Helping First Graders Distinguish Between Equality and Fairness

        In this article in Social Studies for the Young Learner, Debbie Sonu (Hunter College, CUNY) and Eve Herold (Teachers College, Columbia University) describe a New York City first-grade class reading and discussing the book Fair Is Fair in which three animals in a zoo – a hare, giraffe, and elephant – get different amounts of food (here’s a 10-minute video of the class: https://vimeo.com/848024021). Is this fair? ask the teachers. What happens if the food is divided equally among the three animals? This raises the question of equity versus equality, and a lively discussion ensues, extending to questions of fairness and equity in the community. 

        Is first grade too young to raise issues like these? Not at all, say Sonu and Herold. Young children have strong feelings about fairness, and talking them through helps kids understand why, for example, some peers in this neurodiverse inclusion class might have accommodations for their learning differences. Students need help shifting from feelings of envy, frustration, perhaps contempt to acceptance, understanding, and even advocacy for their classmates. 

        More broadly, say Sonu and Herold, lessons like this address children’s evolving beliefs about economic inequality. As young as preschool, kids can distinguish between those who are rich and poor, tending to express sympathy for the less fortunate. But as children get older (age 10-12), they are “more likely to describe poor people negatively and attribute economic circumstances to individual characteristics,” say the authors. “These beliefs manifest in ways children socialize with each other, perform class differences with their peers, and, at worst, instigate acts of teasing, bullying, or public shaming, most often directed at those with fewer material belongings.” 

        So a lesson about the nutritional needs of an elephant, giraffe, and hare can help children begin to build mental models about equality, equity, and fairness. 

 “Meeting Individual Needs: Teaching First Graders About Resource Allocation and Equity-versus-Equality in an Integrated Co-Teaching Classroom” by Debbie Sonu and Eve Herold in Social Studies for the Young Learner, September/October 2023 (Vol. 36, #1, pp. 3-8); the authors can be reached at dsonu@huntersoe.org and erh2163@tc.columbia.edu.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1004 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.