Gun Play, Funds of Knowledge, and Children's Rights

• In Event: 43.044 - Considering Guns, Jail, Arrest, Cops, and Robbers Play in Early Childhood and Care Centers

Abstract

Description and Objectives
When a child’s family is involved in beekeeping, we invite them to our classrooms so children understand how bees serve an important role in the agricultural industries. When a child’s family is involved in folklorico dancing, they are invited to come perform for the school and teach the children a few movements. But as one student teacher reminded me, what happens when a child’s parent is a police officer and shooting bad guys is what comes to school?

This presentation will revisit a student teacher’s narrative about forbidden gun play at her practicum setting. It will further explore the links to children’s funds of knowledge (Hedges, Cullen & Jordan, 2011; González, Moll & Amanti, 2006) this student astutely began and will then analyse the conflicting tensions between various children’s rights as outlined by the UNCRC.

Methods and Data Sources

This narrative is part of a larger study (author, 2017; 2018) in which seventeen student teachers submitted learning stories (Carr, 2001; Carr & Lee, 2012) about their experiences in university coursework and their preschool student teaching classroom. As part of the larger study, all student teacher narratives were analysed to guide our understanding of how these teacher candidates engage with children’s and families’ cultural and linguistic ways of knowing, being and interacting (author, 2017). This particular story (out of 132 from 17 student teachers) was noted and highlighted at that time as one that held particular significance and relevance for further analysis.

Theoretical Framework

The theoretical framework of funds of knowledge (Hedges, Cullen & Jordan, 2011; González, Moll & Amanti, 2005) guides our understanding of how children’s and families’ lived practices and unique interactions with their labors, communities, and multiple literacies are cultural elements that children bring with them to the classrooms. Furthermore, a children’s rights perspective (United Nations, 1989) provides a framework to problematise the multiple tensions present between children’s right to play (Article 31), their freedom of expression (Article 13), protection from violence (Article 19), and goals of education (Article 29).


Results and Conclusions

The student teacher’s intial question provides an entry point to think about varying types of gun play and their potential purposes (e.g., enactment of funds of knowledge, social-emotional processing of fears/violent episodes). Questions of which funds of knowledge are acceptable and which are taboo are problematised. Analysis through a children’s rights framework raises questions of whose rights get privileged when gun play is quashed. Does protecting children from violence take precedence over children’s rights to freedom of expression? What does it mean when a goal of education is to help children learn to live peacfully (UNCRC Article 29) when those closest to them are ones who keep the peace, sometimes through violent means?


Scholarly Significance
This research helps adults in early childhood confront universal truths which marginalise types of discourse and play. It provides an opportunity to think about gun play from multiple perspectives to provide openings for further discussion and possibilities.

Author

• Sonya Gaches, The University of Otago