“Young children often hold implicit racial biases toward people from different racial backgrounds. Therefore, teaching young children about racial diversity will help them learn to appreciate people from different racial backgrounds,” said Dr. Terry Husband.
Husband, a professor of early childhood literacy in the School of Teaching and Learning, teaches at the undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral levels, and mentors preservice teacher candidates. His research focuses on anti-racist education in early childhood classrooms, literacy development in Black boys in P-5 classrooms, and multicultural children’s literature.
Husband’s research illuminates the critical need for intentional, anti-racist education in early childhood classrooms. His insights underscore the profound impact of representation in children’s literature and the necessity of dismantling systemic barriers that impede the educational success of young Black boys.
However, one of the central concerns of Husband’s work is the persistent gender reading gap starting from early childhood. Black boys tend to perform at lower levels in reading than Black girls and children from other racial groups. He contended that although some extracurricular activities exist for Black girls, there is a need to connect these Black boys to mentors and out-of-school programs that represent them.
Husband identified some factors contributing to this gap, such as the lack of representation in children’s literature and a curriculum that often fails to represent Black boys.
He explained, “that it is possible for a Black boy to go from pre-K to middle school, and never read a book with a Black male protagonist or (one) written by a Black author. This absence of representation creates a disconnect between Black boys and the texts they encounter, hindering their engagement with reading. Therefore, he encourages teachers to be intentional about disrupting biases by providing access to diverse resources, toys, environments, and books that reflect the experiences of Black boys and other marginalized groups. “Mentorship plays a crucial role in fostering literacy development,” he opined.
In exploring the representation of children in literature, Husband has contributed significantly to the discourse through his scholarly work. A few examples include an Early Childhood Education Journal article, “I don’t see color”: Challenging assumptions about discussing race with young children (2011), and a Journal of Language and Literacy Education article, Identifying promising literacy practices for Black males in P-12 classrooms: An integrative review (2020), co-authored with Dr. Grace Kang, associate professor in the School of Teaching and Learning.
More recently, Husband has begun examining the process of using diverse children’s literature to raise disability awareness and advocacy in early childhood and elementary classrooms. “I was motivated to begin exploring this area of research because I discovered that many ‘able-bodied’ children often have biases and stereotypes toward people with disabilities. This got me to thinking about the power and potential of using children’s literature with (main characters with disabilities) as a means of countering and combating these biases and stereotypes,” Husband shared.
Moving forward, Husband encourages educators to conduct research with new questions that “will lead to new ideas, answers, and a new way to examine a study.”
