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Language and Literacy: A Socio-cultural Perspective Edited by : Theresa Austin and Reddad Erguig 2012 / Issue 29-30 |
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Theresa Austin and Reddad
Erguig
Rachel Grant
Donna Bain Butler |
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Teacher, What is a Jiko?:
Scientific Literacy and Curricular Goals in Contemporary Kenya
Abstract When western science is incorporated into the curriculum in countries where there are competing forms of indigenous knowledge, in what ways does this curriculum impact learning locally? In the third article, Nicole Beeman-Cadwallader addresses this issue in “Teacher, What is a Jiko?: Scientific Literacy and Curricular Goals in Contemporary Kenya.” As a science educator and researcher, Beeman-Cadwallader conducts an ethnographic study to discern the extent to which Kenya educators incorporate local science knowledge relevant to what they define as scientific literacy. She also examines the ways in which a “cross-cultural scientific literacy serves “to improve the well-being and social action of its citizenry.” Using complementary analytic procedures, thematic analysis and narrative structural analysis of interviews, Beeman--Cadwallader reveals the conflicts in the curriculum between valuing local knowledge yet bestowing higher priority on knowledge that is nationally tested. This conflict systematically impacts how the institution prepares teachers and the curriculum’s ability to prepare learners for contributing to Kenyan agricultural future progress. The tensions produced by this conflict create a science literacy that produces less for agricultural development and more attraction for living in urban centers developed by former colonizers. |
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A Critical
Microethnographic Analysis of the Relationship between Classroom
Interactions and Literacy as a Social Practice
Debra Mayes Pane Abstract In the fourth article, "A critical microethnographic analysis of the relationship between classroom interactions and literacy as a social practice", Debbie Pane examines a critical disciplinary moment within a larger set of U.S. teacher and student literate practices in which a science teacher in an alternative education school, who rarely uses exclusionary discipline, suddenly expels a student from class. To address the issue of how cultural norms about legitimate behavior shape who gains access to literacy, Pane carries out nine stages of critical microethnographic data collection and analysis to develop a deeper understanding of one case as a part of a larger case study of literacies-in-contact. The struggles she uncovers and their consequences draw attention to broader societal structures, learning processes, and social and academic identity reproduction. The study shows "since unequal power relations and exclusionary discipline were at their height in the language arts classrooms" and because "classrooms thrived on unequal power relations and did not incorporate students’ literacy and cultural practices into educational practices", there is a strong need for "policy language that incorporates the historical, political, and sociocultural nature of reading texts wherein readers engage 'with different types of literacy events, for different purposes, and with different results'". The study also stresses the need to reconsider conceptions which view "alternative education schools as a place to hold students deemed disruptive, delinquent, multiply-disabled, and bad in general.” Pane advocates a more visionary agenda that would promote “thinking transformatively about how to develop critical communities of literacy as a social practice in the context of disciplinary alternative education and student populations". |
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