Culture is not inherited, it is learned. It is shaped by the traditions, values and world view shared by a group of people bound together by one or more of the following: history, religion, language, social class, geographic location or origin.
Language plays a large part in the way that families and communities pass on their cultural traditions and establish their identities. Through our families and communities, we will all have acquired one or more languages, dialects and accents. Any approach to equality and anti-bias has to include respect for all of these.
LANGUAGE DIVERSITY
We want all our children to be able to use English effectively, but the ability to use more than one language needs to be acknowledged, not just as a skill in its own right, but also as a useful tool for supporting learning in general.
Being comfortable with two or more languages is normal for most people in the world. Despite this, there persists a misguided belief that just speaking English is good enough, and that some languages are superior and more valuable than others - whereas, in fact, all languages, including signing, are equally valid.
This same belief applied in the past to dialects and accents, with the assumption that the only proper way to speak English was with 'Received Pronunciation' (itself an accent believed to originate in the East Midlands of the 14th and 15th centuries when this area was the most populated and prosperous in England). Although attitudes have improved, some people still experience bias because of their accent or dialect, a bias that stems not from their inability to be understood but from the status attached to some accents over others.
Research shows us that bilingual children achieve better when their first language is acknowledged, supported and developed alongside English. There is increasing awareness within the early years sector of the need to recognise, support and value a child's first language, but bias continues to exist and is reinforced by ill-informed politicians and others with little knowledge of the theories of language acquisition.
How comfortable are you around others speaking a language other than your own? Most of us will have experienced the feeling of hearing a language we do not understand and some of us will know what it feels like to struggle to make ourselves understood. Do you remember how comforting it can feel to hear your own language spoken again, and the relief of not having to concentrate so hard to understand? Sometimes we can feel uncomfortable and even threatened by people speaking a language other than our own, because we feel excluded and powerless to understand.
It is valuable to connect with all these feelings, to help us understand our prejudices towards other language speakers and to be able to empathise with people learning to use English. This is particularly important for practitioners working with children learning English as an additional language - imagine how tired you would feel after a day of concentrating hard to communicate and make sense of a world where no-one sounds the same as at home.
INTERNALISED SUPERIORITY
The widespread use of English across the world is a useful example of how bias affects both sides. Those of us with English as our first and only language have, on the one hand, benefited from the historical fact that English is used so widely.
Far from being the oldest language, or in any way superior, this is more a result of colonialism and the choice made by the United States to adopt English as its official language rather than the equally represented Dutch, German, Spanish or French used by early American settlers.
The 'internalised superiority' that this brings has also worked against us, however, and not just because it makes us lazy about learning new languages. Unlike other countries, we have not had regular, incidental exposure to a different language in the way that people in other parts of the world become familiar with English through the media of films, television and music.
'Internalised superiority' also promotes a tendency to view the conventions of English use as the norm and the 'proper' way of doing things. For example, the words 'please' and 'thank you' carry great weight in English and not using them is viewed as impolite. English-speaking children are constantly being reminded of this, so ultimately it becomes instinctive for adults to pepper our conversations with them.
This is very different to the conventions of some other languages where politeness and deference to others is reflected in the grammar and word construction and by tone of voice and body language.
Finding out such information and raising our understanding of the way in which languages work can go a long way to reducing misunderstanding and bias, even if we never become fluent in any language other than our own.
There is lot we can do as early years practitioners to expose young children to diversity in language, to equip them with the confidence to experiment and to prepare them for a future where the ability to speak and understand the conventions of Mandarin, Spanish, Arabic or Japanese will be an economic as well as a social asset.
ASK YOURSELF
About your attitudes to language diversity
- What are your staff training needs with regard to understanding language acquisition, bilingualism and the best ways to support children and families learning English as an additional language?
- How do you ensure you have accurate information about the languages (including sign language) used by families in your setting and in your wider community?
- Do you enlist parents' help in making sure you spell and pronounce names accurately and only shorten them or use nicknames with their approval?
- Do you recognise and value the different languages, accents and dialects of your colleagues, making the most of the expertise in your setting?
- How do you support practitioners and parents to understand the importance of supporting home languages, and provide encouragement for parents to use their first language at home?
- Do you sensitively promote an understanding of the benefits of bilingualism to parents who may view the presence of bilingual children as a threat to learning and social cohesion?
- If your setting is monolingual, how do you playfully expose children, families and staff to language diversity? What resources do you need to support you?
CULTURAL DIVERSITY
Everyone has a culture. We all do some things the same as other people, and some things differently. We all have a lifestyle that reflects, to differing degrees, our socio-economic class, family origins, the communities we grew up in, the languages, dialects and accents we use, the historical traditions, customs and practices of the places in which we live and the faith or belief systems we grew up in or choose for ourselves.
This is another area where 'internalised superiority' can be seen to have had an adverse effect. It is well-documented that within the UK, the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish are deemed to have a strong cultural identity, and the English less so.
National identities are generally stronger when there is reason to express them for fear of being diminished or ignored. If everything around you confirms your 'superiority', then you have no strong need to declare who you are and what is important to you, because the institutions of law, government, civil rights, education and so on confirm it all the time.
This might also explain why an English person is more likely than a Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish person to declare themselves as British or be described as such. As members of Great Britain, they are all British (as is anyone who was born in this country or holds a British passport), but the terms 'English' and 'British' are often merged in the public understanding.
Perceptions of 'Britishness' are also often linked with race and skin colour as popular media and other institutions attempt to suggest that being British essentially means being 'white'. The need to establish this sense of identity comes to the fore when there is some sense of threat.
Traditionally, wars and battles for territory have always created this opportunity and sporting events perform much the same role. And we all know how some aspect of our cultural identity can be brought into closer focus if we are away from home, as in the case of 'expats' living abroad, or 'southerners' moving north and vice versa.
There is concern, however, that in an increasingly diverse society, the 'host' culture might be at risk and feel threatened with dilution because of fears that the 'minority' might actually become 'the majority'. There is often an unfortunate sense that there will be some kind of backlash and that it must always be a win/lose scenario, rather than recognising cultural diversity as a healthy element of the human condition, where everyone has equal rights.
It is important to recognise these fears, however, because we know enough now to be aware that bias and prejudice becomes more aggressively evident when a group of people feel disenfranchised and unvalued. This is why it is important we raise awareness of the nature of cultural identity in general, as much as the focus on individual cultures.
MULTICULTURALISM
In the recent past, well-intentioned and, in many ways, effective strategies of raising awareness of the diverse nature of society led to a sense that 'multiculturalism' was all about 'other people' in much the same way that 'ethnic' was wrongly assumed be about anything that wasn't British.
In addressing the debate, Jane Lane writes, 'There are sometimes misunderstandings about what the meaning of culture is - everyone has a culture in the same way as everyone has an ethnicity. So multiculturalism is about the cultures of everyone.'
The problem is not that there are differences between cultures, but that there is a hierarchy that ranks some cultures as more important and valid than others. 'Institutional racism, developed as part and parcel of our society over centuries of colonialism and slavery, is the real issue behind most discourse on multiculturalism - the reality that ranks cultures (all cultures, including the various white cultures) in a racial hierarchy and reinforces racism.'
We are a multicultural society, whether or not everyone is comfortable with that idea. But we are not yet an equal society, and without that equal respect and dignity, different cultural groups and communities will continue to struggle against each other for recognition and acceptance, instead of uniting to fight common enemies of institutionalised bias and social deprivation.
Sometimes these groups are recognised and protected by legislation, although bias and prejudice still exist and blight their lives, for example, Gypsy, Roma and Irish Travellers. Socio-economic and class factors also create groups whose culture may not be recognised as anything more than a list of negative stereotypes. This perceived absence of culture further diminishes them.
Feeling hard done by and resentful of other groups stems from feelings of insecurity and threat. If you don't feel you have what you deserve, then you resent others who you perceive to have it or you feel might take it away from you. Sadly, there will always be organisations that use this for their own political gain. They capitalise on the lack of knowledge and understanding that one group has of the culture of another and use this to spread fear, aggression and dissension within society.
Working with young children has always been about starting from the immediacy of the child's world and gently leading them out into the big, wide world beyond. Using the same premise, we can explore the rich cultural diversity of our society in ways that make sense to young children and equip them to live their lives with dignity and respect for themselves and others.
ASK YOURSELF
About your attitudes to cultural diversity
- How well do you know the social and cultural make-up of your setting? What do you know about its history and the reasons for why it exists in that place?
- What do you know about the immediate locality, about the history and development of the area and the communities who live there now and might have lived there in the past?
- How well do you know the children and families in your setting? Are there some that you know better than others?
- How do you reflect and acknowledge an awareness of your local community in your learning environment? Are there cultural references that will mean something to all the children and their families?
- Do you include local cultural events and traditions as well as a range of world festivals and national celebrations?
- How do you incorporate a wider acknowledgement of cultural groups and lifestyles that aren't represented in your setting and the immediate locality? How do you make this meaningful to young children and their current interests?
- How do you support and challenge colleagues who make comments that reflect a limited cultural view such as, for example, 'it's not polite to eat with your fingers'?
- How do you make sure that everyone coming into your setting feels welcomed and valued?
REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING
- Lane, Jane (2008) Young Children and Racial Justice: Taking action for racial equality in the early years - understanding the past, thinking about the present, planning for the future. National Children's Bureau
- 'All about ... Bilingualism' (Nursery World, 7 May 2009)
- www.equalityhumanrights.com/ Equality and Human Rights Commission
- www.naldic.org.uk/ITTSEAL2/teaching/ Supportingbilingualchildrenintheearlyyears.cfm
- See also 'More Information', Equality and Diversity, Part 1 (Nursery World, 24 September 2009)