Teaching diversity, inspiring change: Evaluating Anti-Bias Education training program in preschoolers

This study aims to evaluate the outcomes of the ABE (Anti-Bias Education) Training Program for early childhood educators by examining its impact on teachers' attitudes, self-awareness, and children's attitudes. A training program for preschool teachers was developed and implemented. Educators were informed about ABE and instructed to do ABE-related activities in their classrooms to evaluate children's attitudes. The study used a nested mixed design and involved 129 preschoolers and 12 preschool teachers for experimental groups and 43 preschoolers and 5 teachers for control group. ABE Attitude Scale and ABE Self-Awareness Scale were used to examine teachers' data while Respect for Differences Attitude Scale was used for children. The results demonstrated that the ABE Training Program was effective for both teachers and children at experimental group. The program improved teachers' perspectives and self-awareness on ABE. Moreover, children's appreciation for diversity was heightened after the activities implemented by the educators. The proposal is to expand this training program to all preschools to improve the positive attitudes of teachers and children regarding diversity.