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
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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.