EDS 117
To help us study for the final exam!
Terms
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- Cultural Deprivation Theory. Argues that lower-class children are linguistically deprived (less verbal and less abstract/cognitive language). Therefore they cannot achieve in school because school requires high-level thinking. Evidence: giant-word syndrome, inability to answer simple questions, inability to recognize specific words, other language impediments. Recommends "Direct Instruction Method" (DISTAR)
- Bereiter & Engelmann (1966) "Teaching the Culturally Disadvantaged Child in the Preschool"
- Cultural Discontinuity Theory. 3-year ethnographic study of Houston H.S. School classroom culture removes Mexican-American students of their cultural resources. Teachers reject Mexican-American culture, so students reject school process. Leaves students vulnerable to academic failure. Teachers need to promote biculturalism in students so they are comfortable in both their own culture and in the dominant culture.
- Valenzuela (1999) "Subtractive Schooling"
- Two family styles: strict father and nurturing parent. Both lead to conservative and progressive political views. (Not important)
- Lakoff (2004) "Don't Think Of An Elephant"
- Criticizes Ogbu's system of dividing minorities into three groups and assigning behaviors to each group (very deterministic). Ogbu's terms do not work well in many examples; some countries have castelike minorities doing better than immigrant minorities. What about refugees, guest workers, economic immigrants, people from former colonies, etc.? Also says Ogbu ignores the influence of generation. Some minorities have upward mobility through generations; other minorities move downward through generations. The risk factors affecting this are U.S. labor changes, color, and geographic location. There are also gender and school differences to consider. Instead of focusing on "type of minority," focus on what makes students succeed? Bicultural education where students feel they can keep their culture and adopt the dominant culture (additive schooling).
- Gibson (1997) "Complicating the Immigrant/Involuntary Minority Typology"
- Study of tracking in schools. Minority/lower-class are more likely to be placed in low-track classes and receive poorer educational quality. Low-track students get "locked" into their track because teachers lower expectations; children learn less and achieve less. Also, low-track teaches compliance and instruction-following while high-track teaches independence and creativity. Reproduces social inequality. Same times but different curricula.
- Oakes (1985) "Keeping Track Of How Schools Structure Inequality"
- Cultural Discontinuity Theory. Criticism of traditional teaching: use basal readers, follow guides, dominate classroom conversation. Also that many literary curricula requires prior cultural knowledge (cultural capital) not available to Black students. Research: use "signifying," a BEV form of discourse, to support literary interpretation. Black students understood the literary texts better and were able to use literary interpretation devices. Value child's cultural capital.
- Lee (1995) "A Culturally Based Apprenticeship: Teaching African American High School Students in Literary Interpretation"
- Cultural Discontinuity Theory. Black children are used to different questions than white children. 5-year study of Trackton community. White parents train their children to answer questions; Black parents do not. Black kids are not used to speaking to adults, and do not like to answer known-information questions (because the teacher should already know the answer!). Improve: Teachers ask more broad, anecdotal, metaphorical questions. Make school culture explicit and introduce children to school-type questions.
- Heath (1982) "Questioning At Home and At School"
- Argues that B&E's Cultural Deprivation Theory is baseless (too deterministic and faulty research). Evidence: B&E have little direct observation of Black homes. Many interviews have a power balance in favor of the interviewer, so the Black child is afraid to speak (and looks "nonverbal"). Argues that social situation is the most important determinant of whether a Black kid speaks (more fair interview situation). Also argues that middle-class language should not be the standard to judge other languages. Argues Black children speak BEV, a real language with grammar and syntax. Black children are not linguistically deprived! B&E blame child, family, culture for the child's academic gap; Labov says we should look at schools and teachers instead.
- Labov (1972) "Academic Ignorance and Black Intelligence"
- High-quality early childhood education (ECE) is an effective and economical way to dramatically improve children's educational futures. Studied 3 different preschools - DISTAR (teacher-led), student-teacher cooperative, and child-centered preschools. After 10 years, all children in all 3 preschools had same IQ gains. But DISTAR children were 2x more delinquent and had much more family and social problems. Suggests not using DISTAR (B&E's Direct Instruction) method because it doesn't teach social skills.
- Schweinhart, et al. (1986) "Consequences of Three Preschool Curriculum Models Through Age 15"
- Studies information-seeking and known-information questions. KIQs are only used in schools, organized in IRE sequence (Initiation, Reply, Evaluation). KIQs tend to require children to take turns; this affects how children interact (voluntary vs mandatory, cooperative vs competitive).
- Mehan (1979) "What Time Is It, Denise?"
- Culture of Resistance Theory. Ethnographic study of DC-area high school. Blacks equate academic learning with "acting white." Social pressures against school success. Low school performance is adaption of castelike minority to limited social/economic opportunities. School success is seen as a white thing; Blacks do not succeed in school and should not try to. If Blacks try to succeed, they are accused of "acting white." Strong group identity ("fictive kinship") makes Blacks fearful to leave their group via academic success. Many strategies used by Black students to perform less in school on purpose.
- Fordham & Ogbu (1986) "Black Students' School Success"
- Sociological Theory. Argues that class culture influences parents' compliance with teacher requests for school involvement. Ethnographic study of two 1st grade classrooms, one in working-class and one in middle-class community. Both teachers asked the same amount of parental involvement. Middle-class had much higher meaningful contact w school (open house, volunteering, etc.). Factors were different perceptions of parent-teacher relationships. Lower-class not as educated as teachers; more likely to defer to teacher/principal decisions. Lower-class have far less information about school, and have informal childrearing style. Middle-class is opposite, so middle-class values encourage middle-class parents to be involved in school.
- Lareau (1987) "Social Class Differences in Family-School Relationships: Importance of Cultural Capital"
- Study of UCSD Preuss School. All students in one track. 6th-12th grade for low-income students. Single curriculum but modify teaching time and social supports. High expectations; all students are college-prep. Early intervention for struggling students. Outstanding results; 80-90% go to college (first in their family).
- Alvarez & Mehan (2006) "Whole School Detracking"
- Sociological Theory. Examines Chinese-American community. Often called a "model minority" by people who want to prove that America is a land of opportunity. However, deeply split between working-class Chinese and middle-class Chinese. Must look at all kinds of factors. Not all Chinese-Americans do well in school; it depends on other factors. Criticizes Ogbu's theory because according to Ogbu, all Chinese-Americans should succeed as an immigrant minority, but this does not happen.
- Louie (2004) "Compelled to Excel"
- Power is a huge factor in the classroom discourse and in the schooling process. Argues that teachers must explicitly teach the rules of power to disadvantaged children, and also explicitly teach skills that children do not have. Explicitly teach the "hidden curriculum."
- Delpit (1988) "The Silenced Dialogue"
- Argues that Native Americans have learning style differences. Should match those learning styles to achieve better education.
- More (1989) "Native American Learning Styles
- Cultural Capital. "THe general cultural background, knowledge, disposition, skills passed from generation to generation." Schools reward dominant cultural capital and devalue lower-class cultural capital. School also promotes expectations that lower-class students will probably fail; the result is they fail.
- Bourdieu (1977) (Not an article we read but mentioned in Mehan 1992 and MacLeod 1987)
- Cultural Discontinuity Theory. KEEP school created successful reading program centered around Hawaiian cultural event "talk-story." Used cultural values such as co-narration, mutual participation, appreciation of teacher as socially relevant role, and use children's prior experiences. (Ex. Talking about children's experience with frogs before starting the story; allow for co-narration and mutual participation instead of turn-taking and known-information questions). Rule: school needs to develop learning situations more congruent with the child's cultural experience. Value child's cultural capital.
- Au & Jordan (1981) "Teaching Reading to Hawaiian Children"
- Culture of Resistance Theory. Divides minorities into autonomous, immigrant, and castelike (involuntary). Immigrant minorities (Ex. Chinese-Americans) moved to USA by choice. They are always better off than they would be back home. Accept USA culture and assimilate; also accept the school culture even if school does not respect Chinese-American culture. Culture of accommodation/assimilation develops. Castelike minorities (Ex. Blacks) are born here and cannot leave. Status-mobility system (jobs and opportunities) is not available to them. School does not respect Black culture. Culture of resistance develops as Blacks wonder what is the point of school in a society with no opportunities?
- Ogbu (1983) "Minority Status and Schooling in Plural Societies"
- Use of language in debate over Prop 187 (denying illegal immigrants access to health and public education). Use of loaded words (Ex. "undocumented workers" vs. "illegal aliens") or scapegoating (Ex. blaming illegal immigrants for CA's economic problems). Argument approach (Ex. "Us vs. Them" vs. "We're all in this together") Raquel discussed the Rodney King incident in relation to this. (Not important)
- Mehan (1997) "Discourse of the Illegal Immigrant Debate"
- Overview of many sociological theories. Discusses constitutive action. (Ex. labeling of physically handicapped students). Recognize contribution of culture, agency, and structure. Move from blaming students to blaming schools for inequality.
- Mehan (1992) "Understanding Inequality in Schools"
- Sociological Theory. Examines "concerted cultivation" (middle-class child rearing style) and "accomplishment of natural growth (lower-class childrearing style). Schools promote concerted cultivation, so lower-class parents are out of sync with school culture. Also, children in concerted cultivation grow up with sense of entitlement and have more casual contact with adults; better able to succeed in workplace. Children raised according to accomplishment of natural growth have sense of constraint, not used to working with adults, less success in workplace. No opinion on which is better, just that concerted cultivation helped children succeed in workplace.
- Lareau (2003) "Unequal Childhoods"
- Sociological Theory. Ethnographic study of projects community - two groups, "Hallway Hangers" and "Brothers." Hallway Hangers mostly white, very low expectations of success. Brothers mostly black, have high expectations and specific aspirations and are optimistic. Hallway Hangers reject dominant values while Brothers embrace dominant cultural values. Criticizes Ogbu because according to Ogbu, Hallway Hangers should be succeeding and Brothers should be failing but it is the other way around. Criticizes Bourdieu because both are from lower-class and should have the same cultural capital but they do not.
- MacLeod (1987) "Ain't No Making It"