Keeping the Television out of the Classroom: Teachers as Regulators of Working-Class Media Knowledge

• In Event: Roundtable Session 26
  In Roundtable Session: Race, Culture, Class, and Gender in Early Childhood Contexts: From Research to Policy and Practice

Abstract

Perspective(s)
Many scholars have acknowledged the divides between middle class teachers and the expectations of working class parents (Lareau, 1987; Marsh 1999; Willis, 1977; Seiter, 2003). This paper discusses media as a site of contestation in early childhood programs and suggests, in the tradition of critical ethnography, employing a cultural studies framework (Bourdieu, 1984) to understand that interpretations of media and teachers’ decisions for inclusion of media can be traced to class discriminates. Marsh (2000) posits there is a discord between the media practices of families with limited means and their wealthier counterparts. She recognizes that school policies marginalize working class families, who in a quest to help their children develop and learn skills, turn to commercialized media.

Purpose
There is a dissonance between the media knowledge of families and the expectations of early education care, which affects working class families. It presents dilemmas for teachers who often must make the decision for how to deal with the media knowledge children bring to preschools.

Methods
I draw on data from two ethnographic studies. In each, I engaged in participant observation, conducted interviews (formal and informal) to determine media uses and meaning in specific communities of stratified social class. This paper shares findings from four preschools. The schools in the studies included two working class/poor, one lower-middle class and one upper-middle class.

Data sources/results
Teachers in many preschools adopt a role as helping families to be free of the pressures of media. In upper-middle class preschool programs teachers and administrators have even begun to survey families about the number of hours and what types of media children consume; children’s media “diet” was taken into consideration when making admission decisions. When parents indicated children watched what the school considered copious amounts of television, it was seen as a deterrent from admission.

Yet in one case, early childhood teachers who had not gone through formal teacher training also adopted practices that align to dominant expectations. Interviews with one teacher who teaches in a working class child center and is from a working class background shared she watched WWE professional wrestling, two to three times a week, often with her own three-year-old son. I never miss it,” she declared. However in the preschool, she would regularly place her 3-5 year-old male students in “time out” for wrestling. She explained that behavior of wrestling created a problem in school. This seemingly inconsistent behavior suggests schools function as a regulator of working class behavior. Even when the teacher’s own behaviors matched those of the students, she saw her role as “saving” the children from the same adverse behavior she and her son enjoyed. Media knowledge, particularly that seen as working class, is marginalized in relation to other knowledge children bring to school, even when the teachers share the same affinity as their students.

Significance
This research argues critical examination teacher’s policies are crucial as they reveal how teachers see their role as regulators of media and in turn often dismiss the knowledge families bring to school.

Author

• Allison Sterling Henward, University of Hawaii at Manoa