Literacy and Culture in the Classroom: An Interview with Kris Gutierrez M y r n a G w e n Turner University of California, Los Angeles PROFILE K r i s Gutierrez is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School o f Educa tion & Information Studies and head o f the division o f Administration, Curricu lum, and Teaching Studies at the University of California, L o s Angeles. Her expe rience as director of a freshman writing program for provisionally admitted stu dents sparked her interest in the issue o f literacy, and her concern over the gate keeping function o f literacy led her to P h . D . research in rhetoric and composition at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Prof. Gutierrez' literacy work has contin ued to investigate the issues of identity, marginalization, social justice, and power relations in the classroom. Her studies o f the social organization of literacy have centered around the connections between language, culture, and human develop ment. T h i s discourse-based research informs teachers of the social practices of the classroom by examining the social and cognitive consequences of literacy prac tices.. Prof. Gutierrez' current research investigates effective literacy practices, issues of urban mobility, and the effects o f intervention programs on literacy and problem-solving. INTRODUCTION In this interview Prof. Gutierrez discusses the issue of literacy as a gate keeper and how her own experiences as a bilingual Latina and as a teacher of writing led to her interest in sociocultural understandings of literacy and language learning. She emphasizes the importance of discourse-based analysis, its capacity to capture and illustrate for teachers the discursive practices of the classroom and their consequences on literacy learning. Dr. Gutierrez also discusses the issue o f high urban mobility and other research projects that she is pursuing that employ a multi-method and multi-disciplinary framework.. INTERVIEW Turner: Could you tell us how your interest in language and literacy began? Gutierrez: A s a young bilingual child it was difficult not to become acutely aware of the privilege o f knowing two languages and to understand quickly the power of Issues in Applied Linguistics © Regents of the University of California ISSN 1050-4273 Vol. 7 No. 2 1996 308-314