002 343 week 5 copy

English 343: Cultural assimilation, stereotyping,

othering

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I_43IeRtr8

Why do you teach Spanish Mr. Chang?

Discussion of your identity narrativeUnpacking our stereotypes Your voices on this week’s readingsPanel Discussion by Lisa and ChrisKumar Chapter 5Kumar article on stereotypingInterview with Edward Said on Orientalism

P.S: PLEASE WATCH YOUR EMAILS FOR NEXT WEEK’S READING SET. I MAY CHANGE A FEW THINGS.

Agenda

Take about 10 minutes to discuss what you found out about yourself as a language educator as you worked on your identity narrative. What are some of the cross-cultural concepts you have mentioned in your narrative?

Identity Narrative Sharing

We all fall into the culturist trap of reducing people. It is important that we are aware of our stereotypes and can monitor how we let them influence our teacher behaviors (e.g. assessing L2 student writing, evaluating classroom participation, creating culturally relevant assignments). With this in mind, comment on the followings:

1. What are some of the stereotypes you bring to your profession? Be specific.

2. How do you/did you pass through this stereotype and look for a deeper understanding/full complexity of a group of people (or, have you?)

Stereotypes: Being aware of our own preoccupations. An anonymous class

survey

In what ways our expectations of stigmatized social group’s (e.g. stereotypes)lead to inferior service or disadvantage?

What do stereotypes do?

Discussion based on learning logs

YOUR VOICES

When do people have enough? When does othering go too far and when is it appropriate to act on or claim that someone is othering you?

Lydia asks (on stereotypes)…

What is the fine line between stereotyping and gathering information to make an informed opinion about a person from a particular culture?

Meagan asks…

In my opinion, people tend to judge foreigners based on the stereotypes. Is it really their culture? Or is it the fact that the students feel uncomfortable in the classrooms that make them passive?

Moon asks… (Kuma’s article on Asian students being passive in classrooms)

Further on, the author talks about historical accounts from Confucius which do not support the Asian stereotype of complete and unconditional obedience to authority. So where does this generalization come from?

Sarah S asks

Even though I’ve based my assumptions on working with East Asian students and interacting with Asian friends, they may still be faulty ideas and would not prove true in every case. Even though it’s good to have a frame of reference for relating to students, I agree with Kumaravadivelu that I must more fully develop a “critical awareness of the complex nature of cultural understanding” (717).

Question: I wonder what kind of cultural stereotypes Asian students might have about North American teachers…

Alice…

Holliday et. al.

The smith family

Summarize the scenario. What does this example show about prescribed stereotypes? What mistake did John make with the the Smiths?

Communication is about not presuming

A religious culture characterized by-- clothing--disdain for modernity

These stereotypes led John’s behaviours and explained whatever the Smiths do from this “filter” He fell into various culturist traps.

Any similar situations you experienced?

John perceived the Amish as…

Stereotyping: Ideal characterization of the Other

Prejudice: Judgment made on the basis of interest rather than emergent evidence

Culturism: Reducing the members of a group to the pre-defined characteristics of a cultural label.

An understanding supervisor?

Summarize the case. What are some of the culturist language/behavior Jeremy displays? How does Jeremy think he is acting? How does Jabu interprets Jerremy’s behavior? How could Jeremy appropriate his language and behaviors not to fall into culturist trap? What would you do if you were in Jabu’s shoes?

Unit A2.3 Power and Discourse

Culturism: Jerremy assumes that he is being supportive and understanding when in fact he is being patronizing according to Jabu

False Sharing: Jeremy is sharing an image of Jabu which he constructed based on his previous experiences.

*** Avoid being seduced by previous experience of the exotic.*** Monitor your own language and be aware of the destructive, culturist discourse we might be conforming to or perpetuating (p. 38)

Is it natural to form stereotypes?“Many argue that it is natural to form stereotypes, and that they indeed help us to understand “foreign cultures”—that they act as a template, or as an ideal type, against with we can measure the unknown”—Do you agree with this? Is stereotyping a natural act?

Why do we stereotype?

1. Averse RacismStereotypes are ingrained in the racist system and are perpetuated in popular culture2. Social IdentityWe stereotype, when we see others as a threat to our self-esteem. A need to maintain a positive distinction between our own group and others. We might be biased in favor of our own group3. Orientalism: Western representation of Other. Legitimized by power relationships/colonialism“colonized people are stereotyped and treated not as communities of individuals but as an indistinguishable mass”

Why do we stereotype?

Read the interviews by Mallison and Brewster on page 149. In your groups, write an analysis of what strategies of “othering” Nate uses when he talks about Blacks, Latinos and rednecks. How does he create a “discourse of difference” (Wodak, 1997 see p. 152) in his narrative?

Then, compare your analysis with Mallinson and Brewster’s analysis. Do you agree with their analysis? Why? Why not?

Group activity on stereotypes and ideologies

Avoid being seduced by the previous experience of the exotic.

Monitor of our own language and be aware of the destructive, culturist, sexist, racist discourse we might be conforming to or perpetuating

Know that maintenance of students ethnic language and culture is a fundamental right of all members of the community.

Be sensitive to subtle cultural meanings that children with a different view of social reality bring to the class

Move beyond taken-for-granted assumptions when interpreting student behavior.

As language educators, we need to…

…should be performed through the practice of everyday life rather than through the practice of merely reading texts or including “culture celebrations”—Avoid “boutique multiculturalism” (Stanley Fish)

ALL students should be encouraged and enabled to engage critically with various ethnic and cultural backgrounds so that they can recognize and explore complex interconnections, gaps that occur between their own and other ethnic and cultural identities and how these identities are situated in the wider framework of power relations

True multicultural education

Assimilation vs acculturation (p. 68)What’s wrong with the melting pot theory?

Kumar Chapter 5

In Hungtington’s words all immigrants should commit themselves to Anglo-Protestant culture of the founding settlers—which is the center of the American Identity. Key elements of American identity according to him:

The English languageChristianityReligious commitmentProtestant values of individualismThe work ethnic

CULTURAL ASSIMIATION

Salin says immigrants would be welcome as full members of American family if they accept English as their primary language, take pride in American identity, and live by protestant ethic

American style assimilation

Assimilation: Newcomers leaving their their ethnic backgrounds and cultural resources behind and embrace the host societies’ values (characterized by the mainstream segment of the adopted society)

Acculturation: newcomers adaptation of the culture-the behaviors, norms, practices, symbols, rules of the target/host culture.

Acculturation vs assimilation

IDEALISMThe fusion of all racesReligious amalgamationShedding previous ethnic

identities and construct an American identity.

Emerging American identity can be “blend of sociocultural beliefs and practices drawn from many different ethnic groups”(p. 77)

“Early Americans” Core culture should be: WASPs Native language and cultural

traits are seen as impediments to the construction of American identity

Cultural assimilation was a one-way process.

Linguistic assimilation is essential by discarding the home languages: Monolingualism and monoculturalism.

Melting Pot: All races of Europe are melting together (pg. 74) cultural assimilation

NATIVISM (19th and early 20th century)

Who is doing the assimilation?From what to what?For what?What does it make to people?

Critical questions to ask:

Finding traces of nativism in second language theory construction and language policies in the U.S. Examples:The legacy of nativist philosophy: ENGLISH-

ONLY POLICIES Theory Construction:

1) Robert Kaplan’s Cultural thought patterns2) Schumann's acculturation model of second

language acquisition

Manifestations of nativism on language education

31

Robert Kaplan’s Contrastive Rhetoric argument: Cultural Though Patterns in Intercultural Education

Contrastive Rhetoric: Cultural thought patterns in intercultural education (Kaplan, 1966; the doodle article)

Explored the links between the culturally specific logic/thought patterns and paragraph structures in English essays written by NNES students.

“The patterns of paragraphs in other languages are not so well established, or perhaps only not so well known to speakers of English”

Came up with five lingua-cultural groups in rhetorical structures of a piece of writing in students’ cultures.

Early Criticism to Kaplan’s doodle article: Flows in his arguments Essays were collected as class exercise, students did nto have

comparable language skills Rhetorical deviations he found in NNES students were similar to the

rhetorical errors made by NS students The generalizations about student’s culture based on the rhetorical

and cultural through patterns has been contested by many scholars. Kaplan did not take into account linguistic and cultural variations in each group.

Faulty argumentations: making assertions about one’s L1 writing rhetoric and thought patterns based on a general L2 essay structure. Other factors such as topic knowledge, language proficiency, educational background also influences students paragraph development

Considering standard English speaking NSs as the norm- overlooks the plurality within language groups! Native English speakers do not all write in linear, straight line paragraph development. Members of different discourse communities write in different genres.

.

Ethnocentric view of culture:The worldview of a group of people using the

same language is determined by that single language and culture? (strong version of Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis)

Even though he himself modified some of his arguments two decades after he wrote the original 1966 article, some English teachers still associate the rhetorical deviations in NNES students’ English essays to their linguistic and cultural traits (see pg. 88)

Faults in argument continued

Ten-month longitudinal study to investigate untutored English acquisition by Spanish speaking adults. Alberto makes little progress. Schuman connects this to the social distance between him and the members of the mainstream community. According to Schumann psychological and social contact with the TL group “is the essential component in acculturation” (1978, p. 29)

The greater one’s cultural integration with the mainstream group, the more successful would be one’s attempt to learn the target language

“Any learner can be placed on a continuum that ranges from social and psychological distance to social and psychological proximity with speakers of the target language, and that the learner will acquire the language only to the extent that he acculturates” (p. 29)—this argument dismisses various outside factors.

Schumann’s Social Distance

Inequitable power relations between the second language speakers and the target language speakers.

Norton (2000) says “It may be because the dominant power structures within the society had relegated Alberto to a marginalized status and then blamed him for his inability to acculturate”Target language community’s responsibility to maximize

opportunities for cultural assimilationSchumann’s social distance theory carries traces of nativist

philosophy as it minimizes the importance of the immigrants' own language and culture.

More recent studies argue that “maintenance of the mother tongue among immigrant children can in fact facilitate their successful learning of the target language” (Cummins, 2000)

The problem with the Schumann's social distance theory

Be aware of the dominant discourses which are easily perpetuated by the media, and which lead us to “think-as-usual” that familiar images of the foreign Other as normal

Seek a deeper and a complex understanding of the representation of the foreign Other which are perpetuated by society

Monitor your language and be aware of the destructive, culturist discourses we might be perpetuating.

Avoid readily explaining student behavior in terms of culture and cultural stereotypes—avoid binary categories such as NS-NNS

OTHERING

1. Averse RacismStereotypes are ingrained in the racist system and are perpetuated in popular culture2. Social IdentityWe stereotype, when we see others as a threat to our self-esteem. A need to maintain a positive distinction between our own group and others. We might be biased in favor of our own group3. Orientalism: Western representation of Other. Legitimized by power relationships/colonialism“colonized people are stereotyped and treated not as communities of individuals but as an indistinguishable mass”

Why do we stereotype?

Otherization and OrientalismOtherization Reductive process that ascribe an imagined superior identity to the

Self and an imagined inferior identity to the Other. “Colonizers systematically devalue the colonized and how develuation expends to every aspect of life. See Memi’s The Colonizer and the colonized.

Orientalism (coined by Edward Said) Western representation of the Other (i.e. East). “Orientalism is a

systematically constructed discourse by which the West “ was able to manage—and produce—the Orient politically, sociologically, ideologically, scientifically, and imaginatively” (Said, 1978). Eg. Accents of Arabs in Aladdin. Aladdin is also Arab bur speaks English in Standard English.

Produces an essentialist and static Other. Cultures, just like people, are not islands by themselves. They are

all interconnected, making every culture, in effect, a hybrid culture.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwCOSkXR_Cw

Take notes when you see examples on the notions we have been studying/discussing: “othering” “culturist” and “racist”

Orientalism_Interview with Edward Said