methodology report, the child care center survey ... · PDF filescope of the demographic challenges facing child care centers by presenting the findings of the demographic analysis

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Chang, Hedy Nai-LinAffirming Children's Roots: Cultural and LinguisticDiversity in Early Care and Education.California Tomorrow, San Francisco.James G. Irvine Foundation, San Francisco, CA.93111p.; Funding also provided by the Miram and PeterHaas Fund.California Tomorrow, Fort Mason Center, Building B,San Francisco, CA 94123.Reports Descriptive (141) Viewpoints(Opinion/Position Papers, Essays, etc.) (120)

Tests /Evaluation Instruments (160)

MF01/PC05 Plus Postage.Cultural Awareness; *Cultural Differences; *Day Care;*Day Care Centers; Early Childhood Education; EthnicGroups; Ethnicity; *Multicultural Education;*Multilingualism; Program Descriptions;Questionnaires; Racial Differences

IDENTIFIERS Anti Bias Practices; California; Culturally RelevantCurriculum; *Culturally Responsive Education;*Cultural Sensitivity

ABSTRACTThis report documents for the first time the growing

ethnic mix of center-based child care in California. Based on asurvey of 434 centers in 5 California counties selected for theirethnic and geographic diversity and large child populations, thereport presents several types of information. First, it documents thescope of the demographic challenges facing child care centers bypresenting the findings of the demographic analysis of the centerssurveyed. Second, the report provides an understanding of theimportance of culturally and linguistically appropriate early careand education by referring to relevant research and literature.Finally, the report describes the everyday activities of severalinnovative child care centers in California that offer examples ofculturally and linguistically appropriate care. The report makesrecommendations for further research and calls for immediate actionfrom the following groups: (1) California state agencies; (2) thefederal government; (3) professional associations; (4) the statewideresource and referral network in California; (5) traininginstitutions; and (6) private foundations. Three appendixes, contain amethodology report, the child care center survey instrument, and a63-item annotated list of books, articles, and other materials. Aseparate 8-page "Executive Summary" is appended. (TJQ)

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1

AffirmingChildren's Roots

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONOrc of Educslonal Research and Improvement

EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATIONCENTER (ERIC)

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Cultural and Linguistic Diversityin Early Care and Education

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"PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THISMATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY

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TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCESINFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)."

A CALIFORNIA TOMORROW PUBLICATION

2 BEST COPY AVAILABLE

-I,

AffirmingChildren's Roots

Cultural and Linguistic Diversity in

Early Care and Education

By Hedy Nai-Lin Chang

California Tomorrow Co-DirectorEarly Childhood Project Director

With Laura Sakai

Project Associate

A CALIFORNIA TOMORROW PUBLICATION

FAL! 1993

3

2 AFFIRMING CHILDRF.N'S ROOTS

CALIFORNIA

TOMORROW

Board of Directors

Lewis H. Butler, ChairLift' Wong FilmoreBong HuanRobert FriedmanRobin M. KramerMartin KrameyStewart KwohAntonia LopezHugo Morales

Co-Directors

Laurie OlsenHedy Nai-Lin Chang

Staff andProject Affiliates

Nancy Belton

Denise De La Rosa SalazarLinda-Cathryn EverstzCecilia LeongMay LiZaida McCall PerezGreg McClainLisa RaffelLaura Sakai

CALIFORNIA TOMORROW is a non-profit organization committed to making racial andethnic diversity work in California, and to building a society that is fair and open for ev-eryone, especially the children who are our future.

CALIFORNIA TOMORROW:

Identifies and reports on the joys, challenges and problems that diversity brings toschools and other institutions serving children and their families.

Seeks out and reports on the people and programs that deal most successfully withthose challenges, and that build on the strengths of diversity.

Delivers this news through publications and presentations to a broad cross-sectionof people.

Brings outstanding teachers and other professionals together to share their experiencesand perspectives on the challenges of a diverse California.

Provides one-on-one consultation and assistance to schools, agencies and policymakersstriving to create services and institutions appropriate to the rich diversity of our peoples.

Through the media and other public forums, offers informed analysis of diversity issuesin California, both the challenges and the successes, to counteract public ignorance,skepticism and fear.

CALIFORNIA TOMORROW

Fort Mason Center, Building BSan Francisco, CA 94123(415) 441-7631

Affirming Children's Roots

Editor: Carol Dowell

Resource Materials: Compiled by Amy Muckelroy

Design and Production: Alison Wood, Woodland Graphics

Cover photograph: Hintil Kuu Ca Child Development Center, Oakland, by Dexter Dong

Inside photographs: page 9, 18 and 23 of Hintil Kuu Ca by Dexter Dong; page 10, 33,44, 47, 49, 56 and 59 courtesy of the Foundation Center; page 37 courtesy of CabrilloCommunity College Child Development Center; page 51 and 63 courtesy Kai MingHead Start.

Funding for this project was generously provided by the Miriam and Peter Haas Fund andthe James Irvine Foundation.

Copyright ©1993 by CALIFORNIA TOMORROW

All rights reserved.No part of this book may be used or reproduced without permisison.Printed in U.S.A. by GRT Book Printing

CULTURAL AND LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY IN EARLY CARE AND EDUCATION 3

Contents

4 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PREFACE

6 Young Children and California Tomorrow

INTRODUCTION

8 The Demographic Challenge

CHAPTER 1

16 Racial and Cultural Diversity in Childcare Centers

22 Profile: Hintil Kuu Ca Child Development Center

31 Profile: Foundation Center Childcare Provider Training Program

36 Profile: The Cabrillo Anti-Bias Approach

CHAPTER 2

44 The Language of Care

49 Profile: Winters Child Development Center

51 Profile: Kai Ming Head Start

CHAPTER 3

i8 Parent-Provider Connections

62 Profile: Kai Ming Head Start

CHAPTER 4

65 Conclusions and Recommendations

70 APPENDIX A: METHODOLOGY REPORT

74 APPENDIX B: CHILD CARE CENTER SURVEY

84 APPENDIX C: SELECTED RESOURCE MATERIALS

Annotated list of books, articles and materials

100 CALIFORNIA TOMORROW PUBLICATIONS

5

4 AFFIRMING CHILDREN'S ROOTS

Acknowledgments

Affirming Children's Roots reflectsthe contributions and insights ofmany individuals and organiza-

tions. Most significant has been the tal-ent, effort and enthusiasm of projectassociate Laura Sakai, who played a ma-jor role in enriching, informing and car-rying out this work. In particular, thedemographic analysis reflects Laura'sstrong quantitative skills and willingnessto explore the statistical nuances of thedata collected from child care facilities.Laura's thoughtful approach, patience andcheerful spirit have been invaluable.

In order to collect demographic in-formation, California Tomorrow con-tracted with Field Research Corporation(FRC) to conduct telephone interviewswith child care providers in five coun-ties. Throughout our relationship, Cali-fornia Tbmorrow has benefited from FRCPresident Deborah Jay's impeccable re-search skills and keen understanding ofchild care issues from her experience as aprofessional and as a mother of two youngchildren.

In many ways, Affirming Children's Roots

is the combined result of the energy, ideasand talents of all the members of theCalifornia Tomorrow "family." 1t particu-larly reflects the contributions of co-di-rector Laurie Olsen whose vision, breadthof knowledge and ingenuity always amazeme. Laurie's early research as the founderof California Tomorrow's Immigrant Stu-dents Project helped develop the theo-

r Hcal underpinnings of this work, andsue has continued to shape its tone andcontent. California Tomorrow staff andboard members alike have greatly enrichedthis report by reviewing early project re-search plans, preliminary findings and thedrafts. Editor Carol Dowell assumed re-sponsibility for fine tuning the document,helping to incorporate comments fromreaders and coordinating production. Theflow of the report reflects her creativityand thoughtful editing skills. We are in-debted to volunteer Amy Muckelroy whoprovided crucial assistance in research-ing specific child care issues and devel-oping the annotated listing of resourcematerials. This report, like every otherCalifornia Tomorrow product, could nothave moved forward without the supportof our office staff, Nancy Belton and MayLi. Their talent, good humor and com-mon sense hold us together.

Affirming Children's Roots benefited tre-mendously from the expertise and insightsof each and every member of our projectadvisory group, listed at right. We wouldparticularly like to express appreciationto advisor Fran Kipnis of the Statewide

ild Care Resource and Referral Net-work for her assistance in designing thedemographic analysis, to Julie OlsenEdwards of Cabrillo Community Col-lege for her careful review and feedbackon two full drafts of the report, and tot)rofessor Lily Wong Fillmore for beinga continual source of inspiration and in-


formation. Special thanks are also due toother individuals who took the time toread and commentRon Lally, LindaEspinoza, Sid Gardnerjune Sale, MarilynAllen, Yolanda Torres, Dolores Terrazas,Jan Brown and Ruby Brunson.

Funding for Affirming Children's Rootswas generously provided by the Miriamand Peter Haas Fund and the James IrvineFoundation. Their financial support to-gether with a grant from the DanforthFoundation will also enable CaliforniaTomorrow to conduct its future work inthe area of early childhood care andeducation. The commitment of thesefoundations to fostering a greater under-standing of the strengths of our diversesocietyand the willingness of founda-tion staff to share their ideas and adviceare as important and heartening as theirfinancial contributions.

Finally I would like to express my deep-est appreciation to the children, parentsand staff of Hindi Kuu Ca, The Founda-tion Center for Phenomenological Re-search, the enters Child DevelopmentCenter, Kai Ming Head Start and CabrilloCommunity College Child DevelopmentCenter for sharing generously their time,experiences and expertise. Their resolutespirit, creativity and caring allow us tocatch a glimpse of what is possible.

Hedy Nai-Lin ChangProject Director / Principal AuthorFall 1993

Affirming Children's Roots

Advisors

Maria Casey

Richard Cohen

Lynn De Lapp

Louise Derman-Sparks

Lourdes Diaz Soto

Julie Edwards

Eugene Garcia

Karen Hill Scott

Carollee Howes

Deborah Jay

Sharon Lyn Kagan

Janet King

Fran Kipnis

Antonia Lopez

Daphne Muse

David Ramirez

Vivian Weinstein

Marci Whitebook

Robin Wolfson

Lily Wong Fillmore

Norman Yee

7


PREFACE

Young Children and California Tomorrow

AArming Children's Roots buildsupon California Tomorrow's pastwork, experience and organiza-

tional philosophy. California Tomorrowis dedicated to making California'smultiethnic and multiracial society bothfair and workable. We believe our society'sdemocracy, economy and social well-be-ing depend upon our ability to tolerateand respect differences among individu-als and groups, and to draw upon thestrengths of the diverse society in whichwe live. Rather than fear that diversitywill lead to the demise of our society,California Tomorrow seeks to identifystrategies, policies and programs that willbuild upon the assets created by this re-markable influx of traditions, perspectives,languages and human resources. Fromour vantage point, diversity and societalunity are interrelated. Given that the wholeis only as strong as the sum of its parts, itis our view. that society as a whole ben-efits from efforts to foster the strong de-velopment of various sub-ethnic groups.

California, and ultimately the entirecountry, are at a crossroads. We can ei-ther accept the challenge of creating publicinstitutions and policies that support ourdiversity and enable residents to func-tion productively and equitably in a plu-ralistic society, or we can deny the existenceof our current demographic reality andits implications for our society. But, asdemonstrated by the civil unrest follow-ing the Rodney King verdict of 1992, toengage in such denial is a recipe for di-saster. California Tomorrow further be-lieves that it is in efforts to support ourincreasingly diverse children and theirfamilies that the success or failure of our

"world nation" will ultimately rest.Nearly seven years ago, California To-

morrow embarked upon what has becomeone of its best known works, the Immi-grant Students Project. It started withopen questions: What were the experi-ences of the immigrant children fromscores of nations in California's publicschools? What were the experiences ofeducators attempting co teach studentswith whom they increasingly shared nei-ther languages, cultures or national back-grounds? The resulting first report,Crossing the Schoolhouse Borden documenteda range and depth of needs that schoolswere largely ignorant of and wholly un-prepared to respond to. This and subse-quent publications and outreach byCalifornia Tomorrow have called forchanges in teacher education and profes-sional development, in teacher crc-dentialing, in the structures of schoolingsuch as tracking which work against thefull inclusion of immigrant and minority,children, and in curriculum content.

In the course of identifying these publicschool issues, California Tomorrow alsodiscovered trends which appeared to berooted in early childhood care and edu-cation practices and policies that raisedquestions about the experiences of im-migrant children prior to K-12. We won-dered, for example, what was occurringwhen child care providers did not share alanguage with the children under theircare, given that a solid base in one's na-tive language is a precondition for thesmooth and fluent adoption of a secondlanguageas the research literature onK -12 instruction suggests. Did the samelack of awareness that we found among


K-12 educators as to the role of culturein shaping a child's learning style, ex-pression and understanding of the worldexist among early childhood profession-als as well? If so, what effect was it hav-ing on the early socialization of children?Wouldn't early childhood professionalshave the same need we had documentedfor K-12 educators to receive professionaldevelopment opportunities to prepare andsupport them to work effectively withdiverse students? What was occurring inthe field of training and preparation forearly childhood professionals? Was it pos-sible, we wondered, if some of the prob-lems that language and cultural minoritychildren were having in elementary schoolcould be traced back to cultural and lan-guage mismatches in early childhood careand education?

As we were shaping these questions,Lily Wong Fillmore, a professor of edu-cation at the University of California,Berkeley (now a member of our Board ofDirectors), enlisted us in her national studyon native language loss among languageminority children and its relationship toEnglish immersion in early childhood care.This study, conducted under the auspicesof the National Association of BilingualEducators, convinced us that research wasabsolutely necessary to address the cen-tral question of what is culturally appro-priate and responsive early childhood careand education. Interrelatedly, we deter-mined to probe what policies should bein place to ensure that cultural ignorancedoes not lead to long-term damage tofamilies whose culture, race and languagediffer from those of white, middle class,standard English speakers.

In the meantime, California To-morrow's Collaborative Services for Di-verse Communities project has spent thepast four years working on strategies foragencies, parents and community groupsto join together to holistically meet the

needs of children, youth and families. Cali-fornia Tomorrow operates a clearinghouseof innovative, collaborative effortsthroughout California, develops key re-source materials, provides technical as-sistance to selected communities, convenesa network of technical assistance provid-ers, and advocates :7,3r state-level poli-cies. In the course of this work, weobserved that the early childhood systemis at least as fragmented as other seg-ments of our child and family serving"system." Early childhood programs arerun by a plethora of different public andprivate agencies (local, federal and state)that often have conflicting goals and fund-ing mandates. Cross-agency coordinationis minimal and the many professionalswho work with young children rtrely com-municate with one another, particularlyacross disciplinary lines. And yet, at anearly age, developmental issues such asphysical health, mental health and learn-ing arc even less separable.

In an attempt to ensure that our pro-posed early childhood work would notreplicate existing efforts, we convened agroup of key professionals in the field toask them if they thought a project docu-menting the challenges of cultural andlinguistic diversity was needed. Once thisneed was confirmed, we asked many ofthese same individuals and others to serveon our advisory board.

This report presents the findings ofthe first phase of our projecta uniqueeffort to document the impact ofCalifornia's profound demographicchanges on child care centers and to raisequestions about the implications of ourgrowing diversity for early care and edu-cation. The central question which liesbefore us is how to build programs thataffirm and strengthen the roots of all youngchildren, and foster their healthy devel-opment as members of their families, com-munities and the larger society.

9

Was it possible, we

wondered, if some of

the problems that

language and cul-

tural minority chil-

dren were having in

elementary school

could be traced back

to cultural and lan-guage mismatches in

early childhood care

and education?


INTRODUCTION

The Demographic Challenge

he first five years of a child'slife provide the foundation forhis or her physical, cognitive

and affective growth. During this crucialtime, children begin to form their firstemotional attachments, learn to interactwith others, and develop a sense of self.While in the past, parents were consid-ered almost entirely responsible for a child's

development, in today's society most par-ents now share this responsibility withother adults and institutions. Over theyears, the likelihood of a young childspending time in the care of another adulthas greatly increased. In the United States,most children (57 percent) under the ageof six currently share their parents withwork. While their parents are working,the children often spend significant hoursof each day in the care of other adults.

Some time each week, at least two thirdsof children under the age of five may befound under the cat e of individuals otherthan their parents, grandparents and sib-lings. The child care arrangements usedby families vary somewhat with the ageof the children. According to the Na-tional Research Council, while more thanthree-fourths (78 percent) of families witha very young child (birth to two years)arrange for the child to be cared for in afamily day care home (facilities typicallyrun by a single adult caring for a smallnumber of children in her home) or by acaregiver who comes to the family's home',still a significant 14 percent place theiryoung children in a center. Families usecenters even more as their children growolder. In the 1990 National Child CareSurvey, of children aged three to fourwho had working mothers, 43 percent

spent time in child care center care and17 percent in family day care homes.

Demand for child care is so great thatin recent years, funding for early careand education programs has increased evenat a time when many other services havefaced severe cutbacks. In 1988, the pas-sage of the Family Support Act madenew monies available for child care towomen working their way off welfare. In1992, Congress endorsed a major expan-sion of Head Start programs and allo-cated new funds to child care throughfederal block grants under the OmnibusBudget Reconciliation Act (OBR._, of1991. An even greater expansion of HeadStart has been proposed under the ClintonAdministration. In California, pre-schoolfor four-year olds has been a cornerstoneof Governor Wilson's policies for children.

How, ver, many still call this relativelyrecent support too little and very late,coming at a time when the early care andeducation field is already in crisis fromunder-staffing, under-u-aining, underpay-ing of workers and extremely high turn-over. While new monies intend to ex-pand the availability of care, many be-lieve not enough attention is being paidto these problems which are directly re-lated to the quality of care. Child careteachers continue to earn less than halfthe salaries of comparably educated womenin other occupations and less than one-third the salaries of comparably educatedmen. A 1992 update to the National ChildCare Staffing Study found that since 1988,real wages for teaching assistants, the low-est-paid and fastest growing segment ofthe child care work force, declined to$5.08 an hour. The highest paid child

10

THE DEMOGRAPHIC CHALLENGE 9

care staff receive only $8.85 per hour, anincrease of only 66 cents over the lastfour years.2 In California, excellent earlychildhood education training programsfound in many of the community col-leges are in severe shock from the bud-get slashes aimed at the community col-lege system as a whole.

These problems have a tremendousimpact on the ability of the field to fulfillits responsibilities for nurturing more thanhalf of our future citizenry. Better pay,better training, better opportunities andhigher value for the workers charged withthis responsibility is essential.

The value of an early childhood pro-gram rests with its ability to support thewhole child's social/emotional, physicaland cognitive developmentwithin thecontext of the family and the commu-nity.' Poorly run, inappropriate forms ofchild care can stifle development and ir-reparably damage a child's sense of selfand well-being. At their best, programscan be instrumental in instilling in chil-dren many of the skills they will need forsuccess far beyond the pre-school years.

New Challenge, forthe Promise of Child Care

The belief in the promise of high-qualitycare to positively influence a child's lifeunderlies the recent growth in public sup-port for programs such as Head Start.But this promise must encompass morethan academic achievement and "assimi-lation" into the mainstream culture. Solidfamily communication, connection tocommunity and a strong sense of self arealso important in fostering a child's suc-cess and happiness.

Parents who must utilize childcare havealways hoped that caregivers will honorand reinforce in their children the valuesthat they themselves uphold in theirhomes. As parents walk away from drop-

ter-

ping off their children every morning,how often do they wonder "would it hebetter for my child to be able to spendthe day with me?" These parental emo-dons have not changed, but the childrenand families in childcare have. Of courseethnic minority parents have always uti-lized ch:Idcare, but only recently has at-tention been paid to what can be lostwhen the language and culture of a child'shome are not reinforced in the early caresetting. Meanwhile, as this report willdocument, the cultures and languagesamong families utilizing child cure havemultiplied exponentially. And within thesecultures may be discovered often verydiverse child rearing practices and ex-pectations, from whether a child is com-municated with verbally or nonverbally,to when a child is toilet trained, to whois involved in the nurturing of the child,to how a child is enfolded into the fabricof family and community.

Strong parent-provider partnerships arccrucial to ensuring that the practicesadopted in the home and in the care fa-cility are mutually reinforcing and comple-mentary. A strong focus on parent par-ticipation has long been considered oneof the keys to the success of Head Startprograms. What constitutes appropriate

LE

A 1,2'

The cultures and

languages among

families utilizingchildcare have

multiplied expo-

nentially.


The idea of babies

sleeping in separate

cribs off in a quiet

room away from the

family activity is nota universal belief

child rearing practice is a reflection ofthe values and beliefs of families and theculture of their community. The mostbasic acts of daily carefeeding, toilettraining, comforting, playing reflect thecultural values of both the parent andcaregiver, but these expectations may notnecessarily matth. For example, a caregiverwho has been raised to believe that earlymastery of skills is important may usefeeding time as an opportunity to en-courage an infant to build specific motorskills. If a provider was trained to em-phasize the autonomy and independenceof young children, he or she might cre-ate a feeding situation where children feedthemselves even if the results arc quitemessy. On the other hand, a caregiverwho grew up in a home where food wasscarce may have a greater tendency tocontrol how an infant eats in order toensure food is not wasted.

In all of these cases, it is the duty ofthe caregiver to try to understand howparents perceive these nurturing activi-ties and to as best as possible match thehome practices. Particularly for very young

1111111111111L

children who are just beginning to formthe core of their identity, consistency incaregiving approaches is considered bymany in the field now to be key in fos-tering this development. Strong commu-nication with parent is one of the keysto ensuring providers can understand theunique practices and traditions of thechild's community.

Like many other institutions in oursociety, however, child care policy andstandards have been heavily influencedby the values and the beliefs of the domi-nant culture - that is the white middleclass that traces its roots to Europe. Butthe child care that might be suitable forwhite middle class children may not beappropriate for children who come fromfamilies whose lives have been shaped bya different set of cultural beliefs. For ex-ample, as Janet Gonzalez-Mena writes inA Guide to Culturally Sensitive Care,'

The idea of babies sleeping in separatecribs off in a quiet room away from thefamily activity is not a universal belief,Many cultures believe it is important forthe infant and caregiver to maintain closephysical proximity, and when the baby needs

to sleep, he or she does so while beingcarried about. Not all families have roomfor members to sleep alone and separate...

Rc'gardless of the reason, it is not hard toimagine that a mother who is used to hav-ing her baby sleeping with her would re-quest that the child not be put off in a cribto learn to sleep alone.

Gonzalez-Mena acknowledges that thismay not always be possible for caregivers,particularly in large centers with specificlicensing regulations, however:

These differences are inevitable with theincreasing cultural diversity. What is notnecessarily inevitable is that one culturalview remains or becomes dominant overanother. Instead of automatically responding

:12


in your usual ways, take time to listen toparents who want for their babies something

different from what you ordinarily provide.

Caregivers, administrators and policymakers, unaware of the child rearing prac-tices of ethnically diverse families andtheir impact on children's development,unwittingly risk advancing contradictorypractices that may be ultimately detri-mental to family functioning. This igno-rance also puts at risk the social and aca-demic achievement of children whosefamilies do not come from the dominantculture and language.

For example, in the book Black Chil-dren: Their Roots, Culture and LearningStyles, Janice Hale Benson demonstrateshow Black children grow up in a culturedistinctly different from the white main-stream. She suggests that one of the ma-jor causes of low academic achievementamong African American children is thefailure of programs to incorporate thisculture into the learning processto drawupon the strengths and abilities that havebeen nurtured in the children while be-ing raised in the distinct African-Ameri-can culture. A more effective strategy couldinvolve, for example, encouraging chil-dren to express themselves through oralstory telling, just as they might at a fam-ily gathering. Culturally distinct learn-ing styles have been documented for manyethnic groups including Chinese-Ameri-can, Mexican-American and Native Ameri-can children.'

The Risk of Family Language Loss

Equally importantly in recent years, agrowing number of educators have be-come deeply concerned that the empha-sis on increasing school readiness by pro-moting English language developmentamong pre-schoolers can cause long-termdamage to language minority families.

Given, the question of when and howchildren should begin learning a secondlanguage has long been controversialamong educators. But some recent stud-ies warn that too early an emphasis onEnglish can cause children to lose theirability to speak their primary languagethe language of their home and their par-ents.' This loss can have a devastatingimpact upon families where the parentsdo not speak English. Reflecting on ananalysts of interviews with 1100 languageminority families, Lily Wong Fillmoreexplains:

What is lost is no less the means by

which parents socialize their childrenwhen

parents are unable to talk to their chil-dren, they cannot easily convey to themtheir values, beliefs, understandings or wis-

dom about how to cope with their experi-ences. They cannot teach them about themeaning of work, or about personalresponsibility..rifts develop and families lose

the intimacy that comes from shared be-liefs and understandings.

While Wong Fillmore recognizes thatchildren must eventually develop Englishlanguage skills, her research suggests thatan early emphasis on English can haveunintended harmful consequences, par-ticularly if it occurs without concurrentattention to the development of a child'shome language skills.

While not all educators agree withWong Fillmore or Hale Benson, theirwork and others' nonetheless demonstratesthat policy makers and practitioners alikemust begin to examine and understandthe capacity of our current child caresystem to provide culturally and linguis-tically app. opriate quality care for all chil-dren.

Unfortunately, information about whatconstitutes such care is not part of thecurrent training of child care providers.

13

Studies warn thattoo early an empha-sis on English can

cause children to

lose their ability to

speak their primarylanguage--thelanguage of theirhome and theirparents.


Our survey found

that virtually allchild care centers

are being profoundly

affected by our

changing demo-

graphics. Culturalend linguisticdiversity is the

norm.

Information documenting the importanceof culturally and linguistically appropri-ate care and how to achieve it is limitedin scope. Vt/hat does exist is scatteredamong agencies, centers and individualresearchers and not easily accessible tothe average practitioner, no matter howmotivated. At the same time, there hasbeen no discussion or formulation of childcare policy in consideration of culturaland linguistic differences.

The Demographic Reality

The capacity of early childhood programsto provide culturally and linguisticallyappropriate care to the children and fami-lies who now make up our society hasnever been examined. The United Statesis in the midst of a dramatic and swiftdemographic revolution. According to ananalysis by the Center for the Study ofSocial Policy, the nation's children aremore racially diverse than ever beforeand this diversity is most pronouncedamong children under the age of six. Con-sider the following':

Between 1980 and 1990, the percentage

of non-Hispanic white children declinedin every single state in the union. In twelvestates, non-Hispanic whites comprise lessthan 65 percent of the population and inthree states, children of color are the ma-jority. This shift can primarily be attrib-uted to rapid increases in the number ofAsian and Latino children.

Families with children are more com-mon among non-whites. Only 32 percentof white households are families with chil-dren compared to 40 percent of African-American, 53 percent of Latino, 47 per-cent of Asian and 45 percent of NativeAmerican households.

One out of twenty-five school-aged chil-dren lives in a family in which all mem-bers speak a language other than Englishand no "adult" reports being able to speakEnglish well.

Between 1974 and 1990, the number ofchildren who come from a home where alanguage other than, or in addition to, En-glish is spoken rose from 1.8 million to2.6 million.

Nowhere have these demographictrends been more pronounced or rapidthan in California:

No single racial group constitutes a nu-merical majority of California's children.While 46 percent of California's schoolchildren are white, 35 percent are Latino,8 percent are African American, and ap-proximately 10 percent are Asian.° Whitesceased to comprise a majority of California's

school-aged children in 1988.

34 percent of California's school hil-dren come from a household in which alanguage other than English is spoken. Inmore than a third of these households, noadult speaks English fluently.9

According to the California Departmentof Education, in 1992, 21 percent of allstudents are considered limited English pro-

ficient. Among kindergartners, this figureis closer to 30 percent. While almost 80percent of these kindergartners are Span-ish speakers, the next largest languagegroups are Vietnamese, Hmong, Cambo-dian, and Cantonese.

Unfortunately, because responsibilityfor childcare is fragmented across pri-vate, public and community agencies, in-formation about the demographics of chil-dren in care is non-existent with the ex-ception of a few statistics kept by state or


federal agencies on their own specific pro-grams. Nonetheless, the little data thatdoes exist suggests that early care andeducation programs have been profoundlyaffected by the overall demographicchanges in our country. A recent analysisfound, for example, that 20 percent ofthe 466,000 children enrolled in HeadStart spoke a language other than En-glish.10 The great majority of these-76percentspoke Spanish. The remainingwere dominant in a multitude of differ-ent languages including Khmer spokenby Cambodians, Haitian Creole, Japa-nese, Korean, FImong and Vietnameseto name a few. In California, statistics onsubsidized child development programsoperated by the California Departmentof Education reveal tremendous increasesin the numbers of Latino and Asian chil-dren. Between 1979 and 1986, the num-ber of children whose dominant languagewas not English escalated from 1 out of7 to nearly 1 out of 4.11

The Report

This California Tomorrow report beginsto explore the challenges of cultural andlinguistic diversity for early care and educa-tion by examining the current conditionsin child care centers only. While we recog-nize that the field itself includes a broadrange of different types of care, such asfamily day care and individuals hired tocome and care for children in families'homes, we chose to first focus on center-based care because there is a growingpolicy interest in that area. Unfortunately,this interest is largely rising without anunderstanding of the implications of ourgrowing racial, cultural and linguistic di-versity.

This report presents several types ofinformation. First, it documents the scopeof the demographic challenges facing child

care centers by presenting the findingsof our demographic analysis of 434 cen-ters in five California counties. Prior tothis project, information about the de-mographics of care did not exist with theexception of a few statistics kept by stateor federal agencies on children who re-ceive services from a select group of sub-sidized programs.

Our survey found that virtually all childcare centers are being profoundly affectedby our changing demographics. Culturaland linguistic diversity is the norm.Ninety-six percent of the surveyed cen-ters worked with more than one racialgroup and 81 percent provided care tochildren from two or more languagegroups. Seventy seven percent of childcare centers serve at least some childrenwho do not speak any English or onlyspeak a little English.

Moreover, information on staffing sug-gests that the centers are hard pressed tomeet the cultural and linguistic needs ofthe children in their care. While nearlyall of the centers could provide homelanguage support to their English speak-ing children, only 55 percent had a staffperson who could speak in Spanish totheir Spanish-speaking children. Less thanone-third had staff who could speak thehome language of their Tagalog, Chi-nese, Vietnamese or Korean-speakingchildren. Similarly, children of color arcless likely to be cared for by teachers ofthe same race than white children.

The demographic analysis upon whichthis report is based was conducted by theField Research Corporation. It involvedlengthy telephone surveys with a randomsample of 434 centers operating in SanFrancisco, Alameda, Merced, Los Ange-les and San Diego counties. These fivecounties were selected because they aredemographically diverse and geographi-

15

Information on

staffing suggests

that the centers

are hard pressed to

meet the culturaland linguistic needs

of the children in

their care.


tally distributed across California; col-lectively, they are home to almost half ofall the state's residents. In order to en-sure that we included child care centersfrom a variety of auspices, facilities wererandomly selected from the state licens-ing lists. The telephone survey was con-ducted in Spanish, English and Chinese.(At this time, we also surveyed 599 fam-ily day care providers. These findings willbe incorporated into the next phase ofCalifornia Tomorrow's early childhoodresearch project.)

The interviews were specifically de-signed to provide insight into the fol-lowing issues:

The extent to which centers served chil-

dren from more than one racial or lin-guistic group.

The ethnic and linguistic diversity ofcenter staff.

The extent to which centers served young

children who had limited proficiency inEnglish.

The extent to which the racial and thelanguage background of staff matchedthe background of the children in theircare.

The extent to which activities involvingparents were included in normal op-erations.

The extent to which providers perceived

language barriers as impeding commu-

nication with parents.

A copy of the final interview protocoland a description of the research meth-odology appear in Appendix A.

The report's second goal is to providereaders with a deeper understanding ofthe crucial importance of culturally andlinguistically appropriate early care andeducation by referring to relevant researchand literature. We hope to expose practi-tioners as well as policy makers to thegrowing body of such research about ap-propriate care. Our demographic find-ings from child care centers indicate thatthese issues must be taken more seri-ously than ever.

Finally, the report describes the ev-eryday activities of several innovativechildcare centers around the state thatCalifornia Tomorrow visited during ourfield research. These centers offer read-ers a glimpse of what culturally arid lin-guistically appropriate care can be. Thecenters were identified with the help ofproject advisors who have expertise inboth child care and issues of diversity.

Building upon the results of our de-mographic analysis, initial literature re-view and selected site visits, the futureactivities of the California Tomorrow earlychildhood project will focus on two ar-eas. First, we intend to gain a deeperunderstanding of how diversity issues af-fect parental decisions about child careand how families are affected by linguis-tic and cultural differences with care pro-viders. Second, we will investigate theimplications of cultural and linguistic di-versity for program design, policy, stafftraining and recruitment. kW will use thefollowing strategies to obtain this infor-mation: 1) family interviews, 2) visits tocenters and family day care homes, 3)identification of innovative recruitmentand training programs, and 4) interviewsor focus groups with resource and refer-ral agencies.

16

THE DEMOGRAPHIC CHALLENGE 1 5

REFERENCE

Hayes, C.D. Palmer, J.L., & Zaslow, M.F.,eds., Who Cares for America's Children? Child

Care Polity for the 199Ds, National ResearchCouncil, National Academy Press, Wash-ington, D.C., 1990.

Whitebook, Marcy, Deborah Phillips andCarollee Howes, National Child Ca' StaffingStudy Revisited: Four Years in the Life ofCenter-Based Child Care, p.2-3, Child CarcEmployee Project, Oakland, CA, 1993.

Kagan, Sharon Lyn, "Early Care and Edu-cation: Beyond the Schoolhouse Doors,"Phi Delta Kappan, 70(9), p. 665-672, May1989.

4 Gonzalez-Mena, Janet, "Carrying Out Rou-tine Caregiving Tasks with Cultural Sen-sitivity," in A Guide to Culturally SensitiveCare, The Program for Infant ToddlerCaregivers, San Francisco, CA, 1990.

Wong Fillmore, Lily "Now or Later?: Is-sues Related to the Early Education ofMinority Group Children," in Children atRisk, C. Harris Ed., Harcourt, Brace andJohanovich, New York, 1990; Diaz Soto,Lourdes, "Understanding Bicultural, Bi-lingual Children," in Young Children, p.30-36, January 1991; Shirley Brice Heath,Rigs with Words: Language, Lift and Workin Communities and Classrooms, CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge, MA, 1983;Moreno, Robert P, "Maternal Teaching ofPreschool Children in Minority and Low-Status Families: A Critical Review," in EarlyChildhood Research Quarterly 6, p. 395-410,1991.

6 Wong Fillmore, v.ily "When Learning aSecond Language Means Losing the First,"in Early Childhood Research Quarterly 6, p.323-346, 1991.

Center for the Study of Social Policy, TheChallenge of Change: What the 1990 CensusTells Us About Children, Washington, D.C.,September 1992.

Children Now, The Children Now CountyData Book 1993: Local Facts for CamnumityAction, p. 10, California, 1993.

9 Center for the Study of Social Policy, TheChallenge of Change: What the 1990 CensusTells Us About Children, Washington, D.C.,September 1992.

1° Kagan, Sharon Lyn and Eugene E. Garcia,ucating Culturally and Linguistically

Diverse Preschoolers: Moving the Agenda,"in Early Childhood Research Quarterly 6, p.431, 1991.

" California Department of Education, ChildDevelopment Division, 1986 Triennial Re-port.

17


Racial and Cultural Diversity in Child Care Centers

While the general public hasbecome more and moreaware of the demographic

changes occurring in the population as awhole, little information is available abouthow these demographics are manifestingthemselves in the context of center-basedchild care. This information gap led Cali-fornia Tomorrow to ask the followingquestions:

1. Do child care centers tend to serve only

children from certain racial groups eventhough the demographics of the generalpopulation of children from 0-6 are ex-tremely diverse?

2. Do child care centers collectively servechildren from a variety of ethnic back-grounds, but individually in general workwith children from a single racial group?

3. Are individual child care centers facedwith the challenge of working simulta-neously with children from multiple eth-nic groups?

4. Do the staff employed by child carecenters reflect the ethnic background ofthe children they serve?

In order to gain insight into these ques-tions, California Tomorrow asked childcare center providers about the racial back-ground of the children under their careand the staff at their facilities. For easeof comparison and clarity, the survey gen-erally relied upon the broad racial cat-egories used by the Census Bureau. Thischapter presents our findings with re-spect to these issues.

Note: Although the terms "race" and"racial" are used throughout this re-port, the authors would like to acknowl-edge the limitations of these terms andthe controversy surrounding the se-lection of precisely which ones (e.g.White vs. Anglo) are appropriate. Useof the term race is often criticized be-cause it implies a clear-cut biologicalbasis for making a distinction whichscience has failed to prove. These termsdo, however, reflect the way this soci-ety currently tends to categorize people.Consequently, when we developed oursurvey for child care centers, we foundit necessary to rely upon the sociallyconstructed racial categories originally

used by the Censusnamely White,Latino, Asian Pacific Islander, AfricanAmerican and Native American. In se-lecting the terms, we tried to be sensi-tive to current concerns about howgroups are named, and to use termswhich would easily be understood bythe person being interviewed. More-over, while race is certainly not thesame as ethnicity, this report doesassume that race is one indicator of achild's ethnic and cultural background.One of the biggest problems with tra-ditional "racial" categories is that theymask significant ethnic and culturalvariations within particular raciai cat-egories.

RACIAL AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN CHILD CARE CENTERS 1 7

The Rich Diversity Of Childrenin Center Based Care

Our survey found that the norm is for achild care center to serve children frommore than one racial group. Uss than 5percent of the surveyed centers work onlywith children from a single racial group.More than 95 percent of all surveyed centerswork with children from more than one ra-cial group. In slightly more than a third(38%), there is a dominant ethnic groupbut children of other races arc present aswell. Approximately one third of centers(34%) work with large numbers of chil-dren from two racial groups. In almost aquarter (23.5%), no single racial groupmakes up more than a third of the chil-dren in the facility. Please see figure 1.

Among the centers serving two racialgroups, the most common pairing of chil-dren (32%) is White and Latino. Otherfrequently found pairs are White and Asian(18%), Latino and African American (18%)and African American and White (15%).

Our data suggest that children of allracial backgrounds are found in child carecenters in California. Most centers (92%)care for at least one Latino child. Cen-ters are almost as likely to be found car-ing for at least one African American childas they are a White child. More thanthree quarters (76%) of the centers re-port caring for at least one Asian child.Please see figure 2.

Our survey also asked centers whetherthey served at least one Native Americanchild. Unfortunately, a comparison of theresponses with numbers in the generalpopulation suggests the data is invalid.We believe some respondents may haveinterpreted the surveyor to be asking aboutchildren who were born in the UnitedStates versus immigrants.

Figure 1. Percent of child care centers that serve one racial group, adominant racial group, two racial groups or multiple racial groups.

Only one racial group(4.1%) n=17

One dominant racial group(38.4%) n=157

Primarily two racial groups(34%) n=139

Multiple racial groups(23.5%) n=96

Figure 2. Percent of child care centers that serve at least one Asian,

Latino, White or African American child.

100%

80%

12.1

2 60%

82.5%

92%

80%76.3%

t 40%

r?" 20%

0%White Latino African Asian(359) (400) American (332)

Numbers in parentheses representnumber of centers lunweighted)

(351)

These findings suggest that most childcare centers in California are now in theposition of simultaneously caring for chil-dren from several different ethnic groups.This means that virtually all child carecenters must be prepared to understandand provide appropriate care to childrenwho come from a wide range of culturalbackgrounds.

19


The Cultural Context of ChildRearing, Socialization and Learning

Child-rearing pract'ces are embedded inthe values and culture of a child's homeand community. Culture, in this context,refers to the values, beliefs and traditionsof a particular group. It is the set of rulesthat, to varying degrees, guide the be-havior of individuals who are membersof that group. The culture of.the groupis influenced by a number of factors in-chiding nationality, ethnicity, socioeco-nomics and racial experience. While it isimportant to avoid over-generalizing andstereotyping when describing the attributesof specific cultural and class groups, par-ticularly since cultures evolve and change,understanding the impact of culture andclass on how a child develops is essential.

Consider the variations which havebeen found in the use and reliance uponspeech as the primary mechanism for thenurturing, teaching and socializing of chil-dren. Shirley Brice Heath's ethnographicstudy of rural Appalachian working class

and middle class Black and White fami-lies illustrates these differences well.Among both the middle class Black andWhite professional families, discourse wasseen as the primary means for the familyto teach children about life and the world.From infancy, children were "envelopedin a web of words" and books were in-troduced very early in their development.Parents coached children to become con-versational partners and information givers.Meanwhile, the working class White par-ents also talked to their children, but thenature of the interaction was somewhatdifferent, with the parents assuming therole of teacher as opposed to conversa-tional partner. Much of this communica-tion involved "instructing" children aboutappropriate ways of behaving and speaking.

Working class Black families, on theother hand, rarely spoke directly to ba-bies, and love and affection tended to beconveyed through non-verbal communi-cation. Children were encouraged to learnby imitating the behavior of adults, set-ting the pace of their own development.Children gradually acquired language bypracticing what they overheard and byobserving the connection between wordsand events. In these families, one of themost important forms of discourse wasrecounting events in the form of stories.In order to gain access to this discourse,however, children needed to be assertive.Moreover, their contributions tended tobe valued more if children had the cre-ativity to tell an interesting tale ratherthan to necessarily recount an event ac-curately.

Culturally distinct socialization patternshave also been documented for a num-ber of other groups. For example, re-search suggests that Native Americanfamilies tend to value visual and experi-ential learning more than the use of words.

4°

RACIAL AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN CHILD CARE CENTERS 19

Children tend to learn through observe-don and practice. Family members rec-ognize the mastery of new skills but tendnot to push children to take on new tasks.'Child-rearing in Chinese families, on theother hand, provides a sharp contrast.According to Chinese culture, the parent'sjob is to "civilize" children beginning ata very young age by imparting crucialconcepts such as htunility, good mannersand deference to parents. Consequently,parents blame themselves when their childmisbehaves. As Lily Wong Fillmore writes:

"Nothing is left to chance. Parents decidewhen children are ready to acquire par-ticular skills, and they train them in theperformance of the instructional task. Theinstruction given to the child consists moreof exhortations and criticism than expla-nation or direction. "2

Cultural differences in how childrenare socialized in the home significantlyaffect a child's response to the teachingtechniques used by teachers. Followingare examples from the elementary schoolarena, although it should be mentionedthat there is controversy in the early child-hood field as to how much of elementaryschool data applies to children under sixyears old. Still, given the need for fur-ther study of these issues with youngerchildren, it is useful to understand therange of different learning responsesamong culturally diverse elementary agedchildren.

The oral English language gains madeby Chinese and Latino third and fifthgrade students have been found to hedirectly related to classroom teaching tech-niques and the structure of learning ac-tivities. Different techniques appear towork better for children of specific eth-nic backgrounds. Whereas Latino chil-dren tended to progress more rapidly if

the classroom promoted opportunities forthem to learn through interaction withtheir peers, Chinese chiidren appearedto be much more affected by teacher in-teraction and opportunities to practicethrough instructional activiti . Amongthe Chinese students, peer interaction onlypromoted development if the child hadalready acquired enough English for himor her to have the confidence to use itwith English-speaking classmates.'

Among Native Americans, striving forindividual achievement is often not a partof the community's world view and there-fore a child's world view. Consequently,teachers create a sense of internal dis-comfort when they either pressure chil-dren to present answers individually beforethe entire class, or when they publiclyreward specific children, for example byprominently displaying their names on aclassroom chart. Being singled out foreither reward or criticism may be causefor embarrassment. On the other hand,cooperative learning techniques that em-phasize working together in small groupsare much more likely to enable a NativeAmerican child to productively use thesocial skills he or she has acquired athome.; Also, Native American childrenhave been found to be more likely thanother children to respond positively toactivities involving group speaking.'

Similarly, teachers who use a varietyof teaching techniques and problem-solv-ing tasks appear to be more effective atimproving the academic achievement ofAfrican American youngsters .° Accord-ing to A.W. Boykin, this variety of ap-proaches snakes a bigger difference forAfrican American children than for Whitechildren. One possible explanation of thisphenomenon is that African Americanparents may be more likely to use a broader

1.

Child-rearingpractices are em-

bedded in the

values and culture

of a child's home

and community


range of approaches to help their chil-dren learn. Music and dance, for example,may be as much a part of a child's devel-opmental repertoire as books. Conse-quently, when children enter school, theyare bored and do not respond to sterile,monotonous classrooms where teachersdo not stray from a given format.'

Research on differences between theculture of the home and the school isoften used to explain the high rate ofschool failure among language and cul-tural minority children. In the book, Be-yond Language: Social and Cultural Factorsin Schooling Minority Children, Stanley Sueand Amado Padilla view academic achieve-ment as a function of "the dynamic in-teraction between the values of the ethnicminority group and the cultural values ofthe larger society."' Because schools, byand large, have peen shaped by the domi-nant culnire, current classroom instruc-tion tends to be geared toward meetingthe educational needs of children whoseprior socialization conforms to that ofthe dominant culture. When childrencome from a cultural background whichencompasses different forms of learning,they may have much more difficulty mak-ing the adjustment to school because theschool environment tends not to validateor draw upon the skills and experiencesthat they bring. Improving achievement,then, involves some alignment betweenthe culture of the school and that of thehome. While many efforts to improveschool achievement are premised on theidea that minority families must learn toconform to the culture of the school, thisanalysis suggests that the onus for changingthis alignment falls equally, if not moreheavily, on the shoulders of professionaleducators.

Implications of Cultural Differencesfor Early Care and Education

Located at tht, very nexus between homeand school, early childhood programs playa critical role in the learning and social-ization process. For many children, earlycare and education programs will he theirfirst exposure to a group learning envi-ronment. Depending upon the type ofinteraction which occurs, e impact canbe extremely positive or negative. Pro-grams which understand, acknowledge andbuild upon the socialization that a childhas received from family and communityhave been much more successful at im-proving intellectual, cognitive and socialoutcomes for minority children. Considerthe experience of the KamehamehaElementary Education Program (KEEP)in Honolulu, Hawaii. After 15 years ofcontinuous research and development, thisprogram demonstrates how academicachievement can be significantly improvedby drawing upon the strengths of a child'shome and community learning experi-ences. For example, KEEP teachers pat-terned classroom group discussions afterHawaiian "talk" story. A traditional con-versational style still common amongHawaiian adults, "talk story" is a lively,rapid-fire dialogue during which partici-pants informally take turns speaking andoften more than one person speaks at atime. Similarly, the KEEP program rec-ognized and validated the strong peer ori-entation of Hawaiian children by creatingindependent peer learning centers. Thesetook advantage of the children's alreadydeveloped skills in supporting each other'sgrowth and shaping their learning activi-ties with minimal adult supervision.9

22


While this was an elementary educa-don program, the concepts can be ac-commodated to the early childhood fieldwhere children are learning to interactand support one another. Programs whichfail to incorporate children's culture nmseveral risks. At the very least, they maymiss important opportunities to promotea child's cognitive and social growth. Moreseriously, culturally inapprnpriarc pro-grams can increase apathy and school fail-ure among children. If the activities inthe center are unengaging and conflictwith (or worse disrespect) the child's pastexperience, they may turn children offfrom the schooling process. Past presi-dent of the National Association for theEducation of Young Children, BarbaraBowman observes, "when [young] chil-dren find that the way they talk and act isnot understood or appreciated in schools,they are apt to become confused or dis-engaged. And their rejection by schoolpresages their rejection of the schoo1.10"

Early childhood programs that do nottry to knit home childrearing practicesinto their philosophy may in fact fullysocialize children to the norms of thedominant culture. But if this socializa-tion causes the child to reject or fail tounderstand the culture of his or her fam-ily and community, dire consequences mayresult. The home culture is the vehiclethrough which families transmit to theirchildren a sense of identity, an under-standing of how to relate to other peopleand a sense of belonging. Children nolonger socialized to the norms of the familyor community risk losing their sense ofidentity and connection. Often they learnbehaviors outside the home that alienatethem from those very groups which shouldserve as their primary source of emo-tional and physical supportfamily andcommunity. Although it is a common ex-

ample, eye contact is viewed very differ-endy among cultures.'In mainstream U.S.society, children who fail to make eyecontact when speaking with an adult mayhe viewed as dishonest, shy or inatten-tive. In many other cultures, however,children are taught to avoid direct eye-contact with an adult because it is seen asa sign of disrespect." A caregiver whosocializes children to "look me in theeyes" may unknowingly lead them to of-fend adults from their own community.While this may sound simplistic, it en-compasses the greater issue of power re-lationships between adults and children.

Some believe that the dangers of placingchildren into culturally inappropriate careare greatest for very young children. RonLally, a researcher with the Center forChild and Family Studies at Far WestLabs, explains:

According to developmental psychologistslike Mahler and Erikson, children between

the ages of 0-2 are in the midst of formingthe core of their identity. They are justbeginning to acquire preferences and be-

liefs. The development of this identity oc-curs in large part by incorporating the view

held by the adults who care for them. Ifthe views of those adults are negative andinconsistent with the values of the familyand community, the impact on a child'ssense of identity could be devastating.

According to Lily Wong Fillmore, thetask facing the field of early care andeducation is the development of:

Programs that build on the families' ca-pacity to provide their children with theexperiences that will not only facilitatetheir future functioning in school but willalso allow them to become competent mem-

bers of their own societies in ways thatare important to the particular group.

2 :3

Children no longer

socialized to the

norms of the family

or community risk

losing their senseof identity andconnection.


Hintil Kuu CaPerched high amidst the urban forest ofthe Oakland hills, Hindi Kuu Ca cur-rently serves more than 110 children. Themajority are Native Americans who col-lectively represent more than 60 differ-ent tribal groups. Though most of thefamilies who use the center live a gooddistance away, the Native American par-ents, grandparents and community mem-bers who joined together to select thecenter's current location, chose it becauseof its proximity to nature. In addit;on toserving pre-school children, Hind.' runsan after-school program for children upthrough sixth grade.

Currently run by the Oakland schooldistrict as one of the state subsidized childdevelopment programs, ITintil Kuu Caoriginally was started by a parent coop-erative. The impetus for its creation wasthe American Indian community's grow-ing concern over their children's highdrop-out rates. At the time, AmericanIndian children were dropping out ofschool as early as third grade and virtu-ally none were completing high school.The community felt that at least part ofthe explanation for their children's aca-demic failure was that Native Americansisolated in an urban environment werehard pressed to find the community in-stinidons and familial supports that couldoffer their children a strong sense of self-identity and pride and help to bridge thechasm between the home and school.

From its inception, Hintil was designedwith several goals in mind. First, it wasviewed as a transitional place where par-ents and children could be introduced tothe educational system. Second, the cur-riculum was designed to build the confi-

dence and the skills that Native Ameri-can children would need to succeed in aninterracial school system. Third, Hintilwas seen as a forum where parents couldcome together to provide each other withmuch needed support and advice. Thesegoals continue to influence the designand the development of Hindi's program.Parent Corinne Davis states:

Hintil helps children become aware of whothey are. This is really important particu-larly when children get out into the largerschool system. Schools don't teach cul-ture. In most schools, the stories told about

Native Americans are based on miscon-ceptions and stereotypes. In my son's class-

room, stories about American Indians made

the other children laugh. A strong sense of

cultural identify is crucial preparation forhis entry into school.

Hintil's Native American focus is alivein the classrooms. On the walls of thelarge spacious rooms hang photographsof Native Americans and various formsof Native American art work created byboth masters and the young children them-selves. Each room has a reading cornerwith a wide range of children's books in-cluding an impressive selection of thosethat tell Native American stories and de-scribe the various lifestyles of differenttribal groups.

In addition to promoting school readi-ness by helping children learn their col-ors, shapes and numbers, teachers at Hindiconsciously seek to teach children valuesimportant to the Native American com-munity, such as respect for elders, carefor others, the importance of sharing andrespect for Indian things. The singing ofNative American songs in various triballanguages and the thump of the drummay be heard everyday in the center. AtHintil, activities arc designed to promote

24


each child's sense of pride in his or herheritage and understanding of other tribalgroups. leacher Marlene l3cltran explains:

One of the programs first objectives is tomake the children feel good about them-selves, Students watch television, too, andsee stereotypical images. Sometimes chil-dren don't even know what tribe they arefrom. When this happens, we help themfind out about their identify. We also spendtime talking about the characteristics ofvarious tribes, such as their housing, foods

and ceremonial dress. For this age group,it is important to keep the curriculum simple.

For example, we can't talk about wherereservations are located because children

do not yet understand the concept of lo-cation. Most of the information is sharedthrough show and tell and experientialactivities.

Often center resources are enrichedby contributions from the community.Money in the parent fund is set aside tosupport consultants so that, for example,a Sioux mother may teach the childrenhow to make bonnets of safety pins or aNavajo artist may instruct the childrenin the intricacies of traditional pottery.

In many ways, this practice is a hold-over from I lintil's early (lays when par-ents and grandparents were a regular partof the classroom. At that dine, non-work-ing parents were expected to help out inthe classroom at least once a week. Withthis, children benefited from interactionwith the role models and lower adult-child ratios. 'lb°, parents were able togain a better understanding of how thecenter operated and how they could par-ticipate in their child's education. WhenHindi first opened, many of the parentsviewed schools with distrust and alien-ation. Center staff offer the followingin sight:

6.

Indian parents are not passive merely be-

cause they do not march in and take charge

in a classroom. Do not expect parents tobe comfortable at first. Parents and grand-parents need time to get used to the ideaof making decisions concerning their child'seducation. The fact is, most adults havehad negative experiences throughout their

life with boarding schools, which were gov-

ernment institutions. These institutions were

designed to strip Indian people of theirculture, and they did. Boarding schools were

controlled by White people who were in-sensitive and unsympathetic towards theneeds of Indian people. Inevitably, educa-tion was not a priority among Indian fami-lies as it should have been. The main focuswas to regain the culture we had beenstripped of Hintil has struggled to changethe attitude of our Indian people regardingeducation. It has taken 17 years to see thechange. Children who were in the pro-gram at two and a half are now attendinglocal colleges.

While parents still play an active rolein school decision-making and curricu-lum design, the level. of parent participa-tion unfortunately has dropped in recent

5


PROF LE years. Parent Janet King attributes thisto changes in the program's eligibilityguidelines. Several years ago the loss offederal funding meant that the center couldonly survive if it was adopted into theschool district system of state subsidizedchild development centers. According tostate eligibility rules, however, familiescan only enroll children in the center ifboth parents are either working or stu-dents. This regulation effectively elimi-nated the families with non-workingparents who were much more likely tohave the time to participate on a regularbasis. She says, "it has really underminedthe program. We [meaning the parentswho currently use the program] have thetalent but no time to share."

Three out of the ten teachers at thecenter and all of the classroom instruc-tional assistants are Native American.Teachers are selected through a consen-sus of the interview committee made upof supervisor, staff and parents. Criteriainclude familiarity with Indian culture andthe Indian community, experience in teach-ing, awareness of concepts of child de-velopment and the ability to disciplinechildren in a way that is sensitive to In-

dian culture (e.g. not singling a child outin front of his or her peers). While thecommunity has always felt the ideal is tohave Native American staff, parents arecomfortable with the non-Indian teach-ers. Many have been at the center foryears. Parent Janet King explains that thenon-Indian teachers have made tremen-dous efforts to educate themselves. Some-times they have made mistakes, liketeaching a traditional dance during a seasonwhen it was not appropriate, but theywork at informing themselves.

Cathy Moran has been associated withHintil throughout its long history andrecently retired as acting director. Ac-cording to her, the center has been ex-tremely successful. When Hintil first beganit was part of larger effort which includedTitle VII programs for elementary andsecondary grades. When all three pro-grams were in place; the drop out ratewas reduced from the high 90 percentrange to between 30 and 40 percent. Un-fortunately programs for children beyond6th grade were dismantled when federalfunding dried up, even though the needcontinues.

Limited Availability of Trainingand Resources

Hintil Kuu Ca demonstrates the impor-tance of centers employing staff personswho understand the cultural backgroundsof the children they serve and are able touse this awareness to provide culturallyas well as developmentally appropriate care.

Child care providers can improve theirawareness and sensitivity to cross-culturalissues through training and staff devel-opment activities. They can also read theavailable literature, which for the mostpart falls into two categories. The first

encompasses materials that provideoverarching principles, techniques or ap-proaches for working with culturally di-verse children of any ethnic backgrounds.The second category includes publica-tions about the specific practices of par-ticular groups. Some materials attemptto cover general principles as well as pro-vide information about specific ethnicgroups.

Some of the best materials in this areahave been produced by the Program forInfant Toddler Caregivers (PICT). Theseinclude a thoughtful and informative videowhich is available through the California

26

Department of Education. Entitled "TenKeys to Culturally Sensitive Child Care,"the video together with the accompany-ing guide are designed to help "infant/toddler care givers (1) better understandthemselves and how they are influencedby their own cultural beliefs (2) betterunderstand the children and families theyserve and (3) learn a process of relatingto cultural issues that will help them be-come more effective care givers."" Simi-larly, Multicultural Issues in Child Care byJanet Gonzalez-Mena shows how childcare providers can take a more sensitive,less biased approach to establishing cross-cultural communications and handlingcultural conflicts in approaches to care.For example, the handbook describes howmothers from some cultures may expecttheir very young children to use the toi-let at a center, rather than diapers, be-cause their own attunement to their child'sbody language allows them to know ex-actly when it is time for the child to goto the bathroom:

If you understand the mother's experience,

her point of view, and her definition oftoilet training, your attitude toward herwill be different than if you, without thisunderstanding, just look at her as lackingin knowledge. The parent too might havea more accepting attitude of you and yourcaregiving practices if you had had a con-versation with her about how the care ofinfants and toddlers in groups is differentfrom caring for one baby alone at home."

The National Association for the Edu-cation of Young Children has also pro-duced some training materials. While mostNAFYC publications focus on techniquesfor reducing prejudices through the de-velopment of an anti-bias curriculum(which will be discussed in more depthlater in this chapter), a few, notably Un-derstanding the Multicultural Experience inEarly Childhood Education and various ar-


titles appearing in Young Children attemptto provide more information about whatconstitutes culturally appropriate care forvarious ethnic groups.

The available materials are limited how-ever, and those existing do not yet coverthe full range of ethnic or age groups.For example, information about child carepractice for Southeast Asian children, whothemselves comprise several sub-groups,is virtually non - existent to date. Whilesome materials offer useful guidelines forindividual practitioners, virtually no workexists on the ramifications of culturallyappropriate care in program design or inlocal and state child care policy. More-over, while relevant materials are pro-duced by a wide variety of institutionsfrom universities to non-profits to pro-fessional associations, there is no cen-tralized clearinghouse dedicated to makingthis information easily available. To gainaccess to them requires extensive search-ing and individual motivation on the partof providers.

In spite of the resources and researchthat do exist, information on culturallyappropriate practice does not appear tobe reaching the typical child care pro-vider. Issues of diversity have yet to beincorporated into those guidelines thathave gained widespread acceptance withinthe field. No mechanism exists for en-suring that child care workers are ex-posed to information on cultural andlinguistic diversity as part of their regu-lar preparation for working with children.

The most well recognized guidelinesdefining what constitutes appropriate carein early childhood programs were devel-oped by the National Association for theEducation of Young Children. Develop-mentally Appropriate Practice in Early Child-hood Programs Serving Children From Birthto Eight is a valiant effort to establishstandards within a field which previouslylacked a written consensus about what

In spite of the

resources and

research that do

exist, informa-tion on culturally

appropriatepractice does not

appear to be

reaching the

typical child care

provider


constituted "quality" child care. Over theyears, these guidelines have become in-creasingly used by practitioners and edu-cators throughout the child care field todefine practice and shape programs. Theircreation grew out of a fear that the strongfocus on early development of academicskills being demanded by the public wascausing child care programs to adopt meth-ods that did not take into account thefull range of basic developmental needsof young children. The NAEYC docu-ment addresses this through guidelinesfor curriculum design and teaching strat-egies based upon the age and individualneeds of a child. The document pavedthe way for the field to begin examiningits assumptions about what constitutesappropriate, quality care.

As it is currently written, however, thedo rent does not explicitly discuss howculture or language issues should be takeninto account in the development of ap-propriate teaching strategies and curricula.Consequently, as these guidelines havegained in popularity, concerns have grownabout their suitability for teachers whowork with children who do not comefrom the dominant culture. Janice Jipsonanalyzed teachers' reactions to the NAEYCguidelines for developmentally appropriatepractices. Her study found that someteachers felt the document overstressedthe dominant culture's emphasis on theimportance of a child's individualism andautonomy. For instance, they felt that thepromotion of activities emphasizing the"child as knowledge constructor" rancounter to Asian traditions that believein adults taking a more direct role in thechild's learning. Similarly, a Native Ameri-can teacher felt that the stress on teach-ing a child to think and act for him orherself ignored the importance of encour-aging children to value thinking and act-ing on behalf of family and community.

In the recently published report Car-ing For the Future, Abbey Cohen and CarolStevens write:

While child development is a universal phe-

nomenon, practices that are considered ac-

ceptable in a child care or education setting

are often bound to the dominant culture.Cultural differences in expectations aboutchildren's behavior and activities sometimes

lead to very different curricula and struc-ture in child care settings... Until child de-velopment standards are examined inpractice in multicultural settings, consen-sus about quality criteria can mask a cer-tain lack of agreement regarding specificsin curriculum or actual practice.

In 1990, the National Advism Panelfor the Head Start Evaluation Projectrecognized the importance of gaining abetter understanding of how programsworked for different populations when itcalled for further research on the appli-cability of Head Start to ethnically di-verse groups. "There is a need for reliableand valid information about what works,why it works, for whom it works, andunder what conditions." '4

No system exists for ensuring that theinformation which is available regardingculturally appropriate practice is a regu-lar part of the training received by indi-viduals who become child care providers.California, like most of the United States,lacks a cohesive, integrated system fortraining and certification for early careand education programs. First, manypeople begin working in the field of childcart with little or no formal training. Of-ten, child care workers first start work-ing as a classroom instructional assistantthen obtain training after they have al-ready begun caring for children. Second,there is little incentive to obtain train-ing. The wages of child care workers areextremely low even for the most highly

2,8


trained staff persons. Third, while Cali-fornia is one of 29 states which do man-date some training for child care providers,these requirements are not stringent. Sixto 24 units of early childhood courseworkis the norm for professionals working withchildren under five years oldcomparedto kindergarten teachers who must havegraduate training.

The training opportunities and programsthat do exist for early childhood profes-sionals are fragmented across several dif-ferent systems including the communitycolleges, vocational education programs,the California Department of Education,Head Start centers, school districts andMontessori programs, to name a few.There is little coordination of efforts, nocommon curricular standards and nomechanism for transferring credits fromcourses taken in one system to another.

Frustrated by this, Pacific Oaks Col-lege in Los Angeles has embarked uponan effort to develop a more integratedsystem of recruitment and training. Thisbegan in June of 1991 with a two dayseminar of key early childhood profes-sionals and trainers who drew up ninemajor recommendations for the devel-opment of an integrated system. In theirreport, cultural and language diversity asa unit was identified early as one of thethree essential elements of a trainingframework for early childhood profes-sionals. Members of the initial team con-vened by Pacific Oaks are continuing tomeet in smaller work groups to developan implementation plan for their recom-mendations. In the meantime, however,California is a long way away from anintegrated system for training early careand education professionals.

Meanwhile, it is still possible for indi-vidual centers to provide staff the chanceto enhance their skills in working withchildren of different ethnic backgrounds.

Activities can include workshops on thecultural backgrounds of children in a cen-ter; training on working with childrenand families who come from ethnic back-grounds different from the providers; en-couraging staff from various ethnicbackgrounds to share their respectiveknowledge about working with childrenfrom their communities; or exposing staffto written materials on culturally appro-priate practice. These activities shouldbe encouraged whether centers servesingle, dual or multiple ethnic and lan-guage groups. No matter how many dif-ferent children are being cared for at acenter, staff should be skilled in learningabout and honoring the developmentalmessages each maybe receiving at home.At this point, however, little is knownabout the extent to which centers engagein such staff development activities.

Recruiting Staff fromthe Community

Improvements in training and staff edu-cation, however, are only part of the pic-ture. Hiring staff who reflect the ethnicityof the children is essential. According tothe California Department of Educationguidelines for state subsidized care,Exemplary Prod -am Standards, site admin-istrators should as often as possible, "re-cruit and hire site personnel who are fluentin the languages spoken by the childrenand are representative of and sensitive tothe cultures of the children being served."

Hiring community members and par-ents is a fundamental principle of theHead Start model and considered one ofthe keys to its success.

Caregivers of the same ethnic back-ground can serve as role models for chil-dren and are important sources ofknowledge and expertise for center staff.Perhaps even more importantly, the unique

Hiring staff who

reflect the ethnicity

of the children is

essential.


We found that

significant numbersof minority children

are in centers where

not even one adult is

from the same racialbackground.

attributes of how a community rears itschildren can be very subtle. Culture in-fluences everything from the body lan-guage an adult uses to convey affectionor disapproval to how children are in-cluded in conversation. The reading ofmaterials or attending of workshops can-not replace the understanding and ex-pertise gained from having grown up asa member of a particular community. Mostof us cannot precisely explain why we dothings a certain waywe just know thatwe do it and it seems to feel right, andthat it would probably be very difficultto teach. Usually these attributes havegrown up with us from childhood.

The video Essential Connections: Ten Keys

to Culturally Sensitive Child Care stressesthat hiring some caregivers of the samecultural backgrounds as children in a centeris vital to a culturally appropriate pro-gram for children aged 0-3. This helpsto ensure that the practices of the centerare in harmony with the beliefs of thehome. "When the caregiver reflects theculture of the children served, parentsand caregiver are more likely to have acommon vision of the person they wantthe child to become." When this com-mon vision exists, caregiver and familymembers are able to work together toground an infant in the culture of thecommunity and thus ensure that the childgrows up with the self confidence, com-petence and connection which comes fromhaving a strong sense of cultural identity.

Consider the experience of the Foun-dation Center, a non-profit organizationwhich operates 23 centers throughoutCalifornia. A fundamental principle oftheir program is hiring staff from eachcommunity being served. Though theFoundation Center began its work withLatino farmworkers, it has since expandedto administering centers located in a

wide variety of ethnic communities. Co-Director Antonia Lopez, writes:

Each of the centers is different. Even inthe 14 centers where the home languageis Spanish and everyone at the centers speakSpanish all of the time, each reflects thecultural values and practices of the peopleit serves. In each case, the environmentmirrors their particular cultural heritage,mores and world view. Take for example,noise level. At Winters, a rural programhoused in a farm labor camp outside ofSacramento, on any day of the week youcan sit in the almond orchard and hear thewind rustle the leaves in the trees or see itcause ripples in the fields of grasses thatsurround the center. In the center, there isa sense of peace and calm...it's "quiet."The children, parents and staff are countrypeople. They use soft voices, they don'tspeak fast, they stop to look at you as youbecome part of their environment.

On the other hand, at the David RobertiCenter in Los Angeles, it feels and moveslike a Latin American city. The center facesa raucous street busy with motor and pe-destrian traffic. Many parents take severalbuses to get their kids to the center andthen take several more to get to work. Inthe center everyone likes to chit chat, theytalk faster, they move faster, their bubblyvoices and spirits punctuate the air likewind chimes on a balmy summer morning.

Everything about how the centers runis embedded in the culture of the peoplewhat is acceptable noise level, what areappropriate adult-child interactions, howthey talk about problems, what they sayat parent' meetings. Because the staff comefrom the communities, we don't have toworry about "cultural conflicts" or to planinservices on cultural awareness. They re-late with the families and respond to themnaturally. Staff is often not even consciousof what they do that is culturally appro-priate.

30


In order to gain a better sense of howoften there is this kind of family culturalmatch for children in care, California To-morrow used its survey to investigate howmany centers with a child from particu-lar racial groups also had at least onestaff person of the same racial backgroundinvolved in caring for the children. Mostwhite children are in centers with at leastone white provider. Significant numbersof minority children are in centers wherenot even one adult is front the same ra-cial background. For example, more thanhalf of the centers caring for at least oneAsian child do not have Asian staff. Pleasesec figure 3.

Racial match, however, is only a gen-eral indicator of whether a child and pro-vider may be from the same community.It does not, for example, detect impor-tant class differences, or distinguish be-tween the specific ethnic groups subsumedwithin broad racial categories. Our sur-vey results suggest that these more spe-cific matches may be even less likely. Forexample, an analysis of whether Asianchildren are in centers with at least one

Figure 3. Percent of child care centers with children from givenracial groups that also employ staff from those same groups.

100%

80%

2 60%

t 40%

20%

0%

86.3%

68%

57%

47.1%

White(325)

Latino(261)

Numbers in parentheses representnumber of centers (unweighted)

African AsianAmerican (169)

(200)

caregiver who speaks their home languageshows a much lower match by the lan-guages spoken by specific groups e.g. Viet-namese, Cantonese, Tagalog.

Matches are also more common inlarger centers. This result is not surpris-ing given that larger centers have morestaff positions to fill on the whole. Pleasesee figure 4.

Figure 4. Percent of child care centers with children from given racial groupsthat also employ staff from those same groups, by size of center.

100%

80%

0%

91.5%

84.2 %j

55.5%

78%

E

45.6%

Small Child Care Centers(7 or less staff)

Larve Child Care Centers(Mare than 7 staff)

65.7%

54.3%

38.4%

(139) (184) (96) (163)White Latino

(68) (132) (61) (108)African American Asian

Numbers in parentheses represent number of centers runweighted)


Figure 5. Percent of subsidized and non-subsidized centers with children fromgiven racial groups that also employ staff from those same groups.

100%

80%

t 60%

40%

20%-

0%

86%90% IIISubsidized Centers

7b% 0 Non-Subsidized Centers

57%63%

49%54%

41%

(170) (151)

White

(164) (93)

Latino(133) (66)

African American

Numbers in parentheses represent number of centers funweighted)

(103) (68)

Asian

Figure 6. Percent of centers with large numbers of children from given racialgroups that also employ staff from those same groups.

100% 99% 94% 94%

80%

r 60%

E'

40%

ct..`u

20%

0%

68%

100%

89%

Li

(97) (95) (35) (20) (81) (25) (23) (49) (16)White Latino African American

Number in parentheses represent number of centers fumoreightedl

(27) (40) (17)Asian

Centers where most or all children are from one given racial group.

Centers where approximately half of children are from the given racial group.

Centers where approximately one fourth of children are from the given racial group.


Moreover, when we looked at data forcenters that reported serving childrenwhose childcare costs were partially paidfor by a government agency or program,we found that the subsidized centers weremore likely than non-subsidized centersto have staff that matched the ethnicityof children of color. Please see figure 5.

Finally, it is important to recognizethat centers are generally better at hiringstaff who reflect their children's racialbackground when they serve significantnumbers of children from that particularracial background. Centers serving chil-dren solely or predominantly from oneracial group almost always had a staffperson from the same racial background.This likelihood, however, was significantlyless if the children being served were Asian.Please see figure 6.

These statistics suggest that centersdo, in fact, make an effort to hire staffwho reflect the racial background of thechildren in their care, particularly whenthe numbers of children are large. Theyalso suggest, however, that considerableattention needs to be paid to situationswhere only a few children from a par-ticular group attend a center. In someways, children in these situations can beviewed as being the most in need of thepresence of an adult caregiver from thesame background, because such childrendo not have access to the support of peersfrom their community, and small num-bers mean that their culturally specificneeds may be easily overlooked.

The ability to ensure the presence ofstaff that is representative of the com-munity served by a center is an issu ofrecruitment, training and retention. TheFoundation Center, described here, il-lustrates one innovative approach to ad-dressing this issue.

P R 0 1 L

The FoundationCenterThe Foundation Center began operatingchild care centers in 1980 when it sub-mitted a bid to the California Depart-ment of Education to take over threecenters in financial trouble. The Foun-dation Center now administers 23 cen-ters, all funded by the Child DevelopmentDivision of CDE.

A fundamental principle of the Foun-dation Center approach is the recruit-ment and training of teachers from thecommunities served. Co-Director AntoniaLopez explains,

When we first started, we found that mostof the existing teachers were not from thesame culture as the children. The teacherswere frustrated because they weren't get-ting the results they wanted. There was aninvisible distance created by barriers of lan-

guage and culture. Children were actingout and teachers were having difficulty form-

ing relationships with parents... We real-ized that in order to have an emotionallysafe environment, we needed to find away to bring people from the communityinto the center as staff. But we did notwant them to simply become teacher'saides children are already too accustomedto seeing members of the community insecondary, subservient roles.

Most of our parents believe that education

is the door to a better future for their chil-dren, but many of them tell us that theyare not prepared to help their children andbelieve it is necessary to give them up tothe schools. Our goal is to help the par-ents stay connected with their children.


P R 0 F I L E

The Foundation

Center needed to

train people who

might not speak

English, have had

little access to formal

education, and have

no prior training inchild development.

We want to help them expand their aware-

ness of their power and role as the pri-mary educator, mentor and advocate fortheir children. We want to help the chil-dren stay connected with their parents andsee themselves as part of a healthy, thriv-ing and successful cultural community.

In this spirit, the Foundation Centerdeveloped its own training and recruit-ment strategy. Their program enablesmembers of the communityrangingfrom migrant laborers to garment work-ers to fast food workersto start as en-try-level teaching assistants and emergefive years later with a California Children'sCenter permit and an AmericanMontessori Society credential. Trainingis a regular part of each employee's job,mostly focussing on the Montessori cur-riculum. All staff receive 15 days of paidtraining a year for which they are able toreceive college credit.

When the Foundation Center firststarted operating child care centers, theyevaluated a number of different curriculain terms of cultural and linguistic appro-priateness and the practicality of using itto train staff. Originally, they did not evenconsider Montessori because they thoughtit would be too rigid and structured. How-ever, a closer analysis of the other cur-ricula such as High Scope, Alerta andNuevas Fronteras revealed that they werenot appropriate for the people the Foun-dation Center intended to train. Morelike frameworks than curricula, they re-quired hiring people with a backgroundin child development to interpret them.The Foundation Center needed to trainpeople who might not speak English, havehad little access to formal education, andhave no prior training in child develop-ment. They needed a curriculum that theycould install over a period of years.

Montessori turned out to be a moreeffective curriculum for addressing these

needs. Designed to help children becomeindependent, self-sufficient members ofsociety who know how to participate inthe world, Montessori is also a non-threat-ening approach to teaching adults aboutthe physical development of the child andwhat constitutes developmentally appro-priate activities. The first area of studyin Montessori is practical life. Because itstarts with concepts that adults alreadyunderstand, uses objects from the home,and supports the parents' childrearing andsocialization values, the Montessori cur-riculum is a perfect bridge between homeand school. Lopez says, "With regard tothe 'home language, home culture' ap-proach, the question that we are some-times asked is 'how do you prepare' thechild for 'other cultures' and dealing withbias? The Montessori approach attemptsto place the child first in their family,then in their community and then as acitizen of the world."

The Montessori program also providesadults with an opportunity to developtheir basic academic skills. For example,many adults are learning math and arith-metic skills for the first time as they areintroduced to the sensorial unit. AntoniaLopez believes that one of the strengthsof the program is they can maximize thethrill that develops when a 30- or 40-yearold figures out how to addand this en-thusiasm then transfers when she or heturns around to teach the newly acquiredskill to a child. The adult is sensitive tothe challenge facing the child and theawe that comes with mastering the skill.

According to training director MarjorieFarmer, the Foundation Center specifi-cally seeks to meet the realities of thecommunities in which the centers oper-ate. First, teachers in gaining are offeredon-site study time so that they may alsolearn the skills of study itself. Often theyare given written questions so they canpractice giving directly corresponding

34

answers. They also organize discussiongroups in which a facilitator encourageseach person to contribute, ask questions,and be enriched by the comments of otherteachers. This format draws upon the ex-isting strengths of the teachers since mostcome from communities in which theyhave already been taught how to work asa team. Marjorie explains, "We can't leaveit to chance...Many of the teachers haven'thad parents or other role models whohave gone on in education."

Second, the program accommodatesthe language background of the teachersby both offering instruction in multiplelanguages and allowing them to turn inhomework in whatever language theychoose. Third, teachers read about anddiscuss the lives of inspirational figuresfrom communities of color, such asGhandi, Martin Luther King, RigobertaMenchu and Marian Wright Edelmen."Studying their lives and ideas providesan understanding of the struggle for peaceand justice and how to go beyond theobstacles we face," explains Marjorie.Finally, the program seeks to work at thepace of the teachers. The training takesplace over a period of five years, and teach-ers can take longer if needed. Teachersare paid during the entire program sothey do not have to worry about surviv-ing financially.

Providing these unique trainings arewell-kmown Montessori trainers with yearsof experience. And because the Founda-tion Center had difficulty findingMontessori instructors from the UnitedStates who could teach in Spanish, manyof these faculty come from other regionsof the world including Chile and otherparts of Central and South America. Thefaculty is constantly reviewing and revisingthe curriculum to ensure it is appropri-ate. One of the most recent developmentsis a program to foster apprentices whowill eventually join or replace the origi-


nal team of coretrainers. Appren-tices are Founda-tion Center teacherswho have finishedtheir Montessoritraining, worked inthe classroom formore than twoyears, and beenidentified for theirexpertise in deliv-ering a particularcomponent of the curriculum.

The teacher trainings are conductedin 4 locations throughout the state. TheFoundation Center has adopted this state-wide training strategy because it is costeffective, enables staff to see that theyare part of a larger team, and fosters net-works among teachers across centers. Thejoint trainings also expose the extremelydiverse staff to one another's cultures,even if their own centers primarily servea single ethnic group. Twice a week dur-ing the training sessions, staff from vari-ous ethnic groups are asked to conduct apresentation on their culture.

In addition, the Foundation Centertogether with 13 head teachers developeda 40-day on-the-job-training sequence tointroduce new employees to the opera-tions of a center. The training involvesactivities for new employees such as ob-serving a current teacher do some part ofhis/her job (e.g. how snack is served orchildren greeted in the morning). Thenext day, the new teacher does the activ-ity and the teacher observes and offerssuggestions.

Thus far, the Foundation Center hasgraduated more than 80 teachers. It isthe largest officially designated Montessorischool system in the United States. TheCenter eventually hopes to help all of itsteachers obtain a B.A. degree throughcontinued off -site training.

35


PROFILE Amazingly, this extensive staff devel-opment program does not cost "extra"money. The centers run by the Founda-tion Center receive the same monies asother state subsidized programs. TheFoundation Center, however, has chosento spend money on staff development in-stead of costly administrative staff. Whilethe state rule is that centers can spend nomore than 15% on administration, theFoundation Center only spends 7-9%.In part this is possible because the ad-ministrative process has been streamlined.The central office in Sacramento orderssupplies for all 23 centers, so they canorder in bulk and negotiate discounts.This office also processes all paperwork.When a child enrolls at any center, thesite director registers the child and sendsthe information to the central office whichcreates a computer file. The director sendsattendance information via fax to the center

on a weekly basis and the central officeuses this to generate nine different re-ports required by the state. Because op-erations are centralized, each site onlyrequires a part-time administrator andthey have never had to hire clerical sup-port. Moreover, because the FoundationCenter spends so much time on staff de-velopment, administrators from the cen-tral office no longer need to spend timesupervising staff at the more establishedsites. This also means that the Founda-tion Center has not needed to hire newcentral office staff as they have expandedto new sites. Instead, administrators suchas Antonia Lopez simply shift their timefrom the more established sites to thenewer sites which need their assistancein developing quality programs. Experi-enced site directors also mentor each otherin particular areas, or serve as "buddies"for new managers.

Using Ethnic Diversity To FosterAppreciation and Understanding

Understanding the distinct cultures ofchildren in care is critical. But most ofthe surveyed child care centers reportedworking with racially mixed groups ofchildren, and this indicates a tremendousopportunity to foster the ability of chil-dren to understand and appreciate diver-sity. Research on the development ofchildren's self-concepts and attitudes to-wards others contradict the common myththat children are "innocent" and unaf-fected by the biases of society." By theage of two or three, children notice racialand gender differences. By the age offour,color becomes affectively laden eventhough the child still lacks a sophisticatedunderstanding of race. African Americanchildren are likely to have an emotional

response to particular skin colors at aneven younger age.' Even at this youngage, children are able to observe and heaffected by society's spoken and unspo-ken biases against people who are different.

Providers can have a significant im-pact on young children's understandingof and reaction to difference. Childrenlearn about differences and similaritiesthrough their observations and experi-ences with adults. Intentionally or not,teachers communicate to children theirown views, biases and stereotypes. Con-sequently, teachers unaware of how todeal appropriately with issues of preju-dice, may inadvertently take actions ormake comments which promote bias inchildren. For example, celebrating eth-nic holidays and eating foods from vari-ous countries is often used by teachers toinform children about other cultures.

36


Many early childhood professionals, in-cluding and-bias curriculum expert LouiseDennan Sparks, worry that this approachcan deteriorate into "tourist curriculum."

Tourist curriculum is both patronizing, em-phasizing the "exotic" differences betweencultures, and trivializing, dealing not withthe real-life daily problems and experi-ence of different peoples... Children "visit"non-White cultures and then "go home"to the daily classroom, which reflects onlythe dominant culture...What it fails to com-municate is real understanding.

On the other hand, teachers appro-priately trained in how to handle issuesof bias can help to foster a positiveappreciation of diversity, increase cross-cultural understanding and negatestereotypes. Teachers can serve as posi-tive role models for children and designclassroom activities that facilitate posi-tive interaction between children who dif-fer in gender, ability, class and race.

Adopting An Anti -Bias Approach

In recent years, concern about these is-sues has led a growing number of educa-tion researchers and practitioners to workon the development of techniques to helpyoung children confront biases and ste-reotypes before they transform into realracism or are internalized in the form ofnegative self-images and attitudes. Pro-duced by the National Association forthe Education of Young Children, theAnd-Bias Curriculum developed by theAnti-Bias Curriculum Task Force, headedby Louise Denman-Sparks, currently rep-resents the most comprehensive set ofguidelines to help early childhood pro-fessionals address bias in the classroom.It seeks to assist teachers in empoweringchildren to develop positive self-images,think critically about diversity and stand

up for themselves and others in the faceof injustice. These guidelines include sug-gestions for helping children to resist ste-reotyping and discriminatory behavior,learn assertion and empathy, and involveparents in addressing issues of bias.

A key principal of the And-Bias Cur-riculum is the creation of an antibiasenvironment in the classroom. The check-list below was developed to help teachersassess the extent to which they success-fully address issues of bias in theirclassroom's physical design and activities.

ANTI-BIAS CHECKLIST FOR THE CLASSROOM

Do you use materials or activities that teach about:

1. All the children, families, and staff in your program.

2. Contemporary children and adults from the major racial/ethnic groups in your community, state, and American society

in their families, at work and at play.

3. Diversity within each racial/ethnic group.

4. Women and men of various ethnic backgrounds doing

"jobs in the home"

5. Women and men of various ethnic backgrounds doing"jobs outside the home" including blue collar work, pink collarwork, and artistic work.

6. Elderly people of various backgrounds doing a variety ofactivities.

7. Differently abled people of various backgrounds working,being with their families and playing.

8. Diversity in family lifestyles, including single mom or dad;mom works, dad is at home dad works, mom is at home;mom and dad work; two moms or two dads; extended fami-lies; interracial and multiethnic families; foster families;families by adoption, families with differently abled members;low income families; middle class families.

9. Individuals of many different backgrounds who contributeto our lives including participants in movements for justice.

Anti-Bias Curriculum

37


Another important emphasis of theAnd-Bias curriculum is the need to teachchildren about stereotypes and prejudicesthrough developmentally appropriate ac-tivities. The following description of theCabrillo College Child DevelopmentCenter offers a concrete example of howone institution has used the anti-bias ap-proach to shape its entire program.

The CabrilloAnti-Bias ApproachThe Child Development Center atCabrillo community college was estab-lished in the early 1970s as a demonstra-tion school for the Early Childhood andFamily Life Education Department. Itserves as a teacher training program forthose working with toddlers through fiveyear olds, and has as its particular focusAnti-Bias Curriculum and commitmentto families. As part of a deliberate ad-missions policy, children from ethnically,economically and structurally diverse fami-lies attend the Center. The children, par-ents, student teachers (themselves highlydiverse) and the Center staff benefit froma progressive partnership that encour-ages the explicit recognition of differ-ence in the context of building community.

The child care center has been housedin its current site since 1975, a large build-ing incorporating two large classroomsthat open into outside play areas. Thereare observation rooms, meeting and stu-dent classrooms, a "Peace Education"children's library, a material's workshopand department staff offices.

The Anti-Bias approach is central toall aspects of training, teaching and ser-vice at Cabrillo. Formalized by LouseDerman-Sparks (1989), the goal of the

Anti-Bias Curriculum is to promote astrong sense of pride in self and family,to support young children's natural in-terest in difference in order to counter"pre-prejudice," and to help children iden-tify stereotyping and bias and be able totake stands, alone and with others, ontheir own and others' behalf.

As children gain their own self iden-tity, they also come to recognize differ-ences between themselves and others. TheAnti-Bias Curriculum advocates that partof early childhood education must be tohelp children have appropriate languageto talk about and appreciate age, gender,racial, ethnic, and physical ability differ-ences among people. Children also needspecific age-appropriate skills to stand upfor themselves and others in the face ofinjustice.

Another assumption in the CabrilloAnti-Bias approach is that parents arechildren's first, best and lifetime teach-ers, and that any attempt to change thelives of children must include a mutualeducation process between the parentsand the Center staff. Parents participatein hiring committees, a classroom "par-ent co-op," parent meetings, conferencesand home visits. A staff member is as-signed to be available to parents at ar-rival and departure times each day tomaintain an ongoing dialogue betweenthe child's world a t home and at the Center.

The Anti-Bias Curriculum recognizesthat visual cues are important to children'sdevelopment. Classrooms are covered withthe children's own artwork because, asCabrillo's director Janis Keyser explains,"Children need to lmow that they arevalued. This is a place where their world,their families, can be fully represented."Cabrillo also uses visual images to breakdown social stereotypes whether they areabout ethnicity, gender, physical abilitiesor age. The classroom walls are coveredwith posters of children of color, physi-

38


cally disabled children, girls and boys innon-stereotypical roles (e.g. girls playingwith blocks and tools, boys dancing, fa-thers cuddling babies). Play areas are des-ignated in both English and Spanish, andwhenever possible ethnically diverse "tools"are incorporated into the different playareas. The program seeks to not only ac-knowledge and respect differences in oth-ers, but to embed the child/family cultureinto the day-to-day life of the center. Forexample, the dramatic play kitchen fea-tures cooking and eating utensils such asa bamboo steamer and Japaneselacquerware bowls, both of which arc uti-lized in the homes of children in the Center.

Children at Cabrillo, ranging from twoto five years of age, enroll in either fullday or half day programs. Priority admis-sions are given to student and staff fami-lies, then families in the general community.However, according to Janis, the admis-sions policy takes into considerationchildren's ethnicity, family structure, andsocioeconomic status as well as children'sage and gender. The goal is to serve abroadly diverse group of children for thesake of the early childhood student teachersas well as for the sake of the children andfamilies involved.

Parents bring their children to Cabrillobecause of its excellent reputation and spe-cifically for the diversity of its children.Nontraditional families are common atCabrillochildren raised by grandparents,children in Lesbian families, single par-ent and foster parent families. Raneta'sfamily, for example, is bi-racial. She andher husband are European American, andtheir adopted daughter Sierra is AfricanAmerican. Raneta worries about Sierra'scultural identity. Mow will outsiders dealwith her family's bi-racial adoption? Whatprejudices will Sierra face as an AfricanAmerican child and how will she deal withthem? At Cabrillo, Sierra learns about

non-traditionalfamilies, abouther own and oth-ers' cultures, andabout ways to deal

with bias and ste-reotyping.

In addition toan Anti-Bias Cur-riculum that isculturally and de-velopmentally ap-propriate for children, Cabrillo derivesmuch of its strength to combat stereo-types and appreciate diversity from a part-nership between teachers and parents.Cabrillo's philosophy involves servicingthe entire family. In addition to a care-fully selected parenting library, parentshave access to children's books which rep-resent the diversity of families served.This is significant since people of coloroften have limited access to educationalresources. The family bulletin board atCabrillo reflects the diversity of familiesthat bring their children to this child carecenter, Here children display pictures oftheir family. A Chinese boy has mountedpictures of not only his parents, but alsohis grandparents. Cabrillo recognizes thatfor some families, extended relatives playan integral role in the child's upbringing.In fact, grandparents are welcomed atCabrillo and may even take part in tradi-tional "parent/teachers" conferences. Pic-tures of bi-racial families also reflect theethnically diverse families that Cabrilloserves. It is through the acknowledgmentand recognition of each child's ethnicityand family background that Cabrillo hasstrengthened its program. Rather thanexcluding parents from their child's edu-cation, Cabrillo embraces parent empow-erment. This serves as a powerful andpositive role model for children.

110..

'I

39

'4,awl


PROFILE Teaching the Anti-BiasCurriculum Full TimeCabrillo currently employs three masterteachers. All are European American: twospeak Spanish. As part of their teachertraining program, Cabrillo also staffs 18half day student teachers and 2 full daystudent "interns." The teachers are highlythought of by parents. Raneta explains,"Uachers at Cabrillo are intelligent, ver-satile, creative and spontaneous. How-ever she Ends the turnover of studentteachers each semester to be troublesome.Because Cabrillo is a training center, eachsemester means new faces for Sierra, andgetting used to them hasn't been easy.

The Anti-Bias Curriculum is an inte-gral and explicit part of Cabrillo's pro

ram. Master teachers appear to embracethis philosophy and enjoy working withCabrillo's racially diverse students. Mas-ter teacher Eric Hoffman has spent muchof his professional life working on fos-tering the joys of diversity. But it wasn'tuntil he began working at Cabrillo thathe first felt successfu, with the complexi-ties of this issue. According to Eric,Cabrillo recognizes that prejudices andstereotypes arc tangible and serious prob-lems, and that staff needs to always bespecifically looking for and thinking aboutways to address these issues. lie waysthat the Cabrillo team approach has beenvery supportive of his efforts. He doesn'talways know what of do in a given situa-tion, but the staff supports him in takingaction. In the classroom, Eric fix-uses muchof his work on facilitating diversity, throughproviding language, and through groupproblem solving. He is a strong advocateof Anti-Bias Curriculum not only to dis-pel racial stereotypes, but gender andphysical stereotypes as well:

The Anti-Bias Curriculum cannot wait. Chil-

dren pick up adult silences. Anything thatadults cannot, will not, talk about is apowerful message of fear for children. Chil-

dren need language to articulate what they

are experiencing. I have to be so carefulwith these issues. I can't lay out the wholehistory of racism. That would not be fairto them: they don't understand historictime. But I can deal with their fears aboutdifferences, their issues about things thatare happening at their age. When a childwalks down the street, points to some-body in a wheelchair and says, "Oh, lookat that funny person in that thing... ", andthe adults get an embarrassed look andremain silent or shush the child...that'sthe response we have to help the childunlearn. We have to find ways for every-body to talk about difference... ways thatare thoughtful and socially acceptable.

Eric often uses puppets and flannelboard characters to discuss issues of di-versity and stereotypes with the children.He uses the same characters over andover so that the children get to knoweach one and feel an affinity for theirstruggles, interests, personalities. He findsthat when the children talk about thesecharacters they are really talking aboutthemselves. During a typical circle time,Eric dressed Juan, a male character, inpink clothing. Some of the children in-sisted that boys couldn't wear pink. Othersdisagreed. Eric insisted that pink was Juan'sfavorite color, but added "that's unusual,isn't it? You haven't seen many men wear-ing pinkI wonder why? Could menwear pink if they wanted to?" I I is goal isnot to force them to change their minds,but to plant sonic questions in their mindsthat will keep coming up for them in thefuture.


Cabrillo is a model of how the Anti-Bias Curriculum can work within a ra-daily diverse setting. However, will it alsowork in ethnic specific settings? Can teach-ers trained at Cabrillo effectively use theAnti-Bias Curriculum to foster the joysof diversity with ethnic specific popula-tions? Julie Olsen Edwards is a Santa Cruzeducator who teaches Cabrillo College'sAnd-Bias Curriculum course. Accordingto Julie, two thirds of Cabrillo's formerstudent teachers leave to work in schoolsserving predominantly a single ethnicgroup. In their view, the Anti-Bias Cur-riculum does work in ethnic specific set-ti- But Julie suspects that the differencemight he in the teachers themselves ratherthan in the specifics of the curriculum.Since teachers trained at Cabrillo developa sensitivity to the covert as well as overtways in which age, gender, race and physi-cal disability biases impact children, theybecome more proactive and responsiveto the way these injuries are acted out inthe classroom.

Master te.,cher Eric l- loffman has nodoubts that the Anti-Bias Curriculumworks. "I see a sense of community amongthese children, and see children helpingand caring about each other in ways thatI don't see a lot of older children aboutto do. I see myself making a difference:Eric explains how the And-Bias Curricu-lum has worked to change one child:

"I was trying to do some work aroundNative American issues. Several of the chil-

dren were playing "Indian," whooping andlumping around and threatening other chil-

dren with pretend tomahawks. I was try-ing to help the children understand theinjurious stereotype they were playing with

when the child said something that mademe realize "Thi . child doesn't think that

Indians are people." Here I was trying togive a lot of historical information but Ihad overlooked emphasizing a basic fact:Indians are people. She looked at me and

said, "uh uh, Indians are monsters." Ev-erything this child knew about Indians came

from Peter pan movies.

Last week this same child dictated a storyto me about Indians and monstersa storywhere they were separate. Indians werepeople and they went and got the mon-sters and worked together to solve a prob-lem. I think I make a difference when achild starts to see that "they," "the other,"are human beings. I see a lot of little vic-tories like that."

At Cabrillo, the Anti-Bias Curriculumappears to be impacting student teach-ers, children and their parents. Julie adds"If from the very beginning we can helpchildren experience difference as inter-esting rather than frightening. If fromthe earliest ages we can give children toolsto stand against what is "unfair." If wecan find a balance between supportingautonomy and building community. Thenwe have to be making a difference. Thetiny steps made by each teacher are partof a movement. And it is wonderful tosee parents become hopeful that the senseof connectedness, of community, can con-tinue for them and their children." As ateacher training institution, Cabrillo as-sumes particular responsibility to modeland train Anti-Bias Curriculum. "One waywe are seeing results" says Julie, "is whencenters that have served all white chil-dren begin actively recruiting childrenand staffs of color. It is significant whenpeople "get" that segregation is hurtfulto everyone."

41

1


Diversity in Staffing

In addition to teaching about diversitythrough classroom materials and activi-ties, centers committed to this issue of-ten reflect their ideals through their hiringand personnel policies. The NAEYC book,Alike and Different, states:

Figure 7. Percent of child care centers that employ staff fromone, two or multiple racial groups.

One Racial Group(18.4%) n=80

71Two Racial Groups(31.4%) n=135

El Multiple Racial Groups(50.2%) n=217

Figure 8. Percent of child care centers that employ staff fromone, two or multiple racial groups, by size of center.

Small Child Care Centers(Centers with 7 or lessstaff members n=203)

p7" One Racial Group(28.1%)

7 Two Racial Groups(41.4%)

Multiple Racial Groups(30.5%)

Large Child Care Centers(Centers more than 7staff members n=229)

One Racial Group(10.1%)

Fi Two Racial Groups(22.4%)

7 Multiple Racial Groups(67.5%)

42

A program that serves multiethnic fami-lies is usually conscientious in seeking adiverse staff to provide role models forchildren. If the program population is pri-marily homogeneous, it is even more im-portant that we diversify our staff so asnot to further a misrepresentation of theworld in our learning environments.

One of California Tomorrow's mostpositive findings is that most of the cen-ters in our study employed staff mem-bers from more than one ethnic group.Eighty-one percent of the child care cen-ters surveyed reported that they employedfaculty that represented two or more ra-cial groups. Fifty percent of the centersemployed faculty from three or more ra-cial groups. This diversity increased withthe site of the center. Please see figures7 and 8.

It is important to note, however, thatbecause of the way our survey was con-ducted, we were unable to determine thedistribution of various groups within eachcenter. For example, even though a cen-ter reports employing staff from threeethnic groups, most of the staff may stillbe from a single ethnic group. More-over, as the early discussion of matchbetween children and caregivers revealed,a center can be ethnically diverse andstill fail to reflect the ethnicity of thechildren in care. The survey also did notindicate the ethnic balance between teach-ers and aides in centers. Children areextremely sensitive to cues about powerrelationships, and our research to datedoes not reveal the demographics of theserelationships in childcare.

The benefits of this rich diversity ofstaffing go far beyond role modeling. Thepresence of an ethnically diverse staff pro-vides centers with the broad range ofskills, expertise and insights crucial tobuilding and developing culturally ap-propriate programs. Staff members can


teach each other about effective, cultur-ally appropriate strategies for working withchildren from their own communities andwarn of possible cultural faux pas.

However, creating an environmentwhere staff are able to operate in thismanner requires continual effort, plan-ning and staff development activities. Inthis day and age when so much societaltension surrounds issues of race and in-equities, engaging staff in an ongoing opendialogue about cultural differences canbe extremely challenging. But, unless staffarc able to discuss these issues, it is im-possible to identify sources of disagree-ment or explicitly define areas of commonground. Engaging in these types of dis-cussions requires the building of a sup-portive, safe climate where individuals haveenough trust in each other to believe thattheir concerns will be heard and not dis-counted or labeled as racist. Building staffcohesion requires allowing staff to discover,understand and appreciate different per-spectives and approaches, and it requiresa basic understanding that people do notalways interpret events in the same way.

In her article, "Honoring Diversity:Problems and Possibilities for Staff andOrganizations," Margie Carter concludesthat in diverse settings, regular staff meet-ings are.essential. These provide a muchneeded forum where staff can discuss andidentify issues before routine concernsbecome major tensions:

I remember well a center decision onwhether to have a policy requiring the chil-dren to eat all their food before leavingthe table. One teacher said. "My familyalways used the line about the poor starv-ing Chinese and now I (use) it." Anotheradded, "We were never forced to eat any-thing in my family and I think that haslimited my acquired tastes." Almost underher breath a third women said, "We justhoped there was enough food on the table

when I was growing up." Almost by acci-dent, this staff discussion uncovered these

dramatically different experiences influenc-

ing our views. It deepened our understanding

and appreciation of each other and drewus together as staff. From there, we wereable more objectively to discuss what mes-

sages we wanted to convey to the chil-dren, and to set our policy accordingly.

Rather than allowing differences to di-vide the staff, these types of discussionscan strengthen staff's ability to work to-gether and identify strategies for best meeting

the needs of the children in their care.According to Carter, in order to keep

trust and communication open, it is impor-tant to create a common set of agreementsabout how to handle potential areas of con-flict among staff. These agreements canhe invaluable in making sure criticismsare consmietive and that judgmental anddefensive reactions are avoided as best aspossible. Please see the accompanying boxoutlining the "Staff Agreements andApproaches to Criticism When Agree-ments Are Broken" used by Carter's staff.

Staff Agreements and Approaches to CriticismWhen Agreements Are Broken

AGREEMENTS

1. We will each have an attitude of flexibility and cooperationin our work here, thinking of the needs of others and the groupas a whole, along with our own needs.

2. We will each carry a full share of the workload, whichincludes some extra hours outside our work schedule (i.e.

parent-teacher conferences, meetings, planning and prepara-tion of activities, recordkeeping, progress reports.)

3. We will each communicate directly and honestly with eachother. We will be respectful and honorable in our interactions.

4. When problems or difficulties related to our work arise, wewill address them rather than ignore or avoid them.

Continued on page 42

43


Agreements and Approaches to Criticism... Continued from page 41

5. We will all be informed of significant problems that affect the center. Thesewill be communicated in person as soon as possible and in writing as necessary.

6. We understand that it is appropriate to seek help from the director on sensi-tive or difficult issues.

7. When necessary, we will use a criticism/self-criticism decision process toidentify ai-titudes and behaviors that are negatively affecting our agreements.

CRITICISM/ SELF-CRITICISM PROCESS

To investigate and educate so that we continue to adhere to our agreements.

Question to ask oneself before giving a criticism.

1. Is my criticism based on investigation or on assumption?

2. What is the most important element of the criticism? Secondary?

3. What is my side of the problem, my responsibility or my contribution to it?

4. What are my disguises that keep me from being criticized?

5. Is my criticism intended to hurt or attach or is it to educate?

6. How are our agreements hurt or helped by what I am criticizing?

7. How can I play a concrete, positive role in helping the other person change?

8. What changes do I need to make in myself?

Stating a criticism:

When you do...

I feel...

It hurts our agreements because...

Therefore I want you to...

In the future I will behave differently by...

Investigative discussion of the criticism:

Why do you feel that way? What happened?

What other things were going on? (objective thing happening, subjectiveimpressions, feelings)

What is the main thing that needed to happen?

Margie Carter


REFERENCE

Phillips, Susan U., The Invisible Cul-

ture: C(mtmunication ire Clascroont and

Community on the Krm Springs In-dian Reservation, Longman, NewYork, 1983, cited in Wong Fillmore,Lily, "Language and Cultural Is-sues in the Early Education of Lan-guage Minority Children, in The

Care and Education of America's }bung

Children: Obstacles and Opportuni-ties, Sharon Lyn Kagan, ed., Uni-versity of Chicago Press, Chicago,p. 44, 1991.

= Wong Filhnore, Lily "Language andCultural Issues in the Early Edu-cation of Language Minority Chil-dren, in The Care and Education of

America's Young Children: Obstaclesand Opportunities, Sharon LynKagan, ed., University of ChicagoPress, Chicago, 1991.

Wong Fillmore, Lily, "ResearchCurrents: Equity of Excellence," inLanguage Arts, Volume 63, No.5,p. 474-479, September 1986.

Little Soldier, Lee, "Working withNative American Children," inYoung Children, September 1992.

Phillips, Susan, "ParticipationStructures and CommunicativeCompetence: Warm Springs Chil-dren in Community and Class-room," in Functions of Language Inthe Classroom, C. Cazden V andJohn, and D. llyines, eds, Teach-ers College, Columbia University,New York, 1972.

Boykin, A.W., "Experimental Psy-chology from a Black Perspective:Issues and Examples," in Final Re-

port front the Third Conference onEmpirical Research in Black Psychol-

ogy, W. Cross, ed., National Insti-tute of Education, WashingtonD.C. 1977, and Clark, Reginald,Africa?: American Male Students inBakersfield City Schools: An Assess-

ment and Proposal for Action, Un-published Report, July 1992.

' Hale, anice, "Black Children: TheirRoots, Culture and LearningStyles," in Understanding theMulticultural Experience in EarlyChildhood Education, Olivia Sarachoand Bernard Spodek, eds., NationalAssociation for the Education ofYouth Children, 1983.

8 Sue, Stanley and Amado Padilla,"Ethnic Minority Issues in theUnited States: Challenges for theEducational System," in Beyond

Language: Social and Cultural Fac-

tors in Schooling Language Minority

Students, University of California,Los Angeles: Evaluation. Dissemi-nation, and Assessment Center,1986.

Tharp, Roland G. and RonaldGallimorc, Rousing Minds to Lift:72-aching, Learning and Schooling in

Social Context, Cambridge Univer-sity Press, New York, 1988.

i° Bowman, Barbara, "Education ofLanguage-Minority Children," inPhi Delta Kappan, October 1989.

45

" Gonzalez-Mena, Janet, MulticulturalIssues in Child Care, Mayfair Pub-lishing Company, California, p. 12,1993.

'1 "Essential Connections: Ten Keysto Culturally Sensitive Child Care"video developed by Far West Labo-ratory Center for Child & FamilyStudies in collaboration with Cali-fornia Department of Education,1993.

" Gonzalez-Mena, Janet, "CarryingOut Routine Caregiving Tasks with

-Cultural Sensitivity'," in Infint/Tod-dler Caregiving A Guide to Cul-turally Sensitive Care, CaliforniaDepartment of Education ChildDevelopment Division and FarWest Laboratory Center for Childand Family Studies, San Francisco,1990.

14 Laosa, Luis "The Cultural Con-text of Construct Validity and theEthics of Generalizability," in EarlyChildhood Research Quarterly 6, p.313-321, 1991.

" Dennan-Sparks, Louise and theAnti-Bias Curriculum (ABC) TaskForce, Antibias Curriculum Tools for

Empowering Young People, NationalAssociation for the Education ofYoung Children, Washington, D.C.,1989.

16 Swadener, Elizabeth B., "Implemen-tation of Education that is

Multicultural in Early ChildhoodSettings: A Case Study of Two Day-Care Programs," in The Urban Re-

vie-a., Vol. 20, No.1., p. 8-27, 1988.


The Language of Care

Alarge number of children whoare ethnic minorities are also lin-guistic minorities. In California,

more than one out of four householdsspeak a language other than English. Ofthese, in nearly one out of ten, no adultspeaks English well. This statistic is evenhigher among families with children. Inorder to gain a dearer understanding ofthe impact of increasing linguistic diver-sity in child care centers, California To-morrow asked centers about the extentto which they cared for children whowere not proficient in English, the lan-guages spoken by children in their care,and the languages spoken by center staffto the children.

Languages Spoken by Childrenand Providers in Centers

Centers collectively work with childrenfrom a wide range of language back-grounds. However, English, Spanish andChinese dialects were the most commonlanguages spoken by children. Please seefigure 9.

The noon is for centers to work withchildren from multiple language groups.Approximately 81 percent of the centersserve children from at least two languagegroups with 51 percent working with chil-dren from at least three language groups.Please see figure 10.

The majority of the surveyed centersalso indicated that they care for at least afew language minority children who donot speak English proficiently. To accountfor the fact that all young children are inthe process of developing language skills,the survey defined proficiency as speak-ing English as well as a peer of the sameage. Seventy-seven percent of the cen-ters reported working with children whodo not speak any English or speak only alittle English. Most (58 percent) reportedonly working with small numbers of non-English speaking children. However, asubstantial minority of centers, approxi-mately 18 percent, reported caring forlarge numbers of children who do notspeak English fluently, coining from homeswhere another language is spoken. Pleasesee figure 11. It should be noted thatstaff's evaluation of a child's language pro-ficiency may be skewed by a number offactors. For example, because childrenare often skilled at following physical cuesto keep abreast of activities, teachers may

46

THE LANGUAGE OF CARE 45

overestimate their English abilities. Con-versely, teachers may mistakenly assumethat a bilingual child does not speak En-glish well.

These findings suggest that most cen-ters are not only responsible for meetingthe needs of children who speak languagesother than English, but they also facethe challenge of working simultaneouslywith children from a variety of languagegroups.

The Critical Need for Supportin a Child's Home Language

Acquiring language is one of the mostimportant developmental tasks facingyoung children. Children between the agesof two and four acquire language almosteffortlessly by talking to the people whosurround them. According to the Cali-fornia Department of Education:

Every child acquires a first or home lan-guage through meaningful conversation with

caretakers rather than any specific train-ing. This natural process which is facili-tated by adult support is based on thechild's search for meaning.'

Consequently, the philosophy and ap-proach of child care providers toward lan-guage development has a tremendousimpact on how children develop languageskills.

The question of how much Englishand how much of the home languageshould be used in early care and educa-tion and public schools is a source ofmajor controversy. For some policy mak-ers, an early, virtually exclusive focus onlearning English is seen as the way toimprove the chances for success in the

Figure 9. Percent of child care centers that serve at least one childfrom given language groups.

100% 91.6%

I 80%69.3%

c60%

a

t 40%26,9%

20% 11.6% 10.5% 12.7%

0%English Spanish Chinese Tagalog Vietnamese Korean

(398) (301) (117) (51) (46) (55)

Numbers in parentheses represent number of centers fun weighted)

Figure 10. Number of different languages represented among childrenin child care centers.

60%

50%t4ti 0%

i 3014181%

20 %

10%

0%

30%

51.8%

One Language Two Languages More than TwoLanguages

Figure 11. Incidence of limited English proficient childrenin care reported by centers.

60% 58.6%

50%

40%

30%23.2%

20% 13.7%

10% 4.5%

0%1 1

None Few Many Half or More(98) (248) (58)

Limited English Proficient ChildrenNumbers in parentheses represent number of centers (on weighted)

09)

47


Unable to talkto their children,

parents lose their

ability to provide

verbal comfort andsupport, offer guid-

ance or transmitfamily values, hopes

and traditions.

K-12 classroom. More and more now,however, this philosophy is being.opposedby educators who fear that learning En-glish at earlier and earlier ages can dam-age children and their families by severingtheir ability to speak to one another. Poorcommunication in the home leads to awhole host of interrelated problems, in-cluding alienation from both school andthe home community, and low academicachievement. These educators base theiropposition on research which demonstratesa critical need for home language sup-port in early care and education programs.

Critical to promoting the social andacademic well-being of very young chil-dren is the development of a child's pri-mary languagethe language spoken ina child's home. As the U.S. Commissionfor Civil Rights stated in 1974:

When language is recognized as the means

for representing thought, as the vehiclefor complex thinking, the importance ofallowing children to develop the languagethey know best is obvious.

A growing body of research in theUnited States and Europe suggests thatchild care programs which do not usehome language contribute to the demiseof a young child's ability to speak thelanguage of his or her family, and dimin-ish vehicles for age appropriate conceptdevelopment and socialization. Home lan-guage atrophies without continued de-velopment. This loss can tragically occureven when parents originally intended forthe child to continue speaking the pri-mary home language.

The following scenes were describedby Lily Wong Fillmore to Pacific NewsService in an article about the No CostResearch Group's study of language lossamong more than a thousand immigrantfamilies:

48

One interviewee described how she andher children had begun to write r-ch otherone-word notessimple word like "rice"or "tea"to communicate.... A Korean fam-ily was interviewed whose three daugh-ters spoke only English while their parents

continued to address them in Korean. Thefather interpreted the children's unresponsiveness as disrespect and rejection. Thechildren, on the other hand, wondered why

he always seemed to be angry with them.During the interview he realized that hischildren didn't speak or understand Ko-rean anymore, and he began to weep. "3

The explanations for home languageloss are several-fold. First, when centersdo not use the home language, they re-inforce existing societal messages that achild's language is lower in status thanthe dominant language, English. Chil-dren observe that they are not encour-aged to speak their home language, thattheir teachers do not speak their homelanguage, and that their parents may betreated with less respect because they donot speak English. Keenly sensitive tostatus differences, children from languageminority families will often refuse to speakthe language of the home once they canget by communicating in English.

Lacking support for their home lan-guage, children in care miss the consis-tent interaction and exposure they needto develop their primary language skillsand ability. This problem is often exacer-bated by practices adopted by the home.Many parents, even those who are notproficient English speakers, arc encour-aged by educators to speak English ratherthan their native tongue to children athome. Many adopt this practice becausethey are under the impression that it willfoster academic achievement and they arcunaware of other strategies for reinforc-


ing learning through the use of the homelanguage.

If a child's home language is lost, theeffects on family functioning can be di-sastrous when parents do not speak En-glish. Unlike their children, languageminority parents are much less likely tohave opportunities to learn English. Adultswho do not speak English are generallyrelegated to the lowest, most unskilledjobs regardless of their prior levels ofeducation. Typically such jobs do not fa-cilitate English language developmentbecause they often involve manual as op-posed to verbal skills and are in a settingwhere the entire group of employees arenon-English speakers. Adult English as aSecond Language classes are often over-crowded and limited in number with longwaiting lists. Even if parents are able toattend classes or make the time to ac-quire English through self-study, it is notenough4. Learning a language well re-quires extensive exposure and on-goingopportunities for practicing speaking undernon-threatening conditions. The prob-lem here is not one of ability. Contraryto popular belief, research demonstratesthat adults, given the right conditions,acquire language more quickly than chil-dren because they have the more devel-oped cognitive skills.' The problem isthat the "right" conditions rarely exist forlanguage minority parents.

Consequently, when language minor-ity children lose their primary languageskills, many find that meaningful com-munication with parents ceases to exist."As children's ability to converse dissolves,parents lower the level of discourse tovirtual baby-talk, stunting communica-tion and development," explains researcherLily Wong Fillmore. Unable to talk totheir children, parents lose their ability

-4FAM OV'

to provide verbal comfort and support,offer guidance or transmit family values,hopes and traditions. Parents find them-selves feeling more and more inadequateand ineffective, and children often growalienated from their families. When dis-ciplinary problems arise, frustration overthe lack of communication can create situ-ations where parents feel they need toresort to physical punishment in orderto regain their authority.

The impact of primary language losson a child, however, goes even beyondthe family; it can cause alienation fromcommunity. Language and culture areclosely related since the language of anethnic group is usually the vehicle throughwhich the community transmits to itsyoung its customs and beliefs. Accordingto Barbara Bowman, past president ofthe National Association for the Educa-tion of Young Children:

Language is an integral part of a group'scommon experience. Speaking the samelanguage connects individuals through bonds

of common meaning...it is the cement forgroup members' relationships with one an-other'

49'41111F5 *Pi r

, 0....


The decision to pro-

vide support in a

child's home lan-

guage should not he

viewed as a trade-off

between cohesive

family fiinctioningand academic success

for the child.

Specific community values, beliefs andtraditions are often embedded within theuse of particular words and expressions.This interplay between language and cul-ture is why most languages have at leasta few words which cannot be meaning-fully translated into all other languages.For many ethnic groups, passing downthe group's language to the next genera-don is integral to maintaining culturalidentity. Speaking the language of thegroup is viewed as a sign of membershipand children who cannot may be viewedas having rejected their cultural identity.

It is critical to understand that the de-cision to provide support in a child's homelanguage should not be viewed as a trade-off between cohesive family functioningand academic success for the child. Ratherthe development of a child's primary lan-guage skills is integral to helping a childsucceed academically and to eventuallydevelop skills in English. Consider thefindings of an evaluation of a Spanish-language pre-school program for Latinochildren in the Carpenteria School Dis-trict in California. Compared to a groupof children in a program emphasizing En-glish proficiency, Carpentaria children hadhigher scores on a test of conversational'English, and their scores on tests of schoolreadiness and academic achievement sur-passed the published norms. Similar re-sults have emerged for other programsincluding bilingual Head Start programs'and pre-kindergarten classes in New NOrkCity". Evaluations of those cases demon-strated that children taught in both thehome and school languages showed greatercognitive and developmental gains thansimilar groups of children who were placedin monolingual English programs. Con-tradicting popular belief, these studies

suggest that, at least during the early years,less English and more home languageinstruction can lead to improved Englishacquisition.

Research by Lourdes Diaz Soto fur-ther suggests that academic achievementis improved rather then impeded whenfamilies encourage the development ofthe primary language. According to herrecent study of Puerto Rican families whohad migrated from the island, childrenfrom homes where Spanish was the pre-ferred mode of communication had highertest scores and were perceived by theirteachers to be academically more suc-cessful than peers whose parents preferredusing English. These differences werefound even though both groups of fami-lies appeared to have equally high aca-demie expectations for their children!" Onepossible implication of this study is that,rather than reverting to English, parentsare better off using their native tongueto create a strong home learning envi-ronment.

Such findings support the theory thatthe development of basic skills and con-cepts in a child's primary language is bestbecause the child can eventually transferthose skills to the new language.'° Con-sider the situation of a child who haslearned to count and identify colors inSpanish. The cognitive understandingwhich underlies these skills is not lan-guage specific. Rather, a child who cancount or identify primary colors will beable to easily transfer these skills to an-other language, provided the child even-tually has adequate exposure and themotivation to learn. In the United States,such exposure to English is virtually in-evitable once the child enters elementaryschool. Thus, it simply makes sense to


help the young child first learn these skillsin the home language rather than to con-fuse the child by requiring him or her tostruggle with them in English.

The Role of Child Care Centers InDeveloping English Language Skills

As discussed, support for a child's homelanguage goes hand in hand with effortsto ensure that children learn English. Suc-cess in the United States has always de-pended upon the eventual acquisition ofEnglish language skills. Children as wellas adults are quite aware of this fact. Theearlier discussion regarding the transferof skills across languages suggests thatEnglish is best learned when educatorstake an "additive" approach, which oc-curs when a teacher is able to promotethe development of a second languagewhile also continuing development of pri-mary language skills.

Developing an additive approach, how-ever, is not easy. For example, even bilin-gual programs and staff may contributeto declining use of the primary languageif they create or reinforce the impressionthat English has a higher social value thanthe language of the home. Given the in-credible emphasis on English through-out U.S. society, some educators believethat the preferred approach is for earlycare and education to be carried out en-tirely in a child's native tongue and forthe introduction of English to be delayeduntil kindergarten.

An exclusive emphasis on Spanish isthe approach taken by the Winters ChildDevelopment Program run by the Foun-dation Center for Phenomenological Re-search featured here.

The Winters ChildDevelopment Center

Located in the Win-ters public housingproject, the WintersChild DevelopmentCenter serves two- tofive-year-old childrenof seasonal and mi-grant rai in workers.Child care is avail-able for 11 hours aday and includes twohot meals and twosnacks. Like the otherprograms run by the Foundation Center,Winters uses a Montessori curriculumdesigned to promote a child-directed learn-ing process. Spanish is the primary, andoften sole, language of center staff nearlyall of whom are former migrant workersthemselves.

Upon entering the center, visitors findchildren actively engaged in highly com-plex developmental tasks. A boy sittingin the middle of the floor manipulates aquantification and decimal system. Work-ing on a cloth marked with columns androws, the boy's first task is to properlyarrange a set of cards labeled from oneto ten in a column. In the next column,he arranges cards labeled 10, 20, 30, etc.Cards in the hundreds and then the thou-sands fill out the next columns. Then theboy searches for beads and strings of beads.Upon finding them, he matches singlebeads with the single digit cards, arraysstrings of ten beads next to the cards inthe adjacent column, and so on into the

51


thousands. Throughout the entire task,the boy applies himself with diligenceand without talking to a single adult.Antonia Lopez, Foundation Center co-director, explains, "We want children toexperience their own pleasure. They don'talways need to perform for adults, theyshould have the self-satisfaction of com-pleting a process."

Literacy in Spanish is emphasizedthroughout the program, a gall of whichis to have at least three books at eachlearning center. For example, in one ofthe learning centers lives a finch in abirdcage, and nearby is a book opened toa page about the finch as well as a puzzleof a bird. This arrangement helps thechild to make the connection betweenthe bird, printed materials and an ab-stract representation. The biggest chal-lenge in this approach, however, has beenthe lack of Spanish materials appropriatefor young children. While Spanish lit-erature is abundant, simple concept booksabout subjects like fish and trees are :..Jtso easily available. Consequently, many

of the center's books are there for thechildren because staff have taken the timeand energy to create them themselves.

According to Antonia, the success ofthe program has begun to transform theviews of staff at the area's local elemen-tary school. At first, teachers complainedthat the children should be taught En-glish. Now, they are coming to under-stand the benefits of a program run entirelyin Spanish. Just recently, the head of cur-riculum from the local school district vis-ited the center because they would liketo learn how aspects of the Winters pro-gram can be incorporated into their ownprograms. Antonia says:

Every year, about nine children from thecenter enter first grade. Each wave reshapes

the expectations of teachers who beforedid not think children from their back-grounds could succeed. This, in turn,changes the expectations of other teach-ers. As we free the children to explore, toreflect who they really are, they becomethe change agents.

Many programs, however, believe thatEnglish language development is an ap-propriate and essential feature of theircurriculum. But how this occurs is typi-cally quite different for young childrenthan it is for older children and adults.First, young children are more apt tolearn through natural interaction withnative speakers than through directed in-struction. Second, young children are typi-cally less inhibited about trying newlanguages because they are less fearfulthan adults about making mistakes. Fi-

nally, teachers involved in helping youngchildren to acquire a second language needto keep in mind that language skills arepart of larger developmental processes.So, for example, a child will not be ableto understand how to use the word "tri-angle" unless he or she already has mas-tered the concept of a triangle in the firstplace."

Kai Ming Head Start, described brieflyhere, illustrates an effort to promote si-multaneous development of English andthe language of the home.


lo

Kai MingHead Start

Kai Ming Head Start in San Franciscowas created in 1975 because the federalgovernment wanted to identify a localagency that could meet the early child-hood education needs of the Chinese com-munity. The Clay/Larkin Street branchof Kai Ming is housed in a grey lime-stone church along the border betweenChinatown ar.d North Beach. Thebrightly lit facility has been divided intoa small section for offices and two spa-cious, open classrooms. English and Chi-nese signs appear throughout, and thewalls are liberally covered with art workmade by the children. The cheerful soundsof pre-schoolers using both Chinese andEnglish words greet the ears of visitorsas they enter.

The children enrolled are at the cen-ter for 4 hours every day during whichthey arc provided with comprehensiveservices designed to foster the whole child,including physical, emotional and intel-lectual development. Half come in themorning and half in the afternoon. Atypical day includes a meal, an hour offree play followed by a "recall" exercisewhere children describe how they spentthat time, small group activities, music,outdoor play, story time and another snack.

Kai Ming strives to promote languagedevelopment in both English and Chi-nese. Their policy is to emphasize devel-opment in Chinese among three year olds.Then as children near kindergarten, teach-ers increase emphasis on English. Staff

VW-

would like children to start school al-ready having some basic English.

Language development occursthroughout the day through a variety ofactivities rather than during a set periodof time. For example, it occurs by teach-ing children Chinese and English songsand encouraging them to use their lan-guage skills during recall time.

At Kai Ming, language developmentis fostered through exposure to appro-priate role models. Staff takes particularcare to avoid code switching (e.g. switchingfrom Chinese to English in one sentence)and always makes clear distinctions be-tween the two languages. In addition,Kai Ming has intentionally recruited na-tive English speaking teachers to pro-vide students with appropriate languagemodels. The English speaking teachersappear to take this role very seriously.Teacher Lisa Broussard, has noticed forinstance that working at Kai Ming re-quires constantly using English to labelher actions and the objects in the roomfor her curious students.

53


Figure 12. Percent of child care centers with at least one staffmember who speaks given languages to children in care.

98.8%100%

80%

40%

o,20%

0%English Spanish Chinese Tagalog Vietnamese Korean(429) (177) (25) (19) (9) (7)

Numbers in parentheses represent number of centers (unweighted)

Figure 13. Number of different languages spoken by staffto children in child care centers.

60%

"4 50%

40%

: 30%

20%Z`c! 10%

0-4'

0%

50.8%

35.2%

13.9%

One

LanguageTwo

LanguagesMore than Two

Languages

Figure 14. Percent of centers with children who speak givenlanguages that also employ staff who speak the same languages.

99.8%100%

80%

U 60% 55.1%

40%29.7% 27.9%

20% 17.2%12.2%

0%English Spanish Chinese Tagalog V'etnamese Korean

(403) (162) (47) (17) (10) (6)

Numbers in parentheses represent number ot centers (unweighted)

The Capacity of Centers To MeetChildren's Language Needs

The results of our survey suggest, how-ever, that while centers are generally well-equipped to provide children with Englishspeaking teachers, the capacity to offerhome language support is limited. Homelanguage support requires the regular pres-ence of an adult who proficiently speaksa child's home language. Our survey un-covers a significant shortage of bilingualchild care staff.

While nearly all centers reported thepresence of at least one English-speak-ing staff person, onl,, about 40 percenthad a staff person who spoke Spanishand less than 6, percent of the centersreported hiring staff who spoke any otherlanguage. Please see figure 12.

Slightly, more than half of the centersreported that only one language was everspoken to children on site. When thiswas the situation, the language spokenwas almost always English. Two languageswere spoken in 35 percent of the centersand only 14 percent reported three ormore languages. These figures are a sharpcontrast to earlier results which show chil-dren from two or more language groupsin 81 percent of the centers. Please seefigure 13.

Not surprisingly, while nearly all ofthe centers had an English speaking staffperson available to speak to their En-glish speaking children, a linguistic matchfor other groups was substantially lower.Only slightly more than half the surveyedcenters had a staff person who commu-nicated with children in Spanish if therewere any Spanish speaking children inthe center. The shortage of linguisticallyappropriate staff was greatest for AsianPacific Islander children: only a minorityhad staff who shared a language with theirTagalog, Chinese, Vietnamese or Koreanspeaking children (figure 14). As with ra-


cial groups, the level of match was sig-nificantly higher for larger centers. Pleasesee figure 15. Matches were also morefrequent in centers that reported servingsome children whose childcare costs werepartially paid for by a government agencyor program (figure 16). It should be stressed,however, that the presence of provider-child linguistic matches in a center atany level are not an indication that a 13r-mal bilingual program is in practice there.

In addition, information obtainedthrough our site visits suggests that thesescarce staffing resources may not be be-ing used as effectively as possible. Con-sider the dilemma confronting some ofthe state subsidized programs fundedthrough the California Department ofEducation. State program design guide-lines encourage the provision of homelanguage support. However, program eli-gibility criteria for families, combined with

Figure 15. Percent of centers with children who speak given languages that alsoemploy staff who speak the same languages, by size of center.

100%

80%

1'. 60%

t 40%

20%

0%

99.5 100

55.3 54.9

illSmall Child Care Centers (7 or less staff I

7 Large Child Care Centers (more :han 7 staff)

26.2 :

32.3

18.5

35.329.6

(1931(2091 (73) (89) (17) (30) (5) (12) (2) (8)

English Spanish Chinese Tagalog Vietnamese


20

(1) (5)

Korean

Figure 16. Percent of subsidized and non-subsidized centers with children whospeak given languages that also employ staff who speak tho some languages.

100% 100 ss

80%

v- 60%

a40%

20%

0%

r III Subsidized Centers

riNon-Subsidized Centers

2320

12191(181) (118)143) (381(11) (16)(1) (10)(01English Spanish Chinese Tagalog View- nese


(5) (11

Korean

55

Only about 40%had a staff person

who .spoke Spanish

and less than 6%of the centers

reported hiringstaff who spoke any

other language.


'Rearing children

and parents who

speak Black English

with due respect is

essential to the fos-

tering of children

who are confident

and competent.

the serious shortage of bilingual staff andsubsidized slots, make carrying out thisprinciple difficult. According to the statecriteria, children are eligible to enroll inthe center if: a family receives publicassistance; family income falls below acertain level; a child is homeless; a childis considered at risk of neglect or abuse,and both parents are working or in school.While these criteria represent an im-portant effort to make sure services reachthe neediest children, they do not offersites the flexibility to also give prefer-ence to children in need of a particularbilingual placement. In fact, choosing alanguage minority child over another childcould be considered discrimination evenif the program would be educationallymore appropriate for the bilingual child.

Consider the dilemma we found inone California community. Not far fromthe school district offices are two adja-cent centers. The neighborhood, whichwas once mostly Latino, has become in-creasingly Asian and now is home to asmall but significant number of Ethio-pian families. One of the two centers isbilingual Chinese and the other is a fullbilingual Spanish program. Both now haveEthiopian children enrolled. Despite tre-mendous staff efforts to facilitate inter-action among the children, the differencesin background and lack of 2. commonlanguage have made it extremely diffi-cult for the Ethiopian children to minglewith the other children. Since the Ethio-pian children don't speak English muchless Chinese or Spanish, they are leftout of 90 percent of the social interac-tion. This situation appears to be a dis-service to all the groups involved theChinese or Spanish speaking childrenwho cannot gain access to one of thefew bilingual programs and the inap-propriately placed Ethiopian child whosits isolated in a corner of the center.

Unfortunately, the parents of the Ethio-pian children need the nearby subsidizedcare to survive so they are unwilling togive up their space. Given the swiftnessand magnitude of the demographicchanges occurring in communitiesthroughout California, this dilemma maybe commonplace.

African American Dialect

Concerns about the appropriate role ofchild care providers in facilitating lan-guage development go beyond those chil-dren and families identified as speakinga language other than English. For ex-ample, in recent years, Black VernacularEnglish has increasingly become recog-nized as a legitimate dialect or languagewith a standard set of rules. In her book,Ting and Talking, Geneva Srnithennandefines Black English as "an Africanizedform of English reflecting Black America'slinguistic-cultural African heritage andthe conditions of servitude, oppressionand life in America. Black Language isEuro-American speech with an Afro-American meaning, nuance, tone andgesture." According to Smithennan, atypical example of a Black VernacularEnglish speaking pattern is the use ofthe word "be" or "bees" to indicate con-ditions which occur repeatedly or ha-bitually as in the sentence "I see herwhen I bees on my way to school." Whilespeaking patterns remain relatively stable,as in any language, they also continue toevolve with time.

Smitherman estimates that 80 to 90percent of African Americans use theBlack Idiom at least some of the dine.The ability to speak Black English oftenserves as a crucial source of connectionto the community and the inability tospeak in the vernacular can be interpretedas a sign that an individual has rejected

56


his or _her African American identity. Thechallenges facing African American chil-dren, who come from homes where Blackvernacular English is spoken, parallel thosewho speak an entirely different language.

Like children who speak a languageother than English, African American chil-dren who speak Black English are oftentaught that the language spoken by theirparents in the home is illegitimate. In achild care setting, the message that aparent's language is unacceptable can betransmitted in many ways. A provider maynot treat parents who speak Black En-glish with respect, a child may be explic-itly told to learn to speak "properly," or achild's speech may be ridiculed. Thesetypes of incidents can cause children tofeel ashamed of who they are and conse-quently be alienated from family and com-munity as well as school.

Treating children and parents whospeak Black English with due respect isessential to the fostering of children whoare confident and competent. M2king chil-dren feel ashamed of how they speak cre-ates rifts between child and home andprovider and parent. In the video, Essen-

tial Connections, Yolanda Torres makes thefollowing observation which could be ap-plied just as easily to a child who speaksBlack English as a child who speaks an-other language like Spanish.

The child's culture is tied into the self-esteem. That is what we are looking atright from the beginning to make a childfeel good about himself. If you shame achild because he is using his own lan-guage, or if you shame the parents of thechild and say his mother shouldn't do thatand the child knows that this is very im-portant to the mother, that is terrible be-cause what you are doing is telling thechild that his parents don't know how toraise him.

An equally serious problem arises whenproviders, unfamiliar with or unacceptingof Black English. mistakenly perceive chil-dren who speak it as less capable, lessintelligent or sometimes even education-ally delayed. The expectations of a teacheror care provider have a tremendous im-pact on a child's academic performance.Yet, the tale of the educator who mistak-enly interprets the lack of standard En-glish skills as an indication that a studentis missing basic language or cognitive skillsis all too common. The 1993 class vale-dictorian of a high school in the Sacra-mento area can attest to this. When thisstudent first moved to the district fromMeridian, Mississippi, she was placed inremedial classes because teachers inter-preted her "country" style of speech as asign that she was academically behindeven though she came with a straight Atranscript. After her parents realized whathad occurred, they protested until shewas moved into honors classes where shecontinued to make straight As.'' This stu-dent is the exception: she was able toescape the fare of being permanentlytracked into lower level classes, perhapsbecause the prior validation of her intel-lect in the Mississippi schools enabledboth student and parent to assert them-selves. Unfortunately, this type of inci-dent is not an isolated one. Studies showthat when teachers have been asked torate the intelligence of students based ontheir taped voices, they consistently ratedstudents who spoke Black English as lessintelligent and less academically oriented.'

The impact of these misperceptions isnot limited to students. Providers whoerroneously assume Black English is anindication of lower intelligence, often failto value the ability of African Americanparents to raise their children. Such dis-respectful attitudes can close out parentsand preclude their involvement in theirchild's education.

57

Making childrenfeel ashamed of how

they speak creates

rifts between child

and home and pro-

vider and parent.


1111m.-1111.

., .

----. Orr-

%AMYL

1111111Mr.

As in the area of bilingual education,the appropriate role of educational insti-tutions in developing Black English is acontroversial subject. The artide "Mak-ing It and Going Home: The Attitudesof Black People Towards Language Edu-cation"" describes discussions held amongfive groups of African Americans includ-ing parents, teachers and community lead-ers, living and working in Roxbury,Massachussets. The topic was their feel-ings regarding Black English and the typeof preschool language education theywanted for their children. A broad rangeof opinion within the African Americancommunity itself on the topic was re-vealed. Some participants believed thatBlack English has a legitimate place within

early education programs because it wasa source of identity, a key to survival anda mechanism for teaching a child certaintypes of thinking skills. One of the inter-viewed teachers observed, "Survival is themain thing and lots of times your mouthcan help you. Within the Black commu-nity, survival requires street language."Others felt that since children learn tospeak Black English in the home, therole of the school is to teach standardEnglish so that children are able to suc-cessfully maneuver through the domi-nant society.

As in bilingual programs, individualsconcur that children eventually also needstandard English, the disagreements centeraround the question of how and whenchildren acquire it and how the languageof the home can be maintained and de-veloped. This diversity of views demon-strates the crucial importance of consultingthe community, particularly parents, aboutapproaches to language development.Nonetheless, as Maria Casey of the Ur-ban Strategies Council in Oakland ex-plains, there is a bottom-line:

The bottom line is providers must under-stand what Black children are saying, ap-preciate that Black English is the com-bined result of African American culturalheritage and experience in the United States

and not make the mistake of assumingthat difference means "less than "


REFERENCE

' California Department of Education, Sug-gested Activities Related to Language Devel-opment of Preschool-Age Children, (Draft)Sacramento, 1989.

Wong Fillmore, Lily "When Learning aSecond Language Means Losing the First,"in Early Childhood Research Quarterly 6, p.323-346, 1991; Siren, Ulla, Minority Lan-guage Transmission hr Early Childhood: ParentIntention and Language Use, Institute ofInternational Education, Stockholm Uni-versity, Sweden, 1991; Harrison, G., andPiette, B., "Bilingual Mothers in Walesand the Language of their Children," So-cial Science Monographs 6, Board of CelticStudies, University of Wales, Universityof Wales Press, Cardiff, Wales, 1981.

' Saidel, Peter, "Growing Up in LinguisticLimboImmigrant Kids Lose Languageand Family, Study Finds," Pacific NewsService, April 22-26, 1991.

Wong Fillmore, Lily "When Learning aSecond Language Means Losing the First,"Early Childhood Research Quarterly 6, p. 323-

346, 1991.

s Snow, Catherine and Hoefnagel-Hohle,"Age Differences in Second Language Ac-quisition," in Second Language Acquisition,E. Hatch, ed., Newbury House, Rowley,MA, 1978.

6 Bowman, Barbara "Education of Language-Minority Children: Challenges and Op-portunities" in Phi Delta Kappan, p. 118-120, October 1989.

' Sandoval-Martinez, Steven, "Findings fromThe Head Start Bilingual CurriculumDevelopment and Evaluation Effort," inNational Association of Bilingual EducatorsJournal, Vol. 7, No. 1., p. 1-12, Fall, 1982.

° Busse Paul, Barbara and Carolyn H. Jarvis,"The Effects of Native Language Use InNew York City Prekindergarten Classes,"Office of Research, Evaluation and As-sessment of New York City Public Schools;paper presented at meeting of the Ameri-can Educational Research Association, SanFrancisco, CA, April 1992.

9 Diaz Soto, Lourdes, "Native Language forSchool Success," to be published in Bilin-gual Research Journal, 17 (1 &2).

Cummins, Jim. "Linguistic Interdepen-dence and Educational Development ofBilingual Children, in Review of Educa-tional Research, p. 222-251, 49(2); and DiazSoto, Lourdes, "Understanding Bilingual/Bicultural Young Children," in Thong Chil-dren, p. 30-36, January 1991.

" Gonzalez -Mena, Janet "English as a Sec-ond Language for Preschool Children,"in Language in Early Childhood Education,Courtney Cazden, ed., National Associa-tion for the Education of Young Chil-dren, 1981.

" Alim, Fahizah, "Learning to Soar," Sacra-mento Bee, June 4, 1993.

" Ceciel, Nancy Lee, "Black Dialect andAcademic Success, A Study of Teacher Ex-pectations."

" 4 Cazden, Courtney, Betty Bryant and Mel-issa Tillman, "Making It and Going Home:The Attitudes of Black People TowardLanguage Education," in Language in EarlyChildhood Education, Courtney Cazden, ed.,National Association for the Education ofYoung Children, Washington D.C., 1981.

59


Parent-Provider Connections

As the first and foremost teachersof children, parents are crucialto any effort aimed at promot-

ing the physical, affective and cognitivedevelopment of a child. As Julie OlsenEdwards, instructor of Cabrillo Commu-nity College's Anti-Bias course for childcare professionals in training, points out:

Child care is unique among social institu-tions in that staff have contact with familyeveryday. The potential for family support,for mutual education, for intervention, etcis enormous. Families also use care at atime in their family history when they areusually surest of their right to impact uponthe care of their child and often least sureof their own skills and knowledge.

Throughout this report we have triedto stress the importance of building part-nerships between child care providers andethnic and linguistic minority parents.Child care programs have a history of

Figure 17. Types of parent participation reported by centers.

Caregiving

Facilities Maintenance

Policy Making

Budget/Hiring

Curriculum Development

Special Activities

Other Services

28 E%

37%

21.9%

27.6%

52,8%

20.5%

0% 20% 40% 60%

Percent of Centers (n = 435)

87.3%

80% 100%

60

well recognizing the primary role thatparents play in fostering the healthy de-velopment of children. This has led manyprograms to give a high priority tostrengthening the relationship betweenparents and the child care providers towhom they entrust their children. Par-ent involvement, for example, is a cor-nerstone of the nation's most renownedearly education program, Head Start. Simi-larly, guidelines for California's subsidizedcare programs state, "the staff must formpartnerships with parents to learn moreabout each child and discover how bestto facilitate the child's development."

However, how centers view and fosterparent partnerships and involvement var-ies. Some look to parents as volunteersto work directly with the children or toraise funds to keep the programs going.Others work hardest at keeping parentsinformed about the progress of their chil-dren. Still others place a greater empha-sis on parents as central to the center'sdecision-making structure. Moreover,while most centers would like to encour-age parents to become more involved,actually engaging parents can be diffi-cult particularly if parents and care pro-viders do not share a common language.Of course, most parents work during thehours that children are in care. And asthe example of Hindi Kuu Ca demon-strated in chapter 1, restrictions on whichfamilies are eligible for certain child careprograms, e.g. when both parents mustbe working or students, means the veryparents who might have more time tocontribute are not eligible to put theirchildren in the programs. This has par-ticular implications for ethnic communi-

PARENT-PROVIDER CONNECTIONS 59

ties who by putting their children in careare trusting that their home culture andlanguage will be preserved as their chil-dren develop other new skills.

In order to explore this issue further,California Tomorrow used its survey toask child care centers about whether theyengaged in various types of parent in-volvement activities at their facility andif language barriers were perceived as animpediment to their communications withparents.

According to our findings, most cen-ters engaged in some type of activity in-volving parents. Most common are specialactivities such as hosting parties or driv-ing on field trips. Over half also reportedthat they involved parents in policy deci-sions. Please see figure 17.

Unfortunately, because of the way thesurvey was designed, these findings merelyreflect whether a given center had anyparent engaged in these particular typesof activities. Information about the num-bers of parents who participate is notavailable as of yet.

On the other hand, provider responsesto questions about the impact of languagebarriers on their communications withparents do suggest that certain parentsmay be left out of parent involvementactivities. Forty percent of those surveyedin centers feel that they are having diffi-culty communicating with parents becausethey do not share a common language.These responses are not particularly sur-prising given our other survey results thatreveal centers often do not have even asingle staff person who reflects the cul-tural and linguistic background of ethnicminority children under their care.

Staff recruited from the communitycan play a crucial role in facilitating com-munication across cultural and linguisticgroups. NVithout them, however, centersmay be hard pressed to form relation-

ships with parents of all the children un-der their care. These findings suggest thata closer analysis of which parents are mostinvolved in a center would reveal lowerparticipation rates among those who speaka language other than English.

The Importance of StrongPartnerships with Cultural andLinguistic Minority Parents

Meanwhile, the development of strongparent/provider relationships may be evenmore crucial for children who are cul-tural and linguistic minorities. First, par-ticularly when providers are not from thesame ethnic background, parents are thebest source of information about how theycan sensitize their approaches to the cul-ture of the child's home. As the Califor-nia Department of Education proposes:

Parents can educate the staff on culturaltaboos. For example, in Punjabi, a motheris never referred to by name but as "mother

of X"; while among Vietnamese, only ani-mals, never children are motioned at with"bye, bye" and "come here" signals, anda younger person never touches the headof an older person.'

Gi


Identiffing a devel-

opmental problem is

a more complicated

process because what

one culture perceives

as a problem another

culture may not.

This kind of information is generallynot passed along all at once like a hand-book, but rather it becomes clear over timeas respectful partnerships are nurturedbetween parents and providers. The pro-cess can be expedited, howev'er, by hiringstaff reflective of the communities served.

For providers caring for children fromfamilies whose culture is different fromthe mainstream, observing how parentscare for and interact with their childrenis important. Once differences are rec-ognized, being able to discuss them openlyand respectfully with parents is crucial tomaking sure that the child does not be-come further confused by conflictingmechanisms. Such a process of "give andtake" can enrich the home and the center.

Penny Anderson and Emily SchragFenichel have written an excellent guide:Serving Culturally Diverse Families of In-fants and Toddlers with Disabilities. Thisguide not only reveals attitudinal differ-ences toward illness and disability fromculture to culture and family to family,but other perspectives to be sensitive to.For example:

(Providers) may see lack of "punctuality"as evidence of hostility or backwardnessin people for whom the notion of punctu-ality itself may have a cultural meaningquite different from that of a professional.

The same professional, on the other hand,

may expect family members to share inti-mate feelings on the briefest of acquain-tance, while for members of the family's,culture trust is something to be established

slowly.'

Anderson and Schrag offer many realsituations that may come where a pro-vider must be careful not to make as-sumptions.

An Indochinese American client's response

of "yes" to a suggestion, idea or programoutline may actually mean simply, "yes, I

G2

heard you." Indochinese more likely say,"yes, I agree," if they do in fact agree.

While parents should be integral toany assessment of a child's cognitive de-velopment and 'special needs, involvementof language and cultural minority par-ents is particularly important to preventinaccurate developmental assessments. Inrecent years, the growing emphasis onearly intervention has produced programsspecifically aimed at early identificationand support for children with special de-velopmental needs. These have the po-tential to be of great benefit, particularlyto low-income minority children who may,for example, have had no safe place toplay or regular medical attention whilegrowing up, factors which put the childat risk for certain developmental prob-lems. Unfortunately, however, such as-sessments typically use scales normedpredominantly on groups of white middle-class children. Their applicability to otherethnic groups is still unclear.

In culturally diverse settings, identify-ing a developmental problem is a morecomplicated process because what oneculture perceives as a problem anotherculture may not. According to LouiseDerman-Sparks, "An important part ofpracticing culturally responsive care giv-ing is knowing when a child's behaviorreally does suggest a developmental prob-lem rather than a culturally different wayof exhibiting normal development."' Anaccurate assessment requires the partici-pation of a parent who can place thisinformation within the context of thechild's developmental history and help tocorrect for cultural biases of the testinginstrument or the provider. Ultimately,parent expertise and participation are cru-cial in helping a provider identify what ifany interventions might be most appro-priate for a child. Then, a joint actionplan can be embarked upon. 4


Finally, the involvement of languageminority parents in early childhood pro-grams can make a tremendous impacton a child's academic achievement. Forexample, when parents and grandparentswere recruited as instructional aides forthree bilingual kindergarten classes inPhoenix, children in those classes achievedhigher levels than those in a similar com-parison group. In this case, parents orgrandparents were asked to spend 1-2days every week in the classroom pro-viding support to children. The key dif-ference between the demonstration andcomparison groups was the presence orabsence of parentseverything else in-cluding native language instruction re-mained the same. While this study doesnot conclusively explain these results, itdoes raise a number of possibilities. First,the presence of parents in the classroommay have led children to spend moretime on task. Second, parent involve-ment may have helped students perceivemore real connections between home andschool. And third, parents may havegained a greater understanding of themission and instructional practices of theschool, leading them to support theirchildren's studies more effectively.'

Keys to Communication

The more efforts made to build com-munication with parents, the more likelya child care provider will be able to an-ticipate and respond to parent reactionsto various situationsreactions that maywell be culturally based. Lisa Lee, pastdirector of the Wu Yee Childcare Cen-ter in San Francisco, offered this example:

Water play is a consistent sore spot forparents who believe that being wet is un-healthy. Many forbid their children fromplaying with the water activities. Yet, chil-dren choose to play knowing that their

parents disapprove of their actions. Already

three year old children will look at theirparents and deliberately play with the wa-ter. Some parents see this as a loss of con-

trol, and a sign of a disobedient child, yetthe children are learning to code whichbehaviors are acceptable and deciding ifthey are acceptable at home or at school.Mixed cultural messages and choices be-ing made by preschoolers noted by earlychildhood educators support the belief thatthe issues of cultural difference and com-petence be addressed at an early age.'

Alicia Lieberman, writing in InfantToddler Caregiving, a Guide to CulturallySensitive Care, reminds childcare provid-ers that, "the child care setting is wherethe children of immigrant families arcmost thoroughly exposed to dominantvalues and traditions in the UnitedStates...The parents often disagree withwhat they see taking place in the childcare setting because it dashes with theirown cultural values." Lieberman pointsout a variety of scenarios where thesedisagreements may arise: caregiver re-sponses to a child's crying; the encour-agement of exploration or expressing angerand other feelings; gender differences;curiosity about one's body, and physicalpunishment. Lieberman then outlines tipsfor successful communication:

Remember the language difference

Explain the child care routine

Acknowledge tension and think aboutreasons for it

Ask questions about the family'schildrearing

Serve as a cultural bridge between the

parents and the culture of childcare

Remember that you are an authority figure

Establish a trusting atmosphere thatencourages dialogue

Give constructive feedback'

62 AFFIRMING CI-4ILDREN'S ROOTS

"

Following is a description of Kai MingHead Start's holistic efforts to keep cul-tural and linguistic minority parents in-volved in the center's care of their children.

Kai Ming ParentOutreachThe key is respecting the parent's positionin a child's life. We need to learn what theparents have to offer as well as teach themalternative child-rearing strategies. Whena child comes to the center, the child brings

the habits and customs of the family. Staffat Kai Ming must recognize the strengthsencompassed within those family traditionsand build up from them. Families shouldnot be made to feel that their languageand culture are secondary. Kai Ming Head

Start Director Greta Yin

Kai Ming Head Start in San Fran-cisco currently serves 240 low-income 3-to 5-year-olds at three locations. Some90% of the children are Asian (mostlyethnic Chinese either from Vietnam, HongKong or mainland China). Most of thesefamilies are recent immigrants. The restof the Kai Ming children are primarilyLatino or African American.

At Kai Ming Head Start, working withparents often means helping them real-ize that they have a right to be involvedin their children's education and to betheir child's primary advocate. Many cometo this country believing that the teacheris the sole authority. Kai Ming sees en-couraging parent involvement as an on-going process which has long-term benefitsfor the children and their future educa-tion. The intent is to lead parents to takean active role in their child's educationlong after he or she graduates from Kai

64

Ming. Greta 'Yin finds that Luny parentsare at first uncomfortable participatingbecause they feel restricted by their lim-ited ability to speak English. And, as thechildren learn English, parents often feelthat they are losing control. If encour-aged to be involved, however, parentscan retain their authority.

Strong parent/teacher relationships arethe norm at Kai Ming. Because most ofthe teachers were once parents at thecenter, they have an intuitive understand-ing of and respect for the parents. SinceKai Ming employs teachers and socialworkers who speak the languages of mostof the parents, namely Vietnamese andCantonese, communication is generallynot hindered by language barriers. Ac-cording to one of the parents, Mrs. Ma,being able to speak with teachers in Chi-nese was one of the features which at-tracted her to Kai Ming. Communicationis somewhat more difficult for the Latinochildren, however, because staff gener-ally do not speak Spanish. Kai Ming par-tially addresses this issue by seeking thehelp of Spanish speaking staff at the Mis-sion Head Start located in a highly Latinoneighborhood. This arrangement is re-ciprocal since the Mission center in turnhas a small population of Asian children.

According to Greta Yin, "getting Chi-nese parents involved typically entails help-ing them to understand Head Start'semphasis on providing children with alearning environment and the varied ex-periences which will help them developsocially, intellectually, physically and emo-tionally in a manner appropriate to theirage and stage of development." Becauseparents think of Head Start as a school,they often think that the structure is notacademic enough. They do not under-stand why the teachers spend so muchtime playing with children instead of fo-cusing on reading and writing.


Kai Ming utilizes a number of ap-proaches to help primary caregivers un-derstand these activities and the focus ofthe program. While the primary caregiveris usually the parent, in some families,the grandparents are the ones with thegreatest responsibility for raising the chil-dren. First and perhaps most importantly,Kai Ming teachers and social workers areconstantly in contact with parents. In ad-dition to visiting parents at their homeson a regular basis, many of the staff liveor go shopping in the Chinatown area.Teacher Salina Tang states, "I inevitablyrun into parents on the streets or in theshops." Parents are invited to parent work-shops where they may discuss the HeadStart philosophy and practices.

One of the most effective strategiesfor increasing parent understanding ofthe program has been encouraging themto spend time volunteering in classroomsso that they can observe the teachers work-ing with their children. For example, par-ents often wonder, "How come my childwill listen to the teacher but won't re-spond to me." Seeing the teachers in ac-tion shows parents how the teachersdiscipline with words and reason.

Kai Ming also encourages parents tohelp design programs for the center. Theseparent-organized activities may be foradults, such as forming a knitting club ormaking silk flowers, or they may be forchildren, such as planning a field trip,Often the more active parents will takeresponsibility for special events like Christ-mas parties and fundraisers. Finally, for-mal parent participation also occursthrough the Parent Policy Committeecomprised of one parent representativefrom each class. The Parent Policy Com-mittee has the same decision-making pow-ers as the Kai Ming Board of Directors.

In part, Kai Ming's strong history ofparent involvement stems from its focus

i

on fostering the development of the wholechild within the context of his/ her en-tire Family. One of Kai Ming's goals ishelping families to obtain needed ser-vices so that they will eventually obtain ahigher level of self-sufficiency. Such ser-vices range from health care to educat-ing parents or offering nutritional mealsto children while they are at the center.

Kai Ming makes a concerted effort tolink families to needed health care. Ofthe 240 families enrolled, 83 currentlyhave no form of medical care coverage.The immigrant families served are oftenunwilling to accept welfare or Medicaidbecause they fear it will jeopardize theirchances of naturalizing or sponsoring theimmigration of a relative. Kai Ming triesto connect these families with public healthcenters which base their fees on a slidingscale. If a family does have Medicaid,staff hook them up with a local physicianwho will accept Medicaid patients.

Kai Ming also pays close attention tochildren with special needs. Although KaiMing believes in mainstreaming such chil-dren, the center also takes special care toensure a proper diagnosis has been madeand that a child has access to neededtherapy. Kai Ming staff will help the family

65

Because most of

the teachers were

once parents at the

center, they have

an intuitive un-derstanding ofand respect for

the parents.


PROFILE.

The Parent PolicyCommittee has the

same decision-mak-

ing powers as the

Kai Ming Boardof Directors.

work through the special education pro-cess when the child is ready for the pub-lic school system. A support group ofparents of children with special needsmeets on a regular basis,

Additionally, any family with a prob-lem may seek help from one of Kai Ming'sthree social workers, each of whom has acaseload of 80 families who are followedas long as they have children in the pro-gram. These social workers screen appli-cants, are involved in the initial two hourintake and enrollment interviews whichinclude a family needs assessment, andwork with the parents to plan the parentmeetings. Often, social workers help fami-lies with issues that go far beyond theneeds of the child enrolled in the center.These may range from helping parentsspeak to school personnel about the be-havior of an older sibling to figuring outhow to pay the PG&E bill or correctingtheir phone bill.

At Kai Ming, the monthly parent meet-ings typically include workshops to edu-cate parents about choices in child rearing.These and other parent involvement ac-tivities enhance the ability of parents tocare for their children. Because Kai Mingfrequently serves siblings, staff can oftensee the progress of their charges. Yin states,"if you only worked with one child, youwould be frustrated because it would behard to see improvements. It is often pos-sible, however to see how improvedparenting techniques have resulted inbetter behavior on the part of siblingswho eventually participate in Kai MingHead Start."

REFERENCE

California Department of Education, Sug-gested Activities Related to Language Devel-opment for Preschool-Age Children, p. 15,Sacramento, 1989.

Anderson, Penny P. and Emily SchragFenichel, "Serving Culturally DiverseFamilies of Infants and Toddlers with Dis-abilities," National Center for ClinicalInfant Programs, 1989.

Derman-Sparks, Louise, "Acknowledge,Ask and Adapt: Developing Culturally Re-sponsive Caregiving Practices," in Infant/Tiddler Caregiving: A Guide To CulturallySensitive Care, California Department ofEducation Child Development Divisionand Far West Laboratory Center for Childand Family Studies, San Francisco, CA,1990.

Santos de Barona, Maryann, "The Assess-ment of Culturally and Linguistically Dif-ferent Preschoolers," in Early ChildhoodResearch Quarterly, 6, p. 363-376, 1991.

5 Garcia, Eugene, Martha Baca and MaryGuerra- Willekens, "Parents in BilingualClassrooms" in National Association of Bi-lingual Educators Journal, Vol 2, No. 1.,Fall 1986.

Lee, Lisa, "Cultural Competence in thePreschool Years: Issues for Parents andTeachers." in Wit-Yee Times, Wu Yee Re-source and Referral Center, Issue #51, Fall1992.

' Lieberman, Alicia, "What You Need toKnow About Immigrant Families," in In-fantinddler CaregivingA Guide To Cul-turally Sensitive Care, California Depart-ment of Education Child DevelopmentDivision and Far West Laboratory Cen-ter for Child and Family Studies, San Fran-cisco, 1990.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 65

Conclusions and Recommendations

The increasing diversity of thepopulation as a whole is hav-ing a profound effect on the

demographics of the children who spenda significant portion of their day in cen-ter-based child care. Our survey of 450child care centers in five California coun-ties found that cultural and linguistic di-versity is the norm. Ninety-six percentof the surveyed centers serve childrenfrom two or more racial groups and 81percent serve children from two or morelanguage groups. Seventy-seven percentreport that at least some of the childrenin their care do not speak English well.

This diversity is both a tremendousasset and an enormous challenge. Diversesettings offer children, parents andcaregivers an invaluable chance to learnabout and benefit from the strengths ofeach other's cultures and languages. Thestunning racial diversity, of children andstaff in centers offers a unique opportu-nity for adults to foster the ability of chil-dren to develop positive self-images,appreciate diversity, and resist stereotyp-ing and discriminatory behavior. Thelarge number of children who enter childcare speaking a language other than En-glish could provide an opportunity forfostering a bilingual citizenry.

On the other hand, child care provid-ers and centers are currently ill-preparedto take advantage of these opportunities.Information and training about what earlycare and education practices work withsuch culturally and linguistically diversepopulations are not easily accessible tochild care workers. Because the existinginformation has been developed by a widevariety of groups ranging from universi-ties to non-profit organizations, it is ex-

tretnely difficult for even the most moti-vated child care provider to ind relevantbooks and articles. Furthermore becausethe current fragmented system lacks co-hesive pre-service and in-service staff de-velopment, there is no mechanism forensuring that all child care workers re-ceive at least some education and train-ing about how to respond to our growingcultural and linguistic diversity.

Training materials are still limited inscope. While excellent resources exist onanti-bias approaches to caring for chil-dren, much less is available on what con-stitutes culturally and linguisticallyappropriate practice. Most materials ei-ther provide vague guidelines for work-ing with children from diverse culturesor specific information about the childrearing practices of a particular culturalgroup. With a few notable exceptions,however, existing materials do not pro-vide enough information about the spe-cific actions child care workers can taketo adapt their practice to the growingdiversity. Perhaps one of the greatest gapsis the lack of research and materials dis-cussing the implications of diversity forchild care policy and program design.

Furthermore, although research dem-onstrates that culturally and linguisticallyappropriate early care and education iscritical to the development of healthy,confident children, our survey suggeststhat many centers lack staff who can bestprovide this care and inform their col-leagues about what practices are appro-priate in their communities staff whoreflect the cultural and linguistic back-ground of the children.

The field as a whole, already in crisisfrom understaffing, low wages and insuf-

6 7

Diverse settings

offer children, par-

ents and caregivers

an invaluable chance

to learn about andbenefit from the

strengths of each

other's cultures

and languages.


ficient training opportunities, suffers froma shortage of language and cultural mi-nority staff persons. Children of colorare significantly less likely to be caredfor by teachers of their same racial back-ground than White children. Mon:: thanfifty percent of the centers that care forone or more Asian children do not haveany Asian staff, and more than forty per-cent of the centers caring for one or moreAfrican American children do not haveany African American staff. These trendsimprove when there are large numbersof children of a particular ethnic groupin a center. Nonetheless, there are noAsian staff in more than a third of thecenters reporting that at least a quarterof the children in their care are Asian.The findings are similar for centers whereapproximately a quarter of the childrenare either Latino or African American.Moreover, while nearly all of the sur-veyed centers could provide home lan-guage support to their English speakingchildren, only 55 percent had any staffperson who could communicate with theirSpanish speaking children. Less than onethird of centers had staff who could speakthe home language of their Tagalog,Chinese, Vietnamese or Korean speak-ing children.

Perhaps one of the most troubling con-cerns raised by California Tomorrow'ssurvey results relates to how programspromote or inhibit the ongoing partici-pation of parents in their children's de-velopment and education. Parentinvolvement, particularly among languageand cultural minorities, has long been atop priority of educators at all levels fromearly childhood to secondary schools. Theearly childhood field often takes the bestadvantage of partnerships with parentsby virtue of their everyday contact withthem. Our findings suggest, however, thatlanguage and cultural barriers betweenchild care providers and parents may be

creating feelings of alienation for manylanguage and cultural minority parents.When children enter care outside thehome, many are being socialized to a lan-guage and culture quite different fromthat of their parents and communities.Because of the difficulty of communica-tion across gaps of culture and language,it may be that parents and providers havefew opportunities to discuss their jointresponsibilities for fostering children'sdevelopment and strategies for how theycan bridge any differences. In the ab-sence of such communication, many par-ents may perceive that the system doesnot value their voices and concerns, andfind that they are losing control over theirchildren's socialization process.

RecommendationsAreas Requiring Further Research

Our findings point to the need for fur-ther investigation and analysis of severalspecific research and policy issues:

Given the challenges of simultaneouslyworking with multiple racial and/or lin-guistic groups and the scarcity of exist-ing bilingual/bicultural staff, is itappropriate for some early care and edu-cation programs to concentrate on meetingthe needs of particular ethnic or linguis-tic groups with the understanding thatchildren will eventually be placed in eth-nically diverse settings? Under what set-tings would such "concentrated" programsbe considered inappropriate because ofthe preference for children to be placedin a diverse setting? Is a concentratedprogram more appropriate or necessaryfor certain groups? What are the impli-cations of such a strategy? For programeligibility regulations? For Civil RightsLaw?

68


Given that nearly all providers spendsome of their work time with a child froma different ethnic background than them-selves, what set of core principals andpractices for ethnically and linguisticallyappropriate care should be adopted byall child care workers? How can such aset of core principles be disseminated tothe entire field?

I Vhat specific policy and program guide-lines should exist with regard to primarylanguage development for linguistic mi-nority children? Given that many chil-dren arc currently in centers where theydo not have access to home language sup-port, what strategies should be used bychild care providers who do not share acommon language with a child? Whatspecific strategies can be used to assurethat the development of English as a sec-ond language is additive versus subtrac-tive in nature, meaning the home languageof the child is preserved and also contin-ues to develop? Is it more appropriatefor some children (e.g., infants and tod-dlers) to be cared for exclusively in thehome language? When and how can En-glish be safely introduced without risk ofdestroying the home language? Shouldcenters consider grouping children basedon language needs?

How does the need for culturally andlinguistically consistent care relate to theage of the child? Are the effects of cul-turally and linguistically inappropriate carein fact more devastating for infants andtoddlers who are in the process of devel-oping the core of their identity?

To what extent does the importance ofculturally and linguistically consistent caremerit public policies that offer families agreater range of choices for child carearrangements? To what extent could, forexample, family clay care homes he a re-source for culturally and linguistically ap-

propriate care given their ability to offera home-like environment, small child-adult ratios, and a community-based con-text?

What implications do concerns aboutcultural differences in socialization andlearning have for practitioners implement-ing anti-bias curriculum approaches? Whatimplications do anti-bias research effortshave for programs serving populationsthat are solely or predominantly of oneethnic group?

Why are certain language and culturalminorities underrepresented in the fieldof early care and education? Is this moreserious at higher levels of decision-mak-ing? How is this underrepresentation re-lated to low pay, poor working conditionsand current hiring practice?

What factors explain our findings thatsubsidized centers are more likely thannon-subsidized centers to employ staffwho reflect the racial and linguistic back-ground of the children in care? What arethe implications of these findings for childcare policy?

Recommendationsfor Immediate Action

In the meantime, based upon our find-ings, California Tomorrow calls for im-mediate action from the following groups:

State Agencies in California

The California Department of Educa-tion should support the development ofan ongoing statewide mechanism for col-lecting information on the demograph-ics of child care la-gities across systemsand auspices. Such a mechanism couldbe tied to a number of existing data col-lection efforts including: 1) local resource

69


and referral agencies, 2) the statewidemarket rate survey, 3) the California De-partment of Education's effort to designa new computerized, linked system ofdata collection for child care programs,and 4) child care licensing procedures.

The California Department of Educa-tion together with the Department ofSocial Services should establish a com-mittee of advocates, researchers, provid-ers and parents who will work with themto develop and disseminate materials out-lining how child care providers can mosteffectively develop partnerships with par-entswith specific suggestions abouttechniques for bridging gaps of languageand culture.

The California Department of Educa-tion together with the Department ofSocial Services should jointly fund andestablish a clearinghouse aimed at col-lecting and disseminating materials andliterature regarding the provision of cul-turally and linguistically appropriate careto practitioners, policymakers and pro-gram administrators.

The California Department of Educa-tion, Child Development Division shouldexamine whether some of its eligibilitypolicies may be unwittingly workingagainst efforts to provide children withculturally and linguistically appropriatecare. In particular, we suggest that theDepartment of Education reconsider itscurrent policies that prevent bilingualcenters from giving priority to childrenmost in need of their bilingual educa-tional programs.

The Commission on TeacherCredentialing should require teachertraining programs to address linguisti-cally and culturally appropriate practicein theit basic curriculum.

70

Federal Government:

The Department of Health and Hu-man Services should convene a workinggroup of practitioners, researchers, advo-cates and policymakers to examine thepolicy implications of cultural diversityfor forthcoming federal initiativesnamelythe Head Start expansion and the childcare provisions of current welfare reformproposals.

The Department of Health and Hu-man Services should set aside funding (pos-sibly from the Child Care DevelopmentBlock Grants or Head Start programs)for research addressing the previouslymentioned areas requiring further study.

Associations:

The National Association for the Edu-cation of Young Children (NAEYC) shouldcontinue its efforts to produce materialsabout the implications of diversity for earlycare and education, and to strengthen itsguidelines for developmentally appropri-ate practice with respect to their applica-bility to diverse populations. One approachwould be to first pull together educatorsfrom specific ethnic groups to discusswithin their own groups what constitutesculturally appropriate practice. Then, lead-ers from a range of communities couldbe brought together to seek commonali-ties among views of developmentally ap-propriate practices.

The California Association for the Edu-cation for Young Children (CAEYC) to-gether with NAEYC should hold aconference bringing together anti-bias cur-ricula developers with educators workingto define what constitutes culturally ap-propriate care and teaching approachesfor children of various ethnic groups. Thepurpose of this conference would be toexplore the relationship between these twofields.


Resource and Referral Network:

The statewide childcare resource andreferral network should work with localresource and referrals to develop and dis-seminate multilingual parent education/consumer guides that provide parents withinformation about how to judge the qualityof child care facilities, including the as-sessment of cultural and linguistic ap-propriateness. Such a guide shouldspecifically include information about thepotential trade-offs of placing a child ina facility that does not offer care in thelanguage of the home, and provide par-ents with an awareness of the importanceof culturally and linguistically appropri-ate care particularly for infants and tod-dlers.

Training Institutions:

All existing professional training pro-grams for early care and education pro-fessionals should incorporate a focus onculturally and linguistically appropriatecare in their regular curriculum. Such afocus should provide students with a ba-sic understanding of the Anti-Bias Cur-riculum, the cultural context of child-careincluding how to approach developmen-tally appropriate practice in various eth-nic communities; techniques for fosteringEnglish language development withoutimpeding home language developmentamong children from non-English speak-ing backgrounds; and strategies for de-veloping strong partnerships with languageand cultural minority parents.

Institutions involved in the educationand hiring of child care staff should makeimmediate efforts to improve recruitmentof underrepresented linguistic and eth-nic minorities (e.g., Spanish-speaking andAsian staff), and should also increase train-ing opportunities for these groups.

Institutions that train child care pro-viders should also develop in-service train-ing programs to be offered to child carecenters so that those already working inthe field may be informed about strate-gies for appropriately working with cul-turally and linguistically diverse childrenand families.

Private Foundations:

Foundations should fund the develop-ment and dissemination of training ma-terials produced by various institutionson how to serve particular ethnic groupsor diverse populations, as well as fundthe development of new ones.

Foundations should fund the develop-ment of models for teacher education thatexpose new teachers to theories of childdevelopment while simultaneously incor-porating the expertise and knowledge ofstudents from diverse cultural back-grounds.

Foundations should support innova-tive efforts to recruit and train early careand education professionals from under-represented cultural and linguistic groups.

Foundations should support existingearly childhood care and education pro-grams, and the development of new ones,that model the practice of culturally andlinguistically appropriate care for diversechildren.

Foundations should support efforts todevelop parent education materials thatprovide parents with information abouthow to incorporate considerations of cul-tural and linguistic appropriatenesss in-to their childcare decisions.

71


APPENDIX A

Methodology Report

Questionnaire Developmentand Testing

Working with its advisory panel, Cali-fornia Tomorrow developed the prelimi-nary draft of the early care and educationquestionnaire for the telephone survey.Then, Field Research worked closely withCalifornia Tomorrow's project staff to re-fine the questionnaire in order to facili-tate administration of the survey bytelephone, enhance respondent coopera-tion, and ensure the meaningfulness ofsurvey responses. As part of this effort,Field Research conducted a pretest witheight child care providers who representeda range of potential respondents. Fol-lowing the pretest, the questionnaire wasrevised, as appropriate, and finalized. Oncethe English-language version of the ques-tionnaire was finalized, Field Researchcontracted with professional translatorsto prepare Spanish and Chinese versionsof the questionnaire.

The final questionnaire included ques-tions on the following topics:

Type of child care provider (e.g., forprofit, not-for-profit, subsidized).

Services provided (e.g., meals, coun-

seling, health screening, parent ser-vices).

Parent involvement (e.g., involve-ment in the classroom, on advisorycommittees).

Types of children served (e.g., age,

language skills, racial background).

Types of persons who regularly carefor or teach children (e.g., languageskills, racial background).

The words "race" and "racial" wereused throughout the questionnaire. Theauthors would like to acknowledge thelimitations and controversy surroundingthe selection of precisely which terms,e.g., white vs. Anglo, are appropriate. Useof the term race is often criticized be-cause its definition assumes a clear cutbiological basis for making distinctionsthat science has failed to prove. Theseterms do, however reflect the ways thatsociety currently tends to categorizepeople. Consequently, in developing oursurvey, we found it necessary to rely uponthe socially constructed racial categoriesoriginally used by the CensusnamelyWhite, Latino, Asian Pacific Islander,African American and Native American.In selecting these terms, we tried to besensitive to current political concernsabout how groups are named as well asto use terms which would easily be un-derstood by the person being interviewed.Moreover, while race is certainly not thesame as ethnicity, this report does as-sume that race is an indicator of a child'sethnic and cultural background. One ofthe biggest problems with traditional "ra-cial" categories is that they mask signifi-cant ethnic variations within particularracial categories.

APPENDIX A: METHODOLOGY REPORT 71

In addition to information on race, wewere interested in the languages that chil-dren and teachers/caregivers spoke in childcare. The particular non-English languagesaddressed in the survey, Spanish andChinese, were chosen because these arethe most common non-English languagesspoken in California. A copy of the finalinterview is provided at the end of thisappendix.

The CATI Program

After the questionnaire was finalized, aprogram was developed that would allowthe English-language version of the ques-tionnaire to be administered using Com-puter-Assisted Telephone Interviewing(CATI). The program was designed to I)ensure that only appropriate questions wereasked of respondents based on responsesto earlier questions, and 2) facilitate ac-curate data entry by allowing only validcodes or codes within prespecified rangesto be entered onto the computer duringdata collection. Because of cost and timeconstraints, the Spanish and Chinese ver-sions of the questionnaire were adminis-tered using a paper and pencilquestionnaire.

Sample Design and Selection

Five California counties were selected forthis survey: Alameda, San Francisco, SanDiego, Los Angeles and Merced. Thesecounties were mainly selected because oftheir ethnic diversity. San Francisco,Alameda, Los Angeles and San Diego alsowere chosen because of their large childpopulations and because together they gen-

./MININIMS1111MINO,

Figure 17. Number of Licensed Child Care Centers, by County

Alameda Los Angeles Merced San Diego San Francisco

Infant Centers 69 189 6 83 18

Preschool Centers 430 2,279 50 582 248

Total Centers 499 2,468 56 665 266

erally represent urban areas in Northernand Southern California. Merced was se-lected to provide information about childcare in an ethnically diverse rural countyin Central California. In addition, all coun-ties had a large number of children whowere limited in English proficiency asdocumented by the Census.

California Tomorrow arranged for theState Department of Social Services toprovide Field Research Corporation withthe names and phone numbers of all li-censed child care providers in California.The database included four categories oflicensed child care centers: (I) infant cen-ters, (2) child care for preschool chil-dren, (3) child care for school-age childrenand (4) child care for ill children.

In each of the five targeted communi-ties, all child care centers for infant andpreschool children were considered eli-gible. However child care centers thatonly serve school-age children or ill chil-dren were included only if they also servedinfants or preschool-age children.

Figure 17 is a breakdown of the totalnumber of listings for eligible child carecenters provided by the Stare Depart-ment of Social Services for each county_that was surveyed.

73


Figure 18. Targeted Sample Size and Anticipated Margin of Error

Targeted Anticipated MarginSample Size of Error at the 95%

Confidence Level forUnweighted Date

Child care centers in all 5 counties 450 + 4.8%

Child care centers in a single county 100 +9.8%

Figure 19. Sample Size By County

Alameda Los Angeles Merced San Diego San Francisco Total

Child Care Centers 101 101 32 100 100 434

Targeted Sample Size

The overall targeted sample size was 450child care centers. This sample size wasdesigned to provide a relatively small mar-gin of error (i.e., less than + 5% at the95% confidence level). Bemuse of thesmall number of child care centers inMerced, we attempted to complete asmany interviews as possible with childcare centers in this county. In other coun-ties, we targeted 100 child care centers.Because sampling error is related to samplesize, the margin of error is greater forsubgroup estimates (e.g., county estimates)than for the overall sample. The targetedsample sizes were designed to provide amaximum sampling error of + 10% atthe 95% confidence level for child carecenters.

Figure 18 is a description of the tar-geted sample size and maximum sam-pling error at the 95% confidence levelthat we expected to obtain for the over-all sample and for various subgroups.

Because we anticipated that some childcare centers would no longer be in busi-ness, that we would not be able to reachsome of them, and that some would refuseto participate in the survey, the samplesthat were selected were larger than thedesired number of completed interviews.These samples were then randomly di-vided into "minireplicates" and as manyreplicates were used as necessary to com-plete the targeted number of interviewsfor child care centers for each county.Figure 19 shows the final sample selection.

These child care facilities included bothfor-profit (15.6) and not-for-profit (84.4%)centers. Eleven percent of centers werepart of the I lead Start program. Fifty-two percent of centers received govern-ment subsidies to help cover the costs ofcare for at least some children. In addi-tion, child care centers served an aver-age of 70 children (range: 3-350) andemployed an average of 10 providers(range 1-76). Analyses of child care cen-ters were also examined in relation tosize of center. Based on a median-split,centers employing seven or less teacherswere considered "small" centers, and cen-ters employing more than seven teach-ers were labeled "large" centers.Examining a center's capacity to meetthe needs of racially and linguisticallydiverse children within the context ofcenter size was important since largercenters have a greater opportunity to hirestaff from different racial and linguisticgroups.

APPENDIX A: METHODOLOGY REPORT 73

Respondent Selectior andInterviewing Language

For each child care provider, interviewswere completed with one knowledgeablerespondent. This was usually the centerdirector. Before beginning the interview,respondents who appeared to have diffi-culty speaking English were offered theopportunity to be interviewed in Span-ish or a Chinese dialect as appropriate.One interview was done in Chinese.

Data Collection Procedures

Data collection for the study was con-ducted from Field Research's central lo-cation interviewing facilities in SanFrancisco. Only experienced interview-ers were assigned to the project, and be-fore conducting any interviews, theyattended a training session conducted byField Research's project leader. The train-ing session included an overview of theproject, question-by-question review ofthe telephone instrument, and interview-ing practice. During the first few days ofinterviewing, interviewers were debriefedin order to compare experiences, resolveproblems, and ensure that appropriateinterviewing procedures were used. Inaddition, throughout the data collectionperiod, Field Research project staff moni-tored interviewer performance.

Interviewing for the study was con-ducted during December 1992 and Janu-ary 1993. Initial contact attempts weremade during normal business hours onweekdays. Once an eligible center wasreached, appointments were scheduled,as needed, for respondents who preferredto be interviewed at another time. lip tosix attempts were made to completescreening interviews with each child carecenter.

Presentation of Resultsand Weighting

Within each county, a simple randomsample was selected from the universe ofchild care centers. Therefore each childcare center in a single county had thesame probability of selection. In addi-tion, child care centers in smaller coun-ties (e.g., Merced, San Francisco) wereintentionally sampled at a greater ratethan those in larger counties (e.g., LosAngeles).

Analyses of data for child care centersfor individual counties do not need to beweighted to be representative. However,because of oversampling, combining re-sults from more than one county willrequire weighting for the data to be rep-resentative. Institutional weights weredesigned to represent child care provid-ers in the sample in the same proportionas they are in the overall population forthe five counties, according to data fromthe State Department of Social Services.For the purposes of the present report,data are presented for all child care cen-ters across counties and thus weighteddata were used.

For this study, California Tomorrow re-tained the services of Field Research Cor-

poration to assist it in conducting a tele-phone survey of child care centers andfamily day care homes in five Californiacounties. This publication focuses on thedata from licensed child care centers only.

The data on family day care homes willbe presented at a later date. This appen-dix contains excerpts taken from the Meth-

odology Report prepared by Field Research

Corporation for California Tomorrow.


APPENDIX B

Childcare Questionnaire

Field Research Corporation: San Francisco, CA 133-001: Final (Nov. 30)

CALIFORNIA TOMORROW: CHILDCARE QUESTIONNAIRE

ASK TO SPEAK WITH THE PERSON ON THE CALL RECORD SHEET.

Start Time

IF THIS PERSON IS NOT AVAILABLE, ASK TO SPEAK WITH THE CENTER DIRECTOR ORASSISTANT DIRECTOR .

INTRODUCTION: Good (morning/afternoon), I'm calling from Field Research Corporation.We are conducting a survey of a random sample of child care centers and preschools in California about thetypes of children they serve. This information will be used to identify some of the needs of child care providersand the types of public policies and programs that would help them to serve children. The survey is being con-ducted for California Tomorrow, a not-for-profit research firm. We are not selling anything, and we are not agovernment or regulatory agency. This is strictly a confidential opinion survey.

(IF ASKED, SAE) "Field Research Corporation was founded in 1946 and is located in San Francisco, Cali-fornia. It conducts research on a variety of topics for government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and privatecompanies. California Tomorrow is a not-for-profit research firm based in San Francisco, California. It con-ducts research on the joys, challenges, and problems that racial and ethnic diversity bring to schools and otherinstitutions serving children and families."

A. TYPE OF CHILD CARE CENTER

First, I would like to ask you some background questions about your child care center.

1. Is your center a "for profit" or a "not-for-profit" facility? (PLEASE CIRCLE fthE CODE)

For profit 1

Not-for-profit 2

Not sure 8

Refused 9

2. Is your child care center... (PLEASE CIRCLE ONE CODE IN FACH R01,0

Yes No DK REFa. Part of the head start program 1 2 8 9

b. A parent cooperative 1 2 8 9

APPENDIX B: CHILDCARE QUESTIONNAIRE 75

3. Is the cost of child care for any children in your center partially paid for or subsidized by agovernmental agency or program? (PLEASE CIRCLE pa CODE)

Yes 1

No 2

Not sure 8

Refused 9

B. SERVICES PROVIDED

4. We are interested in how many centers, if any, provide services other than child care. Does yourcenter... (READ CATEGORIES; PLEASE CIRCLE ONE CODE IN EACH ROTS)

a. Provide meals, such as lunch or breakfast

b. Provide snacks

c. Have regularly scheduled conferences withindividual parents about their children

d. Meet with parents as a group to share information

e. Arrange for or provide individual counselingto families that need it

f. Arrange for other professionals to screen forhealth or learning problems

g. Arrange for health professionals to provide shots orimmunizations or other medical or dental treatment

h. Provide parents with information about communityand social services, such as housing or public assistance

i. Sponsor parent support groups, such as for single parentsor parents of children with disabilities

T. Ever provide information about an individual child's growthand development to another child care provider or schoolif the parents consent to this

k. Provide any other services besides child care or instruction orother services we have already discussed (PLEASE SPECIFY)

Yes No DK REF

1 2 8 9

1 2 8 9

1 2 8 9

1 2 8 9

1 2 8 9

1 2 8 9

1 2 8 9

1 2 8 9

1 2 8. 9

1 2 8 9

1 2 8 9


C. PARENT INVOLVEMENT

5. Next, I would like to ask you about different types of parent involvement at your center. For each,please tell me whether this regularly occurs at your center. Do parents of children at your centerregularly ..,(RF_AD LIS7) (PLEASE CIRCLE QLL CODE IN FA CH ROW)?

a. Help primary care givers or teachersYes No DK REF

b.

take care of the children

Help with special activities, such as with parties

1 2 8 9

c.

or driving on field trips

Provide other types of services, such as preparing

1 2 8 9

d.

newsletters or helping with fundraisers

Help you to clean, maintain, or repair your

1 2 8 9

building or facilities 1 2 8 9

e. Serve on a policy committee or advisory board 1 2 8 9

f. Participate in budgetary or hiring decisions I 2 8 9

g. Work with teachers to shape the classroom curriculum I 2 8 9

D. TYPES OF CHILDREN SERVED

6. Altogether, how many children are enrolled in your center at this location? (PLEASE ENTERNUMBER OR CIRCLE CODE, AS APPROPRIATE) (IF NECESSARY, SAY) "Please give your bestestimate."

Not sure 998Refused 999

7. What are the ages of the children your center currently serves...Does your center currently serveANY children who are...(READ CATEGORIES, PLEASE CIRCLE QLE CIRCLE CODE IN FACHROW)

Yes No DK REF

a. Under 18 months I 2 8 9b. 18 months to two and a half years 1 2 8 9c. Age two and a half to four 1 2 8 9d. Age 4 to 5 I 2 8 9e. Over age 5 1 2 8 9

IF DOES NOT SERVE ANY CHILDREN 18 MONTHS OR OLDER, GO TO Q. 15.; ELSE, ASK Q. 8.

APPENDIX 13: CHILDCARE QUESTIONNAIRE 77

8. Are there any children at your center who DO NOT speak ANY English? (PLEASE CIRCLE ONI'CODE)

ASK Q. 9 Yes 1

GO TO Q. 10 No 2

GO TO Q. 10 Not sure 8

GO TO Q.10 Refused 9

9. Approximately how many children at your center DO NOT speak ANY English...Would you say"a few," "about half," or "almost all" of the children at your center? (PLEASE CIRCLE aa CODE)

A few 1

About half 2

Almost all 3

Not sure 8

Refused 9

10. Are there any children at your center who speak ONLY A LITTLE English? (PLEASE CIRCLEQ&E CODE)

ASK Q. 11 Yes 1

GO TO Q. 12 No 2



11. Approximately how many children at your center speak ONLY A LITTLE English..\Vould yousay "a few," "about half," or "almost all" of the children at your center? (PLEASE CIRCLE MICODE)

A few 1

About half 2

Almost all 3

Not sure 8Re fused 9

79


12. Which languages do the children you serve speak either at home or at your center?PROBE: Anything else? (PLEASE CIRCLE da, THAT APPLY)

English 1

Spanish 2

Filipino/Tagalog 3

Chinese 4Vietnamese 5

Korean 6

Another Asian language (e.g., Japanese, Cambodian, Hmong)(PLEASE SPECIFY) 7

Another nonAsian language (e.g., Russian, Armenian, Arabic,Farsi) (PLEASE SPECIFY) 8


IF ONLY ENGLISH IS SPOKEN, GO TO Q.15; ELSE, ASK Q. 13.

13. Do any of the children at your center who speak NonEnglish languages also speak Englishfluently, that is, as well as other children their age who only speak English?(PLEASE CIRCLE Q CODE)

ASK Q. 14 Yes 1

GO TO Q. 15 No 2


GO TO Q.15 Re fused 9

14. Approximately how many of the children at your center who speak Non English languages alsospeak English fluently, that is, as well as other children their age who only speak English...Would yousay " a few," "about half," or "almost all" of the children at your center?(PLEASE CIRCLE ONE CODE)

A few 1

About half 2

Almost all 3

Nor sure 8

Refused 9


15. Next, I would like to know if your center is serving children in any of the following ethnic orracial groups at this location. Are you currently serving any children who are...(READ LIST) (PLEASE CIRCLE Qa CODE IN &JELL RO i40?

Yes No DK REF

a. White, but not Hispanic 1 2 8 9

b. Hispanic or Latino 1 2 8 9

c. Black or African American 1 2 8 9

d. Asian or Pacific Islander, such as,Filipino or Samoan

1 2 8 9

e.

f.

American Indian or Native American

A member of another ethnic or racial

1 2 8 9

group (SPECIFY) I 2 8 9

g. A member of more than one ethnicor racial group

1 2 8 9

IF ONLY ONE ETHNIC GROUP IS SERVED IN Q. 15, GO TO Q. 22; ELSE ASK Q. 16.

16. Do half or more of the children in your center belong to a singie ethnic or racial group?(PLEASE CIRCLE MI CODE)

ASK Q. 17 Yes 1

GO TO Q. 20 No 2



17. Which one? (PLEASE CIRCLE QNE CODE)

White, but not Hispanic 1

Hispanic or Latino 2

Black or African American 3

Asian or Pacific Islander,such as, Filipino or Samoan 4American Indian or Native American 5

Other (PLEASE SPECIF19 6

Not sure 8

Refused 9

81


18. What about the other children at your center who are not (READ ETHNIC OR RACL4L GROUPIN Q.17)...Do most of them belong to a single ethnic or racial group? (PLEASE CIRCLE QN CODE)

ASK Q. 19 Yes 1

GO TO Q. 22 No 2



19. Which one? (PLEASE CIRCLE Ma CODE)




Asian or Pacific Islander, such as, Filipino or Samoan 4American Indian or Native American 5

Other (PLEASE SPECIFY) 6

Not sure 8

Refused 9

IF Q. 16 = "NO,NOT SURE OR REFUSED," ASK Q. 20; ELSE GO TO Q. 22.

20. Do one-fourth or more of the children in your center bP1,ng to a single ethnic or racial group?(PLEASE CIRCLE Q CODE)

ASK Q. 21 Yes 1

GO TO Q. 22 No 2



21. Which one? (PLEASE CIRCLE Qa CODE)




Asian or Pacific Islander, such as, Filipinoor Samoan 4

American Indian or Native American 5


Not sure 8

Refused 9


F. TYPES OF PERSONS WHO REGULARLY CARE FOR OR TEACH CHILDREN

My last questions are about the persons at your center who regularly care for or teach children.

22, How many persons at your center regularly care for or teach children? (IF ASKED: "Please donot count substitutes or parent volunteers." (PLEASE ENTER NUMBER OR CIRCLE CODE, ASAPPROPRIATE)


IF Q. 22 = "1," GO TO Q. 24.IF Q22 = "2 OR MOR" ASK Q.23

23. How many of these (NUMBER IN Q. 22) individuals are primary care givers or teachers, and howmany are assistant care givers or instructional assistants? (PLEASE ENTER NUMBER IN FACHROW)

a. PRIMARY CARE GIVERS/TEACHERS

b. ASSISTANTS

24. What languages do (you/the primary care givers or teachers) speak to the children at yourcenter? PROBE: Anything else? (PLEASE CIRCLES THAT APPLY)

EnglishSpanish 2

Filipino/Tagalog 3


Korean 6Another Asian language (e.g., Japanese, Cambodian, Hmong)(PLEASE SPECIFY) 7

Another nonAsian language (e.g., Russian, Armenian, Arabic,Fa rsi) (PLEASE SPECIFY) 8Not sure 98Refused 99

IF Q. 23b = "BLANK OR 0," GO TO Q. 26IF Q. 23b = "1 OR MOR" ASK Q. 21.

S 3


25. What languages do the assistant care givers or instructional assistants at your center speak to thechildren? PROBE: Anything else? (PLEASE CIRCLE Jai THAT APPLY)

EnglishSpanish 2

Filipino/Fagalog 3


Korean 6

Another Asian language (e.g., Japanese, Cambodian,Hmong) (PLEASE SPECIFY) 7

Another nonAsian language (e.g., Russian, Armenian,Arabic, Farsi) (PLEASE SPECIFY) 8


26. We understand from talking to different child care providers that increasingly they are servingchildren from families who speak a variety of languages other than English. Do any children haveparents who ha'p difficulty communicating with you or other persons at your center because of thelanguage they speak? (PLEASE CIRCLE ONE CODE)

Yes 1

No 2

Not sure 8

Refused 9

My last questions are for background purposes only. Once again, I would like to assure you that yourresponses will be strictly confidential.

27. What is your ethnic or racial background? (PLEASE CIRCLE Qa CODE)




Asian or Pacific Islander, such as, Filipino or Samoan 4

American Indian or Native American 5


Not sure 8

Re fused


28. I would like to ask you about the ethnic or racial background of the primary care givers or teachersat your center. Are any of them...(READ LIST) (PLEASE CIRCLE QNE CODE IN EACH ROW)?

Yes No DK REF


b. Hispanic or Latino 1 2 8 9

c. Black or African American 1 2 8 9

d. Asian or Pacific Islander, such as, Filipino or Samoan 1 2 8 9

c.

f.


A member of any other ethnic or racial group

1 2 8 9

g.

(PLEASE SPECIFY) 1 2 8 9

A member of more than one

ethnic or racial group 1 2 8 9

IF Q. 23b = "BLANK OR 0," CLOSE INTERVIEWIF Q. 23b = "1 OR MORE," ASK Q. 29.

29. What about the assistant primary care givers or instructional assistants...Are any of theassistants...(RFAD LIST PLEASE CIRCLE MIL CODE IN Q1 ROW)?

Yes No DK REF


b. I Iispanic or Latino 1 2 8 9

c. Black or African American I 2 8 9

d. Asian or Pacific Islander, such as, Filipino or Samoan 1 2 8 9

e.

f.


A member of any other ethnic or racial group

1 2 8 9

g.

(PLEASE SPECIFY) 1 2 8 9

A inembci of more than one

ethnic or racial group 1 2 8 9

CLOSING: Those are ell my questions. Thank you very much for your help with this very important survey.

END TIME:

5


APPENDIX C

Selected Resource Materials

Anderson, Penny P. and Emily Schrag Fenichel.

Serving Culturally Diverse Familiesof Infants and Toddlers with Disabilities.National Center for Clinical Infant Programs, 1989.

This publication is designed to assist policy makersand practitioners in their efforts to develop programsand serve families with infants and toddlers with dis-abilities within the families' own cultural frameworks.Following an overview of the concept of culture andhow that concept may be understood and used byhuman service providers, specific cultural issues re-lated to disabilities are discussed. These include fam-ily definitions, roles, relationships and childrearingtechniques; health, illness, and disability beliefs andtraditions; and communication and interactional styles.This information is then used as a basis for suggest-ing strategies which policy makers might consider toenhance cultural sensitivity in services to young chil-dren with disabilities and their families. AB, DA.

Categories Key

AF

AB

AS

CC

DACCC

I/TLDLALEP

NA

S/F

SD

African American

Anti-bias AK.roach/ MulticulturalCurriculum Development

Asian American

Child Care in General

Children with Disabilities

Cross Cultural Communication

Infants and Toddlers

Language Development

Latino

Lmited English Proficient/BilingualPrograms

Native American School/Family/Community/Culture

Relationships, Parent Involvement

Staff Development/Teacher Training

Aotaki-Phenice, L. and Marjorie Kostelnik.

"Attitudes of Early Childhood Educatorson Multicultural/Multiethnic Education,"in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural

Development Vol. 4, No.1, 1983.

This study investigates the attitudes of early child-hood educators on multicultural/multiethnic educa-tion. Early childhood teachers in training, teachersatld administrators of pre-primary programs had similarresponses to questions concerning attitudes about per-spectives, curriculum, social dimensions, and academicsuccess related to multicultural/multiethnic educa-tion. AB, SD.

Billman, Jane.

"The Native American Curriculum: AttemptingAlternatives to Teepees and Headbands,"in Young Children, September 1992.

Many teachers need help understanding Native Ameri-can culture and how to teach it. This article discussestypical activities aimed at understanding Native Ameri-can culture and why they are stereotypical and can beharmful to children. The author then suggests strat-egies for teachers to broaden their thinking when itcomes to multicultural, hands-on activities for chil-dren. AB, NA, SD.

Bowman, Barbara.

"Education of Language-Minority Children:Challenges and Opportunities,"in Phi Delta Kappan, October 1989.

Teachers facing the challenge of teaching childrenfrom different cultural backgrounds find themselveshard pressed to decide what constitutes an appropri-ate curriculum. Ms. Bowman identifies a few devel-opmental principles that can provide a conceptualframework. 413, SI).

APPENDIX C: SELECTED RESOURCE MATERIALS 85

Brady, Phyllis.

"Columbus and the Quincentennial Myths:

Another Side of the Story,"in Young Children, September 1992.

The traditional Columbus story presents a dilemmafor early childhood educators. The values imbeddedin the traditional, or standard, version of the story ofColumbus may not be shared by the teacher, nor bein the best interests of young children. While youngchildren may not be ready cognitively to understandthe historical issues of Columbus, they are ready tobegin exploring related concrete concepts, e.g. ste-reotypes of Native Americans. The article debunksmyths about Columbus' voyage and contact with NativeAmericans and discusses the perspectives of the domi-nant culture on Columbus, and responses to thoseperspectives. AB, NA.

California Department of Education,

Bilingual Education Office.

Beyond Language: Social and Cultural Factors

in Schooling Language Minority Students.Evaluation, Dissemination and Assessment Center,

Los Angeles, CA, 1986.

This book was compiled to help educators improvetheir understanding of minority students within theAmerican social context. The authors, who come froma variety of academic disciplines and ethnic back-grounds, offer perspectives and suggestions for help-ing educators and minority students interact in wayswhich will result in the students' experiencing theirfullest individual and academic potential. The au-thors assert that the most important factor leading tolow achievement by some minority sniclents arisesfrom the relationship between social factors (e.g.,socioeconomic status, attitudes towered minoritygroups, immigration patterns, etc.) and cultural fac-tors (e.g., self-identity, child-rearing practices, lan-guage use patterns, etc.). The authors also emphasizethe need to look beyond language background of thestudents to the broader social and educational con-texts to understand achievement outcomes and for-mulate changes. A central point in each of e chaptersis that educational success and failure should be un-

derstood as a product of the interaction among suchfactors as the student's cultural background, the edu-cational setting and wider social forces. LD, LEP, S/E

California Department of Education,

Program Evaluation and Research Division.

Triennial Report on Publicly Funded

Child Development Programs 1985-1986.Sacramento, 1988.

This report presents findings about the services pro-vided though state funded Child Development pro-grams during 1985-86. Its findings describe the childrenand families who receive services, the agencies andstaff who provide the services, and the characteristicsand cost of the services. Finally, the report identifiesa number of policy issues arising from the findingsand suggests areas in need of expansion or improve-ment. CC.

California Department of Education.

Here They Come: Ready or Not. A Report

of the School Readiness Task Force.

Sacramento, 1988.

The School Readiness Tisk Force was charged withproviding a report to the California State Deport-ment of Education examining the issue of schoolreadiness and related development of the kindergar-ten child. It describes creative program delivery op-tions including alternatives for the length of the schoolday and school year. It recommends model curriculabased on educational research emphasizing experien-tial, meaningful, integrated, active learning; recom-mends options to assess kindergarten children, includingsocial, emotional, physical, and cognitive develop-ment; and describes ideal methods to assist kinder-garten children in acquiring the English language. Inaddition, it recoe mends methods to implement ex-emplary kindergarten programs that represent multi-dimensional solutions a-.11 provide for a continuumfrom prescho,,i to kindergarten to primary grades.Toward that end the Task Force held four publichearings, interviewed experts, surveyed the availableliterature, and analyzed kingdergartcn retention data.LD.

8?


California Department of Education.

Suggested Activities Related to LanguageDevelopment for Preschool-Age Children.

Draft, 1989.

California schools have experienced an unprecedentedinflux of limited English proficient (LEP) children.Similarly, state-subsidized preschool and child devel-opment programs have, in the past six years, experi-enced a doubling in the number of LEP children.The purpose of this document is to provide childdevelopment staff with some background in languageacquisition and practical suggestions and strategiesfor designing culturally appropriate language devel-opment programs for LEP preschoolers. LD, LEP,SD.

Cazden C., V. John & D. Hymes, eds.

Functions of Language in the Classroom.Teachers College Press, New York, 1972.

This book is part of the series on Anthropology andEducation at Teachers College Press. The purposeof the collection is to provide useful information andperspectives on the functions of language in the class-room, and make those findings available to the pro-fessional educator. The meaning conveyed by languagecannot be divorced from the behavioral context inwhich it is used. The papers collected here explorethe relationship of the structure of language to thestructure of speaking and identify how this relation..ship is at the core of many problems in classrooms.Features of intonation, tone of voice, rhythm, styleand other modes of speech convey meaning of lan-guage. These modes of speech can convey respect ordisrespect, concern or indifference, intimacy or dis-tance, seriousness or play, etc. The appropriatenessof one or another mode of speech differs accordingto topic, person addressed, situation, community andculture. I.D.

Cazden, Courtney, ed.

Language in Early Childhood Education,Revised Edition (originally published in 1972).

National Association For The Education Of Young

Children, Washington D.C., 1981

This collection of studies offers parents and teachersa research based approach to helping children ac-quire language. Contributors discount myths and offerpractical suggestions on a variety of current issues inlanguage development and learning. Questions ad-dressed include: How does language at home differfrom that at school? What should be consideredwhen planning a total curriculum for young chil-dren? Which criteria can be used to evaluate com-mercial language programs? How can teachers workbast with children who speak a dialect or English asa Second Language? How are language and readingrelated? What kinds of language evaluations are mostsuitable for young children? LD, LEP, S/F.

Child Care Employee Project.

Who Cares? Child Care Teachers and

the Quality of Care in America,The National Child Care Staffing Study of

the Child Care Employee Project, Oakland, CA.

The National Child Care Staffing Study ( NCCSS)was designed to explore how child care teaching staffand their working conditions affect the caliber ofcenter-based child care available in the United Statestoday. The NCCSS addresses four major policy ques-tions; Who teaches in America's child care centers?What do they contribute to the quality of care pro-vided? Do centers meet or fail to meet nationallyestablished quality guidelines? How have center-basedchild care services changed from 1977 to 1988? Thestudy concludes that improving the quality of cen-ter-based child care reo;res addressing the stiffingcrisis. Without major increases in salaries, qualifiedteachers wil! continue to leave the child care field foriobs that offer a living wage. The recommendationsinclude increasing teacher salaries, expanding the pro-portion of teaching staff who have a formal educa-tion in early childhood, and adopting state and federalquality regulations. SD.


Clark, Leilani, Sheridan De Wolf, and Carl Clark.

"Teaching Teachers to Avoid HavingCulturally Assaultive Classrooms,"in Young Children, July 1992.

The authors are teacher training educators who foundthat they were unwittingly training students to em-phasize differences rather than to highlight diversityin their classrooms. The resulting classroom atmo-sphere, rather than supportive of diversity, was whatthe authors term "culturally assaultive." The articlediscusses the new methods the authors used to teachtheir student teachers about multicultural and anti-bias curricula. The key to a program in which youngchildren can learn to value diversity and treasurecultural differences is in the and-bias values held bythe teacher. AB, S.D.

Cohen, Abby and Carol Stevenson.

Caring for the Future: Meeting California'sChild Care Challenges.Child Care Law Center, San Francisco, CA, 1992.

This report is a comprehensive review of the childcare delivery system in California. It is organizedinto five broad topic areas: unmet needs; quality stan-dards; child care staffing; delivery system structure;and child care financing. For each area of study, thereport provides an exhaustive review of policy litera-ture, and policy recommendations. Cr.

Crawford, James.

Bilingual Education:

History, Politics, Theory and Practice.Crane Publishing Company,

Trenton, New Jersey, 1989.

James Crawford recounts the history of Federal poli-cies in America towards foreign languages from thecolonial period to the 1980s, Ile traces the evolutionof federal policy, social attitudes, linguistic and peda-gogical debate up to the present. Chapter 10 con-centrates on California's need to cope with thelinguistic diversity of its growing and changing popu-lation. LEP.

5'9

Cummins, Jim.

Empowering Minority Students.California Association for Bilingual Education,

Sacramento, CA, 1989.

This book reviews the literature about language pro-ficiency, language learning, bilingualism and academicdevelopment among minority students and relatesthese psychoeducational factors to the social and his-torical context in which schools operate. The authorbelieves it is critical to identify the causes of minoritystudents' academic difficulties and proposes a modelfor understanding why some groups of students fail.This "causal model" leads logically to a frameworkfor considering what types of interventions are re-quired to reverse the pattern of minority students'school failure. 1-1., also discusses the variety of spe-cific ways (i.e., programs or strategies) in which thetypes of interventions might be implemented. Spe-cific intervention strategies are likely to vary fromone location to another depending on local condi-tions. The aim of the book is to help professionaleducators and parents develop an understanding ofwhy some minority children experience difficulty inschool and also to suggest ways in which e.lucatorsand parents working collaboratively can help stu-dents overcome these difficulties. LD, LEP

Derman-Sparks, Louise and the ABC Task Force.

Antibias Curriculum Tools for

Empowering Young People.

National Association for the Education

of Young Children, Washington D.C., 1989.

A book of suggestions on helping staff and childrenrespect each other as individuals, confronting, tran-scending, and eliminating harriers based on race, sex,or ability. The book is based on the premise thatchildren are aware at a very young age that color,language, gender, and physical ability differences arcconnecied with privilege and power. They learn byobserving the differences and similarities among peopleand by absorbing the spoken and unspoken messagesabout those differed Ices. Ra:ism, sexism, and disabil-


iry have a profound influence on their developingsense of self and others. Through an awareness ofthis influence, and the use of techniques and strate-gies, teachers and parents can help young childrendevelop an anti-bias identity and attitude. AB.

Derman-Sparks, Maria Gutierrez and

Carol Brunson-Phillips.

"Teaching Young Children to Resist Bias:

What Parents Can Do."Brochure #565, National Association for

the Education of Young Children, Washington, D.C.

Tips for parents and teachers to help children appre-ciate diversity and deal with others' biases. AB.

Diaz Soto, Lourdes and Jocelynn L. Smrekar.

"The Politics of Early Bilingual Education,"Chapter 10 in Reconceptualizing the Early

Childhood Curriculum: Beginning the Dialogue, Kessler,

Shirley A. and Beth B'ue Swadener, eds.,

Early Childhood Education Series, 1992.

Current English - immersion practices are neither childcentered nor developmentally appropriate for younglearners. Enhancing and protecting young children'snative linguistic and native cultural attributes are thesalient features of the "best practice" for young bilin-gual learners. It is crucial that early childhood educa-tors, policy makers and parents gain knowledge aboutoptimal practices affecting young bilingual learners.This chapter provides this information as well as anexamination of the political issues affecting second-language learning. It makes a case against the prolif-eration of English-only immersion programs for youngnative speakers by examining existing empirical evi-dence, describing our nation's continued loss of lan-guages, and raising educational ethical concerns. LEP,

LD.

Diaz Soto, Lourdes.

"Native Language for School Success,"in Bilingual Research Journal, v.17,1993.

This paper provides insights regarding family provi-sions for home (native) language use as it relates tothe school's perception of young children's schoolachievement. Teachers of young mainland PuertoRican children nominated higher and lower achiev-ing learners in grades K-2. Standardized achieve-ment tests confirmed teacher nominations. Thirtyfamilies were interviewed at home where it was foundthat parents of higher achieving children prefer anative language environment to a greater extent thanfamilies of lower achieving children. These findingslend support for native language instruction ( at homeand at school) as an avenue for strengthening theacademic school achievement of young mainlandPuerto Rican children. A discussion of these find-ings is provided as are suggestions for future re-search. LD, LEP.

Diaz Soto, Lourdes.

"Understanding Bicultural/Bilingual YoungChildren,"in Young Children, January 1991.

Teachers currently working with young linguisticallyand culturally diverse children have asked questionssuch as "How can I best address the needs of speak-ers of other languages? Are there specific educa-tional strategies that I should incorporate to enhancesecond language learning? What practical applica-tions can I gain from the research evidence examin-ing second language learning and successfulinstructional approaches in bilingual early childhoodeducation?" This review attempts to answer thesequestions by examining demographic and educationaltrends pointing to the growing numbers of bilin-gual/bicultural young children in America today; mis-conceptions about young children learning a secondlanguage; successful educational approaches in earlychildhood bilingual education; practical applicationsof existing research which can be readily implementedby early childhood educators. LEE

.10


Garcia, Eugene E.

"Bilingualism in Early Childhood,"in Young Children, May 1980.

This article reviews research and applied informa-tion specific to bilingual development in young chil-dren. Subjects such as definitions, linguistic overlapor "interference," cognitive interaction, and theo-retical issues are addressed. It also looks at two formsof educational programs for linguistic minority chil-dren: immersion and non-immersion programs. Thearticle discusses some of the misconceptions surround-ing second language acquisition in early childhood.LD, LEP

Garcia, Eugene, Martha Baca and

Mary Guerra-Willekens.

"Parents in Bilingual Classrooms,"in National Association of Bilingual Educators Journal,

Vol. II, No. 1, Fall 1986.

Theoretical and applied information substantiate theneed for an early childhood education program di-rected at bilingual children, their parents and theirschools. The study focuses on language minority chil-dren utilizing an instructional program involving par-ents, grandparents and traditional education personnelwithin early schooling years. The active participationof parents/grandparents in such an effort was sys-tematically evaluated. Specifically, three kindergar-ten classes served as intervention sites and three servedas comparison sits. Parents of children in the inter-ventions classrooms were recruited and trained asinstructional aids. The progress of both interventionand comparison children in Spanish and English lan-guage and academic domains was extensively moni-tored during a two year period. Results indicate thatchildren participating in this intervention significantlyout-performed comparison group students. This wasthe case for academic and English language measuresof the study. LEP, S/F:

Gonzalez-Mena, Janet.

"Taking a Culturally Sensitive Approachin Infant-Toddler Programs,"

in Young Children, January 1992.

The purpose of this article is to help caregivers lookat ways to improve sensitivity to cultural and indi-vidual differences and increase communication acrosscultural barriers. The author discusses conflicts be-tween parents and caregivers, categorizes and dis-cusses possible outcomes. She adds tips to caregiversabout working in a culturally sensitive manner withparents. CCC.

Gonzalez-Mena, Janet.

Multicultural Issues in Child Care.

Mayfair Publishing Company, Mountain View, CA, 1993.

This book may be viewed as a companion to LouiseDerman-Sparks'Amibias Curriculum (see above). WhileDerman-Sparks focuses on preschool curriculum, thefocus here is on an antibias approach to cultural in-formation, adult relations, and conflicts in goals, val-ues, expectation, and child-rearing practices. Thisbook can be used by anyone involved in teacher trainingor early childhood education. The author concludesthat teaching antibias to infants has very little to dowith what the caregiver hangs on the wall, or theactivities planned. It has everything to do with theagreement made with each parent about the way t-take care of each babyfeed, diaper, hold, talk to,and interact with their babies. Antibias in infant andtoddler care is achieved when there is no conflictbetween the caregivers' understanding of appropri-ate, quality care, and the parents' understanding ofthe same. The book provides practical informationabout culturally specific child rearing practices, com-municating across cultures, parent-caregiver cotninu-nication and the socialization process. 413, CCC, SD,S/E

90 AFFIRMING CHILDREN' S ROOTS

Greenberg, Polly.

"Teaching About Native Americans or Teaching

About People, Including Native Americans?"in Young Children, September 1992.

It is very easy to inadvertently say or do inappropri-ate or hurtful things in the classroom with regard togroups other than one's own. For concerned caregivers,this article suggests ways to avoid common misrepre-sentation of ethnic groups. AB, SD.

Hale, Janice E.

Black Children: Their Roots,

Culture and Learning Styles.Revised Edition (originally published in 1982

by Bringham Young University Press). The Johns

Hopkins University Press, Baltimore MD, 1986.

Understanding the African-American child is depen-dent on a view of that child in the context withinwhich the child lives and moves. Dr. Hale shows thatthe African-American child exists in a culture madeup of African cultural aspects and the Black Ameri-can experience. She discusses the abundant data thatshow culture patterns influence the way informationis perceived, organized, processed and utilized. Thefindings of her research have implications for educa-tion, mental heath, family, community adjustment,and other areas. Her work provides a model for un-derstanding behavior that gives appropriate weightto cultures as the context for that behavior. A suc-cessful educational system recognizes the abilities andthe culture of the child and draws upon these strengthsand incorporates them into the teaching process. Thechapters review the African background of African-American culture, the way culture shapes cognition,culture and child rearing, play behavior and cogni-tive style, African-American arts as an expression ofthe Black experience, interviews with black and whitegrandmothers about child rearing in order to under-stand socialization in black families, a curriculum rel-evant to African-Americans, and implications for earlychildhood education. AB, /IE

Hale-Benson, Janice.

"Visions for Children: African-AmericanEarly Childhood Education Program,"in Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 5, 1990.

This is a report on the design of an early childhoodeducation demonstration program. The goal of theprogram is to facilitate the intellectual developmentand academic achievement and enhance the self-con-cepts of African-American preschool children. Thefeatures of the program are delineated. The researchquestions and the child development measures thatare being used for longitudinal evaluation of the pro-gram are listed and described. AR

Heath, Shirley Brice.

Ways With Words: Language, Life and Work

in Communities and Classrooms.

Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1983.

Ethnographic study of communication patterns in twosmall towns in the South from 1969 to 1978. Thestudy asks the question: What are the effects of pre-school and community environments on the learningof language structure and use which are needed inclassroom and job settings? This book argues that inthe two towns the different ways in which each coin-munity structured their families defined the roles thatcommunity members could assume and their con-cepts of childhood that guided child socialization. Inaddition, for each group, the place of religious activi-ties was inextricably linked to the valuation of lan-guage in determining an individual's access to goods,services, and estimations of position and power in thecommunity. The place of language in the cultural lifeof each social grup is interdependent with the habitsand values shared among members of that group.The narrative of the book tells the story of bow chil-dren of nvo culturally different communities came touse language, and how their teachers learned to un-derstand their ways and to bring these ways into theclassrooms. CCC, SIR


Jipson, Janice.

"Developmentally Appropriate Practice:Culture, Curriculum, Connections,"in Early Education and Development,

Vol. 2, No. 2, April 1991.

This study explores the implications of developmen-tally and culturally appropriate practice for early child-hood education. Selections from classroom journalsand personal narratives of 30 early childhood educa-tors are presented to provide the context for theexamination of the use of developmentally appropri-ate practice as a curricular base for early childhoodprograms. The capability of developmentally appro-priate practice to respond to cultural diversity is ana-lyzed and several questions are addressed: Whoseexperiences are represented by developmentally ap-propriate practice? Whose ways of knowing are vali-dated by developmentally appropriate practice?Teachers participating in this study noted that devel-opmentally appropriate practice often failed to ac-knowledge the roles of culture, care-taking,inter-connectedness, and multiple ways of knowingin the teaching-learning experiences of young chil-dren. Their voices acid the critical perspective of thepractitioner to the consideration of what constitutes"appropriate" early childhood curriculum. AB, SD.

Jones, Elizabeth and Louise Derman-Sparks.

"Meeting the Challenge of Diversity,"in Young Children, January 1992.

The accreditation process of early childlmiod pro-grams does not require an understanding and valu-ing of diversity. The lack of official attention to thisessential component of early childhood educationresults in inappropriate approaches to multiculturalcurricula and issues of diversity in early childhoodprograms. The authors give teachers tools for evalu-ating their own center's approach to diversity, andways they can make changes. All, SD.

93

Kagan, Sharon L.

"Early Care and Education:

Beyond the Schoolhouse Doors,"in Phi Delta Kappan, October 1989.

In order to reform and improve education signifi-candy, schools must reach beyond the schoolhousedoors to families, to communities, and to other socialinstitutions that serve children and their families. Theauthor suggests that early childhood education mayhave some lessons to share with those who are con-cerned about the general restructuring of our educa-tion system She outlines 10 "commandments" thatmay be useful in efforts to restructure general educa-tion practice and policy. S/E

Kagan, Sharon Lyn and Eugene E. Garcia.

"Educating Culturally and Linguistically Diverse

Preschoolers: Moving the Agenda,"in Early Childhood Research Quarterly6, 1991.

Despite growing interest in children's policy and inresearch regarding childhood bilingualism and lan-guage acquisition, much concern exists regarding theearly care and education of linguistically and cultur-ally diverse preschoolers. This article attributes com-parative policy inattention to linguistically and culturallydiverse preschoolers to several causes including widelyand tenaciously held personal beliefs, political ide-ologies, misperceptions regarding the lack of a de-mographic imperative, and nadetnic disciplinaryfragmentation. After questioning these causes, theauthors explore the current state of today's practice,suggesting that four fundamental issues must be ad-dressed if policy and practice in this domain are toimprove: (1) socialization, resocialization and the family/child relationship; (2) modalities of instruction; (3)contextually discontinuous strategies; and (4) sub-system creation versus system reform. Each issue isdiscussed, and action principles and leadership strat-egies are presented in hopes of moving an actionagenda to assure linguistically and culturally diversepreschoolers access to high quality and developmen-tally appropriate preschool experiences. 1,D, LEP.


Kagan, Sharon Lyn, ed.

The Care and Education of America's Young

Children: Obstacles and Opportunities.Nineteenth Yearbook of the National Society

for the Study of Education, Part I.

University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1990.

Of particular interest is "Language and Cultural Is-sues in the Early Education of Language MinorityChildren," by Lily Wong Fillmore, which discussesvery young language minority children and the po-tential loss of their native language as a consequenceof early emphasis on English. The author asks whatarc the mechanisms and consequences of this kind ofloss, and what relevance does this problem have inthe discussion of early education for language minor-ity children in the United States? What policy orpedagogical issues should the potential loss of lan-guage raise for us? Barbara Bowman's piece, "Edu-cating Language Minority children: Challenges andOpportunites," described above, is also included inthis volume. LD, LEP.

Laosa, Luis M.

"Socialization, Education, and Continuity:The Importance of the Sociocultural Context,"in Young Children, July 1977.

What are some of the factors that affect the transi-tion children must make between the family's socio-cultural context and the often quite differentsociocultural context of the school? This article dis-cusses the research and issues surrounding the keyfactors of maternal teaching strategies and languagepatterns in home and school. The author stresses theimportance of the sociocultural contexts which rep-resent the total environment in which each child'sdevelopment takes place. Ills findings raise seriousquesnc is concerning whether environments imposedon children are designed to provide sufficient conti-nuity with the early sociocultural environment of thehome. 5/E

Laosa, Luis.

"The Cultural Context of Construct Validity

and the Ethics of Generalizability,"in Early Childhood Research Quarterly 6,1991.

This article considers the mutual relevance of fourthemes: cultural diversity, construct validity, popula-tion generalizability and professional ethics. Ques-tions regarding construct validity are considered inthe context of both measurement and intervention.The implications of the existence and the absence ofempirical evidence on which to base validity generalizations are considered in reference to decision malting

in the provision of services. Ethical dilemmas thatarise from these considerations are discussed alongwith an emerging framework for resolving them. Pre-vious research is reviewed to illustrate validity gener-alization limits. Also included are an assessment ofresearch needs and a discussion of future directionsfor research and evaluation. AB.

Little Soldier, Lee.

"Working With Native American Children,"in Young Children, September 1992.

This article discusses the differences between schoollife and home life of Native American Children. Whenthese differences are not recognized and addressed,many Native American children eventually drop outof school. The different values, learning styles, andattitudes toward the dominant culture are outlinedand discussed. NA, S/F.

McLaughlin, Barry.

Second-Language Acquisition in Childhood:

Volume 1. Preschool Children,

Second Edition. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,

Hillsdale, NJ, 1984.

This book is a comprehensive treatment of the lit-erature on second language acquisition in childhood.The discussion is restricted to the preschool period,and untutored, naturalistic learning of oral skills in a


second language. There is a second volume that dealswith second language acquisition in the classroom.The author views language acquisition through pro-cess models of language, and he discusses these mod-

els. Later chapters compare language acquisition inchildren and adults; summarize what is known aboutthe developmental processes involved in simultaneousand successive second language acquisition; the ef-fect of interference between languages, and code switch-ing; explore the effects of early bilingualism on cognitive

functioning; and make suggestions for future research.LD.

Moreno, Robert P.

"Maternal Teaching of Preschool Childrenin Minority and Low-Status Families:A Critical Review,"in Early Childhood Research Quarterly6, 1991.

This article critically examines the comparative re-search on maternal teaching behaviors of minorityand low-status families. The conceptual and meth-odological foundations of the research arc examined,focusing on some conflicting aspects of the area. Thearticle offers an alternative perspective for the studyof maternal instruction that may be particularly use-ful in making cross-cultural and socioeconomic com-parisons. Additionally, the article offers someexploratory data that reexamines the verbal teachingbehavior of Chicana- and Anglo-American motherswhile instructing their preschool-aged children to tictheir shoelaces. Contrary to earlier studies, the find-ings suggest that ethnic differences in instruction maypersist despite the level of schooling achieved by themother. Specifically, Anglo mothers utilize signifi-cantly more perceptual questions in their instruction.Perceptual questions have been associated elsewherewith more controlling teaching strategies. Althoughit has been argued elsewhere that Chicana mothersare more controlling when compared to Anglo mothers,

it appears that these groups may differ only in themode by which they control their children. CCC.

95

Morrow, Robert

"What's in a Name? In Particular, a Southeast

Asian Name?,"in Young Children, September 1989.

Research suggest that our names have a strong influ-ence on our self image, which in turn affects how wefunction in life. Therefore it is important to respectand use correctly the names of people of other na-tionalities. The article describes the structure anduse of names among four Southeast Asian subgroups:Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian and Hmong. AS,SD.

Neugebauer, Bonnie, ed.

Alike and Different: Exploring Our HumanityWith Young Children,

Revised Edition (originally published by Exchange

Press, Inc., Redmond, Washington).

National Association for the Education of Young

Children, Washington, D.C., 1992.

This is a collection of practical essays to help teach-ers integrate children with special needs and childrenof all sorts of backgrounds into the curriculum. Theessays cover specific topics, including: antibias cur-riculum for young children, talking about differences,bringing the world into the classroom, nonsexistchildrearing, foreign children in child care, helpingnon-English speaking children adjust, giftedness inearly childhood, exploring diversity through the arts,staffing with diversity, learning from parents, earlychildhood education and the changing world, resources

for use in an anti-biased classroom. 413, DA, SD.


Nissani, Helen.

Early Childhood Programs for

Language Minority Children.National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education,

Occasional Papers in Bilingual Education,

No. 2, Summer 1990.

Early Childhood programs should take into consid-eration the cultural and linguistic characteristics ofall children if these programs are to provide for ap-propriate development. This paper is an overview ofgeneral issues in the development of programs forlanguage minority children at the preschool level.Issues discussed are parent involvement, staff train-ing, consistent funding, public schools and appropri-ate programs. LEP, SD, S /F.

Oakland Unified School District.

Native American Parent PreschoolCurriculum Guide.Division of Educational Development and Services,

Office of Native American Programs. Oakland, CA, 1986.

The Native American Parent Preschool Program is aNative American preschool funded by the CaliforniaDepartment of Education and operated through theOakland Unified School District, Oakland, CA. Thepreschool grew out of a group of Native Americanparents and grandparents who were concerned abouttheir children's futures in the Oakland Unified SchoolDistrict. The curriculum guide covers goals for stu-dents, general and cultural curriculum, activities, parentparticipation, staff selection, and cultural resourcesfor the preschool. AB, NA, S/F.

Pease-Alvarez, Lucinda, Eugene E. Garcia

and Pola Espinosa.

"Effective Instruction for Language-MinorityStudents: An Early Childhood Case Study,'in Early Childhood Research Quarterly 6,1991,

The study describes the attributes of effective pro-grams and teachers serving language-minority stu-dents. Along with a brief summary of findings from

large-scale studies, this article provides an in-depthaccount of two bilins-ual early childhood teacherswho work with language-minority children. The de-scription of these two teachers, their school, andcommunities draws upon a variety of data sources totell an informed story of their instructional perspec-tives and practices. The discussion is organized aroundthe following themes: the role of language and cul-ture in the teachers' classrooms, their pedagogicalphilosophies and instructional practices, and factorsthat have led to instructional innovations. LEP, SD.

Philips, Susan Urmston.

The Invisible Culture: Communication in

Classroom and Community on the WarmSprings Indian Reservation.

Longman, New York, 1983.

The concept of communicative competence providesa model of socialization that has relevance for allchildren, and one that can offer a means towardincreasing ethnic minority children's access to theknowledge schools offer. Communicative competencerefers to the ability of a member of a given culture touse language in a socially appropriate manner. Themodel is based on the premise that intuitions aboutgrammatical acceptability cannot be separated fromsociocultural knowledge about the appropriatenessof an utterance. There is a developmental sequencein the acquisition of communicative competence, justas in the acquisition of linguistic competence, thatmay be culturally diverse in ways unacknowledgedby curriculum developers. Susan Philips argues thatthe children of the Warm Springs Indian Reserva-tion are enculturated in their preschool years intomodes of organizing the transmission of verbal mes-sages that are culturally different from those of Anglomiddle -class children. This difference makes it moredifficult for the Native American children to com-prehend verbal messages conveyed through Anglomiddle class modes of classroom interaction. Thebook focuses on cultural variation in the integrationof information and in the structuring of attentionand the regulation of turns at talk. LD, NA, S/17,


Phillips, Carol Brunsor.

"Nurturing Diversity for Today's Childrenand Tomorrow's Leaders,"

in Young Children, Janut:ry 1988.

Carol Brunson Phillips urges all human services pro-fessionals who are working to improve the lives ofchildren and families to periodically stop and reas-sess what they are trying to achieve with efforts ad-dressing diversity. She recounts the history of themulticultural movement in education, and clarifieskey issues. The article suggests strategies for ap-proaching the content of multicultural education.AD, SD.

Program for Infant and Toddler Caregivers.

Infant/Toddler Caregiving:A Guide to Culturally Sensitive Care.California State Department of Education Child

Development Division and Far West Laboratory for

Educational Research and Development, December 1990.

Written by six noted experts in the field of cultureand early childhood education, this guide is designedto help caregivers in child care centers and familyday care homes become culturally sensitive to thevital role of the home language and culture of chil-dren in their early development and care. Exercisesusing case scenarios help caregivers to: 1) better un-derstand themselves and how they are influenced bytheir own beliefs; 2) better understand the childrenand families they serve; and 3) learn a process ofrelating to cultural issues that will help them de-velop culturally responsive caregiving practices. Theguide stresses the importance of ongoing and opencommunication between parents and child care pro-viders, discusses how culture influences learning ex-periences, presents guidelines for dealing with recentlyarrived immigrant families and care of their chil-dren, and suggests ways to create an inclusive,nonstereotypical material environment for infants andtoddlers. AB, CC, CCC, la; S/F, SD

Program for Infant and Toddler Caregivers.

Video: Ten Keys to Culturally Sensitive Child Care.

Far West Laboratory, San Francisco, CA.

The video makes ten recommendations of ways tostructure and run child care programs to strengthenchildren's connections with their families and theirhome cultures. The focus is on the care of infantsand toddlers. To strengthen the emerging sense ofself and connection with their families, infants andtoddlers from non-dominant groups need plenty ofopportunities for positive interactions with membersof their culture. Thus the video emphasizes the im-portance of connecting with each family that is servedby a child care program. The ten keys are: providecultural consistency; work toward representative staff-ing; create small groups; use the home language; makeenvironments relevant; uncover your cultural beliefs:be open to the perspectives of others; seek out cul-tural and family information; clarify values; negotiatecultural conflicts. AB, 111, SD.

Ramsey, Patricia G. and Louise Derman-Sparks.

"Multicultural Education Reaffirmed,"in Young Children, January 1992.

Early childhood education has had a long-term com-mitment to fostering respect for diversity and to pro-viding equal educational opportunities to all children.With the changing demographics of the United States,supporters and detractors of multicultural educationare debating its merits. The Anti-Bias/MulticulturalLeadership Project was created to provide a forumand network for all people involved in multiculturaleducation. Write to the Anti-Bias/Multicultural Lead-ership Project, Research Center, Pacific Oaks Col-lege, Pasadena, CA 91103, for more information.AB.


Ramsey, Patricia G.

Teaching and Learning in a Diverse World:

Multicultural Education for Young Children.Teachers College Press, New York, 1987.

The focus and style of this book reflects the beliefthat teachers are, above all, active learners and cre-ative problem solvers. Few of the available texts onlesson planning and curriculum development encourageteachers to integrate their knowledge of child devel-opment, curriculum design, and the needs of theirspecific children to develop their own creative appli-cations. To offer such a synthesis, this book includesseveral sections on child development theory and re-search and examples of how teachers might applythis information in their classrooms. It provides gen-eral goals and a model for incorporating a multiculturalperspective in all phases and areas of teaching. Thebook includes questions that encourage readers toreflect on their own experiences, the specific socialcontexts of teaching; and their current practices. Thegoals of a multicultural perspective in education aredescribed: to help children develop positive gender,racial, cultural, class, and individual identities; to en-able children to identify, empathize, and relate withindividuals from other groups; to foster respect andappreciation of the diverse ways in which other peoplelive; to encourage an openness and interest in othersand a willingness to cooperate; to promote the devel-opment of a realistic awareness of contemporary so-ciety and a sense of social responsibility; and to empowerchildren to become autonomous and critical analystsand activists in their social environment. AB, SD.

Sandoval-Martinez, Steven.

"Findings From the Head Start BilingualCurriculum Development and Evaluation Effort,"in National Association of Bilingual Educators Journal,

Vol. VII, No. 1, Fall 1982.

Overall findings are presented for the national evalu-ation of the Head Start bilingual curriculum devel-opment project. The results of this evaluation werethat bilingual children who received bilingual pre-school services made greater preschool gains thancomparison group children who received regular En-glish-language preschool services. In addition, En-

glish-preferring children who were placed in bilin-gual classrooms achieved the same developmental gainsover the preschool year as those who were placed inregular English-language preschool classrooms. Thefindings are discussed within the context of currentpolicy debates about bilingual education. LEP.

Santos de Barona, ,41aryann and Andres Barone.

"The Assessment of Culturally and LinguisticallyDifferent Preschoolers,"in Early Childhood Research Quarterly 6,1991.

A rapid rise in the linguistically and culturally diversepopulation of the United States coupled with recentfederal legislation is likely to result in increased edu-cational opportunities for the culturally and linguis-tically different preschool child. As the opportunitiesfor special services increase, there is a growing needto ensure accurate identification of minority-languagepreschoolers with special needs. This task is a diffi-cult one because of the interaction of developmental,cultural, and linguistic variables. This article sug-gests strategies to improve the value of diagnosticinformation and present issues to be considered ateach stage of the process. Additionally, the valuablecontributions that primary caregivers can make dur-ing assessment, the decision-making process, and in-terventions are discussed. LEP, SD.

Saracho, Olivia and Bernard Spodek, eds.

Understanding the Multicultural Experiencein Early Childhood Education.National Association For The Education Of Young

Children, Washington, D.C., 1983.

In this volume, many early childhood educators cometogether from varied backgrounds with numerousconcerns to share their understanding of educationand cultural diversity. This book incorporates thecontributions of professionals concerned with the edu-cation of children form various cultural and ethnicgroups. It represents different and sometimesuncomplementary interpretations of the functions andconsequences of early childhood education and itsimpact upon people of different cultural groups. Therole of the school should be to enhance the cultural


background of children, teaching them the new asnecessarily without forcing the repression of the oldand the familiar. The school can provide the basis inthe early years for supporting cultural and linguisticflexibility in children. AB, AF, AS, CCC, LA, NA, SD.

Siren, Ulla.

Minority Language Transmission in Early

Childhood: Parent Intention and Language Use.Institute of International Education,

Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden, 1991.

One of the aims of immigrant policy in Sweden isfreedom of choice, letting immigrants choose to whatextent they wish to maintain their languages and trans-mit them to their children. Parental intentions dur-ing pregnancy are compared to language use with thechildren, when they are two and a half and four yearsold, respectively. Intentions and efforts to transmitminority languages to the children are analyzed withreference to background facts and the linguistic situ-ation in child day care. Parental intentions were afairly good predictor of later language use in similargroups. Minority language transmission proved to bestrongest in groups that maintained the greatest so-cial distance form Swedish society. LD.

Smitherman, Geneva.

Talking and Testifying:The Language of Black America.

Wayne State University Press, Detroit, MI, 1986.

Smitherman contributes to an understanding of BlackEnglish by setting it in the larger context of Blackculture and lifestyle. In addition to defining BlackEnglish by its distinctive structure and special lexi-con, Smithennan argues that the black dialect is setapart from traditional English by a rhetorical stylewhich reflects its African origins. Smitherman alsotackles the issue of attitudes toward Black English,particularly as they affect educational policy. Docu-menting her insights with quotes from notable Blackhistorical, literary and popular figures, Smithennanmakes clear that Black English is as legitimate a formof speech as British, American or Australian English.AE

99

Snow, Catherine and Hoefnagle-Hohle.

"Age Differences in Second Language

Acquisition,"

in Second Language Acquisition: A Book of Readings,

E. Hatch, ed. Rowely, MA: Newbury House, 1978.

Snow's approach to age difference in second lan-guage acquisition is to first dispel the notion of lan-guage as a monolithic process. Different studentswill excel in the acquisition of various aspects of thelanguage system. Some seem to develop amazing vo-cabularies; others perfect pronunciation but suffer invocabulary development. Snow's question is whetheror not these skills are differently acquired over anage range. If so, this should be taken into account inplanning second language education programs. Thisreport presents interesting first findings in this areaof study.

Swadener, Elizabeth B.

"Implementation of Education that is Multiculturalin Early Childhood Settings: A Case Study of Two

Daycare Programs,"

in The Urban Review, Vol. 20, 1988.

An ethnographic case study of two mainstreamed,multicultural day-care centers was conducted over aschool year. Children's responses to formal and in-formal curricula dealing with aspects of human di-versity (e.g. race, ethnicity, gender and exceptionality)were analyzed, as were the children's interaction pat-terns. Although both programs emphasized accep-tance of individual differences, few planned activitiesdealt with race or cultural diversity. Programs wereseen as more consistent with a human relations ap-proach and not fully implementing education that ismulticultural. The use of nonsexist language and non-biased material and teachers' attempt to prevent gen-der stereotyping were found to have positive, thoughlimited, effects. Children at both centers appearedstoaccept their mainstreamed peers, with cross-abilityinteractions improving over the year. Early child-hood applications of multicultural education are dis-cussed. AB.


Tharp, Roland G. and Ronald Gallimore.

Rousing Minds to Life: Teaching Learning

and Schooling in Social Context.Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1988.

This book asserts that "teaching will not be reformeduntil schools are reformed. Schools will not be re-formed until it is understood that schools must be acontext for teaching and that context itself must be ateaching context. To demand that teachers truly teachin existing schools is like demanding that a surgeonachieve asepsis under water in a stagnant pond." VVhatis needed, the authors continue, is a new theory ofschooling that will guide organizational and opera-tional decisions toward the correct priorities, i.e., toteach children. They argue for the establishment ofsuch a theory and offer the background for a scienceand discipline that "unifies our understanding of teach-ing and schooling in terms of both theory and prac-tice." Part I of the book introduces the theoreticalstructure of the proposed discipline. In Part II, theidea of the school as an institution for assessing per-formance is represented in practical terms using theexample of the demonstration project KEEP. S/F:

Williams, Leslie R.

"Curriculum Making in Two Voices: Dilemmasof Inclusion in Early Childhood Education,"in Early Childhood Research Quarterly 6, 1991.

This article explores the concept of inclusion as agoal of multicultural education. Originally defined asrepresentation of various dimensions of diversity inchildren's educational experience, the concept of in-clusion is broadened to encompass a dialogue be-tween self and other. Recognition of the teacher's

role as mediator among children's knowledge, atti-tudes, and behavior in fostering inclusionary practiceis essential to the promotion of such a dialogue. Worktoward this end must begin with adults in the earlychildhood program before it can be done effectivelywith children. Adults need to understand more aboutthe inner structures of their own cultures before theycan be expected to recognize those structures in thechildren they teach. Likewise, adults need to exain-ine possible discontinuities among their own atti-tudes, behaviors, and current knowledge as sourcesof negative or mixed messages to children as theystrive to implement inclusionary practices in theirclassrooms. AB, SD.

Wong Fillmore, Lily And Susan Britsch.

Early; Education for Children for Linguistic

and Cultural Minority Families.Paper commissioned by the Early Education Task Force

of the National Association of State Boards of Educa-

tion, Washington, D.C., 1988.

This paper introduces issues related to the educa-tional situation of children from bilingual familiesand children from different cultural, ethnic, and lin-guistic backgrounds. In families in which Englishrepresents an emerging presence, societal and lin-guistic pressures may in fact alienate children fromtheir first language and culture. The authors describethe variety of children who comprise the group un-der consideration, their educational experiences, andthe common beliefs and practices of many educatorswho work with minority group children. Issues thateducators and policy makers should consider are dis-cussed, and recommendations are made to improvethe educational experience of language minority chil-dren. LD, LER

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APPENnIX C: SELECTED RESOURCE MATERIALS 99

Wong Fillmore, Lily.

"Learning a Language from Learners,"

Chapter Three in Text and Context Cross-Oisciplinary

Perspectives on Language Study, Kramsch, et al, eds.

D.C. Heath & Co., Lexington, MA, 192.

Immigrant children learning English do so under anumber of difficult and problematic conditions thateducators must take into consideration. This articlelooks at the situation of the many students attempt-ing to learn English while having very limited accessto native speakers of English. In any American citywith a sizable immigrant population, the teacher maybe the only native speaker with which students haveany interaction. Students otherwise are surroundedby speakers of imperfect Englishtheir classmates,who play a major role in their language learningefforts. It is up to teachers to provide access to thelanguage and support for learning it to all students ina classroom. LEP


Now or Later?: Issues Related to the EarlyEducation of Minority Group Children,"in Children at Risk, C. Harris, ed. Harcourt, Brace

and Jovanovich, New York, 1990.

The beliefs and practices that guide the socializationof cultural and linguistic minority children may bequite different from those followed in mainstreamAmerican homes, since their families come from manydifferent cultures. This paper discusses the adjust-ments society expects the children of these familiesto make in order to gain an education and to taketheir places in the society at large eventually. Specifi-cally, the paper addresses the following issues: (I)how the difference between the ways in which par-

cots prepare their children and the preparation ex-pected by the school affects the child's early educa-tion experiences; (2) appropriateness of compensatoryprograms for non-mainstream children; and (3) howthe exclusive use of English in school affects thecommunication between children and parents in bi-ling-ua or limited English proficient families. LEP,S/F.


"When Learning a Second Language

Means Losing The Rrst,"in Early Childhood Research Quarterly 8, 1991.

In societies like the United States with diverse popu-lations, children from linguistic minority families mustlearn the language of the society in order to take fulladvantage of the educational opportunities offered.The timing and the conditions under which theycome into contact with English, however, can pro-foundly affect the retention and continued use oftheir primary languages as well as the developmentof their second language. This article discusses evi-dence and findings from a nationwide study of lan-guage shift among language minority children in theUS. The findings suggest that the loss of a primarylanguage, particularly when it is the only languagespoken by parents, can be very costly to the children,their families, and to society as a whole. Immigrantand American Indian families were surveyed to de-termine the extent to which family language patternswere affected by their children's early learning ofEnglish. Preschool programs conducted exclusivelyin Spanish served as a base of comparison for thefamilies whose children attended English-only or bi-lingual preschools. LD, LEP, SIP.


California Tomorrow Publications

Affirming Children's Roots:

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Crossing the Schoolhouse Border,

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Budget-strapped counties are moving tobuild new forms of collaboration amongagencies that serve children and familieswith complex needs. This report docu-ments 31 such efforts among schools,health providers, businesses, police, courts,social services, parents and others. Basedon the premise that fragmentation of ser-vices hurts children, Fighting Fragmen-tation includes an analysis of the recentrealignment of fiscal responsibility fromthe state to the county level, a checklistfor successful collaboratives, a bibliogra-phy and county by county descriptions.

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1f13

AFFIRMING CHILDREN'S ROOTS:Cultural and Linguistic Diversity in Early Care and Education

A California Tomorrow PublicationFall 1993

Executive Summary

A,ffirming Children's Roots, Cultural and Linguistic.Diversity in Early Care andEducation documents for the first time, the growing ethnic mix of center based care inCalifornia. Information for this report is based on a survey which California Tomorrow hiredField Research Corporation to conduct of 434 centers in San Francisco, Alameda, Merced,Los Angeles and San Diego counties. These.counties were selected for their ethnic andgeographic diversity and large child populations. Prior to this project, information about thedemographics of early child care and education did not exist with the exception of a fewstatistics kept by state and federal agencies on a limited number of subsidized programs.Along with the survey findings, the publication refers to relevant research, literature andexamples to provide a deeper understanding of the crucial importance of culturally andlinguistically appropriate early care and education.

Child care centers are profoundly affected by the demographic changes occurringthroughout the state. California Tomorrow's survey found that 96 percent of child carecenters serve children from two or more racial groups and 81 percent serve children fromtwo or more language groups. Seventy-seven percent of centers reported that at least some ofthe children in their care speak a language other than English and are not as proficient inEnglish as children of the same age.

This diversity is both a tremendous asset and enormous challenge. Diverse settingsoffer children, parents, and caregivers and invaluable chance to learn about and benefit fromthe strengths of each other's cultures and languages. The racial diversity of children andstaff in centers offers a unique opportunity for adults to foster the ability of young children todevelop positive self-images, appreciate diversity, and resist stereotyping at the stage ofdevelopment when children are just beginning to notice racial differences.

On the other hand, child care providers and centers are currently ill-prepared to takeadvantage of these opportunities. Some information and training about strategies forproviding appropriate early care and education to culturally, linguistically diverse populationsexists, but it is limited and not easily accessible to child care workers. Virtually no materialsdiscuss the implications of diversity for program design and child care policy. The absenceof a centralized clearinghouse makes it extremely difficult for even the most motivated childcare provider to find relevant books and articles. Furthermore, because the currentfragmented system lacks cohesive pre-service and in-service staff development, there is nomechanism for ensuring that all child care workers receive at least some education andtraining about how to respond to our growing cultural and linguistic diversity.

At the same time, the field as a whole suffers from a shortage of language andcultural minority staff persons who could help to increase the awareness and responsivenessof a center to families from minority communities. In order to gain a better understanding ofthe potential impact of this shortage on the quality of care, California Tomorrow used itssurvey to explore how many centers with a child from a particular group also had at leastone staff person from the same background. Our results revealed that children of color wereless likely to be cared for by teachers of their same racial background than white children.

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Similarly, while nearly all of the centers in the California Tomorrow survey could providehome language support to their English speaking children, only 55 percent had any staffperson who could communicate with their Spanish speaking children. Less than one-third hadstaff who could speak the home language of their Tagalog, Chinese, Vietnamese or Koreanspeaking children.

Combining these survey findings with research describing the importance of culturallyand linguistically appropriate care, Affirming Children's Roots reveals that today's familiesrequire the development of and support for new approaches to early care and education.What constitutes appropriate child rearing practice is a reflection of the values and beliefs offamilies and the culture of their community. How even the most basic acts of care --feeding, toilet training, comforting, playing -- are carried out reflect the cultural values ofthe caregiver. Like many other institutions in our society, child care policy and standardshave been heavily influenced by the values of the dominant culture. Consequently, policiesand practices must be re-examined and reshaped in order to ensure they are appropriate tofamilies whose lives have been shaped by a different set of cultural beliefs. CaliforniaTomorrow co-director Hedy Nai-Lin Chang, principle author of the report, writes: "Locatedat the very nexus between home and school, early childhood programs play a critical role inthe learning and socialization process. Programs which understand, acknowledge and buildupon the socialization that a child has received from family and community have been muchmore successful at improving intellectual, cogni'ive and social outcomes for minoritychildren."

Affirming Children's Roots stresses the crucial need to provide care to children intheir primary languages because a growing body of research in the United States and Europesuggests that child care programs which do not use home language contribute to the demiseof a young child's ability to speak the language of his or her family. Unable to talk to theirchildren, parents lose their ability to provide verbal comfort and support, offer guidance ortransmit family values, hopes and traditions. This loss can tragically occur even when parentsoriginally intended for the child to continue speaking the primary home language. Part ofthe reason this loss occurs is that when the home language is not used, children perceive thatthe language of the home is not valued. The problem becomes even more serious if childrenor their parents are not treated with respect because they do not speak English fluently orspeak with a strong accent. The report further explains that providing support in a child'shome language should not be viewed as a trade-off between family functioning and academicsuccess. Rather a growing body of research demonstrates that the development of a child'sprimary language skills is integral to helping a child gain skills in English and succeedacademically. Children who have developed basic skills in their primary langauge, such asidentifying colors or learning to count, are easily able to transfer these skills to anotherlanguage. Development of the skills in the primary language offers children the advantage ofhearing about the concepts in the language they knows best and also makes it possible forparents who do not speak English to promote concept development while the child is athome.

Affirming Children's Roots finds a parallel between the experiences of languageminority children in care and African. American children, 80 to 90 percent of whose familiesuse Black Vernacular English at least some of the time. Black Vernacular English hasbecome increasingly recognized by linguists and scholars as a legitimate form of English witha standard set of rules. But, children who use Black Vernacular English are often insituations where they are made to feel ashamed of their home language because they or their

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parents are not treated with respect. Or perhaps even worse, children who use BlackVernacular are perceived by teachers as being less intelligent or capable. Maria Casey of theUrban Strategies Council in Oakland explains, "The bottom line is providers mustunderstand what Black children are saying, appreciate that Black English is the combinedresult of African American cultural heritage and experience in the United States, and notmake the mistake of assuming that difference means less than."

The report also explores the role programs may be playing in promoting or inhibitingthe on-going participation of parents in their children's development and education. Parentinvolvement, particularly among language and cultural minorities, has long been a toppriority of educators at all levels from early childhood to secondary schools. Earlychildhood programs are in a unique position to foster strong partnerships with parents byvirtue of their everyday contact with them. Most of the surveyed centers engaged in sometype of activity to involve parents. Most common are special activities such as hostingparties or driving for field trips. Over half involved at least some parents in policydecisions.

Our findings suggest, however, that certain parents, specifically those who arelinguistic and cultural minorities, are being left out of parent involvement activities. Fortypercent of the centers felt that they were having difficulty communicating with parentsbecause they do not share a common language. This finding combined with data on theshortage of minority staff who can facilitate communication between cultural and linguisticgroups suggests that center are hard pressed to form relationships with parents of all thechildren in their care. Yet, communication is critical for parents who ma find that centersare socializing their children to a language and culture quite different from their own. Thechild's well-being depends upon the ability of parents and providers to discuss their jointresponsibilities for fostering children's development and develop strategies for bridging anydifferences in child-rearing approaches. The danger in the current situation is that it willlessen the likelihood that linguistic and cultural minority parents are able to participate intheir child's education because they discover early m that they have lost control over theirchildren's socialization process and that their voices are not valued.

Examples of Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate CareAffirming Children's Roots also describes the everyday activities of several innovative

centers in California, offering a glimpse of what culturally and linguistically appropriate carecan be.

The Hintil Kuu Ca child development center in Oakland, for example, was foundedby Native American Indian parents 17 years ago seeking to reverse the high dropout rates ofNative American Youth. With a focus on Native American values such as communityprojects, respect for elders and the importance of Indian crafts, the center can now point tocollege students who began their schooling at Hintil Kuu Ca. Central to the Hintil programhas been rebuilding the trust of Indian parents who were alienated from education by theirown boarding school experience which had sought to strip them of their Indian identity.

Affirming Children's Roots also travels to California's Central Valley where theWinters Child Development Center provides high quality care to two-to five year oldchildren of seasonal and migrant farm workers. This innovative program stressesdevelopment in the children's home language, oral and written, with all activities carried outin Spanish. Children are found carrying out complex developmental tasks and enjoying avariety of children's books in Spanish, many created by the teachers themselves. According

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to Foundation Center co-director Antonia Lopez, the local school district initially protestedthe home-language use approach because they wanted the children entering their schoolsspeaking English. Now, however, on seeing the developmental and concept readiness of theformer Winters children in their kindergartens, the district is now working with theFoundation Center to see how they may incorporate aspects of the approach into their ownprograms. One of twenty-three centers run throughout the state by the Foundation Center,Winters and its sister programs are supported by an innovative Montessori training programdesigned to foster the recruitment and development of teachers from the communities servedby the centers. The Winter's Child Development Center is entirely staffed and directed byteachers who were former migrant farm workers.

The Cabrillo College Child Development Center works to counter stereotyping andthe development of biased attitudes by using an anti-bias curriculum approach to promote astrong sense of pride in self and family and to support the natural interest of young childrenin understanding difference. Located in the Santa Cruz hills, the center's goal is to serve thebroadly diverse group of children and families who participate in their programs and thestudent teachers who receive training by working at the center. The program seeks to notonly acknowledge and respect differences in others, but to embed the child/family cultureinto the day-to-day life of the center. One of the teachers uses puppets and flannel boardcharacters to discuss issues of diversity and stereotypes with the children. Recognizing thatparents are the children's first, best and lifetime teachers, the center places a heavy emphasison parent participation and making available materials for parents to use in the home topromote the concepts taught at the center.

Primarily serving ethnic Chinese from Hong Kong, Vietnam or mainland China, theKai Ming Head Start program in San Francisco is founded on the notion that the key tostrong early childhood education is respecting the position of the parent in a child's life. AtKai Ming, this often means helping parents realize that they have a right to be involved intheir children's education and to be their child's primary advocate. Kai Ming parentsparticipate in a number of center activities ranging from volunteering in the classroom so thatthey can gain a deeper understanding of center teaching techniques to designing educationalprograms for adults and children or serving on the Parent Policy Committee. In order tofoster the development of children within the context of their entire family, Kai Ming alsotakes an active role in ensuring families obtain the needed social and medical services theyneed to eventually obtain a higher level of self-sufficiency.

RecommendationsBased on the results of the Field survey, literature review and site visits to innovative

programs, Affirming Children's Roots offers a number of recommendations. Theserecommendations include areas requiring further research as well as recommendations forimmediate action.

Areas Requiring Further Research

Our findings point to the need for further investigation and analysis of several specificresearch and policy issues:

Given the challenges of simultaneously working with multiple racial or linguisticgroups and the scarcity of existing bilingual/ bicultural staff, is it appropriate for

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some early care and education programs to concentrate on meeting the needs of aparticular ethnic or linguistic group with the understanding that children willeventually be placed in ethnically diverse settings? Under what situations would such"concentrated" programs be considered inappropriate because it would be preferablefor children to be placed in a diverse setting? Is a concentrated type of program moreappropriate or necessary for certain types of groups? What are the implications ofsuch a strategy? For program eligibility regulations? For Civil Rights Law?

Given that nearly all providers spend some time with a child who is ethnicallydifferent from themselves, what set of core principles and practices should be adoptedby all child care workers? How can such a set of core principles be disseminated tothe entire field?

What specific policy and program guidelines should exist with regard to primarylanguage development among linguistic minority children? Given that many childrenare currently in centers where they do not have access to home language support,what strategies should be used by child care providers who do not share a commonlanguage with a child? What specific strategies ca..n be used to assure that thedevelopment of a second language is additive versus subtractive in nature? Is it moreappropriate for some children (e.g. infants and toddlers) to be cared for exclusively inthe home language? When and how can English be safely introduced? Should centersconsider grouping children based on language needs?

How does the need for culturally and linguistically consistent care relate to the age ofthe child? Are the effects of culturally and linguistically inappropriate care in factmore devastating for infants and toddlers in the process of developing the core oftheir identity?

To what extent could family day care homes be a resource for culturally andlinguistically appropriate care given their ability to offer a home-like environment,offer small child-adult ratios, and operate in a community-based context? To whatextent does the importance of culturally and linguistically consistent care merit publicpolicies that promote offering families a greater range of choices for child carearrangements?

What are the implications of the concerns about cultural differences in socializationand learning for practitioners engaged in implementing anti-bias curriculumapproaches? What are the implications of anti-bias research for programs servingpopulations that are solely or predominantly of one ethnic group?

Why are certain language and cultural minorities underrepresented in the field of earlycare and education? Is this more serious at higher levels of decision-making? How isthis underrepresentation related to low pay, poor working conditions and currenthiring practice?

What factors explain our finding that subsidized centers are more likely than non-subsidized centers to employ staff who reflect the racial and linguistic background of

1085

the children in their care? What are the implications of these findings for child carepolicy?

Recommendations for Immediate Action

In the meantime, based upon our findings, California Tomorrow calls for immediateaction from the following groups:

State Agencies in California:

The California Department of Education should support the development of anongoing statewide mechanism for collecting information on the demographics of childcare facilities across systems and auspices. Such a mechanism could be tied to anumber of existing data collection efforts including: 1) local resource and referralagencies, 2) the statewide market rate survey, 3) the California Department ofEducation's effort to design a new computerized, linked, system of data collection forchild care programs, and 4) child care licensing procedures.

The California Department of Education together with the Department of SocialServices should establish a committee of advocates, researchers, providers and parentswho will work with them to develop and disseminate materials outlining how childcare providers can most effectively develop partnerships with parents - with specificsuggestions about techniques for bridging gaps of language and culture.

The California Department of Education together with the Department of SocialServices should jointly fund and establish a clearinghouse aimed at collecting anddisseminating materials and literature regarding the provision of culturally andlinguistically appropriate care to practitioners, policymakers and programadministrators.

The California Department of Education, Child Development Division should examinewhether some of its eligibility policies may be unwittingly working against efforts toprovide children with culturally and linguistically appropriate care. In particular, wesuggest that the Department of Education reconsider its current policies which preventbilingual centers from giving priority to children most in need of their bilingualeducational program.

The Commission for Teacher Credentialing should require teacher training programsto address linguistically and culturally appropriate practice in their basic curriculum.

Federal Government:

The Department of Health and Human Services should convene a working group ofpractitioners, researchers, advocates and policymakers to examine the policyimplications of cultural diversity for forthcoming federal initiatives namely theHead Start expansion and child care provisions of current welfare reform proposals.

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The Department of Health and Human Services should set aside funding (possiblyfrom the Child Care Development Block Grants or Head Start programs) for researchaddressing the previously mentioned areas requiring further study.

Associations:

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) shouldcontinue its efforts to produce materials discussing the implications of diversity forearly care and education and re-examine its guidelines for developmentallyappropriate practice with respect to their applicability to diverse populations. Oneapproach would be to first pull together educators from specific ethnic groups todiscuss within their own groups what constitutes culturally appropriate practice.Then, leaders from a range of communities could be brought together to discuss whatare the commonalities in their views on developmentally appropriate practices.

The California Association for the Education for Young Children (CAEYC) togetherwith NAEYC should hold a conference bringing together anti-bias curriculadevelopers with educators engaged in defining what constitutes culturally appropriatecare and teaching approaches for children of various ethnic groups. The purpose ofthis conference would be to explore the relationship between these two fields of work.

Resource and Referral Network:

The statewide resource and referral network should work with local resource andreferrals to develop and disseminate multilingual parent education/consumer guidesthat provide parents with information about how to judge the quality and assess thecultural and linguistic appropriateness of a child care facility. Such a guide shouldspecifically include information about the potential trade-offs of placing a child in afacility that does not offer care in the language of the home, and provide parents withan awareness of the importance of culturally and linguistically appropriate careparticularly for infants and toddlers.

Training Institutions:

All existing professional training programs for early care and education professionalsshould incorporate a focus on culturally and linguistically appropriate care into theirregular curriculum. Such a focus should provide students with a basic understandingof anti-bias curriculum, the cultural context of child-care including how to approachdevelopmentally appropriate practice in various ethnic communities; techniques forfostering English language development without impeding home languagedevelopment among children from non-English speaking backgrounds; and strategiesfor developing strong partnerships with language and cultural minority parents.

Institutions involved in the education and hiring of child care staff should engage inimmediate efforts to improve recruitment of and increase training opportunities forunderrepresented linguistic and ethnic minorities.

Institutions that train child care providers should also develop in-service trainingprograms to be offered to child care centers so that those already working in the fieldmay be informed about strategies for appropriately working with culturally andlinguistically diverse children and families.

Private Foundations:

Foundations should fund the development and dissemination of training materials byvarious institutions on how to serve particular ethnic groups or diverse populations,and the development of new ones.

Foundations should fund the development of models for teacher education that exposenew teachers to theories of child development while simultaneously drawing upon andincorporating the expertise and knowledge that student teachers bring from their owncultural backgrounds.

Foundations should support innovative efforts to recruit and train child careprofessionals from currently underrepresented cultural and linguistic groups.

Foundations should support existing early care and education programs, and thedevelopment of now ones, that model the practice of culturally and linguisticallyappropriate care.

Foundations should support efforts to develop parent education materials that provideparents with information about how to take cultural and linguistic appropriateness intoaccount when making their child care decisions.

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Documents

methodology report, the child care center survey ... · PDF filescope of the demographic challenges facing child care centers by presenting the findings of the demographic analysis