The Persona Doll approach offers an effective, stimulating, non-threatening and enjoyable
way to combat discrimination, foster emotional literacy, raise equality issues and empower children
at the Foundation Stage and at Keystages 1 and 2. The Dolls and their stories develop
children’s ability to empathise, to appreciate that name calling, teasing, exclusion from play
and treating other people unfairly causes pain and unhappiness just like hitting, kicking
and other physical responses do. They encourage them to stand up when they experience or witness
unfairness and prejudice. A tall order but if the Dolls are embedded in an anti-discriminatory
and culturally appropriate curriculum they are well able to meet the challenge.

The Dolls were first used in the United States by Kay Taus. At that time, the 1950s, very few resources represented the ethnic composition of the children in her nursery school. Kay and her colleague Ruth, moaned and groaned about this unfair and unacceptable situation and one day, took action.
They created dolls out of card and to encourage the children to identify and bond with them,
they matched their skin colours and physical features as accurately as they could to those of the dolls. Personas were developed for each one and stories based on children’s experiences, woven
around the dolls - Persona Dolls were born.

Persona Dolls are not ordinary Dolls; nor are they puppets. Practitioners by giving them their
own individual personas change them from being inanimate objects into ‘people’ with individual personalities, family, cultural and class backgrounds, names, gender and ages. To ensure
that the personas they create are detailed and authentic, practitioners include important facts
such as where the Dolls live and sleep, the language(s) they speak, their likes and dislikes;
the things they are good at and the ones they find difficult, the things that make them happy
and those that upset, frighten and worry them, the length of time the family has been in this country,
if relevant and its refugee or Gypsy/Traveller experiences. When developing personas
especially for Dolls from cultures with which practitioners are unfamiliar, they make sure that they
give them appropriate names and pronounce them correctly.

Many settings/schools have a range of Dolls to reflect all the children in the group as well
as those not present i.e. a setting/school may have a Sikh Doll but not have any Sikh children.
In this way a wide range of equally valued and respected lifestyles, cultures, languages and abilities
are presented to the group. Care is taken not to reinforce stereotypes when selecting Dolls,
developing their personas or creating their stories.