Transcript PRAXIS in Children’s Studies

The Need For Theory in
Children’s Studies
Nothing Is As Simple As It Appears
From here there is no turning back…
So What Will You Choose?
take the blue pill and return to your
ordinary everyday lives
OR
take the red pill and see how deep
the rabbit hole goes.
Representation
Who has voice and who does not
Images, Images Everywhere!
• over abundance of images surround us
• we cant immediately decode all of the
messages
• Therefore we naturalize!
• when an image is familiar and repeated
• we categorize it as “natural”
• allowing it “in”- without further decoding
• Examples…
Big questions:
Is this what we have done with
representations of race, class,
gender, sexuality, age, and ability
in the media?
Have stereotypes of social variables
taken on a life of their own, so as
to become the only representation
of the variables allowed and/or
accepted in the media?
Discourses:
• Defn:
1) verbal interchange of ideas; especially
conversation
2) a formal and orderly and usually
extended expression of thought on a
subject
3) a mode of organizing knowledge,
ideas, of experience that is rooted in
language and its concrete contexts (as
history or institutions)
Discourses are:
• The way we talk about stuff
• There can be more than one discourse
associated with a subject
• Ie/ york u. home page
• http//:www.yorku.ca
A symbol is always just a
symbol
• Description (in any form- film, literature,
advertising, etc) can never fully explain its
subject
• A symbol only represents and never IS
• Its iconic: defn: it represents an object but
has none of its properties
What is this?
representation
• The picture of the cow represents
the cows but it doesn’t “represent” –
• It is not a cow
• Ie/ what we see on TV cannot really
represent itself (the dog that can
bark but not bite)
representation
• Representation: defn:
1) one that represents: as an artistic
likeness or image
2) a statement or account made to
influence opinion or action
Representation
• Discourses are how we use language to
represent the ideas, ideologies, and
values of a culture.
• Often these representations are not based
on fact or truth but instead on stereotypes
and assumptions
• The problem is when these
representations become the norm.
• i.e. Frozone or The Frog Princess
Pierre Bourdieu
• In Distinction explains how an accent
works to maintain class distinction
• Moves the idea of distinction away from
economic to cultural
• Suggests that lifestyles are the big
distinguishers
capital
• Usually refers to money/land
• Is really about power relations
• We already know power relations are
unequal
• According to Bourdieu, capital, can be
more than economic- it can be symbolic
Types of Capital
•
•
•
•
Economic capital
Cultural capital
Political capital
Etc.
Where Bourdieu meets up with us
• Cultural capital has replaced economic
capital as the space where distinction
happens
• The difference is still economic BUT it is
made REAL through culture
• It is legitimated through culture
• It is our lifestyles which distinguish and
determine who is better than others and
Who has power
THE POINT:
all discourses are rooted in
language and history:
• The way we talk about things is based on:
• A particular history
• A particular worldview
• A particular power relationship
Therefore with regards to children
and children’s studies:
• How a society talks about its children- tells
us a lot about that society’s
• Values
• Culture
• Priorities
• Inherent Power Structures
THE PROBLEM WITH:
The authentic voice of the child
• This is why the authentic voice of the child
is so difficult to hear
• BECAUSE too many of a societies
discourses about “childhood” are focused
on what adults THINK about children and
what they WANT childhood to be
This is what makes
representation an issue.
• Discourses about children are symbols
• they reflect adult desires and fears about
society
• through representing childhood as either:
a) innocent, pure, and in need of protection,
or
b) bad, evil, and in need of surveillance and
salvation.
• BREAK
Why Marx?
Why Gramsci?
Why Althussier?
•
We need a criteria to judge society
•
We need a starting point
•
We need a specimen
In This Course
•
equality is our criteria
•
the beginning of “childhood” is
our starting point
•
children’s right are our specimen
Scope
Over the next month we will examine the
social construction of:
• Race
• Class
• Gender
• Sexuality, etc.
Around ideas on representation, discourse,
ideology, and oppression
And argue that age is also a social variable,
which requires a critical theory
OR to put it more simply:
We are interested in the
making, marking, and
maintaining of the social
inequalities of the adult/child
relationship
Marx and Engels:
“the making”
• ruling ideas represent interests of ruling class
• ruling class = economic power & access to
system of production
• those with money, education, power, and
access find their ideas, hopes, dreams, &
ambitions:
• most represented
• “the norm”
• i.e. Sammond’s “Generic Child”
*representation is NEVER proportionate*
in terms of size (#s)
Other
Ruling class
In terms of power (voice)
Ruling Class/Dominant Ideology
Other voices
Definition in relation to DI
race
class
Dominant Ideology
gender
sexuality
Definition in relation to DI
race
class
gender
sexuality
race
race
race
race
class
class
class
class
gender
gender
gender
gender
sexuality
sexuality
D.I
sexuality
sexuality
Gramsci:
“the marking”
• Gramsci told us
• what is ideology,
• how ideology is constructed
• in different periods of history.
• laid out the dangers of:
• a) overlooking power relations in
discourses
• b) seeing ideology as natural,
innocent, stupid, etc.
*Dr. Seuss & At the Airport*
Althusser:
“the maintaining”
ISAs and RSAs
• Repressive State Apparatus
• The govt.
• Military
• Police
• Uses violence to maintain order
• ISAs- Ideological State Apparatus
• Education
• Religion
• Family
• Uses ideology to maintain order
Althusser
• Both ISAs and RSAs use a double
functioning
• That is both use ideology and
violence/repression to maintain order
• The difference is which one is dominant
• RSA- violence is dominant
• ISAs- Ideology is dominant
Althusser, discourse, representation
and the politics of children
To be political a person must first be aware:
• ideology works on two levels:
• Explicit and implicit (obvious and
hidden)
• The more obvious it is the more
dangerous it is
• This ideology is at play in everything
around us (no one is outside of it)
• Words and symbols hold enormous power
• All the images we see in ads, movies, TV,
magazines, etc. are always meaning more
than simply what they portray
• A can of Coke is never simply a can of
Coke
Task :
• Examine the oppression around you- in your own lifewhat does it look like?
• Make a collage of all of the symbols/icons/images in your
life that shape, alter, or influence your actions as an
adult.
• On the back of the collage, answer the following
questions:
• 1) how do these icons affect you?
• 2) which symbols are from your childhood?