Sample TCHR2002 Children Families Communities Assignment

TCHR2002 Children, Families & Communities Assignment Sample

ASSESSMENT BRIEF

Length 1500 words including references
Weighting 50%

Rationale

Working with, and supporting children and families within the context of their community can present challenges. Early childhood professionals should reflect on the diversity of issues that face children and families. The aim of this assessment task is for students to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding regarding contemporary and diverse issues facing children, families and communities.

Task Instructions

You are required to answer each of the following three questions in approximately 500 words. All responses must be literature supported.

Question 1

Part A: In your own words, write a short definition (2-3 sentences) for proximal processes.

Part B: Think about the aspects that influence children’s lives today and those that have influenced them in the past. Discuss how contemporary life may enhance or hinder proximal processes and outcomes compared to how life influenced them in the past. Frame your answer using the levels in Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Model.

Question 2

The extent to which victims of bullying suffer negative outcomes is partly determined by how they cope with being bullying. In your future practice, how can you ensure the children in your care have the skills and strategies to overcome bullying incidents. Make links to the Early Years Learning Framework (DET, 2019) where relevant.

Question 3

You are working at a long day care centre where a new family has enrolled. You have planned a cooking experience with the children when the boy (aged 4) states, “cooking is the girl’s job, boys should not cook!” Discuss the following points:

• What language and actions would you use to handle this situation?
• How can you teach gender equality as part of the Australian culture with children aged 3-5?
• What are the strategies you could implement to work towards social justice and equity?

Referencing Style

APA 7th referencing format is required in Faculty of Education assessment tasks – link to SCU Libguide here: APA 7 Referencing.

Solution

Question 1

According to Bronfenbrenner, proximal processes can be considered as the driving forces of development in the children (Ashiabi & O’Neal, 2015). These include playing with children or reading activities, which help in displaying the relations between people and various objects and symbols that interact with the. These engines of development can determine the transmission of energy residing between the individuals and their environments through a bidirectional way (Bronfenbrenner & Evans, 2000).

Part B

There are various aspects that influencing lives of children and their development in today’s world while they have also impacted in the past. These mainly include genetics, gender, culture, environment, family, exercise, health and nutrition (Nolan & Raban, 2015). Heredity refers to the transmission of different physical characteristics from the parents to the children using genes that can affect their growth and development. Culture also influences the children’s emotional, social, physical and linguistic development. Factors like familial influence, socio-economic status and geographical influence further help in growth and development of children (Grace, et al., 2017). In addition, for assignment help exercise and nutrition displays how the child grows physically by remaining healthy and fit.

Fig : Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory
(Source: McLinden, 2017)

Contemporary life can enhance or hinder proximal processes of the children throughout their lives while they participate in different reciprocal interactions taking place with people, symbols and objects present in their environments. This life consists of several environmental factors that help in supporting the wellbeing, healthy development and learning of the children (Nolan & Raban, 2015). This can be understood with the help of Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory that enables one to control external influences, thereby enhancing the child development. It can be specifically applied for working mothers and their interaction with the children.

Microsystem of the children includes immediate family, school, doctor or place of worship that directly influence personality, belief systems and behaviour of children alongside their physical features (Nolan & Raban, 2015). Here, working mothers help in developing the personality of their children, thus, modifying their perceptions about social interactions.

Mesosystem refers to the degree of similarity existing between two immediate external environments of the children (Grace, et al., 2017). Here, a close match helps in smooth transition between the two external settings. The children here use their experience of interactions with working mothers for transitioning into the external system. They can face difficulties here as working mothers cannot provide all their time to enhance the children’s perceptions and feelings.

The exosystem includes local government, social networks and workplaces of the parents that might indirectly affect the child development. Here, the child is not involved in the setting of the mother’s working life but can be affected by the same (Grace, et al., 2017). This is because these interactions often change with the changes taking place in the in the mother’s work life, thereby affecting the child’s interactions as well in the environment.

Lastly, the macrosystem includes broader societal and cultural contexts that generate significant impact across all other systems. The values, principles and customs of the working mothers help in inculcating cultural belief systems and set of values of the society by passing onto the children. Here, the values are incorporated and passed down from the mother that might be subjected to change over a period (Grace, et al., 2017). Such changes again determine how children interact with their external environment and the ways such external factors influence their lives.

Question 2

It is essential to undertake effective strategies and use skills for ensuring that children can overcome bullying incidents. Bullying incidents involve aggressive behaviours displayed intentionally by showing a power of strength. This is often a repetitive behaviour that can be physical, relational or verbal (Levine & Tamburrino, 2014). It has been further observed that young children having low self-esteem or loneliness feelings are more vulnerable to these bullying incidents resulting in different mental health issues like anxiety or depression. In this regard, it is required to provide support for enhancing social and emotional competence of the children through their wellbeing development. Here, wellbeing will encompass satisfaction, good physical health, successful social functioning and feelings of happiness for improving confidence and optimism amongst the children (Weare, 2015). This can further increase their learning potential, thereby enabling them to deal with bullying situations confidently.

According to the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF), wellbeing can help in building resilience amongst children, thereby enhancing their capability in dealing with day-to-day challenges and stresses (DET, 2019). Such readiness to persevere uncomfortable or unfamiliar situations in learning can also help them to deal with bullying incidents. However, it is also essential for the educators to develop warm and trusting relationships, foster safe and predictable environments and provide affirmation and respect to the children (Mayr & Ulich, 2009). Furthermore, parents and educators should focus on acknowledging cultural and social identity of the children by responding to their different emotional states while they face any bullying experience (DET, 2019). This can help in enhancing their self-confidence, sense of wellbeing and willingness to engage in various learning activities. Another strategy would be to emphasize on developing their resilience and responsibility of self-help and basic health routines. This can promote their confidence and sense of independence, thus, making them more capable of handling unpleasant situations and bullying incidents (DET, 2019).

A whole-group intervention by involving teachers, students and peer groups along with all persons responsible can make antibullying strategies more effective. Both teachers and students need to be taught safe strategies for supporting and helping victims (Veenstra, et al., 2014). Classroom norms can also be changed for preventing bullying behaviour. Teachers can play a significant role in strengthening antibullying norms and their implementation in the classrooms. They should also become more efficacious by undertaking strict actions against individuals resorting to bullying their classmates and peers. It is expected that teachers would put in extra effort for decreasing bullying by keeping antibullying norms inside and outside classrooms (Veenstra, et al., 2014). Developing self-confidence and resilience of students can further enable them to undertake actions for reporting bullying incidents of their peers and classmates. This can help in reducing bullying in the classrooms. Here, students have to possess a strong perception about the teachers having higher efficacy and power in handling bullying situations (Veenstra, et al., 2014). It further motivates them to report such incidents from the perception that the situations will be dealt with. Thus, efforts from both students and teachers are required to reduce bullying incidents of children.

Question 3

In this case, the situation can be handled by speaking in simple language and soft tone to the boy for making him understand his mistake. Here, it can be shown to the children how cooking can be a fun activity that any individual can perform. It also needs to be communicated to the children that cooking is a basic life skill that can help them while they grow up and start living alone for educational purposes.

A gender equality approach can be undertaken in schools and day care centres for breaking down gender stereotypes in Australia from young ages. In this regard, these educational and care places need to provide children with environments by including various non-gendered norms and expectations (Women’s Health East, 2017). This can make the children feel more celebrated and accepted by embracing their individuality. Both boys and girls can be encouraged for exploring, creating and developing diverse interests without labelling it as a girl or boy’s task. In this regard, children’s books should refrain from displaying cooking, driving, earning livelihood and other as gender-based roles (Women’s Health East, 2017). For example, they can show cooking as a basic skill that is required in life. Instead, these books should challenge gender stereotypes by embracing diversity.

Social justice involves the ideas of fairness, inclusion and equity. In educational institutions, social justice and equity can be ensured with the help of different strategies (Shaeffer, 2019). The schools need to redress the ways that help in reproducing and reinforcing inequality. Here, socio-economic disadvantage of students can be reduced through production of equitable outcomes from education. Both teachers and students need to get involved for identifying social injustices and become more aware about such issues (Shaeffer, 2019). Social justice pedagogy should also be undertaken for encouraging students to challenge unequal power relationships for transforming them. Thus, a social justice approach can be applied in the educational institutions for enabling all students to reach a high standard of education. Furthermore, adopting and resourcing a plan is required for ensuring social equity along with including clearly articulated goals (Boyd, et al., 2021). This helps participants in better understanding how they can enhance social justice and equity by achieving the stated objectives. Besides, inclusive engagement of children from various background can also be another strategy for promoting social justice and equity. Here, both formal and informal networks of different service providers and stakeholders should be established for ensuring such equity in the educational institutions (Boyd, et al., 2021). Children should also get equitable access to high-quality education alongside both boys and girls being encouraged to participate equally and actively in contemporary changing patterns of work. Thus, the active role played by these educational institutions for addressing social justice and equity at primary level should be addressed. 

References