how to write an ethnography

1 “How were the Boys and Girls?” An Ethnographic Profile of The Boys and Girls Club of Wayne County, the Richard E. Jeffers Unit Jamie Utt Methods of Peacemaking Peace Ethnography April 18, 2006 Caroline Higgins 2 “I can‟t do it. Mine looks ugly,” lamented Labrie as he fumbled with a piece of paper, attempting to make an origami bowl for the Mother-Daughter Social that was to be held around Easter time. “Sure ya‟ can! I think it looks pretty good. You just need to slow down and have a little confidence.” It always made me sad when Labrie would get down on himself. Labrie, a warm, friendly six year old who regularly attends the Boys and Girls Club of Wayne County, always managed to get down on himself, especially when working on an art project. Some of the kids who put themselves down seemed to do so out of a desire for attention, almost as if they were fishing for compliments. Labrie, on the other hand, could care less if I complimented him on his work. He genuinely seemed to think that his work, and in turn he, was just plain no good. Labrie was quick to get down on himself and his work when he had a difficult time with whatever he was doing, whether it was kickball in the Multipurpose Gym or origami in the Art Room, and it would be easy to get frustrated with his self-deflating attitude. However, when Joyce, the Art Instructor at the Richard E. Jeffers Unit of the Boys and Girls Club of Wayne County, helped Labrie complete a project, pushing him along step by step, the look on his face was indescribable. “LOOK!!!” Labrie held up an origami bowl, showing me his masterpiece that was slightly lopsided and torn but complete and glorious to him. The smile on his six-year-old face literally seemed to stretch from one earlobe to the other. Until Labrie showed me his work of art, I was worried about how to write an ethnography with a peace focus on my time volunteering at the Boys and Girls Club. Labrie and Joyce showed me, though, that peace work doesn‟t have to be a massive social action or liberation from oppression. Peace is in a child‟s smile. 3 Methods and Insertion My ethnographic research began when I went to the main site for the Boys and Girls Club, the Richard E. Jeffers Unit, to fill out a volunteer application. The young woman who works the front desk, who I would later come to know as Mindi, handed me the two-page volunteer application form, and I set to work filling out the form. Understandably, a lot of the form focused on criminal record and experience working with youth, and the signature at the end indicated that the applicant is willing to have a background check run. After filling out the form, they said they would get back to me in a week, and sure enough, a week later I had returned for an orientation tour. Larry, the Senior Unit Director for the Boys and Girls Club of Wayne County, took me on a tour of the facilities (which will be described in depth later), and informed me that as a volunteer, I had two options for inserting myself into the B&G environment. I could simply float around the facilities until I found a pre-existing niche that fit me and then focus my time and efforts helping the paid staff in that area, or I could decide on a niche that was not presently filled by the B&G staff or volunteers and design my own program. For example, some volunteers lead a Saturday-afternoon soccer league. Another volunteer named Alex, an Earlham Bonner Scholar, teaches Kung Fu one afternoon a week. I decided that considering my intent to sit back and observe the students and staff for at least part of my time, my best option would be to insert myself into a presently-running program and offer my support to the staff. As a method of ensuring regularity in my insertion, which is important in getting to know the kids with whom I would be working, I set regular hours for volunteering. I volunteered at the club every Thursday and Friday from approximately three to five p.m., though the times occasionally changed and occasionally I volunteered on Wednesdays. For my first three or four volunteering sessions, I floated around the club, mainly exploring the Multipurpose Gym and the Main Gym by playing sports with the kids, the Games Room by playing pool or board games, and the Art Room by helping the kids with various art and craft 4 projects. Though my initial inclination was to spend most of my time in the gyms playing sports, I found it very difficult to have instructive and meaningful conversations with the young people, so I slowly but surely settled into my place in the Art Room where I have spent the majority of my time assisting Joyce Johnson, the Art Instructor. Because I did not find a comfortable place to declare my intention to write an academic paper on my experience at the Boys and Girls Club, I did not actively take notes during my time inserted in the site until my last week present. Instead, I would spend anywhere from fifteen minutes to a half an hour in my car before leaving the site, attempting to reconstruct my experience and any conversations I may have had. In time, though, I found this method very difficult to render detailed information and detailed conversational anecdotes, so with a week left in the site, I informed Joyce and Larry about my intention to write a paper for a class about my time at the club, both of whom were receptive, though Larry seemed a little suspect of my intentions. I also told a few of the students with whom I had more experience and time, but they did not seem to care much. For that last week, I carried a notebook around with me while at the Club and wrote down more detailed conversational notes. This is probably the greatest problem I had in writing the ethnography, and it probably affected my results more adversely than any other aspect of the insertion and construction of my experience. As expected, only with time did the students who regularly attended begin to warm up to me and get comfortable with me. At first, the students were suspect of this tall, lanky, curly-headed man with huge holes in his earlobes. By the end of my period of ethnographic study, though, the kids liked to run their fingers through my curls and make jokes about the huge holes in my gauged ears. The staff, on the other hand, warmed up to me quickly. This may have had something to do with age, but most likely it had to do with our common goals of providing a positive place for kids to spend time after school. Joyce especially warmed up to me to the point that by my fifth visit, 5 which fell on St. Patrick‟s Day, Joyce had made me a special funny, festive hat to wear during the St. Pat‟s party. Also, Henry, the Gymnasium Attendant, helped me feel welcome from day one by talking to me and explaining the rules and norms as we played kickball with the kids. A Look at the Boys and Girls Club of Wayne County The Boys and Girls Club of Wayne County, which was founded originally as the Boys Club in 1957, is intended as a “Positive Place for Kids ages 6-18 to go after school.”1 The states mission of my site of insertion is “to inspire and enable all young people, especially those from disadvantaged circumstances, to realize their full potential as productive, responsible and caring citizens.”2 To accomplish this mission, the Boys and Girls Club of Wayne County has three separate facilities: The Richard E. Jeffers Unit, location of the administrative offices and my site of insertion, the Central Unit, located on East Main Street Richmond, and the Baxter Extension, located on NW 3rd Street. To attend regularly, a student must become a member, which costs fifteen dollars a year, though one can attend as a guest occasionally (note the membership report below). All three of these sites focus in six “Core Program Areas” intended at nurturing all aspects of the young people‟s growth. These areas include: Character and Leadership Development such as service clubs; Education and Career Development, which focuses in job and specific skill training and education; Health and Life Skills such as drug and alcohol and obesity prevention and self-esteem programs for young girls; Fine Arts, (where I spent most of my time) focusing on art classes and exhibits; Sports, Fitness, & Recreation, which includes general games and sports as well as sports leagues; and Special Programs and Events, including camping, special holiday parties, and field trips. In this section, I will attempt to provide a profile of the physical environment established at 1 “About Us.” The Official Webpage of the Boys and Girls Club of Wayne County, 2006 (accessed 16 April 2006) 2 Ibid. 6 my specific site within the Boys and Girls Club, a look at the student demographics, and an understanding of the role of staff and volunteers at the Club. In doing so, I hope to engender and understanding of the site that will inform the themes and growth points discussed later in the ethnography. The Richard E. Jeffers Unit: An In-Depth Profile Perhaps the first thing that grabbed my attention about the Richard E. Jeffers Unit where I spent all of my time volunteering was the incredibly nice, seemingly new facilities, which I would later find from Larry Stone were completed in 2003 through mostly private-sector donations. This site is located at 1717 South L Street in Richmond and is open Monday through Friday (except when closed for some holidays) from 2:30 – 8:00 p.m. and on Saturdays for sports leagues and special events. When one enters the REJ Unit, which houses all of the administrative offices for the entire B&G of Wayne County operation, he is likely to notice the secured entrance with a large front desk and coat room and large plate-glass doors. The only way to enter the facilities is to sign in as a guest or scan one‟s membership, volunteer, or staff identification card, after which one of the front desk assistants will push a button that unlocks the main doors. Inside the facility, the space is split into ten distinct sections, as far as I observed. The Games Room is a large space with an air hockey table, two pool tables (one for ages 6-9 and one for 9 and up), a carpetball table, two fussball tables, a bumper pool table, plenty of tables resting on the blue carpet, and a desk where students can borrow board games of all sorts. Attached to the game room is the snack area where a free snack is served every day from 3:00 until 4:15 p.m. and where two vending machines selling Coke Products and various snacks such as Doritos, Butterfingers, and Nutragrain Bars are sold. Going down the stairs from the Games Room, one can find the Multipurpose Gym and the Main Gymnasium. The white Multipurpose Gym is smaller and is for various games that require a smaller area and for activities such as indoor soccer. The Multipurpose Gym is separated from the 7 Main Gymnasium by a fifteen or twenty-foot-tall wall, which does not reach all the way to the ceiling. The Main Gymnasium is a large area that can sustain one full-sized basketball court or two small basketball courts with a total of six basketball hoops. This gym is used for all sorts of games and activities that require a larger area. A large banner showing that Richmond Toyota sponsored the gym hangs from one wall. Attached to the gym is the Gymnasium Attendant office. This large gym has even been used for a professional wrestling event that was advertised to the B&G members as “half off with your membership card.” Going back upstairs and down the hall that attaches to the Game Room, one will find the Computer Room with seventeen computers with internet access where students can play games, do homework or research, or listen to music. Surfing the internet, though, is quite restricted. Further down the hall is the Teen Room with computers, a big television, a fussball table, a pool table, a ping pong table, a shuffleboard table, magazines and books that might appeal to a range of teen tastes and levels, comfortable couches, and video games that include an X-Box for the TV and older, arcade-style video consoles. This area is aimed at reaching the older students (13-18), providing a separate, enclosed space for them to do their own tutoring and socializing. Further down the hall is the Library, which is operated by and as an extension of the Morrison-Reeves Library. Students can acquire a library card that also works at the main library and borrow books from the selection that appeals to the 6-18 year-old students who attend the Club. At the end of the hall before the left turn is the Art Room. The art room is decorated with countless art projects including paintings, sculptures, collages, drawings, and crafts that the students have completed. The walls, which are made of a cork-like material, have thumb tacks holding all sorts of artwork. There are six large cupboards and many smaller cupboards holding art supplies. The linoleum floor makes for easy clean up, and there are seven project tables at which students can work. Back in the hallway, one can follow the left-hand turn to the Reid Room, a homework-based 8 room where students can take part in Power Hour, where students do homework and tutoring, America Reads, and other educational programs. The room, which is decorated with encouraging posters such as ones that feature celebrities encouraging students to read, has quite a few tables where students can do homework. Continuing down the hallway and turning left, one will find the three administrative offices, which house Jennifer, the Executive Administrative Assistant, Craig, the Director of Operations, and Larry, the Senior Unit Director. Finally, continuing down the hall will bring someone to the Cadet Room, which is aimed at the youngest students, ages six to eight. This room has two large fish tanks, a nice carpeted area with fun educational pictures about animals, small tables and chairs, posters encouraging students to “ACHIEVE!” and “LEARN!” and a large Disney‟s Cinderella storage space that holds various videos. Student Demographics Perhaps the most fulfilling aspect of inserting myself into the Boys and Girls Club community was that I got to see, to spend time with, and to know a large number of very diverse children ranging widely in age. The Boys and Girls Club of Wayne County serves approximately 6667 students per month during the school year at its three locations, and the Richard E. Jeffers Unit serves approximately 4413, or 66 percent, of the total number of students per month.3 That breaks down to an approximate total of 283 students per day attending at one of the three locations, and at the unit where I volunteered, approximately 170 students per day are served.4 With such a high number of young people coming through one of the three sites every single day, the Boys and Girls Club of Wayne County has established itself as a vital and important 3 “Total Attendance.” The Boys and Girls Club of Wayne County Membership Report. Official report on membership and attendance throughout Wayne County: January – March 2006. 4 “Avg. Daily Attendance.” The Boys and Girls Club of Wayne County Membership Report. Official report on membership and attendance throughout Wayne County: January – March 2006. 9 resource in the community. In turn, spending my time at the B&G was not only an interesting look at the demographics of Richmond, but I felt like my time was actually valuable in providing a significant resource for the youth of the area. Aside from straight numbers, I wanted to get an understanding of the racial, ethnic, and gender composition of the students coming to my site. However, the Boys and Girls Club did not keep any records of membership or attendance based on race, ethnicity, or gender as far as I could acquire, though, so I had to make approximations based on my observations. It must be noted that these are by any means scientific observations. These observations are based on my own approximations of the students who attended while I was there in a specific time period on specific days. I would estimate that approximately half of the students who attend the Richard E. Jeffers Unit on a regular basis are white, which is interesting in a city that, according to the 2000 Census, is approximately eighty-seven percent white.5 Of the students of color who attend the Boys and Girls Club, I would say that the prominent majority are African American followed by Latinos. I was surprised that there are not more Latinos who attend the Club considering the fairly strong population of Latinos in Richmond. Staff and Volunteers In my first few visits to the Boys and Girls Club, I was focusing very hard on inserting myself into the experience of the children attending, and I was merely thinking of the staff and volunteers as a background, a tool that could help me insert myself into the world of the boys and girls. In time, though, I realized that not only are these dedicated staff members and volunteers far more than background but that they are an integral subculture of the Boys and Girls Club microcosm. 5 “Richmond, Indiana,” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Last Updated 16 April 2006. Accessed 16 April 2006. 10 The Boys and Girls Club of Wayne County employs between thirty and thirty five staff members in positions in various roles at all three locations. Roles include administrative roles such as Executive Director and Senior Unit Director, specialized roles such as Art Instructor and Computer Lab Instructor, attendant roles that supervise areas of the club like Gymnasium Attendant and Games Room Attendant, floating staff positions that help where needed often called Junior Staff, and other support staff like Maintenance staff. All of these positions intersect in their common interest of providing a positive place for kids to spend their time, but each paid staff member brings her or his own talents, struggles, baggage, life experience, and energies. Joyce, Art Instructor at the Richard E. Jeffers Unit, for instance, came to the Club after three years of retirement. “I started here in September, but I retired from Alcoa in 2000 . . . 2003, so it has been three years. Yeah . . . 2003,” said Joyce as she put herself into a frame of reference. “I gained twenty-five points and started tensing up, so I had to get involved. The guy who was teaching art here quit or retired, so I came in and applied, and here I am.” On earlier occasion, Joyce explained her passion for the subject she taught at the B&G. “I have always loved art. When I was young, I was always drawing and painting. When I got a divorce, though, I had kids to support, so art took a back seat. I got a job at Alcoa, a bottle cap factory, and I worked there for almost thirty years before we were forced into retirement in 2003. That gave me more time to work on my art, and working here was just a logical step.” Chris, on the other hand, is a Gymnasium Attendant who couldn‟t be much older than 20, though I do not know his actual age. The simple age gap between Chris and Joyce ensures that they bring very different skills and experiences to benefit the children. Chris, a student at Indiana University East here in Richmond, loves to play with the kids. He often jokes with the kids about how Henry, another Gymnasium Attendant, looks like a popular reality television character and rapper named Flava Flav. By relating to the kids on the level of popular culture and jumping right into the games that they play, pitching for waffle ball or playing dodge ball, Chris can find unique 11 and fun ways to relate to the students who attend the Club. Though the Boys and Girls Club of Wayne County can afford to pay a small number of staff, it would be unable to run many of it programs without the two-hundred or more volunteers that help at the Club every year. The Boys and Girls Club website boasts that the Club is “able to offer our Club members opportunities that no other youth organization in the area can provide due to [its] volunteer support.”6 A wide variety of people lend their time and talents to the Boys and Girls Club, including many Earlham students such as Bonner Scholars named Alex and Brandon, IU East students, and Richmond community members. Jessica, a young member of the Richmond community, loves to play in the Games Room. Jessica is mentally handicapped, though I am not sure exactly what her disability entails, but that in no way hinders her from spending regular time at the Club offering her smiles, hugs, and Uno skills to the kids at the Club. She always can relate to me through her knowing of another Earlham student and always asks me if I have seen her friend recently. Brian, a Richmond community member and volunteer, plays carpetball with the kids virtually every time I see him. The objective of carpetball is to roll a ball along a thing strip of carpet in hopes of knocking the opponent‟s balls off the carpet. The last person with balls on the carpet is the winner. My very first day at the Club, I had a chance to sit and talk with Brian. Brian is a veteran of the US military who recently retired after living in Germany for a great deal of his service. “I grew up in Richmond, and I used to come to the Boys Club, back when it was just the Boys Club . . . you know, before they started admitting girls and all. Now that I am retired and have some free time, I like to come here and volunteer.” With all of these diverse experiences and many others coming together with a single goal of helping the young people of Richmond and the surrounding area, it is no wonder that the Boys and 6 “Volunteers.” The Official Webpage of the Boys and Girls Club of Wayne County, 2006 (accessed 17 April 2006) 12 Girls Club has been as amazingly successful as it has, especially in being largely privately funded. The dedication and excitement of the volunteers and staff that I have witnessed in my short twentyfour hours of volunteering creates a unique, exciting, fun, and educational environment for young people. Themes throughout the Boys and Girls Club of Wayne County In an attempt to best understand the site in which I was inserting myself for study, I kept track of a few key themes that were not only recurrent in appearance but were important to the daily operation and experience of the students who attend the Club, the staff who work there, and the volunteers who give of their time. These themes and countless others work together to provide a quilt-like framework for the subculture that exists inside the Club, a subculture with a specific set of rules, its own language, and its own diverse community. The themes I will choose to focus on are Competition, Interest in the Exotic, Staff and Volunteer Camaraderie, and Gender Norm Reinforcement. Theme One: Competition On the surface level, some expected areas of interaction revolve around competition. For instance, sports in the gymnasium are understandably centered on competition and winning, for that is historically often the reason for sport. Also, some games such as pool, carpetball, air hockey, and many of the board and card games such as Uno end with a definite winner and thus inspire some sort of competition. These were the most noticeable to me, which caused me to pay attention to competition as a theme. However, the competitive theme extends far beyond the normal areas of competition listed above and seems to extend into all areas of life at the Boys and Girls Club. I first started paying special attention to competition at the St. Patrick‟s Day party where various games were designed by Joyce that allowed kids to win prizes for anything from the best St. Pat‟s drawing to the students who could come closest in adding up the scores kids earned in a pin the tail on the donkey-style game involving a Velcro ball and Velcro Leprechaun. Similar games 13 were also played at the Easter party on my last day of researching. These games pitted the students against each other in often fun ways, but the inevitable winners and losers sometimes brought tears when a little boy or little girl fell short of victory. After I started paying attention, competition came up everywhere. When sitting and drawing with two little girls, one named Amanda and the other whose name I did not catch, I did not expect the simple task of drawing trees with pencil to become a competition. Before long, the girls were comparing their drawings and the second girl started getting frustrated that her picture was not quite as realistic as Amanda‟s. “I can‟t draw!” she exclaimed. “Hers is so much better. She is my teacher, but I don‟t get better. I quit!” The little girl threw down her pencil and ran off. Only a few minutes later, I had started playing Twister with two little girls. After the first game, the winner jumped up and down over her victory. After the second, she was doing a dance. By the end of the third game, she was dancing and singing, “I WIN . . . I WIN . . . I win, I win, I WIN!” At that point, the girl who had lost three games in a row got upset and stormed off. Yet another example of competitive gaming came during the shortened hours of Spring Break when the Club hosted a pickle-eating contest. About twenty kids took part in the competition to see who could eat twenty five pieces of sliced pickle fastest without using their hands. The winners at each of four tables then went into a final round, and the winner of that round got some S‟mores Poptarts. Though the game was quite pointless and made many feel slightly sick to their stomachs and the prize was less than thrilling, the kids were both literally and figuratively eating it up, enjoying every minute of the competition. Competition is not only reinforced among peers as children compete sporadically. In the areas of grades, art, and moral suasion, competition is a tool of education used by the staff and volunteers. For instance, the students with the best grades can bring in their report cards and earn cash for their good grades from the Boys and Girls Club, thus encouraging the students to compete for better grades. In the Art Room, Joyce and the volunteers are always crafting various art 14 competitions for the best collage, painting, drawing, or sculpture where students are giving prizes in hopes of encouraging more students to participate and to participate to their best. Finally, around Easter, students could earn Bunny Bucks for good behavior and politeness, which were handed out at the discretion of the staff members. The students could then buy cheap prizes with their Bunny Bucks, which led to kids comparing who got the best prizes and thus who had acted most politely to earn those prizes. The student who had earned the most Bunny Bucks won the prize of a huge stuffed Easter Bunny. Though the competition inevitably leaves one student or another feeling left out or as the loser, the competitive theme seems to be highly successful in motivating the students, who seem to compete on their own whether or not the staff reinforces it, to work hard and do their best in important areas like the arts, grades, and moral nature. Theme Two: Interest in the Exotic One thing is clear about my insertion into the Boys and Girls Club: I am different. I know that my physical appearance is abnormal based on society‟s general conceptions of normal, and I worried this would hinder my insertion into any site in Richmond which tends to be more conservative. However, rather than being a hindrance at the Boys and Girls Club of Wayne County, it has actually helped me relate to the kids because of their interest in the exotic. I find this interesting in that by many standards, I should be anything but exotic, for I am a white male of relatively normal height and background. However, my long, curly, brown hair, my gauged ears, my tattoo on my leg (which the kids saw when I wore shorts), and my knowledge of an “exotic” language, Arabic, have all interestingly helped me relate to the kids. “Can I stick my finger in your ear hole?” “EWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!” yelled three or four kids at the request of one little boy. “Maybe later, but for now, let‟s focus on the task at hand,” I said with a chuckle as I handed out plastic bags for the Easter Egg Hunt that would soon be taking place. Interest such as this in my 15 appearance was a common theme for me throughout my experience. Attracting far more attention than my appearance, though, was my ability to write the kids‟ names in Arabic. “The children love their names. You should teach a calligraphy lesson! They would just love that,” said Joyce one day when I wrote a kid‟s name in Arabic. He was so excited that he ran out to show some of his friends, and two or three more kids came in asking for their names to be written in this “pretty handwriting,” as Joyce often referred to it. Later, a boy named Paul, who is probably eight years old, asked if I could write in Chinese. “No, I can only write in English and Arabic,” was my response. “Duh . . . Everyone can speak English,” chimed in a girl, about age nine. “Not everyone,” I responded. “Only people in America and Great Britain are sure to speak English (which in itself is an untrue assumption). Other people don‟t necessarily speak English.” This seemed to confuse the girl for a moment, and in hopes of moving on so as not to appear wrong, she went back to focusing on how “tight” the writing (my Arabic) was. By hosting a lesson for the students to learn how to write their names in Arabic, I was able to get to know some of the students better, making my insertion into the B&G community easier. If the students had not been as interested in my exotic appearance and my ability to write in an exotic language, I might not have had such an easy time relating to the kids. I cannot help but wonder if this interest in the exotic transforms into a dislike or fear of that which is different as the students get older since a common theme in Richmond is dislike for or fear of difference. Theme Three: Staff and Volunteer Camaraderie Just before I left on the day of the Easter party at the Club, Joyce and Candy, the Cadet Room Attendant, brought out a big Easter basket with lots of candy and little Easter trinkets. “You‟re a college student, and you don‟t have any family around here. We have to take care of you,” said Joyce. In one way or another, whether through Easter baskets or Aspirin, the staff and volunteers all take care of each other. 16 Perhaps it is because the staff is always surrounded by high-energy little people and need someone their own energy to stay sane at times or perhaps it is because spending so much time together helps for important bonds, the camaraderie among staff members is important. Staff members and volunteers who focus in specific areas of the club, for natural reasons, seem to relate to each other best and spend the most time socializing and empathizing with each other. Chris and Henry in the Gym, Candy and Joyce in the Art and Cadet Rooms, Mindi and Carrie at the front desk: they all spend time together when they need a break from the kids, need some help, or just need someone with whom to talk about life. One day Joyce‟s back was very sore, and Candi took care of her, getting her some Aspirin and helping her with some tasks around the Art Room. Simple examples of camaraderie such as this seem to hold the staff together. Aside from simple support among staff members and volunteers, the adults at the B&G often socialize, talking of their personal lives and interests with one another. One day, for instance, I joined into a conversation about television series with Candi and Joyce “I like CSI, Cold Case, and the Idol. I‟m hooked on that original CSI. They always have such exciting stories . . . like the one where they solved that racial murder from the 1960s,” commented Joyce. “I don‟t even know why people try these days . . . with the DNA evidence, they have to know they are gonna get caught,” Candy said, relating the television series to reality. “Lots of kids are going into forensics because of that CSI. That‟s where the money is.” “I‟ve heard of American Idol and CSI, but what‟s Cold Case?” I asked. “Oh, it‟s like CSI, but it is much more exciting. You have to check it out. Do you have any TV. shows you like?” asked Joyce. After thinking for a moment, I remarked, “I don‟t really have much time to watch TV when I‟m at school, but at home, I used to watch Law and Order sometimes.” This simple conversation about a common interest in watching television helped pass the 17 time as we cut out and tied together blindfolds for one of the games, but more than that, it offered an escape from the often child-related talk of art projects, Spongebob Squarepants, or Harry Potter. Without such an escape and way to relate on a different, more adult level, the staff member would not likely be able to maintain their cheery, excited attitudes when dealing with the students, and when the staff are in a bad mood, the camaraderie helps them get through their time at the Club that otherwise might be difficult. Theme Four: Gender Norm Reinforcement Of all four themes that recurred most prominently and most informed my experience at the Boys and Girls Club of Wayne County, Gender Norm Reinforcement was by far the most prominent. In her study of gender norms and norm violations in children published in 2003, Judith E. Owen Blakemore that her research confirmed past studies‟ reports “that gender norm violations were as serious as moral norm violations”7 in young children. Two important findings from her research that were reflected in my experience at the Boys and Girls Club were that “boys with feminine hairstyles or clothing were evaluated more negatively than girls with masculine hairstyles or clothing” and that “girls who played in masculine play styles were devalued relative to boys who played in feminine styles.”8 At the Club, Gender Norm Reinforcement came in two general forms: peer to peer reinforcement among children and adult to child reinforcement. Though the peer to peer reinforcement was more common and often more blatant, the adult to child reinforcement was particularly noteworthy because of the position of power and authority that the staff and volunteers who reinforce the norms have over the young people who attend the Club. A simple and common form of this gender education came in the types of play that students took part in. One particular girl, a tall, thin, older girl who attends the club on a regular basis likes 7 Judith E. Owen Blakemore, “Children‟s Beliefs About Violating Gender Norms: Boys Shouldn‟t Look Like Girls, and Girls Shouldn‟t Act Like Boys,” Sex Roles. Vol 48, Nos. 9/10 (May 2003): p. 417. 8 Ibid., 411. 18 to play sports in the gym with the older boys. Just as Blakemore found that “girls were evaluated more negatively when they played loudly and roughly than boys who played quietly and gently and when they played football as compared to boys who played jumprope,”9 I often observed this young girl on the defensive against comments about her being a “tomboy” or teased for her love of sports like basketball which are usually dominated by boys in the Gymnasium. Though she seemed to have little trouble fending off the comments, this interaction between her and the boys likely sent an important message about the role of gender in play to the other boys and girls, especially the younger boys and girls in the club. Though I rarely observed girls being accused of being boys or little girls accused of being boys based on their dress, the opposite came up often, sometimes with peers reinforcing the norms to each other and sometimes with staff members reinforcing the norms. Consider the following for dialogue interchanges, two among peers and two from staff to student. Dialogue One: Young boy #1: “I hate pink!” Me: “Why?” Young boy #1: “I‟m not a girl. Only girls like pink.” Young boy #2: “I like pink.” (said meekly) Young boy #1: “That‟s „cause you‟re a girl!” Young boy #2: “NO I‟M NOT!” (now angry and offended) Dialogue Two: Boy A: “He‟s a girl in a mask!” (said regarding Boy B) Boy B: “NO WAY!” Boy A: “Yeah he is! He . . . She just cut his . . . her hair short and put on a mask and wore boys clothes. He‟s a girl!” (obviously struggling with gendered pronoun usage) Boy B: “I AM A MAN! I‟M NOT A WOMAN!” (stamped out of the room obviously offended and angry at being accused of being a girl) Dialogue Three: Boy: “Can I come to the Mother-Daughter Tea?” Staff: “No, it‟s just for the little girls and their moms.” Boy: “I wanna come!” Staff: “Okay. We can get you some mascara for those beautiful eye lashes and some blush and pierce those ears . . .” Girl: “AND A WIG!” (giggles) 9 Ibid., 418. 19 Staff: “Then you can come to the tea.” Boy: “I don‟t wanna come.” Dialogue Four: Staff: “You have gorgeous eyes. The girls must love that!” Boy: “No. A girl hit me in the back today.” Staff: “When they like you, they hit you. When I was little, I really liked this boy, so I would hit him a lot. On day he said, „Why do you keep hitting me?‟ I started to cry and cry! It‟s „cause I liked him. I‟ll never forget that.” In the first example, a strong message is sent to young boy #2 about the acceptability of liking pink, a perceived girls‟ color. In the second example, Boy A reinforces a gendered norm of dress and hairstyle to Boy B, ensuring that he knows exactly how a boy is supposed to dress. In both cases, young boys who were accused of being girls got visibly agitated by the accusation that they might be a girl based on gendered standards of dress, hairstyle, and color preference. In the third example, a staff member reinforced to the young boy and young girl exactly how a little girl should dress, using the idea of dressing the little boy up in girls‟ makeup so that he can come to the tea, a seemingly gendered activity only for mothers and daughters. The young girl is given liberty to join in the gender education by the person in authority initiating the teasing. In that instance the young boy changes his desire to attend the tea because he is teased for violating the gender norm. The second example is unique to all of the others because it assumes and reinforces a heterosexual gender paradigm, reinforcing that girls like boys and boys like girls, leaving little room for any non-heterosexual identity construction. Gender Norm Reinforcement and education is an integral part of any person‟s experience growing up, and most do not realize that it is occurring let alone find any fault in it, so there is meant no judgment placed against the students and staff who reinforce gender norms to one another. Instead, this is meant as an illustration of gendered education in action. Growth Points: Openings for Peacebuilding in Children I firmly believe that to understand a community, one must look no further than its children. In turn, by focusing on growth points within my experience at the Boys and Girls Club of Wayne 20 County, I hope to offer ways of combating some of the problems that afflict wider Richmond. After all, my site of study and insertion does not exist in a vacuum. It is a part of the community that serves thousands of Richmond‟s young people each month. Problems such as illiteracy, which hovers around fifty percent according to Richmond Mayor Sally Hutton, and hopelessness that comes from the community‟s lack of vitality and substantial job base affect the community in much the same way that they affect the adult population. My hope, and what seems to be the hope of the Boys and Girls Club of Wayne County and even the Boys and Girls Club of America, is that by engendering positive change in young people today, they will in turn work for a positive future as they grow and progress throughout life. Two main growth points stood out to me during my time at the Boys and Girls Club, both of which correspond to themes identified in Richmond. By focusing efforts in education and the building of self-esteem, the Boys and Girls Club is an important place for improving the community through helping the youth. The environment created by the staff and volunteers at the Boys and Girls Club helps students like Labrie who struggle with self-esteem to find ways to succeed. In a town that struggles with depression and hopelessness with the lack of education and jobs, self-worth is vital to the community finding new and innovative ways to succeed. Many kids at the Boys and Girls Club struggled with self esteem, some of which may have been tied to the overly-competitive nature of the Club, but the warm, friendly staff worked diligently to provide encouragement for the children. Also, by providing countless ways to spend their afternoons, from playing sports to doing art work to reading to getting tutoring to working on homework and much more, students can explore various avenues, hopefully finding a place that fits them and allows them to be successful. Though some aspects of the Club, such as the competitive environment, could be improved to better the encouragement of self-worth, the Boys and Girls Club of Wayne County is on the right track in character development that will later benefit the community. Thus, by expanding the model 21 provided at the B&G to reach the thousands of young people who do not attend the Club, the community could reap much greater benefits from its presently-existing positive force. Further, in a community that suffers from such a high drop out rate, where graduation rate hovers somewhere around 79% at Richmond High School, and such high rates of illiteracy, the educational services offered at the Boys and Girls Club are a fine model for how education can be further encouraged throughout the community. Power Hour, which offers homework help and tutoring, Club Tech, a program focusing on computer skills, Ultimate Journey, which offers environmental education, and collegiate scholarships that are awarded annually all help in furthering education in a community where few things could be more important. Through an expansion of programs already offered at the Club that target young children, building a strong educational base that will follow them through life, the community as a whole can benefit from rearing a more educated, aware populous. Conclusion On my last day of ethnographic research at the Richard E. Jeffers Unit of the Boys and Girls Club of Wayne County, Joyce had made me an Easter basket, as I described above. When the kids saw this, they asked if there was a card. When she said no, one apparently said, “Well, Jamie can‟t have an Easter basket without an Easter card,” so a few of the kids got a piece of cardstock paper and wrote a nice card that said “Happy Easter Jamie” on the outside and “From Us” on the inside with lots of little signatures. Though they had no idea that this would be my last visiting the club in order to study them and write an ethnography on my experience with them, it was if they knew that because my study was ending, I might not be coming back. Until this point, I had been trying to decide whether I wanted to continue my attendance at the Boys and Girls Club, but this card made it final. Through my attempts at insertion in my site, I had earned a place that the kids who came on a regular basis appreciated. In turn, though my time studying the B&G has ended, my time there has 22 not. I intend to continue volunteering at the Boys and Girls club, learning from the beautiful young people while they learn from me. Hours spent at the Boys and Girls Club of Wayne County: Richard E. Jeffers Unit March 2, 2006: 3-5 pm (2 hours) March 3, 2006: 3-5 pm (2 hours) March 9, 2006: 3-5 pm (2 hours) March 16, 2006: 3-6 pm (3 hours) March 17, 2006: 3:30-5:30 pm (2 hours) March 30, 2006: 3-5 pm (2 hours) March 31, 2006: 3-5 pm (2 hours) April 5, 2006: 2-4 pm (2 hours) April 6, 2006: 2-4 pm (2 hours) April 12, 2006: 3:30-5:30 (2 hours) April 13, 2006: 3-6 pm (3 hours) Total: 24 hours 23 Works Cited “About Us.” The Official Webpage of the Boys and Girls Club of Wayne County, 2006 (accessed 16 April 2006) “Avg. Daily Attendance.” The Boys and Girls Club of Wayne County Membership Report. Official report on membership and attendance throughout Wayne County: January – March 2006. Owen Blakemore, Judith E., “Children‟s Beliefs About Violating Gender Norms: Boys Shouldn‟t Look Like Girls, and Girls Shouldn‟t Act Like Boys,” Sex Roles. Vol 48, Nos. 9/10 (May 2003) “Richmond, Indiana,” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Last Updated 16 April 2006. Accessed 16 April 2006. “Total Attendance.” The Boys and Girls Club of Wayne County Membership Report. Official report on membership and attendance throughout Wayne County: January – March 2006. “Volunteers.” The Official Webpage of the Boys and Girls Club of Wayne County, 2006 (accessed 17 April 2006)