Chapter Four: Performing Gender in Song Games
Gender and sexuality come to the fore in song games, which reveal tensions surrounding changing ideologies, as well as the disciplining of gendered and sexualized performances.
Terms:
• Gender/Sexuality
• Performance
• Performativity
• Voice
• Interpellation
• Discursive consciousness
• Practical consciousness
Questions for reflection:
1. What is the difference between performance and performativity? What are some examples you can think of from your own experience or observations?
2. How is gender related to performance, and how is it related to performativity? How can both of these be contexts for socialization/learning?
3. How were activities gendered in children’s discourses on Corn Island? What do you think are the ideologies of gender surrounding children’s activities in your cultural context?
4. What does children’s divergence from cultural norms suggest about the differences between expectations and practices? In what ways do children in these examples follow cultural norms and socialize one another to adhere to these norms, and in what ways do they negotiate and perhaps even transform them?
5. How does gender intersect with other frameworks for identity, such as race, class, and ethnicity, in the book and in your experiences?
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- A toddler gets included in a song game
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- Older kids playing song games during recess
