you should interview a person who grew up in another country (or lived there for an extended period of time – 10 years or more). The interview should focus on parenting, child care, and educational norms in that country compared to those in the United States.

FS 3523 – GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES: CARE & EDUCATION OF CHILDREN

CULTURAL INTERVIEW ASSIGNMENT

For this assignment, you should interview a person or a family who grew up in another country

(or lived there for an extended period of time – must be 10 years or longer).  The interview

should be centered on child-rearing and educational norms in that country, compared to those in

the United States.  Note: You may NOT interview a classmate from this course, but you may

interview another student if you wish (for example, the International Office hosts various cultural

events throughout the year where you can meet international students at TWU).

Three topics you must address in the paper:

–

Parenting

–

Child care arrangements

–

Education

Within these main topics, here are some suggested sub-topics:

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Parent-child relationship and communication

–

Parental nurture/warmth

–

Discipline practices

–

The role of the child within the family

–

Child care arrangements (in the first few years and later)

–

Child-caregiver relationship

–

Activities and structure of the child care environment

–

The educational experience

–

Educational structure

–

Child-teacher relationship

–

Parent-teacher communication

The format should be as follows:

–

In PC-compatible Word document (doc., or docx.)

–

Double-spaced

–

1” margins (

please check!

)

–

Arial or Times New Roman font

–

Black ink

–

Free of typos and grammatical errors (

proof read!!

)

–

You are expected to summarize and synthesize the information received from the person

interviewed rather than writing your paper in a question/answer format.

Grading guidelines:

Format:

5 points

Family/parenting content:

20 points

Child care/education content: 20 points

Organization/coherence:

5 points

Total points possible

50 points

Note: These are just examples. By all means, please feel free to come up with your own creative

ways to ask questions. Keep in mind that the assignment will be graded based on the rubric.

1. How would you describe your parents when you were young? Were they strict? Warm? Did

you have house rules? Did you have any rule that you felt unfair?

2. Who was involved in your development? Mother? Father? Both? How is the current

relationship between you and your parents? If you had issues, would you discuss it with them?

3. Did you go to daycare? How long? How old were you? Who did you spend time with when

your parents were not available? How did it make you feel?

4. How would you describe the difference between the U.S. and your home country in

education? Which do you like better and why?

5. In terms of education, what is the one thing that you do not appreciate in the U.S.?