Toward a developmentally and culturally appropriate early childhood classroom: The teacher experience

As the United States is becoming increasingly more diverse along ethnic, linguistic, racial, and socioeconomic lines, this diversity is strongly felt in the nation's public schools. American teachers are not representative of this diversity. The vast majority of teachers are White, English-speaking, and members of the middle class. Females also dominate the field of education from pre-kindergarten through 8th grade.;Children recognize differences at an early age. Race and gender are the most prevalent differences noted among young children. At the age when most children enter elementary school, they have already begun to form their own ideas about diversity, including positive and negative. The challenge for educators is to create a developmentally and culturally appropriate environment in which young children can learn about themselves and others.;The purpose of this study was to take an in-depth look at the processes teachers engaged in as they stove to become more aware of developmentally and culturally appropriate practices and more able to implement them in their early childhood classroom. After quantitatively analyzing the responses of 150 graduate students in early childhood education to the questions asked on the Survey on Multicultural Teaching Practices and the emergent data from the 4 case studies using the qualitative Grounded Theory method, a model for preservice teacher training and a model for inservice teacher training were developed. Specific findings were as follows: (1) Undergraduate educational approaches were divided into interactive approaches and media based approaches. Interactive approaches received a slightly higher rating. (2) Current teaching resources were divided into interactive resources, media based resources, and children's literature. Children's literature received the highest rating. (3) The majority of participants reported that they examined their current attitudes and beliefs either frequently or very frequently. (4) Participants rated children in their classroom as the most valuable resource for learning about culture. (5) People, difficulties in finding materials, and situations beyond their control were barriers, obstacles, or frustrations to implementation. (6) Participants made cultural connections with children and parents while improving their teaching skills. (7) Children gained awareness and understanding of culture, built family connections, and achieved selected academic goals.