The Discipline of Silence : Childrens' Bodies as Public Space [abstract]

Abstract

I am a mother to two children, one eleven-year old boy in sixth grade and one nine-year old girl in the fourth grade. Their adventures through public school have been inspirational in this research, and have taken me to my seat of interest concerning the analysis and discussion of public school curriculum. It would be too simple to say "public school curriculum" as this is a vine of direction, control, pedagogy and power. Public schools, unarguably, are epicenters for cultural development -- they are the houses of normalcy, the fortresses of socialization for people ages five-six to seventeen-eighteen. That being said, while there are several components that shape young people through the many curricula of a public school, the shaping of sexualities, the instruction of identity and the various forms of moral imposition concerning sex and bodies are of particular interest to me. To be even more specific, the human health curriculum and the sexual abuse prevention curriculum -- and the texts that define, organize and inform the body.