Week 4 Post

As I begin to write this post, I'm not exactly sure how to structure my response in a way that will equitably include all of the readings while addressing each question in an organized way that doesn't span pages and pages of content. That said, I'm going to talk briefly about three of the readings and what stuck out to me in terms of the questions at the beginning of my post and follow that with a more in depth analysis of the article that was of particular importance for my learning this week.

Childhood Figured Worlds: Navigating Figured Worlds as white British and British Pakistani

Something I really appreciated about this piece from the start was the way that Barron (2013) included a rich amount of detail when outlining the driving theoretical framework for this project. As I entered into reading about the ways that the children were navigating their figured world school but also larger social contexts based on their ethnic and racial experiences, I was struck by the statement that figured worlds can be "helpful in supplementing how young children's ethnic identities have been conceptualized by critical race theorists and socio-cultural theorists" (Barron, 2013, p. 2). For me, this connected to how we've discussed the way using figured worlds in research might pair well with other theories, even, in this case, conversations from multiple paradigms.

The positional and figurative identities that the children performed during this research project were "constantly in complex interaction with each other" (Barron, 2013, p. 10). For example, Barron's (2013) example about Mitchell's rationale for not celebrating Eid because he's "not dark" was an example of using his positioned identity of whiteness to assign the way he participates in cultural experiences.  This specific example not only included his identity but also the way he is interpreting his figured worlds and the sociocultural norms accompanying those worlds that ultimately hold power over which individuals "are supposed to" celebrate certain holidays and which are not.

As a result of these socially constructed norms that the children interpreted, Barron (2013) writes,

" only particular figured worlds were available to the children for much of the time. The children had few, if any, opportunities to make things up from scratch" (p. 14-15). The connection, then, to the ways these sorts of "access" points interweave themselves into whose knowledge is valued in schools and whose isn't was an important lead in to discussions of power within these figured worlds and how they potentially play themselves out over long periods of time in granting and denying access to students.

Materiality and Power in Teacher's Figured Worlds

As I was reading the Gelfuso & Dennis (2017) piece, I was particularly aware of the questions related to the ways that artifacts and power enter into figured worlds. Specifically, for this research study, that happened to be the figured worlds of life as a teacher as well as the figured world of teaching and learning literacy. Rather than rehash the entire study here, I'll highlight two important moments.

Within the discourses analysis of the conversation between Sherry and Megan, the central theme that emerged was discussion of materials. These physical and tangible artifacts seemed to drive the conversation between the two, serving as central to the "teaching and learning" aspect of the figured worlds. The tie in, then, to the ways that these specific materials were driven by district standards, which were often "checked up on" by those in positions of power, was insightful in thinking about how much of focus physical materials can become.

The sociocultural norms that existed in this space dictated the importance of materials as well as using practical knowledge to drive instruction. While not specifically honing in on the identities of either of the participants, this study did make me wonder about the ways that identities of teachers are performed in the figured world of school spaces. That also, then, led me to wonder the ways in which teachers might use agency in classrooms to resist or conform to the existing power structures. In the case of this 20-minute conversation, it appears that both Shelly and Megan were complicit in conforming to expectations. But were they? Wouldn't it be necessary to ask them questions about the way they navigate expectations in order to glean insight?

Resisting Heteronormative Norms through Artifacts

Before I even begin to unpack here, I'll start by saying I really enjoyed reading Blackburn's (2002) piece. Of all that I read for this week, the piece seemed to flow so nicely and read almost like a story.

As Blackburn (2002) unpacked the figured worlds that Justine occupied within the context of the research (i.e., school and youth center), the ways that "authoring" was used in this piece was something I appreciated when discussing the way agency was enacted. For example, Blackburn (2002) writes about the way Justine authored herself into the first poem where she shifts the use of the word "dyke" from how she is positioned as a young woman of color identifying as a lesbian into a different figured world in the poem where she had agency to fight the hatred that accompanied her lived experience with that word. Not only does she write the poem, though, as an act of resistance against powerful heteronormativity, but she goes a step further by reading it aloud to a group in which she can be empowered by those around her.

The ultimate example of the artifact produced by this piece culminates in Justine's video that she chooses to share in both of her figured worlds. In this piece, she combines artifacts within artifacts (e.g., photos and words within a video) in an act of agency to validate her identity in a figured world where sociocultural norms indicate that her identity as a lesbian is problematic.

Grappling with Manufactured Differences in Separate Figured Worlds

I'll end with a reflection on Bagatell's (2007) piece since the content of the research study was the closest to my researcher heart. There were several methodological moves that I really appreciated about this piece. I thought the decision to report findings through narrative was especially insightful in demonstrating the ways that the two different figured worlds in the article (i.e., living in the "neurotypical" world and living in a world with other individuals with autism) was helpful in seeing the ways that artifacts, identities, power and sociocultural norms all worked together within each of these spaces.

Throughout the narrative, Bagatell (2007) successfully highlights the multiple ways that Ben is positioned within his dominantly viewed identity of being someone who "has autism." The reader sees the often ignored aspects, especially within the disability world, of mental health and depression that accompany being positioned in social spaces as an outcast or someone who needs to "conform" to "being normal." The reader then sees Ben's attempts at enacting agency as a younger child when he discusses actively resisting the sociocultural pressures to "act normal" which, he later decides, are sometimes pressures he will conform to in order to engage in social relationships with peers. 

Soooooo…now that I answered some of the questions about this piece…I wanted to offer critique about the way that Bagatell (2007) portrays these figured worlds.

First, Bagatell (2007) offers no framework though which she's going to discuss disability which, for me, is an essential element if you're going to do this kind of research. Disability as a concept or label or IDENTITY goes unproblematized and unexamined. Based on the way the piece presents, I'm inclined to say that Bagatell (2007) is using a medical model of disability to do this work, which, in my opinion is problematic.

This is why: (the video is a bit long but does a nice job of explaining the medical v. social models of disability if you're not familiar):

Secondly, throughout Bagatell's (2007) discussion, there is a definite development of the "neurotypical" figured world that Ben occupies (which, presumably, so does Bagatell). Power structures and sociocultural norms are outlined and the ways that Ben resists and conforms are brought to light. The discussion in this piece, though, of the figured world in which Ben goes to interact with individuals who share his diagnosis in really underdeveloped. There is discussion about the ways that this figured world is more comfortable for Ben and how there are differing sociocultural norms in place. However, there is only 1 statement I could find in the entire piece that mentions issues of power in which Bagatell (2007) highlights that those with "higher functioning" autism have more control than those who are "lower functioning."

Based on my experience with this world, there are far more existing power structures than this. The way it is presented in the piece, this figured world is "paradise." In a lot of ways, it may have been positioned that way based on Ben's lived experience in his less desired figured world. However, the ethnographic work on this end seemed weak to me in that there was a lack of exploration into the ways that communities of individuals who have aspects of shared identities are also governed by rules and often driven by conformity.