How Coloniality Becomes Possible in the Name of Health

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 2:15 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Historical Inquiries to Make “the history”: Unrevealing History from Visuals in the Cold War era

Abstract

Introduction and Objectives
Most studies in education focusing on health-related topics, such as nutrition and school lunches, are considered research for health (Yin, 2024), aiming to improve children’s wellness without unfolding the conceptualization of health and its potential effects. Some research has identified issues with teacher education curricula on health, safety, and nutrition, proposing a locally based and corporeality-based health curriculum (Guerrero & Pérez, 2018). This study utilizes health-related conversations in Project Head Start from the 1960s and 1970s in the United States to demonstrate how the goal of promoting children's health can inscribe the coloniality of knowledge.

Theoretical Framework and Methodology
This study draws on critical studies of the hegemony of health discourse (Inthorn & Boyce, 2010; Metzl, 2010), which construct normalcy as a form of “truth” and “morality” that disciplines how people should live. This research also engages with critical studies on health discourse as a strategy for subject formation in Math and Science Education. (Gastaldo, 2002; Kirchgasler, 2018; Kirchgasler, 2022; Ziols & Ghosh, 2022; Ziols & Kirchgasler, 2021) Building on the conversation about health discourse and coloniality, this research demonstrates how Project Head Start’s conceptualization of health reveals the coloniality of knowledge.
In addition, this research engages with postcolonial and critical discourse studies to reconceptualize coloniality through health discourse, which constructs childhood as a form of otherness. Based on Sylvia Wynter’s notion of the “space of Otherness” (Wynter, 2003), this research reconceptualizes coloniality as a structural rationale for a process of difference, hierarchy, and transformation, which creates a space of otherness. Through the history of Project Head Start, this research challenges the dichotomous narrative of coloniality within the geopolitical framework, such as the “West” and “European,” and argues that colonizing discourse has created groups of people within the boundaries of the United States. It shows how “Head Start Children” and their families are portrayed as the “silent group” (Cannella & Viruru, 2004, p. 112) that should be instructed to lead healthier lives and to “build healthy images of themselves and their family.”
This research uses discourse analysis to examine various formats of statements through reading Head Start Performance Standards, policies, training manuals, images, music, and videos that construct childhood otherness through the concept of health. Specifically, it analyzes the three official documentaries produced by Head Start agents from 1964 to the 1970s to demonstrate how these narratives, images, and music cultivate the sentiment that legitimizes the reform and transformation of the children.

Contributions
This research reconceptualizes coloniality beyond its geographical frameworks as a process of hierarchical change under the guise of health, as illustrated by the history of Head Start. It exposes the techniques and strategies that support the ongoing coloniality of knowledge. This work creates space for addressing racial injustice and justice within the United States and beyond, especially as the policy of Project Head Start spreads to other countries as an unquestioned truth.

Author

• Xue Yin, University of Wisconsin - Madison