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Education for
Social Justice
In Eastern Europe
Liana Ghent,
ISSA Executive Director
Investing in the early years
Wise investments focus also on quality –
among other things, the quality of
interactions.
We need educators with the “right minds”
and the “right hearts”.
Practitioners are agents of change change is needed both on personal and on
professional level.
About ISSA
International Step by Step Association
(ISSA) connects early childhood
development organizations in Central
Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
ISSA helps create the conditions for all
children to reach their full potential and
embrace values of social justice and
equity.
ISSA Network – 31 countries
ISSA’s Approach to Promoting
Social Justice
• Universal principles that promote quality
early childhood experiences for children and
families
• Climates of equality and mutual respect
between early years institutions and the
communities they serve
• Social justice for those who experience
marginalization, discrimination and social
stigma.
Why Social Justice Programs
are Needed
We are all products of the societies in which we grow up.
Our biases are initiated, shaped, and perpetuated by the
institutions that govern our societies.
These institutions will not (cannot) change, unless people
and their relationships with each other change.
• Prejudices are learned patterns of thinking and of
behaving, and as such they can be relearned
• Each person has a role and a responsibility in breaking
or perpetuating the chains of oppression
ISSA Quality Principles
– One Example
Among the principles of “Inclusion, Diversity and Values of
Democracy”:
The educator serves as a model and assures that through
every day experiences, children learn to appreciate and
value diversity and to develop the skills to participate.
One of the indicators:
The educator is aware of her/his own beliefs, attitudes and
experiences and how they affect communication with
children, families and teaching.
Building Climates
of Equality and Mutual Respect
• Seeing children, families, communities as
competent - having agency to develop in the ways
they choose
• Shift from the “fixing the child” and the “deficit
approach” to an approach that builds on strengths
• Strengthen self- and group-identity (or identities),
and a sense of well being and belonging
• Climates open to and respectful of diversity
ISSA’s Social Justice Program
• Increasing knowledge of, understanding of, and sensitivity
to mechanisms that perpetuate and maintain systems of
oppression and inequity
• Understanding the need for: naming, voicing and
building allies.
• Cultivating the motivation and ability of all stakeholders
to stand up for themselves and others in the face of bias.
• Strengthening the capacity of the systems
How the Program Was Used
• Inclusion of children with different ethnic and socio–economic
backgrounds into mainstream education
• Improving the quality of early years services in ethnically
segregated environments and post-conflict situations
• Inclusion of children with need for special support (special needs)
• Promotion of values of inclusion, child friendly and welcoming
environments
• Mobilizing and connecting communities, especially parents
• Interface of relevant professions with marginalized communities
The Approach
Objectives:
-
improve cross-cultural communication
encourage alliance-building among groups to work
against injustice and oppression
address biases and injustices by empowering
stakeholders to stand up for themselves and others.
It is more than just a training – it leads to personal
transformation and it provides resources needed to
implement changes.
How the Program Works
The program works on the cognitive and psychological
level, as well as on the level of concrete action through:
-increasing knowledge,
-acquiring new terminology and understanding of concepts,
-developing individual and group self-esteem,
-changing attitudes,
-designing concrete mobilizing activities
for both dominant and oppressed groups and individuals.
[email protected]
www.issa.nl