"She Was Very Real": Transgressive Language Practices in Jokes and Play and How Early Childhood Educators Can Listen

• In Event: Reconceptualizing Transgressive Language Practices as Critical, Community-Building Tools in the K–12 Classroom

Abstract

Objectives; The objective of this paper is two-fold: 1) to acknowledge how children use humor and even violence in storytelling and play to challenge power dynamics, and 2) to examine how educators can acknowledge these language practices.

Theoretical Perspectives: In applying transgressive language practices (Desai, 2016) to early childhood education, I draw on Grace and Tobin’s (1997) work on violent or risqué play, which builds a sense of community in “working through rather than just reproducing dominant discourses” (p. 179). I also aim to build on the body of work that honors young children’s language practices in an U.S. early childhood context in which many children’s languages and cultural resources are devalued by restrictive, mainstream curriculums (Genishi & Dyson, 2009).

Methods: This piece draws from a two-year study at a racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse preschool in a large Midwestern city. I combined ethnographic research methods, including participant observation, interviews with teachers and families, and audio recordings of children’s interactions, with case study design (Stake, 2000) and discourse analysis (Bloome, Christian, Carter, Shuart-Faris, 2004). This case follows Nikkia, a young Black student, who left halfway through the study to attend kindergarten, and Lisa, the preschool director, who has continued to communicate with Nikkia and her mother. Nikkia has been suspended in kindergarten to the point that her mother had to move her to a school for students with disciplinary issues, sadly reflecting the national trends in the U.S. of over-discipline of young Black girls (Morris, 2016) as early as kindergarten or preschool.

Results: With this context in mind, I reviewed all data and selected two events that illustrated Nikkia’s transgressive language practices, utilizing Critical Narrative Analysis (Souto-Manning, 2014a), to highlight the personal/sensemaking level of storytelling within larger systems of power. In the first event, Nikkia uses transgressive humor in her wordplay, including fart jokes, tricks, and violent humor to challenge adults and other students. Nikkia also works towards community-building through laughter and reminders that her jokes are not meant to wound but a means to validate her own knowledge and assert control over her future.
In the second transcript, Lisa discusses Nikkia talking about the punishment she receives in kindergarten, particularly one incident where Nikkia exclaims: “So I choked her!” Instead of condemning Nikkia’s explanation, Lisa states: “She is just real,” turning Nikkia’s story of choking into a story of Nikkia’s own suffocation in a hostile space, an acknowledgment of Nikkia’s brilliance and humanity within a dehumanizing system. While she is no longer her teacher, Lisa signifies a caring adult who listens to and validates Nikkia’s stories, even if violent language does not fit into “ideal” (Souto-Manning, 2014b) classroom.

Significance: Grace and Tobin (1997) recall colleagues’ reaction to their work: “Some kids made butt jokes …That doesn’t mean they’ve overturned the power structure of the school” (p. 178). This paper works to demonstrate that the transgressive jokes and stories of young children can challenge the power of adults and work towards community building with understanding educators.

Author

• Anne Valauri, Georgia Southern University