feel that respect is a far better measure. The concept of tolerance is constraining, as it is always about a precarious hierarchical power relationship that has its limits on how long one can ‘tol- erate’ the existence of someone else, who is often perceived as an annoyance or irritation. In contrast, respect is about accepting people’s rights to choose to be who they are in the world that sit equally beside different ways of being, knowing and doing. The challenge of diversity and difference 169 Robinson, K., Jones, D. C., & Robinson, K. (2005). Diversity and difference in early childhood education : Issues for theory and practice. McGraw-Hill Education. Created from ballarat on 2024-07-22 13:39:06. C op yr ig ht © 2 00 5. M cG ra w -H ill E du ca tio n. A ll rig ht s re se rv ed . In this final chapter, we highlight several critical issues that we feel early childhood educators need to consider when reviewing current approaches to social justice education with children and their families. They are issues that we have addressed at various points throughout this book and include: pro- moting theoretical understandings of children, childhood, diversity and dif- ference; enhancing links between theory and practice; acknowledging how diversity and difference are often located in the discourse of deficit; encoura- ging children’s critical thinking and learning; deconstructing the adult/child binary; increasing communications with families and communities; develop- ing policies and procedures that incorporate social justice perspectives; building supportive networks at all levels of early childhood education; pro- moting professional development of educators and other staff; and the need for further research into diversity and difference in early childhood education. Promoting theoretical understandings of childhood, diversity and difference Feminist poststructural perspectives, as well as the other cultural and critical theories which have largely informed the theoretical frameworks of our var- ious discussions in this book, provide invaluable understandings of the social construction of childhood through different discourses that are historically and culturally available. These frameworks acknowledge the multiple sub- jectivities of children across different sites of identity and recognize that children are active participants in the construction of their own identities and in the regulation of the identities of others. For example, through the lens of feminist poststructural perspectives educators can shift their reliance on ‘common-sense’ oppositional thinking constituted in cultural binaries, such as adult/child, which construct understandings of what it means to be an adult or child. Such knowledge tends to inform many educators’ daily prac- tices with children, thus perpetuating the hierarchal relations of power that exist between adults and children. Incorporating contemporary theoretical and critical perspectives of child- hood, diversity and difference into early childhood programmes, policies and practices is a critical foundation for effectively doing social justice education with children and their families. Traditional perspectives of childhood and children’s learning, based on developmentalism, are still largely viewed by many educators as the only legitimate and acceptable theoretical tools for understanding children, families and diversity. However, as we have argued throughout this book, modernist perspectives of childhood and children’s learning are limited in their potential to inform successful approaches to social justice education. Modernist universalized discourses of childhood do not address children’s agency or the multiple experiences of what it means to be a child across different socio-cultural contexts, such as gender, sexuality, class, ‘race’, (dis)ability, ethnicity and so on. Developmentalism constrains our understandings of children’s identity formation, particularly in contexts of diversity in which children’s and families’ negotiation of their difference is ongoing, complex and often contradictory. Children, like adults, construct 170 Diversity and difference in early childhood education Robinson, K., Jones, D. C., & Robinson, K. (2005). Diversity and difference in early childhood education : Issues for theory and practice. McGraw-Hill Education. Created from ballarat on 2024-07-22 13:39:06. C op yr ig ht © 2 00 5. M cG ra w -H ill E du ca tio n.