Young children’s social class identities in everyday life at primary school: The importance of naming and challenging complex inequalities

Abstract

This article explores young children's social class identities in the context of a Scottish primary school, highlighting the ambivalent institutional discourses around 'diversity' and social class in the school context. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with 5-7 year-olds, it shows the emotional and embodied aspects through which social class differences are performed in the children's intra-and intergenerational interactions, and the implications for the children's relationships and experiences in school. The study shows that practitioners need to name and address social class differences, in intersection with gender, race and ethnicity, and involve young children themselves in discussions about identities and inequalities.

Preschool children’s prejudices: A phenomenological study

“…Task Force, 1989). As Kustatscher (2017) pointed out, young children absorb the concepts of social class, identity and values like passive sponges, and it is therefore important for adults to consider this whenever spending time with children.…”

“…As such, to reach preschools' diversity-related objectives, it is important to determine what children see as different and what their prejudices are. Nevertheless, research on children's prejudices is sparse, and the few studies that have been conducted have tended to focus on only one characteristic, often gender or race (Akbalık, 1998;Akın, 2007;Aydilek Çiftçi & Özgün, 2011;Aytaç, 2013;Bağçeli Kahraman & Başal, 2011;Ersoy, 2009;İnci Kuzu, 2015;Kowalski, 2003;Kustatscher, 2017;Penny, 2007;Pica, 2008;Sak et al, 2015;Thorman, 2002;Ünlü, 2012;Williams, 2012;Yağan Güder & Güler Yıldız, 2016;Zargarpour, 2001). The current study therefore examines children's relationships to all seven of the main types of prejudice identified in the adult realm by Wolpert (2002), not merely to fill the gaps in the existing literature, but to help parents, preschool teachers and curriculum developers who wish to identify and deal with children's prejudices in realworld situations.…”

Shifting power dynamics in interviews with children: a minority ethnic, working-class researcher’s reflections

“…In a similar fashion, Thorne (1993) clarifyingly demonstrates how children resist, rework and create gendered expectations through boundary-making processes. The ways in which children draw on symbolic resources to challenge, but also to create and maintain inequality has also been studied in research on ethnicity/race (e.g., Connolly, 2002;Devine et al, 2008;Sedano, 2012) and social class (e.g., Kostet et al, 2021a;Kustatscher, 2017;Vandebroeck, 2020). Indeed, if we aim to consider children as active social actors, we should also recognize their ability to produce and reproduce inequalities, to affect and harm the othernot only in interaction with their peers and parents or teachers, but while interacting with other adults, such as researchers, as well.…”

Crecer en sociedades desiguales: interpretaciones de niñas y niños colombianos sobre la estratificación socioeconómica

“…ocurrido, puede indicar la tendencia a ver a los niños "como demasiado inocentes o incompetentes" (KUSTATSCHER, 2017, p. 384) para preocuparse o interesarse por conocer estos temas y aunado a esto, pensar que el espacio escolar es en algún sentido neutral a las desigualdades sociales. En contraste, varios investigadores(BALL, 2003;LAREAU, 2003;REAY, 2006; VINCENT y MAXWELL, 2016;KUSTATSCHER, 2017) han expuesto las complejas conexiones entre la clase social y los procesos de escolarización, especialmente en lo referente a los vínculos entre la clase social y los logros educativos, y la elección familiar de las…”