Discarded Identities/Inspiring Just Sustainability with Reuse Persona Dolls

Michelle Domingues

doi:10.3390/su13158623

Abstract

The author identifies as a mixed-race Chicana teacher/educator, bridging ecology, culture, and learning situated within an early learning center on a university campus. This inquiry integrates Gloria Anzaldúa’s autohistoria teoría/autobiographical theory and documents (1) the social construction of a gender-fluid persona doll named “Logan” during a focus group with REMIDA Reggio-inspired educators, (2) a (dis)rupture that took place after engaging the persona doll to introduce the term “transgender” during a preschool circle time, and (3) lessons learned to move early childhood education for social sustainability forward. During this disrupture in our learning community, the question of whether or not to discard Logan’s (gender non-binary) identity emerged. Logan’s story is one of curricular innovation in the examination of topics and concepts of ecological sustainability, equity-based pedagogy, and creative reuse through the construction and use of persona dolls. The dolls themselves are created from reuse materials, and they adopt personas and social backgrounds reflecting awareness of ecological and social injustice while co-developing ideas of actions for equity with the input of children.

Highlights

The author identifies as a mixed-race Chicana teacher/educator, bridging ecology, culture, and learning situated within an early learning center on a university campus
This paper focuses on engaging reuse persona dolls in early childhood education for Just Sustainability with an emphasis on gender justice
Reuse Persona Dolls: Materials and Methods. This inquiry documents the story of a reuse persona doll created by a focus group conducted to gather experiences of REMIDA Reggio-inspired early childhood teacher/educators approaches to identity studies with reuse materials

Summary

Introduction

The author identifies as a mixed-race Chicana teacher/educator, bridging ecology, culture, and learning situated within an early learning center on a university campus This inquiry integrates Gloria Anzaldúa’s autohistoria teoría/autobiographical theory and documents (1) the social construction of a gender-fluid persona doll named “Logan” during a focus group with REMIDA. Reggio-inspired educators, (2) a (dis)rupture that took place after engaging the persona doll to introduce the term “transgender” during a preschool circle time, and (3) lessons learned to move early childhood education for social sustainability forward. During this disrupture in our learning community, the question of whether or not to discard Logan’s (gender non-binary) identity emerged. The concept of “Just Sustainability” originates from the field of environmental justice and is “a framework for integrating class, race, gender, environment and social justice concerns” [1]

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion