Children's power relations and civic dialogue in a culturally diverse classroom

This study explores childrens power relations and civic dialogue in a culturally diverse classroom after the US 2016 presidential election. Drawing on poststructural theories and Latinx Critical Theory, I perceive children as political agents who already navigate power relations in their everyday classroom lives and peer dialogue. As a critical ethnographic study, I generated data from participant observation, pre- and post-dialogue individual interviews, and civic dialogue sessions in a fourth-grade classroom at an urban Title 1 elementary school in the southeast US. First, I describe the power relations in the classroom, in particular, the dominant identity discourses, privileges, racial marginalization, and exclusion. I highlight the hybrid classroom discourses concerning current political and social contexts. In addition, using Critical Discourse Analysis method, I identify students reproduction and tactical resistance to the unbalanced power relations as well as alternative subjectivities in civic dialogue sessions, which might promote equity and inclusion. Last, drawing on Latinx Critical Theory, I investigate childrens collective making of inclusive counterspaces and the counterspaces that are exclusive to Latinx students in civic dialogue sessions. I argue for both practices at school. The findings suggest that we, as educators, need to dig into students everchanging power relations in the classroom and use civic dialogue strategically for equity and inclusion in order to serve all students.