On Ethnography, Chapter 5

Key issues:

Language Socialization:

1) Oral language--"particularly in terms of lexical, syntactic, and generic productive skills"-and written language--"both its interpretation and and production" are interdependent and they should both be the focus of ethnographic research. For instance, students coming from multicultural and multilingual environments may be accostomed to using a variety of linguistic forms in their speech. Such syntactic forms might be at odds with linguistic norms and standards established by educational institutions, although, as Heath and Street state, "all language learners can understand language more complex than that which they may produce."

2) The linguistic features of teacher talk vs. student talk, as well as the "nature and extent of verbal interactions between children and caregivers" and how these conversations help enrich students' vocabulary and diversify their sentences.

3) "Familiarity with language socialization literature" is also important as it helps the ethnographer to modify or revise his or her research question.

4) "The success of individuals in academic achievement, professional employment, and civic life tends to correlate with fluency in a wide repertoire of language structures, uses, and modes"

Social Theories of Literacy:

This ideology attempts to understand the social and political factors that influence literacy practices, mainly the ways in which schools perpetuate the divide between at-risk students' beliefs, attitudes, and linguistic background and those set forth by schools.


Question: What can educators do to help at-risk students, those coming from linguistically and socioeconomically disadvantaged bacgrounds, to succeed academically? What types of intervention strategies can be implemented so that those students continue their education? How can tutors and teachers work together to facilitate those students' language and academic socialization?