What is anti-bias education?
“At the heart of anti-bias work is a vision of a world in which all children are able to blossom and each child’s abilities and gifts are able to flourish” (Derman-Sparks, Edwards, & Goins, 2020 p.5)
Anti-bias education (ABE) aims to support the development of children living in a diverse, yet still unequal, society. Expanding beyond a specific curricula, ABE acts as an underlying framework, upon which all relationships and services are built in support of all young children’s growth. ABE recognizes human diversity, and that children grow up within specific family groups and that they are impacted by how society views them and how they view themselves.(Derman-Sparks, Edwards, & Goins, 2020)
What are the four goals of anti-bias education?
ABE has four main goals that are meant to identify, prevent (as much as possible), and address and remedy the harm that social prejudice and bias can have on children as they grow up and on society in general.
Identity
Children can grow up feeling proud of who they are without feeling superior to others. Children can grow up understanding themselves in relation to their social identities. Children can recognize how some social identities are elevated while others are diminished.
Diversity
Children can develop deep and caring connections to all human beings, be comfortable with diversity. Children can learn and use accurate words for describing, and celebrating, similarities and differences between all people.
Justice
Children can develop an awareness of empathy, bias, and unfairness. Children can respond to each other with empathy. Children can learn to recognize, describe, the ways that bias and unfairness cause harm to themselves and others.
Activism
Children can empower themselves to actively resist biased behaviour towards them or others. Children can become activists for social justice when they have strong, proud identities, appreciate diversity, and act with empathy towards others.
Enacting anti-bias in the children’s library
While our interactions with young children in libraries might be short in duration, they can still be powerful ways to advance anti-bias goals. All of the anti-bias resources I have found and use in my classes make a strong case for the power of picture books to help children learn to understand, talk about, and enact these four anti-bias goals. Here are just a few examples from my book shelves.
ABE Goal: Identity
Hair Love by Matthew A. Cherry, illustrated by Vashti Harrison
A young Black girl named Zuri says her hair has a mind of its own. She says it “kinks, coils, and curls every which way.” Her Daddy tells her that it is beautiful and she feels proud of her hair. On an important day, Zuri wants a perfect hairstyle and soon her Daddy is trying his best to get it right. Style after style misses the mark until finally, Daddy combs, parts, oils, and twists Zuri’s hair into funky puff buns and they’re perfect! Readers find out why this day is so important when Zuri’s Mommy finally arrives home from a trip and the family is joyfully reunited. Zuri’s sweet story is imbued with culturally significant details (like Daddy’s locs, Mommy’s head wrap, and Zuri’s various Black hairstyles) that work as both “mirrors and windows” for diverse young readers. In these ways, this book helps to highlight the ABE goal of Identity that:
“Children will demonstrate self-awareness, confidence, family pride, and positive social identities.” (Derman-Sparks, Edwards, & Goins, 2020 p.15)
ABE Goal: Diversity
Sam’s Super Seats by Keah Brown, and illustrated by Sharee Miller
Told in the first-person, the young Black narrator Sam’s day starts with her Daddy fixing her hair and getting her ready for an exciting back-to-school shopping trip with Mommy. But before Sam and Mommy head out together, Sam explains to readers that she needs to rest a bit because she has cerebral palsy and her legs often get sore and tired. Soon, they’re off to meet up with her two non-disabled best friends Sarah (who is white) and Sydney (who is Asian) and they go to the mall to pick out back to school outfits. Sam and two her friends continually affirm and support each other as they select their new clothes. Then Sam reflects that her friends cheer her up when she’s sad about things being hard for her sometimes and, similarly, whenever her friends are sad, she makes them laugh again. When Sam’s legs start hurting, her friends stick by her, and they all happily head home to put on a fashion show. While Sam is shown as a child with agency, she acknowledges the importance of the different people in her life who all love and support her and she them. In these ways, this story reflects the ABE goal of Diversity that:
“Children being able to express comfort and joy with human diversity, use accurate language for human differences, and form deep, caring human connections across all dimensions of human diversity” (Derman-Sparks, Edwards, & Goins, 2020 p.15)
ABE Goal: Justice
The Year We Learned to Fly by Jacqueline Woodson, illustrated by Rafael López.
Drawing on her experience of reading The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales by Virginia Hamilton, author Jacqueline Woodson, imbues this story of two young Black siblings learning to navigate difficult situations by drawing on the wisdom of their ancestors. The children deal with the stress, loneliness, and boredom of the pandemic, and eventually the upheaval of moving to new, and unfamiliar community but they are continually called back to their roots by their grandmother’s words about their people who came before them.
“They were aunts and uncles and cousins who were brought here on huge ships, their wrists and ankles cuffed in iron, but my grandmother said, nobody can ever cuff your beautiful and brilliant mind. So our people learned to fly.”
When the white children in their new neighbourhood first ignore their attempts to play with them, the siblings stay true to themselves and their roots, and continue to fly, until they are eventually joined by their new companions who “one by one…learned to fly.”
This story opens the possibility of many conversations with both Black and non-Black children about themes surrounding injustice, resilience, and strength. In these ways, this book reflects the ABE goal of Justice that:
“Children will increasingly recognize unfairness (injustice), have language to describe unfairness, and understand that unfairness hurts…As children come to identify unfair experiences and learn that unfair situations can be made more fair, they gain an increased sense of their own power in the world.” (Derman-Sparks, Edwards, & Goins, 2020 p.16)
ABE Goal: Activism
Goodnight, Racism by Ibram X. Kendi, illustrated by Cbabi Bayoc.
This warmly illustrated story told from the moon’s point of view delivers a powerful message about the continual and necessary fight for equality and justice for Earth’s children. While showing families all over the world doing regular things like eating, worshipping, playing, and exploring, the moon narrator also points out the ways that some people are deprived of the things they need to thrive by stating
“But some kids do not have food, do not have beds, because of unfair rules and unjust treatment.”
The rest of the narrative is devoted to what is needed to ensure that all the world’s people are safe, envisioning a world where “our rules open doors, open minds, and create equity and justice for all.” The final illustration depicts diverse children holding protest signs like “Build bridges, not walls” and “Clean water for all.”
By encouraging discussions about injustice and inequality as it impacts children’s lives the world over, this book offers children the words and images they need to begin their own activism. Both text and images herein reflect the ABE goal of Activism that:
“Children will demonstrate a sense of empowerment and the skills to act, with others or alone, against prejudice and/or discriminatory actions.” (Derman-Sparks, Edwards, & Goins, 2020 p.17)
Read more about anti-bias education
The anti-bias education information in this article draws on this key resource:
Derman-Sparks, L., Edwards, J. O., Goins, C. M., (2020). Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves. National Association for the Education of Young Children.
Another valuable resource is of course the wonderful and relevant book which I cannot recommend highly enough for all library storytime providers.
Bratt, J. A. (2022). Let’s talk about race in storytimes. ALA Editions.
Recommended Web Resources on Anti-bias Education
Biracial Bookworms: Reading Children’s Literature with an Anti-bias Lens Checklist
Hashimoto, S. (January 26, 2019) Anti-bias education and children’s literature. ALSC Blog: Pursuing Excellence for Library Service to Children
Social Justice Books: A Teaching for Change Project. (n.d.). Guide for selecting anti-bias children’s books.
Teaching for Change: Anti-bias Education: Educator Resources
Do you have more anti-bias resources to suggest? Please post your links in the comments, & thanks!
This post is intended to address the ALSC Competencies I. Commitment to Client Group, and VII. Professionalism and Professional Development
Tess Prendergast worked as a children’s librarian for 23 years. She has a PhD in early literacy education and now teaches librarianship and children’s literature courses at The School of Information, University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, Canada. Tess is a ALSC Priority Group Consultant (for Group 6 Professional Development) and she also facilitates the annual ALSC Preschool Discussion. Tess served on the Geisel (2023) and Caldecott (2016) committees and she still maintains an annual Mock Caldecott Facebook Group that anyone can join.