Cultural identity
From WikEd
Contents |
Identity as general
A literature review
Cultural identity has beome a heated topic for both educators and policy makers. Various litearature has addressed the identity in the process of learning. Gee (1989) introduces the theory of Discourse, the “Big D” as opposed to “discourse”, and asserted that Discourses are the embodiment of not only language use, but also of the action, interaction, values, beliefs, symbols, objects, tools and places. Therefore Discourse is about the ways of recognizing and being recognized. Further, he extends his theory to the domain of literacy where Discourses are associated with the existence of identities. In his opinion, in order to become a member of a meaningful social group, we are required to master what to say, as well as what to do and what to value. This paper builds up the theoretical framework for many ethnographic works.
Lave and Wenger (1990)emphasize the interrelations between person and his identity in a community. The two scholars assert that learning is not only the business of an individual, but of a social community. Through specific activities, tasks, functions and understandings, people involve in the community with identity and meanings. The participant has different identities with regard to the participation into the community, as Lave and Wenger call the “legitimate peripheral participation”. More specifically, people move from entrance as a newcomer to a point as they become old-timers. Thus they are situated from the periphery of the community to the core. This process of transformation also leads to the change of identity as a participant. This chapter presents the educational researchers with a novel look of learning and identities in learning.
McKay & Wong (1996)investigate the identities that associated with academic, particularly their English language development of four Chinese high school students immigrated to the U.S. The researchers identified four social contexts where the focal students were situated: colonialist/racialized discourses on immigrants, Chinese cultural nationalist discourses, social and academic school discourses, and gender discourses. It is discovered that many pedagogical practices in the ESL classrooms the students had attended was consistently derived from a code-based view of second language learning. The teaching practice failed to respect the immigrant learners’ identities. Even where teachers had begun to incorporate process-oriented exercises, their sense of how the students were positioned in relations of power and stereotypes in both the school and U.S. society still seemed limited.
The ethnographic study conducted by Godina (2004) investigated 10 high school students of Mexican background. The researcher uses interviews, collection of literacy artifacts, and the use of key informant, and observations across the settings of home, school, and community to examine the literacy practices of the focal students. It is revealed that the students demonstrated different identities across multiple social settings, and negotiated themselves among the settings as well. However, the fact that educators and parents failed to recognize the negotiation of students aggravated the literacy situation of the focal children that led to students’ confrontation and verbal spar with the teacher at school, and the lack of communication between parents and teachers that contributed to their children’s marginalization. The dynamic implications between literacy and identity are the most powerful features for this paper.
Sfard and Prusak's (2005)research was based on the empirical study of on an 11th-grade class of advanced mathematics program where 9 were regarded as “Newcomers”—immigrated from former Soviet Union, and “Oldtimers”—the native Israelis. The researchers try to analyze learning through the notion of identity. They understand identity as a set of reifying, significant, endorsable stories about an individual, and the stories can be the products of assembled similar storytelling. The researchers conclude that the dynamics of narratives may catalyze the theory of identity, the identity that can be understood as both actual and designated. Such an understanding of learning enriches our perceptions of learning and identities in a social context.
Reference
Gee, J. P. (1989). Literacy, discourse, and linguistics: Introduction. Journal of Education, 171 (1), 5-17.
Godina, H. (2004). Contradictory literacy practices of Mexican-background students: an ethnography from the rural Midwest. Bilingual Research Journal, 28 (2), 153-180.
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1990). Practice, person, social world. In Lave & Wenger (Eds.). Situated learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McKay, S. & Wong, S. (1996). Multiple discourses, multiple identities: investment and agency in second language learning among Chinese adolescent immigrant students. Harvard Educational Review, 66(3), 577-608.
Sfard, A. & Prusak, A. (2005). Telling identities: in search of an analytic tool for investigating learning as a culturally shaped activity. Educational Researcher, 34 (4), 14-22.
Stories and experiences concerning cultural identity in learning
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