Trailer Park Royalty: Southern Child Beauty Pageants, Girlhood and Power

Child beauty pageants are a phenomenon in rural communities throughout Georgia. My belief is that most of those who compete in these pageants are from the lower socio-economic bracket, participating for a multitude of reasons. A bricolage of post-structural feminism, critical ethnography, critical hermeneutics and cultural studies lenses will analyze how the performances of participants and the power exercised by the beauty pageant culture work to formulate girls' identities. Analysis will also include how power operates to perpetuate this subculture and its right to dictate norms for beauty and acceptance and will be situated in the culture of girlhood. Examination of what is depicted in popular culture through videos, documentaries, and television shows will also occur. I suggest that the rural beauty pageant culture does work to create girlhood identity and a way in which the participants view the world and themselves. In fact, I believe that the rural beauty pageant culture does intricate cultural work in terms of gender and class.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Education in Curriculum Studies (Ed.D.)

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation (open access)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Department of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading

Year dc:date.available

2007

Author dc:creator

• Thompson, Elisabeth Blumer

Contributors dc:contributor

• Delores D. Liston
• John A. Weaver
• Shirley R. Steinberg

• ETD
• Child beauty pageants
• Girlhood
• Bricolage
• Post-structual feminism
• Critical ethnography
• Critical hermeneutics
• Cultural studies
• Gender
• Class
• Beauty contests

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/471

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu:etd-1471