Cultural Identity

In the first two weeks we have talked about the lives of children and specifically how children learn. Discuss how issues of identity and particularly gender or cultural background might impact on a child's self confidence and self esteem. How might differentiating our teaching to focus on their learning, improve a child's self confidence?

All children can learn but how they learn and the factors that impact on their learning are great. Children are unique. They are different socially, emotionally and physically. They have different interests and abilities and their self confidence and self esteem can impact on how they approach learning. Children come from diverse backgrounds, with unique experiences that have already begun to shape their preferred learning style. Issues of cultural identity can strongly influence how a child participates in formal learning.

Children begin forming an identity from an early age. At first they label themselves with observable characteristics, such as boy or girl, short or tall (Oswalt n.d.). In middle childhood, a child's sense of identity grows and they incorporate a wider range of references. Issues of self esteem are more likely to rise at this stage as children measure themselves against the ideal self (Alpay n.d.). Erikson's

No matter where an Aboriginal child lives it is likely he/she will identify with aspects of Aboriginal culture (Gibson, 1993; Guider 1991)...Aboriginal students’ learning is often based on observation and imitation rather than verbal and written approaches (Harris & Malin 1994). Traditionally, Aboriginal learning is informal and non-verbal, while school learning is largely focused on two-way verbal interactions (Harris & Harris 1988). Aboriginal students need to learn how to use language to learn at school (Graham 1988a, 1988b) and they may feel shame if they are focused on to answer questions (Malin 1990)". ( Matthews, Howard & Perry,