Anti-Bias Curriculum

Abstract

An anti-bias curriculum is intended to teach acceptance, tolerance and respect for social differences. Some educators call for reform to classroom climate and teaching styles that serve only some groups of students and present barriers for other groups. Diversity advocates believe that transformation in schools is essential for the transformation of society and the elimination of injustice. The article describes a Teacher Action Research (TAR) method to improve practices related to diversity education. The method is both an individual tool that can help classroom teachers reconsider their teaching methods and a community activity that helps teams of educators assess problems in schools, enact changes, and reassess their materials and methodology. Critics of an anti-bias curriculum claim that teachers do not have time to prepare students for standardized tests and also attend to curriculum reform for diversity. Other critics feel that a multicultural curriculum focuses on differences instead commonalities and actually contributes to racism, sexism, heterosexism, and classism.

Overview

The movement to create an anti-bias curriculum is intended to remove prejudices from public education teaching methods and learning materials. This approach—also related to multicultural education, diversity education, and social justice education—is intended to teach children about acceptance, tolerance and respect for social differences. While it incorporates the philosophy of multicultural education, it covers other than racial and ethnic forms of stereotypes, and includes gender, language, religious diversity, sexual orientation, physical and mental disabilities, and economic status (Anti-Defamation League, 1999).

Some educators consider this curriculum reform simply as the addition of new and diverse materials that are more inclusive of groups that have been traditionally underrepresented. Others call for reform to classroom climates and teaching styles that serve some groups and present barriers for others. Some progressive educators focus reform endeavors on institutional issues such as tracking, standardized testing, or funding discrepancies. Other activists insist on education reform measures that lead to a transformation of society (Wilhelm, 1998).

Anti-Bias Ideals. Despite differing views of anti-bias education, Gorski (1995-2008a) lists these shared ideals for those involved in reforming the school curriculum:

• Every student must have an equal opportunity to achieve to her or his full potential;
• Every student must be prepared to competently participate in an increasingly intercultural society;
• Teachers must be prepared to effectively facilitate learning for every individual student, no matter how culturally similar or different from her- or himself; and
• Schools must be active participants in ending oppression of all types, first within their own walls, then by producing socially and critically active and aware students.

Gorski (1995-2008a) prepared a working definition of multicultural education that also applies to anti-bias education. He believes that schools are essential to laying the foundation for the transformation of society and the elimination of injustice. Gorski proposes three strands of transformation to affect social change:

• The transformation of self;
• The transformation of schooling; and
• The transformation of society.

Regarding transformation of self, Gorski (1995-2008a) deems that educators must be in a constant process of self-examination to determine how their own biases and assumptions inform their teaching and thus affect the educational experiences of their students.

Related to the transformation schooling, Gorski proposes a student-centered pedagogy in which all aspects of teaching and learning in schools are refocused from standardized test scores and school rankings. He advises that students be encouraged to think critically about materials and media and consider whose voices they are hearing, whose voices they are they not hearing, and what bias the author or filmmaker may bring to their works.

Concerning the transformation of society, Gorski believes that curriculum reform can bring about social justice and equity in schools which, ultimately, will form a society that applies and maintains social justice and equity for the entire human collective. He suggests this will come about when educators, educational theorists, researchers, and activists practice and apply multicultural teaching and learning principles both inside and outside of the classroom.

Kohl (2001) suggests it is a sad statement on the moral sensibility of schools and society that we must advocate for the teaching of social justice. His position is that one cannot assume an idea or cause will be embraced merely because it is just and fair. He believes it is a moral and social necessity to shape a curriculum focused on compassion and the common good.

Educational Resources. There are many online resources for educators, students, and activists that provide information related to curriculum reform based on anti-bias and diversity.

• The "Multicultural Pavilion," at www.edchange.org/multicultural/index.html, presents lesson plans, classroom activities, research results and links to many related websites.
• "Rethinking Schools Online," at www.rethinkingschools.org, makes available information for educators who desire reform throughout the U.S. public school system, especially related to the formation of an inclusive curriculum.
• The National Association for Multicultural Education, at www.nameorg.org, was founded in 1990 to bring together individuals and groups with an interest in multicultural education from diverse educational institutions and occupations.
• The Social Justice Education group, at www.socialjusticeeducation.org, promotes the use of multimedia and pop culture in a social justice curriculum that has a youth leadership component.

Applications

Teacher Action Research (TAR). Gorski (1995-2008b) describes the Teacher Action Research (TAR) model of engaging educational practitioners in the assessment and improvement of practices related to diversity education. It can be both an individual tool, helping classroom teachers to reconsider their teaching methods and a community activity, helping teams of educators to assess problems in schools, enact changes, and reassess their materials and methodology.

Although the TAR method looks different in various contexts, in general it is:

• A nontraditional and community-based form of educational evaluation;
• Carried out by educators, not outside researchers or evaluators;
• Focused on improving teaching and learning, but also social and environmental factors that affect the nature and success of teaching and learning;
• An on-going process of evaluation, recommendation, practice, reflection, and reevaluation; and
• Undertaken with the assumption that change is needed in a given context Gorski (1995-2008b).

This process can be a powerful tool for multicultural education because it engages the community in the evaluative effort, and as a result, gives the community responsibility for change. In addition, it is public in nature, and provides a framework for public dialogue about existing concerns and possible solutions. Finally, it is inherently transformational—even if no school-wide change results, the educators are changed by conducting the research and the school is changed by the change in the educators.

Gorski (1995-2008b) lists a step-by-step procedure for applying the TAR approach and illustrates how it was implemented at one school.

Step One: Problem Identification: Acknowledge an inequity and the need for change.

Illustration: Problems related to sexual harassment were already present in the school which did not want to wait for a dire occurrence before addressing the issues.

Step Two: Evaluation: Develop and carry out methods for evaluating the breadth and depth of the inequity and how it informs the experiences of all community members.

Illustration: The TAR team identified that there was a general legacy at the school where boys exhibit a sense of entitlement and exert dominance through sexist jokes, objectification of girls, and physical harassment; the team conducts a campus-wide survey to assess whether students know what sexual harassment is and to measure how often students experience different forms of harassment, and from whom; they choose to follow up the survey with gender-specific focus groups that will study the findings and dialogue about solutions.

Step Three: Recommendations: Based on the evaluation, provide specific recommendations for change and/or continued evaluation.

Illustration: The TAR team shared its findings with the school community, recommended strategies for ending sexual harassment at the school that included action items for administration, faculty, and staff to include sexual harassment prevention and anti-sexism education for all members of the community, revision of the student code of conduct specifically addressing sexual harassment, more organized monitoring of public spaces, and clearer guidelines for reporting and handling harassment claims.

Step Four: Application/Practice: Work with the powers that be to take action and institutionalize the recommendations.

Illustration: The school adopted the recommendations; the TAR team institutionalized ongoing assessment measures to monitor the effects of the changes.

Step Five: Reflection: With changes in place, consider the ways in which new practices affect the school community. Concurrently, reflect on what the TAR team learned from the process of the research.

Illustration: The TAR team systematically considered the effectiveness of the changes and how the changes did/did not positively affect the school community.

Step Six: Consideration of New Questions: Acknowledge and dialogue about new questions that have emerged from the changes. Have the changes worked? Are there any shortcomings? Did the team uncover additional issues or inequities in the process of the TAR?

Illustration: The TAR team identified continued problems and new problems that had emerged from the changes and continued the approach from anew (Gorski, 1995-2008b).

Viewpoints

A Recent Court Challenge. Zirkel (2007) presents a case study from Massachusetts that provides perspective on the attempt at curriculum reform related to diversity. He cites that Massachusetts law, since at least 1993, required the state education agency to develop standards for a curriculum that instills respect for the cultural, ethnic, and racial diversity reflected in the state and that avoids perpetuating gender, cultural, ethnic or racial stereotypes. As a result, the state education department issued curricular frameworks that encouraged instruction about different types of families and the concepts of prejudice and discrimination.

Zirkel continues to describe a lawsuit that began when a kindergartner came home from school with a book from the system's "diversity book bag" that had illustrations of different forms of families including parents of the same gender. In the same school system, a first grade teacher read a fairy tale book to the class that depicted a prince meeting a princess and living happily ever after. The book ends with a cartoon kiss.

The parents of these two children held sincere religious beliefs that homosexuality is immoral and that marriage necessarily means a holy union between a man and a woman. They expressed their objections to the public school officials' use of these two books to "indoctrinate" their young children with the contrary beliefs that homosexuality and same-sex marriage are moral and acceptable. They asked that the school system not expose their children to such instruction without first providing the parents with notice and an opportunity to opt out on behalf of their children. Although the state law requires prior notice and opt-out opportunity for any curriculum that involves human sexual education or human sexuality issues, the school officials did not consider the disputed lessons as fitting this curricular criterion.

Zirkel's article continues to describe the case. In April 2006, the parents of the kindergartner and first grader filed suit in federal court, claiming violations of both federal and state law. Their federal claims were based on the Fourteenth Amendment liberty of child rearing clause and the First Amendment free exercise of religion clause.

In February 2007, the federal court dismissed the parents' federal claims finding rational basis for the challenged curricula: mutual respect in a diverse society, including respect for differences in sexual orientation; and educational opportunity for children who are gay or lesbian or who have same-sex parents. Also dismissing the parents' free exercise of religion claim, the court cited Supreme Court precedents that establish that neutral and generally applicable government actions require only a rational, not a compelling, justification even if incidentally burdening a sincerely held religious belief.

The parents' attorney appealed based on a tenet that true diversity requires respect for fundamentalist beliefs. The school's and state's attorney countered that public educators are free to use materials in their classrooms that expose students to same-sex relationships without thereby exposing themselves to civil liability.

Zirkel concludes that perhaps the most significant contribution of this court decision is its recognition of the second justification for the challenged instruction—the educational welfare of children who are gay or lesbian or who have same-sex parents.

Challenges & Responses from an Anti-bias Perspective. Paul Gorski (1995-2008d) on his EdChange Multicultural Pavilion website, has responded to several critiques of curriculum transformation related to diversity, anti-bias, and social justice.

• Multicultural curricula water down the skills and knowledge students really need to succeed.
• Multicultural curricula are anti-white and anti-male.
• Teachers do not have time to prepare students for standardized tests and also attend to additional areas, including curriculum reform for diversity.
• Multicultural education and curriculum transformation focus on differences instead commonalities and contribute to racism, sexism, heterosexism, and classism.

Gorski (1995-2008d) contends that traditional curricula that presents knowledge from a single perspective actually represents the watered-down version of learning. Anti-bias curriculum transformation results in greater creative and critical thinking skills while equipping all students with a more complete and accurate understanding of society and the world.

He states that the goal of multicultural curriculum transformation is to improve education for all students and expand their realm of understanding. Multicultural educators recognize that even white male students are being cheated out of complete and accurate inclusion in the classroom.

Teachers can still work from their state's standards by reexamining the way in which they teach. Transformation does not call for teachers to cover other explorers instead of Columbus; it calls for teachers to cover Columbus in a more complete and accurate way and from a broader perspective.

While multicultural education focuses on addressing these issues, an examination of current educational and curricular practices indicates that forms of oppression were issues in education long before multicultural education was conceptualized; multicultural education was developed in response to a lack of curricular inclusiveness in public school curricula (Gorski, 1995-2008d).

From the mainstream curriculum—that reformists believe ignores the experiences, voices, contributions, and perspectives of non-dominant individuals—to a social action and awareness curriculum that includes voices, ideas, and perspectives of diverse groups, students themselves are perhaps the best classroom resource for creating an inclusive curriculum (Gorski, 1995-2008c).

Terms & Concepts

Anti-Bias Curriculum: Curriculum reform related to removing stereotypes about race, ethnicity, gender, language, religious diversity, sexual orientation, physical and mental disabilities, and economic status from teaching methods and learning materials.

Curriculum: In public education, this term refers to the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school.

Diversity: The political and social policy of encouraging tolerance for people of different backgrounds.

Multicultural Education: The educational ideology of including people of diverse cultural and religious backgrounds in the covered curriculum.

Oppression: The systematic marginalizing of certain groups by unjust use of power, authority, or societal norms of another group.

Public Education: Education that is mandated by the government for all children of the general public; in the U.S., K–12 public education is paid for, in whole or part by local, state and federal taxes and is commonly overseen by an elected school board of the local community.

Social Justice: The upholding of what is just, fair treatment and due reward in matters affecting human welfare in accordance with honor, standards, or law.

Teacher Action Research (TAR): A process whereby participants-who might be teachers, principals, support staff-examine their own practice, systematically and carefully, using the techniques of research.

Bibliography

Anti-Defamation League. (1999). What is anti-bias education? Retrieved December 1, 2007 from website http://www.adl.org/tools_teachers/tip_antibias_ed.asp

Derman-Sparks, L. (2011). Anti-bias education: Reflections. Exchange (19460406), , 55–58. Retrieved December 15, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=62252604&site=ehost-live

Gartrell, D. (2013). Democratic life skill 4. YC: Young Children, 68, 104–107. Retrieved December 15, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=91977538&site=ehost-live

Gorski, P. (1995-2008a). The challenge of defining multicultural education. Retrieved December 1, 2007 from EdChange website http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/initial.html

Gorski, P. (1995-2008b). Multicultural teaching toolbox. Retrieved December 1, 2007 from EdChange website http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/tar/cycle.html

Gorski, P. (1995-2008c). Steps toward multicultural curriculum transformation. Retrieved December 1, 2007 from EdChange website http://edchange.org/multicultural/curriculum/steps.html

Gorski, P. (1995-2008d). Understanding curriculum transformation: A multicultural Q & A. Retrieved December 1, 2007 from EdChange website http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/curriculum/concept.html

Koenig, D. (2013). Perspectives for a diverse America. Teaching Tolerance, , 21–23. Retrieved December 15, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=87570095&site=ehost-live

Kohl, H. (2000). Teaching for social justice [Electronic version]. Rethinking Schools online, 15 . Retrieved December 1, 2007 from website http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/15_02/Just152.shtml

Kuh, L. P., & LeeKeenan, D. (2016). Moving beyond anti-bias activities: Supporting the development of anti-bias practices. YC: Young Children, 71(1), 58–65. Retrieved January 11, 2018, from EBSCO Online Database Education Source. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=114680491&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Park, C.C. (2011). Young children making sense of racial and ethnic differences: A sociocultural approach. American Educational Research Journal, 48, 387–420. Retrieved December 15, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=60094425&site=ehost-live

Wilhelm, R. (1998). Issues in multicultural education. Curriculum Journal, 9 , p. 227. Retrieved December 1, 2007 from EBSCO online database, Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=6831030&site=ehost-live

Zirkel, P. (2007). True diversity. Phi Delta Kappan, 89 , 238–239. Retrieved December 1, 2007 from EBSCO online database, Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=27362890&site=ehost-live

Suggested Reading

Adams, M. & Bell, L. & Griffin, P. (1997). Teaching for diversity and social justice: A sourcebook. New York: Routledge.

Banks, J. (1993). Multicultural education: Issues and perspectives. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Shin, G. & Gorski, P. (2000). Multicultural resource series: Professional development for educators. Washington, D.C.: National Education Association.

U.S. Department of Education. Office of Civil Rights. (2003). Race-neutral alternatives in postsecondary education: Innovative approaches to diversity. http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/edlite-raceneutralreport.html

Vittrup, B. (Spring/Summer 2016). Early childhood teachers' approaches to multicultural education & perceived barriers to disseminating anti-bias messages. Multicultural Education, 23(3/4), 37–41. Retrieved January 11, 2018, from EBSCO Online Database Education Source. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=118920757&site=ehost-live&scope=site