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Early Years Settings: Diversity and Appropriate Practices

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Title: Early Years Settings: Diversity and Appropriate Practices


1
Early Years Settings Diversity and Appropriate
Practices
  • www.multiverse.ac.uk

2
Aims of the presentation
  • To question and challenge the prevalent and often
    dominating developmental perspectives in early
    years settings
  • To argue that contemporary socio-cultural theory
    has more to offer in understanding all young
    children in settings and schools

3
With the person sitting next to you consider at
what age is it developmentally appropriate (in
terms of coordination and judgement) to allow
young children to handle sharp knives safely?
4
An Efe baby (11mths) in Democratic Republic of
Congo cuts a fruit skilfully with a machete
(Rogoff, 2003, p. 6)
5
Rogoff, B. (2003) Cultural Nature of Human
Development
  • Likewise, Fore (New Guinea) infants handle
    knives and fire safely by the time they are able
    to walk (Sorenson, 1979). Aka parents of Central
    Africa teach 8- to 10-month old infants to throw
    small spears and use small pointed digging sticks
    and miniature axes with sharp metal blades. (p.
    5)

6
This raises questions about developmentally
appropriate practices because
  • Human development is a cultural process.
  • Children develop as participants in cultural
    communities.
  • Cultural communities have different cultural
    practices and these have different value systems,
    traditions and histories. Over time these change.
  • What is appropriate depends on childrens
    experiences.

7
What exactly do we mean by Developmentally
Appropriate Practices? (See also Bredekamp and
Copple, 1997)
8
Developmentally Appropriate Practices and Stage
Theory
  • Martin Luther (1532)
  • My son Hans is about to enter upon his seventh
    year, which is always climacteric, that is, a
    time of change. People always change every
    seventh year.
  • (cited in Walsh, 2005, p.41)

9
Theoretical views
  • Froebels divine laws of development
  • 0-8 early childhood ? childrens intellectual
    capability limited compared to older children
  • 8 later childhood
  • Piaget, Gesell, Freud and Erikson argued that
    children develop through sequential stages which
    are predictable and universal.

10
Piagets Stages
  • 1. Sensorimotor, 2. Preoperational,
    3. Concrete operational and 4. Formal
    Operational (formal abstract thinking)
  • Young children are seen as developmentally
    different from older children and adults.
  • Young children are thought to learn differently
    from older children and adults.

11
Critiques of Stage Theory
  • Donaldson (1979) Childrens Minds and Gelman
    and Baillergeon (1983) A Review of Some
    Piagetian Concepts - both demonstrated serious
    weaknesses in Piagetian theory and in stage
    theory in general.

12
Critiques from the socio-cultural perspective
  • Developmental stages are always culture-specific.
  • Within stage theory some children may be viewed
    as lacking something as they do not fit in with
    the dominant model. They may be viewed as being
    behind their development, or slow learners,
    or coming from deprived homes.

13
When considering children from diverse
backgrounds, stage theory tends to lead to a
deficit-model.
14
But in many early years settings
  • developmentally appropriate practices are still
    viewed as being worth striving for
  • developmentally appropriate practices are still
    characterised by different stages of development.

15
A child is viewed as...
  • full of potential, naturally curious, and eager
    to learn
  • active, outgoing and communicative
  • independent, autonomous, and able to show
    initiative
  • capable of selecting and sustaining self-chosen
    games and activities
  • able to learn through play and exploration.
  • (Brooker, 2005, p. 118, emphasis added)

16
Children from diverse backgrounds
  • What counts as for example showing initiative
    varies between different cultural practices. The
    Efe baby showed a high level of initiative in
    terms of preparing food.
  • Initial assessment in early years settings tends
    to award much lower scores for some groups of
    children than others.

17
Initial Assessment
  • Robertson (2007)
  • In one Reception class all British-Pakistani
    children were placed in low ability groups in
    which they remained throughout KS1 irrespective
    of their actual achievement.
  • Brooker (2002 2005)
  • In one Reception class British- Bangladeshi
    children were awarded low scores for initiative
    and they were identified as timid and
    dependent.

18
Why are some groups of children considered to be
more timid or dependent than other groups?
19
Because what counts as timid and dependent
varies between different cultural practices.
  • Different cultural groups and families have
    different expectations of children and different
    views of childhood.
  • Practitioners tend to view children within the
    dominant English, middle-class perspective.

20
British-Bangladeshi families
  • Valued their childrens adaptation to, and
    participation in, the family A good girl,
    always helping and Likes to put his hand in
    mummys hand.
  • Ensured that children shared time, space and
    activities of household members of all ages.
  • Aimed to cultivate interdependence between
    different family members, rather than
    individualism or independence. (Brooker, 2005)

21
British-English families
  • Characterised their children as obsessed with
    Teletubbies or good at drawing or a tom-boy,
    always prefers to be out on her bike and get
    muddy.
  • Aimed to cherish their childrens childishness,
    that they had time, space and a life-style on
    their own, and behaved in child-specific ways.
    (Brooker, 2005)

22
Socio-Cultural Theory
  • Accepts that individual development must be
    understood in, and cannot be separated from, its
    social context.
  • Accepts that individual childs efforts and
    development cannot be separated from the
    different people and the kinds of activities s/he
    has been engaging with.
  • Offers different types of insights that connect
    with childrens learning contexts and their
    families and cultural and linguistic backgrounds.

23
Appropriate Practices in Early Years
  • Practitioners accept and acknowledge that
    different children have different funds of
    knowledge (Moll, et al 1992).
  • In developing appropriate practices for early
    years settings the idea that whole cultural
    groups of children have lower achievement than
    other groups is rejected.
  • Culturally reflective and sensitive practices
    replace developmentally appropriate practices.

24
Leena RobertsonMiddlesex University
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