Abstract
Using Alexis Jemal’s conceptualization of transformative potential, founded on Paulo Freire’s idea of Critical Consciousness, a guiding transformative justice approach and accompanying questionnaire are provided here that can be adapted into any existing early childhood or elementary curriculum for children. The approach provides teachers with a methodology to search for new books and resources and use existing ones to foster their own and their students’ critical social consciousness. The transformative justice approach has two objectives: one, to enable teachers to help understand, guide, and mediate differences in the context of equity and social justice; and two, to equip children with social awareness and critical consciousness to identify stereotypes and biases, and to build solidarities between and among themselves. The transformative justice approach does not actively avoid books or resources with stereotypes or biases, but seeks to build skill sets in children and teachers to recognize and counter biases and stereotypes using texts as learning tools. It synthesizes and builds on anti-bias and culturally-sensitive pedagogies to intentionally center structural and systemic inequities, as well as fosters social awareness and critical thinking in both teachers and students by reimagining the classroom as a collaborative learning space.
Highlights
Using Alexis Jemal’s conceptualization of transformative potential, founded on Paulo Freire’s idea of Critical Consciousness, a guiding transformative justice approach and accompanying questionnaire are provided here that can be adapted into any existing early childhood or elementary curriculum for children
Research shows how implicit bias impacts children who are African American, Black, Indigenous, People of Color (ABIPOC)1 starting in preschool classrooms (Gilliam et al, 2016; Skiba, 2015; Skiba et al, 2011)
The questions from the Transformative Justice Questionnaire, “What genders are ‘normalized’ in the book and accepted?”; “How would the book impact a child who does not identify along the traditional gender binary or the gender depicted in the book?”; and “Do the characters depicted in the book conform to or break off from traditional ‘gender’ roles?” allow children to “diffract” from the book to develop a more nuanced understanding of transgender people
Summary
Using Alexis Jemal’s conceptualization of transformative potential, founded on Paulo Freire’s idea of Critical Consciousness, a guiding transformative justice approach and accompanying questionnaire are provided here that can be adapted into any existing early childhood or elementary curriculum for children. Addressing the following questions in the Transformative Justice Questionnaire reveals such misrepresentations: “How would this book look different to varied audiences?”; “Does the book use an “us” vs “them” dichotomy, either overtly or covertly (those who belong versus those who don’t, as something “special” and “different”)?”; “Is the book’s message essentially ‘we are all different but the same,’ without acknowledging or addressing how these differences may mean inequitable and disparate experiences for ‘different’ people, and that the conditions that create those ‘inequities’ still persist?”; “Do the illustrations in the book contain stereotypical images or caricatures (e.g., exaggerated features of characters)?”; and “How do the illustrations in the story impact the message of the story?”
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