Reuben's Fall

A Rhizomatic Analysis of Disobedience in Kindergarten

This study offers a lens on two kindergarten classrooms, examining moments of disobedience as children interacted with children, their teachers, and the space and time elements of the classroom environments. Through Eisner’s educational criticism, author Sherry Leafgren also examines the elements of school, kindergarten and teachers within the spaces of their intersections with the children. While past research has directed our attention to addressing the problem of classroom disobedience, Leafgren provides an opportunity and means to view these familiar actions through fresh lenses of possibilities. Predicated by an event in the researcher’s teaching life, she utilizes Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizoanalysis to openly seek lateral paths of understanding by linking and folding the findings with texts other than those that would be normally used toward developing new understandings and questions regarding children’s disobediences. An earlier version of this book was awarded the distinguished dissertation award from the International Institute for Qualitative Methodology.