Escalating terror Danby & Baker (2001)

Danby, S. & Baker, C.D. (2001) Escalating terror: Communicativestrategies in a preschool classroom dispute. Early Education and Development, 12(3), 343-358.

In this paper, Danby and Baker identify the methods used by preschool children to enact and enforce force masculinity in the block area. Masculinity is relevant here because the messages used by the boys in the block area – no girls use this space in this way – are confrontingly threatening (“I’ll smash it right down”; “bash you right down”, p.348). These practices serve to make visible the requisite qualities for group membership (eg strength), and enculturate the younger boys into these practices. Moreover, the format-tying of the talk itself serves to mark membership, where the boys recycle phrases, ‘using the same collaborative structure of talk’ (p.353). The emphasis here is that children construct their own social order, using a range of strategies to manage membership and alignment with other children during the course of escalating disputes.