Reviewed by Jennie Lindon, early years consultant
This video and supporting booklet bring alive how persona dolls can be used with children in nursery and primary school settings, using a storytelling format within circle time. For example, you see and hear the story of a doll who has experienced unkindness about her skin colour, a doll with a physical disability and a doll from a traveller family.
The video (nearly 50 minutes) shows effectively how a doll's story engages young children and how practitioners encourage comments, questions and problem solving. There is also valuable footage of a group of students, as they make their own doll and weave a story for him or her.
The video and support book together demonstrate how the dolls can be used to address issues of equality in ways that make sense for children.
Much of the support booklet offers valuable explanations of how to plan effective use of the dolls. My reservation is that some exercises in the section 'Training for inclusion' exclude some practitioners, especially 'white middle-class heterosexual men' by the assumption that they cannot have personal experience of discrimination. The booklet would have been stronger had this section gone beyond the political definitions of discrimination and offered ways to highlight the same feelings of communality and empathy between adults as the persona dolls aim to promote for children. In the early years professions, men are a minority and can experience stereotyping and negative attitudes.
