Roots and Wings: Affirming Culture and Preventing Bias in Early Childhood

By Stacey York

Use the updated activities, examples, and research to improve your anti-bias and multicultural education programs. This clear and practical guide includes expanded information on English language learners, family engagement, culturally responsive teaching, and staff training.

Stacey York teaches child development at Rochester Community and Technical College and established E-LECT, a collaborative effort between thirteen Minnesota community and technical colleges to provide e-learning for early childhood teachers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Redleaf Press
• Release date: Jun 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781605544564

Stacey York

My name is Stacey York. I was born and raised in Reno Nevada with my siblings and some really silly animals. I went to school in the Reno/Sparks area and attended college at The University of Nevada at Reno and Truckee Meadow Community College. I currently reside on the outskirts of Reno with my daughter. The animator of this book is my sister, Tanya Lafferty. Tanya moved to the Boulder, Colorado area and lives with her husband and son.

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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