Ways with Children: Examining the Role of Cultural Continuity in Early Educators' Practices and Beliefs About Working with Low-Income Children of Color

Abstract

SUMMARY New directions in child care research are compelling researchers to explore larger socialization perspectives. In one of these, ethnic and cultural matches between caregiver and child are used to explain important psychological and developmental processes in children of color (Guerra & Jagers, 1998; McLoyd, 1998; Phinney & Landin, 1998). This paper discusses three recent child care studies that have used teacher-child ethnicity as a proxy for cultural continuity. The first study identified teacher and program practices in child care programs designed to serve low-income children and families of color and used a teacher-child ethnic match to ground its examination of associations among teacher-articulated practices, quality, and observed child behaviors. The second study also used a teacher-child ethnic match to ground its examination of associations among teacher-articulated beliefs and practices about families and observed teaching practices in child care programs that served low-income children and families of color. The third study explored young children's processes of forming attachments with care-givers in child care when the child and caregiver did and did not share an ethnic cultural community. The findings in all three studies suggested that teachers' perceptions and practices, and children's experiences in child care, are rooted within ethnic communities.