Tracing the Social, Textual, and Relational Circulation of Star Wars Play in Kindergarten

• In Event: Pop Goes the Culture: Reimagining Childhoods in Digital Spaces

Abstract

The social, emotional well-being of young children has dominated public conversations as schools consider re-opening their doors in the midst of COVID-19. Currently, children are playing in isolation, within limited circles, and/or without access to the time, space, materials, and interactions necessary for social development. Cultural theorists posit that culture is made in relation to everyday life and constructed in relationship to one another—through telling, re-enacting, and unpacking cultural ideas (Fiske & Hancock, 2016; Giroux, 2004; hooks, 2006). Yet, children are interacting with popular culture and participating in new conditions of socially distanced play and creativity. Thus, what do children individually contribute to popular culture and how does it act as a site of belonging and community in collective spaces?

This paper centers Star Wars—a media franchise passed down, reappropriated, and transformed (inter)generationally across four decades of production and consumption. Drawing from an ethnographic study of play in an inclusive kindergarten classroom in NYC, I highlight three children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) as they form social and relational bonds with one another and their classmates. Classroom observations and written/drawn artifacts across the year center seven key “episodes” of Star Wars re-enactments. While children with ASD are often characterized as asocial, even lacking social acuity (Author 1 & Redacted, 2016), the analysis positions ASD children as contributors to cultural and social life. I discuss the socio-relational networks across friendship groups alongside the media landscape of Star Wars to better understand children’s meaning-making against the site of production (e.g. TV, movies, toys, websites) and circulation (Medina & Wohlwend, 2014).

The findings map out the media ecology (Marsh, 2014) to understand the depth and complexity of children’s individual and collective play. For example, Lucas (one of the children in the classroom) often referenced Tatooine, an important and less talked about planet in the galaxy. As the place of origin for both Anakin and Luke Skywalker, Tatooine is pivotal to understanding the histories and divergent paths of both Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. Within play, these complexities of good and evil were also disrupted and reimagined by the children, showing that these forces are complicated and traceable to origin stories requiring deeper engagement. Simultaneously, new media platforms offer complex narratives, background stories, and alternative ideas shifting the flow of play. The findings demonstrate the interrelated analysis of popular culture “texts” with children’s play and textual production, highlighting the import of individual and collective sense-making.

Without widening perspectives on the popular culture and media engagements of children, we risk offering superficial and underdeveloped interpretations of how children perform identities and cultivate shared spaces of practice and critique. Children process notions of power and agency and confront the limitations/possibilities of gendered, raced, and dis/abled identities. As parents spend more time watching children play and teachers contemplate what play and learning look like in virtual spaces, this paper traces how children with special needs contribute to cultural production, outlining the significance of critical media analysis in better excavating children’s play.

Author

• Haeny S. Yoon, Teachers College, Columbia University