The National Association for the Education of Young Children endorses an anti-bias curriculum for early childhood programs, in which early childhood educators are encouraged to enhance children’s development of tolerance for cultural, gender, and ability diversity. This paper is an ethnography of the culture and processes of a group of three administrators and seven early childhood teachers from four child care centers who participated in a support-supervision group while implementing an anti-bias curriculum in their programs. Effects on members of group participation were analyzed based on questionnaires, journals of all participants and the facilitator, audiotaped group sessions, participant observation of the facilitator and an outside observer, and open-ended, in-depth interviews conducted by a third person. Data were categorized into three major themes: definitions of bias, group outcomes, and the facilitator’s role. Subcategories were identified, including connections participants made between personal lives and professional behavior, awareness, and trust and discomfort. Primary attention in this paper is devoted to one of these subcategories-connections that participants made between personal lives and professional behavior. (Contains 36 references.) (Author/HTH)
