Diversity In The Classroom: New Approaches To The Education Of Young Children

Early Childhood Education

by Frances E. Kendall

The first edition of this book was introduced more than a decade ago. In those ten years, the complexion of the United States has begun to change with the arrival of many immigrants, and as a country, we have continued to struggle over the issues of racism, sexism, and so on. This new edition of Diversity in the Classroom builds on the theories presented in the first edition, now incorporating the perspectives of Michael Cole, Howard Gardner, Lev Vygotsky, Sonia Nieto, Lisa Delpit, and Jamie Wurzel. Frances Kendall addresses many aspects of antibias education—from the stages of child development to strategies for educating parents—focusing particularly on the teacher’s role as an agent of change. Kendall promotes teachers’ self-awareness and provides guidelines for setting up multicultural environments and curricula. Two appendixes provide bibliographies of books to increase awareness in both adults and children. “Even though in the last decade we have removed those overt, outward obstacles to social justice that could be legislated and regulated away, there remain more subtle and covert ones, whose increasingly dire consequences can be seen in the lives of culturally and racially diverse children.... In a comfortably simple, yet unusually profound way, Dr. Kendall asks us to join her on a journey toward eliminating those things that allow the institutional forms of bias and exclusion to play themselves out, unabated.”
—From the Foreword by Carol Brunson Phillips , Executive Director, Council for Early Childhood Professional Recognition

192 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1983