Elementary Class Discussions as Pedagogical Engagements With Competing Curricula of Gender(ing): A Critical Discourse Analysis

• In Event: Roundtable Session 58
  In Roundtable Session: Sexuality, Gender, and Questioning the Normative in School and Curricular Contexts

Abstract

While feminism acknowledges the pervasive curricula of societal attitudes, media representations, language, and other cultural influences, elementary classrooms offer fascinating sites for social constructivism, particularly with regard to notions of gender. Both in words and action, ideas about gender stand to be modeled, endorsed, and reproduced as well as disrupted, challenged, and re-imagined by students and teachers alike. Educators have a responsibility to acknowledge the role(s) we play in the hidden curriculum of gendering if we are to respond accordingly in ways that empower. This empirical study employs Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to illustrate a range of how discourses of gender are pedagogically engaged and negotiated in the context of class discussions during read-alouds of gender-themed children’s books.

Author

• Cole Reilly, Towson University