Bridging Cultures in Early Care and Education

<p><i>Bridging Cultures in Early Care and Education: A Training Module</i> is a resource designed to help pre-service and in-service early childhood educators including infant-toddler caregivers understand the role of culture in their programs. It is also intended for professionals who work with children and their families in a variety of other roles such as social workers special educators and early interventionists and for use in college courses focused on early childhood education and child development. <p/>The module explains and illustrates how early childhood educators can use the organizing concepts of <i>individualism</i> and <i>collectivism</i> as a means of understanding cultural conflict and difference. These concepts have been shown to be highly useful in improving home-school understanding across cultures. Based on real-life examples of cultural dilemmas in early care and education settings participants engage the concepts of individualism and collectivism to solve a variety of scenarios in a dynamic and engaging manner. <p/>*Chapter 1 introduces the Bridging Cultures for Early Care and Education approach provides a brief history and explains the training module. It presents the conceptual framework of individualism and collectivism which is at the heart of the training.<br>*Chapter 2 provides the information needed for a two-hour workshop including a script and notes to the facilitator. The script is not meant to be read word for word. Rather it is offered as a guide based on a pilot-tested approach. Appendices at the end of the book contain transparency masters for the overheads referenced in the script and masters for suggested handouts.<br>*Chapter 3 offers ideas for augmenting the basic two-hour training by expanding it over a longer time period. It also identifies additional diversity resources that can complement the Bridging Cultures training.<br>*Appendices providing additional information data and bibliographic resources are included. <p/>This module originated as part of the Bridging Cultures Project at WestEd--a nonprofit research development and service agency working with education and other communities to promote excellence achieve equity and improve learning for children youth and adults.</p>