ERIC Number: EJ1214092
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019
Pages: 12
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0159-6306
EISSN: N/A
Troubling School Toilets: Resisting Discourses of 'Development' through a Critical Disability Studies and Critical Psychology Lens
Slater, Jen; Jones, Charlotte; Procter, Lisa
Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, v40 n3 p412-423 2019
This paper interrogates how school toilets and 'school readiness' are used to assess children against developmental milestones. Such developmental norms both inform school toilet design and practice, and perpetuate normative discourses of childhood as middle-class, white, 'able', heteronormative, cissexist and inferior to adulthood. Critical psychology and critical disability studies frame our analysis of conversations from online practitioner forums. We show that school toilets and the norms and ideals of 'toilet training' act as one device for Othering those who do not fit into normative Western discourses of 'childhood'. Furthermore, these idealised discourses of 'childhood' reify classed, racialised, gendered and dis/ablist binaries of good/bad parenting. We conclude by suggesting new methodological approaches to school toilet research which resist perpetuating developmental assumptions and prescriptions. In doing this, the paper is the first to explicitly bring school toilet research into the realms of critical psychology and critical disability studies.
Descriptors: Toilet Training, School Readiness, Disabilities, Psychology, Critical Theory, Foreign Countries, Sanitary Facilities, Young Children
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United Kingdom
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A