Cultural Competence is the ability to interact with people from diverse cultural backgrounds. It requires understanding, respecting and valuing the differences in beliefs, customs, languages and practices of different cultures. It is more than mere tolerance and needs ongoing learning about different perspectives.
Reading
Culturally responsive pedagogy in early childhood education
Culturally responsive approaches emerge from an understanding of families’ backgrounds, connecting families’ cultural heritages to the setting and creating more equitable opportunities for both children and families.
Expected Duration: 20 minutes
Questions
Pre Read Question: What does cultural responsiveness look like in an early childhood education service?
URL: https://theeducationhub.org.nz/culturally-responsive-pedagogy-in-ece/
Post Read Task: What are two strategies ECE educators can use to enhance cultural responsiveness in their practice? Post your thoughts to the discussion forum.
Watch
What is culturally-relevant pedagogy?
Introduction to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy.
Expected Duration: 4:24 minutes
Questions
Pre Watch Question: Make notes about key points which you can research further to explain how to culturally apply competency into early childhood education.
Post Watch Task: Add key points you get from this video when making your discussion forum post.
Activity
- Research and describe in your own words what you think the term “cultural competent practice” means and how it applies to early childhood education in Aotearoa New Zealand. This research will be useful for you when completing assessment 04A3 task 1.
- What cultural expectations does your local community have from an early childhood education provider? Why are they important to the community? This research will be useful for your when completing assessment 04A3 task 2.
- Now you have an understanding of local expectations for cultural competency, describe how kaiako and ECE service providers can respond to these expectations. This research will be useful for you when completing assessment 04A3 task 3.
You’ve reached the end of this topic. Let’s go over the key points:
- Cultural competence is the ability to interact with people for diverse cultural backgrounds.
- It is more than just tolerance of other cultures, and requires ongoing learning about different perspectives.
- Local community expectations for cultural competence from early childhood education providers.
- How kaiako and ECE services can respond to these expectations.
