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In 1928, University of Chicago professor Robert Park claimed racial consciousness was ‘an acquired trait… children do not have it’. However, children can develop racial bias by picking up attitudes around them.
According to trainer and consultant Anne O’Connor, ‘internalised oppression’ – i.e. believing that you are seen as inferior outside the safe space of home – has serious consequences for children’s self-identity; conversely, ‘internalised superiority’ can ultimately lead children to treat as inferior and ultimately dehumanise others who don’t look the same.
Social environments have a huge impact on how ingrained biases became. Research from York University last year found a group of non-black minority children living in a racially diverse part of Toronto, Canada showed an implicit pro-white bias from six years of age. But children in the same study aged nine showed less pro-white bias.
‘There could be factors in their racially diverse environment that are leading older children to show less bias, such as cross-race friends, mentors, positive black role models, or a more Afro-centric curriculum that are helping to reinforce positive associations with this racial group,’ suggested faculty of health professor Jennifer Steele.
Creating unbiased early years settings that harbour non-racist attitudes is both a legal and policy requirement (see box). But experts agree instilling positive attitudes to race (groups of people with similar physical characteristics) and ethnicity (social groups with common national or cultural traditions) is complicated.
‘There’s no one answer to it,’ says Gina Houston, author of Racialisation in Early Years Education: Black Children’s Stories from the Classroom. ‘It’s very important staff listen to the voices of children in every way. It’s up to each setting to provide opportunities for their children to learn from their home knowledge.’
While early years practitioners deal with overt racism well, says Ms Houston, they can inadvertently make children feel excluded. For example, it is common practice to celebrate festivals in settings. ‘But if the children’s experiences at home aren’t included in everyday curriculum activities and delivery, it becomes separate,’ she says.
She gives the example of a practitioner and a child pretend-making Jamaican patties. If the teacher had announced, ‘Today we’re going to cook Jamaican patties’, it would have focused the activity on something other than normal play. But by giving child the chance to play and learn through representations of their own culture in an everyday way, the child felt included.
‘It’s these subtle, little things that are said that affect the children’s identity and sense of belonging and how they’re treated by other children,’ says Ms Houston.
If parents express negative racial attitudes, Ms Houston says practitioners must speak to them openly about how their opinions affect children. However, parental behaviour can be more difficult. She once had a situation where a black child was being bullied because of his African name. His mother suggested they give him an English name. ‘She wanted the child to fit in, so she wanted to go with the racism,’ says Ms Houston. Instead the setting ran a project about different names that included parents. ‘Racism has to be dealt with in a long-term way, faced and addressed,’ she says.
Ms Houston also recommends persona dolls as a way of addressing racial bias in a non-blame way. The dolls resemble a three-year-old child and come in all different ethnicities. Personal Doll Training UK trustee Sue Adler says a doll can present a discussion by whispering into a practitioner’s ear, who passes the scenario onto the children. ‘It works because it’s non-threatening and it doesn’t preach,’ she says. ‘It empowers the children to speak about it and they develop empathy.’
The UK population is made up of 87 per cent white people, while 13 per cent are black, Asian, mixed or another ethnic group. According to research from the Education Policy Institute, in 2018, 87 per cent of childcare workers were white. Despite this seeming balance, Ms Houston and Lisa Smith, chair of the Advisory Council for the Education of Romany and other Travellers, describe education settings in England as having predominantly white, middle-class environments – and Ms Smith points out that children of Gypsy, Roma or Traveller (GRT) heritage experience racism even with white skin.
She says educationalists often do not recognise Gypsy, Roma and Irish travellers as ethnic groups, and therefore fail to treat negative attitudes towards them as racism. She says practitioners’ lack of understanding of GRT culture means many such parents do not put their children into early education. If they do, they may hide their backgrounds. ‘Some parents are scared to tick the GRT box on the ethnic monitoring forms,’ she says.
Ms Smith says settings need to do more to include these groups, and recommends any practitioner with a GRT child engages with parents to find out about their home life and culture. ‘Away from all of the educational jargon, it’s just humanity,’ she says.
Childminding UK executive director Elaine Pitteway says racial preference can play out differently among childminders, as parents sometimes choose based on race. ‘We tried to recruit Somalian ladies to be childminders and they all said they just wanted to care for children from a similar cultural background.’ While childminders must comply with the Equality Act, Ms Pitteway says it can be argued that such preferences are ‘only natural’.
case study: The no-Polish birthday party
‘Last year the mother of one of our three-year-olds asked an assistant to give her a list of ten children to invite to her daughter’s birthday party,’ says the manager of a pre-school in Dorset. ‘She said none could be Polish.
‘We were horrified by the request. We discussed what to do as a team, and spoke to our head teacher. We’re within a primary school, so we follow the school’s anti-discrimination policies.
‘We’d had issues with the parent in the past and always had to be careful how we spoke to her. We felt challenging her about this attitude could lead to a bad outcome. However, we were obviously not prepared to meet her request.
‘We decided to sit down with her daughter and let her choose whom to invite. She picked ten children, including two Polish girls who were her friends. We gave the mother the list, and she made no comment. I don’t know if the Polish girls were invited. The child left the nursery soon afterwards.
‘Our nursery is small and rural, but has a good mix of children from different races, including some Gypsy children. We do circle times about people and communities, and discuss differences in appearances.
‘Race has never been an issue for the children, nor other parents.’
How to create settings inclusive of all races and ethnicities: taken from Racialisation in Early Years Education by Gina Houston
1. Create an ethos in which the team can discuss ideas about race. Establishing a no-blame culture can alleviate inhibitions about discussing attitudes.
2. Reflect on personal histories. Practitioners could discuss their own childhood experiences of toys and books that have had positive influence or influenced negative stereotypes.
3. Review the following areas to determine if they are anti-racist: the ethos of the setting, including environment resources such as displays and notices; curriculum content, resources, delivery and organisation; assessment content and methods; opportunities for communication with parents; enrolment and settling-in procedures; recruitment and staff retention; and roles and responsibilities. Ms Houston gives this example: ‘In the 1970s as a young newly appointed head teacher, I was made aware of whiteness on my decision-making when I spent a large amount of the budget on sand play. Children freely made use of these resources, but many of the black children stayed away. Parents gave one reason as the difficulty of getting sand out of their hair at home.’
4. To enable children to voice their understanding of diversity, time should be made available for practitioners to observe how attitudes are reproduced in the setting and how black children are using their agency to challenge racialisation.
The legislative framework
- Equality Act 2010 – lists race as a protected characteristic. It is illegal for early years settings to discriminate against children, their carers, or staff based on race or ethnicity.
- United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children – Article 2 states: ‘Parties shall respect and ensure the rights set forth in the present convention to each child within their jurisdiction without discrimination of any kind, irrespective of the child’s or his or her parent’s or legal guardian’s race.’
- Early Years Foundation Stage – states that all children must be treated fairly regardless of their race, religion or abilities.
Reflective questions:
1. How many children’s books in your settings are by non-white authors? Do they reflect the children’s identities?
2. How did you form your own ideas of racial groups in British society? What evidence supports your views?
3. Do you provide time for children to discuss their ideas about race and identity?