Research that Benefits Children and Families—Uplifting Story

As we learned more about how research could be ethicial and unethical, we know that there are times that research could be impacting a child or the participant life while it may be the results could benefit to others. However, there are also great reserach samples that have positive effects on children and families. For example, the research “Preschool to kindergarten transition patterns for African American boys” (Iruka, Gardner-Neblett, Matthews, and Winn, 2014) was a great longitude study where the researchers start to collect data of selected groups from birth to the child attends  kindergarten. The procedure of this study was not harmful to children or families. It is a data collection method which the research give a questionnaire to the childcare providers or teachers about the child’s socio-emotional development during each visit from birth to kindergarten.  

The goal of this research is to gather informations on the patterns of African American boys transitioning into kindergarten based on their language, academic, and social skills collected in preschool and kindergarten. Moreover, they want to examine the extent of family socio-economic status, parenting and parent’s education level may affect their children.

Some of the findings in this research are:

• Family income and parent education were related to parenting processes and children’s academic and social skills with the exception of kindergarten social skill.
• Parenting practice (e.g. literacy practices) and interaction (e.g., cognitive stimulation) were positively associated with many child outcomes.
• Over 50% of African American boys in the study were either stable or showed marked improvements during their transition into kindergarten when families and teachers are working together (Iruka, Gardner-Neblett, Matthews, and Winn, 2014).
• Almost 20% of boys were struggling in their academic when the families are not working with the teacher and the teachers are not individualize their teaching style to fit each child’s need.

  I am excited to learn about this study as it is related to my work and something that I want to learn more about to support families. My program serves diverse population, and compare to other ethicity, African American families tend to have less parent involvement or participation in our program. We did workshops that they said they were interested in through the result from the parent survey, but their attendance is still low. It might be becaue most of them are single mother who needs to take care at least 2 or more children , so it could be challenging for them to involve in their child's learning without other supports. However, with these result, we can show parents that it is critical to actively involve in their child’s education and working with teachers together. As a program, we could think about other ways to support these families to increase their willingness or abilities to support their child by maybe provide parenting workshops and childcare supports while they are in the workshops. It make a huge difference to a child’s life when they receive the mutual supports from home and school.

Referece

Iruka, I., Gardner-Neblett, N., Matthews, J.C., and Winn,D. (2014). Preschool to kindergarten transition patterns for African American boys. Early Childhood Research Quarterly 29 (2), 106-117. Retried from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0885200613001075

The Beginning of My Research Journey

                My passion is always in supporting cultural diversity in the early childhood field. As our society became more diverse, there is no doubt that racism and inequality exist along with the growing diverse population. As an early childhood educator, I believe we have a responsibility to provide a positive environment to support children to success. In additionally, it is important for educator to support this new trend of growing diversity population by helping children to learn and appreciate their identity while respecting other cultures. 

I am a true believer of play-based environment and believe that children learn the best in a secured environment that they are familiar with. The story that I am going to bring, push me more to promote diversity in the classroom. I had a Hispanic student, Osmar (fake name) who just moved from Mexico less than a year, he was a very social and happy boy always likes to ask questions and use his limited English vocabulary to communicate with his peers and teachers. In the second year, because of father’s job, the whole family needs to move to a different county. One day, Osmar’s mother called me and crying for help. She said Osmar did not talk as much now after he moved to a new preschool and Mom did not feel welcomed in the school. Mom expressed that the classroom has a very academic  setting which she somewhat like in the beginning, but later on she felt something wrong with the classroom as she does not see anything that she could relate to. Osmar does not speak much because the teacher does not encourage him to express himself. Mom felt like the teachers are not being patient with him as he is learning English. I helped Mom to find other school that value diversity but because it was almost the end of school year, there was no vacancy.  

This is a sad story, which also stimulates me to learn more about how a cultural diverse classroom supports children from diverse population. The research chart from last week’s assignment reduced my stress about research. A quality research should have a clear title for each key paragraph or task such as participant, methods, discussion etc. It helps audience to better understand the research and easier to find the information that they want to know. 

I am still learning how to narrow down my subtopics to make it measurable and wondering if my revised subtopic of “how a a cultural diverse classroom supports children from diverse population” is clear and measurable? Perhaps, the research could measure a classroom promote diversity and compare with a classroom who only focus on academic? I would really appreciate if anyone could share any article they know would support my research. Good luck everyone on your research!