Bridging Cultures, Teacher Training Project

The practice of making a book called All About Me is a familiar part of many early childhood classrooms in the United States. But what is really being learned? The teacher is likely to be thinking that she is promoting the child's sense of self-esteem and individuality. She may also value the child's burgeoning literacy skills. Yet, the child may be learning something very different. He might believe that the teacher does not like his family and thus she does not like him. Bragging about himself might be unfamiliar, without meaning, or uncomfortable for him. Ultimately, as Zepeda and colleagues point out, he might be inclined to think that his feelings do not matter, thwarting his concept of self—exactly the opposite of the teacher's goal.

The example of All About Me calls attention to classroom practices that, though well intended, may be at odds with learning, eventually leading to negative feelings about school altogether. The good intentions of the teacher and the compliant but uncomfortable boy are likely to be operating with two conflicting sets of values, each invisible to the other. The teacher's goals are representative of the cultural value of individualism, the characteristic value of mainstream United States. In contrast, the boy's discomfort at being isolated from his family is characteristic of the cultural value of familism, a particular type of collectivism, the value system of many immigrant children and families. As Greenfield and colleagues point out, these two idealized developmental pathways emphasize different goals for development and learning. Individualism emphasizes individual identity, independence, self-fulfillment, and standing out. Collectivism emphasizes group identity, interdependence, social responsibility, and fitting in.

Each pathway is situated in a broader sociocultural system. According to Patricia Greenfield and colleagues, the individualistic pathway arises as an adaptation to a complex, urban, wealthy environment featuring a well-developed system of formal education and advanced technology. The collectivistic pathway arises as an adaptation to a small-scale, face-to-face village environment based on a subsistence economy and informal education. Economic conditions and political persecution tend to incorporate people from the second kind of society into the first. When this happens, children and their families are exposed to two contrasting and often conflicting socializing forces that are very relevant to the care and education of many immigrant, Native American, Alaska Native, and [Page 266]Native Hawaiian children in the United States, as well as the descendants of immigrant or conquered peoples in other industrialized countries such as Australia and those of Western Europe.

...