This chapter outlines the roles of family, community, and early child education learning objectives as they relate to promoting diversity within early child education environments. Specifically, concepts such as parenting approaches, the ecological systems theory, early child education program models, and diversity are all discussed in this chapter. Early child education learning objectives such as those outlined by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) are also applied as they relate to promoting children's developmental domains (social, emotional, cognitive, social) while further encouraging the integration of diversity and appreciation of everyone's cultures and backgrounds within early child education environments.
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Children are typically acknowledged as active agents within their environments (Couchenour & Chrisman, 2014). Thus, children’s development is largely dependent on their interactions as well as the interplay of nature and nurture (Crown, Oyebode, & Ramsay, 2006). Nature relates to children’s genetic composition, while nurture is associated with children’s environments and how they may influence children’s outcomes. This chapter will mainly focus on nurture, or how environmental factors may influence children’s development. Examples of nurture that will be discussed in this chapter include parenting styles, the types of meta-emotion approaches parents use, early child education classrooms, teachers, the media, culture and society, as well as socialization.
The concept of socialization is related to children’s interactions within their environments (Baker, Fenning, & Crinic, 2011). Specifically, socialization is defined as the process in which information is passed from individuals to individuals based on their beliefs, values, backgrounds, experiences (Baker, Fenning, & Crinic, 2011). Examples of specific agents, or factors associated with children’s socialization include parents and caregivers, school environments, neighborhoods, as well as culture. All of these agents serve the role as an impetus, which may influence children’s experiences and perceptions about the world around them.