Figuring the World of Home-School Relationships (Poster 16)

• In Event: AERA Poster Session Friday 3:20 p.m.
  In Poster Session: Division G: Section 2 Poster Session

Abstract

This paper explores the limit situations imposed by dominant narratives of home-school relationships using figured worlds as a guiding framework. Using semiotic analysis of a wall hanging in a preschool classroom that depicts a house and a school building, the authors explore what figured worlds are imagined as possible for home-school relationships. Specifically, the authors argue for three possibilities suggested by the artifact in question: (1) separate but equal; (2) the cult of domesticity; and (3) the innocence of absence. The dominant narratives implicit in these figured worlds ossify configurations of home and school that privilege ways of being and knowing that exclude, reject, or demonize the experiences of culturally, linguistically, and socioeconomically diverse families.

Authors

• Fabienne Doucet, New York University

• Jasmine Y. Ma, New York University

• Charulata L. Dyal, New York University