"It Made Me Think Uncomfortably of Hitler": Troubling the Adult Gaze in Reports of Children's Improvisational Theater at Hull House

• In Event: The Politics of Educational Research, Past and Present

Abstract

This paper investigates the way the “adult gaze” influenced historical reports of children’s theatrical performances at Hull House during the years of 1939-1940. Analysis of four articles of the earliest performances of Spolin’s child “players” reveals that these accounts are structured by adult voyeurism, scopophilia (finding pleasure in looking), narcissism, and prolepsis (the anticipation of a future act or development) in ways that function to distance adult readers or viewers from the emic experiences of children while reinforcing well-worn, limiting modes of representing and understanding children and their activity. The article concludes by considering how similar and problematic patterns of representing children’s activity endure in contemporary qualitative education research.

Author

• Laura Carter-Stone, Vanderbilt University