Content WK2

Learning Resources

Required Resources

• Course Text: Diversity in Early Care and Education
  • Chapter 2, "Communicating across Cultures" (pp. 31–32 only)
  • Chapter 4, "A Framework for Understanding Differences"
     
• Course Text: How Culture Shapes Social-Emotional Development
  • Read pp. 13–16, "Exploring and Learning From the Environment"
     
• Article: Phillips, C. B., & Cooper, R. M. (1992). Cultural dimensions of feeding relationships.                                                                         In The caregiver's companion: Readings and professional resources - Infants, toddlers, and caregivers (pp. 95–101). Washington, DC: Zero to Three.
  Reproduced with permission of Zero to Three in the format Scan via Copyright Clearance Center.
  
   
  • Complete the full reading for this week.
     
• Article: Gonzalez-Mena, J., & Bhavnagri, N. P. (1992). Cultural differences in sleeping practices.                                                                         In The caregiver's companion: Readings and professional resources—Infants, toddlers, and caregivers (pp. 103–106). Washington, DC: Zero to Three.
  Reproduced with permission of Zero to Three in the format Scan via Copyright Clearance Center.
   
  • Complete the full reading for this week.

Content Review
 
 

Directions: 

• Respond to each item. Each response should be concise and between 2–3 paragraphs in length.
• Use MS Word to write your responses, and submit your answers to all three questions in one Word document.
• Copy and paste each question within the document, so that your Instructor can see which question you are responding to.

1. In Chapter 4 of Diversity in Early Care and Education, Janet Gonzalez-Mena introduces an individualist-collectivist framework as a means of understanding differences. In your own words, define individualism and collectivism. Then, explain why it would be useful to think of attitudes or behaviors related to the care of infants and toddlers in terms of a continuum—with individualism at one end and collectivism at the other—rather than to think of the people involved as either individualists or collectivists.
   
    
2. Professionals who work with infants and/or toddlers are likely to encounter varying perspectives from families with regard to following schedules or natural rhythms for feeding and sleeping. Review the information presented in Chapter 4 of Diversity in Early Care and Education. Describe two or more considerations pertaining to this issue that an infant/toddler professional would need to keep in mind when interacting with families and developing policies or practices in an infant/toddler program.
   
    
3. Using examples of your own or those from the course text, explain the reciprocal relationship between culture and environment and why understanding parental goals and routines and family activity settings is essential to children's healthy development.