Discarded Identities/Inspiring Just Sustainability with Reuse Persona Dolls

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Review report for “Discarded identities/Inspiring Just Sustainability with Reuse Persona Dolls”

General comment:

This piece of research presents an interersting study on a breaking new way for combining sustainaibility education (environmental one) and gender equity in early childhood (pre-primary age children). Author present the entire experience under the basis of Persona Dolls, an inspiring method for collecting data and putting in action some ideas about ecology, culture and particularly in this case, “transgender” education.

The author summon the Just Sustainibility paradigm for working on gender discourse (in fact, this is the main scope of the article despite the use of recycled materiales for the doll construct). If you focus on the Literature Review, you can hardly identifiy Sustainability aspects. It seems sustainability is only the “hook question” from drawing the Journal’s atterion.

In my point of view, this article is actually out of Sustainaibility scope due to the fact that sustainability aspects are only marginal. I recommend rejecting it and submitting to another journal (maybe Education Science?)

Specific comments:

In order to improve this piece of research, I would recommend the authors to put an eye on the following aspects:

1. Be careful with the excessive subjective vision of the research. I find irrelevant the insisting statements about the doble role of the authors (researchers-teachers). This is a standard circumstance when dealing with educational and teaching research.
2. The whole article should be written in non-personal way. Avoid the auto-references such as “I collected” “I introduced”, “I focus”. Instead, you can use “Focus group were collected”, “Question prompts were introduced”…etc.
3. The entire article does not respond to a scientific structure, at leas as I think it should be in such a journal as Sustainability. You spend the most of your text in describing the experience and you present some findings in a narrative way. I think it is great to develop a qualitative research, but there are many ways of presenting, analyzing and extracting conclusions from these data sets. Why not applying some qualitative techniques? Perhaps for this you have to extract qualitative data from each individual and making some non-parametric statistics.
4. Finally, it is not advisable to end an article without a conclusion, a clear and defined conclusion that can be used by other researchers to continue your work. In fact, if you see your Discussion section, you only discuss with one author (Parnell et al., 2017). The objective of this section is to put your findings in relation with other similar pieces of research, so this is not a real discussion.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1,

Thank you for helping me get to the best manuscript I can write. 

REVIEWER 1 comments:

1. Be careful with the excessive subjective vision of the research. I find irrelevant the insisting statements about the double role of the authors (researchers-teachers). This is a standard circumstance when dealing with educational and teaching research.

In accordance with your suggestions::

Page 1, line 36, I eliminate: 

“As a lead teacher with a doctorate, I straddle the worlds between teacher/educator.”

2. I do not agree with the reviewer that the whole article should be written in a non-personal way. Avoid the auto-references such as “I collected” “I introduced”, “I focus”. Instead, you can use “Focus groups were collected”, “Question prompts were introduced”…

I have decided to keep the personal method of writing based on the editors feedback:

Many of the readers of the journal Sustainability are familiar with the writing styles of narrative approaches, where the first pronominal ‘I’ is allowed in the writing. 

3. I agree with the reviewer that the entire article does not respond to a scientific structure, at least as I think it should be in such a journal as Sustainability. You spend the most of your text in describing the experience and you present some findings in a narrative way. I think it is great to develop qualitative research, but there are many ways of presenting, analyzing and extracting conclusions from these data sets. Why not applying some qualitative techniques? Perhaps for this you have to extract qualitative data from each individual and making some non-parametric statistics.

In accordance with your suggestions::

Page 10, line 554, I add:

Reuse persona doll summary.

In the literature review, I looked at Whitney’s (1999) work on the power of persona dolls as one of the most amazing anti-bias tools in the early childhood classroom.  Persona dolls serve a different purpose from dramatic play dolls in a classroom.  When children encounter a classroom persona doll they are interacting with another member in the classroom.  To achieve this, a persona doll is created whose identities remain as constant as those characteristics do for real children in the classroom and whose life experiences unfold just as they do for children in the classroom.  These individual and social identities help the children connect with the dolls and make the dolls stories more powerful.  This is unlike a dramatic play doll in the classroom whose age, name, family, identity and gender can change any time a child in the classroom desires to do so.   

Storytelling with persona dolls (dolls that are given names, family histories, and other traits by educators) “is a powerful tool for teaching classroom and social skills, giving children words for and tools to manage their feelings, developing problem-solving and conflict resolution skills, expanding children’s comfort with difference, undoing stereotypes and biased information, and helping children to stand up against bias” (Whitney, 1999, p. 233). Inviting educators to share their own stories of working with self-portraits constructed with reuse materials provides insights to better understand how they simultaneously tell the life stories of others. 

The participants’ experiences of becoming Remida-inspired was captured in reuse collages, Remida-inspired documentation, and reuse persona doll creations, followed by semi-structured interview narratives.  By asking Maggie, Ann, Julienne, Joni, Clara, and Miranda about their experiences with working with reuse materials around identity studies, the essence of their experience as early childhood educators could be situated in the context of their metaphors. Maple and Edwards (2010) recommended using metaphors to explore the plot of a participant’s story and to unlock data.  They suggested that, “Metaphors provide a mechanism to relate, compare, and make meaning of new knowledge with lived experiences” (p. 40).  Engaging participant’s metaphors proved to be an effective interpretive methodology.  

I began to realize that the research subjects in this study included the multiple identities of the materials, the participants, the children and Remida itself as concepts together—all having the affordance of being fluid and in a constant state of metamorphosis.  I began to conceptualize this study as a three-dimensional narrative that took on the form of a shapeshifting myth in which the protagonists, the materials and the theories themselves intersect within a three-dimensional narrative inquiry space in a constant state of being transformed, transformational and interdependent.  In this study, I found that inviting educators to share their own stories of socially constructed persona dolls constructed with reuse materials provides insights to better understand how they simultaneously tell the life stories of others.

4. The reviewer is right to point out that it is not advisable to end an article without a conclusion, a clear and defined conclusion that can be used by other researchers to continue your work. In fact, if you see your Discussion section, you only discuss with one author (Parnell et al., 2017). The objective of this section is to put your findings in relation with other similar pieces of research, so this is not a real discussion.

In accordance with your suggestions::

Page 12, line 428, I add:

This narrative inquiry study was exploratory in nature.  In fact, I only found two pieces of published research involving focus group interviews with Remida-inspired educations related to reusing materials with young children (Eckhoff et al., 2011; Parnell et al., 2017).  These studies each encompassed assemblage art and why educators deem its techniques appropriate to be incorporated in early childhood curricula following the Remida approach.  The authors drew from focus group interviews to describe the origin and theories of the instructional approach and how creative reuse education can be taught using key ideas. A key point they made demonstrated that Reggio Emilia-inspired approaches to early childhood education are relationship-based.  Therefore, interactive experiences designed to elicit Reggio-inspired educators’ observations and reflections in a group or dyads (pairs) is complementary to the socially constructivist pedagogy they practice as co-teachers. 

I Add:

Conclusion

Defending the gender justice curriculum to administrators of the early childhood development center where I was employed, after having a family disenroll in response to transgender literacy, was a harrowing stage in my professional formation. I realized that in order to maintain personal, social  professional integrity, I had to refuse to sign off on a letter to families denying I used the word “transgender” in my preschool classroom, I knew I needed allies. I reached out to the College of Education faculty including my dissertation chair, to defend my stance to my supervisors. I recognize that this privilege and protection was afforded by being employed in a lab school, and having a doctorate. In the section entitled: (Dis)ruption: An autohistoria, I’ve included artifacts from emails that were sent back and forth between me and my supervisors during that panicked week. I quickly searched for allies among other teachers in my school. The subsequent co-construction of a ‘Discomfort Forum’ by the anti-bias committee teachers at the lab school emerged from this reuse persona doll rupture. We’ve created a new space where educators can share examples, stories, case studies, and narratives around ruptures created by anti-bias work with children and families. Anzaldúa (2015) speaks to the transformative power of new, personal and collective stories through the metaphor of the Aztec mythical goddess of the moon, Coyolxauhqui, and as a theory to describe a complex healing process, “Coyolxauhqui personifies the wish to repair and heal, as well as rewrite the stories of loss and recovery, exile and homecoming, disinheritance and recuperation, stories that lead out of devalued into valued lives’(p. 143). She adds, “Coyolxauhqui represents the search for new metaphors to tell you what you need to know, how to connect and use the information gained, and, with intelligence, imagination, and grace, solve your problems and create intercultural communities” (p. 143). As diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) increases in higher education and early childhood education in response to the 2020 protests and Black Lives Matter Movement, there is a renewed call and availability of resources for BIPOC, white-European, and mixed-race/heritage educators to do the work of anti-bias/antiracist culturally responsive curriculum generation. As resources, literacy and practice increases, there will be ruptures. Katie Kissenger (2017) says, “If there’s not bumps and tears along the way, then we aren’t doing it right!” (K. Kissenger, personal communication, October, 2017). 

My desire is for autohistoria-teoría as a method for sharing experience of (dis)ruptures in the doing of early childhood education for just sustainability inspires another teacher/educator to develop and persevere through reaching out and finding support and community to move the work forward. Hopefully another educator who identifies as BIPOC, white European, or mixed/WPOC--finds themselves in this story, and is inspired to create spaces for support, resilience and nourishing each other as teacher/educators to practice equity-based pedagogies--because we will all have moments of (dis)rupture in this work. Implementing an anti-bias and antiracism curriculum (including with persona dolls) can trigger a “survival” state of professional development even in a master educator. Educators will struggle to make sense of the pedagogical hunger they encounter in their sustainability education and will share characteristics of the first stage of survival as teachers question our professional competence and desire to teach equity-based pedagogy.  In survival mode, this preoccupation with survival may be expressed as, “Can I really do this kind of work day after day?” 

Here, I connect the collective experience of discovering resilience through a learning community ‘Discomfort Forum’ to characteristics of the first stage of survival for teachers; teachers whose main preoccupation with survival may be expressed with questions such as, “Will I be accepted by my colleagues?”  During this survival period, the educator is most likely to need support and guidance through relationships with like-minded colleagues (Katz, 1972) as she grows in her pedagogical perspectives. Professional nourishment through their relationships with micro and meso systems including social sustainability inspired early childhood university programs, colleagues, supervisors, literature, professors, conferences, and their respective schools. Anzaldúa (2015) conceptualizes consciousness as ‘conocimiento’ as “otro mode de conectar across colors and other differences to allies also trying to negotiate racial contradictions, survive the stress and traumas of daily life, and develop a spiritual-imaginal-political vision together. Conocimiento shares a sense of affinity with all things and advocates for mobilizing, organizing, sharing information, knowledge, insights, and resources with other groups” (p. 153). Relationality is key during the survival stage as the educator needs direct help with specific skills and insight into the complexities of children’s individual and social identity expression.  On-site mentors may be master level educators, advisors, consultants, and directors (Katz, 1972). In conclusion, in a modern-day forager context of teacher/educator professional formation in early childhood education for sustainability, the primary resource for resilience and survival is relationality or building community through social justice collaboration. All of this relates to being in a community as teacher activists. A community support group is necessary for professional formation, and empowers us to reconceptualize early childhood education for Just Sustainability.

Reviewer 2 Report

Very interesting paper and I am thankful for the opportunity to review such interesting work. The paper is well-written and draws upon a wide body of scholarship.  There are a few places within the manuscript that call for strengthening but, given a few modifications/additions, I feel that this work is worthy of publication.  In particular, I felt the description of the data & methods could be improved. At present there isn't a strong description of how findings were derived from the data sources the author references - Open-ended questions, brainstorming sessions, and persona dolls completed during the focus interview.  For example, how were participant quotes chosen for inclusion on pages 8-10.  The anecdotes about the children were interesting but how were they chosen for inclusion? How long did the children interact with the dolls and, at what point, did these conversations take place.  These interactions were supported by the teachers to build this conception of just sustainability but not much detail is provided to understand what, how, and why those actions were successful.

In addition, the paper's overall approach/topic and the implications the author introduces in the final section of the paper seem to center on arts-based participatory practices, it might be helpful to draw upon that body of literature earlier in the paper to set the stage for the implications for future practice. Finally, I would encourage the author to consider moving or perhaps modifying/strengthening the LESSONS LEARNED: AN AUTOHISTORIA-TEORIA section.  It just seemed to appear where it was placed but not add too much to the present line of thinking.  I believe moving it or significantly developing it would better support the ideas within.  

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2, 

Thank you for helping me get to the best manuscript I can write. 

REVIEWER 2 Comments

1. I agree with the reviewer that in particular, the description of the data & methods could be improved. At present there isn't a strong description of how findings were derived from the data sources the author references - Open-ended questions, brainstorming sessions, and persona dolls completed during the focus interview.

In accordance with your suggestions::

Page 10, line 355, I add:

Findings

Mainstream approaches to identity studies in early childhood education (ECE) are problematic from both social constructivist and early childhood education for sustainability perspectives.  Mainstream approaches are influenced by behaviorist theories of developmental psychology literature, which privilege individual identity, whereas emerging discourses in identity theory trend toward discussing the multiplicity of social identities. Alternatively, and in contrast to traditional behaviorist and cognitive learning theories, cultural centers like Reggio Emilia, Italy’s Remida Creative Recycling Center promote reuse material projects that socially construct identities in Reggio’s Municipal Infant/Toddler Centers and Preprimary Schools by giving value to waste materials through offering such materials in young children’s work and thinking. For the purposes of this research study, I embarked on a quest to understand what early childhood educators’ experiences of socially constructing identity studies with young children meant to them. 

As a narrative inquirer, I conducted dyadic interviews and focus group discussion over the course of three two-hour sessions to illuminate six early childhood educator’s experiences of socially constructing identity studies with young children as a Remida-inspired educator. The first two dyadic narrative sessions document participants reuse collages, Remida-inspired documentation, and narrative data that highlight professional formation patterns, metaphors and unique points of view or ‘Hidden Treasures’ that emerged during the interviews.  Throughout the three sessions, at the end of each inquiry, I use a re-storying method to summarize key points made by all the participants and to express multiple perspectives through a collective voice. As researcher, I employed Anzaldua’s (1987) concept of “Borderlands” to develop an understanding of early childhood educator’s experiences of socially constructing identity studies with young children as a Remida- inspired educator. 

Although each participant’s experiences were unique, patterns came into view which are interpreted through Katz (1972) framework for developmental stages of preschool teachers: survival, consolidation, renewal, and maturity. These growth patterns are further aligned with three corresponding archetypal stages of Remida-inspired identity studies that emerged from the collage and interview process, namely, (a) Identifying with Reggio Emilia philosophies: The Forager, (b) Identifying with Remida: The Global Homesteader and (c) Socially Constructing Identity Studies: The Navigator. Additionally, nine Hidden Treasures became visible from each stage including, Children’s Identities are More Fluid, and Remida Materials Support Constructivist Identity Studies. These Hidden Treasures illuminate participants' experiences and are synthesized with a Borderlands framework as affirmation of an image of the child as a global ecological citizen, capable of understanding and expressing more complex features of social identities. 

2. The reviewer is right to point out that for example, how were participant quotes chosen for inclusion on pages 8-10?

In accordance with your suggestions::

Page 8, line 297, I add:

Thus, using reuse materials, I asked participants to consider making persona dolls that would personify their ideal of sustainability and reuse educational practices as an embodiment in the doll.  One doll named Logan, chose to use gender neutral pronouns for themselves and has a persona of gender fluidity.  Another doll named Harmony in Disarray, lives in a non-traditional family system where one household recycles, and reuses and the other doesn’t.  Since the focus group, these dolls have traveled to several schools introducing themselves to classrooms of children and opening the community to their ways of living and experiencing the world around many topics, reuse materials education, gender identity, and many more.

For the sake of this paper, I have chosen to include quotes from the laboratory CDC focus group who co-constructed a reuse persona doll named Logan. 

3. The reviewer is right to point out the anecdotes about the children were interesting but how were they chosen for inclusion? How long did the children interact with the dolls and, at what point, did these conversations take place.  I agree with the reviewer that these interactions were supported by the teachers to build this conception of just sustainability but not much detail is provided to understand what, how, and why those actions were successful.

In accordance with your suggestions:

Page 10, line 362, I add:

The children interacted with Logan during circle time and all throughout the day. Logan would introduce sustainability concepts like reduce, reuse, recycle and rot. Logan would invite the children to visit the Remida-inspired creative reuse center housed in the development center. I would also work with Logan and Harmony to introduce social stories and conversations with the children would take place around social and emotional literacies. One of our student staff chose (they, them, theirs) pronouns like Logan and eventually the children became fluent in addressing both the student staff and Logan with the correct pronouns. These interactions were supported by the teachers to build this conception of just sustainability. 

2. I agree with the reviewer that In addition, the paper's overall approach/topic and the implications the author introduces in the final section of the paper seem to center on arts-based participatory practices, it might be helpful to draw upon that body of literature earlier in the paper to set the stage for the implications for future practice.

In accordance with your suggestions I have revised the implications section and so the focus is no longer on the arts based practices.

I add:

Page 13, line 463, I Add:

Conclusion

Defending the gender justice curriculum to administrators of the early childhood development center where I was employed, after having a family disenroll in response to transgender literacy, was a harrowing stage in my professional formation. I realized that in order to maintain personal, social  professional integrity, I had to refuse to sign off on a letter to families denying I used the word “transgender” in my preschool classroom, I knew I needed allies. I reached out to the College of Education faculty including my dissertation chair, to defend my stance to my supervisors. I recognize that this privilege and protection was afforded by being employed in a lab school, and having a doctorate. In the section entitled: (Dis)ruption: An autohistoria, I’ve included artifacts from emails that were sent back and forth between me and my supervisors during that panicked week. I quickly searched for allies among other teachers in my school. The subsequent co-construction of a ‘Discomfort Forum’ by the anti-bias committee teachers at the lab school emerged from this reuse persona doll rupture. We’ve created a new space where educators can share examples, stories, case studies, and narratives around ruptures created by anti-bias work with children and families. Anzaldúa (2015) speaks to the transformative power of new, personal and collective stories through the metaphor of the Aztec mythical goddess of the moon, Coyolxauhqui, and as a theory to describe a complex healing process, “Coyolxauhqui personifies the wish to repair and heal, as well as rewrite the stories of loss and recovery, exile and homecoming, disinheritance and recuperation, stories that lead out of devalued into valued lives’(p. 143). She adds, “Coyolxauhqui represents the search for new metaphors to tell you what you need to know, how to connect and use the information gained, and, with intelligence, imagination, and grace, solve your problems and create intercultural communities” (p. 143). As diversity, equity and inclusio (DEI) increases in higher education and early childhood education in response to the 2020 protests and Black Lives Matter Movement, there is a renewed call and availability of resources for BIPOC, white-European, and mixed-race/heritage educators to do the work of anti-bias/antiracist culturally responsive curriculum generation. As resources, literacy and practice increases, there will be ruptures. Katie Kissenger (2017) says, “If there’s not bumps and tears along the way, then we aren’t doing it right!” (K. Kissenger, personal communication, October, 2017). 

My desire is for autohistoria-teoría as a method for sharing experience of (dis)ruptures in the doing of early childhood education for just sustainability inspires another teacher/educator to develop and persevere through reaching out and finding support and community to move the work forward. Hopefully another educator who identifies as BIPOC, white European, or mixed/wPOC--finds themselves in this story, and is inspired to create spaces for support, resilience and nourishing each other as teacher/educators to practice equity-based pedagogies--because we will all have moments of (dis)rupture in this work. Implementing an anti-bias and antiracism curriculum (including with persona dolls) can trigger a “survival” state of professional development even in a master educator. Educators will struggle to make sense of the pedagogical hunger they encounter in their sustainability education and will share characteristics of the first stage of survival as teachers question our professional competence and desire to teach equity-based pedagogy.  In survival mode, this preoccupation with survival may be expressed as, “Can I really do this kind of work day after day?” 

Here, I connect the collective experience of discovering resilience through a learning community ‘Discomfort Forum’ to characteristics of the first stage of survival for teachers; teachers whose main preoccupation with survival may be expressed with questions such as, “Will I be accepted by my colleagues?”  During this survival period, the educator is most likely to need support and guidance through relationships with like-minded colleagues (Katz, 1972) as she grows in her pedagogical perspectives. Professional nourishment through their relationships with micro and meso systems including social sustainability inspired early childhood university programs, colleagues, supervisors, literature, professors, conferences, and their respective schools. Anzaldúa (2015) conceptualizes consciousness as ‘conocimiento’ as “otro mode de conectar across colors and other differences to allies also trying to negotiate racial contradictions, survive the stress and traumas of daily life, and develop a spiritual-imaginal-political vision together. Conocimiento shares a sense of affinity with all things and advocates for mobilizing, organizing, sharing information, knowledge, insights, and resources with other groups” (p. 153). Relationality is key during the survival stage as the educator needs direct help with specific skills and insight into the complexities of children’s individual and social identity expression.  On-site mentors may be master level educators, advisors, consultants, and directors (Katz, 1972). In conclusion, in a modern-day forager context of teacher/educator professional formation in early childhood education for sustainability, the primary resource for resilience and survival is relationality or building community through social justice collaboration. All of this relates to being in a community as teacher activists. A community support group is necessary for professional formation, and empowers us to reconceptualize early childhood education for Just Sustainability.

3. I agree with the reviewer to consider moving or perhaps modifying/strengthening the LESSONS LEARNED: AN AUTOHISTORIA-TEORIA section.  The reviewer is right to point out that It just seemed to appear where it was placed but not add too much to the present line of thinking.  I believe moving it or significantly developing it would better support the ideas within. 

In accordance with your suggestions::

Page 11, line 387, I add:

I emailed the preschool coordinator and director scholarship supporting discussing gender identity with young children and received the reply, "This article may be helpful in the future but right now our focus is on “damage control”. Please read the emailed draft of the parent letter I sent you this evening and add the details requested." I was sent a draft of a parent letter my co-teacher and administration wrote,

"We would like to clarify a topic that was shared in our last class news email sent to you on Friday, September 28th.  In the newsletter we used the terms boy, girl & transgender in an effort to explain to adults that the topic of gender identity and gender stereotypes had come up in conversation started by children. The term transgender was not discussed in this conversation with children." 

I was asked to sign the letter and refused. I replied,

"I don't feel comfortable writing an apologetic letter to a majority of families who haven't complained about discussing diverse gender identities. The letter says we never actually used the word transgender when we actually did! I need to respond with integrity because I believe this incident deals directly with the heart of my dissertation work and my social justice values. I hold an image of the child as being capable and competent of processing complex social identities. I don't feel the letter is congruent with my pedagogical stance." I was afraid for my job and started to look for support from outside of administration. I reached out to a College of Education faculty who specializes in anti-bias curriculum and asked for pedagogical support and advocacy at a meeting that was called for with me by my supervisors. 

Page 11, line 393, I add:

I sought out support and solidarity from teachers who were members of the anti-bias committee that had formed at our lab school. In time, this led to the creation of a "Discomfort Forum" which creates space for professional development as well as a support group for our anti-bias work. Faculty including me dissertation chair contacted the administrators and advocated for the inclusion of transgender curriculum and the disciplinary meeting with my supervisors never took place. The following letter I wrote to families was approved,

Dear families,

Last week I overheard a conversation between two returning children regarding gender identity. Both children were discussing whether one of them was actually a girl since she doesn’t “dress like a girl” or “act like a girl.” This conversation inspired me to explore gender identities with the class at circle time half an hour later. I believe Children are picking up messages about gender from the day they are born. In many ways, society tells us how girls and boys are supposed to look, speak, dress, and act. In attempting to sort out the world around them, preschoolers might form rigid ideas about gender and what it means to them. Most children begin to identify strongly with a gender around age 3. That includes transgender and gender non-conforming people, who also have a sense of their gender identity at this stage. Transgender can mean a person whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with their birth sex.

In an effort to talk about gender roles and stereotypes and to be inclusive of members of our community who identify as transgender, I brought my anti bias persona doll Logan and the book “I am Jazz” to circle time. I realize this may have startled some families and that it deserves more context and dialogue with parents. Below is a transcript of our conversation at that circle time. We value parents as protagonists in our curriculum and will be more transparent ahead of time when we consider anti-bias education in the Ladybug room that can be considered value charged. Please feel free to share any questions or concerns or inspirations you may have. 

CIRCLE TIME DOCUMENTATION

Michelle: Harmony and Logan both came from the creative reuse center upstairs in Remida. Teachers made Harmony and Logan out of reuse materials and gave these two dolls stories. I have told you a little bit about Harmony’s story and Logan’s story is a little bit different. Harmony identifies as she and her—as a girl. Logan was born a boy. 

Rosalia: Harmony is like me and Logan is like Beaux!

Michelle: I notice that Rosalia says Harmony is like her—a girl and Logan is like Beaux—who is a boy. Can you tell me what does it mean to be a girl and what does it mean to be a boy? What does it mean to be a boy?

Reid: Me! (Pointing to himself)

Michelle: Raise your hand if you have ideas about what it means to be a boy?

Smith: Like me!

Caroline: A boy is like my brother.

Beaux: Mommy has two brothers and one is Bax (referring to his twin brother) I have two moms and two boys!

Michelle: So Beaux has two mom’s and two boys in his family—him and his brother.

Beaux: And my sister and cousin.

Reid: I am a boy.

Michelle: What is a boy? What does it mean to be a boy?

Pola: I don’t know!

Karlie: I don’t know!

Mariola: What do boys do? How do boys look?

Ellie: They have short hair!

Mariola: I know girls who have short hair and some boys who have long hair too.

Karlie: I know some boys who have really, really short hair.

Emerson: My hair is going to get shorter and shorter as I grow up.

Michelle: So Harmony was born a girl. What does it mean to be a girl?

Pola: I don’t know! It looks like me.

Michelle: What does a girl look like?

Nico: With long hair?

Lily: I think I am a girl too.

Karlie: My mom and my baby are girls.

Mariola: Are boys and girls the same?

Karlie: Girls sometimes have long hair and boys have short hair.

Caroline: They have different looks. 

Michelle: Logan was born a boy but they feel like a girl, they don’t feel like a boy. Harmony was given a dress by the ladybugs last year that they made out of reuse materials. Logan wanted to wear the dress too because he feels more like a girl and sometimes girls wear dresses.

Karlie: Sometimes boys wear dresses too!

June: I have a little dress that’s too big.

Michelle: Harmony let’s Logan wear the dress. Logan likes to be called they, them and theirs because Logan feels like a boy and a girl. So Logan doesn’t like to be called he or she. Here is a book that Logan wanted me to read to you, because it’s their very favorite and it’s called “I am Jazz” 

Gratefully,

Michelle

Page 11, line 399

Replace with second person present tense:

You overhear a familiar conversation between children on the playground when two boy’s pull up on tricycles, and say to one of your male students who is wearing a skirt, “You are not a boy. You are a girl.” “No.” says your student, “I am a boy.” They pause and then one of them says, “Why are you wearing a girl dress?” You realize that a year after the rupture, You have another chance to engage Logan’s persona in your classroom to address gender non-conformity in a way that scaffolds the learning for children and families alike. 

Before engaging Logan to discuss gender justice with your classroom, you send out an introduction to families. You properly introduce your use of persona dolls including Logan, giving parents an opportunity to ask questions or make comments. This year you will start out slowly introducing complex labels and terms along a spectrum. You will begin by introducing books on gender nonconforming identities, followed by gender non-binary, and finally transgender identity expression. 

During the (dis)rupture one year ago, you had to hold onto your research findings, your image of the child as competent and capable of understanding and expressing complex features of social identities, your center’s Anti-bias Mission Statement, and your commitment to gender justice in order to weather the rupture. Moving into the future, you take responsibility for making visible an anti-bias statement for your classroom, making sure you and your co-teacher are pedagogically committed to disrupt traditional curriculum, slowly scaffolding complex gender concepts for children and families, and doing ongoing self-reflection around anti-bias and antiracism, for this critical work that you are called to.

Reviewer 3 Report

I appreciate the attempt at integrating of Anzalduúa's concept of autohistoria-teoría* as a methodology to examine gender identity with educators. The concept of autohistoria-teoría is much more than what you offer here. Anzaldúa defines this methodology as a way to connect personal experiences with social realities that are then theorized “making knowledge, meaning and identity through self-inscriptions. By making certain personal experiences [are] the subject of [her] study, [she] blurs the private/public borders” 2015, p. 6). It is really a story about oneself (autohistoria) that is theorized (autohistoria-teoría). If one would need to make a comparison, I would say it’s a like an autoethnography only insofar as the integration of self as the subject of study. With autohistoria-teoría, there is an urgency to “foster individual and collective self-growth, sociopolitical resistance and planetary transformation” (Keating, 2015, p. 206) that stem from women of color/Chicana/Latina embodied experiences.

In order to address this, I suggest that a more expansive definition of autohistoria-teoría be offered to the readers with a some examples from the other scholarship using this. The whole manuscript would need to be more self-reflexive, allowing the self to theorize their embodied experience as Chicana mix race and other categories they identify with as well as  in conversation with  theories and scholarship in the field. Self transformation would be highlighted and more prominent than what was offered in the section "lesson learned."

*autohistoria-teoría is misspelled throughout and hyphenated in wrong place. This is the correct as found in Light in the Dark (Anzaldúa, 2015).

Make sure Anzaldúa has accent throughout paper.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 3, 

Thank you for helping me get to the best manuscript I can write. I am grateful for your feedback.

REVIEWER 3 Comments

1. I agree with the reviewer that a more expansive definition of autohistoria-teoría be offered to the readers with some examples from the other scholarship using this. The whole manuscript would need to be more self-reflexive, allowing the self to theorize their embodied experience as Chicana mix race and other categories they identify with as well as  in conversation with  theories and scholarship in the field. 

In accordance with your suggestions::

Page 2, Line 82, I add one reference:

(Keating, 2009).

Page 13, line 492, I add reference:

Keating, A. (Ed.). (2009). The Gloria Anzaldua reader: Latin American otherwise. Duke University Press.

Page 13, line 472, I add reference:

Cavendish, LM. (2011). Stories of international teachers: a narrative inquiry about culturally responsive teaching. PhD thesis, University of Iowa. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.17077/etd.zzu3wf2p

Page 14, line 516, I add one reference:

Trahar, S. (Ed.). (2013). Contextualising narrative inquiry: Developing methodological Approaches for local contexts. Routledge. 

Page 13, line 474, I add a reference:

Connelly, F.M., & Clandinin, D.J. (1990). Stories of experience and narrative inquiry. Educational Researcher, 19(5), pp. 2-14.

Page. 14, line 499, I add a reference:

Maynes, M.J., Pierce, J., & Laslett, B. (2008). Telling stories: The use of personal narrative in the social sciences and history. Cornell University Press.

Page 14, line 507, I add a reference:

Pinnegar, S. (2006). Afterword: Re-narrating and indwelling. In D.J. Clandinin et, al. Composing Diverse Identities: Narrative Inquiries into The Interwoven Lives of Children and Teachers (pp. 176-190). New York: Routledge.

Page 14, line 508, I add reference:

Pitts, AJ. (2016). Gloria Anzaldua’s autohistoria-teoría as an epistemology of self-knowledge/ignorance. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1111/hypa.12235

Page 13, line 480, I add reference:

Domingues, M. (2021). WPOC: Space Making for White People of Color Affinity Groups in Higher Education. [Unpublished manuscript].

Johnston-Guerrero, M.P., & Wijeyesinghe, C.L. (Eds.). (2021). Multiracial experiences in higher education: Contesting knowledge honoring voice, and innovating practice. Stylus Publishing.

Page 14, line 515, I add reference:

Saavedra, C.M., & Salazar Pérez, M. (2012) Chicana and Black Feminisms: Testimonios of Theory, Identity, and Multiculturalism, Equity & Excellence in Education, 45:3, 430-443, DOI: 10.1080/10665684.2012.681970

Page 14, line 506, I add reference:

Perez, M.,Saavedra, C., & Habashi, J. (2017). Rethinking global north onto-epistemologies in childhood studies. Global Studies of Childhood. 

Page 14, line 522, I add reference:

Turner, J.D. (2014). Reconsidering the relationship between new mestizaje and new multiraciality as mixed race Identity models. Journal of Critical Mixed Race Studies, 1(1). 

Page 11, line 399

Replace Lessons Learned with:

Self-Transformation:

Page 11, line 399

Replace with second person present tense:

You overhear a familiar conversation between children on the playground when two boy’s pull up on tricycles, and say to one of your male students who is wearing a skirt, “You are not a boy. You are a girl.” “No.” says your student, “I am a boy.” They pause and then one of them says, “Why are you wearing a girl dress?” You realize that a year after the rupture, You have another chance to engage Logan’s persona in your classroom to address gender non-conformity in a way that scaffolds the learning for children and families alike. 

Before engaging Logan to discuss gender justice with your classroom, you send out an introduction to families. You properly introduce your use of persona dolls including Logan, giving parents an opportunity to ask questions or make comments. This year you will start out slowly introducing complex labels and terms along a spectrum. You will begin by introducing books on gender nonconforming identities, followed by gender non-binary, and finally transgender identity expression. 

During the (dis)rupture one year ago, you had to hold onto your research findings, your image of the child as competent and capable of understanding and expressing complex features of social identities, your center’s Anti-bias Mission Statement, and your commitment to gender justice in order to weather the rupture. Moving into the future, you take responsibility for making visible an anti-bias statement for your classroom, making sure you and your co-teacher are pedagogically committed to disrupt traditional curriculum, slowly scaffolding complex gender concepts for children and families, and doing ongoing self-reflection around anti-bias and antiracism, for this critical work that you are called to.

2. The reviewer is right to point out that *autohistoria-teoría is misspelled throughout and hyphenated in the wrong place. This is the correct as found in Light in the Dark (Anzaldúa, 2015).

In accordance with your suggestions::

I correct spelling:

autohistoria-teoría

Page 1, line 7, 

Page 1, line 18

Page 2, line 76

Page 2, line 79

Page 2, line 81

Page 4, line 145

Page 11, line 399

2. The reviewer is right to point out to make sure Anzaldúa has an accent throughout the paper.

In accordance with your suggestions:

Page 13, line 464, I add accent:

Anzaldúa

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

I still do not understand the use of autohistoria-teoría in this manuscript, which was still misspelled in some places--missing is the accent on the last i. Though Anzaldúa did not specify an autohistoria-teoría methodology, they are sprinkled throughout in Light in the Dark. I recommend the author go to the index section and find all the autohistoria-teoría mentions to pull quotes and use that as a guide.

the section should (be)coming should be theorized more and connected back to scholarship and or more profound realizations that the author can contribute to her discipline. Take us there, push the boundaries.

Author Response

Thank you so much for your valuable suggestions.