Journal article
Castle"ing" Whiteness: White Youth and the Racial Imagination
Journal of language & literacy education, Vol.14(2), p.1
10/01/2018
Abstract
This essay details what we, three White teacher-researchers, learned about how one class of fourth grade children interacted with signs such as castles, forts, and walls through a three-day improvisational workshop aimed at fostering critical literacy skills. Theories and methods of improvisational theatre offer a distinct way to approach critical literacy, especially the racialization of particular signs and symbols. Although we do not explicitly take up race with the children in our study, our work contributes to the broader field of critical Whiteness studies because we conceptualize forts, castles, and walls as symbols of racial power in the imagination. Castles, forts, and walls are pervasive signs for children in the United States and, subsequently, inform the ways children imagine themselves in social hierarchies prevalent in the U.S. Using qualitative methodologies, we collected and analyzed field notes, interviews, and audio/video recordings of the workshop to construct patterns in our data. We present findings of how the children interacted specifically to one symbol at length - the castle - because of its salience in the data. Although our findings are only tentative due the short duration of the study, we believe they will generate new insights for future research in critical literacy.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Castle"ing" Whiteness: White Youth and the Racial Imagination
- Creators
- Erin T. Miller - Univ N Carolina, Dept Reading & Elementary Educ, Language & Divers, Charlotte, NC 28223 USASamuel J. Tanner - Pennsylvania State UniversityTommie E. Murray - Avonworth Primary Ctr & Elementary Sch, Pittsburgh, PA USA
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Journal of language & literacy education, Vol.14(2), p.1
- Publisher
- Univ Georgia, Coll Education
- ISSN
- 1559-9035
- eISSN
- 1559-9035
- Number of pages
- 23
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 10/01/2018
- Academic Unit
- Teaching and Learning
- Record Identifier
- 9984374339902771
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