"It is through play that children construct their understandings of the social world in which they live and learn to value themselves and others".
(Freer, as cited in MacNaughton, 2003, p. 58)
Culture is embedded in one's sense of identity. A child's sense of Belonging, Being and Becoming' (EYLF, 2009) plays an important role in children understanding themselves, their identity as well as acknowledging and celebrating that other people may be different. Cultural diversity is greater than a person's ethnicity. Culture encompasses the 'scope of human diversity and ways of being' such as gender, race, language, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion, ability, age and sexuality (Arthur et al., 2008, p. 82). It is essential that cultural diversity is embedded throughout all areas of early childhood education.
Play based experiences have the potential to celebrate and support cultural diversity by providing opportunities to 'include resources, experiences and strategies that reflect the diversity of the children, families and broader communities.' (Arthur et al., 2015, p. 62). 'Educators who are culturally competent respect multiple cultural ways of knowing, seeing and living, celebrate the benefits of diversity and have an ability to understand and honour differences' (EYLF p. 13). Cultural diversity is an important foundation for life as it develops competencies, attitudes and values that enable children to interact with our society as they acknowledge their own culture (world view) and explore the cultures of others.
Play Based experiences that promote celebrating cultural diversity...
Diverse Cultural Representations embedded in the classroom
Dramatic Play: Role play
Context: Babies and toys representing different races, genders and physical appearances, food that is culturally significant or vastly different to the children in the setting allows for exploration of culture and the challenging of stereotypes.
Activity : Role-Play within the early years allows children to be resourceful in their interpretation of their social world. Play and the freedom of the imagination to make sense of their world allows children to "imagine and pretend in ways that allowed them to be powerful in the world" (MacNaughton, 2003, p. 55). Role-play enables children to experiment with familiar roles and their perceptions of the social worlds existing around them. By including dolls, toys, figurines, pretend food, traditional costume, gender challenging stereotypes etc in the dramatic play/ home corner educators are celebrating cultural diversity through play.
Diverse Cultural Representations embedded in the classroom
Dramatic Play: Role play
Context: Babies and toys representing different races, genders and physical appearances, food that is culturally significant or vastly different to the children in the setting allows for exploration of culture and the challenging of stereotypes.
Activity : Role-Play within the early years allows children to be resourceful in their interpretation of their social world. Play and the freedom of the imagination to make sense of their world allows children to "imagine and pretend in ways that allowed them to be powerful in the world" (MacNaughton, 2003, p. 55). Role-play enables children to experiment with familiar roles and their perceptions of the social worlds existing around them. By including dolls, toys, figurines, pretend food, traditional costume, gender challenging stereotypes etc in the dramatic play/ home corner educators are celebrating cultural diversity through play.
Challenging gender roles and including diverse cultural representations through play allow children to identify with and acknowledge difference and culture.
Images retreived from www.pinterest.com
Images retreived from www.pinterest.com
By acknowledging, respecting and representing a range of family types children are able to develop a sense of belonging and identity.
Images retrieved from www.pinterest.com
Recognising we are the same but different
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image retrieved from www.pinterest.com
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Image retrieved from www.memfox.com/books/whoever-you-are/
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