ABAR: What is ‘anti-bias/anti-racist’ education?
Anti-bias/antiracist (ABAR) education supports all children’s full development in our multiracial, multilingual, multicultural world and gives them the tools to stand up to prejudice, stereotyping, bias, and eventually to institutional “isms.” (Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves, Louise Derman-Sparks & Julie Olsen Edwards.)
ABAR education includes understanding specific ways racism and other isms influence:
• the socialization of young children’s development of self and group identity, including internalized superiority or internalized oppression; and
• the socialization of young children’s development of attitude, prejudices and behaviors toward people different from themselves.
An integral part of Crossroads anti-bias/antiracist education training model is focusing on the connection between Crossroads Power Analysis (racism’s 3 misuses of power: Power1, Power2 and Power3) and the 4 main Anti-Bias Curriculum Goals. Contact us today by phone (708-503-0804) or email to find out how your institution can benefit from our ABAR Workshop.
“The Perry Preschool Project is one of the most famous education experiments of the last 50 years. The study asked a question: Can preschool boost the IQ scores of poor African American children and prevent them from failing in school? The surprising results are now challenging widely-held notions about what helps people succeed – in school, and in life.”
—American Radio Works, 10/30/09
Anne Stewart, Mary Pat Martin and Louise Derman-Sparks at recent ABAR training event.
Louise Derman-Sparks, Crossroads Trainer and noted authority in the field of early childhood, first worked in Ypsilanti, MI at the Perry Preschool. In 2009 she participated in the American Radio Works documentary looking back over nearly 50 years since the Perry Preschool Project’s pioneering work began.
Listen to the entire documentary radio broadcast here:
Louise Derman-Sparks and other experts in anti-bias education are contributing to the Teaching for Change blog? Check it out!
The Dolls Experiment
During the 1940’s, renowned psychologists Kenneth B. Clark and Mamie Phipps Clark designed and conducted an experiment in order to test the psychological effects of segregation on African American children. Kenneth Clark documented this in a paper in 1950, which was cited by the Supreme Court in the landmark Brown vs. the Board of Education decision.
In 2005, then 18-year-old filmmaker Kiri Davis re-created this famous experiment and filmed the award winning documentary “A Girl Like Me” – just click here to view Kiri’s film.
Recommended Resources
Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves by Louise Derman-Sparks and Julie Olsen Edwards, 2nd Ed NAYEC (2009). This book may be purchased from NAYEC: http://www.naeyc.org/store/node/17122
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