Early Childhood Pre K-3: Movie Night:Criticl Childhd

Through documentary film, research and diverse stories, contemplates the lives of children around the world, the life-spaces they inhabit, and commonly held ideas about children and parenting from multi-cultural, critical and feminist perspectives; provides a greater appreciation for childhood, both as a cultural construction, and as a distinctly constructed culture.

All students warmly welcomed.

https://soc.uvm.edu/?details&srcdb=202501&crn=13339

Through documentary film, research and diverse stories, contemplates the lives of children around the world, the life-spaces they inhabit, and commonly held ideas about children and parenting from multi-cultural, critical and feminist perspectives; provides a greater appreciation for childhood, both as a cultural construction, and as a distinctly constructed culture. A good documentary film is a powerful tool to promote deep thinking, critical reflection, and meaningful dialogue. Film combines images, compelling stories, diverse ideologies, historical and present perspectives, and contexts. Documentaries selected for this course ground our aim to attain a deeper understanding of childhood from a cross-cultural and international perspective. Childhood is a common experience that unites all of us. This course will cast a broad net toa) consider our own cultural conception of children and their personhood; and b) to look beyond our own experiences to explore the richness of human diversity. Students contemplate how children, and their personhood, is not a universal experience through shared dialogue on how childhood as a cultural embodiment change across time and space. Students explore the lives of children, the life-spaces they inhabit, and commonly held ideas about children, parenting, and family, as a social system, from an interdisciplinary lens. Grounded in critical childhood perspectives, students consider systemic inequities, ongoing disparities, and social phenomena that affect children, glocally (globally, locally). We pose questions: “What does it mean to be a child?” In a collective response, we will recognize childhood as a cultural construction and advocate for children from a lens of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Justice (DEIJ) and consider action that may disrupt systemic oppression and promote positive social change. This course draws on intersectional, Black-feminist and culturally and linguistically responsive perspectives of Childhood Studies from prominent scholars: Hill Collins (1995), Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989), bell hooks (2013), Gloria Ladson-Billings (1995), Gholdy Mohammad (2020), and Sharroky Hollie (2017, 2021,2022). Scholarly resources will be available to students through a specially curated eReserve through UVM Howe Library.

1. Demonstrate a complex and competency-based view of childhood, including how children function as cultural embodiments and also social agents in their own right, from a family systems theory lens. 2. Critically engage with our learning community in ongoing reflective practice to develop an awareness of and appreciation for the diversity of childhood, including but not limited to, race, ethnicity, age, geography, religion, socio-economic status, language, gender identity, disability; and family structure. 3. Develop skills of critical reflection and analysis by linking film with research and empirical knowledge, and illuminating salient themes, tensions and questions in collaboration with peers in ways that are inclusive, interdisciplinary, pluralistic, anti-bias and anti-racist. 4. Challenge the status quo by critiquing, deconstructing, and disrupting concepts of childhood and advocating for children’s rights. Use a Black feminist lens to analyze salient themes in a selected film. Students integrate ethnographic, sociological, historical and/or applied social science research.

Description, criteria, and rubric for evaluation for assignments can be found on Brightspace and appendix. Your grade for the course will be determined by the following: • Class and Film Screening Attendance: 20% • Yellow Dig Discussion Group Engagement: 20% • FRED Talk (Film/Research Engaging Discussion) In Class Group Presentation and Reflection: 20% • Critical Addendum Screencast (CAV): 20% • DOCKs #1 & #2 (Demonstration of Content Knowledge): 20%