TDA 3.6 promote equality, diversity and inclusion with children and young people.
Prejudice and discrimination are linked, however they are different terms, prejudice comprises of preconceived negative thoughts or beliefs about individuals who belong to a particular group, whereas discrimination is an action that is motivated by unfair beliefs. Both discrimination and prejudice can take a range of forms and can take place for a multitude of reasons and usually occurs through lack of knowledge and an understanding of diversity. Every childcare professional must be conscious of the fact that a child or young person will experience some form of prejudice or discrimination against them throughout their time in school, a child may be discriminated against for many reasons; because of their size, the fact that they wear glasses, the colour of their skin or hair, religious beliefs, cultural or ethnic tradition, disability, or the fact that they have additional learning needs.
All children and young people have the right to be treated equally irrespective of their race, colour of their skin, religion or ability, all children and young people have a need to develop and grow into mature young adults without being exposed to discrimination, this can be helped by allowing them to explore and discover other people’s cultures, beliefs and the things around them, in order to do this adults need to educate and teach children to understand and respect other people’s differences and the diversity of the nation. Children and young people learn their attitudes from the grown-ups around them, and we may all have ways of thinking and acting that may seem natural to us but are not necessarily what we would want to pass on to children and if we do not look and examine our own attitudes and beliefs they may become damaging to the children we are surrounded by, therefore it is important to make sure that we as adults show children the positive ways in which to interact with the...