A thousand tiny pluralities: children becoming-other than the requirements of postsecular neoliberal policy recognition

Kitching, Karl

doi:10.1080/17508487.2017.1381630

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Avoiding the temptation to orient towards the promise of 'solutions' and stay with the unpredictable potential of indeterminacy, we must trace the ways that childrenlike all humansare not actors endowed with agency in the liberal, humanist sense. They are caught up in the messy entanglements of gender, school and social life, always in a state of becoming (Barad 2011) and are themselves plural beings, 'growing sideways' (Kitching 2020;Bond Stockton 2009). The accounts in this paper illustrate gender norms that are at once violent and legitimizing, essentializing and transgressive for trans children.…”

Section: Concluding Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Ireland, the temporal logics of primary schools are such that a kind of 'Catholic time' is embedded in the very fabric of primary schooling (Neary and Rasmussen 2020;Kitching 2020) While Ireland is unique with regard to the formal presence of religion in the school day, these temporalities of religious ritual punctuate the lives of many children across the globe, and the two quotes above demonstrate the porous nature of primary schooling and the inevitable entanglement of celebratory ritual in the fabric of primary school life. In Ireland though, these rituals do not merely flow into the spaces of schools on certain days or times.…”

Section: The Entangled Matter Of Birthdays and Religious Rituals At Schoolmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Trans children and the necessity to complicate gender in primary schools

Neary

2021

Gender and Education

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Trans children have become more visible in primary schools in recent years. Arising from a qualitative study with twelve parents of trans children (aged 5-13) and six primary school educators in Ireland, this paper explores how trans children experience two very different forms of celebratory rituals that are entangled with life in primary schools: birthday celebrations and religious rituals. These rituals are experienced as moments of affectively intense rupture for trans children, moments that shunt the violence of the disciplinary framework of gender into view. Informed by theorizing on gender norms and affect, this paper makes visible the cruel conundrum of navigating a gender frame that acts violently but at the same provides the very terms through which trans identities can be asserted and apprehended. Ultimately, this paper provides an empirical illustration of the messiness of gender and argues for the necessity to complicate the framework of gender in primary schools.

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Section: Concluding Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Entangled Matter Of Birthdays and Religious Rituals At Schoolmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trans children and the necessity to complicate gender in primary schools

Neary

2021

Gender and Education

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“…As part of the school day, children receive preparation for the sacraments of Confession and Communion in second class and Confirmation in fifth or sixth class. The past, present and future of primary schooling is articulated through a linear trajectory of these life-moments (Kitching, 2017), firmly establishing a before Communion-after Communion-before Confirmationafter Confirmation timeline. Parents have the right to remove their child from these aspects of the day, but often children of a minority religious faith or children who have no religious affiliations remain in the classroom for these instructions (Smyth and Darmody, 2011).…”

Section: Catholic Time and The Formation Of The Childmentioning

confidence: 99%

Marriage Equality Time: Entanglements of sexual progress and childhood innocence in Irish primary schools

Neary

Rasmussen

2019

Sexualities

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Ireland is a majority-Catholic country that has, in recent times, been held up as a model of sexual progress internationally. We employ the term Marriage Equality Time (MET) to signify the tensions related to temporality, sexuality and children that emerged as Marriage Equality (ME) was introduced in Ireland. Drawing on a study with six primary schools during the ME referendum, this article captures MET in its emergent state, exploring how parents, teachers and principals were processing what ME might mean for children and schools. This analysis of MET illustrates how it mediates imaginaries of childhood innocence, sexuality and the nation-state.

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“…Ironically for Docx's (2013) criticism of 'aggressive' postmodernity, parents are encouraged to become self-authenticating subjects through market-driven education policies which nudge them to lobby for or 'choose' schools that accord with their non/religious values. These policies tend towards favouring 'more viable' majoritarian, middle class school communities (Kitching, 2017).…”

Section: What Can Beliefs Do? Ethics Education and Authenticity Aftermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But the 'after postmodernism' is better thought of in terms of 'related sets of processes' (Peters, 2011, p. 27) than periods of historical time. The question 'what can belief do' focuses us in an affective, pre-personal way on engaging aesthetics, on how our senses come to desire certain beliefs, and how they afford us variously affirming and destructive capacities for joy, sadness and multiple other affects (Kitching, 2017;Todd, 2017).…”

Section: What Can Beliefs Do? Ethics Education and Authenticity Aftermentioning

confidence: 99%