There are many other incidents about bias and prejudice happening in China. I experience and witness bias and prejudice quite often. In China, early childhood educators are still considered to be babysitters. When Chinese people find out that I’m an early childhood educator, they are puzzled and question why I want to be a “babysitter”. When they hear that there is a male early childhood educator at my school, they become even more unbelievable because they think “babysitting” is for ladies. These are two different examples regarding to work bias and gender bias. Everyone should have the same right and equal chance of working at different jobs. Chinese people have bias on early childhood education and I feel disrespectful and angry when this happen to me.
I believe that people in China don’t have enough knowledge and information about what early childhood professionals do at school and they believe that young children don’t know anything until they reach certain age. To change this and turn the bias down for greater equity, we need to show the public what we do in the classroom so that they have more concrete understanding about our job. At the same time, to encourage more male teachers in the field will help reduce the gender bias a bit more.
Karie
ReplyDeleteYour experience is common in many other parts of the world. I too come from the Asian culture, the Middle East, and the concept of being an early childhood educator is viewed as babysitting as well. Although there is a current move, particularly in Jordan, towards educating parents about the importance of the early years and the work we do, the majority still regard it as babysitting. Having men in the field is something unconceivable at the moment. But what is interesting is that even here in the United States, that type of mentality still exists too. So I guess we have a lot of work to do here and elsewhere.