Becoming a “Model Minority”: Acquisition,Construction and Enactment of American Identity for Korean Immigrant Students

While the “model minority” stereotype of Asian Americans and its negative effects has been documented elsewhere, relatively little attention has been paid to how recent Asian immigrant students begin to embrace the stereotype while in schools. This study explores the identity formation process for a group of recent Korean immigrant students as “model minority” in an urban high school to empirically document the process. Through interviews and observations, I learned that the immigrants acquired an unauthentic American identity as a racial minority, constructed their status as “model minority” in response, and enacted the stereotype as they sanctioned those who couldn’t live up to the stereotype. The aim is to add to the body of knowledge on the school experiences of recent Asian immigrants.     

“They Think I Am a Pervert:” A Qualitative Analysis of Lesbian and Gay Teachers' Experiences With Stress at School

Qualitative methodologies were used to identify the demands and resources lesbian and gay (LG) teachers face in their schools. Data sources included 2 interviews each with 11 teachers who each identified as lesbian or gay. Analyses of interview data indicated 3 main findings. First, although all teachers experienced demands because of their sexual orientation, the nature of the demands were different depending on their level of openness. Second, social support from others (e.g., colleagues, administrators, and partners) emerged as a particularly important coping resource for LG teachers. Third, by identifying specific demands unique to participants' roles as teachers, the results suggested the importance of work context in understanding LG teacher stress. Implications for teacher educators and LG teachers are discussed.     

“I Am What I Am Not Yet”: A Progress Report on the Study of the Learning Journeys of the First Modern Teaching Artists

This in-process study investigates experiences of Lincoln Center's first teaching artists, connecting their work in the 1970s to contemporary practice.     

“Only When I Am Not Ashamed of Myself Can I Teach Others”: Preservice English-Language Teachers in Vietnam and Code-Switching Practices

As the younger generation in Vietnam increasingly switches between the English and the Vietnamese languages, numerous linguistic and sociocultural strictures arise. Foregrounding the preservice English-language teachers of this generation, this article locates them in a dilemma between the discourse of globalization and their code-switching practices, on the one hand, and the moral-guide duty they are expected to fulfil within the discourse of linguistic nationalism on the other hand. Drawing on a case study conducted with survey questionnaires (N = 483) and focusing on interviews and focus groups (N = 15), this article reports the confusion, the decisions, and the negotiations made by different preservice teachers as they were faced with this dilemma. Particularly underlining the theme of negotiation, the article proposes certain changes to the English-language-teacher training curriculum in Vietnam.     

Teachers’ Multicultural Awareness and the Ethnic Identity of Minority Students: An Individual Case Study of a Hani Student

This study considers the role of teachers’ multicultural awareness in promoting minority students’ ethnic identity by considering the situation in one particular middle school. A case study of a Hani student is presented to show how teachers’ multicultural awareness affects ethnic identity and the academic achievement of minority students. This case study enables the authors to assess the significance and value of teachers’ multicultural awareness as an educational concept. Through the study, the authors point to a need to strengthen multicultural awareness in teachers’ education to meet requirements of cultural diversity. The authors also emphasize that such awareness should be an objective of teacher training.     

From “Who I Want to Be” to “Whom I Am” A Review of the Empirical Research on Motivation and Identity of L2 Learners

This paper synthesizes and evaluates the empirical studies on the relationship between motivation and identity construction of L2 learners in the process of SLA.It begins with the explorations of the definitions of identity and then its relevant research in the field of SLA.After that,the article explores the empirical studies from perspectives of both within and outside China Mainland.Based on comparison and contrast,some implications on both future research and instructions are offered.     

“I Am Not a Shelter!”: Stigma and Social Boundaries in Teachers’ Accounts of Students’ Experience in Separate “Sheltered” English Learner Classrooms

This study investigates how teachers interact with immigrant-origin youth in school-based contexts of reception that mediate youth's educational opportunities. One understudied context is sheltered instruction, where English learners (ELs) are placed into separate content-area courses to target their linguistic needs. This qualitative study highlights the unintended consequences of ELs’ placements by examining 3 teacher cases in depth. Teachers’ accounts reveal that EL content courses designed to increase access were, in fact, stigmatizing spaces where students made social distinctions and engaged in impression management to mitigate perceptions that they lacked intelligence because of their programmatic placements. Teachers also managed stigma in distinct ways, representing different orientations and communication strategies in response to students’ experiences of stigma. This investigation raises questions about the tensions embedded in how language status, race, and classification intersect with the very solutions intended to ameliorate inequalities, as well as teachers’ roles in the education of immigrant EL-designated youth.     

“I Just Want to Be Myself”: Adolescents With Disabilities Who Identify as a Sexual or Gender Minority

Abstract

Adolescents with disabilities who identify as a sexual or gender minority are at high risk for negative school experiences and poor outcomes, including peer rejection, bullying, and dropping out. Using an intersectionality framework, this study examined how multiple marginalized identities influence sense of self and school experience for this population. Findings reveal a complex picture of lived experiences and support the need for important changes in school practices.     

“Do Not Turn a Deaf Ear or a Blind Eye on Me,as I Am Your Son”: New Conceptions of Childhood and Parenthood in 18th- and 19th-Century Jewish Letter-Writing Manuals

This article focuses on the cultural functions of Hebrew letter-writing manuals published in German-speaking countries in the 18th and 19th centuries, aimed at young people. I argue that these books, which were used frequently as textbooks for studying Hebrew writing, conveyed modern ideological values and at the same time corresponded to the particular requirements of the traditional Jewish audience. They also bear witness to a marked shift in the conceptions of childhood and of education within the Jewish realm, as their emphasis on sons’ duties toward their fathers was gradually replaced by a growing sensitivity toward their young audience’s needs.     

“Tjaa,I Do Have Ears,But I Do Not Hear”: New Literacy Studies and the Awakening of a Hearing Teacher

To address the low literacy achievement of minority students, the sociocultural movement of the New Literacy Studies (NLS) encourages us to expand on current understandings of literacy. Instead of thinking of literacy as a neutral set of skills transferable from one setting to another, NLS researchers encourage us to contextualize literacy within individuals’ social and cultural realms. In this view, there are multiple literacies. As a literacy teacher of students who are deaf, I have witnessed students struggling with school-based literacy learning. As I began to examine what I was doing within the classroom, I realized that my assumptions about literacy instruction were the main source of students' struggles. In this study I explore how I used the theoretical perspective of the NLS to expand my understanding of literacy. The findings suggest that, in order to base literacy instruction on students' resources, teachers need to learn to negotiate conflicting educational Discourses on reading and writing, to create a space within the classroom for students to bring in their literacy practices, and to recognize and preserve students' agency and identity in their learning. Findings also indicate the vital role of writing in deaf students' learning of Icelandic.     

“I am Out of My Comfort Zone”: Self-study of the Struggle of Adapting to the Professional Identity of a Teacher Educator

It is often assumed that graduate students will develop as teacher educators simply by participating in a doctoral program. However, research has shown that doctoral students find the shift from teaching K-12 to preparing teachers to be a difficult transition. Within the context of a doctoral program community of practice established specifically for the purpose of examining this transition through self-study research, we sought to understand the shift in identity of a novice teacher educator working as an early field experience instructor with elementary science and mathematics preservice teachers. Our findings indicate that the process of self-study research, when supported within a community of practice, offered Jared the opportunity to recognize different aspects of his shifting professional identity, the dominance of particular aspects of his identity in certain situations, and the impact this was having on his students’ development as teachers. Developing this awareness of his adapting professional teaching identity from a classroom teacher to a teacher educator should help as he continues to develop his knowledge and skills working with teachers in different contexts and at different grade levels. Implications for how teacher education programs could better support the professional identity development of novice teacher educators through the use of a self-study focused community of practice are discussed.     

Imagining a Project: Networks,Discourses and Spaces — Towards a New Archaeology of Urban Education

This paper is concerned with the creation of new forms of historical research in education which uses and reflects the changes in methodology and substantive concerns of other disciplines across the shifting boundaries of scholarly work on the social. It is based upon a practice developed out of a series of international seminars and an unfunded research proposal. It is an attempt to use contemporary theory in cultural studies, geography and the sociology of technology to assemble arguments for a new approach to urban education history in which the silences of the field and the method, the restlessness about its boundaries and practices and its contemporary possibilities are collated into a proposal of work. This is called the new archaeology of schooling.     

“I’m Being a Man Here”: Urban Boys’ Performances of Masculinity and Engagement With Science During a Science Museum Visit

The importance of increasing and widening participation in post-compulsory science and informal science learning (ISL) spaces is widely recognized—particularly for working-class and minority ethnic communities. While there is a growing understanding of the intersection of femininity with class, ethnicity, and science learning across formal and informal settings, there has been little work on how masculinity may shape urban boys’ science (non)participation and (dis)engagement. This article analyzes performances of masculinity enacted by 36 urban, working-class boys (from diverse ethnic backgrounds) during school science museum visits, exploring how these performances relate to science identity and engagement. We identify three main performances of masculinity enacted during the visits (“laddishness,” “muscular intellect,” and “translocational masculinity”), and trace the implications of each for boys’ science engagement. We consider the power implications of these performances, notably the extent to which hegemonic masculinity is normalized within the science museum space, the ways in which this normalization is co-constitutive of the boys’ performances of masculinity, and the implications of the boys’ performances of masculinity for other students (notably girls and less dominant boys). The article concludes with implications for research, policy, and practice regarding how to promote equitable participation and science learning within ISL.     

Alice: Overcoming the Border Motto: “I Am No Longer Afraid of the World”

In our paper, we present the story of emancipation of a Roma woman, who works as a social outreach worker. Our method is based on ethnographic approach and our paper focuses on the study the emic perspective of participants in our research. The aim of the paper is to show the tension arising between the actions and expectations of Alice and the actions and expectations of those who are the important others in relation to her. There are two planes present in the personal story of Alice’s emancipation: the plane of Alice’s agency, which is represented by actions, decisions, self-determined will, versus the plane of cultural models, schemata, roles, status positions, images that are in some way offered to Alice or even forced upon her or with which she herself identifies. We will follow the contradictory process of establishment of personal identity of a woman who takes endeavours in several social fields constantly trying to maintain the permeability of these fields and their meanings, which is not an entirely trivial matter.     

“I Could Not Believe That Would Happen”: Challenges and Opportunities in a Critical,Project-Based Clinical Experience

As part of a youth summer program—a partnership between a large Southeastern university and the local school district—middle-school-aged youth, preservice teachers, and doctoral candidates interested in arts-based literacy practices spent their mornings in June 2016 engaging in activities that both explored and expanded thinking around their communities, schools, and families. Whereas the youth were enrolled in a monthlong creative arts and tentative unschooling experiment that ran roughly the length of a typical school day, university faculty and graduate students were engaged in a course on the application of youth participatory action research (YPAR). This article is an examination of the experience of preservice teachers, through an analysis of their reflections on events within the course, to suggest ways forward through the promises and perils of project-based, clinical preservice teaching experiences. In our exploration of the experiences of focal preservice teachers when engaged with youth coresearchers in a monthlong YPAR project, we found the work to have been filled with contradictions, unexpected shifts, and moments of great understanding, community affiliation, and suffering.