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...investigation framed around following research question: How does the culture of the family and the community shape curriculum in the investigated migrant and seasonal early learning program? Data analysis suggested that providing curriculum in the child's home language is critical to supporting relationships in addition to language development. As well, the importance of educators responding to diverse cultures through showing respect for children and families plus individualizing instruction and care was reflected in the data. Implications for early childhood practitioners are discussed.
Introduction
A body of evidence suggests that instruction shaped by children's home and community culture is vital to supporting children's healthy self-esteem, strong identity development, and a sense of belonging--characteristics critical to overall academic achievement (Banks, 2002; Nieto, 2002; Osterman, 2000). American schools have shifted toward cultural and linguistic heterogeneity among students (Garcia & McLaughlin, 1995); however, American teachers are over 90% European American (Nieto, 2000). Given the lack of preparedness of a largely European American teaching force to educate children from diverse cultural backgrounds (Nieto, 2002), English-language learners and ethnically diverse children are at risk of being marginalized in schools (Christian & Bloome, 2004; Moll, 1992). How then do we support educators' efforts to provide multicultural education that goes beyond an additive feel-good approach to including diversity in curriculum to one "framed within a context of social justice and critical pedagogy, encompassing antiracist and basic education for all students of all backgrounds" (Nieto, 2002, p. 27)?
Studies investigating schooling in diverse settings have presented educators with findings that expand their knowledge, enabling them to learn about providing curriculum from multiple cultural perspectives (Bullock, 2005; Gilliard & Moore, 2007; Lee & Walsh, 2005; Luo & Gilliard, 2006; Moore & Gilliard, 2007; Nagayama & Gilliard, 2005; and Walsh, 2002). For example, Gilliard and Moore (2007) investigated culture and education in tribal early care and education programs on the Flathead Indian Reservation, and Bullock (2005) investigated early learning programs in rural Fiji. This paper extends these efforts to understand culture and education in a bilingual early care and education center serving the primarily Hispanic migrant and seasonal farm worker families in rural Wyoming.
The purpose of this study was to explore the presence of family and community culture in curriculum and instruction at a bilingual early learning program serving migrant and seasonal farm worker families, including infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. The majority of the families served by this program defined themselves as migrant or seasonal farm workers and as Mexican, Mexican American, or Hispanic. Data were collected by two preservice teachers. One collected data as a culminating field experience for a special topic university class called Cultures and Communities, and one collected data for an independent research project. Both preservice teachers were enrolled in the special topic class, but the latter collected data for another project when enrolled in the class. Two university professors served as investigators for this study, one of whom taught the course and supervised the independent research project that resulted in collection of the data.
Culture and education in a bilingual early learning program serving migrant and seasonal farm worker families were examined through teacher responses to interview questions, field notes taken during classroom observations, and journals written by preservice teachers who collected the data. Journals were reflections of what the preservice teachers learned when interviewing the practicing teachers and observing in the classrooms. The research question framing the study was: How does the culture of the family and community shape curriculum in a migrant early care and education program in rural Wyoming?
Rationale and Conceptual Framework
Bringing the culture and practices of children's homes and communities into classroom instructional and curricular processes can enhance learning experiences and, therefore, the academic success of children from the nondominant culture (Christian & Bloome, 2004; Nieto, 2002; Osterman, 2000). However, it is well documented that children who are culturally and linguistically diverse are expected to adapt to a school culture created by a largely European American teaching force. Educators who belong to the dominant culture are typically ill prepared to deliver curriculum within a culturally relevant context to an increasing population of students who are English-language learners as well as who are from varied ethnic backgrounds (Banks, 2002; Garcia, 2005; Dudley-Marling & Paugh, 2004; and Nieto, 2002). Educators who do not have the same cultural perspectives of the students they teach "often render it difficult to "see" the cultural identities shaping the behaviors and achievement of their students" (Moore, 2004a). What, then, are the consequences of failing to link a child's home and community culture and language to the culture of the school?
According to Vygotsky's sociocultural theory (Vygotsky, 1978, 1986) and Heath's study of language communities (Heath, 1983), language, learned through social interactions with the young child's family, is a tool for thought. That is, before a child has language, his or her actions drive thought; after acquiring language, thoughts drive action. Thus, cognitive development is closely linked to language learned within the context of the unique cultural paradigm of a child's family (Garcia, 2005). Moreover, for young children, language development occurring within the context of family and learning about culture are closely linked (Garcia & McLaughlin, 1995). "If a child's cognitive schemata for operating in the world are culturally bound, what are the effects of trying to learn in an environment where the culture (and language) of the classroom differs from the culture (and language) of the home?" (Garcia, 2005, p. 32). Linguistically and culturally diverse children face the challenge of accommodating existing schemas or creating new ones thus impeding learning and development (Garcia, 2005).
The fact that the population of linguistically and ethnically diverse school-age children is growing in the United States has brought new attention to the reality that our largely European American teaching force is not prepared to offer equal educational opportunities to all children, thus marginalizing minority children (Moll, 1992). The U.S. Census Bureau (Malone, Baluja, Costanzo, & Davis, 2003) estimated that people of color constituted 28% of the nation's population in 2000 and predicted that this population would make up 38% in 2025 and 47% in 2050. In addition, in 2000 approximately 20% of the school-age population in the United States spoke a language other than English in their homes (Malone et al., 2003). Well over half of this total population of English-language learners, approximately 10 million children in 2000 (Malone et al., 2003), is Spanish speaking (Garcia, 2005). Moreover, Banks (2002) stated that Mexican Americans are the second largest ethnic group of color in the United States and the largest Spanish-speaking ethnic group within the American Hispanic population. The current study examined an early learning program that served mostly Mexican and Mexican American children and families, a group comprising a large population of English-language learners in the United States (Garcia, 2005).
The purpose of this study was to examine the representation of home and community culture in the curriculum of a bilingual early learning program serving predominantly...
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