Who are you? The importance of building identity in the early years and the place of culture within this. Penny Borkett
Introduction Conversations around race and culture are never easy. Depending on your own life experience they will either be seen as a vital part of society and issues which particularly need addressing within education, or they may make you feel very uncomfortable and you would rather run a mile than get caught up in a conversation around them. I think when I was younger I would have put myself in the second category. Yet over the summer, discussions around race and culture have really come to our consciousness with the murder of George Floyd in the United States of America at the hands of the police. Thus followed protests across the world pertaining to the view held by some that the lives of black people are often adversely affected by ‘the white majority’. The term Black Lives Matter has hardly been out of the media since. In early October another news story hit the headlines but this time from Paris when a teacher was murdered. His crime? for teaching his students about tolerance. He was trying to encourage freedom of speech - something that I am sure all practitioners want for their children, whatever their age. My argument here would be that if we were less afraid to encourage our very youngest children (in the early years) to think about difference and diversity and to see it as an
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important aspect of their burgeoning identity that there might be fewer incidents of racism, and that children would grow up to understand difference in a more positive way. This paper will focus on two main areas which I believe need to be addressed if real change is needed in the way that all children in the UK grow up to learn about aspects of difference and diversity. • The often contested role of culture in policy – in particular the National Curriculum (Primary Curriculum) and the Early Years Foundation Stage • The need to ensure as practitioners that we start to acknowledge the developing identity of children from the moment they enter early years settings, and the role of culture within this Just a couple of things to note at the start of this paper: Firstly, I always use the term practitioners to refer to everyone working with children. For me this values all those who work with children in settings across the country.
