Children, so we believe, are born without prejudice. They learn it. But how soon? In their early teens? When they start school? Before they even go to school? Would it surprise you that your one-year-old has already begun to notice that people all around him and her are not the same as he or she? And that by the time they are three years old, they have begun to absorb ideas about what sort of person it is better to be?

At a conference entitled Enhancing Quality in the Early Years, held late last year, Colette Murray, early years co-ordinator with Pavee Point, discussed diversity as an ever increasing challenge for early years educators.

"Irish society is changing dramatically," she says. "It is clearly becoming more culturally diverse, but we also need to look at issues surrounding religion, gender and disability. We need to look at how attitudes develop and explore why we think what we think."

Jointly organised by the DIT NOW (New Opportunities for Women) Early Childhood Project and the Centre for Social and Educational Research, the aim of the conference was to examine practice and policy in early childhood care and education in Ireland. Professor Anne Smith of the University of Otago, New Zealand, addressed the role of an early childhood curriculum in promoting diveristy. Early childhood education is a proper blend of education and care, she said.

"Care has sometimes been viewed as inferior to education, but no meaningful distinction can be made between care and education for young children, regardless of the early childhood setting.

"If the social interactions ... which comprise the early childhood education environment provide sensitive nurturance and care, they are likely at the same time to promote learning and development".

Which is not to imply lots of cuddles produce instant professors. In fact, "early childhood education involves planning and designing a learning and caring environment for children and their families which requires a detailed knowledge about children and factors which support their learning and well-being", she said, adding that, "the value and usefulness of a curriculum will depend on its underlying ideas".

Some of those underlying ideas, may, without anyone realising, be prejudicial.

Despite what we might say to young children, and in spite of the overt content of a curriculum, they can absorb the values of what Colette Murray refers to as the hidden curriculum. "Children are actively learning all the time, absorbing attitudes all around them", she says.

"They learn very early to put people in categories and unless we discuss this with them, they learn what we call pre-prejudice. They look around at media images, overhear radio programmes we don't even know they are listening to, take in what they see regularly and use that information to interpret what it means to be male, female, to be poor, a refugee, disabled, and so on. "People working with very young children often ask me why bring up issues surrounding gender or disability or whatever it may be. "They feel they treat all the children in their group the same. But children are developing ideas on an ongoing basis, and unless we talk to them, we won't know what their understanding might be".

Tackling certain issues can actually be very difficult for adults. We are all prejudiced, but often have no insight into the prejudices we hold.

"It is very important for us to look at implementing what is known as an anti-bias approach during teacher training", says Murray. "As adults, we tend not to look at our attitudes, and when we sit down to it, it can actually be quite difficult. But as part of their training people working with young children should be exploring why we think what we think, and learning to listen to the ideas children are developing about difference".

Anti-bias education, now implemented in countries such as the US and New Zealand, is described as a process, rather than a set curriculum. As young as three children are developing personal and group identity. They can develop positive and negative feelings about different groups of people, and how they seem themselves in the context of these various groupings impacts on their whole sense of self. Ultimately the approach is about empowering all children.

"An anti-bias approach is about enabling children to accept difference", says Murray, "to develop strong personal identity, to have empathy, and from there, learning to actively support people with difference. "People working with young children using the anti-bias approach cite examples of three-year-olds both recognising prejudice and coming up with their own suggestions for combating it. They learn from very early on to stand up for their rights, and for the rights of others."

A CD Rom on the anti-bias approach is available form Pavee Point, price £15. A report from Pavee Point on the anti-bias approach is due out in March. For further information contact Pavee Point (tel: (01) 878 0255).