Fostering Healthy Racial Identity in the Early Years: Making Black Lives Matter in ECEC

• In Event: Practicing Restorative Justice: Preparing Aspiring Educators to Transform Schools Using Anti-Racist Strategies

Abstract

This paper challenges aspiring educators to recognize teaching as a profoundly political act, requiring a commitment to anti-racist, liberatory education, especially in the early years. It argues that effective early childhood educators must go beyond mastering instructional techniques to engage critically with their own identities and the systemic forces shaping children’s lives. Grounded in the understanding that education has long been used to reproduce inequality, this paper urges educators to become agents of change by centering relationships, racial justice, and healing.

This paper seeks to build upon the anti-bias framework (Derman-Sparks & Olsen Edwards, 2020) that has been prevalent in early childhood education and care by expanding the focus to anti-racism in the early years. An ECEC anti-racist framework is proposed with four interrelated goals: (1) promote positive racial, ethnic, and cultural identity in the early years, (2) prepare young children to recognize and resist racism and anti-Blackness, (3) enact a strengh-based curriculum that honors diverse groups, and (4) build the foundation for an intersectional approach to identity development.

This paper highlights how early educators can disrupt harmful narratives and practices that perpetuate inequities, particularly anti-Blackness, which manifests in early childhood through disproportionate discipline, biased curricula, and deficit-based views of Black children and families. It calls for a shift toward teaching that affirms Black joy, cultural knowledge, and resilience rather than centering narratives of pain and struggle. Educators are asked to examine their socialization, biases, and beliefs to create inclusive and affirming spaces for young children.

This paper includes an overview of a newly developed framework to foster healthy identity in the early years (goal 1). A tool for early childhood educators, caregivers, and parents, this framework provides tangible support in understanding how we are socialized based on our various social identities, how racial identity develops in the early years, and how to support the development of a healthy racial identity. The framework is presented as an accessible tool for aspiring educators committed to practicing anti-racism in the early years.

The Black Lives Matter at School (BLMAS) movement is presented as a concrete example of anti-racist pedagogy in action. By integrating the 13 Guiding Principles into age-appropriate activities and curricula, BLMAS supports young learners in exploring racial justice, identity, and collective empowerment. Early childhood educators engaged in BLMAS demonstrate how children’s literature, storytelling, and play can foster critical conversations, positive identity formation, and resistance to oppression.

Ultimately, this paper positions early childhood education as a critical site for planting the seeds of liberatory education. It encourages aspiring educators to engage in ongoing reflection, relationship-building, and advocacy, viewing teaching not as a neutral profession but as a transformative practice that can dismantle systemic injustice and create classrooms where all children can thrive.

Author

• Denisha Jones, Defending the Early Years