Publication: Sometimes I Can Be Anything: Power, Gender, and Identity in a Primary Classroom

• Gallas, Karen

Diversity and Multicultral Education, Literacy; the
practictioner inquiry series

In "Sometimes I Can Be Anything", Karen Gallas explores
young children's experience and understanding of gender,
race, and power as revealed by the interactions within her
first and second grade classroom. Presenting classroom
research conducted over a four-year period, this
experienced teacher-researcher focuses on the ways in which
children collectively develop their social world. To bring
that world to life, the author presents the voices and
actions of specific children. The reader will meet the "bad
boys," Tony and Tom; Josie, a "tom boy"; "beautiful"
Dierdre; Latia and Alexis, "proud and taking no risks"; and
Rachel, a "silent girl." Because Gallas watches the same
children for several years, she uncovers classroom dynamics
that remain obscure in most studies of teaching and
learning. For example, she has seen the effects of physical
beauty on a child's behavior, has noted how some children
play with the idea of being the other sex, and has tracked
the alliances of silent girls. This provocative book will
enable the reader to look again with new eyes at his or her
own classroom.