Pulling Against the Pulse: Black Preschool Girls and the Avant-Garde

• In Event: 64.062 - From Double Dutch to the Double Bind: Examinations of Dual Marginization of Black Girls in Educational Contexts

Abstract

Black children experience intense stereotyping and over-regulation in schools which positions them as in need of direct instruction to respond appropriately to conflict (Dumas & Nelson, 2016; Gilliam, Maupin, Reyes, Accavitti, & Shic, 2016). However, little is known about the ways preschoolers take up knowledge from such instruction. Using data from a multi-vocal video-cued ethnographic study, the authors explore how Black preschool girls responded when teachers taught them the phrase, “Stop, I don’t like that” to respond to conflict in the classroom. Drawing on Christina Sharpe’s (2016) conception of the wake and Fred Moten’s (2003) writings about the Black avant-garde, the authors argue the girls built solidarity as they performed a preschool Black avant-garde aesthetic.

Authors

• Anna Falkner, University of Memphis

• Jennifer Keys Adair, The University of Texas at Austin

• Shubhi Sachdeva, San Francisco State University