Towards a curriculum of darkness: re-storying and retribution in youth arts programmes

Our inquiry considers how minoritized youth counter brutal hegemony by re-imagining their identities through arts. In particular, it explores how minoritized youth draw on dark themes to (re)present their lives in creative production. Since K-12 educational contexts are often viewed as sites of convivial ambience where student depictions of violence are discouraged (Phillips [2012]. “Retribution and Rebellion: Children’s Meaning Making of Justice Through Storytelling.” International Journal of Early Childhood 44: 141–156.), research is needed to explicate how youth engage themes of physical violence, destruction, and even death in storying their lives. Our article is guided by the following questions: How do minoritized youth engage dark themes that disrupt discourses of conviviality in re-storying their lives? Why is a curriculum of darkness important for radical healing? Our illumination of the ways in which minoritized youth explored violence and destruction in their creative work significantly extends the literature on young people’s examination of identity and inequality. Our study brings attention to the need for a curriculum of darkness, where pedagogy might better reflect the dark themes that are culturally relevant (Ladson-Billings [1995]. “Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy.” American Educational Research Journal 32 (3): 465–491.) to the identities and lives of minoritized young people.