Sandra R. Schecter

Language Socialization Practices and Cultural Identity: Case Studies of Mexican-Descent Families in California and Texas

This article explores the relationship between language and cultural identity as manifested in the language socialization practices of four Mexican-descent families: two in northern California and two in south Texas. The analysis considers both the patterns of meaning suggested by the use of Spanish and English in the speech and literacy performances of four focal children as well as family and dominant societal ideologies concerning the symbolic importance of the two languages, the way language learning occurs, and the role of schooling—all frameworks in which the childrens linguistic behaviors were embedded. All four focal children defined themselves in terms of allegiance to their Mexican or Mexican American cultural heritage. However, the families were oriented differently to the Spanish language as a vehicle for affirmation of this commonly articulated group identity. The differences are emblematic of stances taken in a larger cultural and political debate over the terms of Latino participation in U.S. society. Parents in all of the families endorsed Spanish maintenance and spoke of the language as an important aspect of their sense of cultural identity. Only two of the families, however, pursued aggressive home maintenance strategies. Of the other two families, one used a protocol combining some Spanish use in the home with instruction from Spanish-speaking relatives, whereas the family that had moved most fully into the middle class was the least successful in the intergenerational transmission of Spanish, despite a commitment to cultural maintenance.

Bilingual by Choice: Latino Parents’ Rationales and Strategies for Raising Children with Two Languages

Abstract This paper reports findings of a study which addressed caretakers’ rationales and actions in support of Spanish language maintenance and the issues they confronted in pursuing this goal. Analysis focuses on both respondents’ attitudes regarding individual bilingualism as an idealized social construct and the reasons behind their personal decisions with regard to home language use. On a societal level, respondents favored an arrangement defined by cultural pluralism and viewed individual bilingualism as a means to promote this goal. The rationale given most frequently by caretakers when asked specifically about their personal motivations for using Spanish with their children concerned instrumental benefits from being bilingual: knowing Spanish would serve their children well academically, give them an advantage in a competitive job market, and help them to adapt in the face of possible geographic relocation. However, analysis of the interviews as life stories revealed that when not explicitly aske...

Language Socialization in Theory and Practice.

Language socialization research has traditionally focused on how young children are socialized into the norms and patterns of their culture by and through language. Research in this tradition has typically conceived of the process as relatively static, bounded and relatively unidirectional. This article, based on a long‐term ethnographic investigation of home language practices in Mexican‐background families in the United States, confirms the theoretical and applied limitations of such a traditional approach to language acquisition. Two narratives of Mexican‐background women in northern California, whose lives represent different circumstances and trajectories, show that language socialization is a dynamic and interactive process that extends throughout the lifespan as people come to participate in new communities, define and redefine themselves according to new roles, and either acquiesce in or challenge the definitions and role relationships formulated by others.

Health Learning and Adult Education: In Search of a Theory of Practice:

Fifty-five percent of Canadians aged 16 to 64 years lack the skills necessary to read and appropriately interpret health information in textual format. This critical review of research explores issues related to adults’ health and health literacy learning in an effort to illuminate why this unacceptable condition persists. The authors also explore avenues that show promise in leading to more success-producing strategies for health promotion among adults. Given the cyclical relationship of health with other social conditions, the problem has proved stubbornly resistant to educational intervention. A community of practice model is proposed as a means of addressing some of the weaknesses in previous adult education programs.

Literacy Education and Diversity: Toward Equity in the Teaching of Reading and Writing

The school-age population in North America is characterized by increasing linguistic, cultural, and ethnic diversity. The authors argue that non-mainstream students do not perform as well in schools as mainstream students (predominantly whilte, middle-class English speakers) because they are not equitably served by the educational system. They explore some of the complexities of educational equity and consider equity issues in the literacy education of language minority students from four different perspectives: individual student characteristics, sociocultural factors, language issues, and instructional issues. In support of their position, they examine each of these areas in turn, providing illustrations and analysis. They conclude with several principles upon which to build practices to make literacy education more equitable for all students.

Ideological Divergences in a Teacher-Research Group

This article is about the role played by ideology in a teacher-research group. Treatments of teacher research remain mainly directed at clarifying the content, the status, and the boundaries of the research practice engaged in by teachers and describing how teacher research contrasts with “university research” with regard to these elements. We focus on the differing ideologies of research, teaching/learning, and writing held and developed by the members of a teacher-research group. The concept of ideology is used to emphasize that beliefs about society, politics, and cognition were intimately bound up in the teacher researchers’ different perspectives. In analyzing the ideological positions that developed within the group, and the conflicts and interchanges among participants, we show that there exist important divisions within the teacher-research movement that are intellectually creative and socially important in their potential to generate needed discussion of assumptions underlying pedagogic practice.

Using Institutional Structures to Promote Educational Equity

This article traces diverging trajectories in a situated, participatory research project in 2 public schools in Ontario. While the project operated within a consistent set of objectives to promote educational equity for immigrant, linguistically diverse students and their families, it generated 2 substantially different models of educational provision at each of the 2 schools: one corresponding to the enrichment approach the project envisioned and the second to a remediation strategy grounded in an institutional discourse of deficit. The problematic we elucidate here is how such diverging outcomes could have been engendered. We begin by describing the conceptual bases for the activist research agenda; we then outline the interventionist, literacy enrichment framework of the project; next, we describe how the project took shape at the 2 research sites; and, finally, our reflective turn at the conclusion of this article represents our best effort to make sense of these contradictory experienced realities.

Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities and Classrooms (review)

© 2006 The Canadian Modern Language Review/La Revue canadienne des langues vivantes, 63, 2 (December/décembre) bibliographiques, seules trois sont postérieures à 1990, dont deux sont des rééditions, faisant ainsi l’impasse sur les modèles apparus depuis ; enfin, aucune de ces références ne porte sur l’intonation. En résumé, An Introduction to French Pronunciation ne vient rien apporter à la liste d’ouvrages traitant de la question, y compris la précédente édition du même livre. D’ailleurs, l’auteur le dit lui-même dans la préface : pour l’essentiel « it remains the same book and the pagination of the original edition has been retained ». De plus, comme il l’a été dit plus haut, l’ouvrage est basé presque exclusivement sur le français dit standard et par conséquent ne présente que peu d’intérêt dans le contexte canadien.