Matching Items (6)
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- All Subjects: Bilingual Education
- All Subjects: Indigeneity
- All Subjects: Foreign language education
- Creators: O'Connor, Brendan
- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
Description
Children’s language proficiency, teacher’s language ideologies, and language practices such as code-switching have been previously investigated, but almost no research has explored young children’s understandings about language(s) nor their impact on social relationships. Researchers have not investigated children’s reflection of their own language use and identity. I conducted an ethnography regarding language practices, knowledge, and identity construction, supplemented by semi-structured interviews with students and teachers in a Montessori preschool classroom. I decided to focus upon a few specific students in the class because of their varying linguistic backgrounds. Linguistic identity formation occurs mainly through self-assessment and language practices and processes (such as authentication vs. denaturalization, adequation vs. distinction, and authorization vs. illegitimation) (Bucholtz & Hall, 2005). Understanding and knowledge about language(s) displayed by students allowed for nuanced identity construction through conversation with teachers and peers. The language ideologies and practices by teachers in this classroom contrast that of the broader social and cultural systems in place, and also support children’s language knowledge and social development.
ContributorsHait, Ryleigh (Author) / O'Connor, Brendan (Thesis director) / Berstein, Katie (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) practitioners (including policymakers, scholars, and nonprofit leaders) in the U.S. and Canada have often focused their attention on the United Nations’ WPS initiative as a strategy for responding to conflicts abroad, particularly in the Global South. As a result of these limitations, black, Latino, and Indigenous advocates and peacebuilders in the U.S. and Canada remain largely unable to take advantage of WPS frameworks and resources. The subjectivity of the term “conflict” and the range of circumstances where it is used inspire this research. The selective application of the word “conflict” is itself a challenge to security, for conflicts can only be addressed once they are acknowledged and so named. Where does WPS intersect with contemporary Indigenous advocacy? A case study of the #noDAPL movement and the ways that nonviolence and women’s leadership emerged at Standing Rock, ND in 2016 provide a partial answer. Four challenges and recommendations are offered to WPS practitioners who seek to expand the availability of WPS resources to Indigenous peoples in the U.S. and Canada. These challenges and recommendations draw upon existing National Action Plans, legal and policy documents, and data from four interviews conducted with Indigenous women advocates in the U.S. and Canada in 2019. Above all, this paper seeks to encourage WPS practitioners to move beyond “gender mainstreaming” to consider not only how policies and practices impact women and men differently, but also how they may impact Indigenous people and settlers differently.
ContributorsMarques de Mesquita, Carolina (Author) / Lomawaima, K Tsianina (Thesis director) / O'Connor, Brendan (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
This thesis examines heritage language learning and loss, and revitalization. It stems from my initial interests in Indigenous language revitalization and sustainment, bilingual education, and specifically dual language education in the United States. In this thesis, I describe my inquiry journey through narratives of the significant experiences and people I met and the scholarship I engaged in, particularly through visiting Keres Children’s Learning Center at Cochiti Pueblo, New Mexico, and attending the La Cosecha Dual Language Education conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In these narratives, I also reflect on what I have learned, how I was personally impacted by what I was learning and my thoughts and ideas about particular issues. These narratives helped me gain a deeper understanding of and expand my knowledge of heritage learning, bilingual education, dual language education and critical issues of language development and promotion (or non-promotion) in our country’s schools and families. Equally important is the knowledge I gained about dual language pedagogy and its critical importance to language revitalization programs serving Indigenous children, and their families and communities. I begin my thesis with a review of literature followed by a description of my methods and then move on to my narratives of significant learning moments, chronologically, and then summarize my key findings. I end with, ironically yet crucially with the most important lesson I learned through my inquiry journey—an understanding of my linguistic self.
This thesis examines the questions of
1. To become a Dual Language Education expert, researcher, or scholar, what does it take?
2. In what ways can a non-Native help Indigenous communities engaged in indigenous language revitalization and sustainment (ILRS)? What would they need to learn or know?
Some significant findings of my thesis work include
1. The strength, versatility, and challenges of the dual language education model in a national context
2. Culturally-sustaining pedagogy and strategies for adapting lessons to local culture
3. The centrality of tribal sovereignty and tribal control over the Indigenous language in order to grow and maintain an IRLS effort
4. Ways in which a non-Native can help an ILRS initiative
5. Respect for native communities’ right to say no to research
This thesis examines the questions of
1. To become a Dual Language Education expert, researcher, or scholar, what does it take?
2. In what ways can a non-Native help Indigenous communities engaged in indigenous language revitalization and sustainment (ILRS)? What would they need to learn or know?
Some significant findings of my thesis work include
1. The strength, versatility, and challenges of the dual language education model in a national context
2. Culturally-sustaining pedagogy and strategies for adapting lessons to local culture
3. The centrality of tribal sovereignty and tribal control over the Indigenous language in order to grow and maintain an IRLS effort
4. Ways in which a non-Native can help an ILRS initiative
5. Respect for native communities’ right to say no to research
ContributorsWelsh, Jacqueline Rose (Author) / Romero-Little, Eunice (Thesis director) / Tidwell, Jacqueline Hettel (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
This qualitative study explores the perspectives of six Indigenous learners and two instructors to analyze and reconceptualize pedagogical practices in the Spanish as a Heritage Language (SHL) classroom. Although there have been numerous proposals and perspectives that have successfully incorporated the sociopolitical realities of SHL learners, there is progress to be made to better understand the multifaceted identities of learners and instructors in the Latinx community. Thus, the perspectives of Indigenous learners and pedagogues are necessary to not only acknowledge but to meet the needs of a part of the Latinx community that is often erased by centering mestizaje. Thus, the present study utilizes Critical Latinx Indigeneities (CLI) as a framework to uncover salient themes in the individual testimonios, sharing circles, and written reflections of these eight Indigenous instructors and learners that have taken and/or taught an SHL course. The findings in this study indicated eight prominent themes: 1) dynamic identity development and identity negotiation, 2) connections between language and identity, 3) impacts of anti-Indigenous discrimination among Latinx people, 4) maneuvering language and identity in K-12 education, 5) implications of teachers’ positionalities and practices, 6) discrepancies on knowledge and holders of knowledge, 7) inclusion of indigeneity in SHL courses, and 8) tensions between taking/teaching SHL courses and being Indigenous. Additionally, pedagogical suggestions and reflections are offered alongside a discussion on the concept of allyship. By foregrounding Indigenous Latinxs, I argue that decolonial theory and praxis, based on Indigenous ways of being and knowing, can lead to crucial advancements in SHL Education. By extending the theoretical boundaries of critical pedagogies in SHL Education, we can begin to dismantle deficit- based orientations to researching and teaching SHL learners with dynamic and racially diverse identities. This study has the potential to make an invaluable contribution by disrupting ongoing settler colonial logics that persist in language education by offering pedagogical considerations from Indigenous instructors and learners that would result in an increasingly inclusive Spanish classroom in which Latinxs of varied backgrounds can thrive.
ContributorsOchoa, Valeria Alejandra (Author) / Beaudrie, Sara (Thesis advisor) / Gradoville, Michael (Committee member) / O'Connor, Brendan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
This paper examines the function of grammar and pragmatics in testimonies and cross-examinations, specifically in sexual assault cases in the United States. Past research demonstrates a society’s view of sexual assault, particularly as a means of control, is reflected in cross-examination methodologies, which propagates into the laws surrounding sexual assault. This aims to investigate the impact the shift in societal perspective on sexual assault has on the cross-examination methodologies and ultimately the laws surrounding sexual assault in the United States. The incorporation of Conversation Analysis (CA) is used as a framework to evaluate the court transcripts. The framework is coupled with guidelines previously used to examine sexual assault cross-examinations in other countries. It is imperative to apply this to the United States as the view on sexual assault differs. The cross-examination and testimony transcripts in three court cases are examined. The guidelines for grammar include transitivity, use of adverbials and modals, nominalizations and subjects of unaccusatives, while the pragmatics focus on strategic questioning, presupposition, and selective reformulation. The findings in this qualitative study demonstrate the lack of progress the United States judicial system has made in terms of sexual assault. While the societal perspective shifts, the cross-examination methodology and the language of the laws remain constant, despite increase in awareness and supporting Acts. Given the small scope of research conducted in the United States, more research is necessary, along with reformation of the court proceedings and laws surrounding sexual assault.
ContributorsTodd, Jillian (Author) / Van Gelderen, Elly (Thesis advisor) / Neal, Tess (Committee member) / O'Connor, Brendan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
This linguistic ethnography follows three journalism students (Petra, Penélope, and María) as they engaged in experiential language learning (EX-LL) via collaboration with community members during their Spanish for Specific Purposes (SSP) internship sites in the fields of journalism and medicine within the local Metro Phoenix community. Data were collected over the course of a 15-week semester via ethnographic methods (field notes, interviews, observations, and participant-reported data) to explore how the interns (i) took advantage of their SSP internship experiences to engage in identity work that exceeded the goals of the program and how they (ii) implemented their strategic knowledge via communicative strategies (CSs) during breakdowns in communication with community members related to their SSP internship sites/the social function of such strategies.
In order to answer the first research question, the data were analyzed via open and focused coding (Dyson & Genishi, 2005), followed by discourse analysis (Gee, 2005) informed by Critical Applied Linguistics (Pennycook, 2001) and Positioning Theory (Davis & Harré, 1990). To answer the second question, all instances in which the interns implemented communicative strategies were analyzed based upon the categorization repertories established by Dörnyei and Scott (1995a, 1995b, 1997), Lafford (2004), and Tarone and Yule (1987). To go beyond understanding what the interns were saying to why were they saying it, discourse analysis was used (Gee, 2005).
The findings show that Petra, Penélope, and María appropriated their SSP internship to engage distinct, yet interrelated language- and ethnic/racial-based identity work. Each intern utilized language (and extra-linguistic elements, such as corporeal expression) to position themselves in different ways within social discourse. Furthermore, this identity work influenced which CSs they utilized, as the social function of many of these strategies was to maintain and/or protect their desired identities.
Drawing on these insights, a variety of implications are offered from four viewpoints: implications for (i) EX-LL-based research: colonized versus humanizing research, (ii) critical community collaboration inside and outside of EX-LL, (iii) CSs and communicative competence, and (iv) EX-LL/Languages for Specific Purposes pedagogy and internship design.
In order to answer the first research question, the data were analyzed via open and focused coding (Dyson & Genishi, 2005), followed by discourse analysis (Gee, 2005) informed by Critical Applied Linguistics (Pennycook, 2001) and Positioning Theory (Davis & Harré, 1990). To answer the second question, all instances in which the interns implemented communicative strategies were analyzed based upon the categorization repertories established by Dörnyei and Scott (1995a, 1995b, 1997), Lafford (2004), and Tarone and Yule (1987). To go beyond understanding what the interns were saying to why were they saying it, discourse analysis was used (Gee, 2005).
The findings show that Petra, Penélope, and María appropriated their SSP internship to engage distinct, yet interrelated language- and ethnic/racial-based identity work. Each intern utilized language (and extra-linguistic elements, such as corporeal expression) to position themselves in different ways within social discourse. Furthermore, this identity work influenced which CSs they utilized, as the social function of many of these strategies was to maintain and/or protect their desired identities.
Drawing on these insights, a variety of implications are offered from four viewpoints: implications for (i) EX-LL-based research: colonized versus humanizing research, (ii) critical community collaboration inside and outside of EX-LL, (iii) CSs and communicative competence, and (iv) EX-LL/Languages for Specific Purposes pedagogy and internship design.
ContributorsVollmer Rivera, Alexis Ann (Author) / Lafford, Barbara (Thesis advisor) / O'Connor, Brendan (Committee member) / Bernstein, Katie (Committee member) / Beaudrie, Sara (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018