Configuring the Jewish Child: Intersections of Pedagogy and Cultural Identity

  • Devorah Kennedy
Chapter
Part of the Critical Cultural Studies of Childhood book series (CCSC)

Abstract

Child care quality is a central feature of the Bush administration’s reform initiative in early childhood education.1 In this chapter I discuss assumptions embedded in discourses of child care quality and power effects of current discourses in relationship to cultural difference. I approach the concept of “child care quality” first as a product of historically constituted reasoning inscribed with assumptions and comparative differentiations between “normal” and “non-normal” populations and individuals. As such quality child care becomes a governing concept, delineating parameters through which we guide our own behavior and judge that of others. In particular, I approach “quality” child care and the notions of “diversity” and “inclusion” produced through those discourses, as productive of parameters defining “normal” childhood and acceptable “cultural difference.” I look specifically at production of configurations of normal Jewish childhood within the American Jewish community.

Keywords

Child Care Early Childhood Education Jewish Community Social Economy Jewish Woman 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Marianne N. Bloch, Devorah Kennedy, Theodora Lightfoot, and Dar Weyenberg 2006

Authors and Affiliations

  • Devorah Kennedy

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