Contamination of Childhood Fairy Tale: Pre-Service Teachers Explore Gender and Race Constructions

TL;DRAbstract

This study explores the possibilities of challenging European-American middle-class social codes perpetuated by fairy tales through creative writing and artmaking. For centuries, writers and artists have continued to create new versions of old tales. Critiquing through recreation of fairy tales can reveal biases of personal and cultural constructions of race and gender. Like authors and illustrators of children's books, 25 pre-service teachers were invited to "contaminate" fairy tales from their childhood, through which to become aware of metaphors they live by and explore where and how pre-existing codes entered their lives. Their retellings of traditional tales and accompanying illustrations show their awareness, as well as unawareness, of gender and racial stereotypes in children's fairy tales. Students were comfortable reconstructing the traditional gender roles, but hesitated to challenge the racial identities in their creations. The students and I gained insight about the possibi

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