The processes of globalization are highly complex and influence the multi-layered structures of societies: economic, socio-cultural, political, linguistic and education aspects among others. A remarkable increase in global migration flows, especially over the last decade, required from the host countries to pay particular attention to the provision of equal education opportunities. Children of migrants, frequently not being (fluent) speakers of the official/national language(s) of the host country, need, and above all, have the right, to get access to good quality education. In addition, in today’s highly competitive labour-market, learning global/international languages (e.g. English) is seen as a necessity. How and at what age should children start learning an additional language (or languages)? Do bilingual/multilingual children perform better at school than their monolingual peers? Which language/education policies are successful and which are not? What challenges students and teachers face in a multilingual/multicultural classroom? What measures do educators, schools, communities need to take in order to make the multilingual and multicultural learning space more effective? The course Introduction to Multilingual and Multicultural Learning makes an attempt to provide answers to these and other related questions with reference to the latest research and discussion of different case studies. By the end of this course, you will be able to: - critically evaluate various teaching practices in multilingual and multicultural settings; - critically evaluate various language policies and planning programmes implemented in multilingual education settings; - obtain valuable insights to better understand the learning needs of students in a multilingual/multicultural classroom; - apply the knowledge you will have gained in this course, in multilingual/multicultural classrooms; - obtain essential skills to deal with immigrant/minority language students.
Goals of multicultural education for young children
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From the course by National Research University Higher School of Economics
Introduction to Multilingual and Multicultural Education
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National Research University Higher School of Economics
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From the lesson
Multilingual & multicultural education for young children
This module will introduce you to the basic ideas of Early and Late Second Language Learning, as well as give an insight into language immersion programmes for young children.
Meet the Instructors
Denis ZubalovAssistant Professor
School of Philology, HSE
Hello, and welcome to the Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia.
In this video, I'll be talking in detail about the purpose and
different goals of multicultural education for young children.
The field of early childhood education has been heavily influenced by research and
theories of developmental psychology which have identified phases of cognitive,
social and emotional development.
It's not a secret that young children tend to organize information in
broad categories that are often rigid or dichotomous.
For example, when we were kids,
we used to see the world in terms of good guys or bad guys.
As a result, young children make assumptions
about different groups and cultural assumptions that
reflect the social political and economic histories
in their respective communities and countries.
We all know that children love to play.
So, games and in particular,
the practice of play have traditionally been viewed as primary learning mode in
early childhood classrooms that offer
a fluid and imaginative sphere to introduce and explore issues with young children.
Also, in the course of play,
children can reveal beliefs that reflect biases and power inequalities.
In this regard, teachers can use these revelations to engage children
in conversations and in different activities in order to challenge their assumptions.
Let's now turn to the discussion of purpose and
different goals of multicultural education for young children.
The purpose and practice of early childhood
multicultural education differ across schools, communities and countries.
But it's important to note that most of them include efforts to ensure that
children from all different ethnic and religious backgrounds
have an equal and most importantly,
successful start in school and a strengthened sense of themselves and their abilities.
One, cultural response responsive teaching
enables all children from different ethnic, religious,
linguistic backgrounds to have a successful start in
school and to participate fully in early childhood programs.
So, this goal is very important precisely because many countries
today are experiencing a remarkable increase in the number
of immigrant families whose children are struggling to bridge the gap
between their home cultures and languages and those of the mainstream school.
And in this respect, migration is often accompanied by
temporary or chronic poverty which can
hamper the academic achievements of immigrant children.
The Kamehameha Elementary Education Project has demonstrated how adapting
classroom practices to be more compatible with
children's culture has yielded significant results.
For example, Igoa documented specific techniques such as
the use of photographs and different artifacts in order to be able to
create familiar spaces in the classroom premises that would help
immigrant children in their classrooms to adjust
to life on the one hand and schools on the other.
Two, encouraging children to develop
comprehensive and realistic identities that embody their race,
culture, gender and abilities and their professional family and social histories.
This requires that teachers nurture each child's construction
of a confident self concept and group identity in the classroom.
And this is achieved by creating
early childhood programs that would encourage all children to
deepen their ties with their families and communities
and to know and appreciate their unique attributes.
It should be stressed that identities are highly
complex and socially constructed that are fluid,
hybrid and can change over time in light of social,
political, and economic circumstances.
In order to meet this goal,
all children in this program need to be
equally visible throughout the classroom and the curriculum.
For example, teachers can display different photographs of
children and their families and encourage them to share their ideas,
their life experiences and,
their feelings through different activities such as talking in the classroom,
singing different songs, being engaged in drawing activities and finally,
being engaged in different writing tasks.
Three, broadening perspectives and developing a sense of solidarity with
all people and the natural world so that children can learn to recognize,
respect and appreciate commonalities and
differences among people in their own communities,
in their own country,
and the world at large.
When we were all kids,
we used to see others as totally different,
with no connections to our own lives.
Children growing up in homogeneous settings are particularly at risk
of developing negative attitudes to members of other groups to their languages.
And in this regard,
integrating children from a range of racial, cultural,
linguistic and socio- economic backgrounds is probably
the most effective strategy for raising children with less bias.
In this regard, teachers need to closely monitor cross-group interactions in order to
ensure that societal divisions and power inequalities are not simply being replicated.
For example, to expand children's perspectives,
teachers can provide different activities,
images and objects that would depict a wide range of human appearances and activities.
Critical thinking engages children to critically examine
their own assumptions and inequities in their immediate environment and the larger world.
It is surprising how children are able to identify injustices in their immediate world,
such as biased beliefs and behavior of their peers,
such as stereotyped messages in books,
and in other materials,
and even in school policies and practices that to their views are unfair.
For example, educators have been able to
testify to the positive effects of engaging children in
different conversations in which they can explore and
challenge their assumptions and inequities in the world around them.
Five, engaging children in social activism can encourage and it can support children to
gain the confidence they need in the classroom walls and
skills in order to be activists for social change.
It has been shown that teachers can effectively engage children as young as
four years old in activism as long as the projects emerge from real incidence,
as long as they are simple and direct,
and if they have a clear tangible focus and are geared to the children's experiences.
And these activities enable children to create
their own world which is a little bit fair in their views.
In conclusion, early childhood teachers need to be aware they need to be
flexible and creative as they should be able to respond to increasingly complex social,
political and economic challenges that would support children who are targets of ethnic,
linguistic, and economic discrimination.
In the next video, I'll be talking about language and
education policy in multilingual and multicultural education.
That's all for now. Thanks for watching. Bye-bye.
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