What is it like to be a child? Childhood subjectivity and teacher memories as heterotopia

ABSTRACT

Foucault's notion of heterotopia offers a novel way to understand teachers’ conceptualizations of childhood, in juxtaposing adult memories of childhood with their present context of teaching children. Memory writing prompts were given to 41 early childhood teachers, and the resulting written narratives were analyzed as heterotopic spaces. The study follows two trajectories. First, in terms of teacher development, we examine how the construct of heterotopia can help teachers and teacher educators understand the impact of memories on their current assumptions about childhood. Second, we argue that examining the teacher's internal experiences through heterotopia can contribute to theoretical thinking about childhood. The study's findings suggest that it is a considerable but meaningful challenge to examine our subjective experience of childhood in relation to our understanding of children today. This process may be useful in assisting the teacher to disentangle the imagined, remembered, conceptualized and actual child, and to interrupt our tendencies to project our own experiences onto others. Perhaps, there is a childhood that exists in heterotopic spaces, not quite the subjective or psychical child, but not quite the external child either. This may be the liminal childhood that the early childhood teacher, preoccupied as (s)he is with childhood, experiences. Theorizing teachers’ subjectivities as they are linked to their memories of childhood is a complex endeavour, and Foucault's heterotopia provides rich images of strange juxtaposition that may be useful in thinking about childhood and teaching.

KEYWORDS:

• Curriculum studies
• narrative methods
• student and teacher experiences
• teacher development
• heterotopia
• memory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fonds de Recherche du Québec – Société et Culture (FRQSC), Établissement nouveaux professeurs-chercheurs [grant number 173556].

Notes on contributors

Sandra Chang-Kredl

Sandra Chang-Kredl, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Education at Concordia University, specializing in Early Childhood Education. Her research profile revolves around teacher identity, children's popular culture, memory work, curriculum studies, film theory and cultural studies. She has recently published in journals including Reflective Practice, Teacher and Teacher Education, Children's Literature in Education, Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, Early Education and Development, and Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice.

Email: [email protected]

Gala Wilkie

Gala Wilkie is an MA Child Studies student in the Department of Education at Concordia University. She worked as an early childhood teacher for ten years and currently is a special education teacher with Place Cartier Adult Education Center. Her research interests include teacher identity and the role of natural environments in early childhood.

Email: [email protected]