Middle Schoolers and the Prayer Request: Connecting Home, School, and Community

• In Event: The Ongoing Role of Religion in Public Education

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of ethnographic data from prayer sessions at a faith-based middle school located in the southerly part of United States. Using a functional narrative framework, this article describes the role of the prayer request. Highlighting the interplay between language and social identity, findings show how students used prayer requests to index certain knowledge relating to home, school, and community contexts, thereby mediating what students knew and came to know about each other as well as themselves. Focal participants were Mexican immigrant students in grades six, seven, and eight and their teachers. Data are drawn from transcripts of audio-taped prayers, students’ journal writings, and classroom observations.

Author

• Tryphenia B. Peele-Eady, University of New Mexico