Practicing Awareness of Microagressions

Describe at least one example of a microaggression which you detected this week or remember from another time.

 I have not been out lately because, its summer time so the only people that I engage in any conversation or activity is my family.  However, last year I did experience microaggression when my husband and I were buying our first home.  We went into an area that is known for the dominant culture, but when we pulled up into their office space the man greeted us at the door, and he boastfully told my husband, I know you must be a dope boy because of your truck and the rims on your truck.  Of course, my husband and I are try  to be respectful and calm in all situations, so we held our peace, although we felt insulted.   The man said, “Oh I was just joking”.  Then when he was asking us questions about our income, my husband told him  his income, and he asked do we receive any additional income, and again we said no, and he asked us so you all  do not receive any government checks and we said no again. So, after we felt the prejudice, we said excuse us for a minute and we went and got back into our automobile.  As we were exiting the premises, a young man came to the truck and asked was everything okay, and we told him about the attitude of the older gentlemen and he apologized for his negative behavior.

In what context did the microaggression happen?

People feel that when black people have rims and nice cars we must be drug dealers.  It is like we can’t work hard and buy whatever we choose.  People judge people based on their own assumptions creating racial conflicts among people.

 What did you think and feel when you observed the microaggression or when you found yourself as the target of a microaggression?

Until this week, I was not just focused on the term microaggression.  However, I have gained insights on microaggression and the forms of microaggression.  When I experienced microaggression last year, I was insulted and upset.   On the other hand, I know that people look at other people and they are quick to judge.  People can be ignorant and judgmental, you can either play into their ignorance or you can choose to ignore them.

In what ways did your observation experiences this week affect your perception of the effects of discrimination, prejudice, and/or stereotypes on people

I believe that people have attitudes and behaviors of discrimination, prejudice, and stereotypes.  However, you have to prepare to deal with these negative circumstances.  I believe that I am more able and willing to deal with people and their negativity.  I am in the Early Childhood Field and I want the children that I educate to feel respected, because I know that I have to be a positive role model for those young children.

PERSPECTIVES ON DIVERSITY AND CULTURE

Interviewees’ definition of culture and diversity

Whitney (African-American Pre-med student/sister-n-law)

Culture is the way of life of a group of people.

Diversity is a group of characteristics that separate culture into distinct groups in which they exists

 Kanayo (Nigerian accountant/Son’s godfather)

Culture is the sociological genetic makeup of an individual in regards to their environments, experiences, and education.

Diversity is just the differences in all aspects of individuals live

           

Deanna (Caucasian real estate agent/Aunt in law)

Culture is how we interact with people who we have family relationships with that unite us together.  We have favorite recipes and music that represent our culture.

Diversity is what separates us from other people cultural ways.

Which aspects of culture and diversity that I have studied in this course are included in the answers I received—and what are some examples?

Culture relates to the beliefs, artifacts, the values, and other things that bind people together (Smidt, 2006). We have discussed to some degree each individual definition of culture.  For example, we have discussed that culture is the way of life.  Culture is something that brings us together and culture does relate to a sociological agent.  Also an example of culture is many view the food and music that we share in our family as being a part of our culture. For example diversity is the differences that separate us.

Which aspects have been omitted—and what are some examples of such omission?

I feel that each person gave their own opinion of culture, but as we have learned, culture is complex.  For example, people of the same culture are quite different, depending on their individuality, their family, their gender, age, race, ethnicity, abilities, religion, economic level, social status, where they live and where they came from, sexual orientation, educational level, and even appearance, size, and shape (Gonzalez-Mena, 2008). 

In what ways has thinking about other people’s definitions of culture and diversity influenced my own thinking about these topics?

From engaging in conversation from each of these people, I learned a lot about how important culture is to them and how they each deal with the cultural diversity of the world.  They each shared an experience on how their family culture has gone through changes as they learned to adapt to the ways and beliefs of people and their cultures.  I learned that all of these people valued their own culture, and in fact that culture is a way of life that may in fact make us come closer together.  I also learned that despite these three people ages, gender, income status, religion, education, and race them all had the same perspective on culture and diversity.

References

Gonzalez-Mena, J. (2008). Diversity in Early Care and Education. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Smidt. (2006). The Developing Child in the 21st Century. New York: Routledge.

MY FAMILY CULTURE

We live in a society where everything is digital and computer based, however many people still value momentums that has been important through family generations. I cherish the jewelry and my wedding ring, but I believe that some things can be replaced or upgraded.  The three items that I would choose to take with me into another country are family pictures, my grandfather war medal, and my great-great grandmother’s necklace. Each three of these objects are very important to my family history and culture.  They are items that have been in my family for many generations.

I chose pictures of my family because pictures hold detail of life and memories.  Many of the pictures in my family are pictures that represent the joy, struggles, and heartache that my grandparents and their family members endured in their lives.  They are pictures of pain and joy.  Of course, the pictures of my immediate family which include my husband, children, parents, and siblings are very meaningful and they are items that I want to have as keepsake items.

I chose to keep my grandfather’s war medal, because my grandfather was such a positive inspiration to me.  He died when I was very young, but his services to our country and my family were some of the most proud and memorable moments that I hear about him from older people in my family.  I also know that the medal were very important to my grandmother, therefore I want to continue to treasure this item.

I also chose my great-great grandmother’s necklace because when I turned 21 it was given to me by my grandmother.  It was very important to my grandmother, because I did not get a chance to even see a picture of her, so that is the only memory that I would have of her. My great-great grandmother was killed and this is one of the few pieces of memories that are in my family that belonged to her.

If I was told that I could only keep two of these items, I would be very sad and I would feel like I am losing a piece of my family’s history.

From this exercise, I realized how important my family culture is to me and the items that are a part of my family culture is very special. These are items that I want to be a part of my children and their family’s life’s.  I also realized that as a family culture, it is my job to keep those cultural traditions alive so that my children can learn about their family identity.

Blog Assignment: When I Think of Research...

I have gained insights on how to design a research.  I have learned that research takes time.  It has to be prepared and cannot be thrown together.  The whole research process takes a considerate amount of time and patience.  When I first began this class, my concept of this class was that we would be doing a research paper.  I had the wrong conception of this class.  I have gained insight on qualitative and quantitative research design. I gained insights on mixed methods designs, direct observation, equity, which has power doing the research, making sure ethics are in the early childhood research process. I also gained insights on case study, interviews, and anecdotal record as I implement research in this field. I also gained insights on consent in the research process in regards to young children. From this, I gained a better concept of research and I feel that this class was a starting point for me as I pursue my educational and professional goals.

My nature of research has changed, because now I am more prepared to plan, design, and conduct research.  I understand now that it is a process that involves professionalism and respect.  I understand that there are four major paradigms which include positivism, interpretivism, structuralism, and poststructuralism.  I believe that I can better relate to interpretivism.

It is important to understand that research is a tool and, as with all tools, it is simply a matter of learning how to use it (Naughton, Rolfe, & Blatchford- Siraj, 2010).  I learned that you have to plan a research before you can just do research on a topic. I learned that you have to be knowledgeable about an issue before you can begin planning.  The design of the research should be ‘what’ and ‘how ‘of research, deciding whether the research will be experimental or non-experimental, the time, place, and persons of the research, the sampling process, and choosing methods of data collection and analysis.  In conducting research you have to be ethical and be prepared for the challenges that you may face. You must also make sure that the data collected is honest a will be beneficial to the early childhood field.

A challenge for me was the understanding of independent and dependent variables, as well as many of the terms that were outlined in the text.  I met those challenges by looking deeper in the text, by breaking the definitions down to basics.  I also encounter challenges with my research question.  I met this challenge by reading the text and gaining a better understanding of formulating a research question and revised my research question.  I also met challenges with the support and guidance of Dr. Davis through his evaluations and comments and by listening to the comments and suggestion of my colleagues.

My perceptions of an early childhood professional has modified because when I began this class I was not unaware of the planning, designing, and conducting research.  Now, I have a better understanding of research which has increased my knowledge in this field of study.  The fore, through this class and understanding of research I have enhance my professional growth over the past weeks.

Thank you all for your support and encouragement in this class. I wish you all success as you continue to climb the ladder toward your educational goals.

Reference

Naughton, G. M., Rolfe, S. A., & Blatchford- Siraj, I. (2010). Doing Early Childhood

Research: International Perspectives on Theory and Practice 2nd Edition. New York:

The McGraw Hill.

Research Around The World

The website that I chose to explore is http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/. The Early Childhood Australia website focuses on social justice, quality and equity for children ages birth to 8years of age.

Through exploring this website, I found many research topics in the early childhood education field. Research shows children who parents who talk less, means that through encouragement the child will talk more. A University of Sydney study has found children with well below average language skills performed almost as well as their normally developing peers just four months after their parents made a few simple changes in the way they interacted with them. (http://sydney.edu.)  I was very surprised on this research, because I thought that the more the parent talked the more the child language skills and speech will increase.

From reading the focal points of the articles, they have issues related to the budget; and how the government is dedicated to the educational sector of early child care and education.  The website also discussed research topics that include:

1. Learning and teaching through play

2. Respecting diversity: Articulating early childhood practice

3. Children’s Resilience:  Working with the Early Years Framework

4. Discovering letters and sounds

5. Aggression and young children

6. Babies: Good beginners last forever

Basically from browsing some of the research articles, it seems that this country is also dedicated to early care and education.  They are also dedicated to meeting the developmental needs of the child by doing research and observations on how to better meet the individual needs of the child.  ECA like many organizations is also focused on maintaining a budget that reflects early care and education.

I was not surprised of the issues that affect Australia, because it seems that the entire world has child development and well being of the child as a high priority.

Resources

http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/

http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=4447

Research that Benefits Children and Families

Option 1

I found an article that discusses the benefits of research toward Head start and Early Head Start programs.  Many people view these programs as baby sitting jobs, but research shows a different perspective.  National Family and Child Experiences Survey data shows that HS graduates, by the spring of their kindergarten year, were essentially at national norms in early reading and early writing and were close to meeting national norms in early math and vocabulary knowledge (National Head Start Association).  Head Start and Early Head Start are programs that provide young children educational and health benefits.  Many of the children who attend these programs reap high quality benefits. EHS children had a higher cognitive, social, and emotional score than the children in the control group.  They also had children who were good health care compared to the children who were not enrolled in the Head Start Program.   There was also research that showed that Head Start programs were credited for lowering childhood obesity.  The children in EHS programs were more likely to have had their immunizations. Research shows that HS is a wise investment for society (National Head Start Association). Children in Early Head Start and Head Start also benefits from economic and law enforcement benefits.  Along with improving the health of its children and families, HS benefits its children and society-at-large by reducing crime and its costs to crime victims (National Head Start Association).

Many of us aware of the Head Start and Early Head Start programs in our state and community, but sometimes we are unaware of the benefits of these programs.

Reference

National Head Start Association (NHSA)(n.d.).Benefits of Head Start and Early head Start Programs. Retrieved from http://www.nhsa.org/files/static_page_files/399E0881-1D09-3519-AD56452FC44941C3/BenefitsofHSandEHS.pdf

Your Personal Research Journey

The three subtopics that I choose all consisted of issues that were related to the early childhood field.  However, I felt that after reviewing the literature and research simulation that the topic that I chose would be more beneficial to my research process. The topic that I chose is---Is poverty related to the outcome of a child’s social and emotional skills?

I chose this topic because I am interesting in expanding my knowledge on how poverty adversely affects a child’s social and emotional development of a child.  I feel that this topic is relevant because of the community that I live in consist of children and families that are below the poverty level. Therefore, I can continue to guide children and families in the appropriate direction when it comes to the developmental issues that affect children because of poverty. The research stimulation gave me insight on how to effective choose and research a topic.  However, I am still a little nervous on my topic.  I hope that I find success in finding effective and credible resources on the topic.

If anyone would like to share any comments or suggestions on this topic, please feel free to give your advice and comments. I am open to any new ideas that are related to this topic.

Thanks!