An Exploratory Study of Elementary School Students’ Discussions about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion through the Use of Social Justice Awareness Circles

Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation study was to identify the nature of 23, 4th grade children’s talk in social justice awareness circles about topics representative of DEI issues. Omitted in prior research on student talk is the “situatedness” of the classroom discussion and how local context, school climate, media coverage of sensitive topics, family histories, teacher behavior, and classroom demographics influence the nature of the conversations. This research took place in a Pre-K—5th grade elementary school located within a large public school district in the southwestern United States. The gender balance of the students was female (49%), male (51%) with the ethnic representation being 93.7% Hispanic/Latino, 3.6% White, 1.7% Native American, .3% Asian, and .7% two or more races. Data were analyzed from the following sources: (a) audio- and video-recordings and transcripts of the social justice awareness circle discourse; (b) student responses to survey questions during social justice awareness orientation; (c) ethnographic field notes of classroom settings, events, and activities related to social justice, (d) students’ written and graphic artifacts produced in response to the books and to the social justice awareness circle discussions; (e) the classroom teacher’s journal as well as the researcher’s journal and field notes. The children’s literature read was categorized according to Winn’s (2018) Five Pedagogical Stances and analysis of the students’ discourse was partially guided by Muhammad’s (2020) Historically Responsive Literacy Model. Findings include (a) that children bring a wealth of knowledge into the classroom already about “what is fair” from their personal experiences, family stories, broadcast media, social media platforms, podcasts, and videos; (b) the students initially needed to work through their own experiences about social justice issues before having more general discussions; (c) televised images of the Ukraine/Russia war was greatly disturbing to all of the children who all wanted to donate money, food, water and toys to the families hiding underground; (d) the students acquired the academic language of social justice during the course of the study. Implications for researchers and teachers are offered.