Inclusiveness with regards to Race, Ethnicity, and Culture
Culture
Inclusion – what does it really mean? How can we ensure that we dig deep to guarantee that all areas of inclusion are being recognised and addressed, so we can implement a truly equitable and inclusive provision within Early Years? Equality asks us to treat everyone the same whilst equity asks that we provide equal opportunities for everyone so there is a fair system that allows all to succeed.
The Early Childhood Forum defines inclusion as ‘a process of identifying, understanding and breaking down barriers to participation and belonging’. Within Early Years, the child-centred approach and close relationships with families allow for a generally good understanding of inclusion, however, sometimes the interpretation can focus more on learning and less on aspects of ‘participation’ and ‘belonging’ pertaining to race, ethnicity, and culture. There is still much need to consider the wider context so we can genuinely recognise and celebrate all the protected characteristic within the Equalities Act 2010 (age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage, and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation).
S & S Training Partnership has zoomed in on the areas of Equality and Equity with regards to Race, Ethnicity, and Culture. Some cultures, races, ethnicities, and languages may be seen to have less status than others. Labels such as “Minority Ethnic” can be problematic and divisive. The word ‘minority’ implies that the groups identified within this label are less worthy than the majority group, whilst the word ‘ethnic’ implies that only groups who are not ‘white’ are ethnic when in reality, we are all ethnic. These subtle and insidious messages often pave the way to prejudice, discrimination, institutional racism, and inequality. The effect of inequality and racism is known to be harmful to the child’s self-esteem, mental wellbeing, sense of belonging, identity, and future economic viability. Addressing equality and equality through the lens of Race, Ethnicity, and Culture is challenging, even in early years, where the relationships with the child and the parents are often strong and forged by frequent interactions and communications.
We must adopt a top-down approach to ensure that we truly address the needs of the children and families in our setting. Our policies and procedures must be at the heart of the provision and set the screen for equality and equity and are transferable into direct practice. They should be robust in identifying the need within the areas of Race, Ethnicity, and Culture and permeate through the ethos and be visible in everyday practice. What we do in practice speaks volumes about our values and ethos. Through our robust policies and procedures, we can have a better chance of protecting our children, families, and staff from racism and discrimination, as well as adopting an anti-discriminatory practice.
The EYFS 2021 tells us “Equality of opportunity and anti-discriminatory practice, ensuring that every
child is included and supported.
So, there is no room for complacency. We need to regularly review and updates our policies, procedures, and improvement plans to allow us to respond to need, be it a change in the legislation, environment, or the community. The voice of all the stakeholders, children, parents, staff, governors, the local community is essential and powerful in making any review more personal and meaningful. Ask yourself if your children and parents see what you see, experience what you experience in the setting? How do you know what your parents really think or feel about the provision? Do they see themselves or their children reflected in the environment or within the teaching and learning? Involving the parents and the local community in these vital conversations ensures that all children and families are represented and ‘seen’ within your practice.
We must probe deeper to really know and understand our children and families. Proactive and detailed information gathering at the start will be an investment, shows genuine interest, and sets the pace for a mutually respectful relationship. It will also help to avoid any misunderstandings which could lead to negative interactions. Don’t make assumptions. Remember the parents from the BAME community might have a very different perspective and experience of education. They may be reticent about giving background information if they don’t understand why we are asking for it. Avoid stereotypes – no two families are the same even if they share a common background. Ask lots of questions to find out more about the experiences of your families. – we don’t know what we don’t know until we ask. As Kim Benham says – ‘be a little nosy’ but in a sensitive and caring way. Our ethos and values must inform all the ongoing interactions and communications with the children and families.
In Early Years, knowing our children is what we do well, but armed with the information of the ‘whole child’, we can better plan for the individual children, by acknowledging their heritage, religion, and culture and using this information to make crucial decisions about equality and equity for each child. We can value, celebrate and explore the diversity of our setting, thereby having a natural conversation about the differences as well as the similarities. Community links can be developed to learn more about the backgrounds of your children and families. By inviting our parents and the wider community into our space to share their expert knowledge in their own heritage, religion, and culture, we open the door to an inherent inclusive practice. Events such as festival celebrations, book events, theme base learning such as My Family, songs and rhymes days, world food week, food fairs, assemblies can help us connect with the children and families and provide those crucial lines of interest and interactions.
There are many challenges when addressing this area of inclusion - staff knowledge and attitude, parents' past experiences, ingrained prejudices within the community, all of which seep into our settings. So, we need to be proactive in initiating and facilitating transparent conversations about race, ethnicity, culture, and inequality, regardless of how uncomfortable they are. If something is uncomfortable then we should be tackling it. In doing this, we develop community cohesion, teach anti-racist behaviours into our everyday practice and adopt a holistic approach to inclusive teaching.
Empowering the staff is the key. Training in cultural diversity, race, equalities and inclusive practice is paramount to change in overall behaviour, language, and practice. We can’t challenge something if we don’t understand it and are too scared to talk about it or of offending someone. Upskilling our staff in this area also develops their sense of ownership in this matter – individually and as a collective workforce. It promotes everyone’s responsibility to call out discrimination and to address inequality.
Our environment and resources say a lot about how we address representation within our provision. Think about the space, the displays, the books, the home corner, the dressing-up clothes, the small world objects, the toys – do these reflect all your children and families? When the parents walk into your setting – can they see themselves represented and feel that they belong? No child or family should feel that they have to leave a part of themselves at home because we unwittingly give the impression that that part is not valuable in the setting. The resources and books need to be reviewed regularly to ensure that they are current and provide those crucial connections to identity. They should not be used in a tokenistic way but should be embedded within the everyday provision. Having a range of multicultural resources is not enough if we are not using them critically to trigger valuable conversations about identity and provide great opportunities to use positive language around race, skin colour, hair, clothes, home languages, etc. The decision to ensure there is true and equal representation needs to be explicit and planned.
Welcome walls are a wonderful and fun way of involving parents and learning about the family backgrounds. Asking parents to contribute to the welcome wall shows we are interested in them. At a nursery, whilst conducting a learning walk (pre -covid) – we stopped at the bilingual welcome wall to admire the post-training suggestions taken on by the teacher– a Black Ghanaian dad had also stopped at the wall after dropping off his young daughter and was standing staring at the wall for a long while. When we asked if he was okay – he turned to us, with tears in his eyes, and replied, “You don’t know how happy I am to see my language written on the board”. A little change can go a very long way to make someonefeel included.
Do we cover and celebrate all festivals equally? We have six weeks to build to Christmas but invest just one day for many celebrations like Diwali. How many festivals are celebrated without us knowing about them? Do we know which is a religious and which is a cultural festival? What is on our radar and what isn’t? Whilst we can’t celebrate everything in the same way as Christmas, starting those lines of enquiry by involving the parents and telling us more will be an investment with a solid impact! Parents as the ‘experts’ are still such underutilised resources when it comes to diversity and inclusion within education. Something as simple as a table with a range of global objects and artefacts (ask the parents to bring in items and provide information) will generate valuable conversations and make children and parents feel represented and validate their heritage and identity. So much learning can be developed from this simple idea.
Everything we do must come from a place of knowledge, be informed, be fluid and allow us to challenge ourselves in order to move out of our comfort zone – only then can we make the real changes we need to be truly inclusive to all our children and families. In the current climate of Black Lives Matters and all the hard right -wing rhetoric in society – we have a responsibility to ensure that we create a balanced and a truly equal environment which offers well thought out opportunities for all our children to feel like that they belong and that they are see and are integral part of our community and society.
Child Rights Partners, An Introduction to Children’s Rights in Practice, 2016 UNICEF UK states:
“Each child, like each adult, has an intrinsic worth and should be treated with respect and care in all circumstances. Each child brings to each circumstance a unique personhood, identity, perspective and understanding that- regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexuality, physical ability, language, religion, beliefs, social origin or any other status-should be valued and nurtured. Dignity is inherent and cannot be deserved or lost.”
