The creation and maintenance of a ‘learning‐loving minority’ in conventional high schools: a research‐based response to John Ogbu

Matusov, Eugene; DePalma, Renée; Smith, Mark

doi:10.1080/03054985.2010.491186

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…It took me years to realize how profound this discussion was. Together with my two colleagues -Renee DePalma and Mark Smith -I studied students from an innovative, progressive K-8 school who went to conventional high schools (DePalma, Matusov, & Smith, 2009;Matusov, DePalma, & Smith, 2010). Many students reported this dilemma to us about how to pretend well to be 'a good student' without losing their own soul of being 'a good learner.'…”

Section: E3mentioning

confidence: 99%

The relationship between education and learning and its consequences for dialogic pedagogy

Matusov

2021

Dialogic Pedagogy Journal

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Education is often viewed as formalized learning. I argue that the relationship between education and formalized learning is more complex and profound. In this conceptual essay, I examine the relationship between education and learning. Specifically, I discuss the cases when learning is not education and education is not learning. I argue that learning becomes educational when the person, the learner themselves, appreciates their learning. When learning is not appreciated by the learner, it does not constitute that person’s education. Thus, education is an ephemeral subjective construct, prone to appear and disappear as the person’s attitude to their learning changes. Also, education can be non-learning-based when it involves insights – abrupt, discontinuous changes of the person’s subjectivity – which are not caused by and rooted in the person’s experiences. Like learning, for an insight to be educational, it has to be perceived and appreciated by the person. I argue that human life consists of the flow of learning and insight. Noticing learning and insight by the person involves discontinuity of the person’s subjectivity, participation in activities, and other people that is recognized by others and the person. I discuss diverse forms of the person’s appreciation of learning and insights that constitute education. These forms vary from the behaviorist appreciation, as its lowest form, to the critical appreciation through critical dialogue as its highest form. Finally, I consider the consequences of defining education through a person’s appreciation of the transformation of their subjectivity for dialogic pedagogy.

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Section: E3mentioning

confidence: 99%

The relationship between education and learning and its consequences for dialogic pedagogy

Matusov

2021

Dialogic Pedagogy Journal

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“…From Ogbu's analysis, this involves not just action, but also language and shifting identities. While Ogbu is not without his critics (see for example, Akom, 2008;Archer-Banks & Behar-Horenstein, 2012;Foley, 2004;Matusov et al, 2010), his work is relevant to this study. Four decades after the publication of Ogbu's book, Akosua-an African immigrant high school student in the Midwest-can proudly insist: I'm different.…”

Section: Ascribed Identitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identity Negotiation in Multilingual Contexts: A Narrative Inquiry into Experiences of an African Immigrant High School Student

Kiramba

Oloo

2020

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

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Background/Context Inclusion of African immigrant youth voices in educational and research discourses remains rare despite the steady growth of this population in the United States over the past four decades. Consequently, the multilingual abilities of these youth remain typically unnoticed or ignored in the classroom, and little is specifically known about their histories, cultures, expectations, and achievements. Purpose Using the narrative inquiry approach and the Natural, Institutional, Discursive, Affinity, Learner, and Solidarity (NIDALS) theoretical lens, we explore the lived experiences of one African immigrant high school student in the midwestern United States. Research Design Using narrative inquiry, we qualitatively explored the lived cultural, racial, and ethnic identities and self-images experienced by a Ghanaian-born female high school student, Akosua (pseudonym), as she navigated and resisted identities ascribed to her in the midwestern U.S. Findings The student's narratives speak to issues of culture, identity, and self-image, as well as her literate life in multiple languages and literacy contexts in and out of school. The findings reveal narratives of ascribed identities, racialization, and perceived language hierarchies in the participant's daily life and indicate a need to challenge such narratives about African immigrant students and disrupt the reproduction of linguistic and racial inequality in the school system. Recommendations While school systems do follow state-sanctioned linguistic norms and ideologies, when educators draw on students’ experiences and funds of knowledge as resources already in the room in order to find ways of negotiating and disrupting language hierarchies and the ascribed identities they support, it allows all students, including multilinguals, to have their identity affirmed, even in school systems that have historically marginalized them. This, in turn, supports educational achievement, broadly realized, not only psychologically for all students but also economically and nationally for the country—a critical accomplishment in an era when educational quality in the U.S. is losing ground to foreign achievements.

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“…a love for learning (Matusov, DePalma, & Smith, 2010). The school has also specialized in educating students with mild autistic spectrum disorders, notably Asperger's syndrome (see Smith, 2011 for more information).…”

Section: A108mentioning

confidence: 99%

Bullying and interpersonal conflict from a “dialogic event” perspective

Smith

2019

Dialogic Pedagogy Journal

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Through discussions in class meetings of “concrete situations” experienced by students in their lived experience in and out of the classroom, educators have been encouraged to guide students to understand how bullying applies to their lives, and to learn the degree to which bullying is present or absent in their relationships with their peers (Olweus, 1993). In observations of and interviews about the class meetings at a private, progressive U.S. middle school, student and teacher discourses in response to students’ interpersonal dynamics are found to exist within separate, parallel universes. The teachers’ discourse universe presumes that the lived experience of students can be understood through and guided by abstract, Kantian-like moral universal imperatives – specifically, the imperative to “feel good” and the imperative not to bully. These imperatives supplant dialogue on the events of students’ experiences toward a focus on who the students are becoming rather than who they are now. This discourse of “half-being” maps the students’ experiences upon what is known, predictable, universal, unsurprising and imagined, and assumes that students are not fully responsible for their own or each other’s well-being. By contrast, the students’ discourse on their interpersonal dynamics is characterized by Bakhtin’s (1993) notion of “being-as-event” discourse, which is highly contextualized, unpredictable, and focuses upon everyone’s responsibility to ongoing dramatic and ontologically charged events (either immediate or recursive in nature). The students’ discursive universe is conducive to dialogue, whereas the teachers’ discursive universe supplants the students’ messy, unpredictable and dialogically responsible discourse, thus arresting the possibility for teachers and peers to provide meaningful and authoritative guidance to dialogic events. The reasons for teachers’ attraction to Kantian-like abstract moral universals as well as the consequences of the supplanting of students’ event-filled discourse with the discourse of bullying are discussed

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The creation and maintenance of a ‘learning‐loving minority’ in conventional high schools: a research‐based response to John Ogbu

Cited by 4 publications

References 14 publications

The relationship between education and learning and its consequences for dialogic pedagogy

The relationship between education and learning and its consequences for dialogic pedagogy

Identity Negotiation in Multilingual Contexts: A Narrative Inquiry into Experiences of an African Immigrant High School Student

Bullying and interpersonal conflict from a “dialogic event” perspective

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