Understanding Black Childhoods Through the Visual Analysis of Critical Literary Archives

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: Exploring Critical Literacies and Expressions That Promote Equity and Justice in Early Childhood Education

Abstract

This paper explores visual representations, images, and iconography within children's literature and popular culture (critical literary archives) of the past and the present to theorize what the author defines as critical literary archives of Black childhoods. In this paper, the literary archives of Black youths that are analyzed include retrospective images of Black children and childhoods depicted between 1960 and 1970 and contemporary images between 2012 and 2022, to consider what the past might teach early childhood educators about "Cultivating Equitable Education Systems [through critical literacies] for the 21st Century."

Author

• Roberta P. Gardner, Kennesaw State University