IDEOLOGICAL CHALLENGES IN CLASSROOM DISCOURSE: A SOCIOCRITICAL PERSPECTIVE OF ENGLISH LEARNING IN AN URBAN SCHOOL

Abstract

Using a sociocritical approach to the study of language and literacy and discourse analysis, this article examines student initiated challenges in a sheltered English course with two types of English learners: native+, ESL students; and, recently, arriving ESL students. The analysis draws on 19 hours of video-recorded observations of teacher-student interaction in predominantly whole class literacy activities. Through an in depth analysis of the role of student challenge in ideological constructions, this article shows how native+ generation students insert themselves into the co-construction of meaning. The main argument set forth in this article is that despite engaging in sophisticated language practices such as “challenges,” native+ students still do poorly in their class and assessments are biased toward quieter students who are mostly more recent immigrant students. While the course is socially organized to be responsive to the voices of native+, Latina/o students, there is a need for critical awareness, or a sociocritical language ideology, that explicitly recognizes and repositions the literacy practices of native+ students in nondeficit ways.