Intercultural competence in early childhood education : perspectives & activities

Abstract

One of the aims of this publication is to provide teachers with suggested activities which promote an appreciation for language and cultural diversity in young children. Undoubtedly, the early years at school have a long lasting impact on a person's outlook to otherness throughout life. I can recall my own first encounters with cultural enrichment when I was at primary school and on one occasion we dressed up as geisha girls and learnt something about Japanese culture in the process. I also remember quite clearly that around the school corridors there were large posters of children who looked and dressed differently, and whom I really wanted to get to know more closely. One such picture showed children in Ghana opening up and eating coconuts - a visual that stimulated me to make friends with people from Ghana later in life. It is our desire to help teachers and children alike find personal enrichment by being open to language and cultural diversity; an enrichment that will take place on the social, cognitive and affective planes, and that will lead to intercultural competence. The extent to which teachers are equipped to manage intercultural competence at the various level of the education system requires further investigation but in the absence of any conscious effort to reflect about difference, teachers are likely to carry their own perceptions and prejudices, to the daily life in schools. Furthermore, in spite of all their good intentions promoting an unbiased approach, teachers often loose heart when they see that their efforts are washed away by the biased world that children have to face outside their classroom. From where can the teacher start? [Excerpt]