From the Inside Looking Out: Adolescent Identity Positioning in Appalachia

• In Event: Rural Education and Youth

Abstract

This paper focuses on one case study student from a study examining how Appalachian adolescents and a non-Appalachian teacher engaged sociocultural discourses to socially position identities for ourselves, others, and the local community. It draws from identity as social position theory, Bakthin's theory of language (Bakhtin, 1981; Heath, 1983; Moje and Luke, 2009). It was an ethnographic study in a rural Appalachian high school English class (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). Data sources included transcripts of classroom interactions, interviews, student writings and field notes (Merriam, 1998). Findings indicated that the sociocultural discourse of "insider/outsider" was particularly powerful. The case study student demonstrated a critical consciousness as she drew from this discourse in rhetorically dexterous and agentive ways.

Author

• Audra Slocum, West Virginia University