Microethnographic Discourse Analysis Research Articles

Why are some students “not into” computational thinking activities embedded within high school science units? Key takeaways from a microethnographic discourse analysis study

AbstractScience educators are integrating more and more computational thinking (CT) activities into their curricula. Proponents of CT offer two motivations: familiarizing students with a realistic depiction of the computational nature of modern scientific practices and encouraging more students from underrepresented backgrounds to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. However, some studies show that increasing exposure to computing may not necessarily translate to the hypothesized gains in participation by female students and students of color. Therefore, paying close attention to students' engagement in computationally intense science activities is important to finding more impactful ways to promote equitable science education. In this paper, we present an in‐depth analysis of the interactions among a small, racially diverse group of high school students during a chemistry unit with tightly integrated CT activities. We find a salient interaction between the students' engagement with the CT activities and their social identification with publicly recognizable categories such as “enjoys coding” or “finds computing boring.” We show that CT activities in science education can lead to numerous rich interactions that could, if leveraged correctly, allow educators to facilitate more inclusive science classrooms. However, we also show that such opportunities would be missed unless teachers are attentive to them. We discuss the implications of our findings on future work to integrate CT across science curricula and teacher education.

Blame avoidance and facework in teachers` collaborative decision-making

ABSTRACT Previous studies have paid little attention to teachers` self or collegial considerations when making decisions about their students, precisely their tendency to avoid being blamed for students` failure. When a teacher is blamed for a student’s difficulties, her/his public image (‘face’) is threatened, and s/he and her/his colleagues can be expected to engage in ‘facework.’ This study examined blame attribution and facework in teachers’ discussions of struggling students and how they shaped teacher collaborative decision-making. Through discourse analysis of 187 audio-recorded discussions in placement meetings in an Israeli secondary school, the study highlights teachers` tendency to attribute blame for students` failure to others (175 blame events), mainly their students (53% of the cases). Micro-ethnographic discourse analysis found that when teachers blamed each other (17%), individual and collective face-management played a central role in their decision-making processes and outcomes. We explored the social dynamics in these discussions, using one discussion to illustrate the management of blame, related face-threat and facework, and implications for decisions. The study indicates the need for attention to blame avoidance and face issues in teacher training and PD programs and guidelines on how to manage them.

‘I don’t assess children this way’ – how do disagreements about assessment support (or limit) teacher on-the-job learning?

ABSTRACT This study investigates pedagogical disagreements about assessment in teacher team meetings. Combining quantitative and micro-ethnographic discourse analysis, we explore the characteristics of teachers’ disagreements about assessment and the conditions that afford or constrain their development as productive for teacher on-the-job learning. We analyse 149 disagreements from 46 team meetings and explore two contrasting case studies. We find that disagreements about assessment last longer than other disagreements; they more often involve high-stakes decision-making processes; and they tend to be more disputative than disagreements about other topics. The analyses highlight, on the one hand, the potential advantages of disagreements about assessment for teacher learning. On the other hand, the analysis indicates that, to realise this potential of assessment disagreements, teachers need to acknowledge the volatile nature of these disagreements, to productively manage power relations, and to refrain from intensive engagement in micropolitics.

The Role of Teacher Self-Efficacy in the Implementation of Inclusive Practices

Inclusive education continues to be a highly discussed topic in schools. While most teachers and administrators are supportive of inclusive education, teachers are experiencing challenges that are impacting its success. This research approaches the study of inclusive education implementation from the perspective of the teacher. Using Bandura’s self-efficacy model as a theoretical framework, this research is grounded in the premise that teacher self-efficacy is a critical indicator of teacher effectiveness and the success rate of change initiatives. I used a microethnographic discourse analysis approach to study five second grade classroom and special education teachers as they implemented the inclusive education model in their classrooms. Data collection included a questionnaire, teacher interviews and observations of teachers’ collaborative interactions at professional learning community meetings. The findings indicate that three elements, tied to teachers’ levels of self-efficacy, impact inclusion success: Teachers’ experiences, both personal and vicarious; their perceived administrative support; and their levels of stress. The results of this study have implications for school administrators as they design professional development opportunities to support teachers in the implementation of inclusive education initiatives.

Protestation & Piggybacking: Strategic Participation in an ESL Book Group

ABSTRACT Research on making connections to texts has largely explored how making text connections supports reading comprehension. However, less attention has been paid to how readers make text connections through talk and in interaction during text-based discussions. In this study, I explore how text connections were co-constructed between students and their teacher in an English as a Second Language book group. Specifically, I look at the content of the connections one focal student made to the text, and how she used language to share these connections during book group meetings. Drawing on positioning theory and microethnographic discourse analysis, findings illuminate the different affordances and constraints of two participation strategies this student used to make text connections: protestation and piggybacking. This study suggests implications for future work on the complex and creative ways young, linguistically diverse readers participate in literacy discussions.

Learning to track: How do teachers learn sorting practices?

This article examines teachers’ sorting practices in two Israeli secondary schools to understand how teachers learn on-the-job to sort their students into learning tracks and programs. Combining quantitative and micro-ethnographic discourse analysis, the article explores how teachers develop sorting strategies in professional settings that are designed for decision-making and not for learning, based on an analysis of 281 audio-recorded discussions during 12 student placement meetings. The article offers new insight into how teachers learn sorting practices by observing other teachers’ modeling behavior and receiving feedback and develop strategies to cope with potential challenges to their own sorting decisions.

Video analysis of contextual layers in teaching-learning interactions

Anchoring analyses in video records of a methodology-focused seminar, in this article we present a systematic analytic approach for uncovering contextual layers enacted in teaching-learning interactions in a higher education setting. The interactional ethnographic epistemology guided our analyses at four levels of scale: 1) reviewing video records and transcribing to identify rich points and explore the over-time construction of the seminar; 2) constructing a timeline and structuration maps to situate the seminar in larger sequences of events; 3) developing domains to identify what contextual layers participants marked as socially significant; and 4) engaging microethnographic discourse analysis of select contextual layers to demonstrate how contextualizing was enacted. Contextual layers signaled from the beginning of the seminar as relevant for co-constructing the teaching-learning interactions included Academic content, Time, People, Places, Languages and Materials. The contextual layers of People and Time provided a connecting thread through which the teacher, with the participants, discursively and physically enacted opportunities for teaching, learning, and understanding the academic content and practices being developed in the seminar. The four levels of analysis provide a systematic and transparent methodological pathway for uncovering the complex and often indiscernable contexts enacting teaching and learning opportunities.

Literate identity negotiations and supportive teacher discourse moves in a comic writing workshop

ABSTRACT This article examines students’ identities in teacher–student interactions during an eight-week comic unit within a fourth-grade literacy classroom. Though researchers have increasingly studied how teachers incorporated graphic novels and comics into the school literacy curriculum, few have documented the social interactions that students’ multimodal composing is embedded in. Using microethnographic discourse analysis, we traced the identity work of two case studies at different reading levels during whole-class discussions and writing conferences and how their teacher supported their positive identity development through discourse moves. In this article, we show that the teacher’s dialogic approach to teaching provided both students with opportunities to position themselves and be positioned as expert and comic author. We encourage educators to use multimodal literacy to create a supportive learning environment that transforms verbocentric school literacy and students’ identities.

‘He doesn’t deserve to be in the higher track’: teachers’ justifications in student tracking discussions

ABSTRACT This study examines teachers’ justifications for their student sorting decisions in two Israeli secondary schools. Combining descriptive statistics and micro-ethnographic discourse analysis of 281 audio-recorded discussions, the study offers a new perspective on tracking’s multiple social and organizational functions: providing students’ needs, rewarding and punishing students, satisfying teachers’ emotional needs, and efficiently using school resources. Most of the justifications were related to students’ needs (43%) and reciprocity issues (37%), with productivity justifications (20%) appearing less frequently. The study points in particular to teacher emotions as a key factor in the tension between formal sorting requirements and teachers’ sorting practices.

How Can We Study Children’s/Youth’s Out of School Experiences to Inform Classroom Practices?

The collection of papers represented in the Integrative Research Review responds to the question: How can we study children’s/youth’s out of school experiences to inform classroom practices? Using a variety of lenses to address the question, the authors consider how to understand, respond to, and serve children and youth in a variety of contexts. Duke explores a quasi-experimental design showing the potential impact on student achievement and motivation in schools that incorporate literacy practices from children’s lives outside of school compared to the traditional curriculum. Bloome and Faust take a philosophical approach to explore the languaging of the relationship between students’ out-of-school lives and classroom practices and its implications for the construction of personhood by examining one classroom event from a microethnographic discourse analysis perspective. García-Sánchez highlights the methodological features that allow linguistic anthropologists to make visible the agentive and innovative character of immigrant children’s communicative practices in a variety of learning situations. Drawing on the transliteracies approach, Stornaiuolo considers work with a group of young people to study multimodal composing and the development of school makerspaces in a 6-year partnership project with a local innovation high school. Alvermann discusses the papers, pointing out the affordances and challenges of each perspective.

Ways of seeing through desk critique: intertextuality as a pedagogical tool for learning opportunities

ABSTRACT The critique, central to teaching and learning in fine arts studios, allows expert teachers to apprentice novice art students into their professional community, through feedback and guidance. This article examines ways teachers’ discursive practices during desk critiques, in particular, socially construct opportunities for students to learn what fine artists see and do, and how to adopt these professional literacies themselves. Positioning intertextuality as analytical tool (Bloome, D., and A. Egan-Robertson. 1993. “The Social Construction of Intertextuality in Classroom Reading and Writing Lessons.” Reading Research Quarterly 28: 305–333), we apply micro-ethnographic discourse analysis (Bloome et al. 2005) to a six-minute desk critique between an instructor and student in a college fine arts studio, augmented with data from individual follow-up interviews. The analysis focuses on how diverse semiotic resources (e.g. words, objects, images, and gestures) can establish intertextual linkages, allowing teachers to connect disciplinary content, conceptual understandings, and practical application through intertextual dialogues with students. The desk critique offers promise as a potential successful and adaptable transdisciplinary pedagogical tool.

TRACING THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERACY PRACTICES FOR INTEGRATING INTERDISCIPLINARY CURRICULUM IN HIGHER EDUCATION: INTERACTIONAL ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY

ABSTRACT In this paper, I present an ethnographic approach that guided multiple cycles of analysis undertaken to trace the developing history of the decisions and actions taken by the lead professor and his design team as they engaged in iterative and recursive phases of development of an interdisciplinary course of study. This study was undertaken in an undergraduate Organizational Communication Program in a public regional university in the United States over a two-year period. The goal of this study was to identify factors that were critical in developing the interdisciplinary curriculum that met the university’s and department’s learning objectives. The microethnographic discourse analysis undertaken provided warranted evidence of how the interdisciplinary curriculum afforded students opportunities to develop conceptual understandings of practices of long-term and futures thinking critical for studying societies from an organizational communication perspective.

Studying the Over-Time Construction of Knowledge in Educational Settings: A Microethnographic Discourse Analysis Approach

This review presents theoretical underpinnings supporting microethnographic-discourse analytic (ME/DA) approaches to studying educational phenomena. The review is presented in two parts. Part 1 provides an analytic review of two seminal reviews of literature that frame theoretical and methodological developments of microethnography and functions language in classrooms with diverse learners. Part 2 presents two telling case studies that illustrate the logic-of-inquiry of (ME/DA) approaches. These telling case studies make transparent how theoretical considerations of cultural perspectives on education inform decisions regarding research methodology. Telling Case Study 1 makes transparent the logic-of-inquiry undertaken to illustrate how microanalyses of discourse and action among participants in a physics class provided an empirical grounding for identifying how different groups undertook a common task. This case study shows how ethnographically informed discourse analyses formed a foundation to theoretically identify social processes of knowledge construction. Telling Case Study 2 makes transparent multiple levels of analysis undertaken to examine ways that creative processes of interpretation of art were communicated and taken up in an art studio class across multiple cycles of activity. Taken together, these telling case studies provide evidence of how ME/DA provides a theoretically grounded logic-of-inquiry for investigating complex learning processes in different educational contexts.

Troubling the “two” in two-way bilingual education

ABSTRACTThere is ongoing debate within the field of bilingual education concerning the extent to which instructional languages should be separated. However, neither side has sufficiently addressed how language practices and policies shape the ideological space of the classroom, and the concomitant implications for student learning and sense-making around bilingualism. This article interrogates how programmatic binaries within a second-grade two-way bilingual education (TWBE) classroom emerge in and through classroom discourse in ways that (re)enforce the ideological construction of “two” languages and “two” groups of learners. Drawing upon microethnographic discourse analysis and positioning theory, I conduct a close analysis of one illustrative classroom language event, revealing how students are discursively positioned as either Spanish-speakers/Latinos or English-speakers/Anglos. Through this analysis, I demonstrate the complexity of identity positioning in TWBE, revealing how the reification of binaries affirms Latinx student identities while simultaneously reinforcing monoglossic framings of bilingualism and overly simplistic understandings of students’ linguistic identities. Findings point to the need to critically reimagine how two-ness is constructed and negotiated in TWBE and to better account for the interrelation among classroom practices, language ideologies, and student identities.

How Language Defines “Learning”: A Classroom View

[full article, abstract in English; abstract in Lithuanian]
 “Learning” is defined and constructed in classrooms as teachers and students interact through the use of language. As such, “learning” is situated language practices. Theories of socially- constructed uses of language and interactions provide foundation for this work. Through a microethnographic discourse analysis, the findings show a teacher and students constructing shared cultural models of “learning,” holding each other accountable to particular academic and pedagogical practices as well as uses of academic language. The teacher employed linguistic strategies to make visible and engage students in the academic language and “thinking” practices that counted as “learning.”

A Study of the Linguistic Culture of Korean Adolescents: Focusing on the Identity Construction and Power Relationships in Peer Groups

This study aimed to explore the linguistic culture of Korean adoles cents by examining their linguistic interactions, focusing on identity con struction and peer group power relationships. The setting for the study was two sixth-grade classrooms in two elementary schools and three sec ond-year classrooms in two middle schools in Korea from August to No vember 2017. In each classroom, we selected four focal students based on Social Network Analysis and analyzed the video files of their peer group interactions, drawing on micro-ethnographic discourse analysis. Findings from observations, video recordings, and interviews with these students revealed that Korean adolescents often construct their identities accord ing to relative evaluations and ratings. In addition, the use of language to reveal one’s identity varied according to gender. Unlike male adolescents, who engaged in superiority language or bluffing, female adolescents pre ferred to lower themselves by using honorific language. With regard to power relationships, the aspects of language used by adolescents varied. Adolescents with high centrality tended to lead communally accepted actions, while adolescents on the periphery tended to conform to and imitate the language use of those with high centrality. This study could contribute to extending our understanding of the dynamic nature of iden tity construction and power relationships within adolescent interactions.

Complexity, Contradiction, and Carnival: Microethnographic Research on Student Disruption in a High School English Language Arts Classroom


 [full article in English] 
 When teaching, many educators must respond to unruly and disruptive students. While most scholarship on student disruption focuses on classroom management strategies and tactics, few studies consider the nature of the disruption, its ideological significance and the social consequences that follows. Via ethnographic methods and microethnographic discourse analysis, this paper examines the complexity and contradictions of macro- and microstructures as they manifest during a student’s disruption of a classroom discussion of a novel in an 11th and 12th grade English Language Arts class in the United States. Using Bakhtin’s notion of carnival as a theoretical framework, this paper examines the pattern of disruption in the classroom that evoked multiple and contradictory ideologies and both maintained and subverted power structures in the context. Contrary to the belief that classroom disruptions are always challenges to power, they sometimes reinforced power relations on a broader cultural level. This paper urges that research and scholarship embrace complexity and contradiction as inherent in the interactions of people in schools and seeks to rethink how educators view and respond to classroom disruption. It concludes by advocating that embracing complexity and contradiction will better allow teachers and researchers to think through systems of education as a way to effectively and ethically intervene when these structures prove problematic.

The Role of Teacher Educators’ Personal Histories and Motivations in Shaping Opportunities to Learn about Social Justice

Background As social-justice-focused teacher education programs continue to gain prominence, a wealth of research explores approaches for preparing teachers for social-justice-minded teaching. This study looks closely at a key aspect of teacher education programs frequently absent from the research—the teacher educators (TEs) themselves. Focus of Study The study intentionally expands the consideration of TEs’ identities beyond reductive demographic characteristics to explore how the personal histories and motivations of TEs impact teacher candidates’ (TCs’) opportunities to learn about teaching for social justice. Setting and Participants The study follows two parallel sections of a single teacher education course taught by two different TEs. Because the TEs taught from the same syllabus, within the context of the same program, the impact of each TE's instructional choices is revealed. Research Design Using a comparative case study design, data sources included field notes, audio recordings of class meetings, course readings and materials, and two interviews with each TE. Audio recordings were transcribed and analyzed following a micro-ethnographic discourse analysis approach. The second interview took place after initial analysis of the data, allowing the TEs to respond to initial findings. Findings Although both TEs focused on social justice topics, in alignment with the program goals, their choices of what topics to focus on differed greatly. One TE used the course readings to open up discussions of gender and sexuality, critically examining heteronormative ideals and a dismissive attitude toward adolescent relationships and sexuality. The other TE used the same readings and assignments to create inquiry into complicated issues of racial and ethnic identity with implications for classroom teaching. In each case, the choices by the TEs in how they framed discussions and assignments and what ideas they took up and built on during class interactions shaped the curriculum in unique ways. These instructional choices corresponded to each TE's own personal experiences and motivations. Conclusions The findings suggest that research on teacher education programs must look beyond course syllabi or the structural components of a program to understand the opportunities to learn provided to TCs. Decisions by TEs during classroom instruction shape very different opportunities to learn. These decisions are based, at least partially, on TEs’ unique personal histories and motivations. When considering how teacher education programs address the issue of social justice, a TE's own history and motivations will impact the enacted curriculum as much as, if not more than, the written curriculum. As we continue to wrestle with how to prepare teachers for a diverse and inequitable society, teacher education programs and teacher education research would benefit from more nuanced consideration of the role TEs play in what gets taught in teacher preparation courses.

Exploring the role of intertextuality in promoting young ELL children’s poetry writing and learning: a discourse analytic approach

This article probes into the social and discursive construction of intertextualities in young ELL children’s poetry writing process. It aims to explore the role of intertextuality in promoting young ELL children’s writing and academic learning through analysing naturally occurring classroom discourses. The research participants were 19 kindergarteners from six different cultural and linguistic backgrounds and their teacher. Primary data sources included participant observation, video recording, interviews and students’ artefacts over time. Microethnographic discourse analysis is conducted to examine the teacher–student moment-to-moment classroom interactive discourses in the chosen key literacy event of writing a poem about their stapler. Data analysis showed that the ELL children’s poem writing event was a robust learning process promoted by the teacher–student dynamic social and discursive construction of different intertextualities across different times and contexts. Based on the complex learning and intertextualities constructed in their writing process, the researcher advocates intertextuality as a powerful heuristic to transform the children’s experiences into meaningful learning and actions.

Social and Relational Aspects of Comprehending in One Fourth Grader’s Unaided and Illustration-Aided Picturebook Retellings

In this article, we present one fourth grader’s unaided and illustration-aided retellings of The Other Side. Using a qualitative clinical case study approach, we examine comprehending activity in these retellings using microethnographic discourse analysis in conjunction with dialogic self theory and a transactional model of reading. Analysis indicates that illustration-aided retelling results in qualitatively different comprehending activity than unaided retelling. John’s illustration-aided retelling demonstrates relational involvement in the social world of the story and a more aesthetic stance characterized by movement between multiple character positions and their perspectives. John’s unaided retelling shows a nearly singular, outsider position and an efferent stance, characterized by summarizing and reporting. In addition, this study suggests that microethnographic analysis is a useful framework for noticing and understanding social and relational aspects of comprehending in illustration-aided retelling. Specifically, in illustration-aided retelling, the reader’s use of contextualization cues and dialogic activity of turn-taking were accompanied by social imagination and intersubjective relationships with characters. Other social and dialogic aspects of the illustration-aided retelling included intertextuality and narrative coherence both frequently involving polychronic activity. Implications of illustration-aided retellings as assessments of readers’ comprehending activity within picturebooks are discussed.