Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/anti-bias-education--a-clarification/5021384/
The article “Care and Education Inspired by Children’s Rights,” in the excellent Focusing on Rights issue of Exchange (July/August 2013), describes the principles of the European network DECET: Diversity in Early Childhood Education & Training. However, the chapter has a significant omission �" the central connection between the work of the DECET partners and anti-bias education in the United States. This box corrects that omission.From its inception, DECET intentionally adopted and adapted the goals of anti-bias education, as first articulated in the NAEYC published Anti-Bias Curriculum: Tools for Empowering Young Children (Derman-Sparks & the ABC Task Force). I have worked with the DECET network as a group and with individual partners from its first originating meeting. In 1996, organized by MUTANT (a Dutch research and consulting organization), and EYTARN (Early Years Trainers Anti-Racist Network, a group in the United Kingdom) and financially supported by the Bernard van Leer Foundation, ECE people from several countries met in The Hague, The Netherlands. The goals of the meeting included sharing the needs and approaches to diversity work in their countries, learning about the anti-bias education approach, and “identifying basic principles that need to be included in all training materials for students and staff working ...