Reflection Paper About Textbook Diversity In Early Care And Education

Reflection Paper about Textbook
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University
Date
Textbook: Gonzalez-Mena, J. (2008). Diversity in early care and education: Honoring Differences. McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages.
Reflection
The text explores the diversity that is encountered in environments and programs for kids between birth and eight years, including the special needs children. From this book, we learn that to honor diversity, we have to understand the various beliefs and perspectives. However, apart from that, the book emphasizes that we ought to make our belief systems that are unconscious conscious, put aside the right and wrong ideas, suspend judgment and ought to unconditionally believe that all cultures are equally valuable, important, and relevant. Realizing this is a challenging, long process that requires the willingness to engage all parties, and frequent self-reflection. However, the author’s honesty and humility while describing her own processes serve as a reassurance to individuals struggling to change.
The first chapter, Perceiving and Responding to Differences helps individuals expand the meaning of culture, especially those belonging to the “dominant” culture. This helps people understand how their own beliefs affect their work with families and children. This model is intended to realize synchrony between practices and policies in early childhood environment as well as what families do and believe, and that babies are supposed to be raised and be part and parcel of their cultures (Gonzalez-Mena, 2008). The second chapter, Communicating across Culture, entails interpretation of the meaning placed behind a behavior. To honor a culture, it does not entail losing our philosophy but rather respecting the wish for their children by each family (Gonzalez-Mena, 2008). This is determined by six factors; smiling, eye contact, p...