Culture, Communication & Conflict with Dr. Chris Amirault

Happy Real World Wednesday! This week we have the pleasure of introducing Chris Amirault.  Dr. Amirault is the President of the Rhode Island NAEYC affiliate, Chair of the Council for NAEYC Accreditation, and served as a founding facilitator of the NAEYC Equity and Diversity Interest Forum for many years. He directs Brown/Fox Point Early Childhood Education Center in Providence RI. Prior to directing Brown/Fox Point, Chris was the Director of the Institute for Elementary and Secondary Education at Brown University. He has taught early childhood at several universities and facilitated workshops on diversity and equity for almost three decades.

As a part of his work, he’s been designing and facilitating workshops on culture, communication, and conflict. This fall, we’re looking forward to a week-long series of interactive posts that dive deeper into this important and complex topic.  But for now, Chris engaged the Forum in a rich reflection exercise and discussion on our Facebook page.  He prompted the group to:

Reflect on your relationship to your culture, your communication style, and conflict, and finish these sentences:

When in conflict, here’s what I do well:
When in conflict, here’s what I don’t do so well:
When in conflict, here’s what drives me absolutely crazy:

This is how I communicate best with others:
This is how I prefer to address conflicts:
You can help me be a better colleague by…
I will work to be a better colleague by…

Many participants–including Chris himself–shared their answers publicly, demonstrating a great deal of openness, honesty, and vulnerability.  Reflecting on the activity, one participant then asked, “I wonder how much the questions relate to personality rather than culture?”  Chris responded,

One of the key points from the literature on conflict resolution and diversity is that we all live our cultures in our own ways — and, typically, we can’t see those particular habits, values, behaviors, judgments, and so on. These questions are meant to prompt both awareness of those things and to require that we all state explicitly how we live them.

Another participant added, “A key piece to resolving conflict is recognizing the individual participants in the conflict as inherently different folk – most likely in culture and personality. By using tools like the one Chris presented, we are encouraged to recognize our own culture (which, especially in dominant cultures, is largely invisible to us)* AND its effects on our personality. That is to say – we should be striving to ask and answer questions that…

• Help us identify how our culture and personality affect our practice.
• Help us identify how our personality and culture affect each other.
• How our culture and personality benefit and enrich our practice, and…
• How our culture and personality could be hindering or otherwise having a negative affect on our practice.
  

…and then use what we’ve discovered to approach our workplace relationships in more productive and fair ways.”

Chris concluded the thread by sharing:

Thanks to everyone for participating! As you can see, different individuals inhabit their cultures in a variety of ways, but conflict brings out a lot of unspoken values, assumptions, and challenges to our work. Of course, as early childhood educators, part of our job is to provoke conflict in developmentally appropriate ways with the children we serve; scaffolding the shift from parallel to cooperative play is a good example of this.

In addition, early childhood educators can get stuck in their own very adult conflicts, which create toxic learning environments for children. Very often, shared cultural values are exposed within those conflicts, and often they contribute to the conflict rather than helping to address it. What does it mean to listen? to engage? to respect? to value? to collaborate? to “have my back”? to trust? to defer? to accept? to negotiate? to concur?

The folks at the Harvard Negotiation Project remind us that every difficult conversation has three parts: the “what happened?” component, the feelings component, and the identity component. Learning how to move through the components requires respectful listening that engages and incorporates another’s perspective, starting with the historic details and drilling down to the very notion of who we are. While these three components are very broad brush strokes, in my own work on equity and diversity they’ve been helpful in illuminating the insights that conflicts offer.

Of course, that’s hard to do when you’re in a conflict! So often we have to start with the simple act of trusting someone whom you really, really don’t want to trust, so that you can view the world through that person’s perspective. And that’s where the commitment to equity and diversity fits in: if you are going to commit to doing this work, you have to accept that conflicts can only be resolved by learning to accept the perspectives of others, including those who may or may not share your culture, your power, your values, and especially your deeply held truths.

If you found this exercise interesting, I urge you to share it with a colleague. At the end, repeat back what your colleague has told you, to demonstrate that you’ve listened and learned. Then keep your eyes peeled for an opportunity to engage in a week-long interactive experience around this same topic soon!

To learn more, check out Stone, Patton, and Heen’s “Difficult Conversations,” or click on this useful overview of these issues with the University of Colorado’s Conflict Information Consortium: http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/culture-conflict

---

*I really appreciated this point about the dynamic in which members of dominant cultures are often unaware that they have culture too. I’ve found that the Center for the Study of White American Culture has lots of great resources: http://www.euroamerican.org/

Opportunities to Advance Racial Equity in the Head Start Performance Standards

From left to right: Megan Madison, Catherine Corr, Katherine Paschall, Deborah Daro, Leah Bartley, Alayna Schreier

This week the Forum’s co-facilitators Megan Madison (far left) and Dr. Catherine Corr (second to left) were busy attending the annual meeting of the Doris Duke Fellowships at Chapin Hall in Chicago. They are part of a small group of emerging scholars focusing on interventions and systems aimed to promote child well-being.

Given their collective expertise and experience with Head Start programs, the group engaged in a rich discussion about the newly proposed Head Start Performance Standards.

On our Facebook page, Katie (Katherine Paschall) shared her thoughts:

Clearly, it is difficult to create regulations and policies for such a diverse group of families, but it is my wish that Head Start programs can continue to be responsive to the needs of their local communities; the strengths of the proposed updates allow for greater flexibility and strength in addressing the needs of vulnerable families, as defined by local communities. The weaknesses are those that threaten the strength of local communities/grantees to deliver the most appropriate program to their community.

From my view, the proposed standards include several commendable and appropriate updates to current enrollment policies, implementation strategies and focuses; the updates guided by research evidence are the clear strengths. For instance, Head Start will open slots to pregnant women experiencing homelessness & foster children, and intentionally incorporate evidence-based strategies for promoting the development of these particularly vulnerable populations.

The largest and most publicized update is the movement from half-day to full-day care, which is a double-edged sword. I am concerned, as are many others, that this will reduce the number of children who can be served, and that this will be an impediment to currently operating programs. I agree with the National Head Start Association that this should be one option, offered with the full support of the Office of Head Start, rather than a mandate.

All in all, the way the standards are written include few mandates, with plenty of “wiggle room” for programs to adapt them to their populations. However, some of that wiggle room can be problematic, such as the de-emphasis on family engagement. I look forward to hearing from my colleagues and am so glad to have the opportunity to publicly comment on these standards!

The group then compiled their thoughts into a formal comment.  All in all, they identified multiple ways in which the revision of these performance standards provided an opportunity to advance equity in early childhood education.  To read the group’s formal comment, click here.

Developing Democratic Family-Professional Partnerships

Happy Real World Wednesday!

This week we are pleased to introduce Margaret (Maggie) Beneke! Maggie is currently a doctoral student at the University of Kansas studying Early Childhood Special Education. Her research focuses on inclusive*, equitable practices that support young children and families from diverse backgrounds. Her current research centers on the ways adults and young children co-construct social identities and negotiate power through discourse. In collaboration with her doctoral advisor, Dr. Gregory Cheatham, she has been analyzing language interpretation during Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) meetings with families who do not speak English. Her most recent publications center on developing democratic family-professional partnerships and inclusive approaches to supporting families who speak non-standard English. Prior to beginning her PhD program, she taught in an inclusive, anti-bias early childhood program in the Boston area.

We asked Maggie to tell us about (1) what democratic family-professional partnerships are and (2) some tips for our own work with families.  Here’s what she said:

Thank you for this opportunity!

1. What are democratic family-professional partnerships?
John Dewey’s 20th-century ideals of family–professional partnership remain relevant to the 21st-century challenges of social inequity and educational discrimination (Dzur, 2004; Fischer, 2004; Skrtic, 2013; Sullivan, 2005). In true democratic family–professional partnerships, Dewey explained that professionals and citizens share responsibility through mutually beneficial alliances (Dzur, 2004; Sullivan, 2005). Deference to professional expertise can be debilitating for citizens (i.e., families), particularly those from historically marginalized backgrounds (Dzur, 2004; Fischer, 2004). When teachers and families are positioned in expert–client relationships, families’ perspectives or wisdom may be overlooked. Instead, educators can deconstruct and reconstruct expectations for family–professional partnerships to be more democratic and equitable, transforming the role of educator from expert to facilitator (Dzur, 2004; Fischer, 2004; Skrtic, 2013; Sullivan, 2005).

A democratic approach to cross-cultural family–professional partnerships (e.g., engaging families in problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration) can empower families from historically marginalized backgrounds. Educators can help families to identify strengths, goals, and problems, setting the democratic agenda in the interest of the common good. Educators can then apply specialized knowledge to address these shared goals (Fischer, 2004). In these reciprocal relationships of positive interdependence, expertise is both shared and advanced (Skrtic, 2013). As families in early childhood programs become increasingly diverse and the population of practitioners remains relatively homogeneous, practitioners and families may be positioned on opposite sides of a widening sociocultural divide. A value for democracy in early childhood means calling attention to the implicit and explicit processes that create inequity for families from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

2. What are some tips for our own work with families?
Developing democratic family-professional partnerships is not simple, and can take time. Self-reflection and dialogue can help educators can move toward conceptualizations of both culture and language that may support more democratic family-professional partnerships. This includes recognizing that: (a) there are many diverse, legitimate ways of speaking, thinking, behaving, and being; (b) mainstream cultural processes represent privileged ideologies that produce inequitable relationships; and (c) language enacts and produces relations of power in context.

To build awareness of families’ diverse, legitimate ways of speaking being, thinking, and behaving, educators can raise their awareness of and reflect on their own cultural participation. Using the ABC model (i.e., autobiography, biography, and cross-cultural comparison; He & Cooper, 2009; Schmidt, 1999) educators can write detailed autobiographies recounting aspects of their own family cultures and personal values, read the biography of a parent or caregiver with a different cultural background and differing values, and compare cultural and value differences between the two narratives. Exposure and analysis of cultural continua for social values and behavior may be beneficial in helping educators recognize the varied and valid ways culture is expressed (Cheatham & Santos, 2011; Lynch & Hanson, 2011).

Structured dialogue can be useful in supporting pre-service teachers to examine their own practice (Hollins, 2011). During professional development time, educators can use protocols such as those listed on The School Reform Initiative’s website (http://www.schoolreforminitiative.org/protocols/) to discuss issues about cultural inequity (e.g., inequitable parent participation expectations that may perpetuate mainstream views of family involvement; Hollins & Guzman, 2005) and grapple with what these issues might mean in their partnerships with families. Educators may also share documentation of families’ experiences to discuss deficit perspectives on family childrearing practices. Through discussions of these dilemmas, educators can engage in critical conversations as they contend with issues of inequity that may emerge in cross-cultural partnerships (Fults & Harry, 2012; Gay & Kirkland, 2003). When structured conversations about cultural bias are connected to self-reflection, educators can develop critical consciousness, recognizing the cultural values of families that may be privileged or marginalized. Practicing this critical stance can be beneficial for educators in advocating for democratic cross-cultural partnerships with families. Educators can also look at the oppressive ways in which language can function.

For instance, educators can analyze the discourses and dominant linguistic values that play out in educational arenas (Ayers, 2014). Acknowledging the dominant use of standard English and English as a first language in EC/EI/ECSE programs in contrast to language use at home and community can help teachers self-reflect on linguistic advantage and disadvantage that may influence their communication with linguistically diverse families (Delpit, 2006). Finally, pre-service teachers may also benefit from studying models and examples of successful dialogue with families from diverse backgrounds (Gay & Kirkland, 2003).

Maggie also provided the following tips for fostering self reflection for newer and more veteran professionals:

• Reading vignettes about families who integrate traditional and mainstream cultures to create new parenting practices (Choi et al., 2013; Halgunseth et al., 2006) or video clips of those parents with differing cultural backgrounds who merge cultural practices in light of mutual goals for their children (Crippen, & Brew, 2013) to guide discussion with educators. Teacher educators or anti-bias leaders can then introduce and revisit a collaborative problem-solving process approach to working with families (Fults & Harry, 2012), urging educators to see the dynamic nature of culture by engaging the individual interests and needs of families.

• Given family consent, new or seasoned teachers can video or audio record and analyze conversations they have with families. Teacher educators or anti-bias leaders can then guide educators to attend to families’ subtle facial expressions, use interviewing techniques to clarify understanding, and provide wait time in conversation during their interactions with families; educators can identify linguistic processes, which contribute to pragmatic inferences about family attitudes and characteristics (Cheatham & Santos, 2011).

• Using case studies or vignettes that highlight the ways in which individual families have been marginalized based on differences in language use may help teachers to brainstorm ways to inclusively reach out to individual families.

• Critically comparing conversation transcripts of educators and English-speaking families with the conversations of educators and families for whom English is a second language may help pre-service teachers identify missed opportunities for inclusive, democratic partnerships (Cheatham & Jimenez-Silva, 2012; Cheatham & Ostrosky, 2011).

Thanks for sharing all this knowledge, Maggie!

---

*My work draws upon Artiles and Kozleski’s (2007) expanded definition of “inclusion,” a term that typically and exclusively refers to inclusion of children with disabilities. Instead, I think inclusive education means cultivating an equitable learning community in which all children and families are regarded as valuable members. Conceptualized as a legitimizing space for multiple and diverse ways of being, Artiles and Kozleski assert that inclusive education consists of developing and advancing practices to be inclusive and equitable for those individuals from historically marginalized groups (i.e., groups who have experienced historical discrimination based on ethnicity, race, language, culture, socioeconomic status, gender, religion, etc.). Inclusive education, then, is a dynamic and flexible process that involves constant attention, reflection, and action toward understanding how historically marginalized populations of children and families can more equitably participate in educational processes and communities (Artiles, Kozleski, & Waitoller, 2011). I believe an inclusive education approach can be embraced to support positive and meaningful partnerships with families.

Resources for Educators Focusing on Anti-Racist Learning and Teaching

The Early Education Assembly of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) has recently released a tremendous resource: Resources for Educators Focusing on Anti-Racist Learning and Teaching.

In their own words:

The Early Childhood Education Assembly’s Statement on Race and Early Childhood Education was posted in June, 2015. To support our suggestion that early childhood educators engage deliberately in focused anti-racist work, we promised resources. We have begun to collect resources at the links below. Our intent is to continue building and expanding this collection but we offer it now as a beginning, in support of educators working to (a) deepen understandings about institutional and interpersonal racism and its manifestations in early childhood settings, (b) understand the depth and breadth of histories often left out of or misrepresented in our teaching, and (c) apply new awareness to transforming practice and policy. We envision these resources as impetus for teachers, staff, families, and community conversations and professional development focused on awareness and action.Our next steps will be to consider ways to collaborate virtually among educators across the country.

To access these resources, click here.

Meeting the Needs of Bilingual Children

Happy Real World Wednesday!! This week we have the tremendous pleasure of learning from Milagros Ramirez.

Milagros is currently a PhD student at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management. As a PhD student, she has written about education and child & family policy issues, including the importance of Head Start in supporting the long term success low income children. She has also worked for three years as Director of Program Evaluation and Development at a Head Start program where she supported evaluation and grant writing efforts.

Today we’ve asked Millie to help provide some insight around how early childhood programs can better meet the needs of dual language learners and their families. Millie, what does the research say about meeting the needs of bilingual children in early childhood settings?

Here’s Millie’s thoughtful response:

Children from immigrant families represent an incredibly diverse and growing segment of the U.S population. Many young children from these families (including children who are foreign born) speak a primary language other than English. While there are several terms used to identify their linguistic background, such as Dual Language Learners and English Language Learners (for clarification of these terms, click here), these only begin to tell their story. Several important distinctions can be made in order to understand their complexity, including:

• Children learning two languages are vastly heterogeneous not just in background, but also in experiences, as well as language and literacy abilities.

• Children learning two languages, particularly Dual Language Learners, build parallel language systems that can support communication in both their first and second language. Hence, many young children can learn two languages at the same time early on[1].

Early childhood programs are a key resource for these children and their families, providing valuable educational and supportive services. While there is extensive research on the benefits of early childhood programs, more research specifically focused on dual language learners is needed. There is a consensus however, on several dimensions that are important for supporting these diverse groups, including:

• Promoting home language skills can be meaningful for development: In optimal educational settings, instruction in the home language contributes to growth in both English language skills and home language skills. Additionally, promoting the home language can have a positive impact on the social-emotional development of young children[2].

• Involving families in their children’s learning is key: Research has demonstrated that young children can learn more than one language. Hence, language development need not be a zero-sum game. Working closely with families of dual language learners can and should include activities for supporting home language skills development[3].

• Professional development strategies specifically designed to address the needs of dual language learners can foster effective instruction: Ideally, early childhood education staff should receive professional development that educates them on the needs of dual language learners and keeps them up-to-date on bilingual issues, and the rewards of bilingualism, so that language diversity is truly accepted in the classroom. This kind of training and awareness will help create a continuous dialogue between teachers and families.

And for more information, Millie recommends checking out the following websites:

• National Center on Culture and Linguistic Responsiveness: http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/tta-system/cultural-linguistic

• New America Foundation, EdCentral: http://www.edcentral.org/

• National Center for Language Development in the Curriculum: http://www.naldic.org.uk/eal-teaching-and-learning/outline-guidance/early-years

• National Association for Bilingual Education: http://www.nabe.org/BilingualEducation

The information above can be found in PDF form here: Millie One-Pager

---

[1] Williams C., (2015), Dual Language Learners: Summarizing the Research on Dual Language Learners, American Educator http://www.edcentral.org/dllresearch/

[2] Goldenberg C., Hicks J., Lit H., (2013) Dual Language Learners: Effective Instruction in Early Childhood, American Educator https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/Goldenberg_Hicks_Lit.pdf

[3] Same as above.

Join our virtual book club!

Leading Anti-Bias Early Childhood Programs: A Guide for Change

Like the lives of young children and their families, anti-bias education must extend beyond the four walls of the early childhood classroom. Directors, managers, principals, coaches and administrators all have critical roles to play in building diverse and equitable early care and education settings. In their new book, Leading Anti-Bias Early Childhood Programs: A Guide for Change, Louise Derman-Sparks, Debble LeeKeenan and Jonh Nimmo invite us to grapple with the question: How can early childhood leaders facilitate anti-bias work at the program level?NAEYC’s Diversity & Equity Education for Adults (DEEA) Interest Forum would like to invite you to our virtual book club as we embark on an informal, 10-week exploration of this question together. Join the discussion on Facebook!

Guidelines

Open discussion will begin each week on Monday with a new chapter of the book and will continue throughout the scheduled week. Over the course of each week, the club’s facilitators will moderate the discussion, posting summaries of the chapter and posing open-ended questions to stimulate discussion. Participants are welcome to post their reactions, thoughts, questions or other topics of discussion. In short:

• All levels of engagement are welcome!
• Productive, respectful dissent is appropriate
• Ask questions, post responses, share quotes to participate in discussion
• Facilitators will post 1-2 questions each session, but other forum members are welcome to post as well.

Schedule

June 22  Chapter 1 Pursuing the Anti-Bias Vision: The Conceptual Framework

June 29  Chapter 2 Best Practices of Early Childhood Program Leaders: The Foundation of Anti- Bias Leadership

July 6  Chapter 3 Reading the Program and Preparing for Anti-Bias Change

July 13  Chapter 4 Fostering Reflective Anti-Bias Educators

July 20  Chapter 5 Engaging Families and Growing Anti-Bias Partnerships

July 27  Chapter 6 Deepening and Sustaining Anti-Bias Awareness, Knowledge and Skills

August 3  Chapter 7 Managing and Negotiating Disequilibrium and Conflict

August 10  Chapter 8 Documenting the Shift Toward Anti-Bias Change

August 17  Chapter 9 Anti-Bias Education in a Climate of Required Standards and Assessments

August 24  Chapter 10 Sustaining the Anti-Bias Vision: Reflections

Meeting the Needs of Families of Color who have Children with Autism

On June 10th, 2015, Jamie Pearson–a doctoral student at the University of Illinois –shared 3 things we should know about autism services for families of color on our Facebook page.  Here’s what she said:

1. African American (and Latino) children are diagnosed later (typically after age 3), and take longer to receive diagnoses of ASD than European American children, even across socioeconomic backgrounds.

2. In some cases, African American children who present persistent challenging behaviors are diagnosed with emotional and behavioral disorders (e.g., ODD), when in fact, they have ASD.

3. Two common recommendations from African American mothers: (a) assign families a liaison who can help them navigate the service system after obtaining initial diagnoses, and (b) provide professional development for educators and healthcare providers that encourages increased responsiveness to parent voice and parent concerns in families of color.

Interested in learning more? Contact Jamie! jnpears2@illinois.edu