Children's Identity Research Articles

Researching children's schooling identities: Towards the development of an ethnographic methodology

This paper argues that there is merit in the study of students' identity constructions as a means of understanding inequalities in schooling outcomes. However, the effectiveness of such accounts remains limited by the hiatus between the identity theories deployed in research studies and the empirical data used to illuminate such theories. The methodology by which interview protocols are used in relation to identity theories is tacit or unclear. This paper aims to address this issue by developing a methodology of identity construction for students in schools that makes explicit the links between theory, methods and data. In applying this methodology to an analysis of one longitudinal case study example, its utility is illustrated.

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Awards, Announcements, and News

Child, Family, and Community Transformations: Findings from Interviews with Mothers of Transgender Girls

The present study represents findings from interviews with five mothers, each of whom had a transgender child. All of the transgender children were natal/biological males between the ages of 8 and 11 years old and had socially transitioned to living as girls. Ehrensaft's (2012) notion of the “true gender self” was integrated with an ecological perspective to examine multiple interacting contexts, including family, neighborhood, and school, in which the participants lived. An overarching theme of “transformation” (or lack thereof) was used to organize the findings in relation to the transgender children, their families, and their communities. Changes in relation to the children's demeanor and well-being before and after their social transitions (e.g., from shy and depressed to happy and well-adjusted), the parents’ and other family members’ feelings and reactions to the children's gender identities and expressions over time (e.g., health care professionals and school staff learning along with and from the families), and the responses of others in the community (e.g., lack of knowledgeable health care professionals and school personnel) are discussed. Findings have implications for practice and future research.

Detinjstvo i društvo odraslih - nova međugeneracijska transmisija kulture i nova strategija učenja

The paper promotes the idea that childhood is relevant and significant both as a social institution and as a social and cultural construct. The author holds the view that mainstream society comprises children as well as adults, and that consequently children should be given priority over the rest of the human race, and childhood should be given priority within society. In order to emphasize the need for recognition of childhood, the author in several ways brings attention to the problem of children's identity and draws distinction between it and adult identity. Special emphasis is placed on the problem of childhood and school system. School systems recognize only their own, school culture, but not children's culture. Recognition of childhood would bring about a profound change - just the type of change so badly needed by postmodern education. The deepest change would concern the change in intergenerational transmission of culture. Without new intergenerational transmission of culture all other linking strategies would remain simply technical projections of the possible 'disappearance of childhood'. Electronic media, especially the internet, level out the difference between the adult world and the children's world, so much so that it seems that children develop far more quickly intellectually than morally and psychically. The fact that school distances itself from children's culture results in misrecognition of childhood and creates a limiting, humiliating and disparaging image of it. School that would correct this is sorely needed.

Reclaiming Our Children's Education: Building a Fortress of Support for Children of African Descent

Reclaiming the education of our children consists of multiple elements that go far beyond the classroom. This article critically examines the Network for the Development of Children of African Descent (NdCAD) in regards to the organization's work in the lives of African American children and the community surrounding them. Education plays an important role in a child's future academic success, cultural identity, and spirituality. The NdCAD created three programs to help engage the community in the development of Black children. They include the Sankofa Reading Program™, “Parent Power” Literacy & Advocacy Workshops™, and the book distribution program. The Literacy programs are presented, described and applied to the unique needs of these students, including their cultural and social development, spiritual values, and the role of the Black Church in their academic achievement. Solutions are offered to assist communities and schools in growing and constructing a supportive environment for children as they progress through the education system.

K'winya'nya:n-ma'awhiniw : Creating a Space for Indigenous Knowledge in the Classroom

This Indigenous research project foregrounds the voices of Hupa, Yurok, and Karuk tribal members who reside on the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation (HVIR), located in northern California. In an effort to shift the paradigm of education from monological to multilogical, this qualitative study examines the concept of giftedness as it is defined and practiced by an Indigenous community. This study opens a discussion of how identifying giftedness influences a child's self-concept, self-esteem, and social identity. The article thus provides a knowledge base for Native American teacher preparation programs, tribal education programs, public and private school systems, gifted and talented programs, school site councils, researchers, and curriculum developers to create a space for Indigenous knowledge in the classroom.

Suffering As the Path to Acceptance: Parents of Gay and Lesbian Young People Negotiating Catholicism in Italy

This article investigates the experiences of parents of gay men and lesbians (GL) as they negotiate the influential Catholic discourse on homosexuality in Italy, and their Catholic belonging and practice. The analysis is based upon in-depth interviews with 46 parents of gay and lesbian people. We explore how parents who are heavily involved in the religious community negotiate their role within it, but also how, more generally, parents frame their notions of what it means to be lesbian or gay in relation to Catholic discourse. Parents draw upon different, and often seemingly contradictory, cultural repertoires in order to combine, negotiate, or integrate what public discourse constructs as irreconcilable positions: acceptance of gay and lesbian lives and identities and Catholic belonging. The notion of the homosexual as being destined to undergo suffering provides room for acceptance of their child's sexual identity whilst preserving heteronormative assumptions. This frame constitutes an alternative to rejection, which is at odds with parents’ ideas of the family as being based on unconditional love. It also provides a bridge with therapeutic culture and narratives of liberation from suffering that inform, especially, middle-class family relations and the cultural resources available to them.

Kurdish migrant mothers in London enacting citizenship

The article explores the mothering work of a group of Kurdish women in London as enactments of citizenship. Rather than focusing on their integration, it foregrounds the migrant mothers' ability to disrupt hegemonic citizenship narratives and bring into being new political subjects. They co-construct diasporic citizenship, through their mothering work, producing their children's cultural identifications as both British and Kurdish. These identifications are contingent, involving intra-ethnic contestations of legitimate Kurdish culture. Kurdish migrant mothers' cultural work is not simply about making nation state citizens. By giving meaning to cultural continuity and change, the mothers reference multiple levels of belonging (local, national and diasporic) which challenge state boundaries. The article shows that although mothers play a key role in constructing their children's cultural identities and their articulation in ethnic and national terms, they also contest the meaning of ethnic minority cultural practices and group boundaries, potentially disrupting hegemonic narratives of good citizenship as ethno-national.

“Mirror, Mirror on the wall / Who Is the Freest of Them All?”: portrayals of Princesses in Grimms’ Fairy Tales and Contemporary Children’s Literature

The Brothers Grimms' Kinder- und Hausmarchen seems to have promoted pa- triarchal bourgeois values as part of the so- cialization process in the nineteenth century, modelling children's gender identity and be- haviour over time. Taking into account, under the hegemonic representations of gender, that female identity becomes associated with a set of values and behaviours, this article presents an analysis of some portrayals of princesses in contemporary children's literature published in Portugal, by relating those portrayals with two well-known Grimms' fairy tales: Litt- le Snow-White and Little Briar-Rose. Our aim is to find out in what ways those images of princesses of the twenty-first century are substantially different from those conveyed by Grimms' fairy tales, analysing their emancipa- tory potential. Finally, we wish to apprehend which ideologies underpin those portrayals and to verify if they effectively lead to a new world vision by depicting women as real free human beings.

Heritage language maintenance and cultural identity formation: the case of Korean immigrant parents and their children in the USA

This study explores the beliefs and attitudes that Korean immigrant parents and their children in the USA hold about their heritage language. Data were collected through interviews. This study addresses how parents' perspectives and their actual heritage language practices with their children influence their children's cultural identity and heritage language maintenance. Findings suggest that immigrant children's peers and teachers at school who are not from the same ethnic group (co-ethnics) might play a crucial role in helping children to have positive attitudes regarding learning their heritage language, ultimately influencing their positive cultural identity.

Papers, please! The effect of birth registration on child labor and education in early 20th century USA

A birth certificate establishes a child's legal identity and age, but few quantitative estimates of the significance of birth registration exist. Birth registration laws were enacted by U.S. states in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Using 1910–1930 census data, this study finds that minimum working age legislation was twice as effective in reducing under-aged employment if children had been born with a birth registration law, with positive implications for school attendance. There is some evidence that registration laws also improved the enforcement of schooling laws for younger children. A retrospective analysis with the 1960 census shows that the long-term effect of registration laws was to increase educational attainment by approximately 0.1years.

Family Contact for Children in Kinship Care: A Literature Review

Kinship care has been growing rapidly across the English-speaking world over the last decade. While family contact is an identified right of children removed from their families and maintains important relationships, contact with parents where there has been child abuse and neglect remains contentious. The evidence base in relation to family contact in kinship care is limited. Therefore, this article presents the current state of knowledge in the form of a narrative review of qualitative and quantitative research. Contradictory theoretical orientations are outlined together with the limits they impose on the development and application of knowledge. While the complexity of parental contact is confirmed, a consistent finding is that kinship care provides children with strong family networks including sustained relationships with parents, siblings, and extended family, and maintenance of children's culture and identity. Suggestions for the development of the research agenda are made, together with implications for policy and practice.

Title IV-E Student Perspectives Toward Transracial Adoption

The purpose of this study was to compare Title IV-E MSW and non-Title IV-E students' perspectives on transracial adoption and to investigate students' needs for knowledge about transracial adoption. While the majority of students supported the practice of transracial adoption, Title IV-E students appeared more positive about the abilities of parents to racially socialize a child of a different culture/race. Both groups of students appeared to be unaware of how transracial adoption may affect children's ethnic identities. Students also indicated they needed more information on transracial adoption. Implications for social work education and research are discussed.

Gender Representation in Children's EFL Textbooks

The differences in the speech and behavior of adult males and females may be a consequence of their sexist education in childhood; experimental research suggests that the development of children's gender identity is strongly affected by their reading materials and extensive research on these materials have revealed that gender bias and gender stereotypes are prevalent. The present study examines the representation of gender in conversations, illustrations and graphic design of the cover in nine packages designed to teach English to young children for evidence of bias. From each series, the intermediate level is analyzed. The results revealed that females have equitable visibility in conversations with regard to the number of participants, number of turns and the length of turns. Females however appeared to be the initiator of conversations 30 per cent more times than males. The analysis of illustrations in the second part confirmed the results of previous studies that females were under-represented in children's books. There were no significant differences in the representation of gender in the graphic design of the covers.

Development of Racial–Ethnic Identity Among First Nation Children

Elements of racial-ethnic identity, often found among adolescents from racial-ethnic minority groups, have their origins in middle childhood and pre-adolescence. The present study explored the developmental trajectory of some of those components among Native Canadian children living on relatively remote First Nation communities. Children and young adolescents (N = 414,209 female) between the ages of 6-11 completed measures assessing their level of racial-ethnic identity, concrete operational thought, implicit and explicit self-esteem, implicit and explicit in-group attitudes, and the importance of their racial-ethnic identity each year for 5 years. Consistent with predictions from cognitive developmental theory, trajectory modeling revealed significant increases over time in explicit and implicit in-group attitudes, level of concrete operational thought and the importance of children's racial-ethnic identity. However, level of racial-ethnic identity remained unchanged over time. The results are discussed in terms of cognitive-developmental theory, and the influence of living in a racially homogeneous environment on the development of racial-ethnic identity among minority group children. Studies are also suggested for future research.

Masters of Their Own Destiny: Children's Identities, Parents’ Assimilation Demands and State Intervention

Parents’ assimilation demands compromise children’s healthy identity development and attachments with parents. For LGBT youth in particular, rejection from families heightens their vulnerability to negative health, legal and economic outcomes, yet leaves them under-protected by the legal system. So far, children who have experienced family mistreatment in the form of heteronormative assimilation demands on their sexual orientation or gender identity have been unable to mobilize courts to understand why assimilation demands are harmful and how to protect children from such mistreatment. Thus assimilation demands that undermine children’s identities and are harmful to their wellbeing should be recognized as an additional exception to parental rights. Rather than suggesting assimilation demands are a form of emotional abuse, this Article recommends a new framework – family in need of services – that could empower children to seek state intervention that would help families support LGBT youth and facilitate family cohesion.

In pursuit of multilingual practices: ethnographic accounts of teaching ‘English’ to Mexican children

Within the context of Oaxaca, Mexico, home to 16 officially recognised indigenous languages, Spanish and English, this paper presents results of an ongoing critical-ethnographic-action-research project in two different sites: one in a semi-urban setting and the other in a rural community. This paper uses multimodal texts (photos and videos) and narratives to present ethnographic portraits of Mexican indigenous and mestizo children from Oaxaca. Based on this research, this paper addresses three themes: (1) translanguaging practices as the norm; (2) children's identity (re)negotiation through the creation and performance of identity texts; and (3) teachers as learners and children as teachers.

“I'm from Europe, but I'm Not European”

This article examines the role television (TV) plays in the development of primary school children's European knowledge and identities in England and Bulgaria. It compares the media coverage on Europe and the European Union with pupils' European perceptions and identities. The article reports data from 174 qualitative interviews with children and the content analysis of seven TV programmes. It concludes that TV plays a strong role in collective identities when a topic is salient on the agenda. TV raises awareness and knowledge and sets the direction of understanding. Yet, despite the higher salience of Europe on the Bulgarian media agenda, Bulgarians feel less European than English children. The article provides an explanation to this phenomenon, thus filling an important gap in the literature about the media's role in collective identities formation from an early age. It also adopts an innovative approach in the study of agenda-setting theory by investigating its application among children.

Children of the Book: Parents, Bedtime, and Jewish Identity

This article offers a conceptual framework for assessing PJ Library programming grounded in the relevant scholarly literature and illustrated by way of conversations with PJ Library parents. It is built around three themes concerning how parents view their role as facilitators in their child's religious and cultural identity formation through the reading of bedtime stories: (a) how the reading of stories nurtures affective development, (b) can be a crucial tool in mediating the development of cultural and religious identity, and (c) affects the bidirectionality of the parent/child relationship in identity formation.

Promoting Mexican Immigrant Families' Weil-Being: Learning from Parents What is Needed to Have a Strong Family

This study explored factors that Mexican immigrant parents deem necessary to promote the well-being of their families. Mexican immigrant parents participated in focus groups following the passage of SB1070 in Arizona. Findings revealed four interrelated constructs that parents aim for to strengthen their families: family norms and practices; transmitting Latino culture; work and education; and goals and motivation. Participants' responses broaden and contextualize our understanding of Mexican immigrants' family norms. In light of anti-immigrant policies and sentiment, participants stressed maintaining/transmitting their culture, including the Spanish language, to promote their children's ethnic identity development; they also stated that parents' internal drive is crucial to promoting their families' well-being. Opportunities to ground interventions on Mexican family strengths are discussed.