Whose Canon?: The Absence of Children's Voices in the Polish Canon Battle

Deszcz-Tryhubczak, Justyna; Marecki, Mateusz

doi:10.1353/hcy.2018.0009

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 1 publication

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“…Two years ago, following the victory of the right-wing Law and Justice party, Poland rejoined the latter group after almost a decade of pursuing a more relaxed and inclusive policy towards canon-making. As we have argued elsewhere (Deszcz-Tryhubczak and Marecki 2018), the new school canon for primary schools, introduced in 2017, is intended to promote nation-shaping practices. It has been criticized as a blatant example of social engineering, nostalgia for "the centralized, rigidly structured past" (Kluzik-Rostkowska 2016) and a failure to recognize young readers' literary preferences and their diverse experiences.…”

Section: Justyna and Mateuszmentioning

confidence: 99%

Productive Remembering of Childhood: Child–Adult Memory-Work with the School Literary Canon

Deszcz-Tryhubczak

Marecki

Chawar³

et al. 2019

Humanities

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This essay, co-written by adult and child researchers, marks an important shift in the field of children’s literature studies because it promotes an academic practice in which children are actively involved in decision-making. In our polyphonic account of the collaboration, we draw on the ideas of productive remembering, re-memorying, and child-led research to advance a new pedagogical approach to the current, adult-centered literary school canon in Poland, which was compiled in 2017 by a panel of politically appointed experts. We exemplify our proposal by discussing “Staś and Nel in the 21st Century”: Do Long-established School Readings Connect Generations?”, a participatory research project conducted at a primary school in Wrocław, Poland, in spring 2018. As we argue, selected texts from the canon may catalyze memories of childhood from older readers that can be shared with younger readers to develop their own connections with these texts. Such an exchange may open new individual and collective remembering spaces linking intragenerational perspectives with intergenerational meanings and resulting in a school canon that promotes both national cohesion and openness to other cultures. Seen thus, our approach can be adopted in school and other settings to engage children and adults as co-creators of particular memory-work methods. In broader terms, it can promote a critical and action-oriented understanding of the heritage of childhood in Poland and elsewhere.

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Section: Justyna and Mateuszmentioning

confidence: 99%

Productive Remembering of Childhood: Child–Adult Memory-Work with the School Literary Canon

Deszcz-Tryhubczak

Marecki

Chawar³

et al. 2019

Humanities

Self Cite

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A Meta-critical Reflection on Academic Writing with Child Researchers

Deszcz-Tryhubczak¹,

Marecki²

2021

Ethics and Integrity in Research With Children and Young People

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How Gender Can Travel, or Not, through Children’s Books: A Comparison of Poland and the United States

Zabrzewska¹

2023

Intl Research in Children's Literature

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Previous research, mainly from the US, indicates that children’s literature is a powerful transmitter of gender roles. To better understand how ideas about gender found in children’s books cross national borders, travel within frontiers, and crash against obstacles that block the road to gender equality, this article compares the US and Poland in terms of children’s book publishing and scholarship. Whereas the US children’s book market is obviously larger, Poland’s internal market is large and growing enough to rely on its own, and thus acts as a barricade to repel ‘foreign’ gender norms. In the US, feminism has a strong tradition in children’s literature research; in Poland, by contrast and since 1989, feminism and the study of gender in children’s books have no strong tradition, and for the last eight years the government has openly discouraged progressive norms of gender equality. This article concludes with a call for cross-national comparative research on children’s books to provide insights into the facilitators and barriers to intercultural exchange of gender ideologies and national efforts to promote gender progressive ideals among young readers.

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Whose Canon?: The Absence of Children's Voices in the Polish Canon Battle

Cited by 3 publications

References 1 publication

Productive Remembering of Childhood: Child–Adult Memory-Work with the School Literary Canon

Productive Remembering of Childhood: Child–Adult Memory-Work with the School Literary Canon

A Meta-critical Reflection on Academic Writing with Child Researchers

How Gender Can Travel, or Not, through Children’s Books: A Comparison of Poland and the United States

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