IDEOLOGICAL CHALLENGES IN CLASSROOM DISCOURSE: A SOCIOCRITICAL PERSPECTIVE OF ENGLISH LEARNING IN AN URBAN SCHOOL

Abstract

Using a sociocritical approach to the study of language and literacy and discourse analysis, this article examines student initiated challenges in a sheltered English course with two types of English learners: native+, ESL students; and, recently, arriving ESL students. The analysis draws on 19 hours of video-recorded observations of teacher-student interaction in predominantly whole class literacy activities. Through an in depth analysis of the role of student challenge in ideological constructions, this article shows how native+ generation students insert themselves into the co-construction of meaning. The main argument set forth in this article is that despite engaging in sophisticated language practices such as “challenges,” native+ students still do poorly in their class and assessments are biased toward quieter students who are mostly more recent immigrant students. While the course is socially organized to be responsive to the voices of native+, Latina/o students, there is a need for critical awareness, or a sociocritical language ideology, that explicitly recognizes and repositions the literacy practices of native+ students in nondeficit ways.

Notes

¹I am using the term native+ to refer to native born 1st generation, 1.5 generation, 2nd generation, and so forth. Latino students who are classified as English learners.

²The term “LEP” is an archaic term but it was the term used by the district. I prefer the term “English learners” (ELs) as it is considered less of a deficit view.

³In 1998 California voters passed Proposition 227, also known as the “Unz Initiative,” effectively curtailed bilingual education in public schools. This initiative was part of a larger “English Only” campaign spearheaded by Ron Unz.

*focus of this article.

⁴Transcription conventions come from conversational analysis (CA) (Drew & Heritage, 1992).

Bold = emphasis/stress; ‘:’ = vowel elongation, (.) = micro-pause; [ ] = overlapping talk

⁵Shirley Jackson (June 26, 1948). Fiction: ‘The Lottery.’ The New Yorker. Retrieved from http://archives.newyorker.com/?i=1948-06-26#folio=024

**Pearson correlation significant at p < .01 level (2-tailed).