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“Children Have the Fairest Things to Say”: Young Children’s Engagement with Anti-Bias Picture Books

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A Correction to this article was published on 06 June 2022

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Abstract

This qualitative case study investigated how an early childhood teacher and young children in a public White-predominant kindergarten classroom engaged in critical discussions of anti-bias issues including racism, White privilege, gender stereotypes, gender nonconformity, sexism, and homophobia. Through the use of interactive read-alouds using anti-bias picture books, the study’s findings revealed that (a) the children could participate in thoughtful interactions during anti-bias read-aloud sessions and showed their complex understanding of race and gender issues; (b) the children needed substantial support to engage in activism against social injustices; (c) the children displayed a variety of responses to the discussion questions and activities related to gender-themed picture books as most children had difficulties resisting gender binary conceptions and stereotypes while some children, especially boys, were strongly empowered to embrace gender-nonconforming practices; and finally (d) some children internalized and enacted anti-immigrant, anti-Blackness, and racial/gender discriminatory actions to which the early childhood teacher often failed to either disrupt or intervene.

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Notes

  1. The data collection phase of this study was disrupted due to COVID-19 pandemic. Out of 16 planned reading sessions of eight selected picture books, we completed eight reading sessions of four picture books. The reported data were based on the completed reading units.

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  1. Department of Teaching, Curriculum, and Society, Lynch School of Education & Human Development, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA

    Alisha Nguyen

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  1. Alisha Nguyen
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The original online version of this article was revised: the typo in author name in text reference citation Farago et al., 2015 has been corrected.

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Nguyen, A. “Children Have the Fairest Things to Say”: Young Children’s Engagement with Anti-Bias Picture Books. Early Childhood Educ J 50, 743–759 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-021-01186-1

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