Chapter 1.
1. It's an anthropological study (which looks at behaviors and customs) of the design of ELL and culture in the classroom.
2. Olsen uses a historical anthropology as her means of showing the theoretical background. She defines the schooling system of inequality. On page 17 it says, "Schools, reproduction theorists argued, are critical in this process because class relations and the capitalist division of labor requires a school system that reproduces a system of inequality by selectively transmitting skills according to which class people are in, sorting people by granting credentials from the school into appropriate social positions, and serving to shape an individual's attitudes and identity to fit their classroom."
3. She uses an ethnographic approach, which is the observation, participation, and interviewing of life, culture, customs. She uses this approach because it immerses her in the culture so that she can understand it more in depth rather than looking it from the surface.
4. 15 faculty members and 47 students participate.
5. Her research questions include the following:
-How did they understand "America"? What does it mean to be "American"?
-What borders and boundaries did they create or detect in social relations? What language did they use to articulate and create those borders and boundaries?
-How were the crossings, the borderlands and terrain in between languages, cultures, and national identities experienced, shared, and contested?
-How did they experience and view their encounters with each other across languages, cultures, and national identities?
-What was it like for those students and teachers who felt themselves involved in forging new terrains of language, culture, racial, and national identity?
-Why were they in school, and how did they experience school? What relationship did school have to the rest of their lives?
We, as TESOLers are all about context. We need to understand where our students are coming from and their perception of the world in order to best teach, connect with, and understand them. Through these questions, Olsen is able to do just that.
6. Some data sources are the teachers at Madison High School She met and had conversations with them in various locations around the community. She observed them in the eduactional setting as well to gather data.
7. She plays three roles acting as the storyteller, the anthropologist, and the advocate.
8. All of the students are labeled according to their racial identity. Students had an assignment to make a map of their high school. Students were seperated into the following categories: Mexican-Mexican Girls and Boys who speak Spanish, Blacks, Afghan Girls, Fijian Girls, Afgans, Indian Girls, Vietnamese Girls, Fijian Boys, Vietnamese who speak English. Mexicans who speak English, Chinese Boys, Vietnamese Boys, Chinese Girls who speak Mandarin, and "the Americans." Interesting.
Chapter 2
1. It's interesting how they base their worth of how "American" they are by the way they dress. It's as though they feel the need to conform to fit in and lose their originial identity. The Brazilian girl, for example, wore what she would normally wear in Brazil to school (tighter, shorter clothing) and was not socially accepted and felt as though she lost a part of herself in trying to become more "American" and not as much of a part as her Brazilian culture. Another girl felt wrong for wearing a serape to school. Students should not feel wrong wearing anything.
2. Page 46 - "Americans always change their clothes."
Page 48 - "Americans listen to English much and good songs and most of them listen to rap, especially the black Americans."
"Very few people listen to piano."
"They usually listen to music in the car and turn it up way loud so that everybody would hear them."
"Music is way loud."
"The music you listen listen to is part of who you hang out with. People don't listen to different kinds of music. Each groupd just listens to one kind."
"Americans want to have fun."
No comments:
Post a Comment