Using Discourse Analysis to Reframe Racial Difference: Dialect Diversity as a Resource for Teachers’ Learning

• In Event: From Deficit Discourse to Educational Resource: Using Discourse Analysis to Make Visible Difference and Diversity as Valued Resources

Abstract

This paper adds to research on how to prepare teachers, the majority of whom are White, middle-class women, for the racial, linguistic, and cultural difference they will encounter in the K-12 classroom as the student body becomes increasingly diverse. As Geneva Gay (2010) notes, most of these teachers live in different worlds than their students and have developed negative perceptions of their languages and cultures—deficit models—that shape their teaching. Consequently, reframing teacher candidates’ deficit thinking so that they are able to build on students’ strengths reflects another critical challenge facing teacher educators (Cochran-Smith, Davis, & Fries, 2004; Gere, et. al., 2010).
This study makes visible how teacher candidates used discourse analysis to “untie the (k)not” (Street, 2011) and reframe difference from deficit discourse to educational resource. Drawing from Rex and Schiller’s (2009) framework for using discourse analysis to enhance classroom interaction, the teacher educator-researcher guided secondary English teacher candidates in a discourse analysis of classroom talk drawn from her research on cross-racial classroom interaction (Author, 2010). One episode features a “White,” female, high school teacher and “Black” students negotiating the relative value of the teacher’s “million dolla novel” and a student’s rapping. Teacher and students employed Signifyin(g), a culturally-grounded discourse practice of verbal dueling considered unique to the African American community (Lee, 2007), as a resource for these negotiations. By applying discourse analysis (Rex & Schiller, 2009) that illuminated not only what the teacher and students said to each other, but also how they said it, teacher candidates were able to discuss issues central to teaching English in racially, linguistically, and culturally diverse classrooms: What counts as valid language and literacies in various contexts? Which texts will I choose to engage and enlighten my diverse students? How will I address language and dialect diversity in the classroom? How do we conceptualize race in ways that are useful for teaching and learning? Studying teacher candidates’ talk through a microethnographic discourse analysis illuminates how teacher candidates “discoursed into being” new understandings about race and difference (Bloome, et. al., 2008) and the ways in which macro-level discourses and ideological stances are reflected and refracted in micro-level interaction (Bloome, et. al., 2005; Carter, 2008).
This study illustrates how ethnographic approaches to discourse analysis make visible the ways in which difference can be used as a resource for teaching and learning. Highlighting the application of research for pedagogical purposes, this study further demonstrates how teaching prospective teachers to analyze classroom interaction can foster teachers’ “interactional awareness” (Rex & Schiller, 2009), and ignite discussion around race and difference, which is critical for preparing teachers to practice culturally relevant and responsive pedagogies in classrooms with racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse students (Gay, 2010; Young, 2010). By privileging the discursive work teacher candidates undertook to address these issues in their beliefs and envisioned teaching practices, this research holds the potential to reframe the deficit discourses surrounding White teachers and reposition them as capable learners (Lowenstein, 2009).

Author

• Amy Carpenter Ford, Central Michigan University