Living Well Together: Educator Accounts of Doing Anti-Bias Work for and with Young Children

This accessible, philosophically framed early childhood education text shows how to create and implement a civic-minded, anti-bias curriculum.

This accessible early childhood education text offers an in-depth look at the creation and implementation of a series of civic-minded, anti-bias curriculum maps in contrasting classroom settings: one residing in a state with a "divisive concepts" law and another residing in a state without one. Grounded in philosophically informed conceptualizations of flourishing and personal autonomy, Joy Dangora Erickson argues that anti-bias education is a crucial component of a larger civic education and that schools have a moral obligation to provide it. However, social biases can impede citizens' abilities to make and execute well-informed decisions supportive of their own and others' well-being. Given that the current sociopolitical landscape in the United States actively discourages many educators' efforts to cultivate anti-bias learning spaces, being able to navigate these outside pressures and do right by children at this time is imperative. This book supports preservice and in-service early childhood educators by thoughtfully considering the curriculum maps designed by the research team and how they were employed in classrooms in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.