蜜桃影视

Top Takeaways is a series of recaps from important conversations, town halls, webinars and virtual events about early learning.

Early Learning Nation covered the recent ZERO TO THREE virtual conference. One of its highlights of this year鈥檚 conference was the issue-intensive session titled Infants and Toddlers Face Racism, Too: Science, Practice, and Policy. To judge from the lively stream of comments in the Zoom chat, the conversation provoked a great deal of reflection.

Kandace Thomas, executive director of , moderated, introducing the topic of historical trauma and its meaning for child development. Here are our takeaways:

1. Culture is part of human systems. Cynthia Garc铆a Coll (formerly Brown University, University of Puerto Rico) began by citing a that declared, “Science has a racism problem. And it is not limited to scientific discoveries and their attendant usage. The scientific establishment, scientific education and the metrics used to define scientific success have a racism problem as well.”

Professor Coll noted that the vast majority of social science studies focus on so-called WEIRD (White Educated Industrialized Rich Democratic) subjects, even though they account for just 12% of the world鈥檚 population. Her remarks traced the history of the science of child development, moving rapidly from Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud through Arnold Gesell, Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky and Urie Bronfenbrenner. Despite the efforts of these thinkers to put a scientific gloss on their cultural biases, she said, 鈥淣ot all stages are universal. Poverty and racism matter.鈥� For Professor Coll, is worth considering:

In our model, culture has the role of defining and organizing microsystems and therefore becomes part of the central processes of human development. Culture is an ever-changing system composed of the daily practices of social communities (families, schools, neighborhoods, etc.) and the interpretation of those practices through language and communication. It also comprises tools and signs that are part of the historical legacy of those communities, and thus diversity is an integral part of the child鈥檚 microsystems, leading to culturally defined acceptable developmental processes and outcomes.

2. Race is different from culture. Marva Lewis from Tulane University cited the : A system in which public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations and other norms work in various, often reinforcing ways to perpetuate racial group inequity. It identifies dimensions of our history and culture that have allowed privileges associated with 鈥渨hiteness鈥� and disadvantages associated with 鈥渃olor鈥� to endure and adapt over time. Structural racism is not something that a few people or institutions choose to practice. Instead it has been a feature of the social, economic and political systems in which we all exist.

Professor Lewis summarized her on how 鈥渉air combing interaction鈥� plays a key role in establishing secure attachments for African American children. These brief encounters facilitate such core parenting behaviors as positive verbal interaction, loving touch and responsive listening. Playing off of Selma Fraiburg鈥檚 classic 1975 study Ghosts in the Nursery, she said this approach addressed nappy haired ghosts in the nursery.

Professor Lewis urged early childhood educators and researchers to account for people鈥檚 multiple social identities. Her advice for white professionals: Leverage your privilege in the service of social justice.

3. Diversity must be taught. Kang Lee, of the University of Toronto, presented his finding on how babies perceive race. Presented with photographs showing faces of different races, newborns do not seem to discriminate, but 3-month-old infants show a preference for looking at someone the same color as them.

Professor Lee also chronicled his investigations into 鈥渢hey all look the same鈥� bias鈥攖hat is, difficulty distinguishing between two faces of the same race, but different from the observer鈥攆inding that it starts at about 9 months. The cause, he found, is lack of exposure to individuals of other races. His prescription: increase ecological diversity. Situated in environments where people of different colors are the norm, children will seek out diversity. Situated in a homogenous environment, they are less likely to seek out diversity. He compared it to dietary preferences; given a steady diet of the same flavors, children fail to develop an appetite for new foods. And the same goes for the racial identity of heroes and villains in children鈥檚 literature.

4. It still takes a village. Iheoma Iruka (recently of , currently with the University of North Carolina) introduced us to her RICHER for combating racism:

• Re-educate about history
• Integrate rather than just desegregate
• Critique everything
• Humility of privilege
• Erase racism
• Re-vision new ways, approaches, theories, teams, etc.

Iruka recommended Eddie Moore, Jr.鈥檚 , which has been taken up by numerous United Way chapters to promote steady consumption of books, podcasts and other media to nourish understanding of issues related to power and oppression in our society. The result, she promised, would be 鈥渧illages of protection, affection, correction and connection.鈥�

Afterwards, conference participant Lisa Matter, who runs a professional development initiative for the Colorado Department of Human Services, told me, 鈥淭he session reinforced the urgency of taking part in systemic change alongside advancing the lives of individual children, families and caregivers. Appropriate for a conversation about diversity, it showcased a genuine diversity of perspectives.鈥�

This story originally published on Early Learning Nation and is now archived on 蜜桃影视. Learn more here.