Anti Bias Education

At the University of  Delaware Early Learning Center our goal is to nurture within each individual a disposition to speak for peace, understanding and justice.  In our classrooms and program, we are pursing the four core goals of Anti-Bias education for Young Children, as outlined in the book Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves by Louise Derman-Sparks and Julie Olsen Edwards.

https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/books/anti-bias-education

The 4 Goals of Anti-Bias Education:

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

• Each child will express comfort and joy with human diversity, accurate language for human differences, and deep caring human connections.

• Each child will increasingly recognize unfairness, have language to describe unfairness and understand that unfairness hurts

• Each child will demonstrate empowerment and the skills to act, with others or alone, against prejudice, and/or discriminatory actions

We recognize that anti-bias work is about more than skin color, so we talk with children about the range of people that make up our ELC community and the wider world. We take care with the words and beliefs we express. Social problem solving is a present part of our daily lives. We challenge children to articulate their feelings and support them in working towards mutually agreeable solutions. By emphasizing alternate-perspective-taking, we help children advocate for themselves and recognize the needs of others. Staff  engage in ongoing professional development around anti-bias work to challenge our own biases, hone our anti-bias teaching practices, and gain further skill in supporting children’s individual identities and home cultures.