My Family Culture

Imagine the following:

A major catastrophe has almost completely devastated the infrastructure of your country. The emergency government has decided that the surviving citizens will be best served if they are evacuated to other countries willing to take refugees. You and your immediate family are among the survivors of this catastrophic event. However, you have absolutely no input into the final destination or in any other evacuation details. You are told that your host country’s culture is completely different from your own, and that you might have to stay there permanently. You are further told that, in addition to one change of clothes, you can only take 3 small items with you. You decide to take three items that you hold dear and that represent your family culture.

• A description of the three items you would choose

• My bible

  

• Family photo album (filled with old family photos and new family photos)

• My wedding ring

How you would explain to others what each of these items means to you

• My bible is my guidance and gives me strength every day. It is a constant reminder that no matter what happens I am never alone and that God is with me.
• My family photo album is a representation of who I am and where I come from. It has pictures of loved ones that have gone on before us. It is a wonderful way to remember the past and also a way to look forward to the future.
• My wedding ring is very important to me. It is a symbol of an oath I took in front of God and my family that I would honor and cherish my husband. When I look at it I remember our wedding and the love that we felt for each other which has gotten stronger every day since that day.

Your feelings if, upon arrival, you were told that you could only keep one personal item and have to give up the other two items you brought with you

• I would feel angry and frustrated if I was told that I could only keep one personal item, but I know which item I would keep. I would choose my bible, seeing that my immediate family is with me, I could give up my family photo album because we could make new memories in the new country. I could give up my wedding ring since my husband will be with me and we know that we are married. We could get new rings later after we get settled in the country we have been sent to live.

Any insights you gained about yourself, your family culture, diversity, and/or cultural differences in general, as a result of this exercise,

• One insight I gained while doing this assignment was that it was very easy to pick the major item that I would take but the other two items were very difficult to decide what I would chose. My faith is a very big part of my family’s culture and as long as I have my family around me that is all that I need; my bible and my family.

When I think of research....

I want to thank all my colleagues who have posted comments on my blog. Also what a great job we have all done the past eight weeks. I have really enjoyed reading about and learning about the research process. I know the past eight weeks have been busy for me but I feel that I know have the knowledge to design a research outline and follow it through.

• What insights have you gained about research from taking this course?
• The major insight that I have gained about research from taking this course is that there is a lot that researchers needs to take into consideration before they can start a research study.
• In what ways have your ideas about the nature of doing research changed?
• Before taking this course I knew that research was a lot of work and time consuming, but what I didn’t realize is how many different approaches there are for doing researcher.
• What lessons about planning, designing, and conducting research in early childhood did you learn?
• With help from the assignments and the text reading, I have learned a lot about the research process. “Regardless of approach, there is a series of steps – from selecting a topic through to writing the final research report – that must be followed to generate research that is informative, ethical, meaningful, persuasive and significant” (Naughton, Rolfe, Siraj-Blatchford, 2010, p. 32).
• What were some of the challenges you encountered—and in what ways did you meet them?
• Some challenges I encountered were learning how to really narrow down and define the research question, decide on the type of design I wanted to use and data collection methods I wanted to use.
• What are some of the ways your perceptions of an early childhood professional have been modified as a result of this course?
• As a result of this course my perceptions of early childhood professionals have strengthened. I feel that even though research might sound scary to some, early childhood professionals have the resources and passion to make significant changes in the field with the help of research studies.

References:

Naughton, G., Rolfe, S., & Siraj-Blatchford, I. (2010). Doing early childhood research. New York, NY: Open University Press.

Research Around the World

European Early Childhood Education Research Association (EECERA)

·         What are some of the current international research topics

“EECERA members, who wish to engage in cross-national collaborations around a particular theme, form Special Interest Groups (SIGs). These collaborations can be simply for dialogue and deliberation or have a particular focus such as a research bid or an intended publication.” (European Early Childhood Education Research Association [EECERA], 2010). There are currently eleven active Special Interest Groups which embrace a wide range of specialist interests in early childhood.

• Birth to Three
• Equity and Respect for Diversity
• Leadership and Integration
• Leadership Mentoring for Early Years Services
• Learning and Participation
• Mathematics Birth to Eight Years
• Outdoor Play and Learning
• Professionalism in Early Childhood Education and Care
• Transitions
• Young Children's Perspectives
• Working With Parents and Families

·         What surprising facts/insights/new ideas about early childhood did you gain from exploring this international early childhood website

o   What I found surprising while exploring this website that even though it was an international website it had a lot of the same research topics that you can find here in the United States. It really verified that the early childhood field focuses on the same topics no matter where in the world you are from.

·         What other noteworthy information did you find on this website

o   The Special interest groups or SIGs page provides contact information so that you can contact people in charge of the certain group.  This site also provides information on how to join a SIG and also how to start a SIG.

References

European Early Childhood Education Research Association [EECERA]. (2010). Special interest groups. Retrieved from http://www.eecera.org/