School reform, hybrid discourses, and second language literacies
Author(s):
Gebhard, Meg
Format:
Journal article
Citation:
Tesol Quarterly, Volume 39, Issue 2 (2005-06). pp. 187-210.
Language:
English
Abstract:
This article analyzes how school reforms in the United States during the 1990s supported transformative literacy practices in the context of a Hmong-English third grade classroom. Using methods that allow for an analysis of both macro and micro discourses shaping the literacy practices of English language learners, this 2-year study illustrates how combined discourses at the state, district, school, and classroom levels created a discursive space that allowed for the production of hybrid texts that disrupted, if only temporarily, many of the reproductive forces associated with modern schooling. Using a critical perspective of language and social change (e.g., Fairclough, 1992), the author presents an analysis of texts produced and interpreted by participants in a classroom shaped by a statewide school reform initiative known as Senate Bill 1274, California's school restructuring initiative. An analysis of these texts reveals that they afforded language learners opportunities to display multilingual and multicultural identities and to appropriate academic uses of English.