Resistance to Mechanization and Monstrocization: A Framework for Centering Joy

• In Event: In Our Feelings: Exploring Emotionality in (Teacher) Education

Abstract

It is well documented that students of color face harsher disciplinary consequences and racially violent curricula at higher rates than their white counterparts, leading to social-emotional, psychological trauma, and long-term socio-economic consequences. Put bluntly, students of color are often treated as if they can only be educated through a draconian system of silence, limitations, and punishment that not only devalues their joy, but monstrocizes it. We theorize that systems of anti-Black dehumanization within schools subsist through the mechanization of its teaching force, trained to monstrocize and eliminate Black joy. We propose a framework for understanding and dismantling mechanization and provide clarity on the theoretical framing of joy, arguing that joy is key to ushering true equity into school spaces.

Authors

• Bianca Licata, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Gina Marcel, Teachers College, Columbia University