Resources: Know how - Cultural awareness

Valuing difference and welcoming children from all backgrounds is important for all staff from early years and beyond. But emphasising cultural awareness needs a certain amount of caution in order to have the proper effect, as PJ White explains. 1. Being sensitive to children's cultural backgrounds can be positive. But approached crudely and unthinkingly, it may cause more harm than good. Patrice Lawrence, Black and minority ethnic children and young people co-ordinator at the National Children's Bureau, advocates caution about some effects of cultural awareness messages. She points out that, at its worst, a mechanistic approach can actually lead to a failure to listen to and even protect children. "That's how they do things in that culture" can become a sort of complicity in neglect, masquerading as sensitivity.