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Children's Literature in Education

, Volume 46, Issue 3, pp 325–341 | Cite as

Scripting History: The Genre of Desegregation Stories

  • Naomi Lesley
Original Paper
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Abstract

This article argues that desegregation stories form a subset of the school story genre. In drawing upon school story traditions, desegregation stories offer some unexpected and politically contentious solutions to the problems of segregated schooling, including queer friendships and critiques of classroom pedagogy. Nevertheless, the resolution of the school story requires that the protagonist be absorbed into an authorized institution and thus that she must relinquish some of the unconventional intellectual pursuits and friendships she has been pursuing. Thus, the desegregation story first opens up a variety of possibilities for critiquing the supposedly “superior” white-dominated school, and then often tames these possibilities through its generic format. The article draws upon three girls’ desegregation stories as exemplars of how this sub-genre comments upon the traditions of the school story novel.

Keywords

Desegregation School stories Genre Education history 
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.The George Washington UniversityJacksonvilleUSA

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