When This School Looks Like a Castle: Young Children Theorize Racial Justice

• In Event: "Bout That Action": Community-Engaged Research and the Radical Imagination in Education

Abstract

In a world where our collective future is dependent upon imagining radical possibilities, the most radical thinkers among us are often excluded. Although children far outnumber adults in schools, they are almost completely absent in the power structure that governs them. Even within activist spaces aiming for liberation, young children represent an undervalued and often invisible group. This paper, rooted in a framework of emancipatory pedagogy (Freire, 1972; Giroux, 1985, Nouri & Sajjadi, 2014), aims to highlight attempts and challenges in disrupting that pattern.

As an academic, my understanding of the capabilities of young children has been stretched by my work and research in urban schools and co-founding of the racial justice collective, Let Children Lead (LCL/pseudonym). LCL asks, “How can schools and community organizing led by adults work to dismantle the heavy bias that age wields?” This question moves us to explore the role of adult power and rethink our notions of who has a say, who has “the analysis,” and who can lead. In partnering with young children both inside and outside of schools, LCL works to create space for children to question, examine, and act. From the kindergartner who dreams, “Black Lives Matter... when this school looks like a castle” to the ten year old who challenges, “If we put down our guns, will the cops put down theirs?”... we have observed the powerful trajectory of what happens when the bullhorn is handed over to children.

Using a blend of inquiry (Katz, 1988), problem-posing (Freire 1972), and modified Y-PAR (Cammarota & Fine, 2008) methods, this paper explores the possibilities and challenges of creating a community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991) around racial justice activism with children from preschool through age twelve. Fieldnotes, journaling, interviews, documents, drawings, artifacts, and social media served as data sources from 2016-2019. In co-constructing investigations into race, racism, and racial justice, we have witnessed how young Black and Brown children center their lived critique and re-imagine their activism and their world- in ways that adults often haven’t imagined possible.

Yet while critique, imagination, and action serve as guideposts for these investigations, the moments of child agency are juxtaposed with the inherent challenges in dominant structures for ‘working with’ young children. Contrary to common belief, we found young children to be capable of- and interested in- naming their world in the Freiran sense. They offered critiques that included systemic analysis, and they expertly imagined ways to respond to inequities and dream of a possible otherwise. I argue that denying young children those opportunities maintains an ageist power structure that is neither equitable nor liberatory, but for Black and Brown children, it’s one that is dangerously oppressive. I invite readers to grapple, as we did, with the complexities surrounding the hierarchy of age as it intersects with race, class, gender, and ability- shifting our collective orientation away from the (mis)perceived naivety of youth and towards more expansive research frameworks and pedagogy in which young children are valued as highly capable partners and leaders.

Author

• Jennifer Bradley, West Chester University of Pennsylvania