Think outside the book: Transformative justice using children’s literature in educational settings

Abstract

Using Alexis Jemal’s conceptualization of transformative potential, founded on Paulo Freire’s idea of Critical Consciousness, a guiding transformative justice approach and accompanying questionnaire are provided here that can be adapted into any existing early childhood or elementary curriculum for children. The approach provides teachers with a methodology to search for new books and resources and use existing ones to foster their own and their students’ critical social consciousness. The transformative justice approach has two objectives: one, to enable teachers to help understand, guide, and mediate differences in the context of equity and social justice; and two, to equip children with social awareness and critical consciousness to identify stereotypes and biases, and to build solidarities between and among themselves. The transformative justice approach does not actively avoid books or resources with stereotypes or biases, but seeks to build skill sets in children and teachers to recognize and counter biases and stereotypes using texts as learning tools. It synthesizes and builds on anti-bias and culturally-sensitive pedagogies to intentionally center structural and systemic inequities, as well as fosters social awareness and critical thinking in both teachers and students by reimagining the classroom as a collaborative learning space.

Scale of Visual Creativity in Art: A Study on Scale Development and Construct Validity

“…Fromm talks about two kinds of creativity in the field of art. The first of these is a work that can be developed and learned by practicing with International Journal on Social and Education Sciences (IJonSES) 441 different methods, depending on ability such as painting, writing poetry or novel, and composing music, and revealed after this process (Anand & Hsu, 2020;Raba" & Harzallah, 2018). The second is the creative attitude and behavior that is the basis of creativity in all areas.…”

A Glimmer of Hope for Tomorrow: Conversations with the 2022 Social Justice Literature Award Winners

“…Yet beyond viewing or even inviting children to step into other figured worlds, books centered in social justice topics also “creates a sense of identity, consciousness, and agency that enable [children of diversity] to speak and act for themselves, and be who they are. For others, exposure to differences steers them clear from a false sense of ethnocentric pride and also “normalizes” differences in others, to identify inequities and use their platforms to amplify the voices of historically disenfranchised communities” (Anand & Hsu, 2020; p. 124). In reading these books, and exploring these topics, educators are doing more than engaging children in literacy practices.…”

Children’s exposure to aggression and stereotypes presented in fairy tales

“…For instance, authors such as Gil et al (2014) and Kucirkova (2019) mention the role of reading as a foundation in the development of empathic skills, by favouring the contexts given by the narrative thread and the expressiveness of the narrator's language, which urges the child to identify with the characters, to put himself in their shoes, decoding emotions and mental states (cognitive and emotional empathy). Along the same line of ideas, other studies support the role of children's literature as a variable that, through the contents conveyed, promotes prosocial behaviors such as altruism, friendship (Li et al, 2022), social justice, diversity and cooperation (Paterson, 2018;Anand & Hsu, 2020). Although there is a vast number of works that emphasize the formative role of stories and fairy tales read in the family or educational institutions (Tyra & St 2012), it is noteworthy that the voices of some authors draw attention to the implicit or explicit messages about the realities to which we probably think less when choosing the story to read to children (Gentry, 1975;Mazzoni, 2017).…”