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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: York, Stacey, 1957– Title: Roots and wings: affirming culture in early childhood / Stacey York. Description: St. Paul, MN: Redleaf Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016003529 (print) | LCCN 2016006435 (ebook) | ISBN 9781605544564

(ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Early childhood education—Activity programs—United States. | Multicultural

education—Activity programs—United States. | Curriculum planning—United States. | BISAC: EDUCATION / Multicultural Education. | EDUCATION / Teaching Methods & Materials / General. | EDUCATION / Preschool & Kindergarten. | SOCIAL SCIENCE / Ethnic Studies / General.

Classification: LCC LB1139.35.A37 Y675 2016 (print) | LCC LB1139.35.A37 (ebook) | DDC 372.21—dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016003529

This book is dedicated to my family of origin: Cornelia Marilee Bijland

William Edwin York Maria Strooker Bijland

Martinus Bijland Essie Octavia Tillery York

Marion Nicholas York

Contents Acknowledgments

Introduction

PART I Understanding Multicultural and Anti-bias Issues in the Classroom

Chapter 1: Teaching in a Diverse Society Chapter 2: Children and Prejudice Chapter 3: Racism Chapter 4: Culturally Responsive Care and Education Chapter 5: Young Dual-Language Learners Chapter 6: Family, Culture, and Community

PART II Implementing Culturally Relevant Anti-bias Education in the Classroom

Chapter 7: Culturally Relevant Anti-bias Education Chapter 8: A Culturally Relevant Anti-bias Classroom Chapter 9: Culturally Relevant Anti-bias Activities

References

Index

Acknowledgments Many thanks to all the people who have supported me and contributed to Roots and Wings, especially the following:

All the people who responded to the first and second editions of Roots and Wings. Your comments, questions, and disagreements affirmed and challenged me.

The Culturally Relevant Anti-Bias Education Leadership Project: Louise Derman-Sparks, Sharon Cronin, Sharon Henry, Cirecie West-Olatunji, and all the Minneapolis participants. The project was a wonderful experience resulting in great personal and professional growth. Working with all of you was a privilege.

Folks I’ve had the pleasure of training with: Julie Bisson, Claire Chang, Linda Coleman, Becky Goze, Linda Jimenez, Mary Loven, Nedra Robinson, Meg Thomas, Kathy Watanabe, Katie Williams, and Marcia Ziemes. I learned so much from you.

My students at Minneapolis Community and Technical College, who created the most incredibly diverse and accepting learning community.

My students at Rochester Community and Technical College, who open themselves to our diverse community and take their first steps on this journey. It is such an honor to be in your presence and watch you grow into skillful teachers.

Beth Wallace, who edited the first edition and who knows early childhood folks and understands culturally relevant anti-bias issues. Thanks for bringing greater clarity to my work while respecting my voice.

My family, who hate it when I’m always working on “books”—but eagerly and lovingly embrace our cultures and human diversity.

Introduction Welcome! This is a book about implementing culturally relevant anti-bias education with young children. It provides a practical introduction to working with diverse children and families in early childhood settings. But first, let’s clarify the basics: What does “culturally relevant” mean? What does “anti-bias” mean?

The phrase culturally relevant means the caregiving routines, teaching strategies, curriculum, and parent engagement match the child’s home culture. Providing culturally relevant care and education is the foundation of high-quality child care and early education.

The term anti-bias refers to teaching children to respect, appreciate, and interact positively with people who are different from them. This also includes teaching children to avoid teasing and name-calling, and to stand up for themselves and others who are experiencing bias. Children learn to reject bias through our modeling, classroom materials, and classroom activities.

The best way to think about culturally relevant anti-bias teaching is to understand the topics presented in this book: culture, prejudice, racism, culturally responsive care, English-language learners, and anti-bias education. Whole books have been written about each of these complex topics. Roots and Wings attempts to present the prevailing theories and best practices in a clear and simple manner, without losing the true meaning.

We all need a place to enter the dialogue and rethink our understanding of diversity and early childhood education. Before we begin, let’s explore common misconceptions, my working assumptions, and the benefits of affirming culture in early childhood programs.

MISCONCEPTIONS Many misconceptions exist about culturally relevant anti-bias education. You may find yourself doubting the importance of multicultural education for young children. Perhaps you aren’t sure if exploring such issues with your children is developmentally appropriate. Maybe you are afraid that you’ll make matters worse. Here are some of the most common misconceptions teachers have about culturally relevant anti-bias education:

Misconception: Children are too young to notice differences among people.

Fact: Children notice differences and form attitudes about human diversity in the early years.

Misconception: Pointing out or talking about human differences with children will only make cross-cultural relations worse.

Fact: Including human diversity in the curriculum and giving children simple, accurate information helps them see differences as normal. It prevents them from developing negative or fearful attitudes toward diversity.

Misconception: Multicultural education is necessary only if there are different cultures in the school.

Fact: Culturally relevant anti-bias education is relevant for all children in all grades. Children in all-white (racially segregated) classrooms are at risk for growing up without the social skills and knowledge base needed to live in a diverse country and work in a global marketplace.

Misconception: Multicultural education will create separatism and weaken national unity.

Fact: Culturally relevant anti-bias curriculum reinforces patriotism, democracy skills, and citizenship skills—all of which promote a sense of national unity.

Misconception: Multicultural education is an attack on white people.

Fact: Culturally relevant anti-bias education seeks to recognize and honor the ethnic identities and cultural traditions of all people. It does challenge the exclusive European American orientation of child development theories, caregiving and teaching practices, and curriculum, but it doesn’t attack anyone.

GOALS This book was written for early childhood teachers, program directors, teacher trainers, and parents. In this book, the word parents means any adults who share their lives with children. The goals of this book are the following:

1. To introduce culturally relevant anti-bias curriculum in a simple and organized way

2. To challenge prevailing misconceptions, stereotypes, and “isms” that affect child care and early childhood curriculum

3. To invite you to reflect on and clarify your own cultural identity and attitudes toward other races, cultures, and language groups

4. To empower you to develop cross-cultural competence, culturally responsive caregiving and teaching, and anti-bias curriculum

5. To present many practical ideas for making culturally relevant anti-bias education a natural part of your day.

ASSUMPTIONS This book does not include everything there is to know about culturally relevant anti-bias education for young children. The information and topics covered in Roots and Wings reflect child development theory, established early childhood education practices, and current accreditation standards. The decision to emphasize some information about culturally relevant anti-bias education and to leave out other information is a product of my values and thinking, and of the limitations of space and time.

This book deals with such controversial issues as racism, prejudice, and oppression. The content is emotionally charged, and it is likely that you will have moments of discomfort as you read through this book. There is mass confusion when it comes to multicultural education. Be prepared to rethink your own beliefs and assumptions. Culturally relevant anti-bias education is an incredibly complex issue. I have attempted to present a clear, simple approach that remains true to the topic’s complexity without getting lost or immobilized by it.

Although the following assumptions are not discussed in this book, I want you to know that I believe in them and that they are important to me. These assumptions greatly influence my perspective on culturally relevant anti-bias education.

1. In its fullest expression, culturally relevant anti-bias education includes addressing the issues of discrimination against individuals in all areas, including religion, gender, economic class, age, ability, and sexual orientation. I have chosen to focus on culture and race because so few early childhood programs deal with this issue successfully. I believe that if a program can incorporate multicultural values successfully, it can incorporate the other equally important components of diversity and equity.

2. Life in the United States is not fair for everyone. All kinds of discrimination keep individuals from having equal access to society’s services and opportunities. Education is not neutral. Schools and child care centers are institutions, and as such, they are part of the social structure that discriminates against individuals. As part of the social structure, early childhood programs inadvertently portray white people as being the only or most important Americans and perpetuate European American, middle-class values. In the classroom, teachers pass on their values to children through their choice of bulletin board displays, toys, activities, celebrations, and unit

themes or projects and through their interactions with the children and with other adults.

3. Everyone needs training in this area, and onetime workshops are not enough. We are all on a lifetime journey of learning about ourselves and others. There are no simple solutions or easy answers to these difficult issues. No quick fixes or “recipe book” solutions exist for designing and incorporating culturally relevant anti-bias education. Everyone means well. But many people are uninformed or misinformed. Don’t get stuck in self- judgment. Let go of mistakes you might have made in the past and embrace the present and the future.

4. The process is the product. If you come to this book focused solely on the outcome of having a culturally relevant anti-bias curriculum, you won’t be open to the possibility of discovery and personal growth. Put aside your preconceived notions of what culturally relevant anti-bias education should be. Let go of your worries about adding it to your program. As you read this book, focus on the here and now. Open yourself up to your feelings. Take in the information bit by bit. Ask questions, stop for reflection, watch others around you, gather some materials and create some activities, and talk with children and parents. As you do these things, you will create a greater understanding of yourself, your culture, prejudice, and racism. And you will have begun the steps of implementing culturally relevant anti-bias education in your classroom.

HOW THIS BOOK IS ORGANIZED This book is divided into two main parts, one aimed at helping you understand the issues, and the other designed to help you address these concepts in your classroom or child care setting. Part 1, “Understanding Multicultural and Anti-bias Issues in the Classroom,” will give you information and insight that will help you understand the foundational issues on which a culturally relevant anti-bias approach is based. You will recognize the complexity of human diversity, identify how multicultural and anti-bias issues affect today’s classrooms, discover what multicultural education is, and see what culturally responsive care and education look like in the classroom. You will also have a chance to think through the ways that prejudice, racism, and dual-language learning affect children. And finally, you will learn more about the interactions of community, culture, and family in relation to multicultural and anti-bias issues that affect the children you deal with every day.

Part 2, “Implementing Culturally Relevant Anti-bias Education in the Classroom,” provides concrete ideas and activities you can use to start practicing culturally relevant anti-bias education in your classroom. These activities will be of value for teachers who are relatively new to these ideas as well as for those of you

who have already addressed them but need new and fresh ways to provide culturally relevant anti-bias care and education.

Each chapter is a building block that creates a solid foundation of understanding. Chapter 1, “Teaching in a Diverse Society,” provides an overview of how diversity impacts classrooms right now. What has changed in early childhood education that warrants a good, hard look at multicultural and anti-bias issues? Immigration, integration, and the achievement gap are just a few of the topics that contribute to new challenges and opportunities in today’s classrooms.

Chapter 2, “Children and Prejudice,” challenges the widely held belief that children are too young to understand bias. It is easier to believe they don’t notice differences than to consider that young children are aware of differences and form strong attitudes toward themselves and others. This chapter challenges you to look at your assumptions about children’s awareness of and attitudes toward human differences, and to think about prejudice in new ways.

Chapter 3, “Racism,” poses some key questions about racism: Are we as early childhood professionals able to recognize and understand how the environment shapes children’s development? How do external environmental factors such as racism affect children’s development? The fields of early education and child development have long ignored the issues of race in the development of children. There are few resources to help teachers minimize the impact systemic racism has on their classrooms. This chapter examines race, racism, children’s racial identity development, and how to create a nonracist classroom.

Differences between children and teachers or parents and teachers often cause problems. Chapter 4, “Culturally Responsive Care and Education,” helps teachers realize that differences may be a result of culture. Culture influences how families raise children and how a child behaves, communicates, and learns. These behavior patterns and child-rearing practices reflect a specific culture’s history, values, beliefs, and current situation. This chapter will help you work successfully with children from diverse cultures by identifying ways in which culture and family patterns mold the children you serve.

Chapter 5, “Young Dual-Language Learners,” explores how children acquire a second language and provides classroom strategies you can use to support dual- language learners. Dual-language learners are one of the fastest-growing populations in early childhood classrooms. Today a classroom will likely have at least two children who do not speak English and a few children whose parents speak more than one language. Often, second-language learners may attend early childhood programs in which no adults speak their home language. Moreover, the staff have little knowledge of how children learn a second language and no idea how to foster the development of a second language. This chapter provides you with the background information and practical tools you should have to begin meeting the educational needs of dual-language learners.

Chapter 6, “Family, Culture, and Community,” explores the idea that culturally relevant anti-bias education requires us to understand the families with whom we work and the neighborhoods and communities in which we work. This chapter

provides an understanding of how the social, political, and historical environment impact children’s development. The community context is viewed in terms of geographic region, type of community, and the community’s economy, diversity, history, events, and issues. The family context includes a look at the cultural diversity of the families served. This chapter helps you implement a family engagement model to establish and maintain strong, positive, and empowering relationships with families.

The remaining three chapters of the book carefully guide you through the process of putting culturally relevant care and anti-bias education into practice. Chapter 7, “Culturally Relevant Anti-bias Education,” defines such important words as “multicultural” and “anti-bias.” These words mean many different things to people, including varying approaches and descriptive terms. This chapter sorts things out by examining the nature of multicultural education, listing its goals, and explaining the basic approaches. Chapter 8, “A Culturally Relevant Anti-bias Classroom,” explains that the quickest and easiest way to add or improve culturally relevant anti-bias education is to improve the classroom by changing its environment as well as the people who teach in it. Chapter 9, “Culturally Relevant Anti-bias Activities,” provides more than one hundred culturally relevant anti-bias activities for use in your classroom.

These are exciting times, full of new challenges and opportunities. Culturally relevant anti-bias education can renew and rejuvenate your teaching and caregiving. I hope Roots and Wings introduces you to new ideas, and I hope it challenges and empowers you to put this new knowledge to work today in your classroom or in your work with children.

CHAPTER 1 Teaching in a Diverse Society

We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams. —JIMMY CARTER, 1976

Today teaching is more complex and more challenging than it was a few decades ago. When I reflect back on the classrooms of children I taught more than thirty- five years ago, I smile as I think about the things that seemed so difficult. A child going through a divorce, a child with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or a child whose family had just arrived from Iran seemed like major disruptions in my quiet, settled classroom. Today we expect to witness firsthand how adverse childhood experiences affect the lives of so many children. We anticipate embracing and teaching children with special needs, children who speak other languages, and children from many different cultures with life experiences very different from our own.

As I grow older, it seems I can always count on two things in life: change and diversity. Change and diversity are the essence of life—be it plant life, animal life, or human life. Living in the upper Midwest, I am so aware of changing seasons. In my garden and the woods beyond on my hobby farm, there is a rich diversity of plant and animal life. I have been teaching at the same school for eight years now, and I am truly amazed at how our student population has changed during that time. Now there is a much wider range of racial and cultural diversity among our students. Every school year brings students from new countries and new language groups. Just as I would miss the changing seasons or diversity of plants in my garden, I can’t imagine teaching in a setting where everything stays the same or is expected to stay the same. To deny change or to reject diversity is to deny life. We need classrooms, schools, and child care centers that are full of life.

Four points are critical to understanding the impact of diversity on early childhood classrooms:

1. The United States is a racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse country, and that diversity is increasing, not diminishing.

2. Most education in the United States does not take this diversity into account, and as a result, it is ineffective for students of color.

3. US standards in early childhood education ignore or inadequately address diversity and equity in early childhood education.

4. Teachers and administrators are not taught or mentored on how to carry out culturally relevant anti-bias education.

RACIAL DIVERSITY IN THE UNITED STATES Census 2010 data confirmed what demographers have been telling us: the United States is racially diverse. In fact, the US Census Bureau predicts that in 2020, more than half of US children will be children of color. The 2010 census allowed participants to identify themselves both by race and ethnicity alone or in combination. As a result, racial and ethnic percentages don’t always add up to 100 percent.

European Americans European Americans make up 75 percent of the total population. The South and Midwest have the highest populations of white people. The Midwest also has the highest proportion of white people to other racial groups.

African Americans African Americans number 38.9 million people in this country and make up 13

percent of the total population. Almost 55 percent of all African Americans live in the South. States with the largest African American populations include New York, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, North Carolina, Maryland, Michigan, and Louisiana.

Latinos Latinos make up 17 percent of the total US population, numbering 53 million. The largest population of Latinos in the United States is Mexican, followed by Puerto Rican, Salvadoran, Cuban, Dominican, and Guatemalan. Three-fourths of Latino people in the United States live in the western or southern regions of the United States, and one-half live in California, Texas, or Florida. Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and Texas have the largest Latino populations. The Latino population doubled in Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and South Dakota over the past decade. The fastest growth rate occurred in South Carolina, while California continues to have the largest Latino population of any state.

Contrary to popular belief, immigration from Mexico and Latin America has slowed in recent years, which means that the Latino population is more settled. English proficiency continues to increase. According to the Pew Research Center, 68 percent of Latinos five years and older spoke proficient English in 2013. The percentage of Latinos who spoke Spanish at home dropped from 78 percent to 73 percent from 2000 to 2013, because the greatest population growth within the Latino community was among US-born Latinos.

Asian and Pacific Islander Americans Asian and Pacific Islander Americans number more than 18 million, representing nearly 6 percent of the total population. Asian and Pacific Islander Americans will make up nearly 10 percent of the US population by 2050. Chinese is the largest ethnic group, followed by people from the Philippines, India, Vietnam, Korea, and Japan. Cities with the largest Asian American populations include Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, San Jose (California), and Honolulu.

The Asian and Pacific Islander American population tends to be concentrated in large metropolitan areas. Recent immigrants are often affluent professionals, with more than 60 percent of recent immigrants having a bachelor’s degree. As a result, we might not realize that the poverty rate of US-born Asian and Pacific Islander Americans increased 46 percent between 2002 and 2012. Poor Asian and Pacific Islander Americans live in urban communities of color alongside lower- income African Americans and Latinos.

Language is also an issue for many Asian and Pacific Islander immigrants in the United States. While 95 percent of US-born Asian and Pacific Islander Americans rate themselves as speaking English well, only half of foreign-born

Asian and Pacific Islander Americans rate themselves as speaking English well. Over 2 million children under five years old in the United States speak Chinese at home. After Spanish, Chinese is the third most widely spoken language in the United States.

American Indians and Alaska Natives The population of American Indians and Alaska Natives increased 39 percent from 2000 to 2010. American Indians and Alaska Natives make up 2 percent of the total population. In the 2010 census, 5.2 million people identified themselves as American Indian, or Alaska Native or American Indian in combination with another race, while 2.9 million identified themselves as American Indian or Alaska Native alone.

Census 2000 offered the first chance for people to report biracial identity. The 2010 census confirmed that many American Indians identify themselves as coming from two or three racial or ethnic groups. The most common combinations were American Indian and white, American Indian and African American, or American Indian, white, and African American.

There are 566 federally recognized American Indian tribes in the United States. The largest tribes, all with more than one hundred thousand responses in the 2010 census, are Cherokee, Navajo, Choctaw, Mexican American Indian, Chippewa, Sioux, Apache, and Blackfeet.

The states with the highest American Indian and Alaska Native populations are California, Oklahoma, Arizona, Texas, New York, New Mexico, Washington, North Carolina, Florida, and Michigan. Interestingly, 78 percent of American Indians and Alaska Natives live outside tribal reservation lands. But the largest concentrations of American Indians and Alaska Natives tend to be near these areas.

Poverty is a major issue for American Indians and Alaska Natives, with 26 percent of these families living in poverty. South Dakota has the highest poverty rate, with 43 to 47 percent of American Indian families earning incomes below the poverty line. In Arizona, Minnesota, Montana, and Nebraska, more than 30 percent of American Indians earn incomes below the poverty line.

Multiracial Children A discussion of the demographic changes in the United States wouldn’t be complete without highlighting the increase of multiracial children in our country. According to the US Census Bureau and the Pew Charitable Trust, multiracial babies made up 10 percent of the total number of births in 2013. Of the 9 million multiracial individuals living in the United States today, more than 46 percent are younger than eighteen years. The US Supreme Court struck down laws prohibiting interracial marriage in 1967. At that time, sixteen states still had laws making interracial sex and marriage a criminal activity. Alabama was the last state to repeal its ban on interracial marriages with a constitutional amendment, which was

included on the statewide ballot and passed with 59 percent of the vote in 2000. The social taboos against interracial marriage have weakened significantly since then. Interracial marriages increased 24 percent between 2000 and 2014.

Immigrants Immigration has always been a major force shaping US history, economy, and social life. The United States is a country of immigrants. In 2013, 20 percent of the world’s migrants came to the United States. Currently, foreign-born individuals make up about 13 percent of the US population, and first- or second-generation immigrants make up 25 percent of the US population.

About 1 million people legally immigrate to the United States each year. In the 1960s, most immigrants came from Europe. Today they come mostly from Mexico, India, China, Philippines, Vietnam, El Salvador, Cuba, Korea, the Dominican Republic, and Guatemala. The states of California, New York, Texas, Florida, and New Jersey have the highest immigrant populations.

There are 28.4 million people living in the United States who were born in foreign countries. One-fourth of the total US population lives with a parent who was foreign-born. Children under the age of eighteen who live in a household with a foreign-born parent number 72.1 million. Of that 72.1 million, 35 percent are under the age of six. The United States is experiencing significant growth in the population of second-generation immigrant children, which grew by 47 percent from 10.4 million to 15.3 million from 2000 to 2012. This population is growing especially fast in Nevada, North Carolina, Georgia, Nebraska, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, Kentucky, and South Carolina.

Undocumented Immigrants Approximately 11.4 million unauthorized or undocumented immigrants entered the United States in 2013. California, Texas, New York, and Florida have the largest undocumented immigrant populations. From 2008 to 2012, about 71 percent of undocumented immigrants came from Mexico and Central America. Almost 617,000 undocumented immigrants were removed by the US government or returned to their homelands in 2013.

Refugees and Asylum Seekers Refugees are individuals who have fled armed conflict or persecution and need protection because it is too dangerous for them to return home. In 2013, seventy thousand refugees were admitted into the United States. They came primarily from Iraq, Burma, Bhutan, Somalia, Cuba, Iran, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Eritrea, and Ethiopia. The US Congress set the limit on refugees to seventy thousand for 2015, and the majority of refugees in 2015 came from Iraq and Burma. Some individuals, called asylum seekers, seek admission to or permanent

residence in the United States. These individuals can come from any country. They must meet the definition of a refugee and prove they will suffer religious, political, or racial persecution if returned to their home country. Approximately twenty-five thousand individuals received asylum in 2013. Over half of asylum seekers came from China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Nepal, and Syria.

Many immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers have distinct educational needs. Fewer than one-third of Mexican undocumented immigrants have a high school diploma. Children of refugee families may have missed out on schooling due to political turmoil and civil war in their home countries. They may come to school without knowing English and without being literate in their home languages. One of the challenges facing teachers today is how to improve the educational outcomes for children of immigrants and refugees.

MINORITIES ARE THE MAJORITY The United States is experiencing a significant increase in birthrates within communities of color and a sustained decrease in birthrates among whites. On July 1, 2011, the US Census Bureau announced that 50.4 percent of children younger than one year were minorities. In 2015, 49.7 percent of children younger than five years in the United States are children of color.

Growth in diversity among young children is widespread. The US Census Bureau predicted in 1990 that by 2018, the majority of children in the United States would be children of color. But demographic change has been occurring at a faster-than-predicted rate. It is likely that children of color are already in the majority in US public schools. As of 2015, there are already at least four states and one district where the “minority” population is greater than the “majority” population: Hawaii, the District of Columbia, California, New Mexico, and Texas. This means that racial and ethnic groups that were once minorities are now majorities or that there is so much racial and ethnic diversity that there is no racial majority. William H. Frey, a senior analyst at the Brookings Institute, predicts that by 2044 there will be no racial majority in the United States. Diversity will be the majority. For the current generation of US children and all future generations, growing up in the United States will be a multicultural experience.

Diversity Is Spreading beyond the Inner City While much of US diversity is concentrated in a few states, the search for jobs and better quality of life results in greater racial and cultural diversity throughout our country. The largest gains in diversity are occurring in communities outside large metropolitan areas. Historically, inner-city neighborhoods were often home to immigrant communities. Today’s immigrants are settling in suburban and rural areas. Food processing plants and manufacturing plants located in small towns and rural areas provide a source of employment to recent immigrants. As a result, rural

school districts in Alabama, Kansas, Nebraska, North Carolina, and Minnesota reported a 400 percent or greater increase in the number of English as a second language (ESL) students. In many cases, change in the ethnic makeup of these communities has occurred rapidly and unexpectedly. It has caught community leaders, school administrators, and teachers by surprise. They have found themselves needing to rethink their practices and change the way they provide services.

While large areas of the country have been experiencing increased diversity, other regions have remained all white. Northern and Midwestern states such as Utah, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine have not experienced an increase in racial and ethnic diversity. These all-white enclaves offer children little opportunity to interact with people from other cultures, to build cross-cultural friendships, and to understand diversity. Children growing up in these homogenous communities tend to adopt and pass on the attitudes, fears, and prejudices of their ancestors. They are ill prepared to live and work in a multicultural environment.

Teacher-Student Mismatch While researchers foresee a slight demand for elementary school teachers in the next ten years, demand is great for bilingual teachers and teachers of color. The National Center for Education Statistics reported that in US public schools in 2013, 82 percent of teachers were European American, 8 percent were Latino, and 7 percent were African American. Meanwhile, 40 percent of schools did not have even one teacher of color. There is a huge diversity gap between teachers and students in the United States. In other words, the teacher population clearly doesn’t reflect the student population.

Does this matter? Yes! When we walk into a new setting, we instinctively look around to see if there is anyone familiar, anyone like us. That’s how we can tell that we belong. When children don’t see any teachers or administrators who look like them, how are they supposed to believe that they will succeed in school? Within the walls of the school, it looks like the people who succeed are whites.

Unequal Outcomes Life in the United States continues to be sharply divided along racial, cultural, socioeconomic, and gender lines. This is true in education as well. Data continues to show different outcomes for children of color and white children. This difference is known officially as the achievement gap. The Children’s Defense Fund calls it “the cradle-to-prison pipeline.” Children of color are more likely to live in poverty and to have less access to high-quality health care and to early childhood programs. Children of color score lower on standardized tests and have higher dropout rates. They are more likely than white children to be identified as having special needs, more often placed in noncollege tracks, less likely to be

recommended for gifted and talented programs, more likely to receive harsher discipline in school or be suspended from school, and less likely to graduate from high school. These racial and ethnic disparities result in one in three African American males going to prison compared to an incarceration rate of one in seventeen among white males. If you doubt these statements, do a little research on your own school district or state. Investigate the graduation, dropout, and suspension rates of students by race. Find out how those rates have changed in the past ten or twenty years. The information you find may surprise you.

Reasons for such unequal treatment and outcomes include the following:

You can’t teach someone whose identity you aren’t willing to acknowledge.

The classroom, the teaching-learning process, and the curriculum are Eurocentric: oriented to European American or white students.

Teachers assume children of color or children who are English-language learners are inferior, and as a result, teachers set lower expectations for these children.

Children of color experience a lack of success in the early grades, which discourages them or alienates them from school.

REDEFINING GOOD TEACHING The groundbreaking book From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development, published by the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine in 2000, launched a new approach to understanding the importance of early childhood, how the brain develops, and how to promote children’s well-being. Today’s early childhood teachers study the science of development and incorporate the brain research from the past fifteen years into their work with young children.

Recent brain research gives us key concepts, such as that early experiences affect the architecture of the brain, that the architecture of the brain is the foundation for all future learning and behavior, and that toxic stress threatens learning and behavior. Also, we know that learning is relational. In order to learn, children need strong positive relationships in an emotionally safe environment. Positive adult-child relationships are built through respectful, responsive, and reciprocal interactions. Teachers, therefore, must be able to build and maintain strong, positive, cross-cultural relationships. They need to know how to relate to children and families even if their life experiences, values, and beliefs are different. They need to be able to individualize the curriculum and differentiate their teaching strategies in order to provide meaningful, effective education for all children.

We need a definition of good teaching that responds to children’s need for relational learning and to the changing demographics in early childhood

classrooms. The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), the largest professional organization for early childhood educators, recognizes the importance of addressing relational learning and cultural diversity in the preparation of teachers, as the following statements demonstrate:

Young children and their families reflect a great and rapidly increasing diversity of language and culture. The National Association for the Education of Young Children’s (NAEYC) recommendations emphasize that early childhood programs are responsible for creating a welcoming environment that respects diversity, supports children’s ties to their families and community, and promotes both second language acquisition and preservation of children’s home languages and cultural identities. Linguistic and cultural diversity is an asset, not a deficit, for young children. (NAEYC 2009b, 1)

Candidates possess the knowledge and skills needed to support and engage diverse families through respectful, reciprocal relationships. Candidates understand how to build positive relationships, taking families’ preferences and goals into account and incorporating knowledge of families’ languages and cultures. Candidates demonstrate respect for variations across cultures in family strengths, expectations, values, and childrearing practices. Candidates consider family members to be resources for insight into their children, as well as resources for curriculum and program development. (NAEYC 2009a, 12)

Candidates demonstrate the essential dispositions to develop positive, respectful relationships with children whose cultures and languages may differ from their own, as well as with children who may have developmental delays, disabilities, or other learning challenges. In making the transition from family to a group context, very young children need continuity between the practices of family members and those used by professionals in the early childhood setting. Their feelings of safety and confidence depend on that continuity. Candidates know the cultural practices and contexts of the young children they teach, and they adapt practices as they continue to develop cultural competence— culturally relevant knowledge and skills. (NAEYC 2009a, 15)

Head Start, the largest federally funded early childhood program in the United States, has long served racially and culturally diverse populations. Head Start programs revolve around the Head Start Program Performance Standards and the Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework. The standards include principles for multicultural programming and addressing diversity in the classroom. These principles describe teacher behaviors, such as demonstrating respect for children’s cultures, offering a classroom environment that naturally reflects the cultures of the children, promoting children’s primary language while helping them acquire English, and avoiding stereotypic materials and activities. The Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework describes the skills, behaviors, and knowledge that Head Start programs must foster in all children. Here is one of the guiding principles of the framework:

Every child has diverse strengths rooted in their family’s culture, background, language, and beliefs. Responsive and respectful learning environments welcome children from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Effective teaching practices and learning

experiences build on the unique backgrounds and prior experiences of each child. (Office of Head Start 2015, 3)

In the past twenty years, many states have sought to increase the quality of child care through establishing standards for professional development. Core knowledge is often the foundation of these new professional development initiatives. Diversity is now an established element of the core knowledge in early childhood care and education.

Here are some examples of indicators from the Washington State Core Competencies for Early Care and Educational Professionals (Washington State Department of Early Learning 2009, 8–30):

Child Growth and Development

Respects and accepts cultural differences, including family values and strengths, and the positive effects those differences may have on behavior and development.

Creates environments and experiences that affirm and respect cultural, linguistic, ethnic, and socio-economic diversity.

Demonstrates ability to embrace and integrate cultural, linguistic, ethnic, and socio-economic diversity into the daily curriculum by partnering with families and caregivers to incorporate and value aspects of language and traditions into the daily routine.

Curriculum and Learning Environment Uses materials that demonstrate acceptance of all children’s gender, family, race, language, culture, ethnic, socio-economic, and special needs.

Builds children’s understanding of their own and other cultures by providing cultural experiences using songs, stories, and language familiar to the child.

Builds children’s pride in their cultures, families, and communities by creating learning centers that reflect culture and community members of the children (e.g., culturally reflective themes, home language reflected in print, items from home, family photographs included in environment).

Creates learning environments that allow individuals to retain and appreciate their own and each other’s language, ethnicity, and cultural heritage.

Promoting Physical Development

Incorporates components of children’s home and family culture into outdoor play setting.

Invites feedback and input from families to ensure that cultural norms and

values are respected when designing gross- and fine-motor activities.

Promoting Cognitive Development

Offers learning opportunities reflecting the cultural, linguistic, ethnic, and socio-economic diversity of children in the setting.

Designs learning opportunities reflective of cultures represented in the community of the program.

Recognizes that infants and toddlers have a culturally based approach to learning that is an essential part of caregiving and curriculum development.

Promoting Language and Communication Development

Shows knowledge of the role of culture in the development of communication skills.

Helps children who are learning a second language by providing them with supports (i.e., props, gestures, and home language) so they can fully participate in classroom experiences.

Uses ongoing culturally appropriate assessment and evaluation tools to adapt and modify interactions with children to meet the specific language development needs of individual children.

Promoting Social/Emotional Development

Understands that family and community have different cultural, linguistic, ethnic, and socio-economic experiences that play a role in how children respond socially to adults and other children.

Uses intervention strategies that affirm and respect family, cultural, socioeconomic, and linguistic diversity.

Promotes Creative Expression

Accepts cultural differences that may affect children’s ways of expressing themselves creatively.

Incorporates suggestions from families on activities for self-expression that reflect family culture.

Helps children learn about themselves and others by designing and implementing meaningful creative experiences to explore similarities and differences in people.

Ongoing Measurement of Child Progress

Plans culturally appropriate assessments.

Uses and considers assessment and screening information when making curriculum and program decisions for individuals with exceptional learning needs, including those from culturally and/or linguistically diverse backgrounds.

Family and Community Partnerships

Respects and supports cultural differences and diverse family structures.

Works effectively with families from a variety of cultural, linguistic, ethnic, and socio-economic backgrounds.

Understands how cultural perspectives influence the relationship among families, schools, and communities.

Recognizes that information on cultural and family beliefs about child-rearing is learned through active outreach and engagement with parents.

Strives to ensure that community diversity and cultures are reflected in the setting.

Explains how families within many cultures are different and have different family structures.

Demonstrates knowledge of the potential impact of cultural, linguistic, ethnic, and socio-economic diversity that can exist between the home and setting.

Providing Individual Guidance

Collaborates with families to develop individually appropriate expectations for children’s behavior.

Program Planning and Development Ensures the program meets diversity needs and reflects inclusion of children, families, staff, and community partners.

Professional Development and Leadership

Exhibits familiarity with current trends in early childhood education.

Participates in group problem solving of ethical dilemmas.

Articulates personal philosophy of early childhood education based on knowledge of child development and best practices.

Articulates and uses a professional code of ethics for making professional decisions.

Evaluates current trends in early childhood education and revises practice as appropriate.

Takes advantage of opportunities to improve competence, both for personal and professional growth, and for the benefit of children and families.

Uses professional resources to improve practice.

Seeks out professional relationships to enhance professional growth (e.g., securing a mentor).

Develops and carries out a personal professional development plan.

Integrates knowledge of historical, philosophical, psychological, and social foundations of education into planning and decision making.

Advances program practice by working collaboratively with other staff to understand and support the adoption of research and best practices for children, families, and staff.

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

What are your thoughts about living in a globalized, multicultural society with no racial majority?

How can we prepare children to succeed in a globalized, multicultural society with no racial majority?

What will happen if we ignore racial and cultural diversity in our classrooms?

What will happen if we don’t change the way we recruit and prepare teachers?

TRY THIS TOMORROW

Review your state’s core competencies for early childhood care and education professionals. Identify and highlight the competencies related to diversity, race, and culture. Use Washington State’s standards if your state has no standards related to diversity, race, and culture.

Write a professional development plan. What competency area will your plan focus on? Which standard(s) would you like to meet? Why do you want to focus on this standard? Who will benefit from your professional development in this area? How will they benefit?

Plan your professional development activities. How will you increase your knowledge and skills? What do you need, and who can help you? When will you meet your goal? What will be the evidence that you have met your goal? What will be different as a result?

DIG DEEPER

Adair, Jennifer Keys. 2015. “The Impact of Discrimination on the Early Schooling Experiences of Children from Immigrant Families.” Migration Policy Institute. www.migrationpolicy.org/research/impact-discrimination-early-schooling- experiences-children-immigrant-families.

Nganga, Lydiah. 2015. “Multicultural Curriculum in Rural Early Childhood Programs.” Journal of Praxis in Multicultural Education 9 (1). doi: 10.9741/21612978.1073. http://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/jpme/vol9/iss1/2.

Ponciano, Leslie, and Ani Shabazian. 2012. “Interculturalism: Addressing Diversity in Early Childhood.” Dimensions of Early Childhood 40 (1): 23–29. http://southernearlychildhood.org/upload/pdf/Interculturalism___Addressing_Diversity_in_Early_Childhood___Leslie_Ponciano_and_Ani_Shabazian.pdf

VIDEOS

Pew Research Center. 2015. “Multiracial American Voices: Identity.” Pew Research Center. www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2WaNmhvEzo&list=PLZ9z- Af5ISatqyY72r32OEcidgbSCtP4k.

Reid, Jeanne L. 2015. “Why Classroom Diversity Matters in Early Education.” Teachers College, Columbia University. www.youtube.com/watch? v=E1QwiWpRJro.

Reid, Jeanne L., Sharon Lynn Kagan, Michael Hilton, Halley Potter, and Philip Tegeler. 2015. “A Better Start: Why Classroom Diversity Matters in Early Education.” Poverty and Race Research Action Council. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vr1YFYU8Kn4.

CHAPTER 2 Children and Prejudice

Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future, and renders the present inaccessible. —MAYA ANGELOU, ALL GOD’S CHILDREN NEED TRAVELING SHOES

Is it hard for you to believe that preschoolers are prejudiced? If so, you aren’t alone. Most teachers want to deny the slightest possibility of bias in young children. We think to ourselves, “These children are too young to even notice race, much less understand racism.” Or we say things such as, “Children don’t notice differences, and besides, they like everyone they meet.” However, there are many indications that young children are aware of differences and form strong attitudes toward themselves and others. This chapter challenges you to look at your assumptions about children’s awareness of and attitudes toward human differences, and to think about prejudice in new ways.

DIFFERENCES CHILDREN NOTICE In 1986 I wondered if the children in the child care center where I was working noticed differences among themselves or in the adults. The teachers were not able to identify many comments from the children to suggest that they were aware of or interested in differences among people. So I conducted an informal poll of the children’s parents. Of the parents who completed the questionnaire, 83 percent confirmed that their children were aware of differences, and they described the specific physical attributes their children noticed. Louise Derman-Sparks, author of the influential 1989 book Anti-Bias Curriculum, reported similar results in her research. Children ages two through five commented on and asked questions about the following:

People with disabilities: wheelchairs, glasses, physical impairments, and use of special facilities

Gender differences: male and female anatomy and perceptions of what boys and girls can do (Some girls said things such as, “I can’t be a doctor,” “I can’t drive a tractor,” and “I wish I could be a boy because boys can do things girls can’t do.”)

Physical differences: skin color, facial features, and differences in hair color, texture, and style

Cultural differences: different languages, foreign accents, diets, and celebrations

Family lifestyles: who lives with and takes care of children, what families do together, where they live, what pets they have, and what rules and discipline they follow (Derman-Sparks, Higa, and Sparks 1989)

Once the results of my informal poll were in, the staff at our center had a better idea of what to listen for. As teacher awareness increased, we were able to identify more and more instances in which children noticed physical differences and used stereotypes and social labels.

In another informal poll, teachers involved in the Culturally Relevant Anti-Bias (CRAB) Leadership Project listed the comments and questions they had heard that indicate young children are struggling with race (skin color and physical features), ethnicity, culture, class, physical ability, age, and sexual orientation. (The CRAB Project was a three-year project that took place from 1991 to 1994 in Seattle, New Orleans, and Minneapolis. You can find a complete account of the CRAB Project in Future Vision, Present Work published by Redleaf Press [Cronin et al. 1998].) That information is summarized in the table “Children’s Questions and Comments about Diversity” (page 27). Even though we collected this information more than twenty years ago, it is still relevant today.

CHILD DEVELOPMENT It is generally accepted that development is a continuous, interactive, and cumulative process. We measure this growth in children in terms of years, and it results in accomplishments such as learning to walk, talk, and think rationally. Each day we, as individuals, have experiences and are involved with the people and objects of our social world. We interact with and influence the world and others, and in turn, the world and its people affect us. These ongoing life experiences mesh with our age-related development, which results in an ever- growing sense of self and understanding of the world. This is the nature of human development, and it serves to bring us to ever more complex and more integrated levels of functioning. At any given moment, we are the sum total of our development.

This developmental process can be seen in the progression of children’s awareness of and attitude toward human differences. Though development involves the whole child, we often describe growth in terms of specific areas: physical, intellectual, social, and emotional development. Growth and change in each of these areas influence awareness and understanding of racial and cultural differences and the development of prejudice.

For example, in the early years, the development of self-concept and self-

esteem plays an important role in learning to recognize and accept others. In the preschool years, intellectual development brings the ability to notice how things are different and alike. This mindful attention to detail results in an increasing awareness of how people differ from one another.

In the later preschool years and early elementary years, children begin to understand concepts of group membership and physical permanence. Children notice faces, gestures, and adult reactions. Young children look at faces and within seconds determine if a person is “like me” or “not like me.” Children put their classmates into social categories. They infer negative attitudes toward the children who are “not like me.” They begin to use stereotypes to form racial identities.

Developmental psychologists such as Andrew Meltzoff and Patricia Kuhl are trying to understand this phenomenon. Meltzoff says, “One of the most amazing things and troubling things about human beings is this idea that we automatically form social categories into us and them. . . . We seem to be fighting about the people who are in the out group demonizing them and interestingly often denigrating them to be something like less than human that allows us to engage in warfare” (Kuhl and Meltzoff 2013). So, he goes on, developmental psychologists have been interested in studying children’s developing awareness of human diversity, their developing attitudes toward race and culture, and their tendency to adopt racial stereotypes and to use them to exclude others.

According to Meltzoff, “What developmental psychologists want to do is understand where that motivation comes from” and the role parents, teachers, and culture play in teaching the brain to open up to all humanity by widening the circle of what counts as “us” and to help children develop in-group positivity without the negativity to others (Kuhl and Meltzoff 2013).

Let’s further explore what we do know about children’s awareness of attitudes toward race and culture at each stage of development.

Infants The foundation of self-awareness is laid in the first years of life. Newborn babies notice color contrasts and love to look at human faces. Around four months, they can tell the difference between people who are familiar and people who are strangers, and they respond to and initiate more interaction with people they know. Around six months, babies begin to actively explore people and objects. They may grab your cheek, put their fingers in your mouth, or pull on your hair. This is their effort at trying to figure out “what’s me and what’s not me.” In the development of a sense of self, babies progress from noticing human faces to distinguishing between familiar and unfamiliar people to exploring individuals in order to gain a sense of themselves as individuals.

Infancy is also an important time in the development of feelings and trust in the world. Babies have feelings. They experience fear, anger, sadness, and joy. They learn which feelings are acceptable and which feelings to hide or deny based on how their parents and caregivers respond to them. Adults often deny their

children’s fear and anger. “There’s nothing to be afraid of” is a common response to a child’s fear. Older infants and toddlers are often abandoned (put in the crib and left alone) or punished for feeling angry. This rejection of normal human feelings paves the way for denying and hiding feelings of fear and anger about racial differences.

Erik Erikson, one of the most important developmental theorists, described the significance of a sense of trust in infancy. He said that babies need adults and caregivers who will respond to their needs in a loving and timely fashion. By receiving warm, loving, and attentive care, babies learn that the world is a safe place and that people can be counted on and trusted. This is an important step toward believing people are basically good and toward letting people into their lives (Erikson 1963).

Toddlers Sometime between fifteen and eighteen months, the drive toward self-awareness reaches a high point when children can identify themselves as unique individuals. Now children can really take in all the messages they receive about themselves and form a self-concept and self-esteem. Once children fully acquire this sense of self, they are capable of being shamed and of feeling ashamed. Shame is feeling unworthy and defective, as if there is something wrong with the way one looks, acts, thinks, and feels.

Toddlers are sensitive and “catch” feelings from adults. They pick up on how people feel and will use this information to guide their behavior. If the adult they are with walks into a room and is afraid, children will pick up that fear and act reserved and fearful themselves. If parents or caregivers are uncomfortable, wary, fearful, angry, warm, or accepting around people of other cultures, children will begin to associate these feelings with the situation at hand.

Imitative play emerges during the toddler stage. Children begin to act out simple adult behavior they have observed. Toddlers are most likely to imitate their parents. This comes from wanting to please the adults in their lives and to be “just like mommy” or “just like daddy.” They begin to mimic behavior when they copy simple adult acts such as talking on the phone, washing dishes, and shaving. During these early years, imitative play becomes more elaborate, and it is common to see toddlers acting out their home life in the dramatic play area of the classroom. In terms of racial awareness, young children may parrot or mimic their parents’ biases in an effort to be like them.

Twos The journey toward self-understanding continues as children gain language. Older toddlers and young twos begin using words such as mine and me to describe themselves. They use the word you to describe all others. As their sense of self grows stronger, they go through a period of wanting to be independent and in

control of themselves. “No!” and “Me do it!” are the common commands of two- year-olds. They need to act on and prove their independence, and children who are not allowed to do things for themselves risk feeling shame. Children who are shamed or develop a shame-based personality may need to put down others in order to convince themselves that they are worthy and acceptable.

Children at this age also begin to define themselves and others by physical characteristics such as skin color, hair color, and anatomy. They notice and are learning the names and locations of their body parts. They can classify people by gender. Two-year-olds are learning the names of colors, and they can distinguish between black and white.

Two-year-olds may also start using racial labels rather than skin color to describe another person. For example, when a two-and-a-half-year-old boy in my center saw an African American man walking across the park, the child said, “There’s a black boy.” Later in the day, I handed the child an African American doll. I asked him, “What color is this doll’s skin?” He answered, “Black.” Then I asked, “If the doll’s skin is black, what color is its hair?” He looked at the doll for a while and said, “His hair is black.” I followed up with, “If its hair is black, then what color is its skin?” He looked again at the doll and got a puzzled look on his face. He looked up at me and then back at the doll. “His skin is brown,” he answered. I affirmed, “Yes, the doll’s skin is brown, and its hair is black.” In addition to learning racial labels, children at this age may begin to develop feelings of fear and show discomfort around unfamiliar physical attributes such as facial hair, glasses, skin colors different from their own, and disabilities.

Threes and Fours Preschoolers get even better at noticing differences among people. They can name, identify, and match people according to their physical characteristics. By this age, European American children have developed a positive association with the color white and the racial label “white.” In Children and Prejudice, Frances Aboud (1988) says that by age three, minority children are better at classifying faces by color. This seems to indicate that children are very aware of their skin color and that minority children have learned more about human diversity than European American children, who may believe everyone in the world is like them. Being part of the dominant culture means that many children have not had experience with or have not developed awareness of minority people living in a society.

Young children are naturally curious about the world, which is why the preschool years are often referred to as the question-asking stage. Preschoolers want to know about themselves and others. At age two, their question was “What’s that?” Now their question is “Why?” This demonstrates their developing interest in the origin and function of things. For example, a four-year-old may ask, “Where do people get their color? Why are her eyes like that? Am I yellow? What color is my blood?” It is important that young children receive honest, simple answers to their questions, because they believe there is an explanation for everything. If they don’t

know an answer or aren’t helped to figure it out, they are likely to make up their own distorted answer.

Preschoolers do not understand that objects and people retain certain key traits even though their physical appearance may change. As a result, it is common to hear a girl say, “I’m going to be a daddy when I grow up.” Similarly, children may wonder out loud if they will have the same skin color when they grow up, or they may say they want physical features like someone else when they grow up. Adults can help children understand that many of their features (such as their skin color, eye shape, and hair texture) are permanent by associating their physical identity with their biological parents.

Young children’s thinking is limited, distorted, and inconsistent, which makes them susceptible to believing stereotypes. For one, they base their thinking on how things look rather than on logical reasoning. They also have limited understanding of time; the past and future have almost no meaning to preschoolers. If they see a video about an American Indian on horseback with a bow and arrows, they may deny that their classmate is an American Indian. They may also make false associations between events. For instance, a four-year-old European American child had an African American teacher. Whenever he saw a black woman walking down the street, he would say, “Look, there’s my Wanda.” Preschoolers focus on only one aspect of an object at a time. Usually it is a minor detail, and they totally miss the main characteristics or the main point of a story. For example, the parents of a four-year-old named Katrina came to the center to celebrate their daughter’s birthday with her class. These parents had recently emigrated from Poland and spoke with a Polish accent. In every other way, they looked, dressed, and acted like European American parents. But one of the four-year-olds was afraid and wanted to avoid Katrina’s parents because they talked “funny.”

Fives and Sixes Children of this age are still asking questions and trying to make sense of the world. They continue to be interested in physical differences and can easily describe themselves in terms of their own physical features. They are more group oriented and can begin to understand cultural identity. Fives and sixes enjoy exploring the cultural heritages of their classmates. They can begin to identify stereotypes as they struggle to discriminate between real and pretend. I was reminded of how important the issue of “real and pretend” is to young children when I overheard a five-year-old boy repeatedly ask his father, “Dad, is that really real?”

Children at this age can be rule bound and rigid in their behavior. They like to make rules and will get into conflicts about fairness. Their understanding of gender and racial behavior may be rigid and traditional. As a result, they may tend to choose friends of the same sex and the same race.

Fives and sixes use their increased language ability as their main way of showing aggression. Whereas preschoolers often use hitting to retrieve a toy or to

keep a child out of their play, older children use their words to hurt others. They will use insults and call each other names as often as 80 percent of the time. This verbal aggression can be counteracted with discussions about fairness and unfairness, as this is a moral concept they are able to understand.

Sevens to Nines Between the ages of five and seven, children experience a major shift in their thinking. They finally understand that people stay essentially the same even though they may change in appearance. Thus, children realize their gender and skin color will stay the same as they grow into adulthood.

Fully realizing that their culture comes from their family, they add the concept of group membership to their own identity and use it to distinguish themselves from others. Schoolagers can consider more than one attribute at a time. This allows them to understand that they are a member of a family, an ethnic culture, a classroom, and a religion, and a citizen of a town, state, and country.

Schoolagers are very interested in and aware of the world. They want to know what’s going on now as well as what happened a long time ago. They can learn about important people and events that have shaped the world. In terms of emotional development, schoolagers understand the feelings of shame and pride. They are able to talk about and describe these feelings. They develop a true sense of empathy for others, being much more able to put themselves in someone else’s shoes.

It is critical that we provide school-age children with accurate information so their understanding does not stay like that of preschoolers—distorted and inaccurate. This happens all too often. For example, Marcy Hart, an American Indian woman who speaks to groups of elementary school children, is often asked questions such as: “Do the soldiers have to guard the Indians?” “Do the Indians still live on reservations?” “Can they leave the reservation?” “What kind of food do Indians eat?” “Do they grow feathers?” “Do they know how to speak English?” “What kind of clothes do they wear?” “Do they have moms and dads?”

RESEARCH ABOUT CHILDREN’S AWARENESS OF HUMAN DIFFERENCES The field of child development formally began in the mid-1920s, when wealthy American families such as the Carnegies donated large amounts of money to establish child development departments and child study stations in colleges and universities throughout the country. The first decade of formal research is known as the child study movement.

During the child study movement, the first documented research on the development of prejudice took place. Research on children’s awareness of human differences and attitudes toward diversity has continued throughout the following

decades. For example, in the 1940s Kenneth and Mamie Clark conducted their famous studies using dolls to uncover and better understand children’s attitudes toward race. Phyllis Katz, director of the University of Colorado’s Institute for Research on Social Problems from 1975 to 1990, further researched children’s awareness and attitudes toward racial differences. Television journalist Anderson Cooper hosted a series of programs on children and race in 2010 and 2012 that delved into children’s race awareness and attitudes. This time the researcher was Melanie Killen, professor of human development and quantitative methodology at the University of Maryland.

The findings of researchers on children’s attitudes toward race have been consistent for almost one hundred years. Furthermore, each time the American public is exposed to young children showing positive attitudes toward whites and light-skinned people and negative attitudes toward dark-skinned people, the reaction is the same. There is large-scale outrage at the researchers and the methodology: “Not this black and white thing again.” “You’re just pushing an agenda.” “Shame on you for teaching this to children.”

Because research findings are so remarkably consistent, we have a substantial body of knowledge about the development of racial awareness and prejudice in young children. Unfortunately, teacher education has largely ignored this body of research. Few, if any, child development textbooks address the development of prejudice in children or cite the existing research. Texts and coursework on children’s social development and social skills curricula rarely address racial attitudes in a meaningful way. As a result, early childhood teachers don’t learn about the development of prejudice in children as a part of their teacher preparation.

So what are these consistent research findings that have created our body of knowledge about children’s racial attitudes? Most of the studies involved showing children pictures of people and asking the children questions about the photographs. Other studies used multicultural dolls and observation of children’s doll play. Over the decades, the results of these studies suggest that children notice skin color at an early age—as early as six months, to be exact. Children as young as toddlers develop preferences associated with skin color. By age three or four, white children begin to form negative attitudes about people who are different from them, and they develop a fairly high level of rejection of other ethnic groups, which remains consistent until at least age seven. Children of color do not seem to develop strong rejecting attitudes toward white people until age seven. By age five, children correctly identify their own ethnicity. By age seven, children of color demonstrate attachment to their own ethnic group. White preschoolers show strong pro-white attitudes that remain constant throughout childhood.

Here is a more detailed list of the research findings:

One aspect of the research on children’s racial attitudes that has remained controversial is that in many of the doll-play studies, children of color preferred the white dolls rather than dolls that matched their own identity. Some early researchers interpreted this behavior to mean that

children of color had low self-esteem. Alternative explanations are that the children of color were simply trying to please the white researchers or that the children had picked up societal messages that being white is better.

Stages of Racial Awareness and Prejudice Infants: Develop self-awareness

notice faces, gestures, and adult reactions in social situations

connect with the adults in their lives through mirror neurons and copy their reactions in social situations

recognize familiar people and show fear of strangers

recognize and actively explore faces to discern “what is me” and “what is not me”

develop a sense of trust in the world

experience and show fear and anger

Toddlers: Identify self as an individual experience and show shame

are sensitive to and catch feelings from adults

begin to mimic adult behavior

ask, “What’s that?”

Twos: Identify people with the words me, mine, and you need independence and a sense of control

recognize physical characteristics

classify people by gender

learn names of colors

can tell the difference between black and white

may begin to use racial labels

Threes and Fours: Notice differences among people can identify and sort people according to their physical characteristics

associate attributes with a race or culture

show preference for their own race and culture

ask “why” questions

don’t know yet that attributes such as gender and skin color remain constant throughout a person’s life (no gender or racial constancy)

tend to play with same-race classmates rather than classmates from other races

susceptible to believing stereotypes

make false associations and overgeneralize, inferring that all members of a race or culture share a characteristic

show favoritism to their own culture or race

mask fear of differences with avoidance, silliness

avoid, distort, and reject information that contradicts or challenges their prejudices

possess the ability to resist stereotypes

with cross-racial friendships at this age, are more likely to have a diverse social network as a teen and adult

Fives and Sixes: Understand cultural identity and enjoy exploring cultural heritage of classmates

can identify stereotypes

explore real and pretend, fair and unfair

tend toward rigid thinking and behavior

show aggression through insults and name-calling

express the attitude that my race/culture is better than yours

Sevens to Nines: Develop gender and racial constancy understand group membership; form groups to distinguish self from others

become more open in their attitude toward diversity, but their friends become more like them

can consider multiple attributes

aware of racism against own group

ask, “What are you?”

want and need a wealth of accurate information

develop personal strengths

Nines to Twelves: Aware of and interested in world events interested in ancestry, history, geography

understand shame and pride

can put self in another’s shoes

aware of cultural and political values

understand racism

can compare and contrast minority and majority perspectives

can use skills to take social action

After age ten, racial attitudes tend to stay constant unless the child experiences a life-changing event. The research makes it clear that young children pick up prejudice and stereotypes about themselves and other people simply as a part of trying to make sense of their world. Without intervention, these misconceptions will not change.

Let’s look more closely at the nature of prejudice, stereotypes, and discriminatory behavior. Then we will examine how children’s development makes them vulnerable to accepting societal stereotypes and prejudices without question.

WHAT IS PREJUDICE? Prejudice is simply prejudging individuals based on attitudes and beliefs about an entire group of people. In other words, prejudice is judging people first without getting to know them. Prejudice is an attitude, a belief, or a state of mind. Unfortunately, prejudice is often irrational. It is rarely based on accurate information or real-life experience. Prejudiced attitudes or beliefs are rigid ways of thinking. As a result, it is difficult to reduce or change them. People who have high levels of prejudice tend to reject evidence that contradicts their beliefs, even though their beliefs are illogical. Anyone can be prejudiced. Prejudice transcends race, ethnicity, gender, class, and ability.

STEREOTYPES: THE ROOT OF PREJUDICE Stereotypes are at the root of prejudice and discriminatory behavior. Stereotype is another word for an overgeneralization or overly simplistic thought. Stereotypes are often based on misinformation, myths, and lies.

Stereotypes trigger the distorted thinking known as prejudice. They cause us to prejudge a person or an entire group of people without really knowing them. We must address stereotypes in our attempts to prevent and reduce prejudice, because

stereotypes are rooted in the subconscious. Stereotypes can influence our behavior without our awareness. Real-life

encounters with diversity can activate subconscious stereotypes, which in turn trigger corresponding emotions. Encounters can trigger stereotypes about a specific group of people, and though we might not be consciously aware of it, the stereotypic thinking can cause us to feel fear, anger, resentment, and distrust. Stereotypes and the feelings they trigger result in discriminatory behaviors. Young children are fed stereotypes through the media; the majority of their experience with people who are different from them comes from movies, videos, video games, television, books, apps, and toys.

DISCRIMINATION Prejudice (stereotypes and the feelings they trigger) usually results in behavior called discrimination. For example, a person who believes Latinos are lazy and feels anger, resentment, and distrust in their presence is likely to ignore or avoid contact with Latinos. If the individual is feeling particularly hostile or threatened, that person may resort to more aggressive discriminatory behavior. Think of this process as a simple mathematical equation:

Stereotypes Prejudice. Prejudice Feelings. Prejudice + Feelings = Discriminatory Behavior

Here are some common forms of passive and aggressive discrimination:

Passive Discrimination Aggressive Discrimination ignoring avoiding distancing silence

name-calling teasing, taunting rejecting, excluding threatening physical aggression (hitting, beating, lynching) destroying property

I find it useful to think of discriminatory behavior as a continuum. The behavior moves from passive to aggressive and from verbal to physical.

FORMS OF DISCRIMINATION

Stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination are intricately interwoven. They feed on one another. It is imperative that teachers understand the critical role stereotypes play in the development of prejudice and discriminatory behavior. This role is the reason why preventing and reducing prejudice is one of the core goals of culturally relevant anti-bias education. It is also why early childhood teachers must eliminate stereotypes from the classroom and the curriculum.

HOW PREJUDICE PROGRESSES You can now probably begin to see the strong connection between prejudice and normal developmental patterns. It is important to remember that these steps in development do not cause prejudice, nor do they automatically lead to prejudice. In fact, gaining awareness, learning to identify and classify objects, and forming attitudes about things are positive signs of healthy growth and development. The dominant society and its prevailing values and norms provide the environment for developing prejudice. Children growing up in a racist society will naturally learn to classify people the same way as the society at large classifies people. Children quickly learn which skin colors are “good” and which ones are “bad,” or which ones are privileged and which ones are denied privileges.

Remember, children are not born prejudiced. Prejudice is learned. The developmental process is neutral, and children naturally come to recognize differences. Because society is racist, children pick up the values and beliefs society associates with the differences. Steps in the development of prejudice include the following:

Awareness is being alert to, seeing, noticing, and understanding differences among people even though they may never have been described or talked about.

Identification is naming, labeling, and classifying people based on physical characteristics that children notice. Verbal identification relieves the stress that comes from being aware of or confused by something that the child cannot describe or that no one else is talking about. Identification is the child’s attempt to break the silence and make sense of the world.

Attitude consists of thoughts and feelings that become an inclination or opinion toward another person and that person’s way of living in the world.

Preference is valuing, favoring, and giving priority to a physical attribute, person, or lifestyle over another, usually based on similarities and differences.

Prejudice is a preconceived hostile attitude, opinion, feeling, or action against a person, race, or way of being in the world without knowing the person or people or understanding the way of being.

Noticing Differences Infants enter this world alert and aware of their surroundings. As they grow, children notice more and more detail and use all their senses to take in information from the world around them. Once I held a six-week-old infant who was acutely aware of the fact that I was not her mother. I didn’t look the same. I didn’t talk the same. I smelled different. I held her differently. She reacted to all these differences by crying. Because of her age, she didn’t have the language ability to put her sensations and perceptions into thoughts or words to label and describe her experience.

As children grow, their perceptual abilities increase and their awareness becomes more and more refined. They naturally notice greater detail. By the age of four, children notice skin color, the shape of eyes, hair color, hair texture, body shape, the way people talk, and how people move their bodies. There is nothing wrong with developing a greater awareness of differences; it is a positive and necessary skill.

Identifying and Classifying Attributes Around age two, children learn to talk and begin using words to express themselves. Language allows them to name and identify all the people and things they have been watching, mouthing, and exploring since infancy. Children can label physical characteristics with words: “I’m brown.” “My hair is black.” “I have blue eyes.” That’s identification. Two-year-olds can identify themselves, their own physical characteristics, and the physical attributes of others.

Preschoolers advance beyond identifying objects to sorting them into categories. This is classification. At first, their categories are simple, as they can only consider one attribute at a time. Young preschoolers enjoy classifying things by color, shape, alike and not alike. Gradually, they learn to distinguish both people and things by their subtler characteristics and differences. For example, a preschooler may say: “I live on a farm; you live in town.” “I live upstairs; you live downstairs.” “My hair is blond; your hair is brown.” “My skin is white; your skin is brown.”

Developing Attitudes and Preferences The ability to identify and classify is accompanied by the acquisition of attitudes

and preferences. Naming, recognizing, and classifying are mental activities that are influenced by cognitive development. An attitude about or a preference for or against something is a response based on a combination of feelings. For children, these feelings result from their efforts to get their needs met—the need to be happy, receive approval, and avoid fear—based on the society that surrounds them.

The development of a self-concept illustrates the progression from identification to preferences. Self-concept is the knowledge of who a child is as a person. Once he can identify himself, he begins the process of learning about who he is. As he gets to know himself from experiences in the world and with others, he forms attitudes about himself. He may, for example, acquire a positive attitude about his ability to learn and get along with others and form negative feelings about his body and athletic ability. These attitudes influence his behavior: he spends a lot of energy and time with friends, and he avoids sports. If he acts on these attitudes long enough, they will become preferences. When describing himself, he may say that he prefers socializing to working out at a gym.

Even very young children begin to make choices and show preferences for people and objects based on the external characteristics they can identify and the information they have received about those characteristics from social messages: “I don’t want the brown paper; I want the white paper.” “I wish I were a boy because boys can be doctors.” Children show preferences in whom they choose as their friends and playmates. Preschoolers exclude playmates with statements such as “You can’t play because you have brown skin. You’re dirty.” Remember, these attitudes are influenced by the prevailing social attitudes and values as well as by the child’s feelings.

Becoming Prejudiced As people grow, attitudes and preferences become ingrained. As attitudes and preferences grow more rigid, they begin to resemble prejudice. We make choices without thinking about them, acting on an attitude or preference without considering the specific details of a situation. We judge people by their looks without getting to know them as individuals.

The prejudice we see in preschoolers is an emerging behavior pattern of consistently choosing one person over another without rational thinking or reasoning, and of automatically disliking people and things that are not familiar or are different.

As adults, we must be careful not to reward or reinforce children’s discriminatory behavior. Rather, we need to help children examine their feelings and attitudes and challenge them to accept new information and a variety of people into their lives. These steps, from basic awareness to attitudes and preferences, outline normal development as it relates to prejudice. Prejudice is not an inevitable outcome of growth and development but a hurtful, limiting, distorted behavior learned through experience in a racist society.

WHY CHILDREN ARE PRE-PREJUDICED There are many reasons why young children exhibit pre-prejudiced behavior. Some believe that children model or imitate others when they make discriminatory remarks. Others say that prejudiced behavior is reinforced through the child’s environment. Perhaps children act out in discriminatory ways to relieve the anger and painful feelings that come from being humiliated by adults.

Today immature thinking is the most widely accepted explanation for children’s misconceptions. While young children create their own ideas, they are immature thinkers likely to confuse the facts and make false assumptions. Preschoolers are interested in knowing about other people, but they are not able to use logical thinking in their preferences for people.

The basis for adult thinking begins in early childhood, as children begin to make connections among themselves, their actions, and the environment. Children take all the information they receive and organize it their own way. They form ideas, concepts, and eventually an entire belief system. Then they construct ideas about themselves and others—ideas about age, gender, physical features, culture, disability, money, right and wrong, and fair and unfair.

Characteristics of Young Children’s Thinking Young children don’t think like adults. Their reasoning is so different from adult thinking that many adults find it difficult to understand young children. During these early years, children are forming ideas about themselves and their world. They are constructing their belief systems. As they master language, begin to express their beliefs, and act on their beliefs, we get a sense of what they know. Often we are caught off guard by what young children remember and what they think. It is important for all of us who work with young children to understand how they think.

Children learn by exploring. Young children in a family child care center watch the provider diaper an African American baby and announce, “She’s brown all over!” A preschool child peeks up the sleeve of an adult to see if his skin color goes all the way up his arm.

Children are naturally curious. They seem to be constantly asking questions. Their questions tend to follow a progression from “What’s that?” to “Why?” to “How come?” to “Who are you?” to “Where do you come from?”

Children base their ideas on appearance. Young children are great at noticing details. They observe color, shape, size, and patterns. Children make judgments based on appearance. They say things such as, “You don’t look like a girl ’cause you have boy hair.” They assume taller children are older and shorter people are younger. A two-year-old European American girl thinks an African American man wearing earmuffs is a bear.

Children tend to overgeneralize. Generalizing is how young children try to form concepts. They assume all men are daddies. All women are mommies. Teachers live at the child care center. “Indians” wear feathers.

Children’s thinking is limited by centering. Children tend to focus on one aspect of a person or an object at a time and ignore all other features. A little boy refused to play with a classmate. When the teacher asked why, he said that the little girl smelled bad. It turned out that this child didn’t like the smell of the hair care products his classmate used.

Children base their ideas on their own experience. Seeing the world from your own perspective is called egocentric thought. For example, young white children are likely to believe that people of color are dirty and that if they take a bath, their skin will turn white.

Children have limited information. Due to their limited experience, children may be missing information about their own and others’ identities. Lack of information leaves them vulnerable to believing myths and stereotypes. If they don’t have the information, they just make it up.

Children easily make false associations. Children have a tendency to equate two unrelated situations. For example, a young child who has seen cartoon American Indians on television or has watched a lot of Westerns may be afraid of a real-life American Indian who comes to visit her classroom. She hides behind her teacher and asks, “Is he going to shoot us?”

Children are trying to understand changes. Children are trying to figure out things that change and things that stay the same. For instance, children are sometimes confused about whether their gender or certain physical features are permanent. A boy says, “When I grow up, I’m going to be a mommy.” An Asian American girl says to a European American child, “When I get big, I’m going to have eyes like yours.”

Children are magical thinkers. Dreams, dolls, stuffed animals, and cartoon characters are real to young children. When children tell us stories, it is difficult to know if they are relating actual experiences, dreams, or fantasy.

THE ADULT’S ROLE IN PREVENTING AND REDUCING PREJUDICE Unfortunately, many adults believe that children are color-blind. They falsely associate color blindness with innocence and associate awareness of human diversity with guilt. Because the research discussed in the first part of this chapter has been largely ignored, most teachers underestimate children’s prejudice. They take the attitude “if the children aren’t talking about it, don’t bring it up.”

Unfortunately, many schools do not address human diversity until the children are involved in fights. By then it may be too late to reduce students’ prejudices. Other teachers fear that talking about human diversity will encourage children to become prejudiced. Research by Marjorie Rhodes illustrated how adults who use generic language such as “Pink is for girls,” “That’s man’s work,” or “Somalis don’t speak English” lead preschoolers to develop biased beliefs and prejudice about people according to their race, ethnicity, or gender (Rhodes, Leslie, and Tworek 2012). Developmental psychologists Frances Aboud and Rebecca Bigler and their colleagues strongly suggest that children benefit from group discussions about human diversity (Aboud et al. 2012; Bigler and Wright 2014). Exposure to other children’s more tolerant attitudes helps the biased children recognize human similarities they had not considered. The discussions reduce their negative comments and increase their positive comments about people who are different from them. Aboud and colleagues also found that the vast majority of children were eager to express their ideas and attitudes about human diversity.

Early childhood programs can prevent and reduce prejudice by intentionally promoting respect for and inclusion of all forms of human diversity. You can provide direct contact with people from other races and cultures, draw attention to individual similarities and differences, and teach empathy and social skills such as sharing, turn taking, problem solving, giving compliments, and helping one another. In addition, you can reduce anxiety and tension around diversity, use collaborative learning strategies, help children to engage in perspective taking, foster cross-racial friendships, introduce children to the contributions of different cultural groups, and provide books and media that positively portray people of different races and cultures. Remember, the more familiar children are with a particular race or culture, the more positive their attitudes.

Adults can do many positive things to prevent and reduce prejudice in children. The following list was adapted from Teaching Tolerance: Raising Open-Minded, Empathetic Children by Sara Bullard (1996).

Recognize that children are not born prejudiced.

Realize that prejudice is based on stereotypes, irrational thinking, limited experience, and modeling.

Recognize that prejudice can be prevented and reduced.

Eliminate stereotypic materials and images from your environment. Carefully screen books, videos, video games, and apps before using them with children.

Use words of caring and tolerance daily: “Please.” “Thank you.” “Let’s cooperate.” “I like you. I’m so glad you’re here.”

Encourage children to express their feelings.

Expose children to human diversity. Help them recognize and celebrate human physical differences.

Explore diversity in nature to teach that life comes in many forms and each life is dependent on others.

Model comfortable, respectful, empathetic interactions with people who are different from you.

Promote positive values. Use your favorite proverbs to help children think: “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” “To have a friend, be a friend.” “We’re all in the same boat.”

Use pretend play and storytelling to encourage children to take on new perspectives: “I wonder what it would be like to live in the city.” “I wonder what it would be like to live on a farm.” “I wonder what it would be like to live on a reservation.” “What would we eat?” “What would we wear?” “What would we do?” “Who would be our friends?”

Discuss stereotypical messages on television and billboards and in videos, books, toys, greeting cards, and holiday decorations.

Help children recognize intolerant and unfair behavior, such as name-calling, gossip, and rejection.

Encourage empathy for others. Ask children, “What did you do today that made someone else feel good?” “What did you do today that made someone feel bad?”

Share your appreciation of human diversity with your children.

SELF-REFLECTION: QUESTIONS ABOUT CHILDREN’S DEVELOPMENT Think about your own children, children you have known, and children in your class. For each question, identify the approximate age at which children first notice or think about the elements of human identity and diversity. Do not focus on when children have a complete and thorough understanding of the issue—these are themes that we continue to explore throughout our lives.

Questions about Children’s Development of Identity When do children first recognize their own image?

When do children first become aware of their age?

When do children first become aware of their gender?

When do children first become aware of their physical features (skin color, eye color, hair color, hair texture, shape of facial features, body size)?

When do children first become aware of their economic status?

When do children first become aware of their culture or ethnicity?

When do children first become aware of their physical ability or disability?

When do children first become aware of their sexual orientation?

Questions about Children’s Awareness of Human Diversity When do children first recognize familiar people and strangers?

When do children first notice the age of other people?

When do children first notice the gender of other people?

When do children first become aware of other people’s physical features (skin color, eye color, hair color, hair texture, shape of facial features, body size)?

When do children first become aware of other people’s economic status?

When do children first become aware of other people’s culture or ethnicity?

When do children first become aware of other people’s physical ability or disability?

When do children first become aware of other people’s sexual orientation?

Questions about Children’s Development of Prejudice When do children first begin to comment on their own image?

When do children first begin to comment on the looks of others?

When do children begin to believe stereotypes?

When do children begin to avoid certain people?

When do children begin to call people names?

When do children begin to tease others?

When do children begin to exclude or reject other children from their play?

When do children begin to use fairness in their interactions with others?

As you answer these questions from your own experience with young children, you are sure to recognize that the idea that children are too young to understand bias is a myth. Children are aware of differences, and they form strong attitudes toward themselves and others at an early age. By challenging our personal assumptions about children’s awareness of and attitudes toward human differences, we can learn to think about prejudice in new ways. We can bring this new perspective into our classrooms by creating an environment in which prejudice holds no place.

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

What physical characteristics do your students notice or talk about?

When did you first become aware of your racial and ethnic identity?

When did you become aware of other racial or ethnic groups?

How has growing up in US society influenced your awareness of and attitude toward people who are racially or ethnically different from you?

TRY THIS TOMORROW

Test yourself for implicit bias at Harvard University’s Project Implicit website: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/.

Invite parents and teachers to come together to create your own investigation into children’s understanding and attitudes toward racial and cultural difference. Refer to the questions used in Anderson Cooper’s Black or White: Kids on Race or in the video “A Girl Like Me” (see the following video resources). Decide if you will simply talk with children, show children images, or use dolls. Ask parents and teachers to write down what the children say word for word. Come back together as a group, and share the results. Discuss how your findings compare to the videos. Plan next steps.

DIG DEEPER

ADL Education Division, World of Difference Institute. 2013. “How Do Children Learn Prejudice?” Anti-Defamation League. www.adl.org/assets/pdf/education- outreach/How-Do-Children-Learn-Prejudice.pdf.

Machado, Amanda. 2014. “Is It Possible to Teach Children to Be Less Prejudiced?” Atlantic. www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/03/is-it- possible-to-teach-children-to-be-less-prejudiced/284536/.

Levy, Sheri R., Lisa Rosenthal, and Alberto Herrera-Alcazar. 2004. “Racial and Ethnic Prejudice among Children.” In The Psychology of Prejudice and Discrimination: Racism in America, edited by Jean Lau Chin. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. www.psychology.stonybrook.edu/slevy- /Levylab/Publications_files/Levy_Rosenthal_Herrera_Alcazar_2009.pdf.

Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund. 1995. “Talking to Our Children about Racism and Diversity.” The Leadership Conference.

www.civilrights.org/publications/reports/talking_to_our_children/.

VIDEOS

Cooper, Anderson. 2010. “1 of 8—Black or White: Kids on Race—Inside the AC360 Doll Study.” CNN. www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYkUMqxr_o8.

———. 2010. “2 of 8—Black or White: Kids on Race—Mother Reacts to Daughter’s Doll Test.” CNN. www.youtube.com/watch?v=opULrjQv0Kg.

———. 2010. “3 of 8—Black or White: Kids on Race—Study Shows How Black Children View Race.” CNN. www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m-xhE2MAY8.

———. 2010. “4 of 8—Black or White: Kids on Race—Why Do You Want That Skin Color.” CNN. www.youtube.com/watch?v=REZ9NDrpSqE.

———. 2010. “5 of 8—Black or White: Kids on Race—Don’t Really Care What Color They Have.” CNN. www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m-SF24eS1A.

———. 2010. “6 of 8—Black or White: Kids on Race—Doll Study Psychologist —Parental Role.” CNN. www.youtube.com/watch?v=lENTzjpWznU.

———. 2010. “7 of 8—Black or White: Kids on Race—Doll Study Psychologist —What Next.” CNN. www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_X-cm6Iqxg.

———. 2010. “8 of 8—Black or White: Kids on Race—John Legend—Race Bias Is Real.” CNN. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANoNZBe5J4s.

Davis, Kiri. 2005. “A Girl Like Me.” Reel Works Teen Filmmaking. www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWyI77Yh1Gg.

CHAPTER 3 Racism

What is power? It is the ability to tell people what the problem is, who is responsible and what should be done about it. That’s what power is. —KEVIN PHILLIPS

As early childhood educators, we are skilled at understanding children from a developmental perspective. However, are early childhood professionals able to apply an ecological perspective? That is, can we recognize and analyze how the environment shapes children’s development? As we saw in chapter 2, the fields of early education and child development have long ignored the issues of race in the development of children. Few resources exist to help teachers minimize the impact of racism on their classrooms. And yet racism is one environmental factor that influences children’s development. To truly understand children’s development and provide high-quality programs for children, early childhood educators need to understand the societal environment around children and how it affects them. This

chapter examines race, racism, and children’s racial identity development, and it explains how to create a nonracist classroom.

To look at children and development from an ecological perspective, we need to understand some basic concepts. Let’s begin by defining socialization. Socialization is the process through which children acquire the knowledge, skills, and behaviors that enable them to take their place in society. To socialize a child is to train the child to participate in society. A child who is unsocialized doesn’t know how to behave in public places, or acts in ways that are harmful or destructive to the social order.

Another important concept is society. Society refers to a group of people who live together in an organized way through shared systems, institutions, traditions, and patterns of relationships. A society is organized around and operates through systems. Following are some of the major systems in US society:

government: federal, state, county, and city government

law: federal, state, and local laws, including those governing citizenship and immigration, and the court system, including sentencing guidelines and use of the death penalty

military: all the branches of the military, military spending, and military activities at home and abroad

law enforcement: police officers, county sheriffs, state troopers, federal marshals, bureau of criminal apprehension, Department of Homeland Security, and prisons

finance: stock markets, banks, and lending institutions

industry: corporations, manufacturing, transportation, and trade

communication: Federal Communications Commission (FCC), television, Internet, social media, radio, newspapers, magazines, periodicals, and book publishing

entertainment: media, movies, professional sports, and recreation

social services: counseling, child care, nursing home care, group homes, financial assistance, food programs, and drug rehabilitation centers

education: public and private schools, colleges and universities, curriculum publishers, training institutions, and professional organizations for teachers

health care: medical schools, pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, hospitals, clinics, and HMOs

housing: real estate agencies, mortgage companies, public housing, home builders, apartment management corporations, and homeless shelters

agriculture: farms, food processing, food distributors, and grocery stores

transportation: airlines, passenger trains, bus companies, public transportation,

taxi companies, ferry companies, auto industry, auto dealerships, gasoline companies, and auto insurance companies

These systems and more have been around in various forms since our nation’s beginning. Each system carries out a vital function in US society. Each system interacts with and is dependent on the others. These systems are organized around key US ideals and principles.

Our country’s network of systems carries out the political ideology of democracy and the economic ideology of capitalism. This network is also responsible for producing goods and services and distributing these goods and services to US citizens.

Each system is made up of numerous institutions. The education system is made up of thousands of public and private nursery schools, elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, district school boards, state education agencies, colleges, and universities. US citizens usually work in institutions and receive services through institutions. While institutions operate under some federal or state regulations, most have a great deal of freedom. Institutions are free to determine the services they provide, the products they produce, their clients, their staffing criteria, their hiring procedures, and their operating policies and procedures.

WHAT ARE RACE AND RACISM? The values, beliefs, and practices of the larger society affect how children develop. Racism is one social reality that we must examine in order to provide effective multicultural education. Racism is based on the ideology of race, so let’s begin by defining race.

Race refers to a person’s skin color, hair color and texture, and the shape and size of one’s facial features. Katie Kissinger provides a simple, accurate explanation of skin color in her children’s book All the Colors We Are. She explains that skin color is determined by the amount of melanin in a person’s skin, which is a result of one’s ancestors and their exposure to the sun (Kissinger 2014). There is nothing magical about it. In and of itself, skin color has no bearing on any person’s humanity.

Race is a social concept, often confused with culture. A simple way to differentiate race from culture is to think of race as a way to classify people based on external physical features such as skin color, hair color, hair texture, and shape of facial features such as eyes, nose, and lips. Culture is what is on the inside of a person—the values, beliefs, and behaviors shared by a group of people. Ethnicity refers to where someone is from geographically, and this, too, gets confused with race. The idea of race is just that: an idea. It has no biological basis. There is only one human race. Race is a contrived sociopolitical way to categorize people based on skin color, which doesn’t represent any other underlying difference between people. In a society that categorizes people superficially by a made-up notion such

as race, skin color falsely becomes the most important factor in determining a person’s value.

Racism is many things. It is a system of domination and exploitation based on the idea of race. Racism has been around a long time and is alive and well today. It is perhaps the most influential social force shaping US life. It is woven into the economic, political, and social fabric of our country. Here is a simple way to define racism: prejudice plus power. Institutions such as schools and child care centers have the collective power to enact and perpetuate racial prejudice in ways both overt and so subtle that often the people involved in these institutions don’t even recognize what is happening. Here is a more complete definition from scholar Paula Rothenberg:

Racism involves the subordination of people of color by white people. While individual persons of color may well discriminate against a white person or another person of color because of their race, this does not qualify as racism according to our definition because that person of color cannot depend upon all the institutions of society to enforce or extend his or her personal dislike. Nor can he or she call upon the force of history to reflect and enforce that prejudice. . . . History provides us with a long record of white people holding and using power and privilege over people of color to subordinate them, not the reverse. (Rothenberg 2013, 120)

Racism is built into US society’s systems and institutions. We live under white racism in the United States. White people hold the economic, political, and social power by controlling and owning the major systems and the vast majority of institutions that make up US society. As a result, white people are in the position to determine how power, wealth, resources, goods, and services are distributed to all US citizens. Historically, white people created these structures, systems, and institutions (for example, the education system and schools) to serve themselves and to keep out people of color. Outright racial discrimination has been outlawed, but racism continues today in ways that are complex, subtle, and often invisible.

Education will never bring good results for all children within a racist society unless we make structural change. The first step toward change is to recognize how racial inequality is embedded in a program, a school, a school system, or department of education. Look for how structural racism maintains this inequality.

How can you identify structural racism? First, don’t focus on individuals. You learned about prejudice in chapter 2. Anyone can be prejudiced against people of any other race, culture, or ethnicity. Individual acts of discrimination occur in every direction. African American children call Latino children names, Latino children call white children names, white children call Asian American children names, and so on. This is blatant, aggressive prejudice, but it is not structural racism. Don’t let the individual prejudice you see stop you from identifying and dismantling structural racism.

Second, don’t focus on intent. Individuals are great at making excuses, claiming innocence, or claiming ignorance. When challenged about racist

outcomes, individuals often say that they didn’t mean to . . . they didn’t realize . . . and so on. Their words or behavior were misinterpreted or taken out of context. These rationalizations throw the discussion off track, and nothing changes.

To identify structural racism, always focus on outcomes. Start with these two simple questions:

1. Who wants to come to my program, and who avoids my program? 2. In my program, who is most likely to succeed, and who is most likely to

flounder or fail?

If you are ready to dig deeper, examine whether the outcomes in your program, school, or district are similar for white children and children of color. Is there a persistent achievement gap? If so, you can be sure that structural racism is at work.

Here are the issues to examine:

distribution of education funds

rate of proportional representation among teachers and administrators

who meets and exceeds developmental benchmarks on assessments

retention—who needs to repeat the four-year-old prekindergarten program before moving on to kindergarten

grade failure at the kindergarten and first- and second-grade levels

which schools are defunded

the racial proportion of children identified as having special needs

the racial proportion of children’s participation in special education

the racial proportion of children’s identification and participation in gifted and talented programs

level of parent engagement and parent empowerment among white families and families of color

treatment of administrators, teachers, and educational support staff of color

And here are some specific outcomes that indicate the presence of structural racism in early childhood education:

rules and discipline methods targeted at children of color

expulsion rates that differ by race

teaching methods that reflect the predominant learning styles of European Americans

curriculum that presents whites as the norm and minimizes or excludes racial

diversity

curriculum that reflects the white middle-class experience and is unrelated to children’s lived experiences

instruction in English language without supports for English-language learners

pattern in which children of color do not make developmental progress in the program, graduate from the program unprepared for kindergarten, and are no better off academically for having attended an early childhood program

CHILD DEVELOPMENT THEORIES AND RACE Traditional ways of thinking about child development ignore race and the impact of racism on children’s development. In preparing to teach a class on child development, I regularly review child development textbooks. Only one that I am aware of cites research that considers the role of race and racism.

There are newer ways of understanding children’s development. Rather than focusing solely on what is happening inside children, ecological theories focus on the relationship between children and their environment. This model examines the role neighborhoods, schools, community, the media, and society in general play in shaping children’s development.

Child development researcher Cynthia García Coll and her colleagues challenge us to better understand the normal development of children of color (Coll et al. 1996). To do that, we need to pay greater attention to the social and political context in which children live. García Coll and her colleagues say that segregation creates a complex web of factors that impact a child of color’s development. Elements like substandard housing, inferior health care, run-down schools, and portrayal of people of color in the media create unique conditions that more directly influence individual developmental processes of children of color. In other words, to understand the development of children of color in the United States, we must understand and look at how systemic racism, prejudice, and discrimination influence their development.

García Coll developed her model based on the work of Urie Bronfenbrenner. The ecological view of child development conceptualized by Bronfenbrenner helps explain how families, neighbors, caregivers, teachers, relatives, parents, coworkers, workplaces, school boards, city councils, the media, and federal policy either support culturally relevant anti-bias practices or perpetuate cultural assimilation, prejudice, and racism. Bronfenbrenner illustrates these systems of relationships and interactions with a series of expanding circles. Nearest to the child are the family, relatives, home culture, child care, school, and neighborhood. These are contexts in which the child has the most contact. These contexts begin to influence the child at a very young age. The second ring includes the relationships and connections between systems, such as what happens at a friend’s house, or what happens at the

park, or how parents and their early childhood program interact with one another. This level also includes the parent’s employer, the family’s connection with faith- based institutions, health care providers, transportation, parks and recreation, and access to affordable healthy food. The third ring represents systems that affect the child but not through daily contact. They affect the child’s well-being indirectly. In this ring are the parents’ work schedules, the school’s approach to educating dual- language learners, and the extent to which a program carries out culturally relevant anti-bias education. The outer ring consists of the economy, immigration policies, family leave policies, early childhood education and child care policies, minimum wage policies, and education policies like Common Core State Standards and No Child Left Behind. These are policies and practices that families are not involved in but that shape and influence their lives. Racism and society’s attitudes toward cultural diversity are part of this outer ring. These rings make up the social and political context in which children develop.

For a visual representation of this model, “Circles of Influence in Family Development: Educational Disparities,” go to www.redleafpress.org/CirclesofInfluence. This diagram was adapted by the Child, Youth, and Family Consortium at the University of Minnesota from The Ecology of Human Development by Urie Bronfenbrenner.

Is it difficult for you to look at child development from a contextual, or ecological, perspective? Most Americans have little or no experience looking at human development this way. We live in a society that highly values the individual, equality, and individual responsibility. We are taught to believe that all Americans have equal opportunities to reach their potential. It is the responsibility of individuals to succeed academically. They just have to take advantage of the opportunities given to them.

Let’s see how traditional and ecological child development theories applied to the same situation might produce different results. An American Indian child attends a public elementary school that is predominantly white. She is asked—and agrees—to perform a traditional jingle dance at a school assembly. She is proud of her ancestry, her jingle dress, and her dancing skills. After the assembly, children begin to tease her on the playground. They call her Jingles. This hurts her feelings, and she asks them to stop. The teasing continues, so the girl tells the playground monitor. The monitor does nothing. The girl tells her teacher next. Her teacher tells her to use a problem-solving approach and talk to the children who are calling her names. The name-calling continues. One day the girl gets mad and beats up one of the children who calls her names. The girl is sent to the principal’s office. She is suspended from school for two days.

Traditional child development theories might lead us to believe that the children were unable to take another’s perspective. They overgeneralized their thinking by focusing on the jingles and ignoring the purpose of the girl sharing her dancing. The little girl experienced mistrust of her school environment. She experienced shame and doubt as a result of being teased. She lacks impulse control, so she became physically aggressive.

An ecological perspective might tell us that the child has a strong cultural identity, which is a source of personal strength. She was eager to share her culture with others as a way for her schoolmates to get to know a side of her that is often hidden or ignored in the classroom. Systemic racism was present. The predominantly white school used the American Indian child to teach white children about another race and culture. The child became a teaching object rather than a colearner with her classmates. She experienced hostile prejudice in the form of teasing and name-calling. It felt to her like an attack on her identity. The playground monitor and teacher ignored the name-calling and failed to protect the child. Ignorant of racism, prejudice, and cultural identity, the adults attached no special significance to the events. The child was left alone to stand up for herself. She used physical violence to counter the verbal abuse. The adults were unable to relate the fight to the assembly and subsequent name-calling incidents. So they treated it as an individual, isolated event. Racism was also present in the way the adults blamed the child of color and disciplined her while excusing the white children’s behavior. The white children received no punishment.

As this example shows, interactions in the early childhood environment can be interpreted and acted upon in vastly different ways, depending on the lens through which adults view these exchanges. It is imperative that we early childhood professionals take the time to analyze our settings for elements of structural racism. We can then examine our assumptions and actions for evidence of racism and make needed changes.

IMPACT OF RACISM ON CHILDREN’S DEVELOPMENT Racism is a social condition that affects our personal lives, as well as the society at large. During childhood, racism affects our social and emotional development. Without our even knowing it, racism shapes our personal and racial identity, and it shapes our experience in US society. Children learn social roles and become members of US society through the process known as socialization. Unfortunately, by growing up in the United States, we have been socialized to take our place in a racist society. Joseph Barndt, a well-known antiracism trainer and Lutheran pastor from Chicago, strongly states it: “My primary thesis about racism is that we are all ‘prisoners of racism,’ people of color and white people alike” (Barndt 2007, 7).

A simple classroom simulation exercise illustrates how systemic racism affects our behavior. Many people are familiar with the work of Jane Elliot in the 1960s. Elliot was a teacher from Iowa who carried out a two-day activity in which she divided her class into two groups: blue-eyed children and brown-eyed children. She established that the blue-eyed children were superior and gave them more power and privileges in the classroom. Elliott says:

The results were almost immediate and overwhelming. The blue-eyed students delighted in their new status and adapted easily to a role of superiority and dominance. The brown- eyed students were docile in adapting to their new and inferior identity and subjugated role, accepting their new station in life with little resistance, and behaving accordingly. Even their test scores took an immediate plunge. The next day, the patterns were reversed. So also, and instantly, were the behavior patterns. This experiment has been repeated with both children and adults many times since 1968. Each time, it demonstrated how susceptible human beings are to indoctrination into superior and inferior roles. (Peters 1987, 104)

This is why Barndt calls racism “involuntary conditioning.” Children receive information about race through their social environment. This

includes messages related to racial appearance, racial attitudes, and race relations. These messages come from socializing agents such as parents, other adult family members, friends, child care, school, community (for example, churches or libraries), and the media (for example, books, television, apps, videos, video games, and computer games). Over time, children internalize this information and use it to shape their worldview.

The Development of Racial Identity Developmental and educational psychologist Janet Helms, author of Black and White Racial Identity, defines racial identity as the “sense of group or collective identity based on one’s perception that he or she shares a common racial heritage with a particular racial group” (Helms 1993, 3). Racial identity refers to the level of commitment individuals have to their racial group, including the extent to which people use their race as a reference that guides their thinking, feelings, and actions.

Since the seventies, researchers from the fields of child psychology and counseling psychology have developed at least five major theories of identity development. Unfortunately, these models begin with adolescence or refer only to adult stages of racial identity. Clearly, individuals don’t enter high school with no sense of themselves as racial beings or no awareness of their race. So we don’t have a complete model of racial identity development for children. Child development researchers have studied children’s race awareness and racial attitudes for a long time. But we still have an incomplete picture. The vast majority of studies related to racial identity development have focused on black and white children. The studies of white children have emphasized their awareness of attitudes toward other races but have not investigated how white children form their own racial identities. Only a few studies have focused on or included Hispanic, Asian, and American Indian children. We need a lot more research in this area.

White Children Children as young as six months notice skin color.

White children learn and use racial labels at an extremely young age, often even before they can classify alike and different.

Preschool-age children can differentiate race on the basis of hair, physical features, and skin color.

White children tend to prefer dolls of their own race, which researchers interpret to mean that white children have strong pro-white attitudes from an early age. Often these attitudes remain consistent throughout adulthood.

White children’s self-esteem seems to be associated with their race. In other words, they use race as one way to feel good about themselves.

In doll play, white children associate white with good and black with bad.

White children who watch a lot of television share three common beliefs about race: black people are taking over the country, black people are given unfair advantages, and black people are associated with violence and crime.

Children of Color Preschool-age children of color raised within their racial community with little direct contact with whites prefer dolls that look like themselves.

Preschool-age children of color who have direct experience within the white community tend to prefer white dolls rather than dolls with brown skin.

Children who have negative attitudes about their black racial identity tend also to have negative attitudes toward white people.

Children of color learn racial labels and use racial labels after they can classify alike and different.

By age five or six, children of color can identify their own race correctly.

By age seven, children of color demonstrate more attachment to their own racial group. But unlike white children, their positive attitudes about their own race do not come with negative attitudes toward other races.

When you think about the children you work with and the children you have known, you will recognize that identity development is a lifelong process. Who we think we are, how we feel about ourselves, and with whom we identify are ideas that change throughout our lives. Nonetheless, a lot of identity development happens in the early years, so we need to recognize and pay attention to these milestones.

EFFECTS OF RACISM ON WHITE CHILDREN

Growing up in a segregated, racist society influences children’s development. This is especially true regarding identity. It is important to realize that while racism limits all of us, it affects white children and children of color differently. Racism influences the development of white children in at least six ways:

denial of reality

rationalization

rigid thinking

superiority

fear and hatred

fragility

Denial of Reality Children learn to see but not acknowledge the differences among people. This happens because time after time, adults meet children’s honest questions and comments about people with responses meant to silence them: “Shhh.” “Don’t say that.” “It’s not nice to stare.” “Don’t be rude.” “We don’t talk about those things in public.” When children sense adults’ uneasiness with talking about physical differences and receive criticism for noting the differences, children gradually become silent. They stop asking about people and other races.

On an individual level, the process allows white children to deny their own racial identity, and it stunts their normal growth in terms of noticing, identifying, and classifying human differences. It also prevents them from exploring, understanding, and questioning the social treatment of people based on their skin color. White people, including children, are shielded from the effects of racism on people of color. This allows them to adopt society’s denial of racism. White children learn: “We are all the same.” “It doesn’t matter what color you are.” “We are all the same on the inside.” But in the United States, the reality is that the color of your skin does matter.

When children learn to deny reality, reality repeats. The children grow up to perpetuate the US tradition of ignoring and refusing to talk openly and honestly about race with the next generation.

Rationalization Sometime during their elementary school years, white children will likely learn how to rationalize the state of current and past race relations. Rationalization is a common defense mechanism in which individuals use seemingly logical, often elaborate explanations to justify their questionable behavior. Children of color experience confusion about why they are called names and treated differently by their teachers. But white children will likely be able to offer explanations. For

example, an informal focus group was conducted with white elementary-age children attending public schools in a large city. The children used the terms race and prejudice as they were discussing their cross-racial school experiences. One child offered an explanation, saying, “Everyone’s a little bit prejudiced. Everyone slips sometimes. Prejudice isn’t just calling people names. Prejudice is not playing with a person from another race.” You might think to yourself, “Wow, this child gets it!” Unfortunately, the use of appropriate terminology and detailed explanation by the children did not reflect an understanding of their actual behavior. Later in the conversation, the children were asked why they didn’t play with children of color. The same child responded, “We’re accustomed to playing with our own.” Another child offered, “When I go out to play, I don’t look for someone who is another color.” And a third child summed up the discussion: “I can’t explain it, but it’s just easier to play with your own.” Even at an early age, white children experience racism primarily in their minds. Racism doesn’t tear at their hearts and souls the way it does for children of color.

Rigid Thinking When we raise children in a segregated, biased environment, they grow up believing that their way of living in the world is the one and only right way. This is called ethnocentrism, or cultural racism. There is one correct way to be a family, one appropriate language to speak, one right religious faith to practice. This type of thinking closes of children from learning about and being able to live side by side with those who are racially and culturally different from them. In addition, this thinking produces judgmental attitudes, resulting in the stance that people who look different, live differently, speak differently, and practice different religions are not only wrong, they are bad.

This overly simplistic way of thinking is perpetuated and maintained by systems and institutions (such as education, child care, and health care) that were created by white people to serve their own. These systems were designed to reflect the cultural orientation of European Americans. In addition, at the time that these systems were created, racism and segregation were legal. Thus, by design, these systems set up the European American culture as the norm, and they restricted access and relegated people of color to poorer service.

Superiority Ideally, we hope that children experience an inner sense of themselves as good, worthwhile, capable, lovable human beings. Too often, however, children’s inner sense of self is lacking. They try to protect themselves and build their sense of self by focusing on external factors such as what they have, what they look like, or what they can do. To a certain extent, white children’s sense of self comes from believing that they are better than anyone else. According to Joseph Barndt (2007), as members of both the numerical majority and the socioeconomically and

politically dominant group, white people have a sense of entitlement or superiority over people of color. As a result, we find white children who need to criticize, ridicule, and reject people of color in order to maintain their own sense of self- worth.

White children are at risk for internalizing society’s false messages of superiority. As members of the racial group with social and political power, they are socialized to internalize entitlement. For example, in one preschool classroom, two five-year-old boys (one white and one black) fought over who could be line leader. They went back and forth, presenting all kinds of reasons why one or the other should go first. Finally, the white boy exclaimed, “White boys go first.” This was his ace in the hole. At age five, he knew his race was his trump card, and he knew how to use it for his advantage when his back was against the wall.

Fear and Hatred When children are raised in a society that is racist, they learn to hate and fear people who are different from them. This fear and hatred of others can be seen in the irrational thinking of white people. One example of such irrational thinking is the belief that if people of color gain power and privilege, white people will be dominated in the same way they have dominated people of color for the past four centuries. Here is another example: I remember showing a group of white preschool children photographs of all kinds of people. I asked them questions like “Who do you see in the picture?” “What is this person doing?” “Could this person be your friend?” “Why or why not?” A boy looked at a photo of an African American man carrying a bag of groceries and said, “He stole those groceries.” I asked him why he thought that, and he responded, “Black men fight and steal.” White children are socialized to fear people of color. The most feared and hated person in US society is the African American male. At a young age, children begin to associate aggression, danger, and anger with African American men.

Fragility White privilege is the invisible, unearned advantage that whites have in a racist society. Many whites, like me, grow up and live our lives oblivious to the access, freedoms, and benefits of being white. Becoming aware of one’s white privilege is often an awakening in which whites suddenly see how they benefit from white privilege and live in the role of oppressor in a system of racism. Embracing the idea of white privilege also allows individuals to begin to appreciate the unearned disadvantage of people of color in a racist society.

White privilege creates a protective bubble that allows white children to grow up without having to think about, understand, or empathize with children of color or experience the stress of racism. As a result, white children grow up unable to manage even a little reality of racism. In mixed-race settings, white adults often crumble emotionally when people of color bear witness to their experiences with

racism. As cross-racial dialogue goes deeper, fragile white participants may become angry, guilt-ridden, defensive, or overcome with emotion. These reactions work to reset the balance of power between whites and people of color. Crying is a particularly common form of white fragility. Crying stops cross-racial dialogue in its tracks and refocuses attention and energy on taking care of the white person in distress.

It is critical that white early childhood caregivers and teachers examine their own racial identity and experience of racism and white privilege. In this way, they can minimize white fragility when working with children, families, and colleagues of color.

EFFECTS OF RACISM ON CHILDREN OF COLOR The field of counseling psychology has made significant contributions to how we understand the impact of structural racism on people of color. Structural racism creates a stressful reality full of subtle racial hostilities with which children of color must cope. Consider the following quote from President Barack Obama:

There are very few African American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me. There are very few African American men who haven’t had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me—at least before I was a senator. There are very few African Americans who haven’t had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. That happens often. (Obama 2013)

Small incidents like these occur regularly, creating exposure to chronic levels of stress. Recent research on brain development shows that chronic stress elevates the hormone cortisol, which in turn disrupts a child’s cognitive, emotional, and physical well-being.

Racism affects children of color differently than it does white children. It influences the development of children of color in several ways:

overidentification with white people

separation and alienation

confusion and bewilderment

rejection

shame

anger and rage

Overidentification with White People

This is often the first impact of racism on a child of color’s social and emotional development. Toddlers may prefer caregivers or family friends who have a light complexion or light hair. Young preschoolers may prefer characters with light skin or light hair in storybooks, movies, television shows, and so on. They may prefer white-skinned dolls to brown-skinned dolls. Older preschoolers may try to identify with their lighter-skinned parent, saying, “I’m more like Daddy because he has caramel skin, but I’m not like Mommy because she has chocolate skin.” In addition, they may question why a family member has darker skin and express pleasure in having lighter skin than other family members. In some cases, young children of color will deny outright that they have brown skin. In these instances, it is important to redirect children away from being interested in white skin and reinforce the beauty of their own brown skin and physical features. This can be done by pointing out the physical beauty of members of their own race.

Separation and Alienation Children of color often find themselves in a no-man’s-land. Because school devalues their race, they may feel the need to distance themselves from their family, friends, or others of their race. At the same time, they do not feel that they fit in at school, and they are not willing to “act white” in order to fit in. As a result, they check out.

Usually, we do not see children younger than third graders fully acting out this dynamic. But as early childhood educators, we need to be aware that it is present and fermenting within children. For example, I was a foster parent in the early 1980s, and my foster son was Hmong. At age five and after living in our family for six months, he started to reject, or separate from, Hmong culture. He refused to listen to Hmong folktales or look at Hmong quilts and story cloths at art fairs. His pat answer was “Hmong, yuck.” At the same time, he was experiencing alienation at school because he was behind in reading and math, and his music teacher had misinterpreted his wild enthusiasm for music. She assumed he was talking all the time and wiggling his body because he was uninterested. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Music was his favorite class.

Confusion and Bewilderment Whereas racism is something that white children may think about, children of color cannot escape it. It attacks their hearts and souls. One workshop participant called it “soul murder.” Children of color may feel overwhelmed with the pain of being undervalued, alienated, and rejected on a daily basis. This emotional turmoil makes it difficult for children of color to think clearly or critically about what is happening to them. They may not understand why they are treated differently from white children or why they are denied opportunities offered to white children. For instance, when a group of Asian American children are asked why they are treated poorly, one child looks down at the floor in silence. Another child shrugs his

shoulders and says, “Maybe they’re mad about something else.”

Rejection Children of color will likely experience some form of rejection in their early years. They might be told by classmates on the playground to go away. Or perhaps they are not invited to a classmate’s birthday party or sleepover. They may experience rejection in the form of being ignored or passed over by the teacher during class discussions. They may receive more than their fair share of dirty looks or negative comments from teachers, bus drivers, playground monitors, and store clerks.

These types of daily experiences eventually cause children of color to feel unwanted, rejected, and alienated from mainstream society and its institutions, such as child care programs, schools, libraries, and parks. For example, an Asian American girl in the second grade was asked if the United States was her country. She put her head down and answered, “No, it will never be my country.” She had already given up on the idea that she belonged. This is one of the reasons why so many communities of color have resorted to creating their own child care programs, charter schools, and after-school programs. They want their children to be in settings where they feel welcomed and affirmed for who they are.

Shame During informal focus groups conducted with children of color, the children talked about their race and experiences of rejection. They said things like, “It makes me want to rip off my skin and jump into a new one.” “Sometimes it makes me feel like I wish I’d never been born.” One year a child development student at our college shared a particularly painful incident from her own childhood. She had dark skin and was teased constantly about the color of her skin. None of the adults in her life intervened. So one night she tried to make her skin lighter by taking a bath in bleach. She suffered chemical burns and was hospitalized. As a result, she missed two weeks of school and begged her mom not to make her go back.

Recognize that this is a significantly different experience from that of white children. I have never heard of a white child saying, “I wish I’d never been born white,” or “My white skin makes me want to rip it off and jump into a new one.” White children may experience guilt, whereas children of color often experience shame. Shame is the feeling that you are defective, unworthy, and unacceptable as a person. It is the feeling that there is something inherently wrong with you. Shame breeds hopelessness.

Society shames children of color through subtle indoctrination. Children receive these messages through the curriculum, children’s books, television, movies, videos, and more: “You are inferior. You aren’t good enough. You don’t belong. You’re never going to amount to anything. We don’t want you here. You are a problem for us. You make our lives difficult and uncomfortable. Go away.” At some point, children of color come to believe these messages.

Anger and Rage Anger and rage are common manifestations of shame. Children of color are likely to feel angry. Sometimes when young children express anger, they are actually expressing the anger of their family members. Once a child said, “I don’t have to listen to no white teacher. My mama says all white people are the devil.” White people fear the anger of people of color. So it is easy to get into patterns whereby children of color act out or have violent outbursts, and the white teaching staff overreact and overdiscipline the children, which multiplies their shame, humiliation, anger, and alienation. Rarely do we step back and look at racism as an underlying cause of violent behavior. Think back to the story I told earlier in this chapter of the American Indian girl who performed a jingle dance in her school assembly. She was pushed to anger and rage when adults did nothing about the name-calling. Finally, one day on the playground, the little girl lost it and beat up the white child who was calling her names.

MULTIRACIAL CHILDREN’S IDENTITY Developing a sense of identity can be especially confusing for young children with multiracial backgrounds. For example, a child in your classroom might be both Latino and Asian, or both white and black. Some children of color have been adopted into white families. Like all young children, they are recognizing differences and developing classification skills. Questions such as “Who am I?” and “What am I?” are especially important to (and sometimes confusing for) them. Multiracial children are the sum total of their heritage. To ensure positive self- development in multiracial children, we as early childhood teachers must embrace, acknowledge, and celebrate all the richness that they bring to our classrooms. We do them an injustice when we try to put them into neat little categories. It is especially harmful to identify multiracial children by one race or associate the children only with their parents of color. We must help multiracial children feel good about themselves, their physical features, their families, and their cultural heritage.

CREATING A NONRACIST CLASSROOM Racism destroys the humanity of us all. Most of us are unaware of how racism affects us as teachers. We may unconsciously bring racism into the classroom. While we have good hearts and the best intentions, our unconscious racist behavior hurts all children. The more unaware and ignorant we are, the more we inadvertently perpetuate systemic racism in our classrooms. For many of us, this is an incredibly painful realization. But I have found that the more I learn about structural racism and the more I deal with my own racism, the less racism affects

my teaching. Here are some key ideas and basic strategies to consider as you begin creating a nonracist classroom.

Check Your Racism at the Door Racism plays out in common patterns. Some of the ways teachers perpetuate racism in a classroom are low expectations for, limited praise for, harsher discipline of, and failing to recognize children of color. Read the following descriptions of these four behaviors, and reflect on how you interact with and treat children of color in your classroom.

Set High Expectations for All Children Don’t automatically assume that children of color can’t measure up to your normal developmental or academic standards. Racism traps teachers into thinking that children of color are mentally inferior, less gifted, and less inclined to work hard or put a lot of effort into school. Some white teachers translate their guilt about racism into feeling sorry for children of color. Don’t fall into the pattern of underestimating children’s potential simply because of their skin color. All children deserve to have teachers who expect and challenge them to be their brightest and do their best.

Deliver Equal Attention and Praise Racism can sneak into the classroom through the way we attend to children. All children want positive attention from their teachers. Attention and praise are powerful motivators for learning. Some children are better at getting it than others. We have the responsibility to make sure we give each child an equal amount of positive attention and praise. Watch yourself to see if you attend to white children more than children of color. When all the children have their hands up, who are you most likely to call on first? Second? Last? Who do you praise in your classroom? Do you praise white children more often than children of color? Do you praise all your children for working hard and for being good thinkers? Don’t limit your praise for children of color to qualities like being quiet, waiting for a turn, being polite, or having musical or athletic skill. Praise all children for their effort and intelligence.

Discipline in Equal Measure In many schools, children of color are disciplined more often and more harshly. Teachers are more likely to ignore the inappropriate behavior of white children or view it as a “mistake.” White children are more likely to get a second chance to turn their behavior around before experiencing a consequence or disciplinary action. Children of color, however, are more likely to receive a time-out as a first

response from the teacher. Make sure that racism isn’t triggering an unconscious fear, anger, or sense of aggression in you. Create a simple chart that lists all the children in your class. Conduct a count of whom you discipline, and make note of how often and what the discipline is. Do you see any racial patterns?

Recognize Every Child Some teachers are so disgusted by, uncomfortable with, or afraid of children of color that they disengage from having relationships with these children. A college student of mine labeled this behavior “power off.” In this situation, the teacher lets the child do whatever the child wants. The teacher acts as though the child isn’t present or isn’t important enough to warrant attention. Another form of power off is when the teacher allows certain children to become invisible in the classroom. The children feel as though the teacher does not see them for who they really are. Adults of color often report that, as children, they felt invisible to their teachers. See all your children as equally human. See each child as a unique individual. Take time to get to know each child. Look into children’s hearts and souls. Discover and affirm each child’s identity.

Create a Nonracist Classroom Unfortunately, racism is present in many classrooms across the country. Fortunately, the classroom is a relatively small environment. As a teacher, you have a lot of control over that environment. In response to racism, the role of an early childhood educator is to create a nonracist classroom. Every child deserves the right to learn and grow in a safe and nurturing environment. Through conscious effort, you can minimize the impact of racism on children’s lives. Make a decision to stop perpetuating racism in your classroom. Use the following strategies to create a racism-free learning environment for your children:

Make Unity and Equality the Goal of Your Classroom The classroom is a small enough setting in which to achieve a community where all children feel that they belong, they are equals, and they are treated fairly. Welcome each child personally every day. Start off the morning by saying good morning to one another. Make morning circle time a community time. Facilitate group discussions in which all the children have an opportunity to express themselves and be heard without interruption. Use a talking stick or other tool to ensure that each child gets a chance to talk. Sing and dance together, affirm one another, and celebrate each other’s accomplishments. Plan activities, such as mural painting or rearranging the classroom, that require children to cooperate with one another to complete the task. Use a helper chart or a name basket to ensure that each child has an equal opportunity to be your special helper or lead the class.

Live by the Golden Rule Teach children the golden rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do to you.” A preschool translation of this maxim might be: “Treat others as you want them to treat you.” Make a colorful sign with this saying, and post it prominently in the group-time area. Teach the saying to children. Talk about how they want others to treat them and how they don’t want to be treated. Dictate the children’s answers, and post them in the classroom. Help the children take their answers and turn them into classroom rules to live by.

Respect Yourself and Others Help children learn the names of their classmates, and require them to call one another by name. Don’t allow children to refer to one another as “you,” “him,” “her,” or “them.” Teach children that it is not OK to call classmates names; name- calling, teasing, and rejecting hurt people’s feelings. Don’t allow children to put themselves or anyone else down. Instill pride and dignity by encouraging children to walk tall, with their heads held high, and ask them to show you their “positive proud smile.”

Teach Children Coping Skills Successfully negotiating life in a racist society requires special skills. Although it may take a lifetime to learn these skills, many can be introduced to young children. We hope that families and future teachers will continue to strengthen children’s resilience in the face of racism. Children need persistence. We need to encourage children to keep going, especially when they get frustrated, want to give up, or say, “I can’t.” Like the Little Engine That Could, children need to learn how to tell themselves, “I think I can, I think I can.” Children also need to respond to racism. Dirty looks, name-calling, and exclusion can poison a child’s soul. We want to minimize the amount of racism they internalize. Giving children options for responding lessens the likelihood that they will hold the pain silently inside their little bodies. One option is to let it go. Sometimes it is better to walk away from a racist and potentially dangerous situation. Help children learn how to recognize dangerous situations and how to let some things roll off their backs. Another appropriate response to a racist situation is to reject the rejection. Teach children how to stand up for themselves and others. Encourage children to be proud of themselves for using either response to a racist situation.

Demystify Skin Color Racism is based on the false belief that skin color is the most important determinant of a person’s ability and worth. By teaching children about melanin and where skin color comes from, we can take away some of the power society gives to skin color. Provide children with many opportunities to learn about and

explore skin color. Read books about skin color, such as Katie Kissinger’s All the Colors We Are. Set out skin-color crayons, markers, and paints, and invite children to paint and draw using these materials. Challenge children to mix paint or homemade playdough that matches their skin color. These types of activities help children see that no one is “white,” and few people are “black.” They discover that we are all shades of brown and that everyone has a little bit of all the colors in their skin.

Provide Positive Cross-Racial Experiences If your classroom is racially mixed, try dividing the class into small groups for certain activities. Make sure that each group is racially mixed, so that children have an opportunity to work together with children from another race. Or pair children with partners who are racially different, and give them a cooperative task to work on. These types of experiences will help children feel more comfortable working and playing with children from another race, and will help foster a sense of teamwork and affiliation with people from another race. If your classroom is racially homogenous, try establishing a relationship with a class that is racially diverse. Take field trips to places where children will have firsthand encounters with people from other races, and invite visitors from other races into your classroom.

Foster Social Awareness and Action Help children learn to recognize fair and unfair situations related to race. Try reading books that contain name-calling, or create your own scenarios and act them out with puppets or dolls. Children can role-play incidents from the classroom or from their lives outside the class. Reenactments or simulations of unfair situations are powerful ways to help children learn to recognize and challenge unfair situations. Facilitate group discussions that give children opportunities to explore how they would feel and what they might do if they were mistreated because of their skin color. Take the next step by inviting children to take action. Action could be standing up for yourself and saying something such as, “I don’t like it when you call me names.” It could be learning how to stand up for another person, such as when a kindergartner decided to get up from the lunch table where all his friends were sitting and go eat with “the new boy with the dark skin.” The new boy was eating at another table all by himself, and the kindergartner was afraid that his friends would laugh at him, but he wanted the new boy to feel welcome and not lonely. These types of activities help children begin to see how race works in their lives. Finally, they help children think about how things could be different—and this gives them hope for a better world.

Integrate the Curriculum

Help children respect and value all races by including the contributions of individuals from all races in the curriculum. Talk about Garrett Morgan (inventor of the stoplight) during a unit on transportation and George Washington Carver (an agricultural researcher who developed products from peanuts and sweet potatoes) and Kim Hyung-soon and Kim Ho (who crossed a plum with a peach to create the nectarine) during a study of food. Talk about Dr. Carlos Finlay (who identified the mosquito as the vector for the transmission of yellow fever and developed a cure) during a unit on bodies or health, or Hércules Florence (who invented the photograph) during a study of art or technology. The toboggan was invented by the Algonquin people, a fact that could be incorporated in a study of winter. Seneca mothers developed the baby bottle. The Iroquois created bunk beds. Include this information into a study of families. Dr. Tien Liu, a Chinese American, created Play-Doh, a staple in most early childhood classrooms. In addition, integrate the history of people of color into the curriculum throughout the year. This approach will help children of color access the strength, courage, and determination of their families and ancestors. Highlight heroes and sheroes in the local racial communities to help children of color feel pride in and give them access to the strength of their communities.

Racism is one environmental factor that influences children’s development, although the issue of race in the development of children has long been ignored. The existence of racism poses some key questions that must be addressed by the child care field as a whole and by each individual child care professional. Can you recognize and understand how the environment shapes children’s development in your classroom? How do external environmental factors such as racism affect the development of the children in your care? Teachers can minimize the impact racism has on their classrooms by examining race and racism, learning more about children’s racial identity development, and taking steps to create a nonracist classroom. In the next chapter, we will examine the differences between children and teachers and families and teachers that result from differences in culture.

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

How do families raise emotionally healthy children in a society in which children of color are devalued?

How do families raise emotionally healthy children in a society in which white children are privileged?

How does constant exposure to overt (open) or covert (concealed) racism affect children’s development?

How is the deck stacked against children of color? How is the deck stacked in favor of white children?

How do families of color teach their children to survive growing up in a racist society?

To what extent is your program unintentionally creating a hostile environment for children of color?

How is structural racism evident in your program, school, or community?

TRY THIS TOMORROW

If you were to create a report card to rate the extent to which your program, school, or district is structurally racist, what would it look like?

Create your own version of the “Circles of Influence” diagram to help you analyze how racism plays out in your early childhood program.

DIG DEEPER

McIntosh, Peggy. 1989. “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” National SEED Project. www.nationalseedproject.org/white-privilege- unpacking-the-invisible-knapsack.

McKown, Clark, and Michael J. Strambler. 2009. “Developmental Antecedents and Social and Academic Consequences of Stereotype-Consciousness in Middle Childhood.” Child Development 80 (6): 1643-59. doi: 10.1111/j.1467- 8624.2009.01359.x.

Picower, Bree, and Edwin Mayorga, eds. 2015. What’s Race Got to Do with It? How Current School Reform Policy Maintains Racial and Economic Inequality. New York: Peter Lang.

VIDEOS

Butler, Shakti. 2013. “Cracking the Codes: The System of Racial Inequity.” World Trust Educational Services. www.youtube.com/watch?v=37pbtz46FSU.

Crossroads Antiracism Organizing and Training. 2011. “Dismantling Institutional Racism.” www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wuhuq6O4pzs.

———. 2011. “Introduction to Systemic Racism.” University of California Berkeley. www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xyjLwmFfJY.

Ferguson, Ronald. 2014. “Elements of a Twenty-First-Century Movement for

Excellence with Equity.” Journal of Negro Education and Howard University: 34th Annual Charles H. Thompson Lecture. www.youtube.com/watch? v=cpxCdZnu3ck.

Simon, Tanya, and Anderson Cooper. 2009. “The Harlem Children’s Zone.” CBS Interactive. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di0-xN6xc_w.

Unterschuetz, Phyllis. 2013. “The Promise: A Lesson in White Privilege.” Angels Studio and O’Halloran Diversity Productions. www.youtube.com/watch? v=A89xhMV63rQ.

Wing Sue, Derald. 2013. “Racial Microaggressions.” Teachers College, Columbia University. www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_lQNI9T6vs.

Wise, Tim. 2008. “The Pathology of Privilege: Racism, White Denial, and the Costs of Inequality.” Media Education Foundation. www.mediaed.org/cgi- bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=137.

CHAPTER 4 Culturally Responsive Care and Education

Only when professionals understand culturally sensitive care and are in close communication with families can they know how to work toward positive outcomes for children’s identity, sense of belonging, and cultural competence. —JANET GONZALEZ-MENA, “CROSS-CULTURAL INFANT CARE AND ISSUES OF EQUITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE”

Each of us is born into a culture. We grow up in that culture. Even though our culture may be invisible to us, it shapes the way we view the world, process information, learn, communicate, and interact with others. Our culture also influences how families raise children. These behavior patterns and child-rearing practices reflect a specific culture’s history, values, beliefs, and traditions. To

provide high-quality care and education for young children, teachers must make their work culturally relevant; that is, they must use knowledge of families and their culture, their frame of reference, and their interaction style to connect with children and provide affirming and meaningful care and education. Every day, programs must provide care that matches the children’s experiences at home and education that is culturally relevant.

This chapter will help you work successfully with children from diverse cultures by identifying ways in which culture and family patterns mold the children you serve. This chapter will provide you with some basic information about families and their cultures and practical ideas for providing culturally responsive child care. As you read through this material, look inward and gain insight into your own culture. Reflect on your own family experiences. Think about how your orientation toward family may affect your work with children and families.

WHAT IS CULTURE? You may not be convinced that culture has a large influence on the children in your classroom, much less on your own teaching style. Let’s begin examining this idea by defining culture.

Culture is made up of things, customs, beliefs, and values. Superficial culture can be thought of in terms of the concrete items and objects we see, hold, and use, as well as specific activities. Items such as clothing, artwork, and food, and activities such as dance are tangible symbols of a person’s culture. Culture is also experienced in how people live out their lives as well as what they believe and what values they hold dear. Family roles, child-rearing patterns, communication styles, and holiday traditions are ways in which culture influences how we as individuals live our daily lives. Deep culture consists of people’s worldviews and their beliefs about human nature and humanity. Deep culture shapes how we see ourselves (our identity), how we learn, and how we interact with others.

Knowledge of cultural patterns guides us in caring for children during mealtimes, naptimes, and toileting routines and in maintaining personal hygiene. Knowledge of deep culture guides us in structuring our interactions with children, providing guidance and learning experiences, and in planning curriculum, the daily routine, and the classroom environment. An understanding of deep culture provides the foundation for culturally relevant education.

The chart titled “Culture List” outlines a few aspects of life that are part of an individual’s cultural experience:

CULTURE LIST

Adapted from an activity in Alerta: A Multicultural, Bilingual Approach to Teaching Young Children by Leslie R. Williams and Yvonne De Gaetano, Menlo Park, CA: Addison-Wesley, 1985.

Culture is a powerful force that shapes our lives. Culture is who we are on the inside. It is the set of values, beliefs, and behaviors shared by a group of people. Culture gives us roots. Cultural traditions give our lives meaning, stability, and security. Culture is dynamic and alive, and it changes slowly over time. Families transmit culture from one generation to the next in a process known as enculturation. That which is cultural seems natural and normal. It is so much a part of who we are that we can’t recognize it in our own lives. For many European Americans, the first step toward culturally relevant care and education is to uncover our own culture.

You can get to know yourself as a cultural being by answering these questions:

What is your cultural identity?

Where did your family originate?

When did your family immigrate to the United States? Why did they come here?

Where did your family first settle in the United States?

What are some of the values, beliefs, and behaviors associated with your cultural heritage?

What are some traditional foods that are served in your family?

What are some words of wisdom that your elders passed on to you?

What are the child-rearing patterns in your family?

When do you say no to a child?

How are children disciplined in your family?

When does a baby become a child?

What are some child-rearing practices that shock or appall you?

Whom would you ask or where would you go for parenting advice?

How does your culture influence your caregiving style?

How does your culture influence your teaching style?

What do you need in order to become culturally competent?

As you begin to uncover your own cultural identity, try thinking of culture as an iceberg. First, ponder the cultural artifacts in your life. What are the family heirlooms that have been passed down from one generation to the next? Cultural artifacts are just the tip of the iceberg. Next, go a little deeper and reflect on your customs. When do you eat dinner? How is dinner served? When and how are children toilet trained and disciplined? These customs that influence your daily life are the part of an iceberg that lies just below the waterline. Finally, consider the reasons behind your customs. What is the role of people in the world? What is the role of children? Values and beliefs like these make up the 90 percent of the iceberg that lies underwater.

I grew up in a Dutch American family. Our house contained a lot of delft pottery. Our front door was always painted orange. My grandparents, who grew up in Alkmaar and Boskoop, Netherlands, always had a drawer full of Droste chocolate bars in their kitchen and cheese in the refrigerator. Holidays included spekelaas and jan hagel cookies as well as Dutch letters. I was called der kinder and learned to walk in wooden shoes. When my grandparents were over we had coffee at 3:00 p.m., tea at 4:00 p.m., and dinner at 5:00 p.m. The house was always clean, and the linen closets and cupboards were the ultimate in organization. As soon as we were up and dressed, the curtains were pulled back to let in the sunshine, and windows were opened to let in fresh air. Each day we swept and hosed the cement walkway and driveway that led to our house. Each of these aspects of my Dutch culture represent the more superficial aspect of culture. They are the artifacts, foods, meal patterns, and daily customs.

It wasn’t until I was in my thirties, when I attended the Tulip Time festivities in Pella, Iowa, that I gained more insight into my own culture and how it shaped me. The big “aha” moment came with the parade. It began with the street cleaners, people with buckets of water cleaning the streets. They were followed by the first entry, which was the families with babies, followed by the families with preschoolers, followed by the elementary children, then the middle-school band and middle schoolers, and after them came the high-school band, and students with the two-year college band with their float behind them. The remainder of the parade consisted of the community floats and entries. I realized with surprise that perhaps I had chosen child development and family studies as a major largely

because I am Dutch. Perhaps there are cultural values that were passed on to me that influenced my career choice. Could this be an example of deep culture, the elements of culture that endure generation after generation? Could I unconsciously be living by my culture’s values? My grandfather was a nurseryman specializing in roses and tulips, and my mom was an artist. Dutch culture influenced their career choices. It seems that Dutch culture shaped many of my life choices as well.

While the United States prides itself on being a land of immigrants, it has struggled with cultural diversity. Historically, our government’s policy toward diverse cultures has been assimilation. The process of assimilation, represented by the familiar image of the melting pot, involves stripping away one’s own culture in order to create a new US culture. In steelmaking, the melting pot is where ore is melted to burn off impurities. The idea behind the melting pot metaphor is that if the United States as a nation is to be as strong as steel, cultural differences must be removed in order to create a single, unified US society. Because of white, European American dominance in creating the systems of US society, the unified US culture envisioned is also largely white and European. Assimilation, combined with racism, makes it difficult for many European Americans to understand the importance of culture, much less recognize and embrace their own culture.

Other countries, such as Canada, imagine cultural diversity as a tossed salad or a mosaic, in which each part retains its own character while adding to a delicious or beautiful whole. Cultural groups are encouraged to maintain their cultural patterns. Culturally based values and perspectives are seen as contributions that make a society richer and create a more whole humanity.

In defining what culture is, we can also look at what it is not. In reality, there is no agreed-upon US culture. Culture is not the same as citizenship. Many Americans, particularly European Americans, confuse culture with citizenship. Citizenship is a pledge of allegiance to a particular government. Citizenship activities include things such as abiding by the laws, voting, contributing to the well-being of the community, demonstrating patriotism, and paying taxes. Look at the cultural activities in the “Culture List” chart. Do you see how those are different from citizenship activities? Cultural diversity should not be seen as a threat to nationalism, patriotism, and cohesion. Likewise, promoting cultural identity does not promote separatism or result in the erosion of national unity.

Even though we live and teach in a society where the dominant race declares that culture is not important and that it is not relevant, there sure are a lot of words in our English language that refer to culture. There’s “culture shock,” “cross- cultural,” “cultural identity,” “monocultural,” “bicultural,” “multicultural,” “intercultural,” “cultural embeddedness,” “culturally relevant,” “culturally responsive,” and “culturally competent.” The fact that there are so many words for describing culture indicates just how important culture really is, even in the United States.

EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION REFLECTS A EUROPEAN AMERICAN WORLDVIEW Many European American immigrants gave up their cultural identity for white privilege. For example, my grandfather, like many other immigrants, changed the spelling of his name so it would sound more American. The other side of my family has been in the United States for many generations. It is a mix of many European ethnicities. The result of this common pattern is that many European Americans don’t experience culture as a core part of their identity, or they pick and choose which parts of their culture to accept. Most European Americans are unaware of their cultural traditions. Often they can’t speak their ancestral languages and are monolingual. This doesn’t mean that European Americans don’t have culture. But it does lead to two important realities:

1. The common elements of different European cultures (such as values and communication style) dominate in the United States and are often invisible to European Americans.

2. The unique parts of different European cultures (such as languages and holiday rituals) have often been lost to individual European Americans through assimilation.

These two somewhat contradictory facts—that European American culture is omnipresent while it is also lost—make the concept of culture in the United States confusing. Examining European American cultural patterns, especially as they relate to child development and early childhood education, may clarify the concept of culture and the influence of European American culture on early childhood programs.

The field of early childhood care and education has been greatly influenced by European American culture. So understanding some of the common characteristics of European American culture can help teachers work more effectively with both European American children and children from other cultures. The following chart shows some key traits of European American culture.

CULTURE INFLUENCES CHILD-REARING PATTERNS Culture influences child rearing, and as a result, people from different cultural backgrounds have differing ideas about what constitutes high-quality child care. According to Darla Miller, the author of First Steps toward Cultural Difference: Socialization in Infant/Toddler Day Care:

Methods of caring for and educating young children routinely expected by high-income families may shock and repel low-income families—and vice versa. Routines considered desirable by one group may be seen as inane by another. Guidance strategies believed in some cultural settings to be essential to healthy growth may be considered inhumane and destructive in others. What some consider to be essential experiences for effective early learning, others consider utter nonsense. Social workers, early childhood educators, and child care professionals have often felt the tension among these opposing views and have sometimes been snagged unknowingly by their own culturally biased assumptions. (Miller 1989, 2)

In reality, culture influences how a parent responds to all elements of child rearing, such as the following:

parents’ age-related expectations of their children

interest in and concern over children acquiring skills by a certain age

attachment and separation

children’s role and responsibility in the family

gender roles

diet and mealtime routines

sleep patterns and bedtime routines

CHARACTERISTICS OF EUROPEAN AMERICAN CULTURE

medical care

discipline methods

children’s play

children’s learning styles

family’s expectations of teachers and schools

selection and use of supplemental child care

As a teacher, you have your own culturally based beliefs about how each of these child-rearing issues should be handled in your classroom, as well as by parents at home. You may view your own style of child rearing as the normal or right way. But remember, each culture successfully raises new generations of children according to its own values and beliefs. We must be willing to look at the life experiences of the children and families in our care without passing judgment.

Early childhood programs institute policies and procedures that define a specific style of child care and education. A program can never be multicultural if its staff expects one style of child care to complement the endless variety of family child-rearing patterns. Conflicts arise when programs rigidly follow one style. Parents and teachers may disagree about what is best for a child. You have probably observed or at least sensed such conflicts. For example, have you ever been frustrated by or found yourself wondering about the following?

a child who refuses to play alone and interrupts other children who are playing quietly and independently

a child who has difficulty choosing an activity and prefers to cling to you

a child who asks for your help or attention by verbally teasing you

a child who resists looking you in the eye when you are issuing a reprimand

a child who has a high energy level and turns every activity into a largemotor experience

a child who goes limp and silent when directly confronted about behavior

a baby who prefers to be held and gently rocked, and who cries loudly whenever put on the floor to play

a three-year-old who drinks from a bottle and can’t go to sleep without a pacifier

a child who comes to school every day in “party” clothes with a parental warning to stay away from paint and other messy activities

parents who are angry because their child comes home with a dirty face and sandy hair

a child who enjoys lively play with one or two playmates but is silent and hangs back in group activities

As a teacher, you may think you clash with a child because of a personality difference, when in fact it is a difference in culture. On the following pages is a list of diverse culturally based family patterns, child-rearing practices, and values—all of which may influence your classroom. The left and middle columns can help you identify sources of conflict, recognize the child’s experience, and understand the parent’s perspective. The right column offers suggestions for alternative caregiving and teaching practices and attitudes. Use this list to help you develop and institute culturally relevant care and education.

CULTURE AND THE CLASSROOM

CULTURALLY INAPPROPRIATE PROGRAMS Children lose their power over their world when they attend early childhood programs that are very different from their homes. The classroom can seem like an alien culture that makes no sense to the child, and the child can’t escape. In instances like this, I have seen children respond to the culture shock by spinning around the room, screeching, and going entire days without eating. Cultural mismatches lead to academic failure. Research has linked the academic achievement gap in part to cultural differences between home and school. Most early childhood classrooms are organized around European American values. The curriculum and teaching strategies often reflect European American culture. The caregiving routines establish European American parenting styles as the norm. The end result is that our programs often fail to validate the home cultures and life experiences of children who are not European American.

Culturally inappropriate programs harm children in the following ways:

They fail to promote children’s cognitive and social growth.

They disrespect children’s life experience and turn off children from learning.

They make children feel rejected and cause children to reject school.

They cause children to feel unappreciated and misunderstood.

They weaken children’s connection to their family and home culture and cause children to lose their sense of identity.

They increase the likelihood that children will reject their home culture and rebel against their family.

WHAT IS CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE CARE AND EDUCATION? Culturally responsive care and education honors and meets the needs of today’s diverse families. In a culturally responsive program, children maintain their personal power and sense of identity. Children’s families are supported and enhanced. Children don’t experience daily conflict or confusion. The purpose of child care is to foster each child’s healthy identity development as a member of a family and a cultural community. Culturally responsive programs share six important components:

Cultural values and beliefs are embedded in the curriculum.

Teachers use a variety of teaching and communication styles that match the cultural patterns of the children in their classroom.

Teachers incorporate toys, books, and artwork that reflect the cultural identities of the children in the classroom.

Curriculum is based on children’s experiences in their daily lives.

Learning experiences incorporate children’s home language.

Learning experiences encourage children to learn about their family and home culture.

Here is a planning process I use to carry out culturally responsive care and education. You can use this process—including the form at the end of this section —to help you plan for an individual child, or you can complete one form for each of the cultural groups represented in your classroom.

1. Child’s name: Teachers show respect for cultural identity when they correctly pronounce a child’s name and use the child’s given name in their interactions with that child. Talk with the child’s family and ask the following questions: What is the child’s name? What is the meaning or significance of the child’s name? Who is the child named after? What does the family call this child? What name would the family like you to use in the

classroom? Teach all the children and the staff to pronounce the child’s name correctly.

2. Culture: Teachers must be able to identify the cultures of all the children in their classrooms. Talk with each child’s family. How do they identify themselves culturally? What role does their home culture play in their family life? What about their culture would be helpful for you to know? Do they have any customs that they would like teachers to know about in order to care for and teach their child? What are their expectations for their child? What do they expect from you? What do they expect from your program?

3. Values: Use your knowledge of the child’s home culture and high-quality reference materials to help you identify some of the core values of the culture. Once you have an idea of the key cultural values, you can ask the child’s family if these values are indeed important to them, if there are other values that they want to pass on to their child, and if they would like you to incorporate these into your classroom.

4. Significant holidays: Ask the child’s family which of the holidays they celebrate have special cultural or religious significance. How would they like you to incorporate their family holidays into your program?

5. Culturally responsive learning objectives: Early childhood education is standards based. Most states have adopted their own early learning standards. Some states have adopted the Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework as their state standards. Review your state standards, particularly those in the domains of approaches to learning and social- emotional development. State standards tend to reflect a European American worldview. Write some standards for a non–European American child based on the child’s home culture. To do this, you will need to review your notes from meeting with the child’s family, review the “Culture and the Classroom” chart, and review your cross-cultural reference materials. Here are some examples to show you what culturally responsive learning objectives might look like:

CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE LEARNING OBJECTIVES

6. Language: What language or languages are spoken in the child’s home? How can you incorporate the child’s home language(s) into simple greetings and transition announcements?

7. Interaction style: Is the family’s style of interaction formal or informal? Do children use titles when speaking to adults? Are children expected to be silent when adults are talking? When adults and children interact with one another, are they at eye level? Do children look at adults who are giving them a command? Do children look at adults who are reprimanding them? Ask families about nonverbal communication. Are there any facial expressions or gestures that have particular meaning?

8. A culturally responsive classroom: What cultural artifacts can you add to your classroom? What types of dolls, pretend foods, empty food containers, cooking utensils, and household decorations can you add to the dramatic play area to reflect the child’s home culture? What culturally relevant children’s books could you add to the book area? What culturally relevant musical instruments and children’s music could you add to the music and movement area? What colors are significant in the child’s home culture, and how could you incorporate them into the selection of art materials in the art area? What are common forms of artistic expression in the child’s home culture, and how could you provide similar art opportunities in the art area?

What are some common cultural objects in the child’s home that you could obtain for the manipulative area? What are common elements of architecture and design in the child’s home culture, and how could you add culturally relevant materials and photographs to the block area? Display a poster of the alphabet in the child’s home language, and create classroom labels in the child’s home language. Display photographs of the child’s family. Display posters of role models and contributions of the child’s home culture.

9. Culturally responsive teaching methods: Teaching methods are how you deliver instruction. When you are planning culturally relevant teaching methods, ask yourself if the child comes from an independent or interdependent culture. Children from interdependent cultures often learn best through collaborative activities, cooperative learning, small groups, working with a partner, using class helpers, and guided practice. If you have students from cultures that value personalism and relationships, make sure you greet the children and parents as they arrive, or assign a child to be a daily greeter. Start the morning with a class meeting where everyone sits in a circle that includes a check-in, a class chant or cheer, and a question of the day. Children who come from cultures that value interdependence form their self-identity as a member of their family. Singling them out or highlighting them as the child of the week or the star of the week may create stress through unwanted individual attention.

10. Culturally responsive caregiving strategies: Caregiving routines include arrival and departure, toileting, mealtimes, naptimes, dressing and undressing, and personal hygiene and grooming. Meet the needs of children from cultures that place a high value on relationships by greeting them as they arrive in the morning. Depending on the cultural patterns regarding displays of affection, they may need a big hug, a handshake, or a high five as part of the greeting. Children from cultures that value modesty will appreciate bathrooms with stalls and doors, as well as separating children by gender for toileting routines. European Americans place a high value on family-style meal service. This is not a universal practice, though, and there are many ways to achieve social interaction and a sense of community at mealtime. Teachers need to be mindful of children who come from cultures in which personal hygiene and grooming are important. Washing faces, combing hair, freshening up ponytails and braids, or replacing barrettes that have fallen out during the course of the day must be part of the daily caregiving routines for these children. Parents may judge the quality of care based on your attention to these details. Incorporate proverbs from children’s home cultures when teaching and reinforcing positive behavior. Incorporate culturally appropriate and child-friendly foods in the program’s meal plan.

11. Culturally responsive activities: Plan learning experiences around children’s literature that features children’s home cultures. Incorporate

children’s home languages into learning experiences, songs, and chants. Build learning experiences around cultural role models, and integrate the contributions of the child’s culture into everyday learning experiences and curriculum studies.

CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE CARE AND EDUCATION PLAN

From Roots and Wings: Affirming Culture and Preventing Bias in Early Childhood Programs, Third Edition, by Stacey York, © 2016. Published by Redleaf Press, www.redleafpress.org. This page may be reproduced for individual or classroom use only.

CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE EDUCATION BUILDS BRAINS All children benefit from culturally responsive education. Recent studies show that culturally responsive education improves children’s attitudes toward school as well as their learning. Culturally responsive education is a powerful tool to help you understand the children you teach. It is a frame of reference to guide you as you set up the classroom environment. It is an effective way to organize and improve instruction.

Zaretta Hammond, a teacher educator and expert on culturally responsive education, defines culturally responsive teaching as a teacher’s ability to recognize children’s culturally based learning styles and the ways in which children’s home cultures shape how they make meaning. It involves responding positively and constructively with teaching strategies that use your knowledge of children’s home cultures as a scaffold to connect what the children know to new concepts and content, thus promoting learning. Hammond writes, “Culture, it turns out, is the way that every brain makes sense of the world” (Hammond 2015, 22).

Early childhood teachers can use culturally responsive education to reduce the achievement gap. You can combine the principles of culturally responsive caregiving and teaching with those of brain-based learning. This combination makes sense, because we know children have difficulty transferring from one setting to another, particularly when the two settings—such as home and school— are vastly different. The more continuity that exists between home and school, the less stress and anxiety children experience. When early childhood programs seem familiar to children, children feel safe. When children feel safe, they build trusting relationships more easily. Positive relationships help children feel valued and help reduce children’s stress levels, which in turn keeps cortisol levels low, and children are better able to learn. Culturally responsive care and education keep children not only emotionally safe but also intellectually safe. In a culturally responsive classroom, children are free to focus on learning.

We know that our brains seek connections. Culturally responsive teaching strategies, learning experiences, and curriculum provide those connections, because curriculum content connects to what children already know. Young children’s growing brains find culturally responsive learning familiar and relevant to their real-life experiences. This familiarity forms the scaffold that children need to process new information and think in more complex ways. It helps them engage in higher-order thinking, such as exploring similarities and differences, patterns, cause and effect, and different perspectives. Culturally responsive teaching also recognizes that children’s home culture primes children’s brains to process

information in certain ways. That is why children learn more when we use teaching methods that mirror the way children learn at home. Culturally responsive teaching is a powerful way to achieve academic rigor. It minimizes the self-doubt that can lead to a negative mind-set toward school and learning.

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO WORK EFFECTIVELY WITH CHILDREN FROM OTHER CULTURES? Sometimes teachers think they need to know everything about a culture before they can work effectively with children and families from that culture. Some teachers feel they need to have all the power and be the expert in the parent-teacher relationship. Sometimes we get trapped into acting on our own assumptions. We may lack communication skills, or we may not be used to reflecting on our practices, or it may be hard for us to step back and take other perspectives.

You can take several steps to help you work effectively with children from cultures other than your own. Here are some suggestions:

Become culturally competent.

Get to know families, and identify their strengths.

Build partnerships with parents.

Interact with children in culturally congruent ways.

Provide culturally consistent care.

Work to reduce cultural conflicts between home and school.

Differentiate problem behavior from a culturally different pattern of behavior.

Incorporate children’s home language into the classroom.

Help children develop strong cultural identities.

Invite families to share their culture with the school.

Recognize the contributions of children’s home culture.

Strengthen families by connecting them to the neighborhood and community.

Participate in community cultural events.

Our teaching and caregiving practices must go beyond our own cultural orientations. We must be fully aware that cultural differences between children and teachers or parents and teachers often cause problems for children. Some of these problems, such as feelings of alienation and isolation, can be extremely hurtful and result in harmful consequences for children. Culturally responsive care evolves from teachers realizing that differences may be a result of culture—in other words,

how families raise children and how a child behaves and learns. You can work successfully with children from diverse cultures by identifying the behavior patterns and child-rearing practices that reflect a specific culture’s history, values, beliefs, and current situation.

All too often, children who speak a language other than English do not receive developmentally appropriate language instruction, and as a result, they are less likely to succeed in school. In the next chapter, we will look at how children acquire a second language and classroom strategies you can use to support English- language learners.

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

Try to uncover your own culturally based values, beliefs, and behaviors. Ask yourself these questions:

– What are some words of wisdom, sayings, or advice that your parents or grandparents passed on to you?

– What are some child-rearing practices of others that shock, appall, or frighten you?

– To whom or where would you go for advice about children or parenting?

How can you develop the sensitivity and perspective that will enable you to provide culturally responsive care and education that honor and meet the needs of today’s diverse families?

In your experience, how have cultural differences created challenges in the classroom? How did you resolve or manage those differences? Would you do it differently now?

TRY THIS TOMORROW

Culturally responsive care and education begin with positive relationships that help children develop trust and a sense of belonging. Use this form to assess the extent to which you engage in positive relationships with all children. Based on your notes, develop a plan to strengthen your culturally responsive adult-child relationships.

DIG DEEPER

Bauml, Michelle, and Katherine Mongan. 2014. “Getting to Know You: Sharing Time as Culturally Relevant Teaching.” Dimensions of Early Childhood 42 (2). www.southernearlychildhood.org/upload/pdf/BaumlMongan_42_2.pdf.

Early Edge California. 2015. “Culturally Responsive and Relevant Teaching and Learning.” TKCalifornia. www.tkcalifornia.org/teaching-tools/classroom- instructional-planning/culturally-responsive.html.

Kozleski, Elizabeth B. 2015. “Culturally Responsive Teaching Matters!” Equity Alliance. www.equityallianceatasu.org/sites/default/files/Website_files/CulturallyResponsiveTeaching- Matters.pdf.

US Department of Health and Human Services. 2015. “Multicultural Principles for Head Start Programs Serving Children Ages Birth to Five.” Head Start. eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/tta-system/cultural- linguistic/Dual%20Language%20Learners/pdm/responsiveness/revisiting.htm.

VIDEOS

Irvine, Jackie Jordan, Geneva Gay, and Kris Gutierrez. 2010. “Introduction to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy.” Southern Poverty Law Center: Teaching Diverse Students Initiative. www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGTVjJuRaZ8.

Malarkey, Tom. 2015. “Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain: An Interview with Zaretta Hammond.” The National Equity Project. www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzwobAYsDL4.

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CHAPTER 5 Young Dual-Language Learners

Words are our scaffolding for making sense of the world we have. Words are our catalysts for dreaming—and inventing a different and future world. They are the threads from which we weave the emotional cloth of our lives. —CONOR P. WILLIAMS, “LANGUAGE, IDENTITY, CULTURE, AND DIVERSITY”

Thirty percent of young children in the United States live in families who speak two or more languages. The number of English-language learners in our classrooms has grown by 60 percent in the past twenty years (US Department of Education 2011). English-language learners make up one of the fastest-growing populations in US early childhood classrooms. It seems that every classroom I visit has at least one child who does not speak English and a few children whose families speak more than one language. Often, English-language learners attend early childhood programs in which no adults speak their dominant language. In most cases, the teachers have little knowledge of how young children learn English

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and no training in how to foster bilingual development. Most young children who speak a language other than English do not receive developmentally appropriate instruction, and that lack contributes to the academic achievement gap. This chapter explores how children acquire a second language, describes the dual- language approach to bilingual education, and offers classroom strategies you can use to support English-language learners.

LANGUAGE AS A TOOL FOR DEVELOPMENT Language is the communication tool we use to organize and express our thoughts, experiences, feelings, wants, and needs. Children naturally learn a language through interaction with their family, friends, and community. By age five or six, most children are able to speak clearly and accurately, according to the rules of their home language. Language is important in all aspects of the development of the child.

Language is critical to social relationships. Home language is important to children for many reasons. Socially, it enables children to communicate and learn from their parents, grandparents, extended family, and community. Loss of the dominant language often negatively impacts the parent-child relationship, particularly during adolescence.

Language is an important element of culture. Individuals who speak the language of their home culture find it gives them a sense of identity and strengthens their connection to their culture. Vocabulary, phrases, intonation, and even gestures combine to express cultural values and beliefs. Language conveys the unique nuances of a culture. This is why it is often difficult to translate ideas and meanings across languages. Language is critical for maintaining cultures, and so the United Nations recognizes language as a basic human right (UNESCO 1996; UN General Assembly 1985). People have the right to speak, read, and write in their home language. No one has the right to outlaw or take someone’s language. When children lose their home language, they lose a part of their cultural identity.

Language is connected to cognitive development. Language development affects children’s ability to process information, memories, and experiences. Children learn to think in their dominant language. Loss of that language has a negative effect on their cognitive functioning. Children’s academic skills drop when they are required to replace their home language with English. And in fact, children learn English (or any second language) better when they have a strong foundation in their home language. When children are introduced to a second language after they have acquired their first language, they are building on cognitive structures and thinking processes that are intertwined with the first language. So it is important to continue to strengthen and expand children’s first language, since that language is so closely tied to their cognitive functioning.

Language is political. Though all languages are equally valid, within each country certain languages carry more sociopolitical power and prestige.

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Historically, when countries were invaded and colonized, the native people were often not allowed to use their home language(s). Usually the language of the ruling culture was established as the norm, and all residents were required by law to speak that language. Today some countries embrace multiple languages while others attempt to enact a one-country, one-language policy. You may be surprised to find out that the United States does not have an official language, a deliberate decision on the part of the founders.

Let’s take a look at a common scenario: a child who speaks a language other than English attends an early childhood program in which no other adults or children speak the home language of the child. The program has no plan to care for children who do not speak English. The curriculum does not incorporate the child’s home language or home culture. The child is pushed to learn English, and attempts are made to resocialize the child away from the home culture and family. The teachers encourage the child to replace culturally based values, beliefs, behavior, and language with European American culture.

The teachers are uncomfortable with the fact that the child does not speak English, and the other children ignore, pull away, or refuse to interact with the child because of the language difference. When the child attempts to communicate, the teacher misreads or ignores the child’s signals. Interactions between the child and teacher are rare, brief, and awkward. Teachers and the other children may become frustrated in trying to establish and maintain relationships, and the child may become isolated, withdrawn, or invisible within the classroom. Other children may ignore the child or treat the child like a baby.

The child experiences high levels of stress in the classroom, and as a result, the child loses the ability to communicate when angry, scared, excited, or self- conscious. The child freezes when asked to stand up and speak at group time.

What impact do you think this experience will have on the child’s cognitive, language, and social development? How do you think this will affect the child’s success in school and eventually in life? Remember, this experience is common to most preschool-age children in the United States whose first language is not English and who attend an English-only early childhood program.

DUAL-LANGUAGE LEARNERS The Office of Head Start defines dual-language learners as follows:

Children who are Dual Language Learners acquire two or more languages simultaneously, and learn a second language while continuing to develop their first language. The term “dual language learners” includes other terms frequently used, such as Limited English Proficient (LEP), bilingual, English language learners (ELL), English learners, and children who speak a Language Other Than English (LOTE). (Office of Head Start 2014)

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A debate over how to teach English-language learners has been raging since the beginning of public education in the United States. In recent years, the field of early childhood education has embraced a dual-language approach. According to Linda Espinosa, an expert on early childhood dual-language learning, because language provides such an important foundation for all aspects of development, ideal early childhood experiences for English-language learners intentionally and systematically promote the development of both the first language and English (Espinosa 2013b).

A dual-language approach offers many benefits for children who are learning English. It helps them develop language in both their first language and English. It helps children transfer the language skills they have already developed and are continuing to develop in their first language to the process of learning English. A dual-language approach supports children’s pride in their home culture and the development of a positive cultural identity. It promotes children’s engagement with their parents and families through shared language.

Stages of Second Language Learning Patton Tabors, a researcher and instructor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, observed and audio-recorded children who were acquiring a second language in an early childhood classroom. She found that children who attend an early childhood program and who are learning English as a second language pass through a common developmental sequence. She identified four specific stages. As children pass through these stages, they continue to operate out of the earlier stages, except one—they stop using their home language with people who don’t speak it (Tabors 2008). According to Tabors, the stages of learning a second language are the following:

Spea