Citation

Zacher JC. Educ. Stud. (Mahwah, NJ) 2009; 45(3): 262-279.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, American Educational Studies Association, Publisher Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/00131940902910966

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article focuses on the ways that one individual child, Christina, experienced urban life in and outside of a diversely populated elementary school with a multicultural curriculum. Labeled by the school and her parents as white, Christina identified as Latina, and used specific spaces in the city to support this claim. Drawing on data from a year-long ethnographic study, I show how Christina navigated her life in the city and explore the ways that she consciously represented herself over time, in multiple social spaces, as non-white. Three particular spaces are explored here: the city bus ride to school, Christina's neighborhood, and classroom discussions. Christina used a variety of resources to negotiate each space, in effect drawing a map of her racial identity as she lived in the city. Her case offers ideas about how such a curriculum might influence the senses of self of children in diversely populated classrooms.