Text Selection and Constructions of Youth: English Language Arts Teachers’ Decisions to Teach or Avoid Problematic Authors

• In Event: Examining and Reimagining Constructions of Adolescence/ts, Sexuality, and Gender in Education

Abstract

Purpose
This study focuses on how teachers’ perceptions of students impacts their curricular decision-making, especially regarding authors accused of sexual misconduct and/or assault in the #MeToo era. Specifically, this study examined how teachers drew on social constructions of youth (Discussant, 2012) to frame their views of teaching complicated authors and issues— specifically related to the life and work of Sherman Alexie. At the core of this study is the following question: How do teachers’ constructions of youth inform their decisions about whether to teach Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, given the controversies surrounding the author?

Theoretical Framework
Theoretically, this study is framed by Discussant’s (2012) sociohistorical research on adolescence, which examines the ways adolescence first emerged as a construct and continues to persist in dominant educational discourses. This framework enabled us to examine the linkages between the language teachers use to describe their instructional choices and their views on teaching difficult and complicated content and authors to young people in order to better understand how and why they make their curricular decisions about classroom texts and topics.

Methods & Data Sources/Analysis
The findings shared are part of a national study designed to explore (1) the curricular decisions ELA teachers make about the inclusion or exclusion of Alexie’s work and (2) if and how teachers teach Alexie’s writing in the era of #MeToo and cancel culture. Data sources include semi-structured interviews from 18 participants, 9 of whom continue to teach Alexie and 9 who no longer do. From this data set, this presentation focuses on one prominent theme: constructions of youth. Because this code warranted extended study, all instances of ‘constructions of youth’ were re-coded, and, drawing on Discussant’s (2012), subcodes such as “capable,” “concerned,” “unconcerned,” and “emotional” were developed and further refined.

Findings
Our findings suggest that participants who constructed youth through asset-based frameworks and viewed youth as complex and capable were likely to continue teaching Alexie’s work or have discussions with students about the #MeToo movement. Conversely, teachers who constructed students in more deficit ways, such as not being ready or able for such topics, used language that harkened back to Discussant’s (2012) critique, and were thus more likely to remove Alexie from their curriculum or to engage students in conversations about the text only.

Significance
Our findings build on Discussant’s work on constructions of adolescence and scholarship on the Youth Lens by examining how teachers talk about their students and their text choices related to teaching complicated authors. Teachers’ views of their students became rationales for curricular decisions around how, if, or whether to include Sherman Alexie’s writing and life in their instruction. As a result, our work poses additional questions: How can education reframe the ways secondary students are thought about and viewed? In what ways might any of the classroom decisions made around whether to include or exclude texts, authors, and content necessarily tied up with perceptions of students? And what do the answers to these questions mean for (teacher) educators?

Authors

• Mike P. Cook, Auburn University

• Ashley Summer Boyd, Washington State University

• Brandon L. Sams, Iowa State University