Connolly, P. (1998) Racism, Gender Identities and Young Children: Social Relations in A Multi-Ethnic, Inner-City Primary School. London: Routledge.

What role do schools play in shaping young children's racial and gender identities?

This book offers a fascinating yet disturbing account of the significance of racism in the lives of five- and six-year old children. Drawing upon data from an in-depth study of an inner-city, multi-ethnic primary school and its surrounding community, it represents one of the only detailed studies to give primacy to the voices of young children themselves - giving them the space to articulate their own experiences and concerns. Together with detailed observation of the children in the school and local community, it provides an important account of how and why they draw upon discourses on 'race' in the development of their gender identities.

The author highlights the understanding that these children have of issues of 'race', gender and sexuality and the active role they play in using and reworking this knowledge to make sense of their experiences.

Contents

1. Introduction

2. Racism, Culture and Identity: Towards a Theory of Practice

3. The Racialisation of National Political Discourses

4. Living in the Inner City: The Manor Park Estate

5. Teacher Discourses and East Avenue Primary School

6. From Boys to Men? Black Boys in the Field of Masculine Peer Group Relations

7. Invisible Masculinities? South Asian Boys at East Avenue

8. The Field of Feminine Peer-Group Relations and Black Girls

9. The 'Sexual Other'? South Asian Girls at East Avenue

10. Conclusions

Further Details

214pp

Education/Sociology/Ethnic Studies

ISBN: 0-415-18319-7 (pbk)

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