"Riddle Me This, Batman": An Exploration of the Agency for Sociocurricular Positions in Middle School

• In Event: 66.061 - Intersectional Examinations of Race, Class, and Gender Structured Poster Session

Abstract

Societal norms of legitimacy align individuals’ access to social capital. Academia offers a favorable field for the reproduction of these legitimated norms through pedagogic actions, forming sociocurricular positions. Oftentimes, the positions dictated by class, gender, knowledge, language, and race hold individuals that are affluent, male, of dominant intelligences, mainstream linguistic, and of European descent in higher regards, thereby, representations of legitimacy. Therefore, students’ academic and self-identities may be jeopardized. Using a critically visual bricolage methodology, this study was conducted to analyze educators’ agency to uphold legitimated norms of class, gender, knowledge, language and race through sociocurricular positions in the middle school classroom. Of the participants analyzed, it was determined that socially reproduced norms of legitimacy influenced their habitus and instruction.

Author

• Toni Marie Bailey, Mercer University