THE IMPORTANCE OF ANTI-RACIST EDUCATION IN CHILDHOOD EDUCATION: EARLY GRADES

Abstract

Anti-racist early childhood education requires questioning and addressing multiple factors, including how the early childhood field privileges Eurocentric knowledge and developmental paradigms, and how white privilege and power underpin institutional and administrative practices. In short, anti-racist early childhood education focuses on institutional and individual mechanisms that reify whiteness, limit critical discussions about race and racism, and silence diverse knowledge and experiences. Thus, the main objective of this work is to understand the importance of anti-racist education in early childhood education. By means of a bibliographic review of a documental qualitative nature. It was understood that in order to learn about race, children need time, space, curriculum and support to talk and make sense of what they are seeing and perceiving. It requires teachers to embrace the conversation, even if they feel uncertain or uncomfortable doing so. Teachers should talk about race every day because race exists every day. Children deserve mirrors that reflect themselves and windows to look into other people's experiences. They deserve the opportunity to ask the questions that form in their minds about differences and similarities as they learn to categorize the world around them. One is anti-racist and fights against racism, or is racist by default. Racism is not defined by who you are, but by your actions. It's what you do or don't do that makes you racist.