A rapid ethnograhic study of 10 itinerant teachers in two school districts and 21 other professionals working with the itinerants was conducted. Rapid ethnography starts with the same assumptions about culture as conventional ethnography. However, it is not constrained by the assumption of cultural ignorance on the investigator's part. Thus, it…

This book is a critical ethnography of the Native Education Centre (NEC) in Vancouver, British Columbia. It presents an intimate view of the center, focusing on the people that work there--First Nations students, board members, teachers--and revealing their beliefs about First Nations control of education and how they put those beliefs into…

An ethnographic study examined the role of language, discrimination, and aspirations in the school success of Latino students in a small rural town. The town, located about 1,000 miles from Mexico and about 200 miles from any sizeable Latino community, contains about 200 Latinos. Almost all are Mexicans or Mexican Americans and have come to work…

Our schools are environments of race and class and these school environments structure opportunity based on race and class. This paper explores how students' lives and their access to postsecondary education are framed and structured by the influences of race and class. The college choice decision process of three female Black students from a…

The linguistic purposes of this research were to focus on content, themes and topics, and to analyze the way the target language (English) was used in e-mail. Communicativeness and the roles of the communicator (writer-reader) became central, emphasizing the multidirectional character of e-mail communication. The basic tenet of communicativeness…

An ongoing four-year ethnographic study of two cohorts of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) learners enrolled in mainstream Canadian primary school classrooms is described. The two cohorts are: (1) a group of six children observed from the beginning of kindergarten through the end of grade 2, and (2) five children observed from early kindergarten…

This collection of six papers consists of works in progress undertaken by students and faculty of the University of Pennsylvania's Language in Education Division of the Graduate School of Education. The papers are: (1) "Language Planning and Identity Planning: An Emergent Understanding" (Rebecca Freeman); (2) "Communicative…

A small-scale ethnographic study investigated: (1) the instructional role of the paraprofessional/teacher aide in dealing with the educational needs of limited-English-proficient (LEP) students; (2) to what extent the paraprofessional is aware of those needs; (3) whether ethnic or linguistic differences between paraprofessionals yield distinctive…

Readings on language and literacy within their social context include: "The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Languages" (Bronislaw Malinowski); "Toward Ethnographies of Communication" (Dell Hymes); "Language as Social Semiotic" (M. A. K. Halliday); "Language and Ideology" (V. N. Volosinov); "Family…

With the rapid increase of ethnic minorities entering industrial societies and interacting with mainstream cultures, issues of cultural and linguistic differences must be addressed. Particularly relevant to educators is understanding the process of acculturation and socialization of uprooted ethnic or low-income minority children. Such children…

The Kosrae (Micronesia) Department of Education operated a Title VII transitional bilingual education program from 1986-89, targeting the 1986-87 cohort of seventh graders. During the first 2 years, the students attended five village elementary schools, and during the third year attended the high school. This cohort had been targeted in previous…

A research strategy is presented which enables the development of science and mathematics curriculums for American Indian and Alaska Native children of diverse cultures based on existing subsistence knowledge and skills. This strategy assumes that American Indian and Alaska Native adults implicitly make use of many formal science and mathematics…

Designed for presentation in three two-hour class periods, this five-unit module presents both a conceptual framework for the study and analysis of Indian communities and a guide to instructors in schools of social work for presentation of this framework to students in a classroom setting. Primary focus is upon federally recognized tribal…

Describes how Oyster Bilingual School's (Washington, DC) two-way Spanish-English language plan functions in its sociopolitical context. It is noted that this plan is part of a larger identity plan aiming to promote social change by socializing children differently from the way they are socialized in mainstream US educational discourse. (46…

The school lives of culturally diverse young adolescents identified as potential dropouts were studied ethnographically. Data collected across two years indicated that teachers who students considered most successful in helping them learn used practices based on knowledge about students' home cultures and knowledge about the impact of students'…