Menard-Warwick, Julia, Miki Mori and Serena Williams. 2014. 'Language and gender in educational contexts' , in: Susan Ehrlich, Miriam Meyerhoff and Janet ...
Education vis-à-vis language, gender, and sexuality research: Global issues, local solutions? Marta Mazurek, Allyson Julé, Jane Sunderland, Melanie Cooke, Brian King Convenor: Łukasz Pakuła
Education, schools, classrooms… •
•
Schools and classrooms are: •
primary mechanisms of socialisation
(see Adger 2005)
•
they also are 'sites of struggle' (Walkerdine 1990)
“educational practices themselves constitute a core domain of linguistic and discursive power and of the engineering of discursive practices” (Fairclough 2010: 532)
Identities in education •
Gender: •
•
Sexuality: •
•
recent arrival
Language: •
•
long-standing tradition
not “simply a conduit for didactic messages” (King 2015)
hidden gender and sexuality curricula
(see Miceli 2006)
Institutional ignorance •
“…” institutionalised foreign language teaching and its research have almost continuously ignored gender relations “…” (Decke-Cornill and Vilkmann 2007: 7)
•
textbooks and teacher education: no institutional anchoring of these issues whatsoever! (Pakuła et. al 2015)
•
but: see Mustapha and Mills (2015: 9-10)
Global issues — local solutions?
Geographical sensitivity "[…] educational research on language and gender in various geographical regions has not followed particular theoretical models uniformly, or even always theorized findings using an explicit framework.” (Menard-Warwick et. al. 2015)
Political awareness “[…] ELT industry is an area of applied linguistics activity in which politics and political economy clearly come together. Teaching is a perforce a highly politicised activity and commercially produced materials exert a powerful influence over what takes place in many classrooms around the world”
(Gray 2013: 11)
From representation to interaction •
representations: position us, help us identify (Mustapha and Mills 2015)
•
quantity vs. quality: “mindless quantification” (Cameron 1988: 81)
•
“The most non-sexist textbook can become sexist in the hands of a teacher with sexist attitudes.” (Sunderland 1994: 64)
Wrap-up •
bringing textbook analysis to a halt? (Blumberg 2007)
•
pre-service teacher training
•
‘novelty attachment’ (Ripley et al., 2012: 126)
•
advocating geographical sensitivity
•
more insights into non-Anglo settings are in demand
Wrap-up •
recognising and appreciating multisexual (also multigender!) learner and teacher cohorts (Nelson 2007, 2009)
•
in-depth qualitative analyses of ‘communities of practice’ (Menard-Warwick et. al 2015)
•
poor insights into sexuality and intersex issues in classroom interactions
Mustapha and Mills (2015)
Gray (2013)
Sunderland (1994)
Decke-Cornill and Vilkmann 2007
Julé (2004)
Nelson (2009)
Pakuła et. al (2015)
Chmura-Rutkowska et. al (2015)
Qs •
How do cultural geographies shape (and hinder) ways of ensuring socially equal education?
•
How can the classroom become a more inclusive and welcoming social space with respect to sexual diversity? What (linguistic) techniques are used and what could be used?
•
Gendered (and sexual) in-class participation and linguistic space: what are some local and global findings? What are some ways towards socially equal in-class participation?
•
Have gendered and sexual identities undergone redefinition? If yes, how has this been manifested linguistically and extralinguistically in the classroom? How might it be?
References (1) Adger, Carolyn Temple. 2005. ‘Discourse in Educational Settings’ , in: Deborah Schiffrin, Deborah Tannen and Heidi E. Hamilton (eds.), The Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 503–517. Blumberg, Rae Lesser. 2007. ‘Gender bias in textbooks: a hidden obstacle on the road to gender equality in education’ , Paper comissioned for the EFA Global monitoring Report 2008, Education for all by 2015: Will we make it? (http://www.rosadoc.be/digidocs/ dd-000120_2007_Gender_Bias_in_Textbooks_UNESCO.pdf) (date of access: 14 Mar. 2016). Cameron, Deborah and Jennifer Coates. 1988. ‘Some problems in the sociolinguistic explanation of sex differences’ , in: Women in their Speech Communities. London: Longman. Chmura-Rutkowska, Iwona, Maciej Duda, Marta Mazurek and Aleksandra Sołtysiak-Łuczak (eds.). 2015. Gender w podręcznikach. Projekt badawczy. Raport, T. 1-3. [Gender in textbooks. Research Project. Report. Vols. 1–3]. Warszawa: Feminoteka. Decke-Cornill, Helene and Laurenz Volkmann (eds.). 2007. Gender Studies and Foreign Language Teaching. Gunter Narr Verlag Tubingen.
References (2) Ehrlich, Susan, Miriam Meyerhoff and Janet Holmes (eds.). 2014. The Handbook of Language, Gender and Sexuality. (2nd edition.) Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Fairclough, Norman. 2010. Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. London: Routledge. Gray, John. 2013. ‘LGBT Invisibility and Heteronormativity in ELT Materials’ , in: John Gray (ed.), Critical Perspectives on Language Teaching Materials. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 40–63. Holmes, Janet and Miriam Meyerhoff (eds.). 2003. The Handbook of Language and Gender. (1st edition.) Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Jule, Allyson. 2004. Gender, Participation and Silence in the Language Classroom: Sh-Shushing the Girls. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
References (3) King, Brian W. 2015. ‘Language and sexuality in education’ , in: Patricia Whelehan and Anne Bolin (eds.), The International Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality. Oxford and New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 649– 719. Menard-Warwick, Julia, Miki Mori and Serena Williams. 2014. ‘Language and gender in educational contexts’ , in: Susan Ehrlich, Miriam Meyerhoff and Janet Holmes (eds.), The Handbook of Language, Gender and Sexuality. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 471–490. Miceli, Melinda S. 2006. ‘Schools and the social control of sexuality’ , in: Steven Seidman, Nancy Fischer and Chet Meeks (eds.), Handbook of the New Sexuality Studies. London: Routledge, 357–364. Mustapha, Abolaji S. and Sara Mills. 2015. ‘Gender representation in learning materials’ , in: Sara Mills and Abolaji S. Mustapha (eds.), Gender Representations in Learning Materials in an International Context. London: Routledge, 9–18. Nelson, Cynthia D. 2007. ‘Queer Thinking about Language Teaching’ , in: Helene Decke-Cornill and Laurenz Volkmann (eds.), Gender studies and foreign language teaching. Tübingen: Narr. Nelson, Cynthia D. 2009. Sexual Identities in English Language Education: Classroom Conversations. (1st edition.) New York: Routledge.
References (4) Pakuła, Łukasz, Joanna Pawelczyk and Jane Sunderland. 2015. Gender and sexuality in English language education: Focus on Poland. London: British Council. Ripley, Matthew, Eric Anderson, Mark McCormack and Ben Rockett. 2012. ‘Heteronormativity in the University Classroom Novelty Attachment and Content Substitution among Gay-friendly Students’ , Sociology of Education 85, 2: 121–130. Sunderland, Jane. 1994. Exploring Gender: Questions and Implications for English Language Education. Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall. Walkerdine, Valerie. 1990. Schoolgirl Fictions. London: Verso Books.
