Promoting cultural diversity in Australian early childhood education

Abstract

<p>The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, and the accompanying social media, has brought racial discrimination to the front centre stage of politics globally. Violence, protests and discrimination can now be seen in every part of the world in every home. Such widespread broadcasting of BLM protests means that children are exposed to the news and images of the protests at home. While this might be seen by some as an opportunity for parents and early childhood educators to discuss issues of race and diversity with young children, some may not be prepared to talk about these ‘sensitive’ but important issues with young children. Some may believe that young children are innocent and incapable of understanding fairly abstract social issues such as discrimination and fairness. How early childhood educators face this challenge? Australia similar to other countries experienced BLM movements recently, during Covid-19. As a matter of urgency, Australian early childhood policies and early childhood teachers view's on social inclusion investigated, in order to understand how they face social inclusion in education. Reviewing Australian early childhood policies and teachers' view concluded; children as future active citizens of their society, who are in their ‘critical stage’ of development should be considered as ready for social education such as learning about Black Lives Matter. Teaching them to value diversity, will reduce the prevalence of these types of problems in the future and make the world a more peaceful place by allowing different races to coexist harmoniously.</p>