Learning to mock – Challenging the teaching establishment

There have been very few studies that apply the work of Mikhail Bakhtin and Norbert Elias to understand the underlying learning processes of young children. This article will explore the methodological similarities between Bakhtin’s ideas about the carnivalesque and Norbert Elias’s theory of established-outsider relations to explain how young children can undermine the authoritative discourses of teachers in preschool classrooms. It will focus on the playful mockery that young children display within their peer-groups to challenge teaching authority. I will argue that many of the humorous events produced by young children should be viewed as an attempt to violate their teachers’ expectations. Drawing attention to the utility of using humour as a special type of qualitative research tool illuminates the different ways that young children in different cultures can resist adult authority.