Multiculturalism Beyond Tokenism

by Rakel Goiri

The ever-changing mosaic of Canadian society has brought with it a new sensitivity to child care programs across the country. Meeting the multicultural needs of our children has become one of the primary focuses not only of front line staff but also of parents searching for child care services. Fortunately, colleges, training programs and workshops are helping child care providers identify multicultural issues and a great deal of information is currently available on the subject.

Those of us who are in daily contact with children are making an effort to be responsive to the changes. We read anything that falls into our hands related to this topic. We have evaluated the physical environments in which our children move. We try to involve parents in the process and have even implemented new policies. But how much of this effort goes beyond political correctness?

We all bring with us our own cultural baggage -- baggage that has a major role in determining the way we socialize and interact with others. How true can we be to the multicultural spirit if we are not aware of how our daily interactions with children and parents are affected by our deep-rooted beliefs?

It is human nature to relate better to those who share something in common with us. How do our perceptions and communication patterns with parents from another culture affect our interactions with their children? Are we predisposed to better meet the needs of those children that better fit our cultural schemes? Can we avoid judging parents and children's behaviours based on our own cultural rules? Can a caregiver who has never experienced some form of cultural shock be truly understanding and responsive?

These questions are not easily answered. Cultural acceptance is not carried by the genes; it is a learned behaviour. It is our responsibility as child care professionals to become aware of how this learned behaviour influences what we do in our day care on a daily basis. It is not enough to provide children with a classroom where materials have passed the approved multicultural checklist, or to keep bombarding parents for ethnical background information, or to sing the occasional tune in another language. Do not get me wrong -- this is a necessary step in providing children and families with an environment that is not only more familiar to them but also more representative of our society. But now we need to go beyond and internalize the principles behind the implementation of a multicultural curriculum. It is what we do or do not do in our daily contacts with children and parents that sends the message of respect and tolerance. In order to foster an environment of cultural acceptance, we need to:

• Look at our expectations of families and children and how it affects our responses.
• Become aware of the quality of interactions with children from different backgrounds and how they are affected by our relationships with their parents.
• Look at which children and parents we feel comfortable and uncomfortable relating to and the reasons why. Notice which children do or do not receive our attention, praise, encouragement and in what ways.
• Examine policies, ratios and philosophies and how often we hide behind them to reinforce our own set ways.
• Be able to empathize or have some understanding of what it feels like to be judged by a totally different set of values or rules from those with which we were brought up.
• Ask for some additional training for staff who came into the field before multiculturalism became part of the curricula at colleges.

As child care professionals, we owe it to the children, we owe it to the families, and we owe it to ourselves. Let's climb up the next step in the ladder and know that it will not be the last.

Rakel Goiri is a child care provider with the University Settlement Day Care in Toronto, Ontario.

This article first appeared in Interaction published by the Canadian Child Care Federation, Summer, 1994.

Posted by: the Canadian Child Care Federation, September 1996.

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