ERIC Number: EJ1348317
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2022
Pages: 18
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0962-0214
EISSN: EISSN-1747-5066
Available Date: N/A
Excavating Childhoods' Layers: An Ethnographic Dig into Inequities of Race, Class, and Literacies
Dyson, Anne Haas
International Studies in Sociology of Education, v31 n1-2 p49-66 2022
I write as an ethnographer of childhoods and literacies to share a critical methodological lesson I have learned: simply observing children in educational settings will not yield rich understandings of the inequities arising from the interplay of societal constructs of race, class, and gender. Such understandings require ethnographic digs, analogous to those of geologists and archeologists. Surface level educational happenings must be situated in institutional, geographic, and ideological landscapes, both historical and sociopolitical. These foundational layers echo in both formal and informal school practices, including those of peers. To illustrate, I draw on data from a 4-year case study of Ta'Von, a Black child in a white-majority elementary school; I focus on his experiences in 'the achievement gap.' Those experiences, reverberating with local racialized history, suggest that inclusive schools require, not fixing children to eliminate a gap, but fixing the taken-for-granted assumptions and practices of schools.
Descriptors: Blacks, Elementary School Students, Minority Group Students, Whites, Institutional Characteristics, Achievement Gap, Children, Ethnography, Racial Factors, Social Class, Multiple Literacies
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A