ABSTRACT
This case study is taken from a research project which was aimed at understanding the experiences of black children from their own standpoints as they began their statutory education in reception classes. The qualitative study used direct observation over a period of six weeks in each school, to ‘hear the voices’ of the young black girls and boys (Clark and Moss, 2008). The study used a Critical Race Theory (CRT) framework which recognises that racism is endemic in society and is bound to impact on black children either covertly, overtly or both (Delgado and Stefancic, 2001; Dixson and Rousseau, 2006). The CRT approach supports the view that it is imperative to hear the voices of the black community when understanding racism in society (Zamudio et al., 2011). The case study below is an opportunity to hear a little of what one black child’s ‘voice’ is saying as she finds her new identity away from home.
Donna is a four-year-old black British girl of Jamaican heritage attending a reception class in a school where the other pupils are predominantly of Asian heritage. Her ‘best friend’ is Sumira, with whom she spends most of her time during the day. Sumira’s family are from Sri Lanka. The three reception class practitioners are white European. One morning, Donna decides to make a picture using photos of children from some magazines, which have been displayed in the creative art area. She looks through the magazines and selects a picture of a young white girl, with long blond straight hair, cuts around the figure and sticks it onto her piece of paper. She continues to do this for another ten minutes, discussing the pictures with her friend Sumira as they look through the pages of the magazine, commenting on how ‘nice’ the girls look in their fairy and princess costumes. She takes her finished collage to show the practitioner. It is of four girls that she has cut out and arranged on the paper, all of whom have the same long, straight blond hair. The practitioner comments on her ‘lovely picture’, remarking on her good cutting-out skills. Donna then goes into the ‘café’ role play area and makes ‘patties’ alone with the playdough, while Sumira ‘reads’ to the practitioner in the adjoining literacy area of the classroom.
A few days later, while sharing a photo book with the researcher and a group of four children, Donna mentions that a boy in the playground during lunch time had commented on her hair saying, ‘that’s the stupid hair ever heard’. She says that this upset her and that he ‘shouldn’t have said that’. When asked, Donna said that she hadn’t told anybody about the comment. That afternoon, Donna asks the researcher to twist her two bunches for her into long strands. She then sits in a group session flicking her strands from side to side. On another occasion, a practitioner enters the classroom, touches Donna’s hair, which is in two bunches that day, and says to her, ‘my daughter’s got a doll with hair like this’. Donna makes no comment and moves away from the practitioner. Often when sitting in the whole-class group carpet sessions, Donna will feel the long, straight hair of the Asian children sitting nearest to her. However, when Donna’s peers feel her hair she gets angry and complains to the practitioner. Shortly after these events, Donna’s mother tells the researcher during an interview for the research project that she was very angry with Donna the previous evening because she had cut ‘large chunks’ out of her hair. She had not mentioned this to the practitioners in Donna’s class as she ‘hadn’t had the chance’ to do so.
