Ideological Becoming: Young Adolescents Navigating Discourses of Justice

• In Event: Hilton Roundtable Session 3
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Topics for 21st Century Middle-Level Teaching and Learning

Abstract

In this paper, we draw on Bakhtin’s (1981) notions of discourse and ideological becoming to investigate how adolescents’ experiences with young adult literature and other texts might inform their thinking around issues of social justice. Using a variety of data including students’ thought maps, their illustrations of poignant scenes, written accounts of their personal experiences with injustice, and focus group interviews, we suggest that the discourses of social justice found in the books referenced by our participants served particular purposes in the young adolescents’ ideological becoming. For example, we found that The Outsiders affected students’ perceptions of sexism and classism that exist today. Thus, we conclude that texts have the potential to affect students’ ideologies in profound ways.

Authors

• Caleb Chandler, University of Georgia

• Kaitlin Wegrzyn, Immaculate Conception St. Joseph School