ELEMENT STATEMENT: The teacher education curriculum gives much attention to sociocultural research knowledge about the relationships among language, culture, and learning.

THE BIG PICTURE: Learning may be conceived as the crossroads at which a variety of crucial paths intersect. Three of these paths are language, culture, and social factors. These paths have been worn long before the beginning of formal schooling, for children have not been raised in a vacuum. Nor have they been raised in similar contexts, within interchangeable cultures, social groups, learning styles, and speech communities.

Not only do children's languages and social groups differ, but as Heath (1983) notes, their ways with words--their socially learned and culturally patterned uses of language--also vary. Schiefelbusch and Pickar (1984) state that "variation in the ways of speaking in different societies reflects important differences in beliefs, values, norms, and practices" (p. 377). The variations evolve from:

• Communities' conceptions of a child's status and role.

• Child-rearing beliefs regarding parental language roles.

• Social norms governing expected understandings of each other by participants in a conversation.

• Beliefs about how to organize discussions of the past, present, and future.

• Many more "ways" with language that are intricately woven into cultures.

Because language is the preeminent venue through which formal education is conducted in schools, knowledge of these sociocultural ways with language is critical for teachers and teacher educators.

Bruner (1987), who has written extensively about the connections among language, ways of talking and telling, and culture, says that "tellers and listeners must share some deep structure about nature of life" (p. 21). This structure is grounded in the conventions of language. Without such a mutual understanding, however tacit, communication may break down in the school setting.

Patterns of questioning provide striking instances of incongruity between the interaction styles of students' home and school cultures. Schieffelin and Cochran-Smith (1984) note that while middle-class English-speaking parents commonly ask children about shared experiences, some speech communities see no point in asking questions about what they already know. For example, Heath (1986) observed that the Hispanic parents she studied did not engage in pseudoquestioning, which is routine in classroom settings, but instead asked genuine questions of their children, seeking information they themselves did not know. With a different cultural group, American Indians at the Warm Springs Reservation, Phillips (1972) concluded that displaying one's knowledge is unacceptable in a situation interpreted as causing another person to lose face. Therefore, if a student did not know the answer to a teacher's question, classmates would not respond, even when they knew the answer.

Today's typical teachers--who likely were raised with pseudoquestioning, in which children vie for adults' attention, and who may be unaware of culture-specific patterns of interaction--may interpret their students' reticence as lack of knowledge or lack of intelligence. Indeed, they may come to view their students' cultures as deficient. With such a view, having high expectations for all students becomes an impossibility.

Just as children possess schemata for questioning, they also know organizational structures for wide ranges of language use as varied as phone calls, letters, bedtime stories, sermons, realistic storytelling, and embellished narratives. Children's interactional experiences have taught them to take into account an array of social factors such as age, status, relationships, contexts, and speaking styles (Lindfors, 1987). Yet when they enter classrooms, students discover that only a narrow range of appropriate ways of using language is accepted. To remedy this situation, Edelsky (1991) calls for "a broader, more inclusive approach to language in education" (p. 14).

Educators may utilize knowledge from the fields of anthropology and sociolinguistics in order to enhance communication and to learn to teach with a more inclusive sociocultural approach. This term, inspired by Vygotsky (1978a, 1987) and Scribner and Cole (1981), has been used by Moll (1992a) to describe education that considers the connections among "the complex social relationships and cultural practices of human beings, be it in classrooms or in community settings" (p. 211). Culturally contextualized studies of language use in educational settings include the research of Heath (1983, 1986), Phillips (1972, 1983), and Au (1980).

In her research with three distinct social groups in Appalachia, Heath (1983, 1986) found that the groups varied in their use of literacy and language and that this variety showed up in school performance and academic success. The cultural "ways" with language that coincided with academic "ways" with language facilitated students' success in the school arenas that Heath studied. Phillips (1972, 1983), in her work with Native American schoolchildren, found that community-based interpretations of speech usage and speech-participation patterns in classroom situations could conflict with and adversely affect teachers' perceptions of students' culturally rooted actions. Au (1980), in her work with an indigenous Hawaiian community, discovered a positive teaching strategy that adapted home language practices to school literacy events with great success. These studies demonstrate that if properly used, "social and cultural practices can serve as powerful resources for the children's schooling, especially for the development of literacy" (Moll, 1992a, p. 212).

Of further use to educators concerned with sociocultural aspects of learning is the work of such sociolinguists as Cazden (1972, 1986), Edwards and Mercer (1987), and Mehan (1979), who have investigated interaction patterns in classroom communities. Their research enlightens teachers' understanding of the particular language and often unspoken structures of classroom interaction. Such structures might prohibit children unfamiliar with the classroom culture and ways with language from succeeding in school--even when linguistic comprehension is present.

GOALS:

• Teacher educators will enhance preservice students' understanding of the interrelated roles that language, culture, and social factors play in school learning.

• Teacher educators will introduce research focusing upon language, culture, social factors, and learning.

• Teacher educators will stress the importance of using learners' linguistic, cultural, and social backgrounds in instruction and will suggest means for doing so.

IMPLICATIONS FOR ACTION: Numerous possibilities exist for enhancing preservice students' understanding of learners' sociocultural backgrounds and translating this newfound awareness into classroom practice. Several of these possibilities revolve around the use of ethnographic inquiry as well as sociolinguistic research and experiences in the teacher education classroom.

Preservice students should read and discuss work by such researchers as Au (1980), Au and Kawakami (1991), Heath (1983, 1986), Moll (1992a), and Phillips (1972, 1983). Questions for comprehension and discussion in the teacher education classroom might include the following:

• What were the specific interaction patterns favored by students from various cultures as depicted in these studies?

• How might these patterns influence academic achievement?

• What culture-specific knowledge or content did students bring to the classroom?

• How did the researchers and teachers accommodate or fail to accommodate cultural content and patterns of interaction?

• How do the interaction styles and content of these students differ from my own?

In order to help preservice students respond to the last question, instructors should direct them to reflect upon their own families' interaction styles, as well as the interaction styles present in settings in their home communities, such as religious services. For example, if students routinely ate meals together as families while growing up, they might consider the following questions:

• When more than one family member wanted to speak, did one person take precedence? If so, who?

• Did only one person speak at a time, or did more than one?

• Did a central conversation take place, or did multiple conversations take place at the same time?

• Was interrupting permitted?

• Did my parents ask questions to which they already knew the answers?

After reading ethnographic studies and considering their own childhood experiences, preservice students might respond to these questions:

• In which specific ways did interaction styles in my home and community influence my school experience, whether positively or negatively?

• How did the interaction styles in my home differ from those of the students in the studies?

To help preservice students answer the last question, teacher educators might direct them to read and discuss sociolinguistic research focusing on classroom interaction patterns (e.g., Cazden, 1972, 1986; Edwards & Mercer, 1987; Mehan, 1979). Students also might conduct structured observations in real classrooms with attention to the various genres of discourse patterns accepted in schools and labeled by linguists, sociologists, and anthropologists. According to Heath (1986), these genres include:

• label quests (naming of items)
• meaning quests (asking for meanings of words, pictures, events, behaviors)
• recounts (retelling experiences familiar to teller and listener)
• accounts (giving information unknown to listener)
• eventcasts (providing running narrative of events currently at hand)
• stories (listening to, reading, and creating narratives)

Preservice students might then consider how children from a variety of cultures would fare in the classrooms they visited. When cultural incongruities are suspected, they should brainstorm ways to render classrooms more culturally compatible with learners' home cultures.

To test the validity of their instructional ideas, preservice students should visit classrooms that feature culturally contextualized pedagogy in language and literacy. (Two examples of such classrooms are highlighted below in the Illustrative Cases in this element, and several more are presented in the Illustrative Cases in Element 11.)

Underpinning all these suggestions is the notion that preservice students themselves should engage in ethnographic inquiry and research. (Element 8 explores this suggestion in more depth.)

In addition to using and conducting ethnography, preservice students should gain expertise in creating instruction that builds on holistic, relational learning styles. Lindfors (1987), Hudelson (1989), Edelsky (1991), and others researching second-language learning suggest that "whole" activities give second-language learners a better chance to figure out necessary paralinguistic knowledge, particularly when tacit classroom discourse rules and unfamiliar classroom discourse genres are in use. Holistic approaches to the generation of language have been advocated for years by linguists such as Dulay and Burt (1974) and Krashen (1982), who saw that children could refine language through creative construction of it versus controlled rehearsal in artificial segments. Holistic philosophies may enable multicultural children to adapt more easily to the culture of their academic world, their classroom. For in order to learn, many multicultural students are being called upon to acquire not only language but also a new culture.

Finally, teacher educators should practice what they preach. With regard to interaction styles, they should strive to use a variety in the classroom. Further, they should call the attention of preservice students to these patterns by asking questions such as the following:

• With which interaction practices do you feel the most comfortable? Which are most conducive to your achievement?

• Which make you feel uneasy or anxious or stupid?

• With which interaction practices do you think students from a variety of cultural groups would feel most comfortable? Which do you think are most conducive to their achievement?

• Which do you think would make students from a variety of groups feel uneasy or anxious or stupid?

• How can we help our students adapt to and thrive in the culture of the school without squelching the culture of their communities?

DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW: Some educators take issue with curricula that are contextually, culturally, or sociolinguistically specific or tailored to particular learning communities. The views of Hirsch (1987) are representative of many opponents of culturally contextualized curricula. He advocates imparting specific information, which he calls "cultural literacy," to children throughout their schooling from the earliest ages possible. His conception of cultural literacy, however, refers to a professionally selected, traditional knowledge base reflecting the mainstream American population rather than a culturally pluralistic one, and he argues against allowing parents and communities to influence curriculum. His view includes a vision of education as a great equalizer, ensuring the dissemination of a predetermined knowledge base. In fact, he states that "the traditional forms of literate culture are precisely the most effective instruments for political and social change" (p. 22). In the view of others, such as Fox-Genovese (1986), the transmission of the cultural canon also serves as a tool by which to salvage national democracy.

ILLUSTRATIVE CASES:

Kamehameha Early Education Program (KEEP), Honolulu, Hawaii

Streamwood School, Streamwood, Illinois

References

Additional Reading for Element 7