MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

In various cultural representations, American childhood is often imagined as white, middle-class, able-bodied, and heterosexual. Other children - working-class, minority, disabled, and LGBTQIA youth - are rarely depicted in ways that evoke qualities such as innocence or play and are often seen as challenge/threat to the image of the ideal American child. This panel calls into question universalizing discourses of childhood by examining and challenging the whiteness and classism of international rights organizations, children’s literature and poetry, and better baby contest scholarship.