Bringing Academic Concepts to Life: Latina/o Students' Experiences Within and Between "Communities of Practice"

• In Event: 75.026 - Beyond Empowerment: Accompaniment and Sociolinguistic Justice Through Youth Research

Abstract

This paper examines how Latina/o high school students enrolled in a special college-level class on language, race, culture, and power relate to and co-construct their understanding of academic concepts by sharing and analyzing individual and common experiences with their peers and instructors. The established narrow definitions of what constitutes academic language and academic competencies have been identified as contributing to the substantial barriers that members of non-dominant linguistic, ethnic, and racial groups continue to face in school (Valdés, 2004; Walqui, 2000). Scholars and practitioners concerned with marginalized students’ participation and educational trajectories have advocated for approaches to education that are linguistically and culturally relevant and anchored in students’ existing funds of knowledge (Moll et al., 1992; González & Moll, 2002). Putting these ideas into practice, however, demands reconceptualizing the role of academic language in learning and considering the potential for disciplinary concepts to foster inclusion and inquiry in the classroom.

With this goal in mind, the project aims to expand on existing scholarship on the complex ways in which students from non-dominant groups are introduced to and relate to academic language. Throughout the course, students are exposed to a range of academic concepts associated with the role of language in society and are encouraged to use them in their assignments and research projects. This paper specifically focuses on how students define and negotiate the meaning of the academic term “communities of practice” (Lave & Wenger, 1991) through their interactions with peers and instructors. The concept was selected for analysis due to students’ responsiveness to the term and its continued use throughout the course.

The paper is based on a discourse analysis of classroom interaction in a 12th grade AVID class that was documented using video recordings and classroom observations for the five-month duration of the course, as well as close analysis of students’ presentations and research assignments. In order to examine how students co-construct their understanding of “communities of practice”, I focus on examples drawn from approximately ten hours of data, which include the lessons in which the concept is introduced and later instances throughout the course where students incorporate or apply the term in their own work and class discussions.

Findings indicate that academic language can be made more accessible when students are given the opportunity to approach abstract concepts, such as communities of practice, by drawing on their personal experiences and focusing on the aspects of the term that are most relevant to their lives. Further, students appear to largely employ the concept in order to reflect on and make sense of their own linguistic practices associated with navigating and negotiating membership into various communities and group identities. This research is driven by a concern for how sociolinguistic justice (Bucholtz et al., 2014) can be achieved in schools and provides insight into how academic language can function as a pedagogical tool and stimulus for critical dialogue with underserved youth through a focus on accompaniment rather than empowerment.

Author

• Maria Jose Aragon, University of California - Santa Barbara