Sparking Conversations on Culturally Responsive Childcare
Mar 3, 2026 · 46 min · 13 segments
How do you create a childcare system that truly supports culture, diversity, and belonging? In this episode, we sit down with Rebecca Leong, an early learning leader with over 20 years of…
It is fascinating to hear about your experience with questioning this and reflecting on your journey over the years and where you've come to now.
So as a leader in early learning in childcare, what do you observe about that in your day-to-day work and in your work with educators?
in early learning and childcare, we're typically in a group setting, which means there's a whole host of different experiences that are coming through.
And most interesting to me in my role as a leader in the field is working with educators who have these different experiences and the work of childcare is so tied to values and it changes based on what were the experiences that you had as a child? what is the impact of the society or the culture around you now? And then what are your goals for working with children and or even have you had the chance to explore your own values and beliefs and that process? So that the answer is generally no.
And the idea of curiosity in our field is often undervalued, because it feels like there isn't time.
And it feels like the perspective of the educator is not always valued we're going to follow the rules and the legislation is important and then above all we have to understand that parents are the primary caregivers of their children and we must do what they believe to be right for their children which is really complicated when you have more than one because you're as you're a single person with your own experiences trying to navigate an environment where there are multiple children who have multiple parents and family members that are involved in the decisions for their life that you're trying to navigate.
And sometimes the environment or the culture around learning, around acceptance, around culture doesn't allow the educator to even have an opinion when they're trying to navigate everyone else's.
because it's a really important piece to doing this work and to remaining healthy.
And so this wellbeing part really is what comes forward in a lot of this, again, where we think about if we're going to care for little ones and make sure that their mental health and their wellbeing is present in all that we do, then ours needs to be at a certain level to have the capacity to do so in a way that's authentic.
How do you even begin those conversations when everyone's at a different level? And we're finding that culture piece really important, but also in the experience of early childhood educators.
What educational background do you have? Where did you come from? We are allowed to practice in Alberta with a variety of different educational backgrounds, which means that we're navigating a whole host of things, just even in foundational educational knowledge.
But then if the root of that is the culture and the ethics and what you learned as a child, then how do you wrap that all up? and and really see everyone's uniqueness while also ensuring well-being but also we're working with those parents to say hey we're here for you and we want to do the right thing by your child and realize rights and make sure that they have a voice without it seeming selfish which i think is a really common thing because it feels selfish to care about your own needs especially when you're supposed to be taking care of others
It is fascinating to hear about your experience with questioning this and reflecting on your journey over the years and where you've come to now.
So as a leader in early learning in childcare, what do you observe about that in your day-to-day work and in your work with educators?
in early learning and childcare, we're typically in a group setting, which means there's a whole host of different experiences that are coming through.
And most interesting to me in my role as a leader in the field is working with educators who have these different experiences and the work of childcare is so tied to values and it changes based on what were the experiences that you had as a child? what is the impact of the society or the culture around you now? And then what are your goals for working with children and or even have you had the chance to explore your own values and beliefs and that process? So that the answer is generally no.
And the idea of curiosity in our field is often undervalued, because it feels like there isn't time.
And it feels like the perspective of the educator is not always valued we're going to follow the rules and the legislation is important and then above all we have to understand that parents are the primary caregivers of their children and we must do what they believe to be right for their children which is really complicated when you have more than one because you're as you're a single person with your own experiences trying to navigate an environment where there are multiple children who have multiple parents and family members that are involved in the decisions for their life that you're trying to navigate.
And sometimes the environment or the culture around learning, around acceptance, around culture doesn't allow the educator to even have an opinion when they're trying to navigate everyone else's.
because it's a really important piece to doing this work and to remaining healthy.
And so this wellbeing part really is what comes forward in a lot of this, again, where we think about if we're going to care for little ones and make sure that their mental health and their wellbeing is present in all that we do, then ours needs to be at a certain level to have the capacity to do so in a way that's authentic.
How do you even begin those conversations when everyone's at a different level? And we're finding that culture piece really important, but also in the experience of early childhood educators.
What educational background do you have? Where did you come from? We are allowed to practice in Alberta with a variety of different educational backgrounds, which means that we're navigating a whole host of things, just even in foundational educational knowledge.
But then if the root of that is the culture and the ethics and what you learned as a child, then how do you wrap that all up? and and really see everyone's uniqueness while also ensuring well-being but also we're working with those parents to say hey we're here for you and we want to do the right thing by your child and realize rights and make sure that they have a voice without it seeming selfish which i think is a really common thing because it feels selfish to care about your own needs especially when you're supposed to be taking care of others
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
