Question

what is Nganga's purpose in Multicultural Curriculum in Rural Early Childhood Programs

Answer 1

Lydiah Nganga is an assistant professor at the University of Wyoming. Her research is mostly focused on social justice, multicultural education, and global education.

Her research indicated that after the desegregation of the school in the US in 1954 (a historic judgment was given in Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education case ) at present, majority of the white students attend the white-dominated school and children of color attend the school that is predominantly color or from various ethnic groups. The white-dominant school is having more white teachers and in colored dominated schools teachers are usually colored.

With the more colored people coming to a white-dominated area like Wyoming it is important to teach children in their early childhood the cultural diversity. According to Culturally responsive educators, the children at the age of three are aware of color and ethnic differences. These children understand the bias attitudes towards them due to their black color skin. By the time children are 5 years old they understand their family and ethnic background these children understand their struggle for social justice.

As the child becomes aware of the color and social bias it is important that they should be taught cultural diversity through culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP) during their development stage. It would help in developing cultural sensitivity and understanding of various cultures. Children at this age are egocentric and innocent they are sensitive but do not understand the reason for differences they make their own perception for example a white girl playing with ethnic doll having dark color presumed that the color is spoiled because it was heated overtime in the oven. The children would compare their skin with others and are surprised why other people are having the skin of another color. In early childhood, the children are inquisitive if they are taught systematically and properly to have credible and objective information about the physical differences they would respect others as they are. If the children are taught Cultural blindness they would value other cultures without being judgmental. It would help teach children to treat others as he/she is. It would help in diverting their attention from the child's skill color and physical differences. It would help in reducing unintended bias attitude. If the children are not taught in their early childhood there are possibilities that they would develop the feeling that there are certain ethnic groups that are not worth noticing and not worth accepting.

The children who have faced differences and biased attitudes become sensitive towards their skin color and physical appearances they develop inferiority complex and become lonely.

There is much evidence that shows that children are pre-prejudiced even before joining kindergarten that means by the age of two they are aware of skin color. This development may be due to parents or family members being discriminative towards colored people. It is important that in the school curriculum the children should be taught to be unbiased from their early childhood otherwise the same bias attitude would remain in a growing age. It is commonly observed that children get frightened of others who look different from them, usually, a white child would not prefer to go to a black person because he can distinguish the physical appearances the color and the looks he finds him different from himself. If these natural curiosities in children are not addressed in early childhood it would remain with them and can turn into bias and discriminative behavior in the future. It is observed that white children even do not want to sit next to a black child. Their curiosity should be handled positively at an early age to avoid misleading children. The children should be given scientific reasoning of the color differences.

It is important to include the parents and the caregivers to help the child grow without being judgmental to other children because of the color.