Pub Date : 2024-09-14DOI: 10.1177/15327086241271898
Sara Christina Michael-Luna, Daniel J. Castner
Amid the ideological shift from democratic neoliberalism to authoritarian neoliberalism, spearheaded by right-wing Christian nationalists, early childhood educational policy has become a weapon in the “culture war” in many parts of the United States. Neoliberalism has outgrown the constraints of democracy and is being supplanted with nihilistic views on science and knowledge and leaning toward authoritarianism. This is evidenced in a tidal wave of local and state-based educational policy, which restricts individual freedom of expression and access to knowledge while sabotaging government accountability and transparency. However, a practical approach is to observe how local authoritarianism, within the bounds of a recognized democracy, is lacking. The recent surge of early childhood educational policy in right-wing (historically conservative) states in the United States creates an opportunity to understand what values, norms, and knowledge are reified or restricted in the policies that govern early childhood curriculum policy and curriculum. Using a critical discourse analysis in a case study methodology, we shed light on authoritarian practices in early childhood curriculum policy and practice in Florida during the 2021–2024 legislative sessions. The case study examines the implications of educational reform policies for early childhood social studies curriculum to address two questions: How are dominant discourses in early childhood curriculum in Florida changing to reflect a shifting regime of truth? How are authoritarian practices used in Florida’s early childhood education policy system of curriculum evaluation and selection restricting knowledge, limiting critique, and reducing meaningful accountability of government policymakers and technocrats to policy stakeholders, including children, teachers, and parents?
{"title":"Rising Authoritarian Practice in Early Childhood Curriculum: A Case Study","authors":"Sara Christina Michael-Luna, Daniel J. Castner","doi":"10.1177/15327086241271898","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/15327086241271898","url":null,"abstract":"Amid the ideological shift from democratic neoliberalism to authoritarian neoliberalism, spearheaded by right-wing Christian nationalists, early childhood educational policy has become a weapon in the “culture war” in many parts of the United States. Neoliberalism has outgrown the constraints of democracy and is being supplanted with nihilistic views on science and knowledge and leaning toward authoritarianism. This is evidenced in a tidal wave of local and state-based educational policy, which restricts individual freedom of expression and access to knowledge while sabotaging government accountability and transparency. However, a practical approach is to observe how local authoritarianism, within the bounds of a recognized democracy, is lacking. The recent surge of early childhood educational policy in right-wing (historically conservative) states in the United States creates an opportunity to understand what values, norms, and knowledge are reified or restricted in the policies that govern early childhood curriculum policy and curriculum. Using a critical discourse analysis in a case study methodology, we shed light on authoritarian practices in early childhood curriculum policy and practice in Florida during the 2021–2024 legislative sessions. The case study examines the implications of educational reform policies for early childhood social studies curriculum to address two questions: How are dominant discourses in early childhood curriculum in Florida changing to reflect a shifting regime of truth? How are authoritarian practices used in Florida’s early childhood education policy system of curriculum evaluation and selection restricting knowledge, limiting critique, and reducing meaningful accountability of government policymakers and technocrats to policy stakeholders, including children, teachers, and parents?","PeriodicalId":46996,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Studies-Critical Methodologies","volume":"52 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2024-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142267663","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-24DOI: 10.1177/15327086241271947
Jenny Ritchie
This article considers the complexities of the historical and current context for critical qualitative childhood studies in Aotearoa (New Zealand), a country with a two-century history of colonization by Britain of the Indigenous people, the Māori. This was despite the undertakings of the British contained within a treaty, Te Tiriti o Waitangi to uphold Māori authority over their lands, resources, and things of value, as equal citizens to the British settlers. Māori children were traditionally deeply respected and their contributions to collective decision-making valued. In blatant disregard of these treaty obligations, Māori have been severely impacted by warfare, introduced diseases, and dispossession of lands, language, and identity. There remains within current educational practice a long-standing historical amnesia and wilful ignorance of the intergenerational trauma that has resulted. This extends to the pedagogical and research implications for working in this context of colonization. This piece therefore considers how those who work in tertiary settings, particularly critical childhood studies scholars, might challenge the ongoing hegemonies of White privilege and complacency to create new ethical imaginaries in our teaching and scholarship, research methodology courses, and ethical review processes, beyond token mention of Māori concerns.
本文探讨了奥特亚罗瓦(新西兰)儿童定性批判研究的历史和现状的复杂性,英国曾对这个国家的土著居民毛利人进行了长达两个世纪的殖民统治。尽管英国人在《怀唐伊条约》(Te Tiriti o Waitangi)中承诺维护毛利人对其土地、资源和有价值物品的权力,将其视为与英国殖民者平等的公民。毛利儿童历来深受尊重,他们对集体决策的贡献也受到重视。毛利人公然无视这些条约义务,受到战争、传入的疾病以及土地、语言和身份被剥夺的严重影响。在当前的教育实践中,仍然存在着一种长期的历史健忘症,对由此造成的世代相传的创伤故意视而不见。这也影响了在殖民化背景下开展工作的教学和研究。因此,这篇文章探讨了那些在高等院校工作的人,尤其是批判性儿童研究学者,如何挑战当前的白人特权霸权和自满情绪,在我们的教学和学术研究、研究方法论课程和伦理审查过程中创造新的伦理想象,而不是象征性地提及毛利人的关切。
{"title":"Complex Considerations for Critical Qualitative Childhood Studies: A Perspective From Aotearoa (New Zealand)","authors":"Jenny Ritchie","doi":"10.1177/15327086241271947","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/15327086241271947","url":null,"abstract":"This article considers the complexities of the historical and current context for critical qualitative childhood studies in Aotearoa (New Zealand), a country with a two-century history of colonization by Britain of the Indigenous people, the Māori. This was despite the undertakings of the British contained within a treaty, Te Tiriti o Waitangi to uphold Māori authority over their lands, resources, and things of value, as equal citizens to the British settlers. Māori children were traditionally deeply respected and their contributions to collective decision-making valued. In blatant disregard of these treaty obligations, Māori have been severely impacted by warfare, introduced diseases, and dispossession of lands, language, and identity. There remains within current educational practice a long-standing historical amnesia and wilful ignorance of the intergenerational trauma that has resulted. This extends to the pedagogical and research implications for working in this context of colonization. This piece therefore considers how those who work in tertiary settings, particularly critical childhood studies scholars, might challenge the ongoing hegemonies of White privilege and complacency to create new ethical imaginaries in our teaching and scholarship, research methodology courses, and ethical review processes, beyond token mention of Māori concerns.","PeriodicalId":46996,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Studies-Critical Methodologies","volume":"59 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2024-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142187681","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-19DOI: 10.1177/15327086241272022
Bronwyn Davies
In this article, I explore a range of concepts that enable those of us who work with children to break free from some of those enunciative regularities that function to hold the way things are, in place. The term “enunciative regularities” comes from Foucault, who advocated breaking open words and propositions to find what work they do, what systems they perpetuate. The way we speak the world into existence, and the ways we interpret that mode of speaking, can be taken for granted, by us, as the unquestionable truth of the world and of ourselves. We are, in general, not very accomplished at turning our reflexive gaze on the words and propositions that we are enmeshed in, and thus are not readily able to break them open. Turning our critical gaze on those enunciative regularities is vital, I suggest, if we want to bring about change in the way we order the world—and the ways the world orders us. The work of philosophy, in developing new concepts, enables us to look and to listen differently, and to creatively evolve beyond some of our unquestioned enunciative entrapments.
{"title":"Emergent Life: Opening Our Lives to Differenciation and to Response-Ability, as We Turn Our Critical Gaze on the Enunciative Regularities That Hold the World the Same","authors":"Bronwyn Davies","doi":"10.1177/15327086241272022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/15327086241272022","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, I explore a range of concepts that enable those of us who work with children to break free from some of those enunciative regularities that function to hold the way things are, in place. The term “enunciative regularities” comes from Foucault, who advocated breaking open words and propositions to find what work they do, what systems they perpetuate. The way we speak the world into existence, and the ways we interpret that mode of speaking, can be taken for granted, by us, as the unquestionable truth of the world and of ourselves. We are, in general, not very accomplished at turning our reflexive gaze on the words and propositions that we are enmeshed in, and thus are not readily able to break them open. Turning our critical gaze on those enunciative regularities is vital, I suggest, if we want to bring about change in the way we order the world—and the ways the world orders us. The work of philosophy, in developing new concepts, enables us to look and to listen differently, and to creatively evolve beyond some of our unquestioned enunciative entrapments.","PeriodicalId":46996,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Studies-Critical Methodologies","volume":"67 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2024-08-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142187682","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-06DOI: 10.1177/15327086241268268
Christopher P. Brown
This critical qualitative policy research study examines the intersection between policymakers’ neoliberal kindergarten reforms and children figuring themselves as learners within a publicly funded schooling community. Engaging in this examination of the biopolitical kindergarten space, which is shaped by standardized teaching and learning experience designed to prepare kindergarteners for the high-stakes reforms that await them in later grades, creates the opportunity to consider whether school spaces are designed to prepare the next generation of democratic citizens. It also provides insight as to how critical qualitative policy researchers can investigate as well as propose tangible policy responses through their work that seek to change the current era of policymakers schooling children through their neoliberal reforms.
{"title":"The Biopolitical Kindergarten: A Critical Qualitative Examination of the Intersection Between Policymakers’ Neoliberal Reforms and Children’s Figuring of Themselves as Learners","authors":"Christopher P. Brown","doi":"10.1177/15327086241268268","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/15327086241268268","url":null,"abstract":"This critical qualitative policy research study examines the intersection between policymakers’ neoliberal kindergarten reforms and children figuring themselves as learners within a publicly funded schooling community. Engaging in this examination of the biopolitical kindergarten space, which is shaped by standardized teaching and learning experience designed to prepare kindergarteners for the high-stakes reforms that await them in later grades, creates the opportunity to consider whether school spaces are designed to prepare the next generation of democratic citizens. It also provides insight as to how critical qualitative policy researchers can investigate as well as propose tangible policy responses through their work that seek to change the current era of policymakers schooling children through their neoliberal reforms.","PeriodicalId":46996,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Studies-Critical Methodologies","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2024-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141933623","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-06DOI: 10.1177/15327086241268351
Melissa Sherfinski, Gilbert Ansah
Data embargoes constrain teachers’ understanding of children by withholding and/or coding particular information on children’s attainment and/or identities. Data embargoes may mask children’s identities in ways that influence their rights to belong in early childhood programs and may construct White positivist childhoods by maintaining the belief that individual children’s bodies can, whether in the present of future, be subject to objective measures of human learning or intelligence used for comparisons that uphold Eurocentric positivistic sciences and neoliberal accountability. By comparing children’s experiences in two racialized and socioeconomically denied policy contexts, we show how data embargoes are implicated in sustaining inequities.
{"title":"Data Embargoes as a Tool for Emplacement and Displacement of Children in Early Childhood Classrooms: A Comparative Case Study","authors":"Melissa Sherfinski, Gilbert Ansah","doi":"10.1177/15327086241268351","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/15327086241268351","url":null,"abstract":"Data embargoes constrain teachers’ understanding of children by withholding and/or coding particular information on children’s attainment and/or identities. Data embargoes may mask children’s identities in ways that influence their rights to belong in early childhood programs and may construct White positivist childhoods by maintaining the belief that individual children’s bodies can, whether in the present of future, be subject to objective measures of human learning or intelligence used for comparisons that uphold Eurocentric positivistic sciences and neoliberal accountability. By comparing children’s experiences in two racialized and socioeconomically denied policy contexts, we show how data embargoes are implicated in sustaining inequities.","PeriodicalId":46996,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Studies-Critical Methodologies","volume":"304 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2024-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141933621","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-05DOI: 10.1177/15327086241268044
Christopher P. Brown, Gaile S. Cannella
The purpose of this special issue is to present work that moves beyond the dominant logic of childhoods as imposed on those who are younger, and instead, to demonstrate how critical empirical qualitative investigations that honor, as well as answer, the complex political and life worlds of children in the present and the past offer a way forward; a path that supports communities and the public institutions important to them so that all children can thrive and become the persons they want to be. To do so, these articles draw on different theoretical and methodological critical orientations and traditions to broadly consider the ways in which cultural studies rooted in critical qualitative research can generate knowledges that expand conceptualizations of/for multiple worlds of children/childhood. In doing so, these pieces examine the contemporary, multiple, and immanent cultural worlds and life conditions of children and notions of childhood—both past and present. Such work speaks to the complex, and often unjust, worlds of children and childhoods, and in doing so, the authors propose and illuminate discourse, policy, and relationship changes and actions required to address the complex pressing needs faced by children across a range of communities and/or public institutions.
{"title":"Childhoods, Cultures, and Critical Qualitative Inquiry: Researching the Political and Life Worlds of Children","authors":"Christopher P. Brown, Gaile S. Cannella","doi":"10.1177/15327086241268044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/15327086241268044","url":null,"abstract":"The purpose of this special issue is to present work that moves beyond the dominant logic of childhoods as imposed on those who are younger, and instead, to demonstrate how critical empirical qualitative investigations that honor, as well as answer, the complex political and life worlds of children in the present and the past offer a way forward; a path that supports communities and the public institutions important to them so that all children can thrive and become the persons they want to be. To do so, these articles draw on different theoretical and methodological critical orientations and traditions to broadly consider the ways in which cultural studies rooted in critical qualitative research can generate knowledges that expand conceptualizations of/for multiple worlds of children/childhood. In doing so, these pieces examine the contemporary, multiple, and immanent cultural worlds and life conditions of children and notions of childhood—both past and present. Such work speaks to the complex, and often unjust, worlds of children and childhoods, and in doing so, the authors propose and illuminate discourse, policy, and relationship changes and actions required to address the complex pressing needs faced by children across a range of communities and/or public institutions.","PeriodicalId":46996,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Studies-Critical Methodologies","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2024-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141933622","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-05DOI: 10.1177/15327086241268023
Gaile S. Cannella
The purpose of this article is to briefly overview this history of critical inquiry as conducted by early childhood education and care scholars; research by those with direct daily experience usually as teachers and/or caregivers with those who are younger, and remind everyone, including myself, that we have multiple locations and possibilities for putting forward justice-oriented critical activist research agendas. Before doing so, however, the understanding the reasons for engagement with critical histories can be very important to that work, along with an understanding of the research context from which the scholarship has emerged.
{"title":"Childhoods, Lives, and Histories of Critical Qualitative Inquiry","authors":"Gaile S. Cannella","doi":"10.1177/15327086241268023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/15327086241268023","url":null,"abstract":"The purpose of this article is to briefly overview this history of critical inquiry as conducted by early childhood education and care scholars; research by those with direct daily experience usually as teachers and/or caregivers with those who are younger, and remind everyone, including myself, that we have multiple locations and possibilities for putting forward justice-oriented critical activist research agendas. Before doing so, however, the understanding the reasons for engagement with critical histories can be very important to that work, along with an understanding of the research context from which the scholarship has emerged.","PeriodicalId":46996,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Studies-Critical Methodologies","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2024-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141933625","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-07-30DOI: 10.1177/15327086241260452
Molly Wiant Cummins
Intensive motherhood is a pervasive discourse that enables and constrains mothers’ choices. However, intensive motherhood does not only affect mothers; it teaches each of us how we should judge a mother’s goodness. In this essay, I use autoethnographic moments of my life to explore how good mothers enact intensive motherhood discourse, highlighting how difficult it will be to undo the material effects of a discourse like intensive motherhood. Still, I argue that identifying how mothers have been made facilitates how to make mothers differently, offering hope that these hurtful discourses can be altered toward something better, however slowly.
{"title":"Trying to be Good Enough: Exploring Enculturative Intensive Motherhood Discourse","authors":"Molly Wiant Cummins","doi":"10.1177/15327086241260452","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/15327086241260452","url":null,"abstract":"Intensive motherhood is a pervasive discourse that enables and constrains mothers’ choices. However, intensive motherhood does not only affect mothers; it teaches each of us how we should judge a mother’s goodness. In this essay, I use autoethnographic moments of my life to explore how good mothers enact intensive motherhood discourse, highlighting how difficult it will be to undo the material effects of a discourse like intensive motherhood. Still, I argue that identifying how mothers have been made facilitates how to make mothers differently, offering hope that these hurtful discourses can be altered toward something better, however slowly.","PeriodicalId":46996,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Studies-Critical Methodologies","volume":"90 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2024-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141863523","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-07-25DOI: 10.1177/15327086241260450
Jessica L. Wilkinson, Lisa Waller
This article introduces a spectrum of poetic approaches that have emerged in the analysis of research interviews with journalists who covered Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and related stories. Six poem excerpts, from two of the poets involved in the project, are presented to explore how engaging with a spectrum of approaches—from found poetry transcription to generative methods—can be used to shed light on the situated experiences of research participants. Considering the various functions of “poetry” in this context—as container or vehicle for data, as tool for analysis, or as artistic/affective expression—the article not only explores the multiple outputs and their roles for a variety of audiences but also how these poems can evoke/ provoke/ excavate alternative perspectives—both expected and surprising—on the data.
{"title":"A Poetic Inquiry Into Journalists’ Experiences of Covering Institutional Child Sexual Abuse","authors":"Jessica L. Wilkinson, Lisa Waller","doi":"10.1177/15327086241260450","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/15327086241260450","url":null,"abstract":"This article introduces a spectrum of poetic approaches that have emerged in the analysis of research interviews with journalists who covered Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and related stories. Six poem excerpts, from two of the poets involved in the project, are presented to explore how engaging with a spectrum of approaches—from found poetry transcription to generative methods—can be used to shed light on the situated experiences of research participants. Considering the various functions of “poetry” in this context—as container or vehicle for data, as tool for analysis, or as artistic/affective expression—the article not only explores the multiple outputs and their roles for a variety of audiences but also how these poems can evoke/ provoke/ excavate alternative perspectives—both expected and surprising—on the data.","PeriodicalId":46996,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Studies-Critical Methodologies","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2024-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141773587","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}