Identity as a Framework for Understanding Knowledge

Sor Juana's intellectual work was deeply connected to her identity as a woman, as a person of mixed ancestry in colonial Mexico, and as a religious thinker navigating institutional constraints. She did not separate her thinking from her position; rather, she used her particular standpoint to ask distinctive questions and offer unique insights. For children, this principle means recognizing that intellectual development cannot be neutral or identity-blind. Knowledge systems—what is taught, whose voices are centered, what counts as legitimate knowledge—reflect and reinforce power structures. Children learning only from texts by dead white men internalize a particular (false) universality. Children from marginalized groups learning that their communities have no intellectual history internalize inferiority. Children's rights require examining and transforming knowledge systems so that children encounter diverse intellectual traditions, see their own communities represented as thinking beings, and understand that knowledge production happens across cultures, genders, races, and classes. This means curriculum reform, representation of diverse scholars and thinkers, and teaching children to question knowledge itself. Sor Juana modeled this by drawing on Indigenous knowledge, women's perspectives, and colonial experiences to deepen her theological and philosophical thinking. When children's intellectual development incorporates identity as a framework, they develop both stronger learning and stronger sense of self.