Week 2 Application—Interview Understanding Differences in Perspectives on the Care and Education of Infants and Toddlers Step 1: Interview Setup Identify an adult who you would like to interview based on the following criteria: · He or she is a parent of or family member who lives with a child age three or under. (Note: Although the suggested interview questions are written for parents, you may modify the wording to be appropriate for another family member who has a close relationship with the child.) · His or her cultural framework appears to be similar to yours. (To determine this, take time to consider your own cultural background and the insights you gained from the Application in Week 1.) Then, contact the person you would like to interview and inform him or her that you are working on a course on cultural and family studies for infant/toddler professionals and would like to learn about his or her perspectives on the care and education of an infant or toddler in his or her family. Schedule the interview, which should take approximately 30 minutes or longer. Step 2: Pre-Interview Writing Before the interview, write a paragraph describing your interviewee and explaining why you believe his or her cultural framework might be similar to yours. Step 3: Interview Conduct the interview. While you may be accustomed to casual two-way conversation with your interviewee, be sure to keep the focus of this interview on learning about your interviewee’s perspectives. You will have an opportunity to reflect on your own views after the interview concludes. During the interview: · Focus on creating a sense of trust. · Ask open-ended questions and allow plenty of time for your interviewee to think about his or her response. · Listen deeply to what is said (or not said), without judgment. · Observe the person’s demeanor. Notice any verbal and nonverbal cues that may indicate that he or she feels uncomfortable. The following questions are provided as a reference and reflect the content you will be exploring throughout this course. You may wish to amend these questions or add new ones based on this week’s Learning Resources. Interview Questions Before you begin asking questions, take a little time to talk about how you have begun to conceptualize culture, as well as what your own identity means to you. Then, naturally segue into the first interview question. 1. How would you describe yourself in terms of your culture? How do you think your culture influenced your family upbringing? How do you think your culture and family upbringing have influenced your identity? 2. How would you describe your child, including his or her cultural background? 3. What language(s) do you speak with your infant/toddler? What language(s) do other people in his or her life speak? 4. Could you tell me about how you approach schedules in your child’s everyday life? Do you believe that an infant/toddler should have a regular schedule for feeding or eat when.