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Book: I Love My Hair

Author: Natasha Tarpley.

Published by: Little, Brown and Company

Copyright: 1998

Summary: This book celebrates different hair types. It helps children see the beauty in their natural hair and cultural features.

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Book: Let's Talk About Race

Author: Julius Barbour

Published by: HarperCollins

Copyright: 2005

Summary: This book helps children understand what race is, and encourage open conversations.

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Book: Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes

Author: Mem Fox & Helen Oxebury

Published by: Harcourt

Copyright: 2008

Summary: Shows children from all around the world of different cultures. It talks about how everyone has ten fingers and ten toes.

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ten little fingers and ten little toes book

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Anti-bias curriculum is an approach to early childhood education that sets forth values-based principles and methodology in support of respecting and embracing differences and acting against bias and unfairness. Anti-bias teaching requires critical thinking and problem solving by both children and adults. The overarching goal is creating a climate of positive self and group identity development, through which every child will achieve her or his fullest potential.

The book, Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves, by Louise Derman-Sparks and Julie Olsen Edwards, offers practical guidance to early childhood educators (including parents) for confronting and eliminating barriers of prejudice, misinformation, and bias about specific aspects of personal and social identity; most importantly, it includes tips for adults and children to respect each other, themselves, and all people. Below you will find recommended books for young children, teachers, and parents for each chapter as well as additional resources on anti-bias themes and topics.

Readers may also be interested in Freedom Reads: Anti-Bias Book Talk, our new video series for parents, caregivers, and educators, available at SocialJusticeBooks.org.

Books

Recommended booklists that accompany the best selling NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children) publication Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves.

Film

" Reflecting on Anti-Bias Education in the Early Years " is available for educators to stream for free. This 48-minute film is produced with the guidance of Louise Derman-Sparks, this resource offers the four interrelated goals of anti-bias education, along with a viewer guidebook. The film shifts the focus away from the talking heads of experts and on to the voices of teachers committed to equity on a daily basis. By taking viewers into diverse early childhood classrooms, the film seeks to demonstrate the importance of teacher reflection on identity, context, and practice in anti-bias education and provides a much-needed resource for teacher education and professional development.

In addition, a 1990 companion film to the book Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves is available for free viewing on Youtube.

Articles

Article Collections
Available in English and Spanish
DC Educators for Social Justice

Teaching for Change has an initiative to help build and nurture a network of social justice educators in the D.C. metro area. Teachers in the D.C. Metro area are welcome to apply to join the Anti-Bias Early Childhood Working Group. Learn more.

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Anti-Bias Education - Teaching for Change

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Anti-bias curriculum is an approach to early childhood education that sets forth values-based principles and methodology in support of respecting and embracing differences and acting against bias and unfairness. Anti-bias teaching requires critical thinking and problem solving by both children and adults. The overarching goal is creating a climate of positive self and group identity ...

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This website shares a bunch of resources including books and videos that support anti-biases. They respect and embrace differences and acting against bias and unfairness.

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NAEYC's website gives 5 tips for engaging multilingual children in conversation. Being able to respond to children's multilingual lets families know that diversity is a priority in the classroom.

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Having conversations with children who are learning English in addition to their home languages-referred to in this article as multilingual children -is an essential skill for early childhood educators. Such engagement has implications for multilingual children's developing identities as valued and knowledgeable members of their communities as well as for their language learning. Discussions between educators and children have been shown to facilitate language learning by providing children with models for use of language and responsive communication and by offering teachers frequent opportunities to check for comprehension (e.g., Mashburn et al. 2008; Ruston & Schwanenflugel 2010; Chapman de Sousa 2017). Conversations also contextualize topics, making topics relevant to multilingual children and potentially motivating them to practice using their new language just beyond their independent level-a practice that facilitates language development (Swain 2005).

Instructional conversations, which are small group discussions among children and teachers that focus on a learning goal (Tharp & Entz 2003), promote the language development of multilingual children (Institute of Educational Sciences 2006; Portes et al. 2017). Yet, to be effective, these conversations must engage multilingual children as active participants. Unfortunately, research indicates that in preschool classrooms serving culturally and linguistically diverse learners, interactions between educators and children are often in the form of giving and receiving directions, with limited opportunities for children to practice producing multiword sentences (Justice et al. 2008). Multilingual students who attended public schools in the United States have reported feeling "tongue-tied" and "silenced" (Santa Ana 2004). Early childhood educators can address these concerns by using pedagogy that facilitates and values all children's contributions and voices.

As an instructional coach, I have often been asked for tips on encouraging multilingual children to join classroom conversations. In this article, I offer five strategies that take into account the unique aspects of learning an additional language and capitalize on the social and interactive nature of early childhood classrooms: use children's home languages as a resource; pair conversations with joint activities; coparticipate in activities; use small groups; and respond to children's contributions.

The research behind these tips is grounded in the work of the Center for Research on Education, Diversity, and Excellence (CREDE). Instructional conversations are a central aspect of the CREDE pedagogy, which has been shown to promote diverse learners' academic achievement (Tharp 1982; Hilberg, Tharp, & DeGeest 2000; Doherty et al. 2003; Portes et al. 2017). This model emphasizes building relationships, and it supports teachers in helping children develop their complex thinking (Yamauchi et al. 2012) as well as their language and literacy skills (Saunders & Goldenberg 2007; Chapman de Sousa 2017).

The CREDE Hawaiʻi project partnered with the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Children's Center, a culturally and linguistically diverse preschool on O'ahu. Administrators and teachers at the center helped refine the CREDE model for teaching in early childhood (for a full description, see Yamauchi, Im, & Schonleber 2012). The center serves an international community whose members speak over 30 distinct languages. While the primary language of instruction is English, the educators encourage inclusion of Hawaiian and the children's various home languages. The following engagement ideas include examples from observing and interviewing educators who have developed expertise in engaging diverse and multilingual children.

1. Use children's home languages as a resource

Even if you do not speak the home languages of children in your program, you can still include their languages in conversations. Get help from family members by inviting them to come teach you and the class important words; also ask them for recommendations on literature and songs written and recorded in their languages. Additionally, remember that it is always possible to respond to children's communications, regardless of whether or not you speak the same language. You can do so with body language and other ways to communicate, such as using pictures and objects. Responding to children's multilingual contributions sends the message that diversity is valued in your classroom. It shows multilingual children that they have important ideas and questions to contribute, and that all forms of communication are of value.

Responding to children's multilingual contributions sends the message that diversity is valued in your classroom.

To emphasize how deeply connected multilingual children's forms of communication are, scholars have introduced the idea of translanguaging- using children's full language abilities to encourage learning (García & Wei 2014). This is a conscious effort to alter the widespread concept of multilingualism as fluency in separate languages and instead emphasize that multilingual people have "one linguistic repertoire" (García & Wei 2014, 2). For early childhood educators, this concept may help reinforce the importance of encouraging children to communicate using their complete linguistic repertoires, including multimodal communication such as gesturing and drawing.

If you or other educators at your center speak additional languages, use those as another resource for creating a classroom ecology that celebrates diverse contributions. During my classroom observations in the center, I saw several examples of teachers capitalizing on their own and children's multilingualism during instructional conversations. The children consistently responded with increased engagement.

During one observation, Kisho, a 4-year-old boy who had recently moved with his family from Japan to Hawaiʻi, was painting using mashed-up berries with his teacher, Ms. Rheta, and 4-year-old Cody. Speaking Japanese, Kisho asked things like, "What is in here?," while pointing at the berry dye, and "Can you eat it?" Ms. Rheta, who understood Japanese, answered his questions in English and Japanese while also gesturing, pointing, and showing pictures on her camera. Later, Cody said, "Don't eat" and repeated the Japanese word for "can't eat" that Kisho had used.

This example shows how inclusive practices can benefit multilingual children and their peers: multilingual children have expanded opportunities to engage in learning, and peers discover there are numerous ways of describing the world. As was the case with Cody, peers are often are excited to hear and learn new words. The translanguaging during their conversation created opportunities for conceptual and linguistic development for both children-but they were particularly important for Kisho. Kisho could ask questions in his home language and engage with the nature and art concepts long before he became proficient in English. His engagement increased, and he heard new vocabulary being used in a meaningful way. Ms. Kristi, another educator at the center, said that translanguaging "helps children be part of the group, and it helps them feel knowledgeable . . . so they can share a piece of themselves and the others can learn from them. It brings up their esteem."

2. Pair conversations with joint activities

There are several reasons why joint activities in small groups promote conversation: a shared activity gives participants a common subject to talk about; the tools or props related to the activity can aid in communication; and educators can tailor the activity and, based on the interests of the children participating, guide the conversation, thereby increasing the children's motivation and the likelihood that they will share their ideas. Such learning, paired with activities, is a central component of the CREDE framework for instruction (Tharp & Entz 2003; Yamauchi, Im, & Schonleber 2012).

Ms. Alyson and children having a conversation as they make
bread pudding together.

The educators I observed consistently used relevant and meaningful objects-such as paintbrushes, puppets, spoons, and pictures-when they invited multilingual children to join activities. While pointing to or holding up an object, teachers often coupled an invitation with a question. During the activity, the children could see the topic of conversation and could contribute nonverbally by pointing to or moving the object (instead of trying to rely solely on words). This supported the children's participation and conceptual development, and their motivation to communicate and complete the task. Because there were multiple members in the group working together, communication was required to accomplish the goals of the activity.

A child pours ingredients to
make bread pudding with his
classmates.

Examples of activities I observed included jointly painting fabric, preparing food and cooking, and acting out pictures from a multilingual text. These types of conversations with activities supported by relevant objects have been shown to facilitate children's comprehension and engagement (Hamilton 2014; DiGiacomo & Gutiérrez 2016).

Relationships with family members are fundamental to the Children's Center's philosophy. Educators welcome family members to join classroom activities. The small group format lends itself to having family volunteers in class, sharing their expertise and aspects of their linguistic and cultural backgrounds. For example, during a multilingual book reading activity I observed, Ms. Kristi asked a child whose family was from Argentina how to say crab in Spanish. The child paused to remember, and Ms. Kristi suggested, pointing, "Ask your mom. She is right there." The child looked to her mom, who said, " Cangrejo," and the child repeated cangrejo, smiling and adding, "I have that music," referring to a song they listened to at home.

3. Coparticipate in activities

The educators participated in activities with the children for an extended period of time (15 minutes or longer). Coparticipating enabled the teachers to provide ongoing and responsive assistance as compared with briefly visiting groups while rotating around the classroom or engaging children in a whole group setting. Joining the activities increases opportunities for educators and children to provide feedback to one another, which is essential to the learning process (DiGiacomo & Gutiérrez 2016). Educators can listen to, assess, and assist children's developing conceptual and linguistic understandings. For example, I observed Ms. WenDee working with a small group of 2-year-olds to make pretzels. A multilingual child in the group confused the words for flour and sugar. In response, Ms. WenDee paused the mixing activity to have the children taste both ingredients and discuss the substances' similarities and differences.

Children's responses when teachers paint, draw, or cook along with them can be surprising. Coparticipating in activities with children naturally leads to modeling. It encourages more participation and helps teachers ask more open-ended and contextualized questions than when overseeing from the sidelines or just dropping in to ask questions. Multilingual children tend to watch their teachers and peers for nonverbal cues about what they are supposed to be doing and saying.

Coparticipating in activities with children encourages more participation and helps teachers ask more open-ended and contextualized questions.

When teachers and multilingual children coconstruct a product, they often also coconstruct a conversation. Such interaction constitutes "language learning in progress" (Swain 2013, 6). Collaborating on a joint product requires the contributors to discuss the steps using all of their language resources to negotiate meaning and arrive at mutual understanding. For example, a reoccurring joint activity at the Center is removing worm castings (to be used later in a classroom garden) from a composting bin. The activity requires separating the worms from the castings and then replacing the worms in the bin with fresh newspaper. I observed Mr. Raymond collaborate on this task with three 4-year-old children. Mr. Raymond started the activity by putting on plastic gloves and laying out newspaper. As he worked, three children came to observe him, and he invited them to help. They put on plastic gloves and listened attentively as Mr. Raymond described how to handle the worms gently and put them back in the bin with moist paper. While the children worked, they asked questions about the worms' habitat, the moistness of the paper, and how to care for living things. By being a part of the action instead of just observing from the sidelines, educators can serve as a bridge to the activity for multilingual children and promote their interaction with other children.

4. Use small groups

Encourage other children to join in activities, but limit group sizes to no more than six. Small group settings help make an activity more conversational, relieving some of the performance pressure children may feel when in a whole group setting or one-on-one with an educator. Also, peer modeling and support can promote multilingual children's language development and engagement (Ohta 2000). In the painting interaction described previously, Cody provided conceptual assistance to Kisho by making statements like, "That's how you dye colors." Small groups encourage multilingual children to take risks, such as verbalizing more often and asking questions, as was the case with Kisho while painting with Cody and Ms. Rheta. Language is learned through use, so children need ample opportunities to practice speaking and negotiating meaning (Gibbons 2015). Kisho was motivated to ask questions and to talk about the berries the dye was made from because he was curious and wanted to know if they were edible. He was comfortable verbalizing in this setting, and the group size allowed Ms. Rheta time to hear and respond to his questions. Multilingual children are likely to watch how you interact with others, and your responsiveness can help them feel valued.

Consider the seating arrangement when designing small group activities. Experiment with different arrangements and notice how the children respond. Some may contribute more to the conversation when they are right next to you. Other children may prefer direct eye contact from you to cue them to contribute, so having them across from you may promote their participation. Things like culture, family norms, personal preferences, and gender can influence how children engage in conversation. This is a great time to be a teacher-researcher and notice ways you can adjust the seating to encourage multilingual children's engagement.

At the center, the children are free to join and leave small group activities as they wish; however, the teachers will invite some children to join groups based on the teachers' learning goals. For example, it may be advantageous to have multiple children in the group who speak the same home language so they can support one another's conceptual understanding through use of their familiar language. At other times, it may be helpful to include peers with more advanced English.

All of the educators I interviewed emphasized the importance of establishing classroom values with the children at the beginning of the year that are reinforced daily. These values emphasize helping one another, accepting mistakes, and being kind. The educators embody respect through their use of an inclusive pedagogy that actively elicits children's contributions and builds on their interests and backgrounds; this promotes positive interactions and respectful behavior from the children.

5. Respond to children's contributions

The educators at the center were masterful at responding to the multilingual children's attempts to communicate. The table below summarizes the verbal and nonverbal responses to the children that teachers used frequently.

Responding to children's contributions promotes engagement and learning. For example, recasting during educator-child interactions can benefit multilingual children's language learning (Tsybina et al. 2006). During a pretzel-making activity, Dominic said as he rolled out his pretzel dough, "I rolling round." Ms. WenDee responded by recasting his comment as a question, "Are you rolling it?" That was helpful because it modeled a grammatically correct question; an even more helpful recasting would have also included the vocabulary word dough, as in "Are you rolling the dough?" Ms. WenDee also mirrored the children's gestures, communicating a shared understanding of the concepts in a nonverbal way. At one point, Dominic was counting the three ingredients on his hand; Ms. WenDee mirrored the gesture by holding up the same three fingers, touching them to the child's, and saying, "I have the same as you."

"Language learning is not just a cognitive struggle, it is a cognitive and emotional struggle" (Swain 2013, 11). Being responsive ensures that teachers build on children's thinking and communicates that the teachers value children's ideas, questions, and concerns. One way to study your responsiveness to multilingual children, including how you are communicating verbally and nonverbally, is to have a colleague videotape your interactions. Notice your facial expressions, gestures, eye contact, and tone of voice as you engage with the multilingual children.

Multilingual families and children should have opportunities to serve as experts and contribute to all of the children's learning.

Responding to the children's comments, questions, and body language (such as puzzled looks or gestures) will enable you to make links between the activity and what was interesting to the children. Being responsive helps make instruction relevant and meaningful. For example, during the painting activity referenced earlier, Kisho asked Ms. Rheta, "Kore nani ireta?," which means "What did you put in this?," regarding the paint. Ms. Rheta stopped and responded by gesturing and repeating the word "berries." She then elaborated, gesturing in a picking motion while telling Kisho that a group of children picked the berries from a nearby tree. Ms. Rheta brought out her camera and showed Kisho photos from the berry picking to support his understanding. During our interview, Ms. Rheta told me that the learning goal for the activity was to help the children understand how certain things, like dye, can come directly from nature. Ms. Rheta responsively used Kisho's questions as an opportunity to address the learning goal.

Conclusion

Research and observations of effective educators indicate that coparticipating with multilingual children in small group conversations centered on a joint activity, responding verbally and nonverbally to children's contributions, and using the children's home languages as a tool for understanding are ways to promote their engagement and learning. Instructional conversations give multilingual children opportunities to share their expertise and thoughts, promoting language development (Institute of Educational Sciences 2006; Chapman de Sousa 2017; Portes et al. 2017). Central to these strategies is creating opportunities for children to speak and share their ideas, solve problems together, and value diversity.

Bonus Strategy: Engaging Multilingual Families

To encourage the engagement of families from diverse backgrounds, educators at the center conduct home visits and have meetings with family members throughout the year. The initial family meeting is essential to relationship building. Educators ask important questions about the children and their preferences, and learn key words in the children's home languages. From that first meeting onward, the center communicates to families that family members have expertise and that the program welcomes their contributions. Teachers use families' unique knowledge and skills to develop the curriculum for the year. In addition to issuing in-person invitations, teachers send notes home asking families to come into the classroom and host activities.

During one of my visits, Ms. Amy, an educator at the center who worked with 2-year-olds, was having a conversation about butterflies with several multilingual children. She reminded a child that her mom would be coming into classroom to teach them songs in Japanese about butterflies. The child then said in English, "Mom is gonna bring us a song about butterflies," an important multiword utterance for a 2-year-old who is just starting to learn English.

This type of meaningful engagement of families from diverse backgrounds has been shown to positively influence educational outcomes (O'Donnell & Kirkner 2014). Effective engagement efforts go beyond the traditional methods of having back-to-school nights and communicating only during parent-teacher conferences or when a behavior issue arises. At the center, multilingual families and children have opportunities to serve as experts and contribute to all of the children's learning.

References

Chapman de Sousa, E.B. 2017. "Promoting the Contributions of Multilingual Preschoolers." Linguistics and Education 39: 1-13.

DiGiacomo, D.K., & K.D. Gutiérrez. 2016. "Relational Equity as a Design Tool within Making and Tinkering Activities." Mind, Culture, and Activity 23 (2): 141-53.

Doherty, R.W., R.S. Hilberg, A. Pinal, & R.G. Tharp. 2003. "Five Standards and Student Achievement." NABE Journal of Research and Practice 1 (1): 1-24.

García, O., & L. Wei. 2014. Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Gibbons, P. 2015. Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning: Teaching Second Language Learners in the Mainstream Classroom. 2nd ed. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Hamilton, R. 2014. "Bedtime Stories in English: Field-Testing Comprehensible Input Materials for Natural Second-Language Acquisition in Japanese Pre-School Children." Journal of International Education Research 10 (3): 249-54.

Hilberg, R.S., R.G. Tharp, & L. DeGeest. 2000. "The Efficacy of CREDE's Standards-Based Instruction in American Indian Mathematics Classes." Equity and Excellence in Education
33 (2): 32-40.

Institute of Educational Sciences. 2006. "Instructional Conversation and Literature Logs." What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Intervention Report. Rockville, MD: WWC. https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/Docs/InterventionReports/WWC_ICLL_102606.pdf.

Justice, L.M., A.J. Mashburn, B.K. Hamre, & R.C. Pianta. 2008. "Quality of Language and Literacy Instruction in Preschool Classrooms Serving At-Risk Pupils." Early Childhood Research Quarterly 23 (1): 51-68.

Mashburn, A.J., R.C. Pianta, B.K. Hamre, R.T. Downer, O.A. Barbarin, D. Bryant, M. Burchinal, R. Clifford, D.M. Early, & C. Howes. 2008. "Measures of Classroom Quality in Prekindergarten and Children's Development of Academic, Language, and Social Skills." Child Development 79 (3): 732-49.

O'Donnell, J., & S.L. Kirkner. 2014. "The Impact of a Collaborative Family Involvement Program on Latino Families and Children's Educational Performance." School Community Journal 24 (1): 211-34.

Ohta, A.S. 2000. "Rethinking Interaction in SLA: Developmentally Appropriate Assistance in the Zone of Proximal Development and the Acquisition of L2 Grammar." Chap. 2 in Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning, ed. J.P. Lantolf, 51-78. New York: Oxford University Press.

Portes, P.R., M. González Canché, D. Boada, & M.E. Whatley. 2017. "Early Evaluation Findings from the Instructional Conversation Study: Culturally Responsive Teaching Outcomes for Diverse Learners in Elementary School." American Educational Research Journal 55 (3): 488-531.

Ruston, H., & P.J. Schwanenflugel. 2010. "Effects of a Conversation Intervention on the Expressive Vocabulary Development of Prekindergarten Children." Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 41 (3): 303-13.

Santa Ana, O. 2004. Tongue-Tied: The Lives of Multilingual Children in Public Education. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Saunders, W., & C. Goldenberg. 2007. "The Effects of an Instructional Conversation on English Language Learners' Concepts of Friendship and Story Comprehension." In Talking Text: How Speech and Writing Interact in School Learning, ed.R. Horowitz, 221-52. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Swain, M. 2005. "The Output Hypothesis: Theory and Research." In Handbook of Research in Second Language Teaching and Learning, ed.E. Hinkel, 471-84. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Swain, M. 2013. "The Inseparability of Cognition and Emotion in Second Language Learning." Language Teaching 46 (2): 195-207.

Tharp, R. 1982. "The Effective Instruction of Comprehension: Results and Description of the Kamehameha Early Education Program." Reading Research Quarterly 17 (4): 503-27.

Tharp, R., & S. Entz. 2003. "From High Chair to High School: Research-Based Principles for Teaching Complex Thinking." Young Children 58 (5): 38-44.

Tsybina, I., L.E. Girolametto, E. Weitzman, & J. Greenberg. 2006. "Recasts Used with Preschoolers Learning English as Their Second Language." Early Childhood Education Journal 34(2): 177-85.

Yamauchi, L.A., S. Im, & N.S. Schonleber. 2012. "Adapting Strategies of Effective Instruction for Culturally Diverse Preschoolers." Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education 33 (1):54-72.

Yamauchi, L.A., S. Im, C.-J. Lin, & N.S. Schonleber. 2012. "The Influence of Professional Development on Changes in Educators' Facilitation of Complex Thinking in Preschool Classrooms." Early Child Development and Care 183 (5): 689-706.

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Five Tips for Engaging Multilingual Children in Conversation

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In this article, I offer five strategies that take into account the unique aspects of learning an additional language and capitalize on the social and interactive nature of early childhood classrooms.

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This resource gives information about how to create an all-inclusive environment for diverse families and the meaning of inclusion.

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Reihonna L. Frost and Abbie E. Goldberg, Clark University
Abstract Early childhood education is a time when children and their parents are learning about their roles in a school. This makes early childhood education a crucial time for developing strong parent-school relationships with diverse families including LGBTQ parents, adoptive families, and multiracial families. This article gives specific, concrete suggestions about how to build and maintain a welcoming, representative, and inclusive environment for diverse families in schools.
As families in America become increasingly diverse, professionals working with children and families must expand their knowledge, practices, and policies in order to sensitively and effectively meet their needs. In particular, families with sexual minority parents, families built through adoption, and multiracial families have increased in prevalence. An estimated 3 million Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) adults in the United States have children (Gates, 2013); more than 2 million children in the United States are adopted and, of those children, approximately 25% have parents who are of different races than they are (Kreider & Lofquist, 2014). Further, many families can hold two or more of these identities (e.g., a two-mom transracially adoptive family). When considering ways to create an inclusive environment for families, it is important to consider their unique set of identities.

Elements of an Inclusive Environment

Creating a welcoming school or early childhood education (ECE) environment for all families is important because the climate of a program will impact parents' sense of connection to the setting. Parents who are more connected to the program or school are more engaged in their child's experience, which has positive implications for children's academic functioning and social integration (Galindo & Sheldon, 2012). Further, parents' early experiences with educational settings shape their understanding of and expectations for schooling throughout their child's academic career (Galindo & Sheldon, 2012; Kosciw & Diaz, 2008). Therefore, early childhood educators are uniquely situated to help families integrate into early education communities and prepare to partner with their children for a lifetime of academic success.

Further, the degree to which parents and students feel accepted at a child's school has consistently been linked to children's sense of belonging at school, self-esteem, well-being, and mental health (Slaten, Ferguson, Allen, Brodrick, & Waters, 2016). Taken together, providing a welcoming, inclusive environment for children in their early education can impact their well-being and learning in the present and future.

Research with adoptive families of diverse sexual orientations and racial identities has identified the ways that ECE programs are and are not supportive. These broad areas of support fall into three domains: welcoming environment, representation of families like theirs, and meaningful inclusion of their families.

Welcoming Environment

Everyone wants to feel welcomed in the environments they spend time in. Parents and families feel welcomed when ECE programs, personnel, and other parents communicate appreciation for their presence and enthusiasm about supporting them and their needs.

Example: One lesbian adoptive mother described feeling welcomed by her child's ECE based on the ECE's response to her explaining their family situation, "The counselor said it was becoming more common, which was the perfect thing to say." Here, the counselor communicated comfort with their family structure and willingness to support the family's needs (Goldberg, Black, Sweeney, & Moyer, 2017).

Seeing one's family reflected in a child's ECE program is important for families and children. This includes families like theirs being referred to in classroom language, materials, and curriculum, and seeing their identities mirrored in staff members and other parents.

Example: Several families described ways that their family was represented in the classroom activities and materials. One family that had adopted a child from China described how the ECE was inclusive of their child's culture like this: "We have felt very accepted and it is very inclusive in general. The teacher incorporated Chinese New Year activities and books" (Goldberg, 2014). In addition, several LGBTQ parents described activities around LGBT Pride month that included coloring rainbow flags while talking about "the history and importance of the rainbow flag" (Goldberg, Black et al., 2017).

Meaningful Inclusion

Beyond just feeling welcomed, diverse families thrive when they have opportunities to engage with a program in a substantive way. This can include having events in the school that are truly applicable for their families and being encouraged to participate in parenting groups and activities.

Example: A lesbian adoptive mother recounted a time that her daughter's teacher seamlessly incorporated her daughter's adoptive experience into circle time. "When another student ... said that he celebrates his adoption day, and the teacher said, 'Does anybody else celebrate that?' and [daughter] raised her hand, and the teacher said 'Would you like to explain it, or do you want your mom to explain it?' and [daughter] said 'Neither.' " Here, the daughter was given an opportunity to be meaningfully involved in sharing her experience, but she was also allowed to decide not to, depending on her comfort level (Goldberg, Black et al., 2017).

Keeping these three domains in mind, we will now use research to explore the needs of LGBTQ, adoptive, and multiracial families in early childhood settings. Specifically, when discussing ECE, parents identify needs at three main levels: the administrative level, the classroom level, and the community level. The following sections will explore how schools can improve to be more welcoming, inclusive, and diverse at each level of the school system.

Administrative Level

The administrative level refers to the ways schools or programs are organized and operated outside of the specific classroom. These areas can include advertising and admissions procedures, enrollment and classroom assignments, and communications.

Same-sex parents have reported that they prioritize LGBTQ-friendliness when selecting preschools (Goldberg & Smith, 2014). They assess LGBTQ-friendliness of a school using a variety of factors including the school's reputation in the community and the ways that school personnel respond to them during tours or visits (Goldberg, 2014; Kosciw & Diaz, 2008). Similarly, multiracial families have reported seeking out schools that actively and positively welcome racial minorities (Goldberg, 2014; Goldberg & Smith, 2014). Prospective student tours and interviews communicate important information to parents. Some parents find school administrators warm and enthusiastic about hearing about a specific family's structure while others find that administrators seem awkward, dismissive, or uncomfortable. Parents report feeling welcome when administrators engaged their questions openly and demonstrated an understanding of the parents' concerns, even when their answers were less than ideal (e.g., when acknowledging that the school did not have other families similar to this one; Goldberg, Allen, Black, Frost & Manley, 2018). When parents feel welcome, they are more likely to attend and also to feel good about attending a particular school or program.

Welcoming environment.

Are all staff members open, affirming, and trained in diversity issues? Is diversity conceptualized in meaningful, specific ways including thinking about families with multiple minority identities and differing family configurations?

Representation of families.

Are different types of families represented in materials?

Is the classroom made up of diverse staff?

Meaningful inclusion.

Do assignments account for differences among families?

Are activities organized in the classroom applicable to all families? Do special "accommodations" need to be made? Do parents need to reach out to ask for an accommodation? Did teachers plan for this and make the activity inclusive?

Can the structures for parents' participation work for all families?

Example: Joe and Carissa are a White heterosexual couple who adopted their White 3-year-old son, Jacob, through foster care. Jacob was 2 years old when he joined the family. Jacob's teacher sent home an assignment asking Jacob to bring in a picture from the day he was born, from when he was 1-year-old, and from when he was 2-years old. Jacob's parents do not have photos from those years of his life and cannot complete the assignment. Even though Jacob's teacher knows that he is adopted, he did not include an adapted assignment for him. This creates unnecessary stress for Jacob's parents and potentially prompts difficult conversations with Jacob around his adoption-related loss. What could Jacob's teacher have done differently to be inclusive of Jacob's family? How should Jacob's parents address their concerns?

Community Level

The community level refers to the interactions that occur between members of the school community in and outside of the classroom. This level includes interactions between parents at the school and interactions at school community events like fundraisers or family gatherings.

LGBTQ, adoptive, and multiracial families particularly emphasized the ways that their minority statuses make it difficult to join the school community in ECE settings. Specifically, parents described the difficulty of being the first and/or only family like theirs in a school and the ways that this limits their ability to befriend other parents and to join in on parenting activities (Goldberg, 2014; Goldberg, Frost, Manley, & Black, 2017; Kosciw & Diaz, 2008). At the same time, parents emphasized that they were not always sure which parents from their children's schools would be welcoming to a family like theirs. While program administrators cannot be expected to manage social interactions among parents, these specific concerns help to emphasize the importance of building a diverse school community that provides safe, supportive environments in which to connect.

Welcoming environment.

Is there a welcoming environment among parents?

Does your school have procedures for encouraging inclusion and discouraging exclusion of parents based on identities?

Representation.

Are there diverse families in the community?

Do you have families who are the only family like them? How can you reach out to them and help them connect?

Meaningful inclusion.

Are events organized in ways that are accessible and comfortable for different types of families? Are all genders welcome to participate? What assumptions or stereotypes about the parents or guardians might your program be inadvertently promoting?

Example: Zach and Sam are a White gay couple who adopted their daughter, Jessica, through private domestic adoption. Jessica's new early childhood center is having a "Craft Night" for parents to meet each other. Zach attends the event while Sam is home with Jessica. When Zach arrives, he is the only man at the event. The supplies are for making necklaces and there is a wide selection of charms that say "Mom." Without any "Dad" charms, Zach decides to make a "Mom" necklace for Jessica's birth mother. Throughout the event the moms talk to each other, but no one seems to be interested in Zach. When a woman does come over to introduce herself she says, "We've never had a man at this event before! Is your wife sick or something?" What could be different about this event that would make it more welcoming and inclusive? What factors made this situation difficult?

Conclusion

ECE professionals have an opportunity to engage with an increasingly diverse population of parents and families. How they do this can fundamentally shape how parents and families will interact with schools throughout the child's academic career. This means that early childhood educators should work diligently to build programs that are welcoming and inclusive for all family types. In this article we outlined the ways that professionals can focus on developing an inclusive environment at multiple levels within their school settings. We further gave guidelines around thinking beyond being welcoming to encourage professionals to think about how different types of families are and are not represented in their policies, staff, and curriculum and how programs can be built to meaningfully include families of all kinds. Taken together, it is clear that there are many ways for school administrators to develop and maintain a school that is welcoming and inclusive for diverse families. While parents in current research identified a variety of challenges in these areas, they were also quick to enumerate successes that should encourage administrators to strive to expand these gains.

Successful Example: Stacey and Janell are an African American lesbian couple who adopted their African American son, Alex, from foster care. Alex is 3 years old and has attended an ECE program for the past 6 months. The staff have noticed that children in the class have been playing frequently in the playhouse corner and that disagreements have come up around which people can be "in a family." The staff asked all families to send in pictures and notes about who the people in their family are and some things they do with their family. Stacey and Janell appreciated how open the assignment was and enjoyed working with Alex to identify who their family members were. They included a picture of Stacey, Janell, and Alex together and also included a picture of Alex's birth grandmother from his birthday party. Alex also asked to draw a picture of his birth brother who lives far away. Stacey and Janell were nervous that the ECE staff would not understand their family structure and asked to speak with staff about the activity. To their delight, the staff were excited to discuss the material with them. The staff asked for clarification around how to best talk about the birth brother and birth grandmother and demonstrated that they remembered that Alex called Stacey "Mommy" and Janell "Mama." Further, the staff offered that Stacey or Janell could come to class on the day of the activity if they wanted to participate in the discussion and expressed enthusiasm for what they could contribute. Janell agreed to take a few hours off of work that morning to have a fun conversation about families with Alex's class. How did the ECE staff demonstrate a welcoming attitude toward different types of families? How did this activity allow for different family configurations to be represented? How did ECE staff provide opportunities for meaningful inclusion?

Authors

Reihonna L. Frost, MA, is a doctoral student in clinical psychology at Clark University. Her research interests are united by the basic question, "What works in adoption?" She is curious about what it means to be an adoptive family and how adoption experiences differ for diverse families. She is also interested in child development within the context of the adoptive family. She is particularly interested in questions around adoptive siblinghood and sibling groups in foster care and adoption. She has co-authored several papers on diverse adoptive families and their experiences with friends, family, communities, and schools. Her master's thesis focused on the second transition to parenthood for adoptive families.

Abbie E. Goldberg, PhD, is a professor of clinical psychology at Clark University. Her research focuses on diverse individuals and families, with attention to their experiences in various social contexts (e.g., schools, communities, the legal system). For more than a decade, she has been conducting a longitudinal study of adoptive parenthood among lesbian, gay, and heterosexual couples. She is also currently conducting research on transgender students' experiences in higher education. She is the author of more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and two books, and the editor of three books. She has received funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Spencer Foundation, the Williams Institute, and other sources.

Suggested Citation

Frost, R. L., & Goldberg, A. E. (2019). The ABCs of diversity and inclusion: Developing an inclusive environment for diverse families in early childhood education. ZERO TO THREE Journal, 39(3), 36-41.

References

Galindo, C., & Sheldon, S. (2012). School and home connections and children's kindergarten achievement gains: The mediating role of family involvement. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 12, 90-103.

Gates, G. (2013). LGBT parenting in the United States.

Goldberg, A. E. (2014). Lesbian, gay, and heterosexual adoptive parents' experiences in preschool environments. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 29, 669-681.

Goldberg, A. E., Allen, K. R., Black, K., Frost, R. L., & Manley, M. (2018). "There is no perfect school...": The complexity of school decision-making among lesbian and gay adoptive parents. Journal of Marriage & Family. 80(3), 684-703. doi:10.1111/jomf.12478

Goldberg, A. E., Black, K., Sweeney, K., & Moyer, A. (2017). Lesbian, gay, and heterosexual adoptive parents' perceptions of inclusivity and receptiveness in early childhood education settings. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 31, 141-159.

Goldberg, A. E., Frost, R., Manley, M., & Black, K. (2017). Meeting other moms: Lesbian adoptive mothers' relationships with other parents at school and beyond. Journal of Lesbian Studies, 22(1), 67-84.

Goldberg, A. E., & Smith, J. Z. (2014). Preschool selection considerations and experiences of school mistreatment among lesbian, gay, and heterosexual adoptive parents. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 29, 64-75.

Kosciw, J. G., & Diaz, E. M. (2008). Involved, invisible, ignored: The experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender parents and their children in our nation's K-12 schools. New York, NY: Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network.

Kreider, R. M., & Lofquist, D. A. (2014). Adopted children and stepchildren: 2010, Current Population Reports, P20-572. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau.

Slaten, C. D., Ferguson, J. K., Allen, K. A., Brodrick, D. V., & Waters, L. (2016). School belonging: A review of the history, current trends, and future directions. The Educational and Developmental Psychologist, 33(1), 1-15.

Welcoming Schools. (2018). Diverse families on Mother's Day and Father's Day.

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The ABCs of Diversity and Inclusion: Developing an Inclusive Environment for Diverse Families in Early Childhood Education

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Reihonna L. Frost and Abbie E. Goldberg, Clark University

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The MISD is a great local resource. It serves all public school districts in Macomb County, MI. It provides support services to all students.

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Upcoming Events & Calendar

The Great Start Readiness Program (GSRP) is Michigan's state-funded preschool for four-year-old children. Make Macomb Schools your home. Call 586-228-3468

Target Audience: General Community, Non Clinicians Mental Health First Aid is a course that teaches you how to identify, understand, and respond to signs of mental illnesses and substance use disorders.

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The Great Start Readiness Program (GSRP) is Michigan's state-funded preschool for four-year-old children. Make Macomb Schools your home. Call 586-228-3468 Target Audience: General Community, Non Clinicians Mental Health First Aid is a course that teaches you how to identify, understand, and respond to signs of mental illnesses and substance use disorders.