Designing Culturally Responsive Education Strategies to Cultivate Young Children’s Cultural Identities: A Case Study of the Development of a Preschool Local Culture Curriculum

The researcher investigated how the teachers at the preschool integrated the vision of the preschool, educational goals, and community resources to develop and implement the local culture curriculum as well as what problems they encountered in the process. Thereafter, the researcher developed strategies that can be used to solve such problems. The researcher discovered that the most important aspects of the local culture curriculum were (1) its ability to pique the children's interest in history and the humanities through the lens of the children's experiences at the market, and (2) its integration of local culture and the community, specifically through interactions between young children and adults at a vegetable market. The implementation of the local culture curriculum involved the following steps: (1) establishing a thematic network; (2) planning the activities, including exploring the children's previous experiences and adjusting the curriculum and teaching methods accordingly; (3) conducting the activities, including visiting and participating in work at the market; (4) evaluating the activities; and (5) creating thank you cards and formulating plans for store renovation. Some of the obstacles the teachers encountered in the development and implementation of the vegetable-market-themed local culture curriculum were (1) shortages of preschool teachers willing to teach outdoor courses, (2) concerns about young children's safety, and (3) young children's lack of experience. Finally, on the basis of my conclusion, the researcher developed the following culturally responsive education strategies: (1) integrating aspects of local culture and the community into courses, (2) situating local culture courses in learning areas, (3) developing local culture curriculum that are rich in humanities, and (4) developing local culture curriculum based on parent-teacher cooperation to overcome teacher shortages at preschools. The results of this study may serve as a reference in the development of a local culture curriculum and other strategies to cultivate young children's cultural identities.