Consider analyzing specific ways in which to respond to and intervene with young ?children when they exhibit prejudice, misconceptions, fear, and/or ?rejection of differences with respect

Anti-Bias Education

for Young Children & Ourselves

SECOND EDITION

Louise Derman-Sparks & Julie Olsen Edwards with Catherine M. Goins

National Association for the Education of Young Children

Washington, DC

National Association for the Education of Young Children

1313 L Street NW, Suite 500

Washington, DC 20005-4101

202-232-8777 • 800-424-2460

NAEYC.org

NAEYC Books

Senior Director, Publishing and Professional Learning

Susan Friedman

Director, Books

Dana Battaglia

Senior Editor

Holly Bohart

Editor

Rossella Procopio

Senior Creative Design Manager

Henrique J. Siblesz

Senior Creative Design Specialist

Charity Coleman

Publishing Business Operations Manager

Francine Markowitz

Former Editor in Chief

Kathy Charner

Through its publications program, the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) provides a forum for discussion of major issues and ideas in the early childhood field, with the hope of provoking thought and promoting professional growth. The views expressed or implied in this book are not necessarily those of the Association.

Permissions

NAEYC accepts requests for limited use of our copyrighted material. For

permission to reprint, adapt, translate, or otherwise reuse and repurpose content from this publication, review our guidelines at NAEYC.org/resources/permissions.

Page 23 is adapted, with permission, from Louise Derman-Sparks and Julie Olsen Edwards, “Living Our Commitments: A Pledge to All Children and Families,” Exchange (March/April 2017): 34.

The vignette is adapted, with permission, from Julie Olsen Edwards, “How to Get Started with Anti-Bias Education in Your Classroom and Program,” Exchange (January/February 2017): 78–79.

The excerpt is reprinted, with permission, from Linda Irene Jiménez, “Finding a Voice,” In Our Own Way: How Anti-Bias Work Shapes Our Lives (St. Paul, MN: Redleaf, 1999), 32–34. © 1999 by Linda Irene Jiménez.

The excerpt is reprinted, with permission, from John McCutcheon, “Happy Adoption Day.” © 1993 by John McCutcheon.

The vignettes are reprinted by permission of the publisher from Louise Derman- Sparks and Patricia G. Ramsey, with Julie Olsen Edwards, What If All the Kids Are White? Anti-Bias Multicultural Education with Young Children and Families, 2nd ed. (New York: Teachers College Press, 2011), 45, 92–93, 134– 136, 162, 163, and 165–166. © 2011 by Teachers College, Columbia University. All rights reserved.

Photo Credits

All photographs © Getty Images.

Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves, Second Edition. Copyright © 2020 by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019935621

ISBN: 978-1-938113-58-1

Item e1143

Contents

Foreword: Welcome to the Journey

Introduction: A Few Words About this Book

What Is in this Book

The Language of Equity and Diversity

It Takes a Village

Dedication

CHAPTER 1

Anti-Bias Education and Why It Matters

What Is Anti-Bias Education?

Why Do We Need Anti-Bias Education?

What Are Isms?

Dominant Culture and Cultural Diversity

The Four Core Goals of Anti-Bias Education

The Four Anti-Bias Education Goals Are for Adults Too

You Have Already Begun

Special Focus. Young Children and Their Families in Crisis: Immigrants and Refugees

A Promise to All Children

CHAPTER 2

Constructing and Understanding Social Identities and Attitudes: The Lifelong Journey

Personal and Social Identity

You Bring to Teaching Who You Are

Culture, Ethnicity, Nationality, and Race: What Are the Differences?

Social Identities Create Complex Feelings

CHAPTER 3

Building an Anti-Bias Education Program: Curriculum Principles and the Learning Environment

Guidelines for Your Curriculum

Guidelines for Materials

Children’s Books and Persona Dolls

Holidays in a Diverse World: Applying Anti-Bias Thinking to Curriculum

CHAPTER 4

Building an Anti-Bias Education Program: Clarifying and Brave Conversations with Children

The Hurtful Power of Silence

Holding Clarifying Conversations About Anti-Bias Issues

Brave Conversations: When Bias Undermines Children’s Development

Conversations When Community and World Issues Affect Children

CHAPTER 5

Building an Anti-Bias Education Program: Relationships with Families and Among Teachers and Staff

Building Anti-Bias Relationships with Families

When Some Families or Staff Disagree with Anti-Bias Activities

Building Collaborative, Anti-Bias Relationships with Colleagues

CHAPTER 6

Fostering Children’s Cultural Identities: Valuing All Cultures

Anti-Bias Education in Action: Every Child’s Family Culture Matters

The Big Picture: Culture Is Who You Are

Young Children Construct Ideas and Attitudes About Cultural Identity

Curriculum Guidelines for Nurturing Children’s Cultural Identities

CHAPTER 7

Learning About Cultural Diversity and Fairness: Exploring Differences and Similarities

Anti-Bias Education in Action: Everyone Gets Scrubbed!

The Big Picture: We Are All Cultural Beings

Strategies and Activities About Cultural Diversity and Fairness

Including Holiday Activities as Cultural Events

Special Focus. Religious Literacy and Cultural Diversity

CHAPTER 8

Learning About Racialized Identities and Fairness

Anti-Bias Education in Action: Preparing to Address Racialized Identity

The Big Picture: Race, Racism, and Racialized Identity

Young Children Construct Ideas and Attitudes About Racialized Identities

Strategies and Activities About Racialized Identities and Fairness

CHAPTER 9

Learning About Gender Diversity and Fairness

Anti-Bias Education in Action: Gender Role Expectations Start Young

The Big Picture: From a Binary to a Multifaceted Understanding of Gender

Young Children Construct Ideas and Attitudes About Gender

Strategies and Activities About Gender and Fairness

CHAPTER 10

Learning About Economic Class and Fairness

Anti-Bias Education in Action: Food Is for Eating!

The Big Picture: Economic Class Is Real

Young Children Construct Ideas and Attitudes About Economic Class

Strategies and Activities About Economic Class and Fairness

Classism in the Early Childhood Profession

CHAPTER 11

Learning About Different Abilities and Fairness

Anti-Bias Education in Action: When the Teacher Behaves Differently with Different Children

The Big Picture: Attitudes and Options for Children with Disabilities, Historically and Today

Young Children Construct Ideas and Attitudes About Different Abilities and Disabilities

Guidelines for an Inclusive Anti-Bias Program

Strategies and Activities About Disabilities and Fairness

CHAPTER 12

Learning About Who Makes Up a Family and Fairness

Anti-Bias Education in Action: Who Takes Care of You at Home?

The Big Picture: Family Inclusiveness

The Many Kinds of Families in Early Childhood Programs

Young Children Construct Ideas and Attitudes About Family Structures

Strategies and Activities About Family Structure and Fairness

Carry It On: A Letter to Our Readers

Checklist for Assessing the Visual Material Environment

Glossary

References

About the Authors

Index

Foreword: Welcome to the Journey

by Carol Brunson Day

As I was preparing my thoughts about what I would say in this foreword, I had one big question: Are we making any progress? As a society? As an early childhood profession? Is anything really changing?

And what came to mind was the opening line in Charles Dickens’s famous book A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times …”

I want to believe that anti-bias work is making forward progress. After all, doesn’t this new edition of Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves mean that this work is still vital? Even more significantly, anti-bias work with young children has permeated the field. It’s rare to find a publication —no matter the topic—that doesn’t mention bias or focus on diversity in some way. And the NAEYC position statement “Advancing Equity in Early Childhood Education,” released in September 2019, is very strong and so very significant.

Yet it also seems like the worst of times. Our country is deeply divided. Inflammatory words and actions daily add fuel to the fire of bigotry and bias. What does it mean when white supremacy groups are not universally condemned? What does it say when we delay putting Harriet Tubman’s image on the 20-dollar bill? What does it tell our children when they see or hear others mock people who have a disability? One’s politics notwithstanding, this is a time of strife in public discourse around race, culture, gender, religion, and sexual orientation and discrimination around these and other identities. The discord surrounds us all—and without a doubt, it penetrates the lives of young children.

Children are listening. Children are watching. Children are learning from what is going on around them. And so my concern about progress notwithstanding, I remain thankful for this book, this anti-bias tool, as a resource to help children grow up strong.

In this spirit of thankfulness, what I said in the foreword to the previous edition of this book bears repeating: “What if someone told you that you could contribute in a small but significant way to making the world a better place? Would you want to do it? Of course you would. Then read on, because that is what this book offers—a chance to make the world fairer and more humane for everybody. And it offers the chance to achieve that grand goal from a place where you have already chosen to be—in your daily work with children and families.”

In 1989, Anti-Bias Curriculum: Tools for Empowering Young Children hit the early childhood education field like a bombshell; both it and its 2010 successor, Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves, have remained vital and provocative in the decades since. I expect this new edition to likewise generate both contentious debate and penetrating growth. That’s because it is so compelling and inviting, filled with stories about real experiences of real teachers with real children and real families, simply and honestly told. And it asks the reader to interact with the text and reflect on deeply held beliefs and practices.

So be prepared to work hard, for the authors are demanding. They repeatedly ask you to try and try again. They challenge you to go deeply into issues such as class bias, and they want you to push past your comfort and ease. But rest assured, they are also gentle and supportive, offering reassurance along the way. Especially at the most precarious points, they provide scenario after scenario, walking with you step by step to capture and explain the subtleties of this anti- bias work through concrete examples. Becoming a strong anti-bias educator is a journey, and no matter how much you might already know about the topic, there’s always more to master, more challenges ahead.

Our responsibility as early childhood educators to anti-bias education becomes more compelling in a period when racism and other isms are more overt in

rhetoric and policies and are seriously harming children. In many ways, this work requires faith that we can make a difference, because it may be hard to see progress. But I offer a quote on perspective from Michelle Obama’s book Becoming, made after a conversation she had with Nelson Mandela: “Real change happens slowly, not just over months and years, but over decades and lifetimes.”

Stay strong and welcome to the journey.

Introduction: A Few Words About this Book

All children have the right to equitable learning opportunities that help them achieve their full potential as engaged learners and valued members of society. Thus, all early childhood educators have a professional obligation to advance equity. They can do this best when they are effectively supported by the early learning settings in which they work and when they and their wider communities embrace diversity and full inclusion as strengths, uphold fundamental principles of fairness and justice, and work to eliminate structural inequities that limit equitable learning opportunities.

—NAEYC, “Advancing Equity in Early Childhood Education” (position statement)

Since the publication of Anti-Bias Curriculum: Tools for Empowering Young Children (Derman-Sparks & the A.B.C. Task Force 1989) and the subsequent first edition of Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves (Derman- Sparks & Edwards 2010), early childhood teachers across the United States and internationally have embraced anti-bias education (ABE) as a central part of their work. This third book about anti-bias—the second edition of Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves—builds on the first two books. Its underlying intentions remain the same: to support children’s full development in our world of great human diversity and to give them the tools to stand up to prejudice, stereotyping, bias, and eventually to institutional isms. To achieve this for children means that as educators it is not sufficient to be nonbiased (nor is it likely), and it is not sufficient to be an observer. Rather, educators are called upon to integrate the core goals of ABE in developmentally appropriate ways throughout children’s education.

What Is in this Book

This book has two major parts. Together they provide the information and strategies needed to integrate ABE into your work.

The first five chapters provide a foundation for understanding ABE. Chapter 1 describes the social and political landscape of the United States that makes ABE essential to high-quality early childhood education and explains the four core anti-bias goals. Chapter 2 discusses how young children and adults are shaped by the social and political landscape described in Chapter 1. This developmental information informs the work educators do with children and with themselves. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 present the basic tools of an anti-bias learning environment: materials and curriculum that make visible and honor diversity; clarifying and brave conversations with children; and collaborative relationships with staff and families.

Chapters 6–12 discuss social identities that fundamentally shape young children’s development and learning—cultural identities, racialized identities, gendered identities, economic class, abilities, and family structure. Each of these chapters offers a big picture to help you understand how societal ideas, attitudes, and biases affect young children’s development and provides a discussion of children’s thinking and feelings as they try to make sense of their experiences. The four anti-bias education goals are then applied to each of the social identities, accompanied by guidelines, strategies, and specific ideas to foster children’s healthy growth in a world where bias and discrimination are all too pervasive.

Being an anti-bias educator requires long-term commitment and persistence. In the final section, we offer some key strategies for “keeping on keeping on.” We hope these strategies answer an oft-asked question, “What keeps you going?”

and help you begin or continue your own ABE journey.

To illuminate and bring alive the ideas and strategies in this book, the chapters are filled with true stories about children, families, and educators. The stories, some of which we have combined or compressed, are ones we have observed ourselves or collected from others in our decades of working with children and teachers. Each chapter also invites you to “Stop & Think” with a series of questions about your own life experiences. Self-discovery and heightened self- knowledge are essential to being an anti-bias educator. We encourage you to engage in self-reflection as you read each chapter and to share your insights with others and listen closely to their perspectives.

The Language of Equity and Diversity

Critical thinking and communicating about the forces that shape children’s identities and attitudes require having appropriate language. As for all authors, the terms we choose to use reflect our perspective, experience, and understanding of our book’s subject. As ideas change, people create new terms to describe them or use old terms in new ways. Additionally, people use a variety of names to describe themselves, even some that differ from those used by people in their same social identity groups. (See “What’s in a Name?” in Chapter 2.)

In the anecdotes and discussions throughout the book, we name children’s social identities when it is relevant to the topic being considered. We mostly refer to children or to the child rather than use the gendered terms girl or boy and she or he, except where it makes an anecdote clearer. We avoid pronouns where possible, and where necessary we alternate the use of he and she in the various examples and stories.

• • •

As you read, ponder, and implement the ideas in this book, we hope that you will add your experiences and knowledge to the ongoing work of creating early childhood programs that make it possible for all children to develop to their fullest potential.

Online at NAEYC.org/books/anti-bias you will find links to other resources to deepen your learning and provide new ideas and possibilities for your work with children.

It Takes a Village

Our most heartfelt thanks go to the many experienced social justice educators and activists who helped us make sure that this book says what it needs to say. They gave generously of their busy time to read through chapters at various points in the book’s development. Their feedback, reflecting each person’s own work with children and in social justice struggles, added important insights that we value greatly. In alphabetical order, deep thanks to Regina Chavez, Dana Cox, Robette Dias, Doralynn Folse, Jean Gallagher-Heil, Debbie LeeKeenan, Christina Lopez-Morgan, Mary Pat Martin, Deborah Menkart, Colette Murray, John Nimmo, Encian Pastel, Bill Sparks, Sean Sparks, Anne Stewart, Nadiyah Faquir Taylor, and Maureen Yates. In addition, we thank colleagues who wrote specific vignettes or contributed to specific chapters: Margie Brinkley, Nancy Brown, Carol Cole, Tarah Fleming, Doralynn Folse, Aimee Gelnaw, Luis Hernandez, Debbie LeeKeenan, Bryan Nelson, Laurie Olsen, Encian Pastel, Louise Rosenkrantz, and Nadiyah Faquir Taylor. We are also grateful to the many educators, named and unnamed, who shared the personal stories you read throughout the book.

We owe a debt of gratitude to NAEYC for the organization’s steadfast commitment to publishing a book about ABE since the first edition came out in 1989. NAEYC has held strong in the face of criticism and unfounded attacks. To our current editors—Kathy Charner and Holly Bohart—we give many thanks for their never-failing warmth, support, and discerning editing.

Finally, we send our love to the many people in our beloved communities who have been a part of our ABE journeys. They were there for us in times of discouragement, frustration, confusion, or exhaustion—and in times when we got it right and when it was time to celebrate.

I, Louise, hug my many colleagues from Pacific Oaks, Crossroads, DECET (the European diversity/equity trainers network), and the numerous early childhood teachers of children and adults with whom I’ve have spoken in the past 35 years. And, as always, I am able to do what I do because of Bill, Douglass, and Sean.

I, Julie, always hold in my mind and heart my early childhood colleagues from across the country, from Cabrillo College, and from my union, the California Federation of Teachers; the commitment of my beloved Rob, Rebekah, and Toby; and my amazing sisters, Kathie and Laurie, who always have my back.

And I, Catherine, am grateful to my wife, Linda; my parents, Jessie and Bud; Brian; my colleagues at PCOE; the Sierra College faculty and students; and the circle of women who surround me with love, wisdom, and support—Louise and Julie, my extraordinary mentors, and Randi, Linda L., and Joy. All of you are the wind beneath my wings.

Dedication

To the new generation of anti-bias educators who will expand, deepen, and carry on this work. And to our parents Tillie & Jack Olsen and Ann & Al Robbins. They lived and taught that respect, belief in justice, and the power of ordinary people, organized to act together, can change the world. Their work goes on.

CHAPTER 1

Anti-Bias Education and Why It Matters

We find these joys to be self-evident: That all children are created whole, endowed with innate intelligence, with dignity and wonder, worthy of respect. The embodiment of life, liberty and happiness, children are original blessings, here to learn their own song. Every [child] is entitled to love, to dream and belong to a loving “village.” And to pursue a life of purpose.

—Raffi Foundation for Child Honouring, “A Covenant for Honouring Children”

Equal rights, fair play, justice, are all like the air; we all have it, or none of us has it.

—Maya Angelou, Academy of Achievement interview

What Is Anti-Bias Education?

Anti-bias education (ABE) is an optimistic commitment to supporting children who live in a highly diverse and yet still inequitable world. Rather than a formula for a particular curriculum, it is an underpinning perspective and framework that permeates everything in early childhood education—including your interactions with children, families, and colleagues. ABE is based on the understanding that children are individuals with their own personalities and temperaments and with social group identities based on the families who birth and raise them and the way society views who they are. These identities are both externally applied by the world around them and internally constructed within the child.

ABE has four goals for children that have developed from the need to identify and prevent, as much as possible, the harmful emotional and psychological impacts on children from societal prejudice and bias. The goals are designed to strengthen children’s sense of self and family (identity, Goal 1); to support their joy in human diversity (diversity, Goal 2); to enable them to gain the cognitive and social and emotional tools to recognize hurtful behavior (justice, Goal 3); and to develop the confidence and skills to work with others to build inclusive, fairer ways of being in a community (activism, Goal 4). The four core goals of ABE are described in detail.

At the heart of anti-bias work is a vision of a world in which all children are able to blossom and each child’s abilities and gifts are able to flourish:

The Four Core Goals of Anti-Bias Education

Goal 1, Identity

• Teachers will nurture each child’s construction of knowledgeable and confident personal and social identities.

• Children will demonstrate self-awareness, confidence, family pride, and positive social identities.

Goal 2, Diversity

• Teachers will promote each child’s comfortable, empathic interaction with people from diverse backgrounds.

• Children will express comfort and joy with human diversity, use accurate language for human differences, and form deep, caring connections across all dimensions of human diversity.

Goal 3, Justice

• Teachers will foster each child’s capacity to critically identify bias and will nurture each child’s empathy for the hurt bias causes.

• Children will increasingly recognize unfairness (injustice), have language to describe unfairness, and understand that unfairness hurts.

Goal 4, Activism

• Teachers will cultivate each child’s ability and confidence to stand up for oneself and for others in the face of bias.

• Children will demonstrate a sense of empowerment and the skills to act, with others or alone, against prejudice and/or discriminatory actions.

• All children and families have a sense of belonging and experience affirmation of their personal and social identities and their cultural ways of being.

• All children have access to and participate in the education they need to become successful, contributing members of society.

• All children are engaged in joyful learning that supports their cognitive, physical, creative, and social development.

• Children and adults know how to respectfully and easily live, learn, and work together in diverse and inclusive environments. All families have the resources they need to fully nurture their children.

• All children and families live in safe, peaceful, healthy, comfortable housing and neighborhoods.

This vision of ABE also reflects the basic human rights described in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN OHCHR 1989):

• The right to survival

• The right to develop to the fullest

• The right to protection from harmful influences, abuse, and/or exploitation

• The right to participate fully in family, cultural, and social life

In order for children to receive these righ

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