The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

Are there institutional prejudices or microaggression in early childhood settings?

·         What memory do you have of an incident when you experienced bias, prejudice, and/or oppression, or witnessed someone else as the target of bias, prejudice, and/or oppression?

I worked in a leadership role for a large Early Childhood program.  I witnessed a couple of examples of biases toward men.  I worked at a location that had a male teacher.  A parent complained about him going to the restroom with the girls.  There was not a complaint related to ladies going with boys.  This was a form of microaggression in my opinion.  At that time I was not a manager in the organization, but a lead teacher.  The site administrator at the time just decided to let him take the boys and the co-teacher took the girls. She did not inform him of the parent complaint.  My second example involved a manager in our program who said she did not like working with men. She had gotten rid of two men on her team during my time there.  I was not sure why however her actions were not questioned.  

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·         In what way(s) did the specific bias, prejudice and/or oppression in that incident diminish equity?

To me, in both cases, it diminished the equality for men to work in the early childhood field.  It is a field that already does not include many men.  The program I worked for was federally funded for low-income families.  In this program, positive male role models are needed and someone to relate to dads is critical. 

·         What feelings did this incident bring up for you?

The process made me feel a little angry.   I even talked to both the site manager and the supervisor to let them know I had a problem with it. 

·         What and/or who would have to change in order to turn this incident into an opportunity for greater equity?

Both the manager and the supervisor needed to change their own approach to the situations.  We have to face sometimes that we bring our own prejudices to situations that we may or may not have addressed or acknowledged