Date of Award
5-2022
Document Type
Action Research Project
Degree Name
Master of Arts in Education
Department
Education, Montessori
First Advisor
Maggie McCaffrey
Department/School
Montessori Early Childhood
Abstract
In this study, I asked the question, “What effect will antiracist children’s literature have on a white, homeschooled, 5-year-old child’s developing awareness of race and racial issues?” Over the course of four weeks, my child and I read and discussed antiracist children’s literature, and then I recorded my child’s signs of developing racial awareness using qualitative and quantitative data tools. In analysis of this data, I discovered that my child’s developing awareness focused more heavily on race and the understanding of skin tones than on racial issues such as a sense of equality. This finding aligns with early child developmental expectations that a child at age five typically relates better to concrete concepts before understanding abstract concepts. I concluded that antiracist work in early childhood, using children’s literature as a conduit, normalizes critical racial conversations and is an important part of a larger social justice education movement. Further recommendations for research include following my child’s developing racial awareness into the second plane of development (ages 6-9) and expanding this study into other early childhood educational settings to obtain more data for analysis.
Recommended Citation
Ladd, Brittany L.M.. (2022). The Effect of Antiracist Children’s Literature on Developing Racial Awareness in Early Childhood. Retrieved from Sophia, the St. Catherine University repository website: https://sophia.stkate.edu/maed/476