Changing Demographics And Building Blocks Learning Center

One of the most stimulating aspects of early education is observing and supporting young children as they develop their individual identities. This development takes place within different social contexts where issues relating to human diversity and difference impact significantly on children’s understandings and ways of being in the world. Arguably, our education begins when we are first able to detect causes and consequences, and continue to form the basis of our identity, behaviours and knowledge of the world around us. Glover (1991) in the early 1990s found that as 2-3 year old children became aware of difference they simultaneously develop positive and negative feelings about the differences they observe. For example, racial awareness impacts on their perceptions of skin colour and on their preferences in the social relationships they initiate and foster with other children. An Australian study conducted by Palmer (1990) exemplifies how preschool children were able to make negative judgements based on racial characteristics of young Aboriginal children. Children were reportedly saying ‘You’re the colour of poo… Did your mum drop you in the poo?’ This observation suggests that children as young as 2 years old are becoming aware of diversity and differences of others, and these judgements children are making are often affecting their ability to make sound judgements of others

For example, their school, Wellpoint has a bad reputation because it is on the reservation and full of Indians, while the white school is known as one of the best schools in their area, because it is full of “strong, beautiful whites”. “The kids at Reardan are the smartest and most athletic kids anywhere. They are the best”. This quotation proves my point because Junior thinks that the kids at Rearden are the best because they are white, but later on in the basketball season, Wellpoint beats Rearden in a game. Also, racism has made it so they are not motivated enough to work hard for money. Junior explained to us that his dad is a very smart man, but instead of working hard for his money, he chooses to drink alcohol and gamble away his money. In the future, this can affect how Junior acts and works. On Christmas eve, Juniors dad took the rest of the money they had and went out to drink. He came back on January 2nd with a bad hangover and said “hey kid, i’m sorry about Christmas.” This quotation proves my point because since they say ‘like father like son’, the way his dad acts could rub off on him. In conclusion, racism has changed their attitudes and their motivation towards

Racial socialization is currently a major issue within today’s society. There are many different ways it can stem from such as your parents, friends, media, or community. People that choose to discriminate against others fail to realize that it can have a huge, negative impact on themselves and society. Such topic relates to early childhood education because young children are at the age where their social and cognitive development can be shaped into thinking or acting a certain way. Therefore, early childhood educators have the ability to teach young ones to have positive racial attitudes. I believe speaking on such topic is important and beneficial to bring awareness to help others understand that racism is not okay and we should do what we can to prevent it from expanding.

Race and gender are two facets that inherently dominate individuals everyday lives. A person’s social environment, work environment, and educational environment is congruent to their race and gender. From birth, it has been set up that everyone is assigned to a label. A pink or blue blanket is swaddled around a newborn child and a box is checked signifying that child’s place in society. These two actions ultimately define how a child is to be viewed and treated. As children grow into young adults they either decide to stick with their original assignment, while others decide to deviate from it. These individuals deviation results in many of them being viewed harshly and looked down upon because they strayed from their social norms. This constant cycle of being classified and labeled from birth is the social institution of gender and race. These social institutions aid in the inequality that is present in society, and race and gender are shaped by this. However, if these social institutions were removed, race and gender could dissipate. This is due to the fact that race and gender are not real, but are socially constructed concepts used to organize the power, or dominance, within our society to one social group over the other groups.

Children learn the rules of racial ‘etiquette’ by seeing other children they went to school

In the collateral-collectivist cultures (African-American, Hispanic and Asian), emphasis is placed on the family, above all else. This means that in these cultures, even education is second to the needs of a family. When teaching children from these cultures, it is important not be ethnocentric, but rather understand the structure of their cultures. As teachers, we cannot be colorblind; for it is a disservice to those we teach.

In a powerful experiment we were able to see through the eyes of a kindergarten children prejudice dynamics. In a famous experience by Jane Elliot she separated her class between blue-eyed and brown-eyed students. Professor Elliot had separated her students by making one eye group inferior to the other making them have certain benefits and better treatment than the other group of students. Eventually, the students were switched the following day. This experiment have showed this group of kindergarten students how colors and discrimination affected the minority population. After this successful experiment with the kindergarten student’s professor Jane Elliot had done many other experiments using adults using the a similar technique blue-eyed

Classrooms are becoming more diverse than they were several decades ago because so many people are migrating from their country of origin to seek for better living opportunities, in search of a safe place and because the United States of America is a super power. Therefore political, economic, and social-cultural reasons are the causes of migration which results in families remaining in the country causing classrooms today to be more diverse than they were decades ago thereby rapidly changing the demography of the United States and its classroom (Vacca et al, 2014, p. 62). To confirm this point for instance, at my school, there are a total of 354 students and the percentage of Hispanics: 41.5%, Blacks: 40.1%, Whites: 13.6%, Multicultural: 3.7%, other: 1.2%, Asians: 0.9%. Students from these different cultural backgrounds have different values, attitudes and experiences.

Shankar Vedantam, author of Hidden Brain and NPR science correspondent informs and advocates for equality in the education system in his article “How a Self-Fulfilling Stereotype Can Drag Down Performance” published in the Washington Post (2009). Vedantam begins his article by interacting with the audience while he asks a question,and he cites Sociologist Min-Hsuing Huang’s research on the influence that the environment has on a minority. Huang found out that: reminding minorities of their race before a test, limits them more than if they weren't reminded. Vedantam highlights the fact that Huang’s research goes unnoticed by prominent figures in….such as managers, policy makers, parents,etc. He then goes on to prove the corruption in social science that impacts the lives of every minority, which is truly everyone because anyone can be in a setting that makes them a minority.

It is crucial for educators to value, understand and incorporate every child’s cultural diversity in the classroom (The Early Years Learning Framework Professional Learning Program, 2011). This means educators needs to deal with any bias beliefs they might/may hold. For example, some children might not participate in the classroom because

My pre-adolescent years were spent in a community thick with diversity. My friendships were as diverse as the environment in which I lived. It never struck me that racial and ethnic ideals separated people in society. However, upon moving to a predominately white upper-class community I began to question such racial and ethnic ideas. From my adolescent years through today I began noticing that certain people are viewed differently for reasons relating to race and ethnicity. As a result, the most recent community I grew up in has kept me sheltered from aspects of society. As a product of a community where majorities existed, I found myself unexposed to the full understanding of race and ethnicity. Prior to the class I had never fully dealt with issues of race or ethnicity, as a result I wondered why they would be of any importance in my life.

At an early age, children are actively thinking about race. Although their thoughts about race are not as advance compared to those of adults, their juvenile observations and opinions establish a foundation of future stereotypes and biases. When children become attentive to racial differences, the results can either be rewarding or damaging. The origin of racial attitudes among the younger demographic remains unspecified. A correlation between parenting styles and children’s racial attitudes has been considered the primary source, however, multiple research disproves the common belief. While parenting style has a strong impact on children’s racial

175). Attitude towards race do not begin at birth and is not considered an inborn preference. Race is something that humans acquire at birth but it does not alter blood, DNA, genes, or personality and the only thing that it does truly modify is pigment. Racial dissonance is negative overall for the simple fact that it can change the way a minority receive, decode, and process information; moreover, it can effect education and decision making skills which ultimately determines how the rest of life will be lived and the resources available. In a study formulated on racial dissonance, it was said that “the study of dissonance most frequently has centered on the school environment because the school is such an important and powerful social setting” (Gray-Little & Carels, 1997). To me this was very interesting considering that everybody has to attend school, and that every parent wants to feel comfort in knowing that their child is safe and equally regarded as others, and to know that this is not happening is really eye

Moreover, in the article “Five stereotypes about poor families and education” by Valerie Strauss it explains more about the issue of language assumption due to race. For example, in her article she mentions, “It might be easy, given the stereotype that low-income families do not value education... many teachers assume that low-income families are completely uninvolved in their children’s education” (Patterson, Hale, & Stessman, 2007). Therefore, this stereotype always being made of low-income families always comes back to the people thinking that these parents are not smart. Not only that but there assumption starts to be quite devastating for the reason that they keep on having this stereotypical mind of thinking that leads to the assumption that of these low-income people that “do not pay much attention to their child education because they don’t care”.

Another problem is these television shows may be the only interaction an audience may have with a particular race or ethnic group. This primarily affects children. Young children are extremely easy to influence and spend hours in front of the television. When children are exposed to only one race, they develop prejudices and bias towards other ethnicities. This misrepresentation of races of television shows may cause children to become close minded and prejudiced.