The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

The experience I am writing about took place a couple of weeks ago, and I am still flabbergasted that my staff reacted like they did. My center accepts children from 12 months to 5 years of age. We have a two year old who is still breastfeeding as mom usually pumps and brings the breast milk  in his sippy cup, but on occasion she has actually breast fed her son in the car after picking him up from the center. One day, she decided to breast feed in the classroom sitting in the rocking chair. She had a blanket covering herself and part of her son, so it looked like she was just cuddling and rocking him. My staff seemed shocked and embarrassed at the same time and I could not understand why. Children continued to play, parents came and went, and not one person noticed anything different or said a word except for my staff. I had an impromptu staff meeting to listen to their concerns about this situation. My first words were that she has every right to breast feed and this center supports breastfeeding. I asked my staff their feelings, and a few responded that it was awkward because she did not warn us what she was going to do. Another said that the child was too old and another staff member stated that there is a time and place for everything. All I could think was WOW, how could my staff that I have trained and nurtured be so biased? Upon further discussion, I found most of my staff agreed that breast milk was the best for children. Of course, I handed out information about the benefits of breastfeeding.

I felt this situation diminished equity because of the reaction from my staff. Did they think she was giving a bad example for other adults or the children? If my staff agree that breast milk was the best thing for a child, why were they so shocked when they saw this mom breast feed? My staff said that breast feeding was good, no doubt about that, but just not when they were around. I could say that my staff is just uneducated about the issue, but they are not; it is a biased situation. I asked the question "How would you feel if you saw a mother breastfeeding at the mall, restaurant, or park? What would your feeling be then?"       


My feelings on this subject was that of surprise for my staff. I did not believe that they were so opinionated on this issue. Could it be since that they personally knew this mother that they might have been embarrassed? I personally sat in the room and talked to her and her son while she was breastfeeding. I did try breastfeeding my first born, but it did not work for me. I applaud breastfeeding moms!     

Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

Microaggressions occur on a daily basis and are usually brief slights, insults, or indignities of messages which can happen verbally or non verbally to people of different races, cultures, or genders. I feel that it can be a form of aversive racism. Microaggressions usually happen outside the level of awareness of people (Sue, 2011).

Unfortunately, I see and hear microaggressions everyday from both adults and children. The one I am going to write about happened several years ago when my daughter was about sixteen or seventeen years of age. We were traveling to a small county in Wichita and stopped at the only gas station we could find for gas and snacks. We are white, and the lady at the register was from Iran, as I overheard her tell a customer who just left the store. My daughter and I were the only customers left and we walked around the small store picking up junk food and pop. When we sat our snacks down on the counter, the lady coldly informed us that she does not take Vision cards. Vision cards in Kansas are cards that help people pay for food. I simply stated, before I could stop my mouth, "That's nice because I do not have a Vision card. Do you have a Vision card?" She simply said no and I paid her in cash. I was so angry because she pegged me as someone who did not have any money and that was not the case. Sure, my daughter and I were wearing "seen better days" shorts and tee shirts, but still, she did not have to say anything to me about a Vision card implying that I need help to pay for food. My daughter, on the other hand, played devil's advocate saying that maybe because we were dressed "down" and did not look like we had money, or maybe people had tried to use Vision cards there before us is the reason she made this statement up front. Regardless, I felt this was a microinsult and microinvalidation to me, and still have not forgotten about it.

In my center, I see microaggressions in the classrooms when African American children tell mixed children that they can not play with them because their skin is not dark enough. Hurt feelings are one of the hardest issues to overcome, as you can tell in my microaggression from above. The older I become, the more tolerant I am of most everything, including the "isms." Disregarding or downplaying the feelings, beliefs, or opinions of others is one of the main contributing factors to microaggressions. As long as people feel they are superior to others, and vice versa, they will have tendencies to react negatively to those they consider different from their own standpoint in the power structure of hierarchy.

Laureate education (Producer). (2011). Microaggressions in everyday life. [Video file].
     Retrieved from http://class,walden.edu

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

People's values and beliefs affect their behaviors. In turn, diversity and lifestyle choices are the outcome of those values and beliefs. I spoke with a Caucasian male in his sixties, a Hispanic female in her twenties, and an African-American female in her thirties. All three stated that they believed culture and diversity means people who are respectful of others that are different from themselves. They also were in agreement that respect is not only for the traditions and values, but also for gender, race, religion, and socioeconomic status. 

My Hispanic friend also feels that her culture is a group of people having the same beliefs and they work together to make their culture better. This, to me, would be considered deep culture as having everyone working together to make their culture richer involves the thoughts, beliefs, personal values, and traditions that everyone expresses in actions and words everyday.   

 My Caucasian friend believes that culture is influenced by ones upbringing and environment. One issue that I do not remember reading about is how the environment influences ones culture if they have been removed from their own comfortable culture. Will they still hold onto to their values and beliefs, or embrace the culture they were placed in by adoption or another circumstance. It might depend on the age of the child.

Talking to different people and getting their opinion about culture and diversity made me realize that I really did not think much about culture years ago. Being in the dominate culture, I really did not have any clue of the issues and hardships some cultures went through. I also thought about the influence of power structures in our society and the impact they can have on cultural dynamics and values. To become diverse, we must look at life values from a variety of perspectives. 

My Family Culture

It was difficult to decide what three items I wanted to take with me as I have accumulated so many trinkets and personal possessions in my age that hold great value to me. After I thought about this assignment for a couple of days, my top three choices became clear. I would take with me the following items:

    *Pictures of my family; my children, parents, siblings
    *My first rosary that I received at my First Communion
    *Chicken Soup for the Soul book by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen


These three items are very special to me as they represent my identity, my culture, my life, and my inspirations. Provided my host country can speak my language well enough to understand my descriptions, I would inform them about the importance of my three items and the significance that they hold in my life.

My family pictures give me the memories and remind me of the happy and sad times throughout my life experience. The rosary that I received as a gift from my parents during my First Communion represents my faith and its calming effect helps to soothe my anxiety during stressful times. My copy of the Chicken Soup for the Soul book has many inspiring stories and sometimes makes the difficult choices I face in my life more manageable by granting me greater clarity and focus. 

If I were forced to make the choice to keep only one of my items and abandon the other two, I would undoubtedly experience deep sadness and heartache. Despite the grief and pain associated with having to relocate from my familiar environment and way of life to somewhere completely different against my will, I would have to keep my family pictures. That way, I would be able to share my past experiences with others in a visual way, and still have a physical representation of better times in my life.

This assignment has really made me question my values and evaluate what is important to me. I know that my family will always be a priority in my life and am proud to share that fact with others. With my pictures, I would have an easier time communicating my experiences with another culture that may or may not speak my native language. In this way, I can both embrace my culture and celebrate diversity at the same time.

When I Think of Research....

Some insights I have gained about research is that research takes patience and is time consuming. I also realize that everyone does research everyday in an informal way. I have learned that research is an important tool in the early childhood field as it improves the knowledge we need when teaching young children. Research is about uncovering and enabling the emergence of new understandings, insights, and knowledge (Rolfe & Mac Naughton, 2010, p. 3). I have learned to be aware of any bias's when planning research with children and that the Ethical Standards for Research with Children has different rules and regulations to keep children safe from any type of research compared to conducting research with adults. In the field of child-based research, it is imperative that the well-being of children involved is the first and foremost priority and child-based research is typically held to stricter standards and scrutiny.  

My ideas about research have changed in many ways. The first is because of the many different types of research methods; interviews, surveys, focus groups, direct observations, and experiments. Research can verify or nullify stereotypes and help researchers to have the ability to eliminate guesswork and assumptions about different concepts. Another way that my ideas about research has changed is that not all research results are always valid. When I use the elements of the process of triangulation I will have a better understanding on the study and be more confident in the results of the research. A statement about the validity of a study is a judgement about the extend to which it can  be said that the research has captured important features of the field and has analyzed them with integrity (Edwards, 2010, p. 162). Integrity in research is extremely important and any contribution toward validity is a step in the right direction.    

I have learned that I have difficulties narrowing down research questions but once I do narrow them down, the hypothesis comes easy for me. When I have these two "ducks in a row," I do not have any problems deciding what research method to use and how to apply these techniques. I have also learned that I should do a feasibility study to determine possible positive and negative outcomes before investing in the research. 

One challenge that I had to overcome was the actual research; that is finding information and articles to fit my needs. I became overwhelmed with the amount of reading involved but I was excited to learn that I could safely skip a large portion of any research article and still know exactly what the research was all about (Lepuschitz, 2011, p. 1). Reading the abstract and introduction was very beneficial for me as it told me whether I wanted to continue reading the article. Another challenge I had was narrowing down my research question as I was always too vague when writing this question. I do believe that I will always have difficulties with this situation.   

I would like to thank all my colleagues who posed some challenging questions to me in the discussions as these questions had me looking at things in a different light. Just the discussions alone were very beneficial to this course and I appreciate the resources that everyone has suggested. This course was difficult for me and I respect and value everyones opinions.  


Lepuschitz, J. K. (2011). A practical guide to reading research articles. Laureate Education,
     Inc. Baltimore, MD.

Mac Naughton, G., Rolfe, S.A., & Siraji-Blatchford, I. (2010). Doing early childhood
     research: International perspectives on theory and practice (2nd ed.). New York, NY:
     McGraw-Hil.

Research Around the World

I researched the Early Childhood Development Virtual University Sub-Saharan Africa portal using the link http://www.ecdvu.org/ssa/major_reports.php

One research topic presented in Nigeria is "Assessment of the Caring Practices in Two Motherless Babies' Homes" and "Delivery of a Nutrition Training Program to the Staff of These Homes to Improve Nutrition of Children in Their Care." Children's orphanages represent a defenseless group of children that must have better care for healthy development. Training of high quality teachers for this project will support and encourage appropriate practices while discouraging inappropriate ones. Unless significant efforts are made to control these conditions, they will continue to be major challenges both in Nigeria and internationally (Akomas, 2004, p. 2). 

Another research project presented in Malawi is "A Community-driven Rural Early Childhood Development (ECD) Project, with Emphasis on Culturally and Developmentally Appropriate Exploratory Learning Concepts." The project was designed to address the children's needs from a holistic perspective. It provides experiential learning pedagogy as well as a meeting place for the children's psychosocial and cognitive requirements (Day, 2004, p. 3). 

One interesting fact that I read was about the extreme poverty level in Malawi. The families in the villages would not be expected to pay any fees for their children attending the early childhood facility. They would need to be involved with the learning by contributing firewood, maize, clay, or homemade toys. This project was expected to be branching out to other villages. Not only will the children benefit from this project, parents will benefit as well. I am sure these families who live in poverty are grateful for the early education their children will receive that they would willingly become involved with the facility. In the United States, getting families involved in their child's education is sometimes very difficult.  

The ECDVU held its first Early Childhood Higher Education Symposium in 2013 and feels that leadership in this field cannot be met within the current traditional academic framework. This website provides many links with projects about improvements made in the field of early childhood among the poorer areas in Africa. The virtual university is addressing issues that are global; poverty, the training of high quality early childhood educators, offering appropriate learning experiences, food insecurity, and language barriers, but maybe not as intense as what is happening in Africa. 

Akomas, O.E.U. (2004). Assessment of the caring practices in two motherless babies'          homes in Abia State, Nigeria and the development and delivery of a nutrition training program to the staff of these homes to improve nutrition of children in their care. Retrieved from, http://www.ecdvu.org/ssa/major_reports.php

Day, C. (2004). A community-driven rural early childhood development (ecd) project, with emphasis on culturally and developmentally appropriate exploratory learning concepts. Retrieved from, http://www.ecdvu.org/ssa/major_reports.php 

  

Research that Benefits Children and Families-Uplifting Stories 

In 2005, I enrolled in a Child Psychology class to finish up my Associates Degree. I had to pick a topic, research it, and if possible, actually conduct the research. I chose to research "The Good Behavior Game" which was invented by Montrose Wolf. The Good Behavior Game is an intervention for reducing disruptive classroom behavior. The Good Behavior Game is not a separate curriculum but a behavioral procedure. It is unique because it is the only practice, at the time it was created, implemented by teachers that is documented to have long term effects. The Good Behaviors Game allows children to work in teams in which the members of each team are responsible to the rest of the group. 

Teachers define a disruptive behavior they want to reduce; such as keeping your feet to yourself while sitting in circle time. The teacher clearly defines what she means and even demonstrates an example of the action expected, in this case how to sit without your feet touching or kicking your neighbor. The class is divided up into two teams with a mixture of the well-behaved children and the more "spirited" children. The teams pick names and are posted on a small chart. The teacher will place a check mark by the team when one of the children displays the behavior that is to be corrected. The team that receives the least amount of check marks while the game is being played are rewarded at the end of the game with stickers or candy. The Good Behavior Game should be done for ten minutes a day, three times a week for preschool children and can be extended longer later in the year. 

I actually applied the findings of the Good Behavior Game to my pre-k class using the scenario above. I used ten minutes in the morning and ten minutes in the afternoon for three days of one week. Once the children understood what was expected, they took over the "game." Meaning that the well-behaved children would remind the other children on their team about keeping their feet to themselves. Sometimes the children would say to their peers "you can't tell me what to do!" But after the children saw that a reward was given at the end of the game, they worked together on their teams. The children would always ask to play the "game" and even played it while in their centers. The Good Behavior Game did help the children keep their feet to themselves for a few weeks and then we had to start over as a reminder. 

All in all it was a positive experience for everyone as sometimes both teams won. I was worried about the rewards of stickers or candy being the focus for the appropriate behavior and that the children would become angry with each other if some did not do the right thing on their team. But, at this age, it did not appear to have any negative psychological effects on anyone. In some studies, the Good Behavior Game is implemented in the first and second grade. Long term results of the research include such statistics as fifty percent lower rate of illicit drug  abuse, fifty-nine percent less likely to smoke, thirty-five percent lower rate of alcohol usage, and a sizable increase in high school graduation (Donaldson, Vollmer, & Berard, 2010).     

Because of its simplicity and evidence of long-term effects, the GBG has been termed a "behavioral vaccine" (Donaldson, Vollmer, & Berard, 2010).   


Donaldson, J. M., Vollmer, T. R., & Berard, K. (2010). An evaluation of the good behavior game in kindergarten classrooms. Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. Retrieved from, http://www.ncbi.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3177341