As an early childhood development professional, it is crucial that you build and maintain culturally relevant, anti-bias learning settings. There are four goals of anti-bias education, and these provide a framework for your work with children. For this discussion, you will read several case studies about different children and their families and identify ways to create culturally relevant, anti-bias learning opportunities for them.
Four Instructional Goals of Culturally Relevant, Anti-Bias Instruction
Goals Description
Goal 1Each child will demonstrate self-awareness, confidence, family pride, and positive social identities.
Goal 2Each child will express comfort and joy with human diversity; accurate language for human differences; and deep, caring human connections.
Goal 3Each child will increasingly recognize unfairness, have language to describe unfairness, and understand that unfairness hurts both the recipient and the perpetrator.
Goal 4Each child will demonstrate empowerment and the skills to act, with others or alone, against prejudice and/or discriminatory actions.
Source: Adapted from Derman-Sparks, L., & Edwards, J. O. (2019). Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children.
To prepare for this discussion,
A–F: Joseph
In your initial post,
The title of the activity
The age the activity is intended for
A description of the purpose, or goal, of the activity
An explanation of the steps necessary to complete the activity
Describe exactly how the activity aligns with one of the Four Goals of Anti-bias Instruction.
6 November 2019Young Children
Embracing Anti-Bias Education
Understanding
Anti-Bias Education
Bringing the Four Core Goals to Every
Facet of Your Curriculum
By Louise Derman-Sparks and Julie Olsen Edwards
Anti-bias education is not just doing occasional activities about diversity and fairness topics (although that
may be how new anti-bias educators begin). To be effective, anti-bias education works as an underpinning
perspective, which permeates everything that happens in an early childhood program—including your
interactions with children, families and coworkers—and shapes how you put curriculum together each day.
November 2019 Young Children 7
The four core goals of
anti-bias education
Four core goals provide a framework for the practice of
anti-bias education with children. Grounded in what
we know about how children construct identity and
attitudes, the goals help you create a safe, supportive
learning community for every child. They support
children’s development of a confident sense of identity
without needing to feel superior to others; an ease
with human diversity; a sense of fairness and justice;
the skills of empowerment; and the ability to stand up
for themselves or for others.
Goal 1: Identity
› Teachers will nurture each child’s
construction of knowledgeable, confident,
individual personal and social identities.
› Children will demonstrate self-
awareness, confidence, family pride,
and positive social identities.
This goal means supporting children to feel strong and
proud of who they are without needing to feel superior
to anyone else. It means children will learn accurate,
respectful language to describe who they and others
are. Teachers will support children to develop and
be comfortable within their home culture and within
the school culture. Goal 1 is the starting place for all
children, in all settings.
Adding to early childhood education’s long-term
commitment to nurturing each child’s individual,
personal identity, anti-bias education emphasizes
the important idea of nurturing children’s social
(or group) identities. Social identities relate to the
significant group categorizations of the society in
which we grow up and live and which individuals
share with many others. Social identities include
(but are not limited to) gender, racial, ethnic,
cultural, religious, and economic class groups. (In the
forthcoming book, social identity is described in detail
in Chapter 2.) A strong sense of both individual and
group identities is the foundation for the three other
core anti-bias goals.
Goal 2: Diversity
› Teachers will promote each child’s
comfortable, empathetic interaction with
people from diverse backgrounds.
› Children will express comfort and joy
with human diversity, use accurate
language for human differences, and
form deep, caring connections across
all dimensions of human diversity.
This goal means guiding children to be able to think
about and have words for how people are the same and
how they are different. It includes helping children feel
and behave respectfully, warmly, and confidently with
people who are different from themselves. It includes
encouraging children to learn both about how they
are different from other children and about how they
are similar. These are never either/or realities because
people are simultaneously the same and different from
one another. This goal is the heart of learning how to
treat all people caringly and fairly.
Some teachers and parents are not sure they should
encourage children to “notice” and learn about
differences among people. They may think it is best to
teach only about how people are the same, worrying
that talking about differences causes prejudice. While
well intentioned, this concern arises from a mistaken
notion about the sources of bias. Differences do not
create bias. Children learn prejudice from prejudice—
not from learning about human diversity. It is how
people respond to differences that teaches bias and fear.
Another misconception about Goal 2 is that exploring
differences among people ignores appreciating
the similarities. Goal 2 calls for creating a balance
between exploring people’s differences and
similarities. All human beings share similar biological
attributes, needs, and rights (e.g., the needs for food,
shelter, and love; the commonalities of language,
This article is an excerpt of the second edition
of Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and
Ourselves, by Louise Derman-Sparks and Julie
Olsen Edwards. An NAEYC bestseller, this book
helps early childhood educators fulfill their
mission of helping all children reach their full
potential. The new edition—with major updates
to all chapters, including gender identity—will be
available early in 2020.
8 November 2019Young Children
families, and feelings) and people live and meet these
shared needs and rights in many different ways. A
basic premise in anti-bias education is “We are all the
same. We are all different. Isn’t that wonderful!”
Goal 3: Justice
› Teachers will foster each child’s capacity to
critically identify bias and will nurture each
child’s empathy for the hurt bias causes.
› Children will increasingly recognize
unfairness (injustice), have
language to describe unfairness, and
understand that unfairness hurts.
This goal is about building children’s innate, budding
capacities for empathy and fairness, as well as their
cognitive skills for thinking critically about what is
happening around them. It is about building a sense
of safety, the sense that everyone can and will be
treated fairly.
Learning experiences include opportunities for
children to understand and practice skills for
identifying unfair and untrue images (stereotypes),
comments (teasing, name-calling), and behaviors
(isolation, discrimination) directed at themselves or
at others. This includes issues of gender, race,
ethnicity, language, disability, economic class, age,
body shape, and more. These are early lessons in
critical thinking for children, figuring out what they
see and hear and testing it against the notions of
kindness and fairness.
These lessons build on young children’s implicit
interest in what is “fair” and “not fair.”
As children come to identify unfair experiences and
as they learn that unfair can be made fair, children
gain an increased sense of their own power in the
world. Children cannot construct a strong self-
concept, or develop respect for others, if they do not
know how to identify and resist hurtful, stereotypical,
and inaccurate messages or actions directed toward
themselves or others. Developing the ability to think
critically strengthens children’s sense of self, as well as
their capacity to form caring relationships with others.
Goal 4: Activism
› Teachers will cultivate each child’s ability
and confidence to stand up for oneself
and for others in the face of bias.
› Children will demonstrate a sense of
empowerment and the skills to act,
with others or alone, against prejudice
and/or discriminatory actions.
Goal 4 is about giving children tools for learning how
to stand up to hurtful and unfair biased behavior
based on any aspect of social identity. Biased behavior
may be directed at oneself or another. It may come
from another child or adult or from children’s books,
television, and films. This goal strengthens children’s
development in perspective taking, positive interactions
with others, and conflict-resolution education.
Actions of teasing, rejection, and exclusion because
of some aspect of a child’s social identities are a form
of aggressive behavior. They are just as serious as
physical aggression. The old saying “Sticks and stones
may break my bones, but names will never hurt me”
is false. Children’s developing sense of self is hurt by
name-calling, teasing, and exclusion based on identity.
And children who engage in such hurtful behaviors
are learning it is acceptable to hurt others, the earliest
form of bullying. An anti-bias approach calls on
November 2019 Young Children 9
teachers to intervene gently but firmly, support the
child who is the target of the biased behavior, and help
both children learn other ways of interacting.
Children’s growth on Goal 4 strengthens their growth
on the other three goals. If a child is the target of
prejudice or discrimination, she needs tools to resist
and to know that she has worth (Goal 1). When a
child speaks up for another child, it reinforces his
understanding of other people’s unique feelings (Goal
2). When children are helped to act, it broadens their
understanding of “unfairness” and “fairness” (Goal 3).
Guidelines for your curriculum
Just about every subject area in the typical early
childhood program has possibilities for anti-bias
education themes and activities. For instance, early
childhood education themes of self-discovery, family,
and community are deeper, and more meaningful,
when they include explorations of ability, culture,
economic class, gender identity, and racialized
identity. So, too, issues of fairness (Goal 3) and acting
for fairness (Goal 4) arise as children explore various
curriculum topics.
The ideas for specific anti-bias education content and
activities come from three major sources. One is from
children’s questions, interests, or interactions with
each other that classroom teachers see as important to
respond to and develop. Teacher-initiated activities are
a second source of anti-bias activities, based on what
classroom teachers and families think is important for
children to learn. A third source is significant events
that occur in the children’s communities and the
larger world that classroom teachers think need to be
explored with children.
Here is an example of an anti-bias education topic
at snack time.
It is snack time in the 4-year-old room. The
teacher sets a small pitcher of water on the table
for children to pour and drink. Lupe, whose home
language is Spanish, looks up and asks, “Agua?”
Casey, sitting next to her, says with annoyance,
“No! It’s water—not ahhgwa” (exaggerating the
pronunciation). The teacher stops what she is
doing and turns to Casey and says, “Lupe is
right. What you call ‘water’ her family calls ‘agua.’
There are many words for water, for crackers,
for oranges, for everything! We all have words.
We have different words. It’s pretty wonderful!”
At group time, the teacher follows up by
asking children about the different words
they have for people in their family. As the
children call out Grandma, Oma, Pops, Daddy,
Papa, Abuelita, and more, she writes them on
a chart. She assures them that none of the
words are wrong. They are just different. And
they all mean someone who loves them.
Meet anti-bias goals in every
corner of the classroom
The ongoing examination of how people are
simultaneously the same and different provides
children with a conceptual framework for thinking
about the world they live in. For example, children
playing with blocks can learn that although some
children like to build tall towers and some like to
build long, flat structures on the floor, all the children
like to build. Art projects can show enthusiasm
and admiration for blacks and browns along with
all the other wonderful colors of the spectrum. The
common curriculum topic of harvest time can include
respecting and making visible the people who grow,
pick, and transport our food.
Everyday activities offer opportunities for Goals
3 and 4 as well. Arguments over toys can include
discussion of fairness and kindness. Exclusionary
play, stereotypes in books, or teasing are experiences
open to critical thinking about hurtful behavior and
for problem solving toward just solutions.
Differences do not create bias.
Children learn prejudice from
prejudice—not from learning
about human diversity. It is how
people respond to differences
that teaches bias and fear.
10 November 2019Young Children
Use child-initiated and teacher-
initiated activities
Children’s questions, comments, and behaviors
are a vital source of anti-bias curriculum. They
spark teachable moments as well as longer-term
projects. However, it is not sufficient to do anti-bias
activities only when a child brings up a relevant issue.
Teacher-initiated activities are also necessary—be
they intentionally putting out materials and books
to broaden children’s awareness or planning specific
learning experiences around issues that matter to
families and the community.
You do not wait for children to open up the topic
of reading or numbers before making literacy
and numeracy part of the daily early childhood
curriculum. Because you have decided that these
understandings and skills are essential for children,
you provide literacy and numeracy discussions and
activities in your classroom. A balance between
child-initiated and teacher-initiated activities is as
vital in anti-bias education as in any other part of the
early childhood curriculum.
Here’s an example of how a teacher begins with a
children-generated teachable moment and follows
up with teacher-initiated activities:
After a windstorm broke dozens of small
branches off of the trees surrounding their
preschool, several 4- and 5-year-old boys begin
building a “club house” by dragging branches
and bunches of leaves to a corner in the
playground fence. Valeria (4 years old) starts
dragging a branch to join them and the boys
shout, “No girls allowed! No girls allowed!”
The teacher considers encouraging the boys
to welcome their classmate into their play—but
then she hesitates. There are larger societal
issues embedded in this interaction. As an
anti-bias educator, she decides she needs
to address the underlying ideas, especially
that girls can’t or shouldn’t engage in play
that emphasizes physical strength or that
“real boys” don’t include girls in their play.
Deciding to find out what the children are
thinking, the teacher asks, “Why do you think
no girls are allowed?” She listens carefully
to the boys’ responses: “Girls can’t move the
big branches.” “And they can’t build high!”
“We’re going to be superheroes! Girls can’t
be heroes.” And, finally, “We don’t like girls.”
All these statements reflect commonly held
stereotypes about girls. Additionally, she thinks,
not seriously addressing the situation reinforces
the additional stereotype that boys don’t have
to pay attention to the feelings of others.
Seeing an opportunity to expand their thinking,
the teacher suggests testing these claims.
She says, “Well, let’s find out if girls can move
the big branches and build high or not.” Since
many of the children are now gathering around,
Planning Anti-Bias
Education Activities for Your
Program’s Curriculum
An anti-bias education approach is not a recipe. Rather,
teachers include anti-bias issues in their planning by
considering the children and families they serve and the
curriculum approach their program uses. Here are key
questions to ask yourself as you and your colleagues
plan learning activities and environments. Begin by
asking yourself these questions for one or two activities
a week, and see how they change what you do and how
the children respond.
■ Where do I best fit anti-bias goals and issues into
my curriculum plans for the day and the week?
■ Who might be left out of this curriculum?
How will I use the topic to include each child,
connecting to the diversity of their social
identities and to their individual needs? How
can I be sure no one is invisible or unnoticed?
■ What ideas, misconceptions, and
stereotypes might children have about this
topic? How can I learn what these are and
provide accurate information and counter
misinformation and stereotypes?
■ How can I use this topic to support and strengthen
children’s innate sense of justice and their
capacity to change unfair situations to fair ones?
■ What learning materials do I need
to gather to incorporate an anti-bias
perspective into this curriculum topic?
November 2019 Young Children 11
she invites everyone to join in the challenge.
“What do you think is going to happen?” she
asks. With much laughter the children run and
gather branches. Some girls are faster than
some boys, some boys are faster than some
girls. Everyone is able to add branches to the
club house, which is suddenly much higher!
Bringing the children back together, the teacher
says, “It looks like both girls and boys can lift
big branches and build high. Thinking that
boys would be better at these things than girls
was a stereotype.” Several children repeat
the word stereotype (preschoolers love big
words!). Still holding their attention, the teacher
clarifies and gives words to the program’s
values: “Stereotypes are unfair. In our school
we want everyone to be treated fairly. What
can we do so that we can be sure that we play
together fairly?” The next steps are suggested
by the children. One suggestion is a sign that
says “Everyone can play here.” “How about,”
says one of the boys who began this episode,
“how about if we want to play alone, we just
say ‘you can have a turn in a few minutes’?”
Knowing that one interaction is never enough
to help children think in new ways, the teacher
plans and carries out further activities. She adds
to the classroom library books in which female
athletes and firefighters are strong and fast.
At circle time, she reads books in which girls
and boys play together in big muscle games.
She invites a female carpenter in to help the
children build with real tools. And she begins
a curriculum on “Being a hero,” about all the
ways boys and girls can be powerful helpers.
In the next staff meeting, the teacher relates
what she has done and is planning to do, and
why. She asks her colleagues to consider the
frequency of gendered exclusionary play in the
program and they agree to take the important
step of identifying how (explicitly and implicitly)
they may be supporting a binary view of gender
(see Chapter 9 in the forthcoming book) in their
classroom. For example, how often do they call
out “boys and girls” rather than “children”? Do
they ask “strong boys” to help move furniture
and big blocks? Do they comment on girls’
clothing or hair instead of asking about their
interests and accomplishments?
Do they support boys’ tender, sharing, inclusive
behaviors or mainly comment on their noisy,
power-focused play? The teachers agree to
observe each other as well as the children
and see what changes they can make to avoid
the damage that gender stereotypes have on
children’s sense of themselves and of others.
Using a combination of child-initiated, teachable
moments and teacher-initiated, pre-planned activities
is the most effective way to expand children’s ability
to grow in the four anti-bias education goals and to
talk about, think about, and understand the world
around them.
Pay attention to the realities
of children’s lives
While the four core anti-bias education goals are the
same for all children, specific activities should be
relevant to the children’s backgrounds and their lives.
Some children need support to resist messages of
racial or cultural inferiority; others need guidance to
develop a positive self-concept without absorbing social
messages that they are the “normal” ones and other
children are less than, strange, or negatively different.
Children of wealthy families need help resisting the
message that material accumulation defines their
12 November 2019Young Children
worth and that of others; children of families with
fewer resources need support to resist messages that
undercut their families’ worth. Some girls may need
extra support to develop confidence and interest in
experiences that are math and science related; some
boys may require help to develop skills for having
nurturing, cooperative interactions with their peers
and to engage in play that reflects these attitudes.
Closing thoughts
As in all other areas of the curriculum, teachers
tailor and scaffold anti-bias education materials
and activities to each child’s cognitive, social, and
emotional developmental capacities. They plan and
choose learning experiences that stimulate children to
explore the next step of new ideas and skills and allow
each child to apply new understandings and behaviors
in his or her daily life.
Learn more and
get started today!
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Photographs: © Getty Images
Copyright © 2019 by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. See Permissions and Reprints online at NAEYC.org/resources/permissions.
About the authors
Louise Derman-Sparks, MA, has worked with children
and adults in early childhood education for more than 50
years and is a faculty emerita of Pacific Oaks College. She
is coauthor of several books, including Leading Anti-Bias
Early Childhood Programs: A Guide for Change, Anti-Bias
Education for Young Children and Ourselves, and Teaching/
Learning Anti-Racism: A Developmental Approach.
Julie Olsen Edwards, coauthor of Anti-Bias Education
for Young Children and Ourselves, was on the faculty
of Cabrillo College’s early childhood education
department for 45 years. A lifetime activist for children
and families, she continues to write, teach, and
consult on issues of equity, diversity, and anti-bias.
http://www.naeyc.org/accreditation
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