Interrogating Identity: Emergence and Transformation in Action

“It is imitation…when the child holds the newspaper like his father. It is identification when the child learns to read” (Annie Reich in Bhahba, 2004, p. 87).

Annie Reich’s distinction between imitation and identification seems a perfect place to begin my response to Bhahba’s (2004) treatise about the nature of cultural identity. In “Interrogating Identity”, the second chapter of his book, The Location of Culture, Bhabha introduces many concepts that are central to his theories about identity explicated throughout the twelve chapters of his book. Born in Mumbai, India and the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of English and American Literature and Language, and Director of he Humanities Center at Harvard University, Bhabha is a notable scholar in the field of post-colonial studies. His writing style is verbose and dense with complex ideas about the conflicting and shifting nature of power and resistance among historically subjugated and marginalized populations since the period of Western colonization. Throughout his work, and particularly in this chapter, he makes allusions to other literary works and scholars, which are at times intimidating to a novice scholar, or reader that may be unfamiliar with the literary elements he incorporates throughout his writing. The ability to successfully read and comprehend The Location of Culture requires not only a vast command of English vocabulary, but also advanced knowledge of English literature, and familiarity with post-colonialism. Key concepts usually associated with Bhabha presented in the chapter, “Interrogating Identity”, include the terms: enunciation, ambivalence, hybridity, mimicry, and liminality. I aim to adequately use these terms to describe myself, and my positionality as a cultural being with many identities, who has spent most of my life negotiating variable liminal spaces within multiple contexts over at least the last fifty years. 

As a woman, a mother, a sister, a daughter, an aunt, an educator, a researcher, a doctoral student, a Catholic, a divorcée, White, Latina, American, trilingual, and a budding scholar, I realize that I inhabit multiple spaces that have evolved over time, many years before I was born even, and as I once heard the critical theorist and educator, Maxine Greene say about herself in a taped interview, I am an existentialist, because I am still evolving. Throughout the evolution of these various persona, I have come to realize that during each step of the way, I have often sought to imitate someone else as a means of finding myself or in the process of defining personal identity, but that the realization of any of my multiple identities hasn’t really become me, or been fully actualized until I could claim ownership of the roles I have created or aspired to play throughout my lifetime. For this reason, Annie Reich’s analogy speaks loudly to me: “It is imitation…when the child holds the newspaper like his father. It is identification when the child learns to read”. Yet, identity, as culture, according to Bhabha and other scholars is complex.

Identity is culture: an object manifested through action

Identity creation begins with imitation and becomes identification in the same way that objects can be transformed into actions, or nouns into verbs. As a noun it involves labels, and as a verb it involves activity. Therefore, culture as identity can be defined as a verb (Heath & Street, 2008). It is an emergent process, that sometimes appears to be intermittent, possibly even static, when one rests in limbo, or in a neutral state of feeling stuck. Regardless of the pace or the path involved in identity creation, the process is fluid and dialogic (Bakhtin & Holquist, 1981). This relationship between object and action is intrinsic to identification. In other words, many people would say that identity creation is an ongoing process of defining oneself through a set of objects, such as values and ideals that can be both adopted and/or imposed upon a person or group of people. In this way, identity, very much a label, regardless of how well warranted, is often used to categorize people. The labels I used to identify the many roles I have played throughout my lifetime, i.e., mother, daughter, sister, teacher, and student, for example, can be used to classify my identity as objects. However, it is important to note that these self-imposed, personal identity labels, are also created through the attitudes and dispositions I adopt concerning them.

In that sense, identity is an inhabitance, as in Bourdieu’s (1977) notions of habitus and capital. I have a family; therefore, I am a mother. I have a job or students; therefore, I am a teacher.  These concepts are interesting because in one sense they suggest that culture and identity may be thought of as a tangible product or entity, as in the sense of capital goods. By contrast, habitus infers that culture and identity are ways of being tied to one’s environment or lived in space and how one lives in or creates that world.  I view Bourdieu’s notion of habitus as both a noun and a verb. In other words, habitus “as systems of dispositions, are effectively realized only in relation to a determinate structure of positions socially marked by the social properties of their occupants, through which they manifest themselves” (Bourdieu & Johnson, 1993).  Further examination of Bourdieu’s ideas would reveal strong socio-historical ties to the ways in which identities or cultures are created and carried out in society.

For this reason, I prefer to consider identity in terms of activity, and synonymous to culture in the ways that they are both associated with transactions. Although During (2005) seems to disagree with Bourdieu, when he says that culture is not a system, I believe that habitus is very much bound by activities that define it.

Culture is not a thing or even a system: it ‘s a set of transactions, processes, mutations, practices, technologies, institutions, out of which things and events (such as movies, poems or world wrestling bouts) are produced, to be experienced, lived out and given meaning and value to in different ways within the unsystematic network of differences and mutations from which they emerged to start with (During, p. 6).

Indeed, I believe that culture and identity do emerge from what Bhabha refers to as interstitial places created in and by historical transactions that are manifested in the present, and which can be projected into the future. For this reason, identity is fluid and dialectical. Identity is situated in time and place, and informed by the relationships people have with others. My identity, for example, as a United States born citizen, reared as a child in California, Connecticut, Chile and Mexico help to define my cultural identity through some of the significant places where I have lived while growing up. The values of the family and social communities I lived in during those early years influence my attitudes and ways of being today, in part because the people and places I have interacted with are part of a history that I cannot deny, and also because I choose to embrace my heritage. Therefore, to borrow, Bhabha’s notion of hybridity, I am mixture of multiple cultures. The attitudes and stances I carry out in my daily life today, have been shaped, and continue to be shaped by the combined influences I have experienced throughout my life.

Identity as liminal reality

More significantly, my identity from whatever perspective is continually emerging from the in-between spaces that position me in the frays of perpetual transition. Some identity attributes about me are not typically contested. I look like and am in fact, a White woman, for example. My race and gender will not change. However, how I perceive and enact my womanhood can change and has evolved over my lifetime. Some of the social ideologies that I was exposed to as a child led me to believe in and aspire to a patriarchal middle-class White American hegemony. June and Ward Cleaver, of the Leave it to Beaver television show popular in the 1960s when I was a child, taught me that mothers should stay home to rear the family in a perfect harmony, and that fathers make the important decisions related to family. Yet, the reality of that cultural dogma did not fit my experience.

I was born in 1957 to an unwed mother and given a fictitious last name at birth in order to protect my mother and me from social scrutiny.  My mother married twice during my childhood, bore three more children, and provided all of us with the security and love expected of any “normal” family.  Although I was eventually adopted by the man I call my father, my history and the age difference between my siblings and me has kept me in a liminal state of in-betweenness throughout my life. My place in the family has always moved between various states of belonging and not belonging. This is not to suggest that my experience has been a negative one. I have always had that “special” place in the family, affectionately known as the Wa. My brother defined this particular aspect of my family identity best when he was toddler, when he told his teacher that he has a mother, a father, two sisters and a Wawa. Clearly I did not fit the category of sister or mother, therefore, he defined me as an other by calling me Wawa because he couldn’t at the time pronounce my first name properly. This is just one example of several experiences where I haven’t always completely fit in, or have had to negotiate juxtaposing identities between two different worlds. Yet my life’s story doesn’t necessarily contain the kind of anguish and hardship often experienced by people who have lived in the margins of racial or gender discrimination. Although I never realized it until recently, I believe this is the case because I have been shrouded in the protective cover of Whiteness (Wise, 2005). Yes, I am White, but I am also Latina in heart, soul, and biological heritage. Yet, I don’t look “Hispanic” as the government classifies people of Spanish speaking origin, and to some people, I am not really Latina because I have lived most of my life in the United States and have for the most part lived a rather privileged life. 

Therefore, do I really understand what it is to live in marginality? Many would claim not. I certainly haven’t experienced the kind of prejudice people of color have experienced. Perhaps I could conjure up stories of invisibility or discrimination because I am an independent woman, or because I am divorced and Catholic. I think it is important to note that liminality is a temporary space, usually defined by centers of social power and its grand narrative. Yet, at other times it can be defined by the decisions people make about how they lead their lives. Feminist scholar, bell hooks, has demonstrated that one can move in and out of liminal spaces by choice. As a Black female, she rose above the plight and stigma of the racialized poverty she knew as a child growing up in Tennessee, and then chose to return to her birthplace after becoming an accomplished adult. I don’t mean to compare myself, in the least, to bell hooks. We have lived different lives and experienced different realities of cultural identity.

Identity is relative, relational and repetitive

For this reason, cultural scholars would claim that cultural identity is relative and ambivalent, particularly as a construct of hegemonic status quo. Bhabha describes identity as “the representation of a time that is always elsewhere, a repetition” (p. 73). Identity is relative to current value systems and ideologies, but also steeped in the history that preceded it. In that way identities are recursive and become significant only in relationship to what has been, what is and what is to come. Human existence is in a state of perpetual flux and therefore some form of liminal reality. Beech defines liminality (2011) as fluid movement between self-constructed and social-constructed identities, at it is this process that leads to the construction of new identities.

Certainly as a graduate student, I have been redefining both my professional and personal identities over the course of the last several years. When my last child left home to go to college, I was left alone to redefine my role as an empty-nested divorced woman and mother. Then during the course of acquiring new knowledge in graduate school, I discovered new agency as an advocate for education reform in light of the neoliberal education policies that I had for so many years endured as a passive bystander. Although I am at times made to feel a little insecure with each new idea and philosophy I encounter in my studies, I feel both empowered and humbled by the intellectual transition I am experiencing. Yet, being more knowledgeable doesn’t always equate with being more accepted or better placed in society. Suddenly I sometimes feel a bit out of place in both my new and old worlds. Colleagues and friends from my day job as a middle school teacher aren’t interested in my experiences in higher education. I feel as though I represent a threat to them, and that our worlds are slowly growing further and further distant from each other. Although we can relate on the same grounds of the daily routines and grunge of daily teaching activities, I find myself sometimes slipping away from my old world as a classroom teacher and sliding into my new role as a budding scholar.  And yet, I am not yet a scholar. I do not teach in at the university, therefore, I do not have a collegial relationship with other doctoral students who live the daily life as a graduate fellow. Our class discussions are invigorating as we share the same mental space of new learning and frustrating queries. But the fact that is, I am in between professional identities and the struggle to redefine my identity as an academic scholar is part of my own process of enunciation (Bhabha, 2004) which commands me to reshape preconceived notions about education as I negotiate new relationships among circles of friends and colleagues. I equate the enunciation process as a form of separation anxiety between the old and the new, which in Bhabha’s view is a necessary part of the process of recognizing power, domination and consequently eliminating racism.

The enunciative process introduces a split in the performative present of cultural identification; a split between the traditional culturalist demand for a model, a traditional, a community, a stable system of reference, and the necessary negation of the certitude in the articulation of new cultural demands, meanings, strategies in the political present, as a practice of domination, or resistance (p. 49).

Identity as emergence and transformation

As a literacy researcher and educator, I am keenly interested in the relationship between cultural identity literacy pedagogy. As a student of critical theory, I am interested in activist and agentic ways educators can embrace identity theory to create equitable and culturally responsive learning environments for students. At least, within the last twenty years, sociocultural scholars in the fields of literacy and teacher education have widely acknowledged an important relationship between identity and literacy. Numerous studies have documented the important role that agency and voice have in successful reading and writing experiences, all of which involve a process of transformation. Effective literacy and advocacy are emergent processes. Each begins with the simple imitation of those who we observe and possibly even admire. I have grown to appreciate the work and wisdom of critical education scholars I have studied, such as Giroux, Gee, Luke, Street, Bomer and Bomer, Christiansen, Harste, Gutierriez, Enciso, Mosely, and Rogers, among others. As a buddying literacy scholar, perhaps I am a bit like the young toddler who watches and imitates his father holding the newspaper. I have discovered that I am slowly finding my voice and learning how to break the code of scholarship. Precisely because I am an existentialist, my identity as a literacy scholar and advocate for social justice is emerging and transforming across the multiple layers that define the dynamical nature of critical literacy and pedagogy in the 21^st century. Whether I become a published writer, and/or continue as a teacher, I am unequivocally poised to helping students and educators find their voices by better understanding the nature of power and cultural identity.

References

Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G., & Tiffin, H. (2007). Post-colonial studies: The key concepts. New York: NY: Routledge.

Bakhtin, M. M., & Holquist, M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays University of Texas Press.

Beech, N. (2011). Liminality and the practices of identity reconstruction. Human Relations, 64(2), 285-302.

Bhabha, H. K. (1994). The location of culture. London; New York: Routledge.

Bourdieu, P., & Johnson, R. (1993). The field of cultural production, or: The economic world reversed. The field of cultural production: Essays on art and literature (pp. 322). New York: Columbia University Press.

During, S. (2005). Going global. Cultural studies: A critical introduction (pp. 244). London; New York: Routledge. Retrieved from http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ ecip0420/2004015958.html

Heath, S. B., & Street, B. V. (2008). On ethnography: Approaches to language and literacy research. New York: Teachers College Press.

Hooks, B. (1990). Choosing the margin as a space of radical openness. Yearning: Race, gender, and cultural politics (pp. 236). Boston, MA: South End Press.

Wise, T. J. (2005). White like me. Brooklyn, NY: Soft Skull Press.

What does this say about technology?

An Invitation to My TCC Students

In an attempt to write beside my students, I threw these ideas together to introduce myself and invite my students at TCC to introduce themselves in their first writing sample this term. Here's my invitation and my own attempt to model for them. 

Quilting: My Neglected Hobby

Everyone has a story to tell. Some stories are told in words, others are told through pictures and still others are told through objects and artifacts that describe the culture and values the story teller wants to convey.

I would like to tell you about myself through my hobby. You see, I am a quilter, a quilter that discovered this magnificent art form late in life. I didn't begin quilting until my two children were nearly grown. Actually, I've always loved to sew, crochet, embroider to create nearly anything I could with textiles, needles and thread. I don't sit still easily, so I often crocheted afghans while watching television when my children were young. I found it challenging to learn how to design blocks with new stitches, yet relaxing because once I got hooked into a rhythm, the work seemed nearly mindless. I also loved to embroider, a craft some call cross stitch. My Aunt Nana taught me how to cross stitch when I was very young, during my annual summer visits to her home in Mexico City. The problem with embroidery, however, I found is that it would take me what seemed like years to complete a design.

So, then one summer day when I was trying to figure out what to do with my life after my divorce, I stumbled upon a new shop in town. The sign on the building advertised, "embroidery machines". Quite nonchalantly, I meandered into this new Bernina shop, just to look around, and found myself walking out with a used electronic sewing/embroidery machine. Wow! Now, since I've alway been handy with my hands, machines and gadgets, it didn't take too long for me to figure out how to use my new toy. I remember being so excited about being able to design sophisticated embroidery designs on clothing, or nearly any kind of fabric. I was ready to set up shop and start my own sewing business!

Never shy about asking questions or seeking help, I returned often to the Bernina store for advice. It was during one one of these frequent visits that I was introduced to quilting. In fact, I learned that Bernina is primarily a sewing machine designed for quilting. But what was even better, is that I could combine quilting and embroidery together. So, I became addicted. I joined a quilting bee, attended quilting meetings and bought every book or magazine I could find to help me learn my new craft. At Christmastime, I made fancy embroidered pillows, rag dolls and wall hangings as gifts for family. Soon I was making quilts to give as gifts. These I called my two-year quilts because I became so immersed in learning new quilt block designs and embroidering fancy stitches that I truly underestimated the length of time it would take to complete a project.

I have to admit that I haven't made too terribly many quilts, and nearly all those that I have designed I've given away as gifts. Today I only own one quilt that I've made. It's a child's alphabet quilt that I thought I'd give to the next niece born into the family. The only problem is that the last three children born into my family have been boys. So, the picture I've attached to this story is my testament to my hobby; a hobby, that I have to admit has gone sadly ignored during the past few years.

I don't quilt much any more because once my youngest child left home for college, I decided to go back to college myself. Since then, I've earned a Master's degree in reading education and am currently working on a doctorate in language and literacy at the University of North Texas. I am by profession and passion, a teacher. I have taught in public education for more than 20 years. I currently teach 7th grade in Keller ISD and of course writing at TCC-Northwest. I truly have a passion for anything related to language, literacy and culture, as I also speak French and Spanish. Si, soy Latina, con raices Chilenas y Mexicanas. 

I look forward to writing with you this term because everyone has a story to tell. I can't wait to hear yours.    

Framing My Research: An Open Inquiry

Dr. Mathis,

I hope you do not think that I have been ignoring the request to explain my ideas about my sociocultural inquiry project. Believe me, thoughts have been ruminating in my brain for a while. I’ve been trying to sort them out in a way that both makes sense and flows across the courses in my program.

My interests have always involved the key areas of:  writing to learn, new literacies/digital writing, multicultural/bicultural agency, critical literacy from both perspectives, (social and literary), and complexity science. I know that I must focus and narrow my research, but I’m not precisely sure where or how to do that yet. I guess I don’t feel like I know enough yet.

I do know, however, that the sociocultural perspective about learning and agency informs and will continue to inform all of my work as I proceed. When I think about what I want to investigate I have been considering three things: 1) what is important and valuable in the field of literacy, 2) what is important for society, 3) what is important to me, and 4) what is the difference that will make a difference?

I began a little research in the area of blogging for other classes. I’m not sure that I want to get stuck in researching blogging, as I’ve concluded that blogging and other forms of digital writing are just newer forms of writing with the unique advantage of a potential audience and feedback. Perhaps, it can be argued that this changes the author’s writing, thinking and/or learning; nevertheless, that is in itself a different research task. As we move into activity theory, I suspect there may be some connections there, too. I don’t know that I want to spend hours upon hours analyzing the discourse in blogs without a particular context or question in mind. I’m not sure this question gets much bigger than the obvious conclusions drawn from advantages gained by social networking or social discourse. Yet, the writing that occurs through social networking is a current phenomenon that is both transformative and I think has implications for education. I think I’ve whittled it down to issues of audience, voice, and purposes in communication. My conclusion, for now, is that digital writing is simply a tool; albeit a potentially powerful tool.

That said, my reading in sociocultural theory has opened a new way of thinking that I want to explore further. I am deeply interested in topics that concern bicultural identity and agency. As a white American Latina, I think that misconceptions, ignorance or a lack of any consideration exist about people whose heritage either lie in two cultures or those who have chosen to embrace more than one culture. I think that any study I would do in this area would involve my own positionality disclosure characteristic of qualitative inquiry. Yes, this may be in part a personal query, but I believe that it has larger implications for the growing bicultural (and biracial) population that already exists. I often wonder what some of my Latino, Asian, and biracial students think or experience, and where and when does ethnicity and color of one’s skin make a difference? I grew up in the safe zone of a white society, in a family that completely embraces other cultures and races. The Latina side of the family has always been a natural part of my heritage, although often more remote than the immediate surroundings of my privileged white middle class upbringing led me to think consider as unusual or different. I never gave much thought to my race, culture or ethnicity growing up, I realize now, perhaps it is because I did not grow up experiencing racism.

Another side of this quandary involves the ethnicity I claim. Perhaps, growing up in the 70s I wasn’t asked to consider being anything but white or as the official papers suggested, Caucasian. I didn’t consider that the term Hispanic applied to me because it wasn’t a term my family related to. My heritage is part Chilean and part Mexican. Furthermore, I grew up thinking I am American. I did not think that because I speak Spanish makes me uniquely Hispanic. Claiming Latina heritage didn’t seem to be an option as a child, therefore, I never considered being anything but white. Yet, I knew that I was a different type of white than my neighbor, not better, not worse; I was just inherently different from other white people of European descent (a term I still struggle with). I’d like to add that different didn’t carry a negative connotation, just, in my mind, a connotation of something deeper and more dimensional than that which monolingual or mono-cultural people cannot claim or conceive of. 

As I write this maybe the issue I personally grapple with involves the misconceptions that exist about being an American, a multi-cultural American, and above all a Latina. As an adult, living in a more culturally diverse 21^st century society than was ever imagined in the latter half of the 20^th century, I confidently claim Latina heritage, but feel sometimes, inappropriate by checking “white, of Hispanic descent” on government-type census documents. Why? Perhaps I grew up thinking I was more white than brown, more American than Mexican or Chilean. Yet, my Latina roots are deeply seeded in me, so I do proudly claim this heritage, today, not for the financial benefits (although I could use them), but because I value the cultural heritage.

So, perhaps, I wonder, what makes a person more ethnic than another? Is that even a legitimate question? Would claims of ethnicity and race be different if government labels, government programs or financial assistance did not exist? What qualifies a person to claim ethnic or cultural allegiances? And what messages about ethnicity and cultural identity do we, as educators, transmit to our students in public schools?

This last question may seem to be a bit outdated or overdone, in light of the research that exists about racial inequality in public education. Yet, I ponder the problems I see in schools where a lack of ethnic and cultural recognition exists. It is as though being American means that we are all meant to be the same. Discussions about race, ethnicity, color and culture do not seem to be important, or perhaps they are just underplayed in schools that are predominantly white. Students, I believe, are led to believe that race and ethnicity, don’t matter because “everyone should be treated the same”. Yet, because discussions about race, ethnicity and culture, are not dominant in the school culture, how do we really know what students think? I venture to say that there are many misconceptions among children and that conceptions of power unwittingly exist. Is this a societal concern, a parenting concern a school concern? I have discovered that when I ask students to tell me about their cultural heritage, many students do not know how to respond. I believe this is a sign of a general lack of awareness and appreciation for cultural diversity and pride in our multicultural roots in the United States. Of greater concern, are the misconceptions that ignorance is bliss or that a blind eye turned toward racism or cultural intolerance will irradiate social inequities. I wonder if is because, we as a society, only recognize prejudice when it becomes violent or newsworthy.

Regardless, the United States is a society that is deeply racialized and bounded by cultural misinterpretations, whether it is a result of capitalism or social ignorance is of some consequence. However, what is of greater consequence is the inability to recognize or unwillingness to acknowledge the symptoms and existence of ethnocentrism in our society. If public education is charged with preparing our youth for participation in a democratic global society, then, I believe that public education should teach its students how to recognize and comfortably be able to confront issues of racism and ethnocentrism in their own back yard, with the ultimate goal of not just teaching tolerance, but embracing our multicultural American roots.

So what will I research and what does this have to do with literacy and new literacies? I keep thinking about power and critical discourse. I am currently working on an annotated bibliography on critical ethnography for a qualitative research course. I realize that there are two strands associated with the term critical literacy, however, an article I read, “A Review of the ‘Digital Turn’ in the New Literacy Studies”, led me to consider an overlapping notion about the activism involved in critical social ideologies and the critical reading and writing skills that students should be taught to use in order to react critically to social issues. In this article, the New London Group calls for literacy pedagogy that embraces “four related components – situated practice, overt instruction, critical framing, and transformed practice” (Mills, p. 258). This suggests that literacy instruction today should involve a deliberate invitation for students to compose freely as a means of processing and reacting to the important issues about race and ethnicity. The convergence between the Freirian critical literacy and the classic critical literacy associated with thinking critically is made when students are able to apply the practices associated with new literacies to conducted “sophisticated forms of collaboration, social inquiry, problem solving, and critical literacy” (p. 260).

I also became acquainted with some of Bourdieu’s ideas through a research project I completed on Deborah Reed-Danahay, who has studied Bourdieu extensively, for an anthropology class. I barely scratched the surface of his work. At some point, I’d like to read more as well as to read his works in the original French. I suppose I should save that for the dissertation. I feel as though Bourdieu and Bahktihn’s works need a lot of my attention.

I believe that my thoughts encompass more than a simple inquiry assignment, as this writing has helped me shape a larger agenda; maybe. If I am to understand the complexity of ethnocentrism and racism in public schools, then I must understand what the research already says and how to recognize notions about power in the discourse. Therefore, my research may involve a deep understanding revolving around the New Literacy Studies and as well as a critical investigation about the concept of power; but that may involve two different projects. For now, I am interested in studying the works of Michel Foucault and Allan Luke, and then ultimately pursuing Gee’s challenge, in his Routledge interview, to take Foucault’s ideas about power beyond imperialism and post-colonialism. I can’t however, say right now, where this research will take me; perhaps, toward fostering empathy and understanding about multiculturalism and diversity.

I am unsure about how to frame this inquiry assignment. If I am to use this work as part of a research/tool class, then I wonder if an annotated bibliography of the works of Foucault or Luke is adequate. Does this assignment need to be framed in a research question around a particular population? Should the topic search include critical literacy or just power, as search terms? I know that ultimately, should I continue to pursue this topic, I will examine these issues within the context of classroom discourse, online discourse, or children’s literature, for example. For now, do I simply become more aware of the field that involves what power means in critical discourse of across the board?

Well – I’ve said mouthful. I’m sorry to inundate you with so much thinking. I realize that the latter half of this long-winded answer relates more to the assignment, but I guess I felt compelled to write. Thank you for guiding me through this process.

-- Laura

References

Mills, K. A. (2010). A review of the “Digital turn” in the new literacy studies. Review of Educational Research, 80(2), 246-271. doi:10.3102/0034654310364401

Rogers, R. (2004, May). [Interview with James Gee.] In Companion Website to R. Rogers (Ed.) An Introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis in Education (second edition). New York: Routledge. [http://cw.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415874298]

Poverty is Colorblind

Poverty is a major factor contributing to segregation in U.S. schools. In "Why Segregation Matters: Poverty and Educational Inequality" (Harvard University: The Civil Rights Project, 2005) , Orfield and Lee explain that it is a common misconception that race and ethnicity is the predominant factor contributing to segregation. In fact, “Socioeconomic segregation is a stubborn, multidimensional and deeply important cause of educational inequality” (5).

This makes perfect sense to me, as I contemplate the Brown v. the Board of Education (1954) decision against “separate but equal” policy in public education. In my lifetime, I have always understood U.S. public schools  legally integrated; or put another way, that segregation and discrimination by race and ethnicity should be considered illegal. Yet, a cursory review of demographics in any American community will display another self-emergent social force in public schools; socioeconomic class.  If schools could be truly color-blind forces a different reality to emerge. The reality that even in the most racially and ethnically balanced or successful school districts, class and money talk. Segregation in public education is characterized by poverty. I would argue, however, that skin color has traditionally camouflaged the underlying problem of poverty prevalent to minor populations.

The socioeconomic demographics of a community are often reflected in the achievement levels of the neighborhood schools. Many families shop for residences based upon the quality of the schools in the neighborhood. Therefore, people who can afford to live in nicer neighborhoods will be able to send their children to richer schools, supported by the tax structure of that community. By contrast, families that cannot afford to live by the standards of higher socioeconomic communities will be relegated to poorer school districts, based upon a lower tax-base. Because racial minorities have historically suffered from a lack of opportunity and inquity in the workforce, racial minorities have had less opportunity to seek higher standards of living and better school districts. The achievement level of public schools, therefore, tends to reflect the economic make-up its community neighborhoods.

“Achievement scores are strongly linked to school racial composition and so is the presence of highly qualified and experienced teachers” (5). Some might call this a vicious cycle. Teachers do not typically choose to work in the most challenging school districts with the greatest adversity. Consequently, research has shown that the highest caliber teachers tend to be found in the highest achieving schools. Although this argument has many implications depending upon the comparison factors, it does stand to reason that keeping highly experienced and qualified teachers in highly stressed schools is difficult.

When I consider the characteristics of a complex adaptive system, it seems to me that the simple rule of emergent change within a society would suggest that one of the great forces of change in schools has to do with the socioeconomic status of its demographics. Race and ethnicity are related to poverty by forces of racial inequality in this country. It could be argued that they are inextricably linked, however, the numerous cases of white families who suffer from poverty would suggest that poverty is color-blind. Yet, as Orfield and Lee point out, the fact remains that “Minority children are far more likely than whites to grow up in persistent poverty” (5).  The key lies in the concept of “concentrated poverty” (5). Research will show that minority students have a longer history of living in poverty than white families who experience temporary periods of economic downturn.

When I consider the students in my 7^th grade middle school classes who enrolled in pre-AP English Language Arts through a policy of open enrollment, those who struggle less tend to reflect families with higher economic stability.  But this isn’t the case for all my students. When I take a closer look at those who struggle the most, Latino children and those who qualify for free and reduced lunch, many of which are also white, stand out. Poverty seems to be the underlying factor, which tends to coincide with ethnicity. Of course many other factors can be found to contribute to their underachievement in school, but many indicators point to families that want their children to succeed as indicated by enrolling their children in pre-AP classes, living in a middle-income community, thereby availing their children to a higher socioeconomic community.

Orfield and Lee reminds us that Martin Luther King Junior’s work in the 1960s was about achieving equality through opportunity among minority populations. “The civil rights movement was never about sitting next to whites, it was about equalizing opportunity, (8). Segregation must be understood at deeper levels than an examination by skin-color might suggest. I think the legacy of poverty will become more color-blind as society becomes increasingly racially mixed and bicultural, as biracial children populate our schools in greater numbers, and as America’s demographic landscape continues to evolve. Poverty is a difference that makes a difference in public education.

References

http://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/integration-and-diversity/why-segregation-matters-poverty-and-educational-inequality/orfield-why-segregation-matters-2005.pdf

http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/early-civilrights/brown.html