Normality,Deviance, Identity,Cultural Tracking and School Achievement: The case of Ethiopian Jews in Israel

This article reveals the intrinsic connection between the constructs normality, identity, meaning, cultural tracking, and school achievement. In particular, it illuminates the indirect connection between cultural tracking and a reduction in the meaningful engagement of school tasks. As documented elsewhere, learning proceeds in a meaningful environment with meaningful goals embedded within the broader framework and context of human life, with identity anchored in a stable cultural and communicative framework. What my study shows is how Ethiopian students are in a state of identity crisis as they grapple with two cultural systems and structures of meaning which confuse their sense of direction. In the process, meaningfully propelled learning dispositions and an affectively driven urge to achieve scholastic excellence deteriorate. Thus, the lagging academic performance of these children is partly caused by the school system which has little knowledge of the way these children and their parents feel and think in terms of identity, belongingness and negotiation of meaning. It is not that Ethiopian students are unmotivated, they work hard to achieve excellence. It is more that the process of learning a new code of behaviour, values and school culture is taking place rapidly without the original culture's active participation as a basic link and a vehicle for further learning. The article also points out the extent of the economic and otherwise power‐related differences between black and white Jews in Israel.     

Performing Embodiable Topoi: Strategic Indigeneity and the Incorporation of Ecuadorian National Identity

The rhetorical history of Ecuador is rife with examples of politicians, intellectuals, and artists promoting visions of national identity through images of Ecuador's indigenous population. Between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, such depictions became common and displayed increasing emphasis on the physical characteristics of indigenous people. This focus led to appropriations of indigeneity in which white and mestizo Ecuadorians spoke as if indigenous in order to construct arguments about their place in the nation. In the process, they engaged an “embodiable topos” that housed persuasive force within bodily performances of indigenous character. White-mestizo performances of indigeneity engaged embodiable topoi in order to appropriate specific positions associated with indigenous subjects and to establish access to otherwise unavailable forms of rhetorical legitimacy.     

La France en Chantant: The Rhetorical Construction of French Identity in Songs of the Resistance Movement

During the German Occupation from 1940 to 1944, members of the French Resistance sang folk songs to legitimize their movement in the face of widespread support for collaboration and brutal police attacks. Reprising a performative tradition of French political singing, Resistance fighters deployed national narratives and parody to define themselves as transhistorical French heroes while also practicing democratic forms they sought to safeguard. In this way, the songs represented resisters as the guardians of true “Frenchness,” an identity that excluded collaborators from the national community and robbed them of political legitimacy.     

Transnational Asia: Dis/orienting Identity in the Globalized World

This article provides a phenomenological analysis of the author's transnational migratory experience situated in historical and ideological contexts. Using vertigo as a metaphor, I theorize Althusser's ideological interpellation as a process and practice of dis/orientation. Focusing on several phenomenological moments, I politicize and historicize my sense of orientedness at the intersection of my “being Japanese” and “becoming Asian” within the dialectical tension between Asia and the West. I argue that the power of ideological interpellation lies not only in the discursive logic of identity politics but more importantly in the embodied, subjectively lived, and phenomenologically significant experiences in which an individual is hailed by multidirectional ideological forces.     

Identity Gap: Mediator Between Communication Input and Outcome Variables

After introducing the concept of identity gap, this study investigated the roles of 3 identity gaps (personal-enacted, personal-relational, and enacted-relational) in the relations between 2 communication input variables (assertiveness and communication apprehension) and a communication outcome variable (communication satisfaction). The results showed that the communication input variables did not have significant direct effects on the communication outcome variable. The effects of the communication input variables were transmitted to the communication outcome through the identity gaps. A personal-enacted identity gap directly mediated the effects of the communication inputs on the outcome. Personal-relational and enacted-relational identity gaps indirectly mediated the effects via a personal-enacted identity gap—that is, both communication inputs significantly predicted a personal-enacted identity gap, but neither a personal-relational nor an enacted-relational identity gap. However, a personal-enacted identity gap significantly predicted the other 2 identity gaps. Then, all 3 identity gaps significantly predicted communication satisfaction.     

Motherhood and the Construction of “Mommy Identity”: Messages about Motherhood and Face Negotiation

Sports media depictions of the Yankees and Red Sox have produced ironic team personae that can best be understood through the lens of Fisher's (1973 Fisher , W. R. ( 1973 ). Reaffirmation and subversion of the American Dream . Quarterly Journal of Speech , 59 , 160 – 167 . doi: 10.1080/00335637309383164 [Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) materialistic and moralistic American dreams. In this article, the author traces the interaction of Burke's first three tropes—metaphor, metonymy, and synecdoche—in sports news coverage of the Yankees and Red Sox from 2000–2010 to explain the discursive construction of the teams' ironic personae. Collectively, media emphasis on money metaphors, the Yankees' lucrative 21st century stadium, and a militaristic owner align the team persona with a materialistic, aggressive economic competition model, whereas the Red Sox are represented by metaphors of frugality, a classic stadium, and familial “Idiots” to create a moralistic, cooperative image of the organization. The teams' personae are ultimately created and sustained through the tropological cycle and the dialectical interaction of the rivals.     

Editor's Statement: On (Not) Feeling Rebellious

Abstract

This study is a mixed methods analysis of how French-Muslims respond to a French law banning the wearing of religious symbols in French public schools. In summer 2007, 356 French-Muslims were surveyed, and 20 of those Muslims were interviewed for this analysis. The statistical analysis reveals religiosity to be a significant predictor of French-Muslims’ negative sentiment toward la Loi 2004-228, the ban on the wearing of religious symbols in French public schools. In the interviews, French-Muslims express how they perceive la Loi 2004-228 as stifling Islamic religious identity and freedom, and leading to religious and political struggles in France. The paper concludes with a discussion of how the current situation in France represents a struggle over assimilation and how the issue of and controversy over Muslim immigration has spread throughout the European Union.     

Her Holiness: The Purohitas of Pune,India: Female Hindu Priests as Embodied,Emotional–Spiritual,and Aesthetic (Performative) Laborers

Abstract

Female priests are a relatively new phenomenon in Hindu Indian culture. Positioned as outsiders within, they have been marginalized from the male-dominated priestly profession, even as they continue to challenge normative expectations surrounding their unconventional occupational choice. This study presents findings from a multi-methods qualitative study that, in addition to analyzing media reports about female Hindu priests of Pune city, interviewed 12 practicing priests. Utilizing data-driven lenses of embodied, emotional–spiritual, and aesthetic (performative) labor, findings from this study revealed how participants communicatively and strategically diffused resistance and redefined competence by negotiating contradictory aspects of their professional realities.     

Space Making: Chinese Transnationalism on the U.S.-Mexican Borderlands

Abstract

As the U.S.-Mexico border becomes more diverse and militantly guarded, interactions between various cultural groups grow more frequent and convoluted. This article describes the ways in which a group of Chinese transnationalists as recent arrivals (re)construct the meanings of El Paso in quotidian interactions. Recurrent themes on the ways in which participants constructed El Paso as an unauthentic American space are discussed. I argue that spatial identities are products of various forces and further reconceptualize the natural connections between place, people, and culture.