Asking “Why?” Fifth-Graders Inquiring About the Origins of Racism

• In Event: Sunday Roundtable Session 1:15 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Youth Experiences of Social Studies and Civic Education (Table 13)

Abstract

In this paper, I draw on Black feminist theory to explore how children respond to texts and conversations about race and racism. The fifth-grade participants engaged in after-school sessions where we journaled and discussed excerpts from informational texts, such as Stamped (For Kids): Racism, Antiracism, and You (Cherry-Paul et al., 2021). In the sessions, we explored the participants’ curiosities about race and racism, including the origins of racism. When discussing the texts, they grappled with the origins of slavery and were able to make some connections between racism and economics. The findings illustrate the importance of using student-created questions to initiate inquiries and reading shared texts that provide the historical content to grapple with race and racism.

Author

• Kaitlin Wegrzyn, Chicago Public Schools