CULTURAL INFLUENCE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD CARE EDUCATION AMONG DIFFERENT FAMILIES IN IKERE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF EKITI STATE



CULTURAL INFLUENCE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD CARE EDUCATION AMONG DIFFERENT FAMILIES IN IKERE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF EKITI STATE
ABSTRACT
          This Research Work examined Cultural Influence on Early Childhood Care Education among different families in Ikere Local Government Area of Ekiti State.
The study is divided into five chapters, the first chapter deal with introduction, background to the study, statement of the problem, Objective of the study, significance of the study, scope of the study, research question, delimitations of the study and definition of terms.
Chapter two, contain the literature review, environment as influence on child education, influence of culture on children’s learning, agencies in the educative process and curriculum development, and summary of literature review.
Chapter three, deals with methodology, study design, population of the study, sample and sampling procedure, research instrument, validity of the instrument, administration of the instrument and data analysis.
In chapter four, deals with data analysis and interpretation Chapter five, contains the summary, recommendation and conclusion of this work.

TABLE OF CONTENT
Title page                                                                                                    
Certification                                                                                                        
Dedication                                                                                               
Acknowledgement                                                                                               
Abstract                                                                                                
Table of content                                                                                         
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1.         Background of the study                                                                          
1.2.         Statement of the problem                                                                          
1.3.         Objectives of the study                                                                   
1.4.         Significance of the study                                                                             
1.5.         Scope of the study                                                                                     
1.6.         Research question                                                                                     
1.7.         Delimitation to the study                                                                           
1.8.         Definition of the terms                                                                     
  CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1.    Literature Review                                                                       
2.2.    Environment as influence on child education                                            
2.3.    Influence of culture on children’s learning                                                
2.4.    The effect of culture in children’s learning                                                 
2.5     Understanding the impact of culture on education                                   
2.6.    The influence of culture in child development                                           
2.7.    Culture and policy in early childhood development                                 
CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY
3.1.    Introduction                                                                                               
3.2.    Study Design                                                                                              
3.3.    Population of the study                                                                             
3.4.    Sample and Sampling Procedure                                                              
3.5.    Research Instrument                                                                    
3.6.    Validity of the Instruments                                                                      
3.7.    Administration of the Instrument                                                             
3.8.    Data Analysis                                                                                  
CHAPTER FOUR: DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
4.1.    Data Analysis and Interpretation                                                              
4.2.    Discussion of the findings                                                                          39-40
4.3.    Factors that influence ECCE families                                                       
4.4.    The effect of various family culture on ECCE                                           
CHAPTER FIVE: SUMMARY, RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION
5.0.    Introduction                                                                                                
5.1.    Summary                                                                                         
5.2.    Conclusion                                                                                     
5.3.    Recommendations                                                                                    
5.4.    References                                                                                  
Questionnaire                                                                                                       
     FOR COMPLETE PROJECT CALL 07064961036
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1.         BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
          Early childhood generally encompasses the first eight years in the life of an individual (Prout and James 1990). The education given during these years of a child’s life plays a very important role and helps in proper development of children. Early childhood education can be fundamentally termed as “learning through play”. Recent research have show that early eight years in any children life are crucial time because during this phase their brain develops and much of its “wiring is laid down. (Prout and James 1990). God early childhood Education helps the brain to develop in healthy ways. The experiences and the learning of child in early years can support them in their entire life therefore, recent studies of early childhood education have even show some remarkable success. It resulting effects on child motivation and learning power last for a long time. Today where education has become very important role to play in a society, it is not right to postpone investing in children until they become adults, nor wait till they reach school age. In fact early childhood is a vital phase of life in terms of a child’s intellectual, emotional and social development. Besides this, the most important point to know is that the growth of mental abilities is at an astounding rate and high proportion of learning takes place during this period. (Norton, 1993).
          It is very important for every parent to understand that a child spends first eight years in realization of his or her own identify (Prout and James 1990) these are very crucial years when children gain a sense of self and learn to associate themselves with the people around them. They develop an understanding and behaviour to a certain extent for this reason it is suggested that early childhood education during these years should be more focused on teaching children about the world around them about their culture values, and norms through play and establish the links. Moreover, many child development experts also agree that play is very important in the learning and emotional development of children. Play can be multi-facet and often helps in educating children about their culture. In addition to this, education through play also helps them learn social skills, and develop valves and ethics.
          Early childhood education is the key element that helps in building a good foundation for child’s educational success. Every child learns habit and form patterns that are not easily changed in later years (Kolawole 1989). If parents and educators can develop productive early education patterns for the children in their charge, those children will be on their way to achieving great educational success. The lack of parental interaction during early childhood can negatively impact a child’s development. Ultimately it is the equal responsibility of the parents and tutors to assure the children have a good early childhood education that can further help them develop their personalities (Charles et al 1978).
          Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, universe, and materials objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving. (http://www.tamu.edu./faculty.i.dioudhury/culture.html).
          Culture is the sum of total of the learned behaviour of a group of people that are generally considered to be the tradition of that people and are transmitted from generation (Norton, 1993). On the other hand education has been surfer from generalize meaning, but for this study. “Education” is a form of learning in which the knowledge skills, and habits of a group of people are transferred from one generation to the next through teaching, training, or research. In a simple language is the process of acquisition of skills the makes one relevant in the community where he lives E.O Ogungbemi B.J. Adu, G.J Owolabi J.T Adeyemi (2011). Culture and education are two words that cannot be separated from each other.
          Children rearing is the word of taking care of children until they are old enough to take care of themselves. (Osakwe 2006). Child rearing can be both difficult and rewarding the goal of every parent is to have their child grow up to be a respectable and resourceful adult in the society. Effective discipline is one of the building blocks of child rearing. (Osakwe 2006) Effective discipline involves punishing with a loving heart and being persistent about the consequences of right and wrong.
          The child rearing pattern of different families is a product of their culture. Raising children from the early age is a form of Education and the culture is part of child rearing. A child needs a good education not only for academic learning, but also to learn how to interact with peers, authority figures, cultural values, norns, beliefs, (http://www.livestrong.com/arti).
           Cultural influence in early childhood care education can be related to reflection, planning, preparation and implementation for the upbringing at the same time and education of children below school-age. “Education”: is word usually associated with school and the whole educational system. (Maduewesi 1999) we would like to broaden this concept anf focus more on planning and reflection on cultural upbringing, instruction and education at the early childhood age.
          Worldwide, early childhood care and education (ECCE) for children 0-8 years is an actively negotiated set of social relationships (Prout and James, 1990). It has evolved from women’s familial duty to professional work in need of more status and funding, which accrues from institutional universalism (Nsamenang, in 1998 press). The ‘work’ stands to lose the status and control that powerful interest groups are expected to serve (Callaghan, 1998).
          ECCE as promoted by the development community is the product of European and North American culture, which represents only a minority of the world’s early childhoods in a multicultural universe in need of exploration (Nsamenang, 1999).
Importance of early childhood culture
          “The evidence is clear” ( Vogelaar, 2005,) ECCE is “an instrumental, frontline strategy for achieving poverty reduction goals” (Arnold 2004). The professed benefit from ECCE have been so emphasized as to render trite any imagination of obstacles or harm children may face when their ecological and cultural realities differ from those that inspire ECCE’s emancipator goals. It is not clear why advocacy or policy for investment in such goals focuses more on a universalism motive than on moving forward functional services that reach children in the cultural contexts in which their communities could fully participate (Lanyasuuya and Lesolayia, 2001). Imagine that “At least 86 percent of all children and adolescents” (Gielen and Chumachenko, 2004:82) live in Majority World counties, but the judgmental norms for their ‘appropriate development’ originate in Western nation (Minority World) that house only a quarter of the world’s child and adolescent population. Furthermore, because institutional ECCE stop on the fringes of most Majority World cities, they bypass the community-based ECCEs of the 70% of the world’s peoples who are rural ECCE programme appropriately should draw strength from rich Majority World cultures and wisdom of their timeless traditions Callaghan, 1998), but in the present forms they do not. Every culture invests in children, not as an end state but is recognition that today’s adults are a product of their childhoods. Accordingly, all societies make provisions for children’s basic needs and initial learning from the very earliest age to support survival and the development of their intelligence and personalities, as well as their integration into society (Evans, 2002). Despite the diversity that marks ECCE systems globally, their common attribute is ideological or philosophical positioning, which may be explicit or implicit, regarding the meaning and purpose of human life. We are referring here to worldview, which interprets as a theory of the universe, by which “A theorist’s view of development,” for example, “is closely tied to his or her view of human nature, a view intimately tied to his or her conception of how the universe works” (Nsamenang, 1992). The theory introduces diversity into visions and forms of ECCE by positioning every cultural community to cherish some but not other aspects of nature and child states.
          There are of course, universal and universalizing ‘standards’, but they tend to be actualized differentially across cultures. In general, humanity’s universal needs for survival, well-being and self-fulfillment are not satisfied in a universal manner. Often, one culture’s most satisfying style turns out as another’s most loathsome mode. Thus, an essentials but rarely examined feature of ECCE is how the world’s diverse peoples parent, educate and guide children into mature and responsible competence. But we cannot assume that all practices, in principles, are legitimate merely because they conform to specific cultural values and norms. Some of them can be as destructive as they are misleading. In every culture there are practices that may be disrupt human thriving and well-being, such as female genital mutilation, cultural attitudes that deprive children from protein-rish food items, and the paternalism of Europe’s civilizing contribution to backward cultures.
          A rights-based position envisions ECCE as a ‘liberal’ project that can empower and guide societies to improve their ways of ensuring the development of young children. Although it is worthwhile investing in human capital to speed up per capital income growth, we consider such as strategy a partial solution to the healthy development of children. Wholesome development begins with the satisfaction of basic needs and involves much more than capital investment and intellectual enrichment (Nimnicht, Arango, and Hearn, 1987).
          The goal is to explore the diversity that characterizes the global state of early childhood. While selectively exposing the different ways in which the world’s cultures raise competent children in the light of available literature, it ponders why the field gives less attention to the vibrant variety of the ECCEs of the Majority World (Kagitcibasi, 1996) whereas it highlights those of Europe and North American. It wonders if rights activists and the development community are aware that many Majority World children ‘hide’ parts of their personalities because contemporary ECCE services render than ashamed to expose their differentness (Vandenbroeck, 1999). Questioning why the development community is reinforcing institutional ECCE that generally rejects Majority World peoples their ECCE systems, thereby denying them dignity, even humanity, cannot be a rogue concern.
          The context, content and ECCE methods differ from one region to another as well as within the same region. In practical terms, “individuals and families have a complex array of different identities that derive from ethnicity, religion, profession and region. Differences equally emerge from political and other socioeconomic factors and the type of provision children attend to or receive. This portrays parenting, child development, and child outcomes as contextual phenomena, which demonstrate huge cross-cultural variation.
          As ecology and culture, the developmental context constitutes a key factor that structures ECCE in every society. In fact, ECCE is context-bound. An important facet of early childhood context is parental Belief Systems (Sigel, McGillicuddy-Delisi, and Goodnow, 1992). These are cultural beliefs scripts, and values (Super and Harkness, 1986) that confer on parents and other cultural agents the knowledge, affective disposition, and attentive orientation to raise culturally competent children, often without regard to whatever advocacy or ‘civilized’ interventions is in place. Given the difficulty, if not impossibility, of imagining parenting independent of culture (Krappmann, 2001), Super and Harkness (1986) offered the developmental niche as a theoretic heuristic to bridge the three core fields or early development, namely, anthropology, parenthood, and psychology.
          In many countries, systems of early childhood care and education ECCE are currently under review. A major force behind the reappraised is the growing labour force participation of women, putting heavy demands on the existing systems that are forced to expand their capacity and to extend their services. A second major force is the alleged role of ECCE in preparing children from socio-economically, disadvantaged families for formal schooling in primary school and in preventing psychosocial problems. A third issue – arising from increased immigration to industrial countries in past decades – is the challenges to provide for the children of cultural and linguistic minorities, although in most countries, traditional low SES communities and indigenous minorities had never fully disappeared from national political agendas. At the same time, new issues are being raised. Societies are becoming aware that early childhood is a particularly sensitive period, marked by a high degree both of adaptability and vulnerability in the developing child to the stimulation and stresses of his or her environment. With this new knowledge, uncertainly has also arisen concerning the impact of changes in traditional child-rearing patterns on the cognitive and social-emotional development of the young. Does early, intensive, long-day care – as a recent study suggests – lead to an increase of negative, aggressive behaviour in young children? One may dispute such far-reaching conclusions based on a single study, conducted in a particular social and cultural context.
          Less disputed, however, is the fact, based on studies across many countries, that low quality in early childhood services may increase child – or family-related developmental risks. Further, it is well researched that economics and cultural mechanisms operating within ECCE systems predetermine low-income and ethic and socio-linguistic minority families to choose disproportionately the lower quality options.
          The reverse side of the medal is also present, above all, the knowledge that the tremendous capacity and adaptability of young children provide an effective starting point for preventive interventions as part of a broader social inclusion policy. Education-oriented care and pre-school programmes are found to contribute importantly to the development of cognitive and language skills, providing disadvantaged children with a head start in primary school when formal instruction starts.
          The recent OECD report Starting Strong (OECD, 2001) describes these developments is OECD countries, detailing the recent changes in ECCE systems and national policies, revealing both common challenges and diverse solutions. The present paper focuses on a specific issue within this broad framework, complementing the overview of Starting Strong. What is, or can be, the function of ECCE for children from low-income and minority families? What is, or can be, the role of ECCE in improving social integration? The approach is research based.
1.2.         STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
          Culture cannot be separated from education. Informed education consists of not only cultural values, norms, belief and attitude to mention a few which are passed from one generation to another.
          Early childhood stage of children are greatly influence by their culture. Hence, this study intend to investigate the cultural influence on ECCE among different families in Ikere Local Government Area of Ekiti State.
1.3.            OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
1.     To investigate the cultural influence on early childhood care and education.’
2.     To identify how culture influence child care and education of different families.
3.     To investigate the factors that influence early childhood care and education of different families.
4.     To examine the effect of various families culture on child care and education.
1.4.    SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
          This study is of important in the sense that it will identify the cultural influence on early childhood care and education of different families in Ikere Local Government of Ikere Ekiti. The study offered useful suggestion and recommendations which are considered capable of helping the situation.
1.5.    SCOPE OF THE STUDY
          The study will investigate the cultural influence on early childhood care and education of different families in Ekiti State. The study comprises of one hundred and fifty two subjects consisting of girls and women in Ikere Local Government of Ikere Ekiti.
1.6.    RESEARCH QUESTION
1.     What cultural values and practice that influence early childhood care and education?
2.     What are the factors that influence early childhood care families’ culture on childhood care and education?
3.     What are the effect of various families’ culture on early childhood care and education?
1.7.    DELIMITATION OF THE STUDY
          Due to limited time and fund, the research has been limited to in Ikere Local Government of Ikere Ekiti.
          These area drawn from one districts in Ikere Local Government of Ikere Ekiti.
1.8.    DEFINITION OF TERMS
Culture: Refer to customs of a nation or group/ a traditional way of behaving or acting.
Early Childhood Care and Education: can be define as activities related to reflection, planning, preparation and implementation for the upbringing and education of children below school-age “Education” is a word usually associated with school and the whole educational system. We should like to broaden this concept and focus more on planning and reflection on upbringing, instruction and education.
Influence: is the power or ability to affect beliefs or actions.
Early childhood: is defined as the period from birth to age five (5) is a time of life during which significant transformation is take place. Early childhood is the period from prenatal development to eight years of age. It is a crucial phase of growth and development because experiences during early childhood can influence outcomes across the entire course of an individual’s life.      
Family:  is defined as a group of people living together and functioning as a single household, usually consisting of parent and their children.    

Reactions

You may like these posts