Discourse and Identity: Development of Global and National Identities in the Social Studies Classroom

• In Event: Millennium Hotel Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: Identity Development and Humanities Instruction

Abstract

Citizenship that gives membership status to individuals, also confers individual’s identity. Thus, identity is an important prerequisite for the development of citizenship. This empirical study investigated whether social studies classroom discourse contributes to the emergence and development of students’ global and national identities and what linguistic elements of discourse impact the development of students’ identities. Using the framework suggested by Bucholtz and Hall (2010), which analyzes identity as constituted in linguistic interaction, the study demonstrated how teacher mediated discourses are pertinent to the construction and development of identities among students. By applying the indexicality principle, the study determined which linguistic symbols students identified as indexes of global and national identity.

Author

• Anatoli Rapoport, Purdue University