Developing cultural humility through experiential learning: How home visits transform early childhood preservice educators’ attitudes for engaging families

ABSTRACT

Research calls for teacher education to prepare early childhood educators for the needs of diverse and marginalized young children and their families in the U.S. With an increasing cultural divide between teachers and students, some early childhood educators may demonstrate limited understanding for how diverse cultural, linguistic, racial, and socioeconomic backgrounds inform the daily functions of families of young children. In this article, we examine how the use of experiential learning vis-à-vis conducting a home visit with a family from a diverse and marginalized background can shape early childhood preservice teachers’ (PST) development of cultural humility, an important component of cultural competence. During this experiential learning, PSTs engaged in critically reflective practices to uncover and challenge their implicit biases. While discovering the strengths and challenges among their home visit families, PSTs also learned what they had in common with the families. PSTs noted how the home visit process informed their work as future early childhood educators.