Alexander Charles Morton-Wright
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Issues and Strategies in Multicultural Education
Identifying and Overcoming Bias in an Early Childhood Learning Environment
Innate Bias (Unconscious bias, Implicit bias, Hidden bias) is inherent prejudice, specifically, social preferences that exist outside of conscious awareness. Implicit bias does not mean that people are hiding their prejudices, it means people literally do not know they have preferences for a specific gender, race, etc. In fact, the vast majority of those with implicit biases, hold no explicit biases. As Early childhood educators, we have a special responsibility to create learning environments for students which allow each student to feel comfortable. For most children, this is the first formal learning environment they will experience so it is vital the students feel seen, heard, and respected. It is imperative we acknowledge their hidden biases so they can challenge them and overcome them. Try one of these Implicit Association Tests (IATs) run by Harvard University if you would like to know more about your implicit biases. It may surprise you.
The Importance of Understanding Implicit Bias
Here is an infographic I collaborated on with M.Ed teachers to highlight implicit bias's importance in our society. This data was taken from the Harvard IAT study to create pie charts to represent widespread and often overlooked implicit bias. Below you can see that the blue (strong preference) and the red (moderate preference) make up nearly half of each chart. This Harvard study was an opt-in study, and it is likely the respondents already thought they were unbiased. Implicit bias is plausibly even more widespread than indicated here.
Overcoming Implicit Bias
Innate bias is so tricky due to its innateness. You do not know you are bias and may be shocked when your bias's are pointed out to you. The first thing to do is check yourself for bias's with IATs or from feedback from others. Evaluate any bias's you have and put a plan in place to stop that implicit bias. Here we have some tips to help you overcome implicit bias's you may have. It is important that we do not pass on our implicit bias's as this is how society decays. We need to be a positive force in changing the future and reducing implicit bias in society. The change starts with us.
Embracing Diversity through Intentional Practices in Early Childhood Education
It is important to be intentional about embracing cultural diversity in the ECE classroom. Children must feel seen, heard, and valued. I examined the diversity and demographic information of this student list to take intentional steps to create an event that would allow each child to showcase their cultural diversity. I decided to celebrate our diversity with a world food day event and parent presentations on something interesting about the food they brought or their culture.