Birth to three matters - Communities and Local Government

expressions of emotion. So children’sinterpretations of emotional states andwhat is in the minds of others can beimpaired for a number of reasons.A further expression of this new-foundidentity around this time is the abilityto use one’s own name. Additionally mostchildren will begin to use ‘I’, ‘me’ and ‘mine’during their second year. Between two andthree years of age they will also begin todevelop a gender identity and to showawareness of any effects of racism in theirsociety. Siraj-Blatchford (2001) points outthat there is only an emerging literatureon racial identity, culture and agency andeven that relates mainly to older childrenthan we are considering here. This analysisis suppo rted by Goin (1998).Si ra j - Bl atc h fo rdargues that the best approach for ECECstaff is to work with all children makingthem aware they all have an ethnic/racial,gendered, cultural,diverse and linguistici d e nt i ty, be cause they would then be be t te requipped to accept that others are thesame, working in a way which is intendedto break down stereotypes. Siraj-Blatchfordgoes on to discuss strategies for dealingwith racism or sexism and she states:-‘A positive self-concept is necessary forhealthy development and learning andincludes feelings about gender, race,ability, culture and language. Positiveself-esteem depends on whether childrenfeel others accept them and see them ascompetent and worthwhile.’Siraj-Blatchford (2001: 104).Some early research suggested that thefact that young black children choosewhite dolls indicates low self-esteeminduced by racism,however, there is nowdisagreement in the USA as to whetherexperiments in which African-Americanpre-school children chose white dollsrather than black when given the choicewere indicating negative self-images (Katz1996) or simply reflecting their recognitionfor the more valued stimuli and not lowerlevels of self-esteem than whites (Powell1985; Spencer 1985).Again, it is around the time babies becomemore mobile, being able to stand andwalk,that they start to socialise more withother people, making rudimentary foraysinto interactions with their peers. In a veryrecent study, Belsky et al (2001) measuredattentional persistence and negativeemotionality when children were 15months old and then when the childrenwere three.The researchers measuredproblem behaviour, social competenceand ‘school (ie nursery group) readiness’.They found that children whoseattentional persistence was low, (theywere not able to concentrate forreasonable periods of time for the agegroup),and who showed high levels ofnegative emotions when younger, also hadlow levels of social competence. However,having reasonable levels of concentrationmediated the effects of negativeemotionality and such children werebetter able to integrate with their peers.It is generally during the second year thatyoung children begin feigning crying(showing they are aware of its effect),are more likely to make caring gestures52 EDUCATIONAND SKILLS B I RT H T O T H R E E M AT T E R S