How Kindergarten Students Connect and Critically Respond to Themes of Social Class in Children's Literature

Abstract

This study examines how critical literacy read-alouds can be facilitated in an early childhood setting. More specifically, it describes how books allow young children to connect with experiences that help them identify and challenge inequality and envision social change. A classroom teacher and two university-based researchers collaborated to conduct this qualitative study that took place in one suburban Midwestern U.S. kindergarten class. Discussions and students' responses to read-alouds over a seven month period of time were analyzed. The findings demonstrate that, with support, children can develop more nuanced understandings of social class within and across texts. This research holds significant implications for how young children might be guided to examine critical social issues through the literacy curriculum and how such instruction can deepen students' engagement with texts.In a kindergarten classroom, the students sit together on a large rug, gathered around the teacher, who is reading aloud a story. This particular story, Rich Cat, Poor Cat (Waber, 1963), narrates the lives of two very different cats. As the students listen to the pages of the book describe the contrasts in the lives of a "rich cat" and a "poor cat," they pause to discuss a page showing the rich cat dining at a fancy restaurant and the poor cat scavenging for food in a garbage can. Teacher: Do you think it's fair that some cats eat at restaurants and some cats eat out of the garbage? Marisa: This cat, she not really want to eat out the garbage, but she has to, or she might die. Olivia (pointing to the pages): That cat eating out of the garbage doesn't have an owner, and that cat has an owner. She's a street cat, and she's with a person. Teacher: I wonder why some cats have owners and some cats don't? Carter (also pointing): Well that cat, well, that cat is rich and that cat isn't. The cat that's rich could stop being rich, because he got enough food to eat, and the other cat could be rich too, and then they could both be friends. Teacher: So you're saying that this rich cat is rich, but the poor cat could be rich too? Carter: When that poor cat is rich and that other one is enough rich they could be friends. Teacher: Do you think that's going to happen? Ali: No, because they don't. Arun: The rich cat doesn't want the poor cat to have a lot of dollars. The rich cat isn't nice. Keisha: I think the rich cat isn't being rich as in money, I think he has a lot of good stuff happening . . . He doesn't have any money but he has good stuff. Teacher: I was thinking that about the poor cat, maybe he doesn't have money but he is rich in other ways.In this vignette, we foreshadow ways in which a group of multicultural and multilingual kindergarten students engage with literacies as they develop the language of social analysis, cultural critique, and relationships necessary for a humane world. Young children have ideas about social class, and many books used in elementary schools give students subtle hints about characters' social class even when i...

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