Anth 6306 Anthropology and Education

Abi-Nader, Jeannette. 1990. "‘A House for My Mother’: Motivating Hispanic High School Students." AEQ 21(1):40-58.

The literature about minority education typically focuses on failure and deficits. Scant attention is paid to why some students succeed and how others can be motivated to do so. This study discovered specific teacher strategies in a college prep program for Hispanic students that effectively addressed psychosocial conditions which predict minority student failure, and motivated the students to (1) create a vision of the future, (2) redefine their image of self, and (3) build a supportive community.

Achor, Shirley and Aida Morales. 1990. "Chicanas Holding Doctoral Degrees: Social Reproduction and Cultural Ecological Approaches." AEQ 21(3):269-287.

This article discusses reproduction theory and the cultural ecologists’ predictions for "castelike minorities" in light of a study of 100 Chicanas who have earned academic doctorates from U.S. institutions of higher education. As minority women from predominantly low-income, traditionally oriented families, their successful negotiation of the educational system fails to support the inexorability of intergenerational transmission of gender, class, and ethnic stratification. The strategies of resistance employed by these high-achieving Chicanas to overcome formidable barriers confronted in the pursuit of the doctorate are viewed as a crucial element in their academic success.

Bean, Martha S. 1997. "Talking with Benny: Suppressing or Supporting Learner Themes and Learner Worlds?" AEQ 28(1):50-69.

A third-grade Mexican American boy, failing in school, proved to be an apt and avid reader-learner when instructional talk was related to recurrent themes in his daily life. However, classroom discourse failed to support his attempts at sharing his cultural "take" on everyday occurrences. The study suggests that instructional talk can be modified in ways that invite and involve learners’ lives, thus informing teachers and allowing them to engage learners more fully in school and learning.

Delgado-Gaitan, Concha. 1994. "Consejos: The Power of Cultural Narrative." AEQ 25(3):298-316.

Consejos, cultural narratives, conveys the Estrada family’s feelings, perceptions, actions, and responses to the educational system. The Estrada family’s story is one of persistence and love when dealing with schools. Their practice of consejos represents an eight-year span of time in which conversations with the Estradas illustrated the family’s force in the power relations that exist between families and schools in Carpinteria. The concept of consejos spotlights how, in spite of the perceived powerlessness on the part of Mexican immigrant families against the schools, this cultural practice identifies the family’s force and unity in support of one another while challenging the schools’ notions of learning. The Estradas are empowered through their consejos, their collective work with other families, and school personnel advocates.

Eldering, Lotty. 1996. "Multiculturalism and Multicultural Education in an International Perspective." AEQ 27(3):315-330.

In many countries with a population of mixed ethnicity and culture, some form of multi-cultural education is given. Comparisons between the various approaches to multicul-tural education in these countries are hampered by a lack of conceptual clarity and by differences in social context and views on cultural diversity. In this article the concept of multiculturalism is explored and several approaches to multicultural education are discussed, drawing examples from North America, Europe, and Australia. This conceptual framework is used to describe and analyze the current state of affairs in these fields in the Netherlands.

Ernst, Gisela. 1994. "Beyond Language: The Many Dimensions of an ESL Program." AEQ 25(3):317-335.

This ethnographic study investigated one English-as-a-second-language (ESL) program for elementary students with as many as 20 native languages represented. The article outlines different dimensions of this language program that are conducive to language-minority students learning how to succeed in schools. Segments of conversations and narrative vignettes collected during a year-long ethnographic study illustrate the pedagogical assumptions, instructional goals, and organizational arrangements of this ESL program.

Flores-González, Nilda. 1999. "Puerto Rican High Achievers: An Example of Ethnic and Academic Identity Compatibility." AEQ 30(3):343-362.

Although research finds that members of some involuntary minority ethnic groups tend to develop oppositional identities, Puerto Rican students studied in this research project at an urban high school did not associate school success with "whiteness." These students were academically successful while still maintaining their ethnic identity. They were not accused of acting white, did not mask their academic accomplishments, and did not assume raceless personas. Different conceptualizations of ethnicity, sociohistorical context, and class may account for their maintenance of ethnic identity while achieving success in school.

Foley, Douglas E. 1991. "Reconsidering Anthropological Explanations of Ethnic School Failure." AEQ 22(1):60-86.

This article reviews the anthropological debate on why some ethnic minorities fail more frequently in schools. Although neither side presents overwhelming empirical evidence, John Ogbu’s caste theory is clearly a more comprehensive, systematic explanation than the "cultural difference" explanation. In addition, Ogbu’s "multilevel" or macro style of school ethnography has important methodological advantages over the less historical, more decontextualized micro ethnographies of classrooms. Nevertheless, as various micro ethnographers have pointed out, caste theory has difficulty accounting for in-group variance and the school success of some oppressed ethnic minorities. Results from a field study in South Texas are used to illustrate that Ogbu’s notion of an "oppositional culture" does underestimate both in-group variation and the self-valorizing potential of ethnic oppositional cultures. The school-level description of students’ "dramaturgical communicative competence" demonstrates why many middle-class Mexicanos are not held back by their ethnic oppositional culture. The article ends by advocating a model of macro school ethnography that is based on a multiple dominance view of society and a phenomenological notion of ethnic culture rather than caste theory.

Freeman, Rebecca. 2000. "Contextual Challenges to Dual-Language Education: A Case Study of a Developing Middle School Program." AEQ 31(2):202-229.

This article describes how a team of urban middle school educators in Philadelphia were developing a dual-language program to address the needs of their low-income, predomi-nantly Puerto Rican population. It demonstrates how the structural, sociolinguistic, and ideological context influenced the way that this bilingual program functioned on the local level, and it challenges the dichotomous thinking that characterizes most discussions of bilingual education.

Harklau, Linda. 1994. "‘Jumping Tracks’: How Language-Minority Students Negotiate Evaluations of Ability." AEQ 25(3):347-363.

This article illustrates a process by which two language-minority students were able to change their initial track placement in mainstream classes, and to position themselves in ability groups that were higher in status and, arguably, in educational value. Employing the notion that academic ability is a construct that is situationally negotiated among students, their teachers, and counselors, it explores the means by which these students were able to "jump tracks."

Hayes, Katherine G. 1992. "Attitudes Toward Education: Voluntary and Involuntary Immigrants from the Same Families." AEQ 23(3):250-267.

This article discusses the explanatory model developed by John Ogbu particularly as it pertains to Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. Ogbu addresses minority school failure by looking at whether or not immigrants came to the United States voluntarily or involuntarily. Sample students, although exhibiting some characteristics of involuntary immigrants, share the educational ideology of their voluntary immigrant parents. Essential elements of an alternative explanatory framework are presented.

Hertzberg, Martha. 1998. "Having Arrived: Dimensions of Educational Success in a Transitional Newcomer School." AEQ 29(4):391-418.

This article examines a program for newly-arrived, non-English-speaking immigrant children in a major California city. Focusing on students of Mexican and other Latino origin, I explore the local model of success and ask, "How is student success defined and fostered? This study lays the ethnographic foundation for a comparison between settings for first-generation students. The research demonstrates how a nurturing setting, a culturally flexible teaching approach, linguistic and cultural validation, and a valued spatial environment can contribute to newcomer students’ success and educational confidence. Further, it addresses both the personal and political tensions that can arise when such programs are physically separate and distant from the "home" or neighbor-hood school.

Hornberger, Nancy. 2000. "Bilingual Education Policy and Practice in the Andes: Ideological Paradox and Intercultural Possibility." AEQ 31(2):173-201.

Recent developments in language policy and education reform in Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia, paralleling similar developments in the United States and elsewhere, have opened up new possibilities for indigenous languages and their speakers through bilingual intercultural education. Examining the use and meanings of the term interculturality in policy documents and short practitioner narratives, this article explores the ideological paradox inherent in transforming a standardizing education into a diversifying one and in constructing a national identity that is also multilingual and multicultural. It concludes with implications for educational practice in linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms.

Levinson, Bradley A. 1998. "Student Culture and the Contradictions of Equality at a Mexican Secondary School." AEQ 29(3):267-296.

This article examines the dynamic relationship between official school structures and forms of student subjectivity through an ethnographic account of student culture at a Mexican secondary school. Tightly interwoven discursive and organizational practices promoting solidarity and equality defined the "official" school structure. Students appropriated these resources to fashion a culture of equality which both accommodated and denied different student sensibilities. The article concludes with an analysis of student culture in terms of practice and cultural production theory.

Lustig, Deborah Freedman. 1997. "Of Kwanzaa, Cinco de Mayo, and Whispering: The Need for Intercultural Education." AEQ 28(4):574-592.

Multicultural education aims to improve understanding among students of different ethnic groups, but it can lessen intergroup conflict only if it is implemented systematic-ally. In multiethnic school settings, the relationships among students of different "minority" groups are problematic; conflicts need to be both understood and addressed if multicultural education is to succeed. In one inner-city California high school, the celebration of Kwanzaa leads to exclusion and isolation, and the speaking of Spanish in the classroom sparks conflict and resentments.

Macias, José. 1990. "Scholastic Antecedents of Immigrant Students: Schooling in a Mexican Immigrant-Sending Community." AEQ 21(4):291-318.

Existing shortcomings in the immigrant education literature include a neglect of the formal dimensions of schooling, preimmigration education, and Mexican students. An ethnographic case study based on a cultural-ecological conceptual framework was designed to examine these issues from a transnational perspective. This article presents findings from the project’s initial phase – a study of primary (grades 1-6) schooling in an immigrant-sending community in Mexico, including a description of the national curri-culum, which was observed to be of high quality, "radical" from a U.S. perspective, and internationally oriented. The model instructional characteristics observed were teacher direction, verbal interactivity, and group orientation. These distinct patterns of schooling observed in this case are discussed in terms of their implications for immigrant education in the United States, as well as for our continuing efforts to understand the complexity of immigrant and ethnic minority education.

Mehan, Hugh, Lea Hubbard, and Irene Villanueva. 1994. "Forming Academic Identities: Accommodation without Assimilation among Involuntary Minorities." AEQ 25(2):91-117.

Institutional mechanisms influence students’ ideology, which in turn has a positive influence on their academic performance. Latino and African American students who have participated in an untracking program for their high school careers develop a critical consciousness about their educational and occupational futures. The Latino and African American students in this untracking program become academically successful without losing their ethnic identity. They adopt the strategy of "accommodating without assimilating," a pattern that Gibson associates with voluntary minorities but not involuntary minorities.

Menchaca, Martha and Richard R. Valencia. 1990. Ánglo-Saxon Ideologies in the 1920s-1930s: Their Impact on the Segregation of Mexican Students in California." AEQ 21(3):222-249.

This study contends that a great deal of the current school segregation of Chicano students in public elementary and secondary schools in California has its origins in racial ideologies of Anglo-Saxon superiority and their subsequent impact on government policies. Using an ethnohistory case study approach (Santa Paula, California), the study sheds light on the Anglo domination and control thesis. A historical review of the ideologies of Anglo-Saxon superiority is used to illustrate their ascendance and decline in academic, religious, and governmental spheres. It is followed by an analysis of the relations between such ideologies and the rise of widespread school segregation in California. In conclusion, an ethnographic case study is used to illustrate how ideologies of Anglo-Saxon superiority strongly influenced the formation of school segregation in Santa Paula, California, in the 1920s. Connections are drawn between ideology, segrega-tive policies of the early 1900s, and their long-term effects on the contemporary segregation of Chicano students.

Montero-Sieburth, Martha and Mark LaCelle-Peterson. 1991. "Immigration and Schooling: An Ethnohistorical Account of Policy and Family Perspectives in an Urban Community." AEQ 22(4):300-325.

Comparisons to the "good old days" when newcomers to the United States purportedly learned English effortlessly and without the aid of special programs cloud debates of the education of linguistic minority children. This article considers the historical realities of an urban community in two periods of high immigration (1890 to 1920 and 1970 to 1990) to point out the fallacies and fancies of those tales of the "golden past." Interviews with Latino community residents, longtime residents whose parents or grandparents immigrated to the community, and historical documentation provide the evidence for revising these misconceptions of the past and misrepresentations of the present.

Monzó, Lilia D. and Robert Rueda. 2003. "Shaping Education through Diverse Funds of Knowledge: A Look at One Latina Paraeducator’s Lived Experiences, Beliefs, and Teaching Practice." AEQ 34(1):72-95.

We examine the experiences of one Mexican immigrant paraeducator and how these translate into beliefs and teaching. Generally, the concept of "funds of knowledge" has been used with respect to students. We use this concept more broadly to consider the experiences of teachers as critical to their teaching and as resources for instruction. This paraeducator had markedly different experiences from those of the mainstream teaching force yet numerous factors mitigated against using these for instruction. Our work documents how the multiple socio-cultural contexts of teachers’ lives and their later beliefs and practices interact in particular institutional settings to impact teaching practices. Increased attention to the study of teachers’ cultural beliefs and practices has important implications for the study of schooling and teacher education.

Olivo, Warren. 2003. "‘Quit Talking and Learn English!’: Conflicting Language Ideologies in an ESL Classroom." AEQ 34(1):50-71.

This article addresses the relationship between educational theory – as manifested in particular ideologies of teaching and learning – and classroom practice. Based on an ethnographic study of English-as-a-second-language (ESL) learning at a Canadian senior public school, I outline a conflict between two language ideologies that give shape to, and are shaped by, the classroom practices of the ESL teacher, his assistants, and the students. I discuss the implications of this ideological conflict in terms of the opportunities ESL students are given, and that they create for themselves by speaking English. I end by outlining how these findings can be used to shape educational policy as it relates to ESL classroom curricula in order to create a more equitable learning environment for ESL students.

Olmedo, Irma M. 1997. "Voices of Our Past: Using Oral History to Explore Funds of Knowledge within a Puerto Rican Family." AEQ 28(4):550-573.

This article presents an educational rationale for using oral history to teach students that there are multiple sources of knowledge and ways to seek valid information. A case study to explore the funds of knowledge within an extended Puerto Rican family is used illustratively. The study describes the leadership role played by one grandmother as the family participated in multiple migrations, describes creative ways employed by her and other women to reestablish the community, and challenges some stereotypes of Latinas.

Osborne, A. Barry. 1996. "Practice into Theory into Practice: Culturally Relevant Pedagogy for Students We Have Marginalized and Normalized." AEQ 27(3):285-214.

This study is a synthesis of ethnographies conducted in both North American and Australian cross-cultural and interethnic classrooms. It establishes nine assertions about culturally relevant teaching in such settings. It argues that both the understanding and classroom practices included in these assertions provide teachers with potential starting points, informed by current best practices, for praxis – reflecting upon their own practices within a framework of participatory democracy for all.

Patthey-Chavez, G. Genevieve. 1993. "High School As an Arena for Cultural Conflict and Acculturation for Latino Angelinos." AEQ 24(1):33-60.

Schooling has traditionally been viewed as the means of integrating ethnic and linguistic minorities into the educational, and, by implication, into the wider sociocultural main-stream. As a result, schools are commonly thought of as arenas for cultural assimilation. For areas like inner-city Los Angeles, where a Latino "minority" has become so dominant that it has begun to reproduce its own cultural patterns in richly networked cultural enclaves, this assimilationist frame becomes problematic. This qualitative study examines the cultural dynamics resulting from the advent of the "minority-majority" in one inner-city high school with a large (more than 80%) Latino student population. It focuses on the relationship between the predominantly mainstream teaching staff and the predominantly Latino student body. Ethnographic data collected from 1986 to 1989 indicate that high school is an arena in which the boundary between Latino and Anglo culture is being negotiated, with "minority" and "majority" in conflict over the extent to which their versions of a cultural identity are to be reproduced in the American educational system. The mutual accommodation necessary to resolve this conflict and negotiate acceptable group boundaries is a daily enterprise for the school community.

Poveda, David. 2001. "La Ronda in a Spanish Kindergarten Classroom with a Cross-Cultural Comparison to Sharing Time in the U.S.A." AEQ 32(3):301-325.

This article examines a common speech event in Spanish schools known as la ronda, in which children present oral narratives of their out-of-school experiences. I argue that the goal of this event is to allow the children and the teacher to build a sense of themselves as a moral community. Despite parallels in organization and content between la ronda and sharing time as described in the U.S. literature, there are important cross-cultural differences that are also discussed and interpreted here.

Quiroz, Pamela Anne. 2001. "The Silencing of Latino Student ‘Voice’: Puerto Rican and Mexican Narratives in Eighth Grade and High School." AEQ 32(3):326-349.

Narratives of 27 Puerto Rican and Mexican students, written first in eighth grade then again as juniors in high school, address the important question of "Who am I" and illus-trate school-sponsored silencing, with students’ critiques of their educational experience ignored by both the elementary and the high school. The narratives also provide a window into the high dropout rates of Latino children, the reasons behind students’ academic decisions, and interventions needed to change negative schooling processes and outcomes. By giving witness to these voices, we as readers help ensure that through their writing, these Latino adolescents do not just speak but that they are heard.

Reese, Leslie. 2002. "Parental Strategies in Contrasting Cultural Settings: Families in México and ‘El Norte’." AEQ 33(1):30-59.

A "culturally relevant pedagogy" has been recommended to enhance the achievement of Latino students in American schools. In practice, this pedagogy is often based on a view of the home culture as static and in conflict with mainstream culture. The present study compares the child-rearing practices and values of Mexican immigrants raising their children in the United States with those of their siblings who are raising children in Mexico. The study contributes to the theories of culture, documenting the dynamic nature of cultural practices on both sides of the border and examining the implications of cultural change of different types for practice in language minority education.

Rymes, Betsy and Diana Pash. 2001. "Questioning Identity: The Case of One Second-Language Learner." AEQ 32(3):276-300.

With the goal of illuminating how identity and cognition are in tension in classroom activity, we examine how one second-language learner answers questions in a mainstream second-grade classroom. To understand this learner’s participation, we analyze two conflicting "language games." We find the second-language learner often is adept at "passing" as knowing, but that he achieves this identity-preserving expertise at the expense of an understanding of classroom lessons.

Statzner, Elsa. 1994. "And Marvin Raised His Hand: Practices That Encourage Children’s Classroom Participation." AEQ 25(3):285-297.

This article discusses teaching practices that foster student involvement. It highlights one marginalized child’s transformation into a participant in a Spanish classroom in an urban, multiethnic school setting. Selected student experiences as well as the Spanish teacher’s practices and beliefs are described and analyzed within a Freirean framework.

Tapia, Javier. 1998. "The Schooling of Puerto Ricans: Philadelphia’s Most Impoverished Community." AEQ 29(3):297-323.

Educational research relying on macrolevel variables shows a relationship between a group’s economic status and its academic achievement. These findings are often used to provide a uniform, psychological description for a whole population, but they do not explain intragroup differences and the specific linkages between economic conditions and educational practices. This article reports on work conducted in poor Puerto Rican households in Philadelphia. It shows the complex relationship between household members’ survival strategies, residential mobility, home-school connections, and students’ learning. This study reports that household stability, which is influenced by economic stability, is the strongest factor affecting students’ learning. Educational reform programs need to consider the economic conditions of these households even more than linguistic and cultural factors.

Ulichny, Polly. 1996. "Cultures in Conflict." AEQ 27(3):331-364.

This article analyzes one urban high school’s initiative to create a multicultural program for its predominantly African American and Hispanic students. It describes intergroup tensions within the newly created multicultural program, which had not been as apparent in the school’s more traditional comprehensive program. It offers an explanation for the increased tension based on students’ concepts of culture and race. It also offers sugges-tions for ensuring positive experiences for all students within a multicultural initiative.

Valdés, Guadalupe, Sonia V. González, Dania López García, and Patricio Márquez. 2003. "Language Ideology: The Case of Spanish in Departments of Foreign Languages." AEQ 34(1):3-26.

In this article we investigate language ideology in a department of Spanish. We are concerned with examining the acquisition and transmission of linguistic culture in depart-ments of foreign languages within university settings and the ways in which views about non-English languages that are part of the American cultural dialogue are maintained and nurtured by educational institutions. Using long-term participant observation data and focused interviews, we contend that foreign language departments in U.S. colleges and universities, although involved in a nonhegemonic practice – that is, in the teaching of non-English languages – are nevertheless working in concert with deeply held American ideologies about bilingualism and monolingualism.

Vélez-Ibáñez, Carlos G. and James B. Greenberg. 1992. "Formation and Transformation of Funds of Knowledge Among U.S.-Mexican Households." AEQ 23(4):313-335.

Public schools have relied on a deficiency model to structure instruction for minority children that underestimates the funds of knowledge that U.S.-Mexican households contain. We argue that these funds are not only a key to understanding the cultural systems in which U.S.-Mexican children emerge, but are also important and useful assets in the classroom.

Villenas, Sofia. 2001. "Latina Mothers and Small-Town Racisms: Creating Narratives of Dignity and Moral Education in North Carolina." AEQ 32(1):3-28.

Within the context of relatively new immigration and settlement in North Carolina, this ethnographic study highlights Latina mothers’ narratives and conversations about a moral family education. Their narratives involved the claiming of el hogar (the home space) in the midst of the English-speaking community’s attempts to define their families and childrearing practices as "problem." With a race-based feminist perspective, this article examines the role of the mothers’ counternarratives in contesting their deficit framing, producing "educated" identities, and creating community in the rural South.

Volk, Dinah. 1997. "Questions in Lessons: Activity Settings in the Homes and School of Two Puerto Rican Kindergartners." AEQ 28(1):22-49.

This ethnographic study describes continuities and discontinuities between a bilingual kindergarten and the homes of two Spanish-dominant Puerto Rican children. The concept of activity setting was used to explore the relation of culture to question use in lessons taught in both settings. Findings highlight a complex web of continuities and discontinuities and the importance of the joint construction of a culture of teaching and learning by parents, teachers, and children.