Rosemary C. Henze

Dancing with the Monster: Teachers Discuss Racism, Power, and White Privilege in Education.

Teachers do not often have opportunities to openly examine and discuss issues of racism, power, and white privilege. In fact, as Lisa Delpit and other educators have pointed out, these discussions are systematically “silenced” in most educational discourse among teachers. This article explores why it is so difficult to have an open, explicit dialogue about power, privilege, and racism. We examine an instance in which there was a structured effort to hold such a discussion among 60 teachers during a professional development institute. Using discourse analysis and other methods derived from sociolinguistics and qualitative educational research, we focus on two central questions: (1) To what extent were the participants in this session able to have a discussion about racism, power, and white privilege? (2) What impeded and facilitated this discussion? The results will be helpful to anyone who might facilitate or plan discussions that focus on racism, power, and white privilege in education.

Language and Reforming Schools: A Case for a Critical Approach to Language in Educational Leadership.

This article examines the potential of a critical approach to language as a new dimension of transforming school cultures and making them more coherent with purported equity and social justice goals. The literature review shows that the latest waves of school reform in the USA have done little to change patterns of student achievement based on ‘race’ and class because they have only tinkered with changing the cultures of schools. We suggest that one reason that school reforms have failed to achieve educational equity for all groups is that a critical approach to language has been absent from this process. This absence is due, among other reasons, to the fact that teachers and school leaders have not been formally educated on the subject of language and discourse as a medium for change. Our analysis of the literature leads us to suggest that a critical approach to language could offer a way for schools (or any human organization) to concretely analyse implicit beliefs and values and, thus, unpack institutionalized epistemologies of race, social class, and gender that might, in the last analysis, be hindering efforts to transform schools into equitable institutions.

Applying ethnographic perspectives to issues in cross-cultural pragmatics

Abstract Although a relationship naturally exists between ethnography and cross-cultural pragmatics, this relationship has not been fully explored. The purposes of this paper are to clarify the assumptions underlying ethnography and to suggest ways in which issues in cross-cultural pragmatics (CCP) can be approached from an ethnographic perspective. To this end, we examine the philosophy, goals, and methods that underlie ethnographic work. We then provide two illustrations of how an ethnographer examines issues in CCP, specifically, second language education and cross-cultural communication in the workplace. Finally, we offer suggestions as to how CCP researchers might best go about integrating ethnographic methods in their work.

Segregated Classrooms, Integrated Intent: How One School Responded to the Challenge of Developing Positive Interethnic Relations.

Children who feel unsafe in school because of threats of violence or verbal abuse based on race, ethnicity, or language cannot focus on the learning and achievement goals that the U.S. educational system has placed before us in the form of national standards. A primary need for some schools is to create a safe and secure environment and to ensure that children and adults of different backgrounds feel respected. Yet this raises an interesting question: Can schools be vehicles for improving race relations? In this article, I draw on a case study of 1 elementary school, Cornell,1 to examine this question in depth. Many would answer that, given historical inequities such as segregation and tracking, schools are unlikely places for improvements in race or ethnic relations to take place. On the other hand, schools do create cultures and norms of their own that may deviate in some ways from the national culture, and in this sense they represent a potential site for change in race relations, at least locally.

Guides for the Novice Qualitative Researcher

Becoming Qualitative Researchers: An Introduction. Corrine Glesne and Alan Peshkin. Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences. Bruce L. Berg. Ethnography: Principles in Practice. Martyn Hammersley and Paul Atkinson.