Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

When I experience microaggressions, I normally try to move on beyond the microaggressive actions. So for this week assignment to describe at least one example of a microaggression that I detected this week, I was hoping I could report that I did not experience nor observe any microaggressions this week, but, sadly, I experienced it today, the day before this blog is due to be posted.

In our Week 4 video transcript, Dr. Derald Wing Sue focused on a discussion about verbal microaggressions. So I wondered whether microaggressions could be nonverbal and googled the question. Much to my delight, in a Psychology Today article, the very same Dr. Sue (2010) wrote:

Microaggressions are the everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership. In many cases, these hidden messages may invalidate the group identity or experiential reality of target persons, demean them on a personal or group level, communicate they are lesser human beings, suggest they do not belong with the majority group, threaten and intimidate, or relegate them to inferior status and treatment (¶2).

The subtle act of microaggression made me feel inferior within the university department I work in. I was in an elevator with my supervisor and a colleague who both were engaged in a conversation in sign language with me. On the next floor, a departmental co-worker stepped in and started talking with my supervisor and colleague with her back to me. She exchanged pleasantries with them before walking away. Both my supervisor and my colleague are two of my dearest friends and are always sensitive to my communication needs. They would not know what just transpired unless I mentioned to them. I chose not to because we were on our way to lunch to wish my colleague good wishes as she’s moving to a new job at a new university.

Normally but not always, I am used to such microaggressions from strangers; but this time, it hurts because that co-worker usually makes me feel like I am a monster when I approach her in her office. I have not given her any reason to feel this way about me. This makes me look for ways to avoid all encounters with her. Ford (2009) talked about strategies he would employ to “simply stay sane in the face of disconnection from a mainstream academic culture.”

It is kind of ironic because our university is concerned about diversity and all types of “-isms,” and here we have a staffer treating me that way within our department. Other employees have accommodated me in my way of communicating through paper/pen and/or emails. Ford (2009) suggested that “institutions of higher education…should make a more concerted effort in considering the challenges faced by students with disabilities in the same ways that efforts have been made to include Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and American Indians” (¶6).

References

Sue, D. W. (November 17, 2010). Microaggressions: More than just race. Psychology Today. Retrieved from: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/microaggressions-in-everyday-life/201011/microaggressions-more-just-race

Ford, A. R. (2009). It's not just about racism, but ableism. Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, 26(4), 16.

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

I had the privilege of attending a Deaf Women United conference this weekend in Northern California. They are celebrating their 30^th anniversary, and how fitting it is that their main topic has been social justice and all of the journeys we take to get from where we are privileged to a place where we understand and respect other people’s cultures and social identities. I have learned a few new things, and am reminded of other things I learned before and forgot.

As I expected, their answers to diversity were more robust than their ideas about culture. They were more knowledgeable and engaged with the topic of diversity. Mostly, we talked about our own social identities, and how some of our “privileges” are both privilege and oppressive.

Most of the responses I got were about the surface cultures that we all are familiar with and learned in our class the past couple of weeks. It includes the languages we speak, the clothes, and values & traditions. However, one of the workshop presenters I asked said how her three social identities often conflict with each other.  She is a Black Deaf Woman. She has three “cultures” where she had to navigate the conflicts between Black/White, Deaf/Hearing, and Woman/Male. She was an angry person who has learned to love people and work through their differences. I learned so much from watching her present her three identities and how she has come to a point where she is embracing each of the three identities she has. She illuminated what Ngo (2008) discussed and suggested, “Rather than whole, seamless, or naturally occurring, culture and identity are the result of differentiation in social relations…they emerge within the play of specific modalities of power, and thus are more the product of the marking of difference and exclusion, than they are the sign of an identical, naturally-constituted unity” (p.6).

We had a discussion where we identified our privilege and our oppression. A few of us talked about how being smart or intelligent is both a privilege and oppressive. It is good to know how other women also share my thoughts. We talked about how some people are just so smart they cannot handle it. Frequently, people do not understand what smart people are talking about and look at them with askance.

Ultimately, the only way we all can understand each other, and start to respect each other is to have a continuing dialogue where we talk through our differences or disagreements. As my Foundations to Early Childhood Education said, it is the responsibility of the education professionals to find out more about each of the child.

Ngo, B. (2008). Beyond "culture clash": Understanding of immigrant experiences. Theory into Practice, 47(1), 4–11.

My Family Culture

Now, if I were to take three small items, I would not know what. Honestly, I have thought hard about what three items I would take with me. I have asked my husband and my son, and they did not know either. I do not know what artifacts in our house represent our family culture. I know what I want to take for my own sanity.

First is all blankets I have in the house because I am always cold!

Second is my laptop that has all of my ideas, thoughts, and papers I wrote.

I cannot think of a third item that I would have to take with me.

If I had to choose just one item to keep, I would keep my laptop because, with it, I can entertain myself with captioned movies, write blogs, use it to communicate with others, and look at family photos.

The only insight I can share is that I have never been materialistic although I appreciate fine things. After a devastating home fire in 2006, we are less attached to our stuff. After we recovered from the loss and rebuilding of our home, we now belong to a very special club – those who lost their homes to fires and rebuilt them.

If you live in Southern California as I do, you are always prepared for wildfires every year. There’s a culture associated with preparing for the wildfires. First, you watch for warnings to evacuate the area. Sometimes, you would be asked to evacuate your home. When and if you have time, you take only the 3Ps – people, pets, and photos. That’s what we all think when preparing to evacuate.

There are not very many items I would take with me other than the three Ps, and, after this exercise, my laptop! That does sound very privileged, and I know my family is.

When I think of Research

Now that we are ending our Developing Research Competency class, I found myself not wanting the class to end. It has been one of the most fun, enlightening, and educational classes for me. This is my fifth class, so that also means I am at halfway point of my graduate studies.

As some of you know, I am a research associate but never had an opportunity to develop my own research. This is where I have become more confident and knowledgeable about the research process. My professional base of knowledge has been enhanced in ways that I did not expect and indeed appreciated.  As I think back to my Week 1 where I developed my class research simulation topic and subtopics, I could see how the class helped me hone my basic skills and thoughts into a finely crafted research question. Most of all, I was glad Dr. Parrish kept assuring us that, by the end of class, we will have something we can be proud of. I am grateful I decided to just enjoy the process albeit with some really stressful weekends of studying!

Sometimes when the weekly reading was not clear, all I need to do was check out our Discussions, and everything would then make sense. Thank you to all of the colleagues in our Discussions. Thanks, Dr. Parrish, for your patience with me.

For me, I appreciated most of all the opportunity to learn about certain methodologies and when and why we would employ quantitative or qualitative methods. I did not realize that there was a third one – mixed method research, and that’s my favorite!

I loved learning about tools that are available to researchers. Tools like triangulation is helpful to know for when we are struggling with certain aspects of the research project or indigenist research that would help us work with the populations that we want to research. Most surprising for me was the allowance of researchers’ personal biases and how to work through the biases. I had never heard about equality and equity and am really grateful to know a few new things about them.

Good luck to some of you who will be doing actual research; I hope I will get an opportunity to apply for funds to conduct my research.

Finally, good luck also to some of you who will continue with classes and to those who are taking breaks. May our paths cross again in the next few classes.

Research Around the World

Early Childhood Development Virtual University (ECDVU) – Sub-Saharan Africa is essentially a coalition of local, regional, and international organizations that support a variety of educational activities and a three-year Masters degree, a one-year Professional specialization Certificate program, and a one-year Graduate Diploma program in collaboration with local universities. Those programs are fully accredited and a part of the School of Child and Youth Care, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia in Canada. Their mission is to “further develop African Early Childhood Development (ECD) leadership capacity as a key strategy in support of child, family, and community well-being and broader social and economic development.”

There is a webpage devoted to 27 Masters’ thesis done in 2004 by the graduate students in ECDVU. The countries represented in the 27 research projects are: Eritrea, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania, The Gambia, Tanzania, and Uganda.

The research topics represent a wide range of local and regional needs such as:

*studying the need for training of their ECD staff; leadership skills training for administrators;

*developing a process for local staff to maintain, manage, and own their preschools; how to maintain communication via newsletters;

*piloting whether a Western-based Inclusive Quality Assessment (IQA) can be utilized appropriately and suitably in a non-Western culture;

*assessing of the caring practices in two orphanages and nutrition training program for their staff;

*studying the coordination and supervision of their early childhood development programs;

 *facilitating implementation of national policies to ensure efficient and effective care for young and vulnerable children in Malawi;

*studying how experiential learning benefits young children in Malawi and how to apply their practices to other villages;

*studying parents’ perspectives of the ECD needs in their local communities in Ghana;

*documenting endangered indigenous stories and re-telling them in ECD centers in The Gambia, Ghana, Malawi, and Lesotho; the conclusions were that parents needed to tell those stories at home to prepare them for storytelling at school.

*involving fathers in ECD programs; studying effective school and parent collaboration; how single mothers interact and stimulate their children; how to support working families;

*which ECD models prepare children better for school in Kenya;

*supporting grandparents in taking care of children affected by HIV/AIDS;

*utilizing community resources for ECDs in Eritrea.

(ECDVU, 2005)

The list of research topics represent the same issues that we have in the United States. They have the same concerns for quality administration of early childhood development centers, provision of trainings for staff, and utilization of community resources. They also look at how fathers, parents, and grandparents can help with their ECDs through more collaboration and training. They even have cultural issues where they would need to evaluate a Western criteria. They express concern that their tribal indigenous stories are being lost because children are no longer interested in them.

I always forget how universal such issues are; and this serves as a reminder that we all have similar concerns for our children families, and the communities.

References

ECDVU.org. (2005). Major Projects and Theses. Early Childhood Development Virtual University. Retrieved June 2015 from: http://www.ecdvu.org/ssa/major_reports.php

ECDVU.org. (2005). ECDVU Sub-Saharan Africa: Mission Statement. Early Childhood Development Virtual University. Retrieved June 2015 from: http://www.ecdvu.org/ssa/index.php

ECDVU.org. (2005). ECDVU Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) Program Overview. Early Childhood Development Virtual University. Retrieved June 2015 from: http://www.ecdvu.org/ssa/index.php