Expectations for Children Demographic statistics can certainly provide a general image of American children, especially if you look beyond national reporting to your state or local level (see www.KidsCount.org). Teachers know, however, that certain policies and conditions also affect the ways in which children are described and how they, in turn, experience curriculum. In early […]
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Diversity and Cultural Relativism More From the Field In this clip, Beverly explains why and how teachers can begin to cultivate relationships with families that inform the curriculum. Critical Thinking Questions What anxieties or stresses might an immigrant family experience as they try to prepare their child for entrance to school? What are some things
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American Children under the Age of 18 American Children under the Age of 18 Percent of Children Under Age 18 (total number 74.1 million) Ethnicity: Percent of First- and Second- Generation Immigrant Children (total number 17.3 million) Percent of Children Living in Poverty (total percent of population 22%) Percent of Children Living with Two Married
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Who Is the American Child Today? The historical image of the child as white, middle-class, and from a nuclear family with two working parents does not represent the American population at large today (Kids Count, 2011). This is especially important because white female teachers continue to be overrepresented as compared with the changing populations of
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Applying Labels to Children Label as the Whole Child Person-First Language Susie is autistic. Susie has autism. Susie is hearing-impaired. Susie has a hearing impairment. Susie is learning-disabled. Susie has a learning disability. As you begin your teaching journey, it will be important for you to approach the curriculum you use with respect to all
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Competency vs. Dependency American teachers’ beliefs and curricula were traditionally built around the idea that young children depend on adults to know what is best for them (Hill, Stremmel, & Fu, 2005). Certainly the younger the child, the more adults need to be directly involved in his or her physical care for the sake of
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Children as Property Prisma / SuperStock Until 1938, American children routinely worked in factories, fields, and domestic service. This photo from 1911 shows three young girls who worked as oyster shuckers for the Maggioni Canning Company in Port Royal, South Carolina. Before the late nineteenth century, white American children were largely considered the property of
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Childhood and Conflicting Ideas about Innocence By the mid-eighteenth century, philosophers such as John Locke (16321704), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (17121778), and Johann Friedrich Pestalozzi (17461827) had introduced a new, romanticized vision of childhood as a period of natural innocence (Figure 3.1c). Painters and book illustrators of the nineteenth-century Victorian period often depicted children in rural or
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Historical Images of Children The way societies view children is often reflected in artwork from the period. As you may notice in these four paintings the small boy (a) is represented as a miniature adult, the group of boys (b) are depicted as ruffians, and the girls are painted from idealized (c) and realistic (d)
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How do they appear to interact with adults or other children? Do you see any evidence of cultural stereotypes or historical prejudices? Some of your thoughts may be reflected in the following descriptions of three predominant historical viewschildren as miniature adults, conflicting views of innocence, and children as the property of others. Children as Miniature
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