Marginalization Processes Across Different Settings : Going Beyond the Mainstream [1 ed.] 9781527511927, 9781527503298

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Marginalization Processes across Different Settings

Marginalization Processes across Different Settings: Going beyond the Mainstream Edited by

Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta

Marginalization Processes across Different Settings: Going beyond the Mainstream Edited by Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta This book first published 2017 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2017 by Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-0329-1 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-0329-8

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures........................................................................................... viii List of Tables .............................................................................................. xi List of Extracts and Transcripts ................................................................. xii Preface ...................................................................................................... xiv Foreword .................................................................................................. xvi Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Studies of Marginalization Processes and Participation across Sites Part I: Inclusion-Exclusion—Country Case Studies Chapter One ............................................................................................... 22 Julia Kristeva and Meta-Reflections on Inclusive and Marginalizing Processes: On the Gap between Principles and Practice Berit Helene Johnsen Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 44 Focus on Special Educational Support in Swedish High Schools: Provision Within or Outside the Students’ Regular Classes? Joacim Ramberg Part II: Marginalization Inside, Outside and Across School Settings Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 82 ADHD in the Classroom: A Pedagogy and its Paradoxes Eva Hjörne Chapter Four ............................................................................................ 106 Deaf Students’ Access to Informal Group-Work Activities Seen in Light of the Educational Interpreter’s Role Sigrid Slettebakk Berge and Patrick Stefan Kermit

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Table of Contents

Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 129 “Letting the Natural Happen”: Stacking Neuroscience against Signed Language Bilingualism in the Context of Pediatric CIs Lakshmi Fjord Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 164 ”Va sa han?”: Technologies and Participation Strategies in Mainstream School Settings Ingela Holmström and Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 197 Marginalization as a Dynamic Process: The Microanalysis of Interactions of a Deaf Student in a Mainstream Classroom Sara A. Goico Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 226 A Fairer Future? In Search of New Meanings of Inclusion for Marginalized Young People: In Their Own Words Alison Fielding Part III: Marginalization Inside, Outside and Across Adult Educational Settings Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 244 Becoming an Immigrant in the Language Learning Classroom: Intersections of Gender and National Identity Jenny Rosén Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 264 Educating Deaf Teachers for Inclusion: Inclusive Education for Deaf Teachers Aase Lyngvær Hansen Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 282 Out of Bounds: Boundary, Complexity and Marginalization Processes in Adult Education Jane Evershed

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Part IV: Language Related Hegemonies Across Settings Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 308 Two Groups, Two Worlds: Italian and German in Bozen, South Tyrol Chiara Meluzzi Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 333 Different Kinds of Wrong: Marginalization Processes within a Reading Test Jenny W. Folkeryd, Åsa af Geijerstam and Caroline Liberg Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 352 Making Complexities (In)visible: Empirically-derived Contributions to the Scholarly (Re)presentations of Social Interactions Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta and Oliver St. John Chapter Fifteen ........................................................................................ 389 Thou Shalt Not Judge: Selective Perception in Judgements of Linguistic Correctness Konrad SzczeĞniak and Cássio Leite Vieira Chapter Sixteen ....................................................................................... 405 Marginalization as an Outcome of Minority Identity-Building: Multiple Voices towards Discursive Construction of Lazi Identity Nazli E. Avdan and Jan Anward† Afterword ................................................................................................ 422 Sanjay Ranade Appendix A: Transcription Key for Chapter Six ..................................... 429 Appendix B: Transcription Key for Chapter Nine................................... 431 Appendix C: Swedish Original Transcripts Chapter Nine ....................... 432 Appendix D: Transcription Keys for Chapter Fourteen .......................... 435 Contributors ............................................................................................. 438

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2-1.

Figure 2-2.

Figure 2-3.

Figure 2-4.

Figure 2-5.

Figure 2-6.

Number of schools with special educational professionals and where support is provided within the students’ regular classes, including to what extent (n=448) ........................ 61 Number of schools with special educational professionals where support is provided outside the students’ regular class including to what extent (n=474) ............................ 63 Different tasks and the extent to which they are privileged by the special educational professionals at schools (n=477) ............................................................................ 65 Number of schools where other support activities are provided during the ordinary classes including to what extent (n=714) ................................................................. 66 Number of schools that report other support activities being provided outside the ordinary classes including to what extent (n=740) ..................................................... 67 Percentage distribution of the location of the support provision made available within/outside the ordinary classroom (n=679) ........................................................... 69

Figure 3-1. Figure 3-2.

The schedule .................................................................... 91 Individual schedule for Karl ............................................ 93

Figure 4-1.

Establishment of an informal group-work situation ...... 113

Figure 6-1.

Thick description of reading aloud episode (see also Transcript 6-1) ............................................................... 164 Floor map of project classroom B: Organization of space .......................................................................... 170 Classroom rules pinned to a board wall ......................... 171 Teacher’s microphone and pupil’s microphone ............. 173 SMARTBoard and alphabets ......................................... 173 Resource person who knows Swedish Sign Language .. 174

Figure 6-2. Figure 6-3. Figure 6-4. Figure 6-5. Figure 6-6.

Marginalization Processes across Different Settings

Figure 7-1. Figure 7-2. Figure 7-3. Figure 7-4. Figure 7-5. Figure 7-6. Figure 7-7. Figure 7-8. Figure 7-9. Figure 7-10. Figure 7-11. Figure 7-12. Figure 7-13. Figure 7-14. Figure 7-15.

Figure 10-1. Figure 10-2.

Figure 10-3.

Figure 10-4.

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Jorge taps Estefany on the shoulder. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings ....................................... 204 Jorge asks for a pencil sharpener. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings ....................................... 204 Estefany points to Alicia at the other table. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings ............................. 205 Jorge points to Tanya. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings ............................................................ 205 Estefany points to Alicia again. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings ................................................ 206 Estefany mouths Alicia’s name. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings ................................................ 206 Jorge points to Tanya with the pencil. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings ....................................... 207 Estefany mouths Alicia’s name again. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings ....................................... 207 Estefany points to Alicia. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings ............................................................ 208 Jorge points to Alicia and Estefany nods her head. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings ................ 208 Estefany points to her chest. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings ................................................ 209 Estefany waggles her finger and shakes her head. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings ................ 209 Estefany points to Alicia. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings ............................................................ 210 Jorge asks Tanya for the pencil sharpener. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings ............................. 210 Jorge walks away without finding the pencil sharpener. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings ................ 211 Norwegian Sign Language Classroom: Signing competent teacher and deaf students ............................................... 266 Educational Science Classroom: Oral speaking teacher, five deaf students and two interpreters (one stands beside the teacher and the other sits by the side) ...................... 267 Educational Science Classroom: Oral speaking teacher, five deaf students, two interpreters and hearing students .......................................................................... 267 Analysis web ................................................................. 272

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List of Figures

Figure 10-5.

Practices influencing the deaf student teachers’ learning environment ................................................................... 278

Figure 12-1.

Districts of Bozen (ASTAT 2012) ................................. 310

Figure 13-1. Figure 13-2.

Different Kinds of Wrong .............................................. 346 Different Kinds of Wrong .............................................. 347

Figure 15-1.

Portuguese sentence to evaluate (‘Right at the beginning, Ferreira fired a torpedo that no goalie would be able to save’) .................................................. 395 Pictures of an exchange student (a) football fan (b) and a sports reporter (c) accompanying the sentences in the paper-and-pencil questionnaire ............................ 397 Ratings for the sentence in example 3 (Brazilian sample) .......................................................................... 398 Ratings for the sentence in example 4 (Polish sample) .......................................................................... 399 Comparison of ratings obtained in the questionnaires with and without pictures for the sentence in example 5 ..................................................................................... 400 Comparison of ratings for the sentence in example 6 obtained in the questionnaire without pictures .............. 401

Figure 15-2.

Figure 15-3. Figure 15-4. Figure 15-5.

Figure 15-6.

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2-1. Table 2-2.

Responding schools ......................................................... 59 Other special educational activities reported by schools in response to the open-ended question ........................... 65

Table 7-1.

The structure of Jorge and Estefany’s summonsanswer sequence ............................................................ 215 Expanded base sequence as a result of a dispreferred response to the base pair in Jorge and Estefany’s interaction ...................................................................... 217

Table 7-2.

Table 12-1. Table 12-2.

The distribution of linguistic groups in Bozen districts in 1980 (adapted from Petri 1989, 251) ......................... 311 The corpus stratified by the variables of age and sex .... 313

LIST OF EXCERPTS AND TRANSCRIPTS

Excerpt 4-1. Excerpt 4-2. Excerpt 4-3. Excerpt 4-4. Excerpt 4-5. Excerpt 4-6. Excerpt 4-7.

Challenges to interpreters’ role position ........................ 114 Spatial environment related challenges ......................... 116 Hierarchies of professional status .................................. 117 Challenges of tracking overlapping talk ........................ 118 Challenges of different communicative projects in the classroom ............................................................. 119 Access to back stage dialogues ...................................... 120 Novice student’s use of interpreter services .................. 121

Transcript 6-1. Orientations towards visual communication forms ....... 176 Transcript 6-2. Va sa han? [What did he say?]....................................... 182 Transcript 6-3. Communicative strategies outside the main classroom ... 185 Transcript 9-1. Identity investment in a language learning classroom ... 244 Transcript 9-2. Constructing traditional immigrants and progressive Swedes ........................................................................... 251 Transcript 9-3. Images of gender equality in Sweden ............................ 253 Transcript 9-4. Integration and expectations of shifts in identity ........... 255 Transcript 12-1. Language contact .......................................................... 315 Transcript 12-2. Language group contact ................................................ 316 Transcript 12-3. Language usage across settings..................................... 316 Transcript 12-4. Language contacts across age and districts ................... 317 Transcript 12-5. Segregated districts: Don Bosco and Europa Novacella ..................................................................... 318 Transcript 12-6. Language groups segregation within same school campus .......................................................................... 319 Transcript 12-7. Linguistic awareness across groups .............................. 320 Transcript 12-8. “A disgusting dialect” ................................................... 321 Transcript 12-9. “A disgusting dialect” ................................................... 321 Transcript 12-10. Stories about dialectical differences............................ 322 Transcript 12-11. On the isolation and marginalization in Italian districts ....................................................................... 324

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Transcript 14-1A. Talk-in-interaction ..................................................... 353 Transcript 14-1B. Language varieties, artifacts and bodiesin-interaction.................................................................. 357 Transcript 14-1C. Language varieties, textual artifacts and bodies-ininteraction .................................................................. 364 Transcript 14-2. Language varieties, textual artifacts and gesture-ininteraction ................................................................... 374

PREFACE

The post-World War II era has seen the explicit establishment of a range of policies vis-à-vis equity and inclusion across the geopolitical spaces that constitute the global North and the global South. These have had wide ranging repercussions on the nature and quality of human life across the planet. International, national and local level policies (in democratic geopolitical spaces at least), currently constitute a foundation for equity work. Such policies and changes notwithstanding, the continuing escalation of the outcomes of disparity, the failure of institutions in their provision of equitable education, health care, and other services (even in global North settings in Scandinavia), and recent alarm reports, together call attention to the role that research plays and what research has focused and continues to focus upon vis-à-vis issues of equity and marginalization. This volume attempts to unpackage dimensions related to the type of research endeavors that have been themselves marginalized in the epistemological enterprise. Furthermore, while it is easy to identify and be critical of the lack of coordination of institutional efforts that contribute to the marginalization of large numbers of individuals in the 21st century, I will—together with the scholars whose work is presented in this volume—make the case, that a significant step in the epistemological enterprise lies in going beyond issues of marginalization and normalization as categories deployed for the identification of children, young people or adults. The research that is show-cased in this book attempts to highlight how curtailing the categories of marginalization (and normalization) themselves are. By center-staging processes, participation patterns and membership in social practices across sites and across identity domains, the research presented in this book builds the case for an alternative way of conceptualizing the performance of marginalization (and normalization) empirically. This book has emerged out of a series of dialogues between scholars who have visited the CCD research environment on different occasions and who have contributed to one another’s (and CCD members’) thinking in the areas of Communication, Culture and Diversity across the last two decades. More specifically, two activities on the theme of Marginalization Processes organized in 2011 and 2013, with support from the Swedish Research Council and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at

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Örebro University, Sweden, comprised the contexts for a series of conversations that have resulted in the creation of this book. A third activity on the expanded theme of Revisiting Identity, Marginalization and Bilingualism organized in 2014, also with support from the Swedish Research Council and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Örebro University, Sweden, contributed to these dialogues. Scholars from the global North and global South—including the North in the South and the South in the North—have enrichened these dialogues from their specific domains of expertise and vantage points. I wish to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to the coordinators, the leaders and the administrators of the CCD research group during the organization of these events as well as the hosting of the international and national scholars attached to the environment across the years 2011-2015. The CCD research group has evolved into an international network-based environment that has, since 2016, moved to Jönköping University in Sweden (www.ju.se/ccd). I would also like to thank the editorial support team at Cambridge Scholars Publishing, and, in particular, Anthony Wright and Victoria Carruthers who have provided timely and efficient guidance in navigating desk-top editorial work. Finally, I would like to extend a warm thanks to Guy Karnung—for his generosity and willingness to participate in so many aspects related to this book.

Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta August 2017 Jönköping and Vintrosa Sweden

FOREWORD

Let me begin this Foreword by sharing an impression that has lingered with me. I had the privilege of being a part of the Communication, Culture and Diversity (CCD) Research Group during a three-month stint as Senior Visiting Scholar at Örebro University in Sweden, where visitors included professors Sheila Ridell from Edinburgh and Ofelia Garcia from New York. What struck me most about the CCD during my participation at the International Symposium on Revisiting Identity, Marginalization and Bilingualism was the group’s sensitivity towards inclusion, equity and diversity. What added to its exclusivity was the active presence and academic contribution of the Swedish Sign Language interpreters who made it possible for deaf and hearing scholars to participate. This was a defining moment for me—it defined what is not marginalization and exclusion. The emancipatory power of education is undeniable. Education strives to be a driving force in the “righting of wrongs” in countries that are part of postcolonial experiences. Issues of heterogeneity, complexity and diversity of languages and cultures, problems of access, equity and inclusivity in education and a highly stratified socio-economic class, which privileges some and excludes others, pose great challenges for education. Many contributions in this volume address the issue of marginalization in educational settings. However, from my location in India and from its postcolonial experiences, I feel that two issues need particular focus in the context of education. Firstly, how an absence of any public awareness of the sociolinguistics of language diversity facilitates the use of language as a tool for exploitation and marginalization, including a source of discrimination in education. Secondly, how education for all, embodied in the Right to Education act in India relates to principles and practices of inclusion. Our faith and commitment to the scientific study of language has provided an intricate understanding of the everyday structure of language; its acquisition, development and changes over a period of time and space, in effect what it means to know a language, what it means to be bilingual, etc. Cognitive and social advances in the analysis and understanding of language use have shed light on the role of language in perpetuating inequalities among stigmatized groups. Research in linguistics has also

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advanced our understanding of the functions of language; thus, language does not merely provide labels and descriptions, it has multi-functions. But these advances in our understandings of language have not been realized when dealing with the issue of language in education, and have, thus, largely remained confined to academic discussion. When it comes to classroom teaching, not only do we find that students know little about language; even teachers are somewhat ill-equipped as far as the sociology and politics of diversity are concerned. They continue to articulate myths, beliefs, attitudes and stereotypes that are ideologically impregnated and purposely constructed to promote the interests of the dominant group. During my frequent field visits to study the state of language in education, I have found that teachers engaged in the teaching of language do not have a contemporary understanding of language—irrespective of whether it is the language of the home or other languages. These have not only allowed a language hierarchy and, by implication, a hierarchy in education to prevail but, in turn, have also unleashed ‘symbolic violence’ by producing and reproducing the homogeneity of dominant values through the school media that privileges certain understandings vis-àvis language: the hegemonic role of language that socially legitimizes a pecking order in which non-dominant mother tongues stand marginalized. Like the Salamanca Statement on Principles, Policy and Practice in Special Needs Education (1994), in India, the Rajya Sabha passed, on 20th July 2009, The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Bill 2009 (Bill No. LXV-C of 2008). The bill guaranteed the fundamental right to quality education and mandated, as far as practicable, medium of instructions shall be in child's mother tongue (Chapter V: Curriculum and Completion of Elementary Education 29.2.1.f.) The absolutist language of rights and moral imperatives get diluted in the text when it comes to the use of the mother tongue, which marks a double use of the modal shall and a hedge as far as practicable, thus allowing for a gap between principles and practices of equity and inclusion. Language is inherently political and its grammaticality is intrinsically a political affair. Social presentation and representation in discourse invariably intends political import as a handy tool that furthers the interest of powerful groups engaged in marginalization and exclusivity. It profiles humans rather than behavior and positions the subject in relation to the self and others by legitimizing identity processes. Discursive storylines used in the media as a platform of public discourse not only locate people within social relationships but also generate social representations that can be exclusive and marginalized, or inclusive and equity-based. History is replete with instances of positioning in discourse. For instance, let us

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consider the reportage that covered the valiant act of the former US Marine Sergeant, Imran Yousuf, who saved dozens of people during the massacre in an Orlando nightclub in June 2016 (Daily News, U.S. News). The identity of Yousuf, born to a Hindu mother and a Muslim father, is fused with that of his mother’s but not the father’s Muslim identity. One can enquire whether such positioning refrains from attributing an act of valiance and compassion to one who bears any semblance to a Muslim. Language use and meaning construction lead critical discourse analysts to explore if such identity positioning and social representation are merely a contribution towards social knowledge claims. Or whether it is a reflection of the principle of marginalization and exclusion, which is marked by complete disregard for Julia Kristeva’s humanistic ethical-political program that advocates joint citizenship for everyone. My first interaction with professor Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta goes back to 2010 at the International Conference on Language, Culture and Identity organized by the Department of Linguistics at Aligarh Muslim University, in Aligarh, India. It culminated in the publication of Alternative Voices: (Re)searching Language, Culture, Identity… published by CSP. I am happy that our academic commitment continues and the invitation to write a Foreword for this stimulating volume reflects the continuity of our collaborative venture. Over a period of two decades the CCD Research Group has been engaged in organizing international events where scholars from both within and outside the geopolitical spaces of Europe have been invited to share their experiences on activities of marginalization in everyday life in different settings. The book emerged out of a series of dialogues and deliberations during the three international multidisciplinary events—two on the theme of Marginalization Processes (MP) and a third on the expanded theme of Revisiting Identity, Marginalization and Bilingualism—organized by the CCD network-based research environment. This scholarly and outstanding contribution of a multidisciplinary nature presents comprehensive accounts of inclusion-exclusion focusing on a range of issues of marginalization inside, outside and across school and adult educational settings. It investigates the complexities of power differentials and the hegemonic order of varieties of languages spoken by the borderlanders. This makes this volume informative, pleasurable and an exciting read. S. Imtiaz Hasnain Professor of Sociolinguistics Department of Linguistics Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh India

INTRODUCTION: STUDIES OF MARGINALIZATION PROCESSES AND PARTICIPATION ACROSS SITES SANGEETA BAGGA-GUPTA

‘[D]ifference’ is by definition manifold and fluid. […] the idea of difference cannot be thought or organized along a single (say, cultural or biological) axis. Distributed along multiple grids, it comes in innumerable forms, appearing differently in different places: malleable, evolving elements and tendencies that come into view and disappear, change, coalesce, and reappear, in other forms, amid other networks, in other contexts. Thus, the idea of difference signals fundamentally and importantly, a history and politics of becoming—not of the already normalized, stable and relatively immutable (Pandey 2011, 1, emphasis in original).

1. Researching “becoming” Considerable analytical attention has been (and continues to be) focused upon issues of marginalization and participation across disciplines and research domains. A range of theoretical perspectives as well as methodological framings have been deployed in this enterprise. Recognition is accorded to the fact that aspects like the reach and quality of institutionalized support systems, for instance schools, health services, equity agencies, work agencies, etc. in democratic societies are central for the wellbeing and development of human beings. However, the nature and relevance of opportunities that human beings—children, young people and adults—have access to, is a question that goes beyond issues of policy, availability and provision. Theorizing here from framings that focus on processes and what Pandey emphasizes in the opening quote in this book in terms of “becoming”, is relevant and a dimension that is itself marginalized in a large part of the research enterprise. The research presented in this volume attempts to align itself to alternative traditions in specific ways by focusing upon Marginalization Processes across Different Settins, including peoples’ membership and

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Introduction

participation across settings, sites and institutional contexts. For instance, some of the work presented here complements a sociocultural/dialogical perspective on communication and performativity (Bakhtin 1986, Butler 1990, Linell 2009, Säljö 2015, Wertsch 1998) with a decolonial framing on identity, belonging and positionality (Bagga-Gupta 2013, 2014, BaggaGupta, Hansen and Feilberg 2017, Butler and Spivak 2007, Canagarajah 2013, Hasnain, Bagga-Gupta and Mohan 2013). Issues of marginalization and power differentials articulated in decolonial theorizing become relevant for global North spaces (like geopolitical spaces within the changing contours of Europe), given that the interrelated nature of identity, communication and socialization is understood as actively constituted in life across institutions, communities of practices and contacts (BaggaGupta, Hansen and Feilberg 2017, Canagarajah 2013). This implies that marginalization (and normalization) cannot merely be understood as something that exists or takes place in a social vacuum or in some neutral fashion in specific places (Bagga-Gupta 2017a, 2017b). Such analytical positions draw upon assumptions wherein human beings, including children, are viewed as giving meaning to, interpreting and creating realities through their participation in practices that are layered in power relationships. Furthermore, instead of focusing upon the characteristics of individuals, the analytical scrutiny in such perspectives is upon sociocultural processes that play out in practices where individuals actively participate in a range of settings inside and outside institutions. Also, since socialization entails the “appropriation of the intellectual tools and skills of the surrounding cultural community”, studying “the role of the formal institutions of society and the informal interactions of its members [are seen] as central to the process of […] development” (Rogoff 1990, 11, Säljö 2015), transitions and becoming. This implies that marginalization (including normalization) is performed and constituted through the opportunities (and barriers) that an individual or members of a group have access to and can engage with. From such a point of departure, human beings’ lives, including the lives of children and young people, can be understood in terms of the cultural resources that create possibilities (or hindrances) for participation broadly, and learning specifically, within the framework of situated practices. The marginalization or normalization of identity-positions thus gets conceptualized not as attributes (like handicapness or genderness or nationhood, etc.) human beings carry with them in a hidden or passive fashion. Rather, these constitute dimensions that a human being in general, and a child/young person more specifically, is endowed with, in and

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through social practices where an individual dialectically “lives up to” the framings made available in and through institutional settings (Antaki and Widdicombe 1998, Bagga-Gupta, Hansen and Feilberg 2017).

2. The constitution of marginalization—An explicit focus The work presented in this book attempts to focus on the constitution of marginalization inside, outside and across a range of settings, including institutional contexts. In other words, it attempts to center-stage marginalization as action in the human world. Going beyond a focus on the marginalized or explanations of marginalization or comparing groups of the marginalized with the non-marginalized, many contributions in the book focus on mundane processes inside, outside and across institutional settings in different geopolitical spaces. These contributions bring to bear the nature of the performance of marginalization in everyday life. Other contributions in the book demonstrate the marginalization of specific analytical foci in the research process or the hegemonies of national highstake testing protocols or how specific dialects play out in different geopolitical regions or in domains such as the sporting arena. While a significant number of contributions in this book build upon empirical data where so called “authentic” social practices are center-staged, analysis of narrative reporting, philosophically pushed analysis as well as quantitative data are also engaged with in some chapters; the analytical effort focuses upon marginalization processes at and across micro, meso and macroscales of practices. The significance of these processes lies in that they shape and influence opportunities that human beings—children, young people and/or adults—can potentially access inside, outside and across institutional arenas. Building upon research conducted in a diverse range of settings, primarily (but not only) in the geopolitical spaces of Europe, the individual contributions in this book have been reviewed and selected from drafts discussed at the first two of three international multidisciplinary academic events on the theme of Marginalization Processes organized by the Communication, Culture and Diversity, CCD network-based research environment in 2011 and 2013, when it was situated at Örebro, Sweden.1 These international events received support from the Swedish Research Council and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Örebro University, Sweden. The two events brought together interests within parallel research projects within CCD where issues regarding communicative processes, participation, learning, culture and diversity were center-staged theoretically from ethnographically framed work.

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Introduction

Taking the research that has been built up at the CCD research environment since the end of the 20th century as a point of departure, including an interest in the complexities that mark present day societies— for instance digital, social and cultural shifts and an increasing pace of change and diversification that interfaces at global, national and local levels—the two events on the theme marginalization processes had the following explicit aims: x Enable a discussion of research results from different perspectives representing different domains and disciplines that build upon micro-meso-macro scales and/or historical studies of marginalization processes and how these contribute to renewed understandings of institutionalized education, health care and other support systems. x Provide a platform for discussing methodological and conceptual issues of relevance for marginalization processes in the light of local, regional and global changes, diversification and mobility across time and space. Building upon a peer-reviewed selection of drafts from the two international academic events, this book thus endeavors to center-stage empirically framed, socially theorized research that focuses upon social and communicatively oriented processes that marginalize children, young people and adults in a range of settings. A parallel aim is to highlight examples of multidisciplinary research contributions from different academic domains where the common ground is an interest in issues of inclusion/exclusion, integration/segregation from social, interactional and historical perspectives. Within the overarching theme of marginalization processes, the chapters in this volume focus upon the overlapping areas of Educational Sciences and Language Sciences from social, interactional and/or sociohistorical frameworks. The individual contributions report from empirical studies that have been conducted inside, outside and across institutional settings like classrooms, remedial services, integration facilities, etc. in different geopolitical contexts. The analyses in these contributions highlight the significance of social interaction between the members of different settings and between participants and cultural tools. Representational issues related to research reporting and how these in themselves marginalize specific interpretations of data and analysis are also highlighted in some of the contributions. Focusing upon language varieties as mediating tools, some contributions highlight the interface

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between actors or actors-in-settings-with-tools. The contributions that focus more centrally upon educational institutions take different perspectives and/or scales as points of departure: actors’ perspectives, organizational and/or policy perspectives, historical perspectives, etc. The outcomes of the studies presented in this book contribute to knowledge about how institutional settings are shaped, both in the interplay between participants and between participants and tools across time and space, thus throwing light on the (co)constitution of the social world. Furthermore, some of the studies contribute to knowledge regarding how the social world is shaped specifically in and through verbal/written/gestural interaction. While all the 16 contributions focus on the overarching theme of marginalization processes, each contributes more specifically to one or more of the following three scientific domains: x Social interaction: These contributions are empirical in nature and data analyzed comes from in situ settings. The analyses highlight social interaction, including multimodal dimensions of human interaction. These studies contribute to knowledge about how the social world is shaped interactionally. x Language sciences: These contributions focus on language varieties in terms of mediating tools between participants and the coconstruction of contexts themselves. These studies contribute to knowledge about how the social world is shaped through oral, written, signed and embodied interactions in concert with the use of tools in different settings. x Educational sciences: These contributions focus on institutional settings (the compulsory school level and adult educational levels, including policy settings). The institutional setting is scrutinized from participants’ perspectives or an organizational perspective. These studies contribute to knowledge regarding how institutional settings are shaped in the interplay between participants as well as between micro-meso-macro scales in the co-construction of settings.

3. Book sections The book “Marginalization Processes across Different Settings. Going beyond the Mainstream” includes 16 chapters. These are presented within the following four thematically framed sections:

Introduction

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Part I: Part II: Part III: Part IV:

Inclusion-Exclusion—Country Case Studies Marginalization Inside, Outside and Across School Settings Marginalization Inside, Outside and Across Adult Educational Settings Language Related Hegemonies Across Settings

All four sections present empirically framed sociocultural and/or sociohistorical studies that focus upon communicatively oriented micro, meso and/or macro processes that marginalize (and normalize) children, young people and adults in different geopolitical and/or institutional settings.

Part I Part I, Inclusion-Exclusion—Country Case Studies, includes two chapters that focus on the nation-states of Norway and Sweden. Against the backdrop of the work of the multidisciplinary scholar Julia Kristeva, Berit Helene Johnsen’s contribution, titled Julia Kristeva and MetaReflections on Inclusive and Marginalizing Processes: On the Gap between Principles and Practice, brings together the historical roots and the current situation in the nation-state of Norway. Building on the UNESCO Salamanca Statement (1994) that highlights the conditions for children with disabilities and learning difficulties and that focuses on their rights and needs in the “school for all”, Johnsen critically points out that while educational inclusion was introduced internationally over two decades ago, no nation-state seems to have achieved “full” educational inclusion. On the contrary, various marginalizing processes continue to create barriers to a meaningful education-for-all. Chapter 1, thus, focuses upon the complex and contradictory relationship between efforts to develop inclusive schools and marginalization processes that continue to mark many, if not most, societal contexts. The central issue that Johnsen focuses on, thus, relates to the gap between the principles and practices of inclusion. Building upon a qualitative study, her contribution explores texts, including political documents and selected studies of school practices. The historical perspective here borders on genealogy with its multiple approaches to the issue of inclusion. Johnsen introduces the work of the Bulgarian-French philosopher— Julia Kristeva—in the first part of her chapter, in an effort to unpack the situation in Norway. She highlights that Julia Kristeva has not only criticized the inability to operationalize the principles of inclusion, but has

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also developed a sophisticated analysis of marginalization processes in the meetings between individuals with and without perceived disabilities. Furthermore, Julia Kristeva’s work is followed up by arguments for a renewed humanistic ethical-political program where respect for the joint citizenship of everyone is central. The second part of the chapter explores the case of Norway against the backdrop of the international situation. Johnsen gives recognition to the fact that the Nordic countries are seen as pioneers in the development of social and educational inclusion— especially when it comes to legislation and the adaptation of educational structures with regards to the principle of inclusion. She nuances this picture by drawing upon current empirical studies that indicate a serious gap between official intentions and practices in many educational sites. By drawing upon Kristeva’s argumentation, Johnsen highlights that an individual orientation and a cultural-social mentality towards the stranger—irrespective of whether the stranger is an immigrant or a disabled person—constitute serious barriers for bridging the gap between official intentions and inclusive educational practices. In Chapter 2, Focus on Special Educational Support in Swedish High Schools: Provision Within or Outside the Students’ Regular Classes?, Joacim Ramberg presents a case study of the nature of special educational services that are provided in the nation-state of Sweden in the 21st century. Ramberg argues that support activities and how they are organized are important factors for both supporting students at risk of not achieving educational goals and for preventing students from dropping out of the school system. Taking international and national school policy documents that advocate support provision within the student’s regular class or teaching group as a point of departure, Chapter 2 focuses on both the site of this provision and by which professional group of special educationists this provision is made available. The empirical data that is focused upon in the study is taken from a cross-sectional total population survey that covered all high schools (N=950) in Sweden during the academic school year 2010/2011. The response rate for the survey was 80.4 percent, implying that 764 schools were included in the study. The large majority of schools report, and confirm previous findings, that provision continues to be provided in segregated settings outside the young people’s regular class setting. Ramberg highlights that a large proportion of young people leave high school without completing their formal grades not only in Sweden but also in many other parts of Europe. The opportunities for these students to establish themselves in the labor market are highly limited. The chapter argues that while support provided by schools is significant for

8

Introduction

minimizing the number of drop outs, the location where support is provided is significant. The gap between the inclusive rationale highlighted in policies and the accounts of social practices in the data in this study, are similar to the findings for the Norwegian case presented in Chapter 1. The two different locations of support are further discussed in the context of the concepts social exclusion and inclusion, including their implications for pupils’ transitions to adulthood.

Part II The second section of the book Part II, Marginalization Inside, Outside and Across School Settings, is organized around a cluster of six chapters. Eva Hjörne, in Chapter 3, ADHD in the Classroom: A Pedagogy and its Paradoxes, presents an overview of pedagogical practices developed in schools in response to the diagnosis of ADHD. This ethnographically framed case study focuses upon a small group of 7–12-year-old children who have received the neuropsychiatric diagnosis ADHD. The data analyzed consists of participant observations, field notes and audiorecorded interviews, during one school year. Hjörne shows and discusses the nature of educational arrangements that are currently considered suitable for these children in the nation-state of Sweden. These include a focus on segregation strategies, a rigid “structure”, behavioral interventions related to the core symptoms of the disorder, i.e., attention problems, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. These adaptations are accounted for in terms of being relevant for the goal of returning to a “normal” class at some time in the future. A salient ambition identified in the analysis is making the diagnosed pupils aware of their identity in terms of being an “ADHD-pupil”, including learning to monitor their expected shortcomings i.e. the symptoms attached to the diagnosis ADHD. Hjörne highlights the paradox related to the processes involved in first segregating pupils into special groups (e.g. the ADHD-class), away from the “normal” pupils and then practicing shortcomings—a process that itself creates an identity of a pupil who is “less-than-normal”, all within a-school-for-all where the explicit goal is to include everyone. Focusing on the educational interpreter’s role in informal group-work activities between deaf high-school students and their hearing peers, Sigrid Slettebakk Berge and Patrick Stefan Kermit, in Chapter 4, highlight challenges faced in mainstream settings where interpreters work. Informal group-work activities are, in the chapter, Deaf Students’ Access to Informal Group-Work Activities Seen in Light of the Educational Interpreter’s Role, framed in terms of “work-and-talk” situations that

Marginalization Processes across Different Settings

9

emerge spontaneously during small group student-work phases. This type of activity was repeatedly described by the interpreters as challenging in their mediational roles. It was also identified as closely linked to deaf students’ possibilities for participation. The chapter identifies and discusses the dialogical structures that create challenges in an interpreter’s work in mediating informal group-work situations where students with and without hearing loss are members. The empirical data come from a qualitative classroom study in the nation-state of Norway, and are made up of observations, video-recordings, and interviews. Four thematic categories that emerge in the interpreters’ accounts vis-à-vis performing their work include student’s unclear membership status, spatial arrangements, parallel dialogues and activities, and, their back-stage access. Berge and Kermit raise important issues related to inclusive practices in terms of interpreters’ and teachers’ teamwork efforts and responsibilities in educational spaces. In Chapter 5, titled “Letting the Natural Happen”: Stacking Neuroscience against Signed Language Bilingualism in the Context of Pediatric CIs, Lakshmi Fjord unpacks the processes involved in the corrective surgeries and post-operative rehabilitation support services for infants who receive technologically advanced hearing aids, cochlear implants, CIs, on the one hand, and the medical professions’ presentations of the outcomes of the surgeries, on the other hand. In 1990, many technologically advanced nation-states approved the use of CIs in children aged two and older. The issue that was salient at that specific time was related to what “first” language the hearing parents of these children should use when they were planning for their children to receive CIs at two years of age or older with the purpose of ensuring their neural linguistic and social-emotional development. The study presented in this chapter builds upon five years of comparative cross-cultural ethnographic research with hearing parents, CI providers, culturally D/deaf adults, and teachers in the nation-states of U.S., Denmark, Sweden and Norway. A near-historical study, its significance concerns young adults implanted at a very young age and who have come of age and “talk back” to proscriptions of signed languages with pediatric CIs. Fjord highlights how, under the pressure of globalized science produced by prestigious CI-centers, Scandinavian preferences for bilingual signed/spoken communication approaches shifted away from signing with young recipients of CI. Fjord’s work critically focuses on the globalization of an auditoryverbal only pre- and post-implantation approach that extinguished and even stigmatized alternative, bilingual approaches of using signed and spoken languages. By examining marketing discourse as produced in talk with parents in clinics or to university audiences, the mechanisms used to

10

Introduction

shift public ethics from privileging signed languages, to seeing them as threats to CI young children learning to hear and speak are illustrated as becoming transparent. Neuroscience data about adult deaf signers’ hemispheric changes used to claim that seeing/signing fights for scarce hemispheric geography with hearing/speaking in children belie, Fjord argues, growing data about children’s immense neural plasticity. Yet, active suppression of bilingual post-implant outcomes research, Fjord highlights, shaped what counts as science in this arena, masking underlying financial biases. Alternative, non-dualistic research on approaches that more closely match the complexity and fluidity of language uses and desires in speech communities point to the need for comparative effectiveness and alternative ethnographically framed studies in this context. Ingela Holmström and Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta, in Chapter 6, focus upon dimensions of marginalization processes that play out in the primary grades of mainstream school settings in the nation-state of Sweden. These schools have witnessed a sharp increase in the enrollment of deaf pupils with cochlear implants (CIs). The study presented in Chapter 6, “Va sa han?”: Technologies and Participation Strategies in Mainstream School Settings, focuses on the communicative strategies that can be observed in mainstream classrooms where pupils with CIs are members. The empirical ethnographic data comes from two mainstream classrooms where pupils and adults use a range of technologies, and strategies, (co)creating opportunities for communicating and learning in everyday classroom life. Holmström and Bagga-Gupta illustrate their findings through expanded transcription systems and highlight that pupils with CIs are responsible for their own communicative participation in mainstream classrooms (when they can’t make sense of or don’t hear oral talk). Their analyses also show that pupils’ rights to choose or regulate their own communication channels are not uncommonly curtailed by the adults. Different technologies play an important role in mainstream classrooms where pupils with CIs are members but these, at the same time, sometimes create barriers for participation. Holmström and Bagga-Gupta highlight that technologies therefore cannot be seen merely in terms of a panacea for pupils with CIs in mainstream educational settings. Continuing under the theme of Marginalization Inside, Outside and Across School Settings, Sara A. Goico in Chapter 7, examines how marginalization is conceptualized in academic and educational circles, through an analysis of the interactions of a deaf student with no access to the majority oral language used in an all-hearing classroom setting in the nation-state of Peru. The specific social situation presented in the chapter

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would appear to be one of unequivocal marginalization: the student is the only deaf individual in an entire school of hearing teachers and students, and does not receive any “visually-oriented” (Bagga-Gupta 2004) support services to navigate the academic material. Nevertheless, Goico shows that the deaf student appears comfortable with her surroundings, actively participating in and (apparently) unconfused by the classroom routines. Goico’s study, titled Marginalization as a Dynamic Process: The Microanalysis of Interactions of a Deaf Student in a Mainstream Classroom, discusses how this seemingly contradictory data can be understood by taking a model of marginalization as a point of departure. She argues for a continuum of perspectives in this model, where the two ends are represented by the treatment of marginalization in terms of a static state, to seeing it as a dynamic process. Goico argues that her empirical investigation yields two significant findings that call attention to the latter end of the continuum. Firstly, she emphasizes that interactions among individuals are the sites of marginalization. Secondly, because interactions are characterized by their emergent properties, with each interaction there is a new context and new participants, therefore, the center and margins, as well as where individuals fall in relation to them, are not static. These form the basis for the constant state of negotiation for what is marginalization. The microanalysis of mundane interactions presented in this chapter (and other chapters in this book) provide a useful tool for illustrating the fluid and dynamic processes of marginalization. The resulting understanding afforded by such a perspective is particularly enlightening, not only for researchers investigating marginalization, but also for policy makers and teachers trying to address the negative effects of marginalization in the classroom. The final contribution in Part II, Chapter 8 by Alison Fielding, explores the meanings of inclusion though the use of narrative and biographical approaches in the context of a small-scale study into the experiences of young people in one school in the geopolitical spaces of England. Fielding argues that the value of a small-scale research project with a narrative focus lies in the recognition of emerging themes, relevant to a specific group which may inform further research, rather than in the generalizability of findings. An important point of departure for Fielding is the invisibility accorded to the “voice” of members of disadvantaged and marginalized groups in general, and that of young people in particular. The chapter, A Fairer Future? In Search of New Meanings of Inclusion for Marginalized Young People: In Their Own Words, presents the analysis of a recorded focus group discussion based around the themes of what young people hope to achieve in life, what obstacles they face, what

12

Introduction

life spheres they aspire to change for the better, including both how and what societal instances could facilitate such changes. Fielding discusses three primary themes of concern that young people report: the pressure to do well in education and achieve academically; concerns for their future, including special concerns vis-à-vis opportunities for higher studies; and, young people’s political awareness. Fielding argues for the need of ensuring the continued engagement of young people in shaping their own futures and supporting their political commitment as a means to this end.

Part III The next section of the book, Part III, builds upon research presented in three chapters on the theme of Marginalization Inside, Outside and Across Adult Educational Settings. Chapter 9, Becoming an Immigrant in the Language Learning Classroom: Intersections of Gender and National Identity, focuses upon the processes involved in becoming an immigrant in and through a tailored language education for new citizens in the geopolitical spaces of Sweden. Throwing critical light upon adult educational settings where refugees and new citizens are taught Swedish, Jenny Rosén takes sociohistorical, postcolonial and intersectional points of departure in the study presented in this chapter. She examines the doing of identity-positions in two language learning classrooms in the program Swedish for immigrants (SFI). Rosén argues that language learning involves the investment of one’s identity as well as its transformation, as students negotiate their position in relation to the community of practice in which they are obliged to participate in. Thus, learning a new language, for instance in the context of a specific language program, involves a transformation of identity-positions, as people negotiate who to become in their new community. A tailored education for immigrants, SFI, has been an established program in Sweden since 1965, free of charge for people categorized as belonging to the target group. The education is organized at the municipal level, delivered through an adult education program organized either by the municipality or by private agencies. Using an ethnographic framework, Rosén highlights how questions concerned with gender equality become important markers for constructing binary oppositions between modern and traditional, good and bad, Swedes and immigrants. She illustrates the complex relationship between gender equality and integration policies in terms of how these are embedded in the everyday conversations in the SFI classroom (as well as how the perception of gender equality becomes a central part of “Swedishness”). Interestingly, the study shows how the

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discourse about empowering immigrant women strengthens images of the modern, gender equal nation-state of Sweden. This is related to the hierarchical division at work between the two imagined collectives—that of pure Swedes and immigrants—where the former not only have the power to define what gender equality is, but can also define the mission to educate the less competent ones, the immigrants. Thus, while individuals positioned as Swedes are given both voice and agency, those positioned as immigrants are marginalized in layered ways. In Chapter 10, Educating Deaf Teachers for Inclusion: Inclusive Education for Deaf Teachers, Aase Lyngvær Hansen discusses the nature of, and the challenges involved in, educating deaf teachers for inclusion and how these in turn may shape inclusive education for deaf teachers. The chapter is based upon ethnographic data from a four-year research project conducted at a university college within a faculty of teacher and interpreter education in the nation-state of Norway. While the university college has a tradition of teaching deaf students, the number of students enrolled at any given time is usually only a handful. This means that their education is adapted in some ways and constitutes a challenge in terms of inclusion itself in this educational setting. The study presented in Chapter 10 focuses on mundane social practices as well as participants’ accounts of their lives within this institution. The empirical materials explored include videotaped classroom interactions in three different learning contexts and videotaped interviews with the students, their teachers and interpreters. The analyses presented focus upon the types of practices that deaf teacher students experienced as including and excluding; and whether and in what ways these experiences influenced the students in their own work for an inclusive education for deaf pupils, both in schools for the deaf and in mainstreamed schools. Hansen highlights an important current challenge for the education of deaf individuals: how best to create learning environments that support cooperation, participation and recognition. Focusing on the issue of language access, she shows that the deaf student teachers profit by belonging to a group when they have access to a teacher who is competent in Norwegian Sign Language and when they have access to an organized interpreter service. Analyses of interaction and language-use in the three classroom settings that are focused upon in this chapter reveals practices that are more accessible and those that are marginalizing. In the final contribution in Part III, Jane Evershed in Chapter 11, Out of Bounds: Boundary, Complexity and Marginalization Processes in Adult Education, theorizes marginalization processes by focusing on the concepts of boundaries and complexity. Evershed argues that decisions

14

Introduction

about the targeting and distribution of monetary and other resources aimed at ameliorating social marginalization and exclusion are frequently based on the analysis of metrics which become conceptualized as concrete, spatial boundaries surrounding communities regarded as disadvantaged. These borders, based on economic indicators, educational achievement or other factors, spatially enclose and come to represent homogeneity between different groups of people living, working and learning within them. The study presented in the chapter empirically examines some of the impacts that the rationalization and organization of educational resources can have from the perspectives of adult learners who live in a small town in the nation-state of England. The respondents share their thoughts, experiences and insights during a period of transition in national inclusion policy in the post-compulsory and pre-school learning sectors, following the closure of their local learning center and changes to the structure of lifelong adult learning provision in the town. Their stories highlight how the conception of static boundaries can act to hide and make ‘invisible’ education that does not fall within recognised social, political or academic boundaries. Evershed describes the complexity of learning and living through structures that are more psychologically and temporally nuanced than those afforded by simplistic, static and representational boundaries. In line with the analyses presented in many other chapters in this book, this chapter reveals the importance of reframing existing ontological and epistemological practices to incorporate notions of fluidity and complexity for understanding marginalization and inclusion.

Part IV Five chapters make up the final section of this book. Part IV centerstages issues concerning the theme Language Related Hegemonies Across Settings. In Chapter 12, titled Two Groups, Two Worlds: Italian and German in Bozen, South Tyrol, Chiara Meluzzi highlights the complex world of individuals who live at the borderlands of different language varieties inside, outside and across different institutions. This chapter explores the linguistic perception and identity of a group of Italian speakers in the multilingual town of Bolzano/Bozen in the region of South Tyrol. This area is an interesting site for the investigation of language attitudes and linguistic minorities. The study presented in this chapter highlights how the distribution of language varieties within South Tyrol and the town of Bozen explicitly influences speakers’ perceptions of and attitudes towards Italian and German. The chapter is based upon a corpus

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of 42 interviews where the analysis builds upon a discursive Folk Linguistic approach. Meluzzi reports that speakers in the Italian districts display a negative attitude towards German spoken in South Tyrol, by defining the latter in “colourful terms”. Furthermore, many speakers consider Italian as a linguistic minority in South Tyrol, even if German is usually considered a minority language at the national level in the geopolitical spaces of Italy. Thus, data on speakers’ language attitudes seem to endorse the hypothesis that a dynamic of segregation and some marginalization processes continue to be present in some districts of Bozen. Furthermore, the case is made that this condition shapes the linguistic perceptions of the language of the “other” and negatively influences the learning of German. Turning attention to the nature of incorrect responses in high stake international testing, Jenny W. Folkeryd, Åsa af Geijerstam and Caroline Liberg raise issues related to sociolinguistically framed marginalization processes in Chapter 13, Different Kinds of Wrong: Marginalization Processes within a Reading Test. The study presented in this chapter takes its point of departure in the increased attention that is paid to international knowledge assessments. Swedish results in the tests, as well as the study designs that are used, shape political decisions about education in the nation-state of Sweden. The focus in the study presented in this chapter is the international reading survey PIRLS (Progress In Reading Literacy Survey) for 10-year-old students. From an international perspective, Swedish students read well. However, a slight decrease in students’ reading abilities has been noted recently in national as well as international tests. Socioeconomic changes in society as well as changes within the educational system are offered as explanations to account for this decline. Folkeryd, af Geijerstam and Liberg argue that the type of reading ability tested in such studies, and thereby the potential marginalization of certain types of reading, is seldom discussed. With this as a point of departure, the chapter focuses on the non-accepted student answers in PIRLS with the aim of investigating the norms of reading and reading comprehension constructed in these specific reading practices. Folkeryd, af Geijerstam and Liberg highlight an important marginalizing paradox: the nonaccepted answers from the students fall within a restricted number of categories where the answers, according to the scoring guide, are wrong because they are (i) incomplete or non-independent, (ii) based on an alternative interpretation of the text or the question, (iii) too specific, generalized or vague, or (iv) based on experiences rather than what is expressed in the text. This means that the types of reading that are based upon an alternative reading, as compared to the norms expressed in the

16

Introduction

scoring guide, are potentially marginalized in the test practice. The results presented in this study contribute to a discussion of the potential marginalization processes in inter/national reading tests more generally. Illuminating the norms construed in assessment practices and their possible consequences in terms of inclusion and exclusion become significant, given the increased importance of international knowledge assessments. Folkeryd, af Geijerstam and Liberg argue that such discussions can constitute the foundation for critically evaluating different types of reading practices more generally. In Chapter 14, titled Making Complexities (In)visible: Empiricallyderived Contributions to the Scholarly (Re)presentations of Social Interactions, Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta and Oliver St. John put the spotlight on representational hegemonies related to social interaction in academic contexts. They argue for more finely tuned attention to representations of social interaction in research so that complexities are not inadvertently made invisible. Transcripts aspiring to represent naturally occurring interaction mediate analytic insights into fleeting human communicative performances that routinely implicate oral, written and embodied dimensions in social action. Bagga-Gupta and St. John highlight that video technologies have introduced unprecedented opportunities to study interactional complexity in minute detail. Their study aims to exemplify how the level of detail attended to in transcriptional representations can expand or restrict video data-derived results and throw different analytic light on the constitutive features of interactional phenomena and their generic workings. Towards this aim, three different transcription formats are explored to represent classroom interaction from language focused lessons at a school setting in the nation-state of Sweden. The juxtaposition of representations of the same data-set in three different ways and analyses highlight that making body orientations across time and space as well as written language unavailable for scrutiny renders invisible integral sensemaking actions that bear consequentiality for participants. For the sake of emic and consequential analysis, Bagga-Gupta and St. John appeal for an endeavor to attend to the interdependence of multimodal social practices that are a routine part of naturally occurring interaction. Konrad SzczeĞniak and Cássio Leite Vieira, in Chapter 15, focus on selective perception on linguistic correctness. This chapter, titled Thou Shalt Not Judge: Selective Perception in Judgements of Linguistic Correctness, examines the effects of selective perception on acceptability judgments of informal-sounding expressions. The study explores the possibility that evaluations of a speaker’s linguistic performance may depend on the listener’s preconceived notions about the speaker’s social

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status and a range of related properties such as estimated educational background that is believed to be relevant to the speaker’s linguistic competence. SzczeĞniak and Vieira highlight that judgments of language production are not entirely objective or free from bias. The study presented in the chapter is based upon an acceptability judgment task that uses a five-point Likert scale, where participants in the nation-states of Brazil and Poland evaluated the acceptability of sentences in the language varieties Portuguese and Polish. The results obtained in both the nation-state settings illustrate that the same sentence can receive considerably different responses depending on who the subjects believe had authored a particular sentence. SzczeĞniak and Vieira suggest that the impression of acceptability and the evaluation decision, whether conscious or unconscious, are indeed contingent on the listener’s perception of the speaker’s non-linguistic characteristics, possibly compounding marginalization and discrimination processes. In the last chapter in this book, titled Marginalization as an Outcome of Minority Identity-Building: Multiple Voices towards Discursive Construction of Lazi Identity, Nazli E. Avdan and Jan Anward, investigate the discursive construction of an ethno-linguistic minority group, the Lazi, in the geopolitical spaces of Turkey. Avdan and Anward pay close attention to the different actors involved, the contexts in which various processes get played out, in an effort to understand marginalization as a possible outcome of minority identity-building. To this end selected texts by social actors involved in the Lazi identity-building process are studied through Critical Discourse Analysis. The analysis presented in Chapter 16 points towards three major findings. First, in the texts by non-Lazi voices, the Lazi are usually ignored. Second, when they are made visible, they are represented as either a component of a cluster of the “other” or, by Kurdish politicians, as “fellow victims of the Turkish status quo”. In other words, they are denied a distinct identity of their own. Third, the discourses of Lazi activists display a dilemma between a commitment to establish or re-establish a distinct Lazi identity, which emphasizes a distinct language and culture rooted in ancient history, while at the same time displaying a commitment to the unitary structure of Turkey. Avdan and Anward highlight that these types of dilemmas contribute to the marginalization of a distinct and bounded identity-position.

4. Progress. Researching marginalization processes and participation across sites Drawing attention to the fact that the center continues to define the margins, the work presented in this book joins research efforts that

18

Introduction

highlight the need to focus upon the constitution of marginalization in and across a wide range of sites with the explicit aim of going beyond static boundaries that define the human condition at different scales of becoming and beyond an understanding of development and progress in terms of a linear trajectory. Such a sentiment is echoed in the words of the Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) in “Crisis in Civilization and Other Essays”: We have for over a century been dragged by the prosperous […global North] behind its chariot, choked by the dust, deafened by the noise, humbled by our own helplessness, and overwhelmed by the speed. We agreed to acknowledge that this chariot-drive was progress, and that progress was civilization. If we ever ventured to ask, ‘Progress towards what, and progress for whom?’ it was considered to be peculiarly and ridiculously oriental to entertain such doubts about the absoluteness of progress. Of late, a voice has come to us bidding us to take count not only of the scientific perfection of the chariot but of the depth of the ditches lying across its path (2003, 20, emphasis added).

The research presented in the 16 chapters of this book, including the Foreword by S. Imtiaz Hasnain from Aligarh Muslim University and the Afterword by Sanjay Ranade from the University of Mumbai, illustrate different ways in which peculiarly framed questions regarding progress, processes and participation are asked, in an endeavor to contribute to an effort that relates to the current “Crisis in Civilization” across the global North and South, including the North in the South and the South in the North.

Notes 1

The CCD research environment has, since 2016, moved to Jönköping University. See www.ju.se/ccd.

References Antaki, Charles and Widdicombe, Sue. 1998. Identities in Talk. London: Sage. Bagga-Gupta, Sangeeta. 2013. “The Boundary-Turn: Relocating Language, Culture and Identity through the epistemological lenses of time, space and social interactions.” In Alternative Voices: (Re)searching Language, Culture, Identity…, edited by Imtiaz S. Hasnain, Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta and Shailendra Mohan, 28-49. Newcastle Upon Tyne:

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Cambridge Scholars Publishing. —. 2014. “Languaging: Ways-of-being-with-words across Disciplinary Boundaries and Empirical Sites.” In Language Contacts at the Crossroads of Disciplines, edited by Heli Paulasto, Lea Meriläinen, Helka Riionheimo and Maria Kok, 89-130. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. —. 2017a. “Languaging and Isms of reinforced boundaries across settings. Multidisciplinary Ethnographical Explorations.” In -isms of Oppression in Language Education. Volume 11 Series Language and Social Life, edited by Damian J. Rivers and Karin Zotzmann, 203-229. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. —. 2017b. “Language and Identity beyond the mainstream. Democratic and equity issues for and by whom, where, when and why.” Journal of the European Second Language Association, 1(1): 102-112. http://doi.org/10.22599/jesla.22 Bagga-Gupta, Sangeeta, Hansen, Aase Lyngvær and Feilberg, Julie, eds. 2017. Identity Revisited and Reimagined. Empirical and Theoretical Contributions across Time and Space. Rotterdam: Springer. Bakhtin, Michael. 1986. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Trans. Vern W. McGee. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge. Butler, Judith and Spivak, Gayatri. 2007. Who Sings the Nation-State? Language, Politics, Belonging. London: Seagull. Canagarajah, Suresh. 2013. “Agency and power in intercultural communication. Negotiating English in translocal spaces.” Language and Intercultural Communication, 13(2): 202-224. Hasnain, Imtiaz, Bagga-Gupta, Sangeeta and Mohan, Shailendra, eds. 2013. Alternative Voices. (Re)searching Language, Culture & Identity… Newcastle-upon-avon: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Linell, Per. 2009. Rethinking Language, Mind, and World Dialogically: Interactional and Contextual Theories of Human Sense-making. Charlotte: IAP. Pandey, Gyanendra. 2011. ”Introduction: the difference of subalternity.” In Subalternity and Difference. Investigations from the North and the South, edited by Gyanendra Pandey, 1-19. London: Routledge. Rogoff, Barbara. 1990. Apprenticeship in Thinking. Cognitive Development in Social Context. New York: Oxford University Press. Säljö, Roger. 2015. Lärande. En introduktion till perspektiv och metaforer [Learning. An introduction to perspectives and metaphors]. Mälmo: Gleerups.

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Introduction

Tagore, Rabindranath. 2003. Crisis in Civilization and Other Essays. New Delhi: Rupa and Co. UNESCO. 1994. The Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education. Paris: UNESCO. Wertsch, James. 1998. Mind as Action. New York: Oxford University Press.

PART I: INCLUSION-EXCLUSION— COUNTRY CASE STUDIES

CHAPTER ONE JULIA KRISTEVA AND META-REFLECTIONS ON INCLUSIVE AND MARGINALIZING PROCESSES: ON THE GAP BETWEEN PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE BERIT HELENE JOHNSEN

1. Introduction Education for all has been an international aim for many decades. The explicit purpose of the UNESCO Salamanca Statement on Special Needs Education and Inclusion (1994) was to change and extend regular school systems in order to give meaningful education that is tailor-made to children with a range of educational needs: ordinary as well as special. The principle of educational inclusion was introduced internationally in this document. The focus of this chapter lies in the complex and contradictory relationship between efforts to develop inclusive schools and marginalization processes that continue to transpire within many, if not most, cultural contexts. A scholar who has drawn attention to this problematic relationship is the Bulgarian-French philosopher Julia Kristeva. She has developed a sophisticated analysis of marginalization processes in the meeting between individuals with and without perceived disabilities, and has followed up the critique with arguments for a renewed humanistic ethical-political program focusing on inclusion and respect for joint citizenship. The first part of this chapter is devoted to Kristeva’s arguments, beginning with a general introduction to Kristeva and the international field of regular and special needs education. Inspired by Kristeva’s line of argument, the next part presents an account of the intersection of policies

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of inclusion and educational practices. In this section, the main focus is on Norway as a case study situated in a Nordic and wider international context. An implicit question in the study is whether and how Kristeva’s discussions can contribute to the Norwegian case. Thus, this chapter is based on a qualitative text-focused study that explores relevant Kristeva texts, political documents and selected studies of school practice. As such, it is reasonable to characterize it as a metastudy. Lines are drawn between historical roots and the current situation through documentation of and indications about historical conditions, ideas, traditions and mentalities. In this way, the historical perspective borders on genealogy, with multiple approaches to the issue in focus.

2. Julia Kristeva’s argument against marginalization and her program for inclusion Julia Kristeva supports the general international critique of inadequate efforts to realize disability rights. More importantly, she asks why realizing these rights are downgraded and even made invisible, moving on to a possible explanation in which her metaphor—“the stranger to ourselves”—has a central role. However, she also believes in changing mentalities and societies. Thus, she takes the issue one step further and argues for a vitalization of the enlightenment principle of liberty, equality and fraternity and extends it to the common individual, calling for societal recognition of human vulnerability. Her arguments are outlined and illustrated with Norwegian and other international examples in this chapter. Who is Julia Kristeva and what is the context in which she writes? Kristeva’s voice has been widely recognized for several decades within different yet related international discourses. However, since she is rather new to the educational inclusion discourse, the presentation of her line of argument starts with an introduction to her background and her main contributions to some of her fields of study.

2.1. Julia Kristeva Julia Kristeva was born in Bulgaria in 1941. She was educated by French nuns and learned the French language and culture early in life. At the same time, she was socialized into Marxist and Slavic cultures and educated in Russian language and literature. In 1966, she moved to Paris on a French-Bulgarian research fellowship. There, she continued her studies and worked under the supervision of Lucien Goldmann and Roland

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Barthes. By the time she published her PhD, titled La révolution du langage poétique (Revolution in Poetic Language, Kristeva 1997a), she had already published several texts. She also qualified as a clinical analyst and continued to practice in parallel with her academic work. Kristeva was employed at the Research Institute for Text and Document Studies at the University of Paris 7—Denis Diderot during her post-doctoral work. She continues to work there, currently as emerita, alongside her international engagements. Kristeva has attracted international recognition as well as criticism within several areas. She was awarded the first Holberg Prize Laureate in Norway 2004, and later received several other international awards. Kristeva came into the linguistic and literature theory community of Paris with “a guest’s ability” to notice the relationships between theorists from the eastern and western parts of Europe. She was welcomed in the politically radical Tel Quel group and soon became a central figure there. She worked with her fellow countryman, the French-Bulgarian philosopher and linguist Tzvetan Todorov, as well as with Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault and other renowned persons in the French scientific community. The May Revolution, which gave the designation of the ‘1968 Generation’ to intellectuals all over Europe, left its impact on Kristeva. She mentions this in an autobiographical essay in which she describes the central position of the Tel Quel group in the intellectual and political fermentation leading to the march towards the Sorbonne (Johnsen 2010a, 2011, Kristeva 1997b, Moi 1987, Oliver 1997, Witt-Brattström 1990). Kristeva’s texts are steeped in philosophical ideas. In her development of new ideas, she argues with references to older philosophers such as Kant and Hegel, as well as to current colleagues, and she gives Sigmund Freud’s and other psychoanalysts’ texts a central place in her analysis (as we will see below). The point of departure for Kristeva’s ethical-political program is a psychoanalytical analysis of the relationship between the single person’s or subject’s inner psyche and social consciousness.

2.2. Kristeva on the marginalizing meeting In her letter to President Chirac concerning persons with disabilities, Kristeva (2008) highlights the meeting between the disabled and nondisabled person. She draws attention to indifference and fear as all too frequent aspects of the spontaneous attitude towards persons with disabilities, and argues that the disabled person appears as a stranger in the meeting with the non-disabled. Persons with disabilities are not even

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excluded in the same way as others, she argues: more than those who are excluded due to economy, culture or religion, the disabled person confronts us with our anxiety over our own vulnerability, our own lack of ability and even our own physical and mental death. In this way, Kristeva places the meeting between the disabled and non-disabled person at the center of marginalization, exclusion and invisibility. She describes individual attitudes towards fellow citizens with human and social consequences. Thus, she draws attention to disability in her extended reasoning regarding the phenomenon of being “strangers to ourselves”. In her line of argumentation for this “excluding meeting”, Kristeva applies text analysis, as presented in her book Strangers to Ourselves (Beardsworth 2004, Kristeva 1997c, McAfee 2000). Here, the concept of “the other” or “the stranger in us” is developed as a psychoanalytical construction based upon Sigmund Freud’s discussion of the “Unheimlich” in English, “uncanny strangeness”. The concept represents something that was once familiar: something mysteriously scary and hidden in our unconsciousness—the stranger in us—that is activated when we meet something we spontaneously perceive as unfamiliar. A stranger to Ourselves describes this mental reaction towards foreigners. However, in Kristeva’s later Letter to the President about Persons with Disabilities, she argues that the intensity of this provoked anxiety is much stronger when we are confronted with disability. Even so, our reactions to physical or sensory disabilities are not as strong as our reactions to developmental disabilities. How can this argument be tested? According to Kristeva, analysing it by diving into our own psychic depth may bring to consciousness our fear of the stranger in ourselves. Our rejection is about our own vulnerability. When we admit our vulnerability, we give ourselves a chance to recognize that there is a relationship between us and “the others”—those who are different; strange; those whom we keep at a distance. This relationship is deeper than language categories and conventions, she argues. Thus, we must recognize our own vulnerability in order to acknowledge others’ vulnerabilities. Julia Kristeva’s argumentation offers an explanatory model to other studies, such as those conducted by my former colleague, the late professor Barbro Sætersdal, in her folklore studies, Fools, Loonies and Spookies (1998). Sætersdal’s studies revealed aspects of the non-official history of attitudes towards persons with developmental disabilities. In line with Kristeva’s reasoning, Sætersdal wondered if there is actually room for these human beings in modern everyday life, with its hunt for more beauty, more intelligence, more trendiness and more money. She questioned the extent to which we are inclusive in our social circles and

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our local communities (Engebretsen, Johnsen and Markussen 2008). Kristeva’s focus on the individual responsibility for attitudes in the meeting with a stranger is an important contribution to international as well as Norwegian disability and special needs education discourse. She presents a psychoanalytical argument for an ethical and political humanism, characterized by our recognition of the other—the stranger—as unique and vulnerable; and our commitment—not out of fear or pity, but in direct contact with the other’s face—to seeing the stranger as a fellow human being and citizen. In this way, she argues for individual and social responsibility.

2.3. Revitalization of French Enlightenment ideas The possible change of attitude described above allows for a new and extended enlightenment. Taking psychoanalytical arguments for an understanding of the individual or single person as a point of departure, Kristeva raises the discussion to a normative manifesto aiming at a cultural and social change of mentality. She anchors the main pillar of her program historically by looking back on the earlier French Enlightenment idea of liberty, equality and fraternity (or community, celebrating the French Olympe de Gouges’ pronounciation of the Women’s Rights Declaration in 1793, according to Rustad 2007). Thus, Kristeva revitalizes this internationally renowned slogan, so dear to her French fellow citizens, by extending the formulation of liberty, equality and community, with the addition of a fourth concept, namely vulnerability. The expansion centers on recognizing the community of both vulnerability and liberty (Kristeva 2010). Argumentative movements such as these between individual and cultural/societal levels are characteristic of Kristeva’s discussions. Oliver (1997) shows, in her analysis of Kristeva’s earlier works, how she situates the single person’s subconscious at the center of individual ethical choices that are related to the ethical mentality of the community.

2.4. Social criticism and future optimism As mentioned above, Kristeva’s discussion of strangers to ourselves accompanies powerful criticism of the conditions for persons with disabilities in France. She points to the lack of priorities, lack of sufficient education and social support, lack of education of special needs educators and lack of awareness of disabling conditions within other fields of education. She also points to examples of good practice in several other countries, such as Sweden and Canada. However, she moves beyond

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detailed social criticism and refers to current positive trends within international disability discourse in a series of principle decrees on behalf of the United Nations and related organizations. In her Letter to the President about Persons with Disabilities she also demonstrates optimistic engagement with the development of an inclusive society; a society that stands shoulder to shoulder with all its citizens (Kristeva 2008, UN 1991, 1994, UNESCO 1994). Kristeva appeals to her fellow French citizens, reminding them that the cradle of care and education of the blind, the deaf and the developmentally and mentally disabled was in Paris. With a genealogic eye, she divides the history of modernity into three stages of humankinds’ attitudes towards disability. The first stage, beginning in Paris during the second half of the eighteenth century, spread throughout Europe. The second stage started further south in the continent before reaching the Nordic countries and later Norway, with the first Law on Schools for Abnormal Children in 1881, as it was called at that time (Indst. O. Nr. 12. 1881, Johnsen 2000b). This stage was characterized by a transfer of responsibility for disabled persons from charity to the state. However, at the same time as an eager governmental institution-building phase started, another much more pessimistic tone emerged in the European discourse. A new vocabulary appeared, with concepts such as “uneducatable,” “degeneration,” “race hygiene,” “eugenics,” “segregation” and “sterilization” (Johnsen 2000b, 2001a). This pessimistic and negative mentality change culminated with the radical eugenic experiment of the German Nazis in their genocides of Jews and Romans, as well as the killing of sick and disabled persons. The post-Second World War awakening to these horrific facts necessitated an ideological turn towards what Kristeva describes as the third stage in humankind’s attitudes towards disability, moving towards equality and inclusion. This division into three periods does not indicate simple changes of attitudes, and, as the eugenic period shows, it does not reflect a simple linear development towards steadily more equitable conditions for all citizens. On the contrary, the process through the history of modernity has been complex, diffuse and often contradictory. However, Julia Kristeva continues to hold hopes for an inclusive society.

2.5. The third stage in international attitudes towards education for all What characterizes the third stage of humankind’s attitudes towards disability? The idea of “able supporting disabled” is fading out and has become transferred to the ideas of joint liberty, equality and recognition of

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one another’s vulnerability, as well as support and care between all citizens. This is how Kristeva situates the idea of inclusion (2008). Transferred to schooling and education, her understanding of inclusion is compatible with a core description of inclusion applied in a current international research project between seven universities in five European countries: “Comparative Classroom Studies towards Inclusion (CCSI)” (WB 04/06): Educational inclusion is seen as the global policy prescribing development towards a local regular school that welcomes all children with their unique individual characteristics, interests, abilities and learning needs; all children with and without special needs and disabilities; a school combating discriminatory attitudes, and offering a meaningful and individually adapted education to every pupil within the community of the class (Frederickson and Cline 2002, Johnsen 2000a, 2007, 2013, UNESCO 1994).

Does this mean that the history of marginalization is hereby transferred to a time of inclusion? Like Kristeva, participants in the CCSI study realized that we are only at the doorstep of this third stage; we are still in the initiating phase towards a possible school for all and inclusion. As in the second stage discussed by Kristeva, this new stage is also marked by complex and contradictory ideas, priorities and practices. What characterizes the gap between principles and practices of inclusion? How can the complex and contradictory processes of educational inclusion be described? Is there a process towards inclusion or is the principle pushed to the background by competing principles and aims? These are wide and general questions that cannot be answered in a single study. A large number of studies with different but related research questions, different methodologies and different contexts may, however, shed light on different aspects of the questions.

3. The Norwegian case With the above as background, the account that follows is based on the case of one country, namely Norway. International and national policies and practices are discussed in light of Julia Kristeva’s analysis and the questions raised in the study presented in this chapter. Beginning with international principles, the main focus is on Norwegian efforts in Nordic and other international contexts.

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3.1. Efforts towards education for all and inclusion in an international and historical perspective As Kristeva has emphasized, inclusion is on the agenda in her home country, France, much as it is in other countries. Efforts are being made worldwide under very different conditions. Since the formulation of the UNESCO Salamanca Statement on Special Needs Education and Inclusion in 1994, many countries in all continents have taken steps towards educational inclusion. In some countries, national expansion of nonpayment schools goes hand in hand with a growing awareness of the efforts required for children with special educational needs when working towards an education for all. I would like to mention two examples from the African continent that I have become familiar with in my international cooperation in research and higher education, namely Uganda and Ethiopia. Here, national authorities have taken different but significant steps in sector reforms, higher education and the development of nonpayment schools for all—for girls and boys, and for children with and without special educational needs. Where are the roots of education? As long as humankind has existed there has existed some kind of education, formal or informal. Europe has a long tradition of deliberate and systematic education. Most European universities look to the ancient Egyptians and Greeks as early sources of formal education. Relative to the ancient writings of Ethiopia and the developing educational traditions of Europe, the writing culture and formal education of Norway are young. However, Amos Comenius’ (1592-1670) theories on education for all and the German Pietist August Hermann Francke’s (1663-1727) realization of his educational model for all children, rich and poor, became models for the Norwegian non-payment school, which has developed without interruption since that time (Johnsen 2000a).

3.2. The Norwegian roots Strongly inspired by German Pietism, the roots of the Norwegian nonpayment school were founded by a Royal Decree or Educational Act in 1739, nearly a century before political parliamentarism was reintroduced in the country in 1814. This first Act decreed that school should be free of charge “for All and Everybody” (Forordning 1739). What was meant by “a school for all” at that time? Was the full commitment of the concept “all” understood? As a matter of fact, it took almost 150 years for authorities to realize what it really meant for a regular school to be open for all children,

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and then, a new act indicated that the regular non-payment school would be for those children only, that could handle the demands of the school. At that time, the first Norwegian special school law was passed (Indst. O. No. 12. 1881). The cradle of modern special needs education was situated in Paris, far from Norway, during the late eighteenth century, as Kristeva also pointed out (Johnsen 2000a, 2000b, 2001a, Kristeva 2008). Ideas and skills spread throughout Europe from Paris. The Scandinavian countries joined hands in following up this new knowledge through joint seminars and a professional journal. Norway was the last of the Scandinavian countries to establish special classes and schools. The law passed in 1881 stated that the Norwegian special education profession should be based on regular teacher education and further specialization regarding special needs. This close connection between regular and special needs education has continued to be a main feature of Norwegian special education profession, higher education and research. Three so-called “special school” laws have been passed, with the last one passed after the Second World War (Johnsen 2000b, Lov 1915, 1951). Thus, even though a large number of children with minor special needs were offered education in special classes within the ordinary school, education for children with disabilities was segregated from the ordinary school for almost one century.

3.3. The turn towards normalization and revitalization of the school for all Institutionalization of persons became established in Europe and elsewhere. However, in the 1960s this institutionalization became seriously questioned in the Nordic countries. Thus, when the two pioneers Niels Bank-Mikkelsen in Denmark and Bengt Nirje in Sweden, presented the principle of “normalization” in the United States, it soon became an international principle (Bank-Mikkelsen 1980, Johnsen 2001c, Nirje 1980, Wolfensberger 1980). Nirje described the principle as follows: Normalization means sharing a normal rhythm of the day, with privacy, activities, and mutual responsibilities; a normal rhythm of the week, with a home to live in, a school or work to go to, and leisure time with a modicum of social interaction; a normal rhythm of the year, with the changing modes and ways of life and of family and community customs as experienced in the different seasons of the year (1980, 32-33).

A huge wave of system criticism rolled into international discourse, focusing on the vulnerability of institutions to neglect, abuse and cover-up,

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and on isolated life conditions for children and adults with disabilities. The wave hit both special educational institutions and orphanages on both sides of the Atlantic hard. In Norway, journalists revealed harsh and unethical conditions for children with developmental disabilities. Parents started to organize themselves in NGOs (non-governmental organizations). The Norwegian Association for People with Developmental Disabilities (NFU), which was founded in 1967, had and has on their main agenda equal rights, the local school for all and inclusion. As far as education is concerned, Norway spearheaded the Nordic turn towards normalization with the so-called “Blom Report” (KUF, 1970). In this white-paper, the principle of integration was introduced explicitly based on the following three criteria: a) Belongingness in a social community b) Participation in the benefits of the community c) Joint responsibility for tasks and obligations

As a consequence of this work, the last Norwegian “special school” law was abolished and matters of special education were integrated into the Educational Act in 1975. The new main principle was that all children should be governed by the same educational act. These principles were described in more detail in the Act of 1969/75, as well as in the current act (Education Act 1969/75, 1999/05).

3.4. Three main pillars of the turn of sector reforms towards inclusion Three pillars of Norwegian education acts and national curricula after the turn in 1975 outline the principle of the school for all, or the inclusive school in the local society for all. These are: 1) The School shall have room for everybody and teachers must therefore have an eye for each individual learner. The mode of teaching must not only be adapted to subject and content, but also to age and maturity, the individual learner and the mixed abilities of the entire class (L 1997, 35).

This passage secures the right for all children to attend their local regular school. This right was pronounced in the Educational Act (1969/75; see also Educational Act 1999/2005, section 13-1).

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2) Teaching shall be adapted to the abilities and aptitudes of individual pupils, apprentices and trainees (Educational Act 1999/2005, section 1-2).

3) Pupils who either do not or are unable to benefit satisfactorily from ordinary instruction have the right to special education (Educational Act 1999/2005, section 5-1).

The current Educational Act (1999/2005) governs primary, lower secondary and upper secondary education—with pupils aged 6 to 19 including adult education within the levels of primary and lower secondary education. The Act also grants the same rights to special needs education during the preschool years. In addition to outlining the core principles quoted above, the Act describes special regulations such as those relating to the right to use the Braille sign system. Several minority languages, such as Norwegian Sign Language and Sami, have their own national curricula or other special application rights. Based on the Education Act and national curriculum, I can safely suggest that Norwegian educational legislation has taken many fundamental steps towards the realization of equal rights to meaningful and individually adapted education within the collective of the local regular school. In other words, the current shift towards an inclusive school for all is in line with Kristeva’s third stage of attitudes towards education for all. The crucial question is how each municipality and school organizes these principles and creates relevant practices.

3.5. The structure of the Norwegian educational system Another aspect related to the move from principle to practice consists of the relationship between educational laws and educational structures, since practices are carried out within a structure. Access to education, the division of educational levels and economic and professional responsibilities differ between countries. It is therefore relevant to question the nature of educational structures and the way in which they contribute to the development of inclusive practices. The current Norwegian school system is divided into the following levels: • Kindergarten: 1 to 6 years • Primary and lower secondary school: 6 to 16 years • Upper secondary school: 16 to 19 (21) years • College and university education • Adult education (at all educational levels)

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Decentralized solutions have a long and strong history in Norway, with its vast stretches of nature and sparsely populated demography, combined with political principles of equal rights and democracy. Such solutions concern educational policy and administration, as well. The country is currently divided into 19 counties (regional administrative units), which are divided into approximately 430 municipalities. All children have the right to kindergarten from the age of 1 (Kindergarten Act 2005, with changes in force from 2009). Municipalities and parents share financial responsibility for kindergartens, whereas other educational levels are free of charge. Educational principles are regulated by national policy. The municipalities have professional and financial responsibility for primary and lower secondary school levels (with pupils up to 16 years of age), whereas counties have the same responsibility for upper secondary education. A National Education Office that represents the Ministry of Education and Research in each county is responsible for carrying out governmental tasks such as school evaluations, at all levels outside of higher education. The state holds overall responsibility for higher education (Lov 2005). Compared to other countries, Norway has very few private schools. Private schools may be approved and given state grants if they fulfill the requirements of educational laws and national curricula. Private institutions are more common at the kindergarten level, in higher education and within adult education. Many children with special needs participate in regular kindergarten groups, but with additional resources related to their special needs. The preferred organization at the elementary and lower secondary school level, in accordance with the current Education Act, is for each pupil to attend school in his or her own age group, and for pupils with documented special needs to receive additional resources within the class, outside the group and/or in combination with small group education. Schools, as a rule, have additional resources to give “courses” in reading, writing and arithmetic to pupils who need extra time and support. Before providing more extensive specialized support, the local school assesses special needs, in conjunction with the municipality Educational-Psychological Service (EPS). This is only done with the consent of and in collaboration with parents. The EPS is responsible for documenting possible special needs and supporting the school with additional individual curriculum containing educational intentions and goals, content and instructional approaches (Educational Act 1999/2005). It is preferable for each school to have its own special needs educator. In addition, schools are entitled to special needs educational support from the EPS and from a National Support System for Special Education (http://www.statped.no).

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Thus, special needs education support is, in principle, available to all schools and pupils through municipal EPS branches. The EPS usually consists of professionals with the following types of degrees: Masters of Special Needs Education with specializations in different kinds of disabilities; Masters of Education; or Masters of Psychology. When an EPS does not have the necessary expertise, they are obliged to seek support from the National Support System for Special Education. The latter have more in-depth updating and specialization within the different areas and niches of the field. Cooperation with medical and social institutions and The Psychiatric Policlinic Service for Children and Youth (BUP); (http://www.bupbarn.no) also occurs frequently. While all children have the right and duty to attend primary and lower secondary school or its equivalent, all young adults are guaranteed admission to upper secondary school after completing the lower secondary level (Education Act 1999/2005). The upper secondary level school is divided into 13 foundation courses providing vocational and/or academic education and preparing individuals for higher education. Classes with theoretical subjects may contain 20 to 30 pupils, whereas vocational subjects are taught in classes of 10 to 15. In addition, smaller educational units are offered for some of the pupils with special needs. The content of single courses is modularized to provide competency in special areas. An amendment to the Education Act grants the right to so-called partial competencies or competencies at a lower level for pupils with special needs (Tangen 2004, Education Act 1999/2005, section 3-3). Thus, the structure of upper secondary education is segregated into a number of courses that require different grade levels for admission. This leaves pupils with severe and multiple learning difficulties in smaller groups within the school building, but in special courses that are not included in the 13 main courses. The same support from EPS and other institutions that is available at the lower levels is available for upper secondary schools, as well. Pupils with recognized disabilities can spend up to five years at this level instead of the usual three. According to information from the Ministry of Education, Research and the Church (1996), 3.6 percent of pupils between 16 and 19 years of age receive their education through specially adapted courses based on assessed needs. Quite a number of pupils with and without special educational needs take five years to complete this educational level. The drop-out rate during the years 1999 - 2001 was estimated to be around 30 percent (Støren, Helleland and Grøgaard 2007). This means that approximately 70 percent of the pupil population at this age level succeeded with some kind of upper secondary education. Innovation to increase the success rate was evaluated as a step in a

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national governmental action plan against poverty (Buland, Havn, Finbak and Dahl 2007). Current debates show that the drop-out rate is problematically high. Nearly all higher education institutions in Norway are run by the state. These include universities, specialized colleges and a larger number of state colleges. The ordinary entrance qualification is the final national upper secondary examination. Within higher education, each institution is responsible for the provision of advice and assistance to students with special needs. The government has introduced a number of practical measures to promote equal opportunities regarding access to higher education (KUF 1996, 23, Regjeringens handlingsplan 1994-1997). In the future, larger numbers of pupils with special needs are expected to qualify for higher education due to the higher quality and increased individual adaptation of education at primary and secondary levels. As a follow-up to this, around 10 percent of study places at state colleges must be reserved for applicants with special needs. Thus, once general academic admission requirements are satisfied, applicants with special needs may be exempted from ordinary competition (KUF 1996, 1997). Adult education is manifold regarding both requirements vis-à-vis levels of knowledge and administration routines. Responsibility for adult education is divided between official authorities on municipal, county and state levels as well as private institutions. Adult education subsumes schools such as the Folk High Schools, adult education associations and language instruction schools for non-Norwegians, labor market courses and education at primary and lower secondary levels, distance education and special needs education. Adult education at the level of mastery for primary and lower secondary education is free of charge (Education Act 1999/2005, Johnsen 2001c).

3.6. Between principles and practice Compared to 40 years ago, before the turn towards inclusion, it is now quite different to be a child or young person with disabilities and special needs in the Norwegian education system. As highlighted above, laws and official policy indicate that the larger society has taken important steps towards realizing ideas about equal access to education in the local regular school. All children and young people have access to free education at all levels. Shifting focus from national to local levels, many schools have developed arsenals of inclusive practices. It is, however, important to realize that all major educational changes take time and encounter barriers. It calms my impatient heart to recall that

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it took 150 years from the announcement of the first law on education for all for Norway to have a non-payment elementary school comparable to the payment schools of that time. Indeed, 40 years after the official Norwegian educational turn towards inclusion, there continue to exist many obstacles. With a national policy clearly facilitating and expecting schools to practice inclusion, it is appropriate to ask—in the spirit of Kristeva’s new humanism—if social and individual attitudes have kept pace with the radical turn from exclusion and neglect towards acceptance of and solidarity with all pupils, with and without disabilities. In this light, it is disheartening to observe the huge creativity that many municipalities and schools show in order to find ways to go beyond the official intention of inclusive schools. In the shadow of local educational responsibilities, extensive segregation is practiced through organized special units and special schools. Parents are confronted with the choice of sending their child with special needs to the local school or sending their child away from his/her friends to a school with special expertise in another part of town. Studies indicate a range of practices, some of which relate to the cooperation between teachers and special needs educators within schools and that between schools and EPS (Mjøs 2007, Solli 2004). A survey among parents and teachers of 350 primary school pupils with developmental disability, documents that 57 percent of these pupils were placed in special units and that 34 percent of them were in their ordinary class for lesser than five hours a week (Ytterhus and Tøssebro 2005). The study also indicates that it was not the pupils’ needs, but the practical conditions and personal opinions of the school and teachers that decided the extent of segregation. Here we are confronted with an existing widespread mentality towards pupils with extensive special educational needs. These findings are supported by a report (Nordahl and Hausstätter 2009) that documents a general increase in segregated special needs educational practices between 2006 and 2008. It also shows that one-third of the resources within special needs education were not managed by professional special needs educators, but by assistants without any professional educational competency. Such studies reveal a gap between official intentions and practice in several municipalities. They raise questions about the relationship between officially formulated attitudes and professional and individual attitudes at the local level. They may even indicate that the positive trend towards Kristeva’s third stage of humankind’s attitudes towards disability is about to fizzle out. Nordahl and Hausstätter’s study (2009) seems to support such a suspicion when they conclude: “It looks as if focus on academic results in global contexts and on transfer of responsibility to the local level

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is met by strategies reducing acceptance of divergence and difference” (2009, 175). I am sorry to say that I share this concern. The inclusion discourse is itself complex, divided into different branches and at times contradictory. Kristeva has observed this and warns against pitfalls in attitudes in current efforts towards inclusion. She directs our attention towards what she calls a reverse interpretation of inclusion, which, in her opinion, implies a new reductionist ideology. This ideology, she argues, renounces special needs and at the same time praises the way a disability almost disappears when the disabled person is given what may be called “increased social responsibility”. She even points out that connected to such an attitude may be a wish for financial gain (Kristeva 2008, 2010). Similar reductionist views are recognized in the argument that special needs education does not belong in the inclusive school—an argument that has been imported from international sources into Norwegian context.

4. Towards inclusion and Kristeva’s third stage related to education In view of the reductionist view of special needs education as part of inclusive practice criticized by Kristeva (see above), a clarification of the role of special needs education in the inclusive school is needed. This question is currently discussed in light of Norwegian educational history, current policy, higher education of educational professionals and the seemingly widening gap between policy and practice. The answer to the question concerning the role of the special needs educator must be related to the ordinary teacher’s profession, since both teachers and special needs educators are necessary in an inclusive school. Within the Norwegian tradition, the teacher and the special needs educator have a joint collection of curricular/didactic knowledge and skills, and thus a solid basis for cooperation in the common arena of the school and the classroom. In addition, the teacher holds qualifications in school subjects, which the special needs educator does not have. The special needs educator has qualifications that go beyond the knowledge of the regular teacher; these are related to different learning processes, barriers to learning and corresponding skills in educational support. The presence of both professions and the quality of their cooperation are therefore fundamental for creating including practices in the polyphone classroom and school. At the center of this cooperation are the two levels of curricula, which are keys to meaningful education adapted to the level of mastery and the

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proximal learning capabilities of each pupil in the class: 1) the individual curriculum; and 2) the class curriculum. The relationship between these two levels of curricula constitutes the core of the inclusive school (Johnsen 2001b, 2007, 2014, Vygotsky 1978).

5. Conclusion Returning to the question of whether Julia Kristeva’s discussion on the stranger in ourselves may contribute to the Norwegian case, the answer is yes, when confronted with the gap between official intentions and school practices. There is reason to believe that individual and cultural-social mentalities towards the stranger—be this a foreign immigrant or a person with some form of functional impairment or disability—is a serious barrier to bridging the gap between the official intentions and priorities of educational inclusion and the practices of some local communities and schools. Many options, as well as obstacles, must be visited in the work towards inclusion, both in Norway and internationally, and within different contexts. In addition to sufficient professional skills, economic and physical frames, legislation and structure—even if all these components were optimal—schools need, in Kristeva’s spirit, an approving humanistic acceptance of all pupils. They also need to recognize and accept the stranger in all of us—professionals, researchers and politicians. Kristeva’s ethical-political challenge therefore concerns each and every one of us, and calls us to confront our own ghosts; to confront the fear of our own vulnerability and lack of ability when meeting people with disabilities. This is the prerequisite of an approving humanistic acceptance of all, with or without disability, in terms of our equal partners and fellow citizens (Engebretsen, Johnsen, Kirkebæk and Markussen 2010, Johnsen 2010b, Kristeva 2008). We may, however, not believe that internalizing appreciative attitudes towards people with disabilities is possible once and for all. The stranger within us does not disappear, but reappears from situation to situation and from generation to generation.

References Bank-Mikkelsen, Niels E. 1980. “Denmark.” In Normalization, Social Integration, and Community Services, edited by Robert J. Flynn and Kathleen E. Nitsch, 51–70. Austin, TX: PRO-ED. Beardsworth, Sara. 2004. Julia Kristeva – Psychoanalysis and Modernity.

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Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Buland, Trond, Havn, Vidar, Finbak, Liv and Dahl, Thomas. 2007. Intet menneske er en øy. Rapport fra evalueringen av tiltak i satsing mot frafall [No Man is an Island – Report from Evaluation of Actions to Decrease Drop Out]. Trondheim: SINTEF. BUP. Available at http://www.bupbarn.no. Education Act. 1969, with amendments. Education Act. 1999. Act Relating to Primary and Secondary Education. Last amended 17 June 2005. Engebretsen, Eivind, Johnsen, Berit H. and Markussen, Ingrid. 2008. “Livet bøyes i flertall” – Introduksjon til Brev til presidenten om mennesker med funksjonshemning” [“Life is bent in multiple” – Introduction to the Letter to the President about Persons with Disabilities]. In Julia Kristeva. Brev til presidenten om mennesker med funksjonshemminger [Letter to the President about Persons with Disabilities], 7–49. Oslo: Cappelen akademisk forlag. Engebretsen, Eivind, Johnsen, Berit H., Kirkebæk, Birgit and Markussen, Ingrid. 2010. En Norvège, les discours des droits et du contrôle dans une culture du bien-être [In Norway: Rights and Control Discourses in the Welfare State]. In Le handicap au gré des cultures. Edited by Charles Gardou. Toulouse, France: Edition ERES. Forordning. 1739. Forordning om Skolerne paa Landet i Norge, og hvad Klokkerne og Skoleholderne derfor maa nyde [Decree Relating to the Schools in the Countryside of Norway and What the Parish Clerks and Teachers Therefore May Enjoy]. Frederickson, Norah and Cline, Tony. 2002. Special Education Needs, Inclusion and Diversity. Buckingham: Open University Press. http://www.statped.no http://www.bupbarn.no Indst. O. No. 12. 1881. Indstilling fra Kirkekomiteen angaaende den Kgl. Proposition om Udfærdigelse af en Lov om Skoler for abnorme Børn. [White Paper]. Johnsen, Berit H. 2000a. Et historisk perspektiv på ideene om en skole for alle [A Historical Perspective on Ideas about a School for All]. Oslo: Unipub. —. 2000b. “Idehistorisk perspektiv på spesialpedagogikk i skolen for alle” [Idea-Historical Perspective on Special Needs Education in the School for All]. In Skolen 1999 - 2000. Årbok for norsk utdanningshistorie [The School 1999 - 2000. Yearbook in Norwegian History of Education], edited by Knut Jordheim, 107-126. —. 2001a. “Introduction to History of Special Needs Education towards

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Inclusion.” In Education – Special Needs Education. An Introduction, edited by Berit H. Johnsen and Miriam D. Skjørten, 133-154. Oslo: Unipub. —. 2001b. “Curricula for the Plurality of Individual Learning Needs.” In Education – Special Needs Education. An Introduction, edited by Berit H. Johnsen and Miriam D. Skjørten, 255-304. Oslo: Unipub. —. 2001c. “Educational Policies and Debate Concerning the School for All and Special Needs Education. National Perspective: The Situation in Norway.” In Education – Special Needs Education. An Introduction, edited by Berit H. Johnsen and Miriam D. Skjørten. 155–172. Oslo: Unipub. —. 2010a. “Julia Kristeva om funksjonshemming, usynliggjøring og solidaritet i lys av sårbarhetens politick” [Julia Kristeva on Disability, Invisibility and Solidarity in Light of Vulnerability Policy]. In Spesialpedagogikk og etikk: Kollektivt ansvar og individuelle rettigheter [Special Needs Education and Ethics: Collective Responsibility and Individual Rights], edited by Solveig Reindal and Rune Hausstätter, 88–99. Kristiansand: Høyskoleforlaget. —. 2010b. “Annerledeshet og utdanning. Didaktiske muligheter i lys av sårbarhetens politick” [Curricular Opportunities in Light of the Politics of Vulnerability]. In Annerledeshet – sårbarhetens politikk [Otherness - Vulnerability Policy], edited by Eivind Engebretsen and Julia Kristeva, 126–147. Oslo: Gyldendal. —. 2011. Julia Kristeva, sårbarhetens politikk og spesialpedagogikkens rolle i den norske skole [Julia Kristeva, the Politics of Vulnerability and the Role of Special Needs Education in the Norwegian School]. FoU i praksis, 5: 67–79. —. 2013. “Comparative Classroom Studies towards Inclusion. Joint Research Plan for Cooperation between the Universities of Belgrade, Ljubljana, Sarajevo, Skopje, Tuzla, Zagreb and Oslo.” In Research Project Preparation within Education and Special Needs Education. Introduction to Theory of Science, Project Planning and Plans, edited by Berit H. Johnsen, 228–244. Kristiansand: Høyskoleforlaget. —. 2014. “A Curricular Approach to Inclusive Education.” In Theory and Methodology in International Comparative Classroom Studies, edited by Berit H. Johnsen, 133–181. Oslo: Cappelen Damm Akademisk. Johnsen, Berit H. et al. 2007. The Classroom towards Inclusion – Good Examples and Difficult Dilemmas. [Report from a series of workshops in Bosnian Schools]. Sarajevo: Connectum. Kindergarten Act. 2005, with changes in force 2009. Kristeva, Julia. 1997a [1974]. “Revolution in Poetic Language.” In The

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Portable Kristeva, edited by Kelly Oliver, 27-136. New York, NY: Columba University Press. —. 1997b [1984]. “My Memory’s Hyperbole.” In The Portable Kristeva, edited by Kelly Oliver, 3-21. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. —. 1997c. “Strangers to Ourselves.” In The Portable Kristeva, edited by Kelly Oliver, 264–294. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. —. 2008 [2003]. Brev til presidenten om mennesker med funksjonshemminger [Letter to the President about Persons with Disabilities]. Oslo: Cappelen akademisk forlag. —. 2010. “Frihet, likhet, brorskap og … sårbarhet” [Liberty, Equality, Fraternity and ...Vulnerability]. In Annerledeshet – sårbarhetens politikk [Otherness-Vulnerability Policy], edited by Eivind Engebretsen and Julia Kristeva, 34-59. Oslo: Gyldendal. KUF. 1970. Innstilling om lovregler for spesialundervisning m.v. [Commissioned Report on Legislation Concerning Special Education etc.]. —. 1996. The Development of Education 1994-96. Norway. National Report. Oslo: Royal Norwegian Ministry of Education, Research and the Church. L. 1997. Læreplanverket for den 10-årige grunnskolen. [The Curriculum for the 10-year Compulsory School in Norway]. The Royal Ministry of Education, Research and the Church Affairs. Lov om døve, blinde og aandssvake barns undervisning og om pleie- og arbeidshjem for ikke-dannelsesdyktige aandsvake [Law on Deaf, Blind and Mentally Retarded Children’s Education and on Nursing- and Work- Homes for Non-Educatable Mentally Retarded]. 1915. Lov om spesialskoler for utviklingshemmete [Law on Special Schools for the Handicapped]. 1951. Lov om universiteter og høyskoler. 2005. [Act of 1 April 2005 no. 15 relating to Universities and University Colleges]. McAfee, Noëlle. 2000. Habermas, Kristeva, and Citizenship. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Mjøs, Marit. 2007. Spesialpedagogens rolle i dagens skole [The Role of the Special Needs Educator in Today’s School]. PhD thesis. Oslo: Universitetet i Oslo. Unpublished. Moi, Toril. 1987. “Introduction.” In The Kristeva Reader, edited by Toril Moi, 1–22. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Nirje, Bengt. 1980. “The Normalization Principle.” In Normalization, Social Integration, and Community Services, edited by Robert J. Flynn and Kathleen E. Nitsch. 31–49. Austin, TX: PRO-ED.

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Nordahl, Thomas and Hausstätter, Rune S. 2009. Spesialundervisningens forutsetninger, innsatser og resultater [Prerequisites, Efforts and Results of Special Needs Education]. Rapport nr 2 fra prosjektet “Gjennomgang av spesialundervisning, evaluering av Kunnskapsløftet” [Report No. 2 of the Project “Review of Special Needs Education, Evaluation of the Knowledge Promotion Reform”]. Hamar: Høgskolen i Hedmark. Regjeringens handlingsplan for funksjonshemmede 1994–1997 [The Government Plan of Action on Matters Concerning Persons with Disabilities 1994–1997]. Solli, Kjell-Arne. 2004. Kunnskapsstatus om spesialundervisningen i Norge [Knowledge-Status about Special Needs Education in Norway]. Oslo: Utdanningsdirektoratet. Oliver, Kelly. 1997. ”Introduction: Kristeva’s Revolution.” In The Portable Kristeva, edited by Kelly Oliver, xi–xxix. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Rustad, Linda M. 2007. “Mary Wollstonecraft: Frihet, likhet og humanism” [Mary Wollstonecraft: Freedom, Equality and Humanism]. In Pedagogikkens mange ansikter [The Many Faces of Pedagogy], edited by Kjetil Steinsholt and Lars Løvlie, 185–198. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Statped. Available at http://www.statped.no. Støren, Liv A., Helland, Håvard and Grøgaard, Jens B. 2007. Hvem sto igjen …? [Who Were Left Behind …?]. Oslo: NIFU, STEP. Sætersdal, Barbro. 1998. Tullinger, skrullinger og skumlinger: Fra fattigdom til velferdsstat [Fools, Loonies and Spookies: From Poverty to the Welfare State]. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Tangen, Reidun. 2004. “Retten til utdanning, tilpasset opplæring og spesialundervisning” [The Right to Education, Adapted Education and Special Needs Education]. In Spesialpedagogikk [Special Needs Education], edited by Edvard Befring and Reidun Tangen, 121–141. Oslo: Cappelen Akademisk Forlag. UN. 1991. Convention on the Rights of the Child. New York, NY: United Nations. —. 1994. Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disability. New York, NY: United Nations. —. 2006. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. New York, NY: United Nations. UNESCO. 1994. The Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education. Paris: UNESCO. Vygotsky, Lev S. 1978. “Mind in Society.” In The Development of Higher

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Psychological Processes, edited by Michael Cole, Vera John-Steiner, Sylvia Scribner and Ellen Souberman. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. WB 04/06. Development towards the Inclusive School: Practices – Research – Capacity Building. Universities of Belgrade, Ljubljana, Sarajevo, Skopje, Tuzla, Zagreb and Oslo. Norwegian Cooperation Program on Research and Higher Education with the Countries on the Western Balkans (CPWB). Witt-Brattström, Ebba. 1990. ”Inledning” [Introduction]. In Stabat Mater – Julia Kristeva i urval [Stabat Mater – Selected Works of Julia Kristeva], edited by Ebba Witt-Brattström, 1–29. Stockholm: Natur och Kultur. Wolfensberger, Wolf. 1980. “A Brief Overview of the Principle of Normalization.” In Normalization, Social Integration, and Community Services, edited by Robert J. Flynn and Kathleen E. Nitsch, 3–6. Austin, TX: PRO-ED. Ytterhus, Borgunn and Tøssebro, Jan. 2005. En skole for alle? En studie av organisering av opplæringa til barn med generelle lærevansker eller utviklingshemming i norsk grunnskole [A school for All? A Study of the Educational Organization for Children with General Learning Disabilities or Developmental Disabilities in Norwegian Elementary School]. NTNU-rapport. Trondheim: NTNU.

CHAPTER TWO FOCUS ON SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL SUPPORT IN SWEDISH HIGH SCHOOLS: PROVISION WITHIN OR OUTSIDE THE STUDENTS’ REGULAR CLASSES? JOACIM RAMBERG1

1. Introduction In a society that increasingly requires educational skills, academic success is fundamental to overcoming social exclusion and marginalization. The longer a child stays in school and the more opportunities he/she gets to finish high school education, the better chances he/she gets to be included in the labor market and also become a participating member of a democratic society (Includ-ED 2006). The Include-ED report highlights that there is a relationship between academic success and social inclusion, which means that schools themselves must be inclusive institutions that can provide opportunities for learning for all students. Inclusive institutions can be described in many ways and on many levels. However, one important factor that is decisive for inclusive education is where the educational support is provided (Includ-ED 2006). This chapter focuses on how special educational support is organized in Swedish high schools, and especially where the special educational support is provided, by the schools’ special educational professionals2 and other school staff, including how these issues are related to marginalization processes. Most research within the field of special education in Swedish high schools, targets specific schools and/or specific programs. This study is a contrast in that it covers all Swedish high schools and the data focused on here builds on 764 schools. The chapter starts with a brief description of the Swedish high school education system and policy documents appropriate to special education.

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This is followed by a section which focuses on the concepts of marginalization, social exclusion, social inclusion and dropout. Then the results are presented and discussed in relation to previous research.

2. Aim The aim of this chapter is to describe the focus of special educational support in Swedish high schools. Of particular interest is whether the support is provided within the student’s regular teaching group or outside the regular class settings. Therefore, it contributes to further knowledge about the special educational activities that are carried out in Swedish high school education. The special support provided by the schools includes (a) support provided by the schools’ special educational professionals, and (b) other support activities provided by other school staff. The chapter also aims to discuss the results against the backdrop of current policies, previous research and marginalization dimensions of the provision that schools report.

3. Background 3.1. The Swedish high school education system, 1994-2011 During the 1990s, several political reforms, which were essential for the school system design, were implemented. These include, (a) the decentralization reform, which decentralized the administration of educational provisions to the municipalities, (b) the independent school reform, which provided opportunities for other providers to run schools, and (c) the free-choice school reform, which gave students and families the opportunity to choose which school to attend (Alexandersson 2011, Björklund et al. 2005, Bunar 2010, Jackson, Jonsson and Rudolphi 2012, Lindbom 2010, Lundahl et al. 2010, Östh, Andersson and Malmberg 2013). It has been highlighted that the Swedish education system went from being one of the most centrally regulated systems to one of the most decentralized school systems within the OECD countries over a short period of time (Blomqvist 2004, Lindblad et al. 2002, Lundahl 2002). High school education consists of three different types of schools depending upon the provider: public schools (run by municipal authorities), independent schools (sometimes also referred to as free schools, run by private companies or foundations) or county council schools. All three school types have two common points of departure in that they are free of charge, being financed with public funding, and they

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are required to follow the same curriculum. An important organizational change from the year 1994 was the introduction of 17 different national educational programs (15 vocational and 2 theoretical). All programs were three years in length and were designed to lead to university studies. One of the most important changes was the introduction of further theoretical courses in the vocational programs (Björklund et al. 2004, Lundahl 2002, SOU 2000). An individual program was also introduced. This was especially formed for students who had not fulfilled the requirements for the national programs at the end of the compulsory school year nine. Accessibility to the different schools and educational programs was determined by the average merit rating value (a composite measure of the grades of the students) from school year nine. Every national educational program consisted of the same foundation subjects (sometimes also referred to as core subjects). In addition to the foundation subjects, each program contained a number of program-specific subjects which differed between the different educational programs. These subjects define the nature of the specific educational program (SNAE 2012).

3.2. Special education in high school Special education activities can be defined as different ways of supporting students in need of special support. This support is traditionally provided in Sweden by members of the professions called special teachers and special educators. These two professional roles are supposed to complement one another and have slightly different work foci. Special teachers are required to work more on an individual level and support students who are at risk of not achieving educational goals. Special educators are more closely connected to an organizational level at the schools and also function as consultants to teachers. These two professions have, through educational reforms, overlapped one another over time in Sweden. In 1990, the special teacher educational program was replaced by the special educator program (Mattson and Hansen 2009). In 2008, the special teacher program was reintroduced, and since then has been available parallel to the special educator program at universities. Therefore, today members of both professions work in high schools. Even if the two professional roles are meant to complement one another and have somewhat different work assignments, previous research has shown that in everyday school practice they perform similar duties (Gerrbo 2012, Isaksson 2009, Mattson and Hansen 2009, Ramberg 2013, Rosenqvist 2007, SNAE 1999). Many schools find it difficult to distinguish between

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them. This has been a contributing factor that has, for the purposes of this study, combined them into a common measure of special educational support (Ramberg 2013). According to the Education Act 2010:800, a student in need of special support is a student who is at risk of not achieving the curriculum goals for his/her educational program (Ministry of Education 2010). Based on this broad definition, a large number of students in high school qualify for special support. A previous study on support activities in high schools was conducted by SNAE (2010). It was a selection study, directed at 315 principals in Swedish high schools (response rate 77.5 percent). The report points out that the most common way to support students in need of special support is through the provision of support that is provided individually or through small groups. The support activities normally take place outside the regular classrooms. One can notice that these results are in contrast to the policy documents reported above. An interesting study in relation to special support and segregated support solutions was conducted by Isaksson (2009), where the tension between normal and deviant is investigated in the high school. He states that: Receiving special support outside the regular class also relates to questions of segregated support and a categorical perspective. The pupils’ experiences give rise to important questions regarding differentiated support. Although such support offered a peaceful and quiet learning environment, it also gave rise to feelings of non-participation in relation to their classmates and them being portrayed as deviant. Furthermore, questions of lack of coordination between the support measures and the regular teaching and pedagogical levels that are inadequate and ill-adjusted to their needs were also problematic aspects and indicate that these work forms formed temporary solutions for the regular education (Isaksson 2009, 91).

Another study investigated the special educational resources in Swedish high schools, and concluded that almost four out of ten high schools did not have any special educational professionals (Ramberg 2013). There seems to be a very low prevelance of special educational professionals, especially within the independent schools. Previous research also indicates that there is a lack of knowledge about the special education activities that are carried out in high schools in Sweden; there is especially a gap concerning the content and the organization of special educational practices in high schools (Emanuelsson, Persson and Rosenqvist 2001, Hultqvist 2001, Möllås

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2009, SNAE 1998, 2007, 2008a, 2008b, 2010).

3.3. Policy documents Schools have access to various policy documents that they can consult, with regards to services for students in need of special support. Some have more of a guiding nature while others more strictly regulate how the schools should organize special support. There are both international and national policy documents that are important for schools. The Salamanca Statement (UNESCO 1994), which was adopted by more than 90 countries in 1994, covers principles, approaches and practices for teaching students in need of special support. According to Ainscow and César (2006), the Salamanca Statement is the most important international document to have ever appeared in the field of special education. The Salamanca Statement highlights that: The fundamental principle of the inclusive school is that all children should learn together, wherever possible, regardless of any difficulties or differences they may have. […] Assignment of children to special schools—or special classes or sections within a school on a permanent basis—should be the exception (UNESCO 1994, 11-12).

The Statement endorses the idea of an inclusive education very distinctly. While the concept of inclusive education can be understood in several ways, central to the concept is a holistic view of humans and their development where cognitive, emotional and ethical aspects interact. An inclusive school values differences between individuals and every kind of diversity is seen as an advantage for the group. A definition that is often used, with respect to where students are offered support, is: Inclusion involves keeping special education students in regular education classrooms and bringing support services to the child, rather than bringing the child to the support services. In an inclusionary setting, special education teachers work with regular education teachers in regular classrooms (Smelter 1994, 35).

At a European level, the Commission of the European Communities (2005:206) emphasizes the importance of education for future opportunities and quality of life. School failures, which can lead to social exclusion and marginalization in the labor market, must be prevented. However, no further guidelines on how each country should achieve this are provided.

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At the national level, schools are required to follow and implement several policy documents. The overarching document in Sweden is the Education Act (1985:1100), which was in force when this study was conducted. This act states that special attention should be given to those students who, for various reasons, have difficulties in reaching educational goals and that the school has a special responsibility for students with disabilities. It also states that all school personnel must pay attention to and support students who are in need of special support. The regulations furthermore highlight, especially in relation to high schools, that a student shall be given special educational support if the student is at risk of not achieving the curriculum goals for the educational program, or if the student for other reasons needs support, and that this special educational support may be organized within the regular class (Ministry of Education 1997, section 8 paragraph 1). This is in line with the Salamanca Statement, where inclusive settings are called for. The goal of how education should be organized is summarized in a report by SNAE (2007). The report highlights that the cornerstone of the school legislation is that students in need of special support should be educated in their regular class. The education should be of an inclusive nature, i.e. all students should, as far as possible, be educated together. Participation can also be illustrated from a democratic perspective. This would then embody the right not to be excluded from the societal community, and at the same time the community’s need for all voices to be heard. Everyone’s experiences, skills and knowledge are needed in a functioning democracy. The democracy report (SOU 2000:1) states that too many people are excluded from society due to attitudes or practical obstacles, and highlights that individuals with different disabilities have everyday experiences that are unique and that are needed in a democratic society. In summary, according to policy documents at international and national levels, the overall principle is to strive for an inclusive school environment, where as many students as possible will be taught together in their regular class settings, regardless of any barriers to learning or other school difficulties.

4. Theoretical section 4.1. Marginalization Marginalization can be defined in many different ways and is often related to the concept of social exclusion, which in turn relates to the

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individual’s inability to fully participate in normal social activities, such as institutional, economical, cultural, civic and political activities. Participation is often deemed to be very important for social inclusion (Shildrick 2010). Another concept related to marginalization is the term social cohesion, which has been used to give a more dynamic understanding of the complexity of the issue. According to The Council of Europe (2007), social cohesion is defined as the capacity of a society to ensure the wellbeing of all its members—minimizing disparities and avoiding marginalization. It is a political concept that is essential for the fulfilment of democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Social exclusion, on the other hand, can be defined as: a complex and multi-dimensional process. It involves the lack of or denial of resources, rights, goods and services, and the inability to participate in the normal relationships and activities available to the majority of people in a society, whether in economic, social, cultural or political arenas. It affects both the quality of life of individuals and the quality and cohesion of society as a whole (Levitas 2007, 25).

In this chapter, I will discuss marginalization from two perspectives. One concerns the relationship between marginalization and dropout from school. The other perspective is on an individual level, related to support activities provided by schools.

4.2. Dropout In the research literature, the phenomenon of not completing high school education is labelled with different concepts, such as early school leaving, dropout, fade-out, push-out, non-completers, “not in education, employment or training (NEET)”, etc. These terms highlight the fact that the phenomenon can have many different causes and also that different countries use different concepts to describe it. It also indicates that research within the field takes an interest in different aspects of this complex issue (Markussen, Frøseth and Sandberg 2011). However, the problem with the phenomenon of young people leaving school without a high school education is in many ways similar, regardless of what concepts are used and in what context it appears. In this chapter, I will use the term dropout to describe a student who has not completed his/her high school education with the requisite grades. This means that it can be a student who for different reasons left school, but also a student who could not attain the full requirements of his/her educational program, and

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therefore could not reach the intended competences of the educational program.

4.3. Marginalization in the labor market and dropouts One of the most important issues in Europe for high school education is to decrease the number of students who are dropping out of school systems. This is especially true in Sweden where the dropout rate from high school was 26 percent in 2009, decisively high in comparison to Finland (5 percent), Norway (9 percent), Iceland (9 percent), the United Kingdom (11 percent), and Denmark (15 percent). Sweden stands out as having problems with the graduation rates from high school education not only in comparison with the Nordic countries, but also when compared with the average from all OECD countries (18 percent) (OECD 2011). Over the last eight years the percentage of non-graduation rates from Swedish high schools has remained stable: almost every third student, or about 30,000 students, does/do not complete his/her/their high school education every year (Statistics Sweden [SCB] 2008, SNAE 2011). The relationship between dropouts from high school and marginalization in the labor market is well documented, both nationally and internationally. A report concludes that it is often hard to get established in the labor market without a degree from high school (SCB 2017). Furthermore, the OECD emphasizes the importance of a complete high school education (2011, 2012). It states that individuals with at least a high school education have a greater chance of being employed as compared to people without a high school education. A report from the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research similarly concludes that: “Without a certificate from the high school, the probability of poverty or marginalization later in life increases dramatically” (2006-2007, 8). Ahola and Kivelä (2007) analyzed the relationship between dropout and marginalization in Finland, and conclude that dropouts are widely recognized as problems, leading to further marginalization and exclusion of young people from society at large. Also, Fangen and Fossan (2010) emphasize the relationship between dropouts and marginalization. They state that a: “significant measure of marginalization in education is the drop-out rate” (Fangen and Fossan 2010, 154). Some studies have especially focused on students in need of special educational support and the relationships between dropout and possibilities in the labor market. A study by Myklebust and Båtevik (2005), which focuses on students in need of special educational support and their opportunities to establish themselves in the labor market, concludes that

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those students who achieved formal competence in high school had a much easier time finding a job and thereby becoming economically independent. To complete high school education is thus an important factor in order to move on to the labor market or further studies. Murray (1994) refers to a number of international studies about adolescents and unemployment that are in line with such a relationship. However, the factors that are related to whether adolescents manage to get a job or not vary between the different studies. In an Australian study, it seems to be particularly related to how long young people stayed in school. According to a Scottish study, the educational level reached was of prime importance, followed by the grades in core subjects, while the grades in vocational subjects did not appear to be of major importance. A study from the U.S. states that completion of high school is crucial. A common suggestion in these studies is that adolescents with a short education are at higher risk of being unemployed and that they earn less money than adolescents with longer education. Murray (1994) also notes that several international studies have shown that the school organization is an important factor that affects the incidence of dropout. Along the same direction, Lundetrae (2011) states that dropout from high school education is a large problem which is closely connected with youth unemployment. An internationally comparative study of school dropouts edited by Lamb (2011) concludes that all countries are particularly interested in the dropout issue because of the great consequences related to the problem. They point to different situations in different countries but summarize that one common issue across the countries is that not completing school and failing to qualify for high school education are associated with poorer chances in the labor market. They conclude that dropouts are more likely to be unemployed, stay unemployed longer and have lower earnings. Dropouts also, more often, experience poorer physical and mental health, have higher rates of crime and are much less engaged in active citizenship. In summary, the research literature on dropouts from school and marginalization from the labor market consistently shows how important a lack of qualifications from high school education is to the risk of being marginalized later on in life.

4.4. Marginalization and special educational support Marginalization or social exclusion can also be seen from an individual level, where the right to fully participate in normal societal activities is of the utmost importance (Levitas 2007, Shildrick 2010). Within the special

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educational field, a great deal of attention has been given to whether and how segregating support and distinctive solutions affect marginalization and create feelings of stigma. When considering studies within this field, it is important to point out that there are many aspects that need to be taken into consideration. First of all, different studies refer to different things when describing segregated solutions. It can range from constantly segregated solutions to more loosely structured support constellations outside the student’s classroom. The time aspect is also significant because the period of the segregated support varies widely, ranging from over many years to shorter efforts. Furthermore, it is not certain, or very likely, that the same kind of segregated solution is perceived in the same way by all students. Rather, it is likely that it is perceived in different ways by different individuals. It is also difficult to apply results from different educational settings and different educational systems and between different ages of students. The research within this field in the Swedish high school is not especially extensive, thus research from other countries and from students of other ages is also highlighted here. This brief overview should be viewed in light of the problems raised above and therefore on a more general level. Special educational support can be given and organized in several different ways. A condition reported by Johansson (2009), Möllås (2009) and SNAE (2010) to be common in Swedish high schools is that the student that is in need of support is “taken out” from his/her regular class, and support is provided for a shorter or longer time period. This is also reported by Giota and Lundborg (2007) and SNAE (1999) to be a common solution in the compulsory schools. In relation to social exclusion, it is important where the support for students is provided. Two distinct locations of support provision can be distinguished: support within the students’ regular class or support outside the regular class. These can be provided on an individual basis or in smaller constellations with other students in need of special support. Inclusion is a concept commonly used to describe how schools can be organized. One definition that also takes into account the time the student spends in the general educational program is: In the inclusive school, all students are educated in general education programs. Inclusion is when a student with special learning and/or behavioural needs is educated full time in the general education program. Essentially, inclusion means that the student with special education needs is attending the general school program, enrolled in appropriate classes 100% of the school day (Idol 1997, 4).

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Inclusion is a wide concept and can be defined and understood in many ways, but one central part, according to Idol (1997), is where the support is provided, in the student’s regular class or in a segregated constellation outside his/her regular environment. Also, previous research points out that support outside the student’s regular class can lead to stigma effects and feelings of exclusion. In a knowledge review about compulsory school that covered various international studies, SNAE (2009) shows that the prevalence of special educational support, especially if it is organized under segregated conditions, leads to stigma effects. At the same time, it concludes that most schools often use segregated solutions for students in need of special support such as special groups or individual instruction outside the student’s regular class. Similar results are presented by Björklund, Fredriksson, Gustafsson and Öckert (2010), who state that a substantial body of international research results shows that the special educational support, in particular when organized in a segregated way, leads to stigma effects. Self-evaluation and motivation are adversely affected, and it has been observed in many studies that academic requirements are reduced and that interpretation of the intentions of the curriculum tends to be simplified. Slavin’s (1987, 1990) meta-analyses also reveal negative experiences for the students who are supported in segregated formats. In a similar vein, Giota and Lundborg (2007) show a negative relationship between special educational support and educational achievement in Swedish compulsory schools. This is especially true for students who received support in segregated forms or in special groups. It should be emphasized that it is not possible to draw any conclusion about the effects of special education for these students, since the outcome measured cannot be compared to what these students should have performed without this support. It is conceivable that they would have performed far worse without this support. However, it is noted that the effect of the special educational support may not have compensated for the variations in the study pre-conditions. These results were previously presented by Hallam and Toutounji (1996) in an international research review. They conclude that segregated arrangements, such as students supported outside their regular class, lead to stigma effects, decreased selfevaluation and motivation. Möllås (2009) studied students in Swedish high schools and investigated how communication and interaction were part of daily operations and the possible exclusion and inclusion effects in these settings. The main results were that the support was mainly individual and normally took place outside the regular classroom. Johansson (2009)

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examined special educational support in one Swedish high school and concluded that the support given to students was dependent upon the educational programs attended by the students. In one vocational program, the support was provided primarily outside the regular classroom, while in a theoretical program, the support was provided, to a larger extent, inside the regular classroom. Johansson concluded that special support contributed to a further increase in differentiation between students and groups of students. In summary, special education activities can be arranged in many different ways, but they are often performed outside the student’s regular class, which as several studies point out can lead to stigma effects, and can contribute to lower self-evaluation and motivation among these students. I want to once again emphasize that it is not necessarily possible to translate results between different types of segregated solutions and their effects, so the research reviewed so far should be viewed in terms of general findings, and are not directly transferable to the present study’s context. This study focuses on the location (within or outside the student’s regular class) of the special support provided by high schools, and cannot say anything more specific about what kind of support activities are carried out within or outside the student’s regular class, or how they are perceived by students. However, the placement of support is considered important when aiming for an inclusive school, as highlighted by IncludED (2006), Smelter (1994) and SNAE (2007).

4.5. Causes of dropout Causes of student dropout are a particularly elusive and complex area. However, there are several studies that have attempted to describe reasons that can explain why students drop out from school. It should be emphasized that many of these studies have a very low response rate, which may be considered natural when it comes to collecting data from young people who have dropped out of school. The factors that may be invoked as possible causes of dropout are discussed below in three subgroups: system-related, individual-related and school-related factors. 4.5.1. System-related factors Some causes for student dropout may be related to the systematic change to the school system that was introduced in Sweden in 1994 (see above). Murray (2007) points to mainly three factors that contributed to increased dropout related to the new program educational system. The first

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concerns the rate “not passed” (icke godkänt, IG), which became more explicit and indicated that a student has not achieved the educational goals for the course. In the previous system, students could have relatively low grades but it now became a more obvious failure with the grade “not passed”. Statistics presented in the study clearly show that the new grading system created increasing numbers of dropouts. Another factor that influenced the number of dropouts was the introduction of course grades instead of subject grades. Previously, students recieved grades in every subject and were allowed to improve their grades retrospectively. From 1994, every course is awarded a grade, and this increased the pressure within the school system (SNAE 2001). The third factor that contributed to an increase in the dropout rate is the greater demand for access to a national educational program (Murray 2007). As the competence requirements increased, the students who were not eligible for a national program had a significantly longer education time, including preparation time in the individual program, before shifting to a national program. Previously, students with relatively low grades from compulsory school had the opportunity to participate in a vocational education for two years; now it takes students four years if they are not eligible for a national program directly after graduating from the compulsory school level. Such factors create much higher demands on the students, along with the demands for access to universities for all educational programs, and it appears as though these increased demands have contributed to more student dropouts. While system-related factors differ between different educational systems and over time, the factors outlined above seem to have been crucial in the Swedish system since the 1990s. Previous studies have also shown that most dropouts take place in the third grade (Murray and Sundin 2008, SNAE 2008a) and that especially students with foreign backgrounds and students with low parental educational levels are over-represented (SNAE 2008b). 4.5.2. Individual-related factors A questionnaire and interview study conducted by SCB (2007), aimed at students who dropped out of high school education, revealed that the most common reasons reported for dropping out was burnout (skoltrötthet) (41 percent), physical or mental illness (13 percent) and that students had chosen the wrong educational program (9 percent). It can also be noted that more than half of the dropout respondents subsequently regretted their uncompleted school careers. Many in this group were students with a

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foreign background. The concept burnout can be interpreted in different ways, and from an individual perspective it can mean that the student is tired, and the reasons for this could be lack of motivation, social conditions, lack of knowledge, etc. Another clear individual-related factor concerns the relationship between dropping out and the average merit rating value from compulsory school year nine, where students with low grades drop out from school to a much higher extent than those with higher grades (SCB 2007). Another explanation could be that it is the school that the student is tired of, and the reasons for this could be found within the school’s organization or ways of teaching, etc. Thus, the concept of burnout can be interpreted both as an individual-related factor and a school-related factor. 4.5.3. School-related factors Based upon an interview study of students who dropped out from school, SNAE (2008c) highlights that the support from the school was provided too late and that the nature of the support was remedial rather than preventive. Several students reported that they felt left to themselves and that the school’s support was inadequate, and also that the school repeatedly urged students to drop out by taking a year off or other ways of taking a study break. SCB (2007) also notes that many of the students who dropped out did not have any contact nor discussed their situation with school staff prior to leaving their studies. Other studies, like the one by Svensson and Reuterberg (2002), compared students who completed their high school education with those who had dropped out and showed that a greater proportion of the students who dropped out complained about not having received adequate support from the school to manage their education (see also SNAE 2001). The support that is offered late is reported as not focusing on the problems students perceive as central to their schooling. At the same time, 40 percent of the dropout students reported that they could have continued in school if they had received more support from teachers and other school staff. These studies show that many students who drop out expressed that they felt that the support from the school was not sufficient. A report by SNAE (1998), that focused only on marginalization within high schools, pointed out that marginalization is a process whereby some students are “pushed aside” in the school, which in turn means that they tend to drop out of their studies to a higher extent: “It seems that marginalization is the term that best covers the path to dropout and failure in high schools. Some students are pushed out in the margin and some of

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them fall away” (SNAE 1998, 5). A discussion related to three different factors is highlighted to understand how this process works. The first factor is termed “school value” and is related to the status difference between different educational programs. The various educational programs have different levels of status, which means that in the programs with low status, teachers have lower expectations of the student’s achievement. It is primarily the individual program and the vocational programs that are described as low status programs, which is why these programs are seen as contributing to marginalization. The second factor is referred to as “school outlier”. When a school environment is considered normal, students who do not fit into this normality and who are in need of support are seen as outliers. It is not the specific support in itself that is viewed as deviant, rather it is the need for support that is seen as deviant and different from the normal (SNAE 1998). The study also reveals that students who have received special support in compulsory school are already at an increased risk of marginalization as they may have a lack of knowledge and a lower self-esteem and may even be labelled as deviants. In addition, the need for support is often explained in terms of individual shortcomings. Another risk of marginalization, coupled with deviance, derives from different structures within different educational programs. Of particular concern are programs with a strong dominance of one gender. For instance, a girl is often seen as a deviant when she joins an educational program, such as the vehicle and transport program, that is dominated by boys. This may lead to girls being classified as deviants to a larger extent and thereby also being at a greater risk of marginalization (SNAE 1998). A third factor concerns the design of the core- and program-specific subjects, where it is pointed out that the core subjects in vocational programs are often simplified and reduced, rather than being adapted to the program’s character (Bergman 2007). This type of simplification and reduction of the core subjects in the vocational programs means that not only do these students get a poorer quality education, but they are also classified as deviants within the school and are thus are at a greater risk of being marginalized. Thus, conditions in the school shape the processes of marginalization. Preventive measures here relate to dimensions of the group constellation and the attitudes and routine strategies of the school staff. While these three factors contribute to students ending up in marginalized situations and thus being more likely to drop out from school (SNAE 1998), I have found that the causes of marginalization within the

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school can be understood in many different ways and can be explained from different perspectives. This chapter can be seen as a contribution to a discussion of the causes of marginalization within schools. It does not claim to provide a comprehensive picture of the complexity of marginalization. The focus is on the special support provided by Swedish high schools to students in need of special support.

5. Methodological issues This section presents a brief description of the study design, procedure and data collection (see Ramberg 2013, 2015, 2016 for a further description of the study). The study design consists of a cross-sectional total population survey of all high schools in Sweden during the academic school year 2010/2011. No national survey of these issues has previously been conducted. A questionnaire distributed to the schools (N=950) received a response from 764 schools or 80.4 percent (see Table 2-1). Public schools

Independent schools

Total

358

County council schools 13

Nr. of schools

393

Nr. of schools with special educational professionals

354

115

8

477

% of schools with special educational professionals

90.1

32.1

61.5

100

764

Table 2-1. Responding schools The questionnaire was responded to by the principal and/or the special educator/special teacher. One block of the questionnaire was related to the tasks that were performed by the schools’ special educational professionals. Here questions related to the extent that these professionals performed different tasks and elicited information on the occurrence of the following: (a) Student support outside his/her regular class, (b) Student support within his/her regular class, (c) Supervision of mentor teachers, (d) Teaching students in “open” workshops (i.e. open to all), (e) Screening students’ levels of knowledge, and (f) Establishing Individual Education

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Plans (IEP) (åtgärdsprogram). These tasks were constructed as “agree” statements assessed by five response alternatives on an ordinal scale, where 0=does not exist; 1=to a very small extent; 2=to a small extent; 3=to a large extent; and 4=to a very large extent. The scale in this block of questions has been treated as an approximated interval scale. The block also included an open question to capture other tasks that were not described. This part of the questionnaire is, by its nature, answered only by respondents at schools that had special educational professionals. Another block of questions elicited responses regarding supporting activities that schools provided within and outside the regular class settings. These activities were not taken care of by the special educational professionals at the school but by the subject teachers. These questions were also constructed as “agree” statements assessed on the same scale. A final question posed in the questionnaire related to the proportion of the schools supporting resources that were provided within or outside the student’s regular class. The response options were on a percentage distribution scale as follows: 0/100, 20/80, 40/60, 80/20, 100/0. The issue of non-responding schools was managed with a nonresponse bias analysis, which showed that the responding schools are representative of the entire population (Ramberg 2013). One limitation within the present study is that the respondents have reported estimations (rather than hard values) with regards to the extent the school provides support within and outside the student’s regular classroom.

6. Results The main focus in this section is to describe the location of the support provided by the special educational professionals at schools, the location of other support activities at the schools and also the percentage distribution of the location of the school’s special support. The section has two parts, where the first part will look at the extent of special educational support within the student’s regular class and the extent of special educational support outside the student’s regular class. It also reports on other tasks that the special educational professionals are in charge of at schools. Special educational professionals were present in 477 of the 764 schools that are part of the data. The second part focuses on the extent to which the schools provided support activities within the regular class settings and to what extent they had support activities outside the regular class settings, provided primarily by subject teachers. This part will also look at the percentage distribution of the location of the school’s support activities, and builds on data from all the participating schools.

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6.1. Special educational support within the regular class On the question on the extent to which the special educational professionals at school provided support within the students’ regular classes, the most reported answer is “to a very small extent” (35.5 percent), followed by “to a small extent” (26.6 percent). The least frequent answer reported is “to a very large extent” (13.4 percent). Figure 2-1 illustrates the extent to which the special educational professionals at the school’s support students in need of special support within the students’ regular classes. As can be seen in Figure 2-1, the responses are in descending order and in total 37.9 percent of the schools reported that the special educational support is provided within the students’ regular class to a very large or to a large extent.

Fig. 2-1. Number of schools with special educational professionals and where support is provided within the students’ regular classes, including to what extent (n=448)

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On the other hand, 62.1 percent of the school’s report that the special educational support inside the students’ regular class is provided to a small or to a very small extent. One interesting difference can be noticed in a comparison between independent (n=105) and public schools (n=335). The distribution of special educational support between the two school types is different in that the special educational resources in the independent schools are provided within the students’ regular class to a larger extent. As far as independent schools are concerned, 47.6 percent report that the special educational resources are provided inside the student’s regular class to a large or to a very large extent. Within the public schools, 34 percent report that their special educational resources are provided within the student’s regular class to a large or to a very large extent.

6.2. Special educational support outside the regular class The respondents at the schools also reported the extent of the special educational support that was provided outside the students’ regular class. As can be seen in Figure 2-2, the most frequent answer was that the special educational support was “to a very large extent” provided outside the students’ regular class, followed by the answer “to a large extent”. In total, 83.1 percent of the respondents at the schools reported that the special educational support was provided outside the students’ regular class to a large or to a very large extent, while 80 respondents or 16.9 percent reported that they make this provision available to a small or to a very small extent. There is no particular difference between public and independent schools with regards to what extent the special educational support is provided outside the students’ regular class. The percentage distribution in the answers is very much the same between the school types. It should be emphasized that there is not necessarily any contradiction in the questions as to whether the schools’ special educational support is provided within or outside the students’ regular classes. It was possible to respond that the special educational support at the school was provided within the regular class to a very large extent at the same time as it was possible to respond that the support was provided outside the regular class to a very large extent. This is the reason for presenting the support provided both within and outside the students’ regular class. The two questions do not mirror one another. They are designed to complement one another with the aim of giving as clear a picture as possible as to where the special educational support is provided.

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Fig. 2-2. Number of schools with special educational professionals where support is provided outside the students’ regular class including to what extent (n=474)

At some schools, several individuals are included in the school’s special educational group of professionals; thus, it was possible to respond that the support can, to a large extent, be provided both within and outside the regular classes. Therefore, the two questions are dealt with separately, and together they give a clearer picture of where the special educational support is provided. This also clarifies the results, since there seems to be a difference between public and independent schools in the distribution of special educational support within the students’ regular classes, but not in the distribution of support provided outside the students’ regular classes. To summarize the answers from the questions, it can be concluded that schools reported that special educational support was provided to students outside their regular classes to a much larger extent than within them. Of respondents at the schools, 83 percent report that the special educational support is provided outside the students’ regular class to a very large or to a large extent. However, almost 40 percent of the respondents reported that the special educational support is provided to a large or to a very large extent within the students’ regular classes too. In many schools, there are

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different types of support that can be provided both within and outside the students’ regular classes. Having said this, it should be noted that the support that is provided outside seems to be much more prevalent.

6.3. Other tasks performed by the special educational professionals The special educational professionals at schools perform a number of different tasks in order to support students in need of special support. The tasks reported are relevant at different levels, where some of the tasks (Establishing IEPs, Screening of students’ level of knowledge and supervising mentor teachers) are on a more general school level while other tasks (supporting students outside and within their regular classes and in “open” workshops) are more directly related to special support for students in need of special support. As can been seen in Figure 2-3, different tasks are focused on to different extents. The task that is most privileged is providing support outside the students’ regular classes, followed by establishing IEP’s. The task that is given the least attention relates to supporting students within the regular classes. The open question which aimed to capture tasks that were not available for ranking was answered by many schools (n=174). Most answers comprised short phrases, which sometimes meant that it was hard to understand the formulations in depth. The additional tasks described in the responses were thematically organized into seven categories with the aim of creating an overview. A common response related to the schools’ work in the student health team (n=71). This focused on meetings with other school staff who worked with the student health team and preventive activities. Furthermore, contacts with external institutions such as the compulsory school, social services, police authorities and child psychiatry were highlighted. Answers to the open question also revealed that testing of students’ prior knowledge was given attention and that motivational conversations with students were prioritized. Table 1.2 presents all answers to the open question categorized into the different themes that emerged in the analysis.

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Fig. 2-3. Different tasks and the extent to which they are privileged by the special educational professionals at schools (n=477) Theme Student health team External contacts Investigations, screening, testing Motivational / Structuring conversations Working with compensatory tools Supervision of staff School improvement

Frequency (n) 71 31 28 20 16 13 8

Table 2-2. Other special educational activities reported by schools in response to the open-ended question

6.4. School support activities within the regular class The second block of questions directed at all schools aimed to identify support activities that were performed by the regular school staff (and not the special educational professionals). This block of questions was answered by respondents of 764 schools. 76 schools reported that they

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provide support during the regular classes to a very large extent and 171 reported that they do this to a large extent. The respondents frequently reported that they provide support during the regular classes to a small or to a very small extent. Most commonly they report that it is provided to a very small extent: 289 schools or 40.5 percent (see Figure 2-4). It is noteworthy that no particular differences can be seen here between independent and public schools. The distribution of support provided within the students’ regular classes was reported to be about the same in the different school types.

Fig. 2-4. Number of schools where other support activities are provided during the ordinary classes including to what extent (n=714)

6.5. School support activities outside the regular classes Another question to which responses were elicited was the extent to which schools provided support outside the students’ regular classes. As can been seen in Figure 2-5, a common response that schools present is that support was provided outside the student’s regular class to a very large or to a large extent: 331 respondents (44.8 percent) report that they provide this to a very large extent and 253 schools (34.2 percent) to a large extent.

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A total of 156 respondents (21.1 percent) report that they provide this kind of support to a small or to a very small extent. The distribution between the school types, public and independent, is also roughly the same.

Fig. 2-5. Number of schools that report other support activities being provided outside the ordinary classes including to what extent (n=740)

Similar to the case of the support provision by the special educational professionals, the two questions in focus here need to be dealt with separately. Together, these questions give a picture of the site where the support is provided. If only the picture of support outside (or within) the student’s regular class had been elicited, it would have meant that one aspect of the support provision would have been made invisible. It may, for example, be the case that the support at a school is targeted at particular groups of students or educational programs extensively within the regular classroom, while support that targets other groups of students or educational programs is provided extensively outside the regular

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classroom. In order to provide an indicative picture of the total support, both locations have been focused on and therefore need to be seen as complementary rather than as mirroring one another. A summary of the location of support activities provided by school staff other than the special educational professionals indicates that support outside the regular lessons is far more dominant than support provided during the students’ regular classes.

6.6. Schools’ location of overall support The location of the overall support provided in the school was finally also elicited. A percentage distribution scale with six options was provided with the aim of understanding the quantity of support that was made available within and outside the regular classrooms. Of the 679 schools that responded, 86 respondents, or 12.7 percent, reported that the main part of the support at the school was provided within the students’ regular classes. A total of 593 respondents, or 87.3 percent, reported that the main part of the support was provided outside the students’ regular classes (see Figure 2-6). The most frequent response (n=330) was that about 20 percent of the support in the school was provided within the students’ regular class while 80 percent was provided outside. In summary, support activities carried out by the schools’ special educational resources and other staff in the schools which are targeted at students in need of special support can be provided in many different ways and in different school sites. The study presented here highlights that while the support provided by the schools’ special educational professionals is located both within and outside the students’ regular classrooms, support provided outside the students’ regular classes is far more dominant. Furthermore, support activities provided by other school staff is also made available outside the students’ regular classrooms. In addition, the respondents of the schools’ report that the total distribution of support is largely dominated by supporting activities outside the students’ regular classes.

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Fig. 2-6. Percentage distribution of the location of the support provision made available within/outside the ordinary classroom (n=679)

7. Discussion This chapter has presented a picture of the responses of the Swedish high schools’ estimates of the location of special support for students in need of special support. It has especially focused on where the special support is provided: within or outside the students’ regular classrooms. It has also presented previous research related to marginalization processes and policy documents related to support for students in need of special support in schools. The Swedish high school system is a differentiated system through its division of hierarchical educational programs, where choice and market principles (e.g. Alexandersson 2011, Björklund et al. 2005, Bunar 2010, Jackson, Jonsson and Rudolphi 2012, Lindbom 2010, Lundahl et al. 2010, Östh, Andersson and Malmberg 2013) contribute to further differentiation between different groups of students, schools and educational pathways. The study presented in this chapter has not specifically focused on this

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differentiation, but rather the possible further differentiation within existing educational programs and schools. However, it is important to keep in mind that the high school is already strongly differentiated, and previous research provides a partial explanation for marginalization (SNAE 1998). It is important to stress that special educational support can be organized in many ways, for different reasons, in different places and by different members of different professions. Because of this variation, it is important to clarify how the support is provided. The results presented in this chapter have focused on where support activities take place. They thus do not provide a complex picture of what these support activities imply or how they are experienced by students, special educational professionals within schools or other school staff. It makes available an indicative picture of where the support is provided. Previous research indicates that segregated support can lead to feelings of stigma and marginalization. The importance of the location of the special support is also highlighted by Isaksson (2009), who emphasized the relationship between support outside the student’s regular class and segregation, where students expressed feelings of non-participation in relation to their classmates, and therefore were portrayed as deviants. The importance of participation is also expressed in a government democracy report (SOU 2000:1), which highlights that too many people are excluded from different levels of society, which in turn prevents democratic development. The ability to participate in normal relationships and activities available to the majority of people in a society are recognized as important in order to prevent social exclusion (Levitas 2007, Shildrick 2010). Applicable policy documents strongly suggest that the support should be provided within the student’s regular class. The overall principle of supporting students in need of special support, according to both international (UNESCO 1994) and national policy documents (Ministry of Education 1997), is that, as far as it is possible, students should be taught together, in their regular class settings. This is also summarized by SNAE (2007), which concludes that the overall principle in the national legislation to support students in need of support is that the student should be educated in the regular class. At the same time, previous research by Emanuelsson, Persson and Rosenqvist (2001), Giota and Lundborg (2007) and SNAE (2009, 2010) suggests that support is often provided in different segregated settings, where the students are “taken out” from their regular classes for a shorter or longer period of time, highlighting a discrepancy with what policy

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generally advocates. The overall results from this present study is that the special support provided by schools is found both within and outside the students’ regular classes, but that it much more extensively takes place outside the students’ regular classrooms.

7.1. Support outside the students’ regular classes The question “what contributes to and what prevents social exclusion and marginalization” constitutes complex issues that cannot be easily explained. However, according to Levitas (2007) and Shildrick (2010), the individual’s ability to fully participate in normal social activities is important for preventing social exclusion. Isaksson (2009) too highlights that students who were offered special support outside their regular class did not feel included. It is difficult for a student in need of special support to fully participate in normal social activities when the support is provided in a place other than where the normal social activity occurs. Democratic perspectives too emphasize the right not to be excluded from the social context and the individuals’ right to fully participate (SOU 2000:1). While this has not been focused on in the present study, the above suggests that support provided outside the student’s regular class can contribute to feelings of stigma and social exclusion for students who are recipients of such support. The results presented in this chapter indicate that the special educational professionals in schools and other school staff are providing support to students in need of special support to a large extent outside their regular classrooms. This extensive provision of support outside regular classes is questionable when compared to the guidelines in policy and previous research findings. However, it is not necessarily true that all students who are offered special support outside their regular class feel excluded. It is reasonable to assume that many students who receive special support outside their regular classes appreciate a more peaceful and quiet school environment. Therefore, it is of key interest to investigate further how the special support provided outside the students’ regular classes is perceived by different groups of students. Here it is argued that support outside the student’s regular classes can be aligned with marginalization risks, even if this is not necessarily true for all students. One can also argue that support provided outside the students’ regular classes leads to feelings of stigma and non-participation, which can in turn also lead to an increased risk of dropping out from school, and therefore increased risk of being marginalized later in the labor market. These possible relationships need to be investigated in depth. This

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can, for instance, be done through studies that especially focus on students who drop out and who have received support outside their regular classes, and how it was experienced and received.

7.2. Support within the students’ regular classes According to policy documents, as has been highlighted earlier, schools should strive for an inclusive environment. One dimension of this effort, among others, is, according to Idol (2007), Includ-ED (2006) and Smelter (1994), to educate students in need of special support in their regular class settings. This could also lead to fewer students experiencing feelings of stigma and non-participation within daily school practices. Therefore, it is important for schools to provide special support as much as possible within the students’ regular classes, not only to merely adhere to policy but also to decrease the number of students who experience non-participation. According to the results of the present study, 37.9 percent of the respondents of the school’s report that the special educational professionals in the schools provide support within the students’ regular classes to a large or to a very large extent (see Figure 2-1). Many respondents (62.1 percent) report that the special educational professionals at the school performed this to a small or to a very small extent. This does not mean that this type of support provision was completely absent: special educational resources in many schools do provide support to students in need of special support within their regular classes; within independent schools, the special educational professionals provide support within the students’ regular classes to a somewhat greater extent than is done in public schools. It would indeed be interesting to follow up these results and especially focus on provision within the independent schools. Is it a fact that independent schools with special educational professionals, in general, have other strategies for organizing support, and that they, in general, are more likely to provide support within the students’ regular classes? If so, what are the reasons for this? It should be noted, however, that many independent schools do not provide special educational professionals for their students (Ramberg 2013). While the results indicate that providing support within the students’ regular class (by the special educational professionals) was the type of support that was given least attention (see Figure 2-3), other support activities carried out by other school staff are provided during the students’ regular lessons. A total of 247 out of 714 or 34.6 percent of the school’s report that this was performed to a large or to a very large extent (see Figure 2-4). However, barely four out of ten schools’ support

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activities for students in need of special support within the students’ regular classes to a large or to a very large extent. It seems like the presence of special educational resources at the schools does not affect the organization of the other special support activities. Most schools report that they provide services for students in need of special support to a small or to a very small extent in the students’ regular classes. At the same time, most schools report that they provide support for students in need of special support to a large or to a very large extent outside the students’ regular classes. It would be more in line with the policy documents and previous research to increase the support activities that take place within the students’ regular classes; this would be a more inclusionary approach to supporting students.

8. Conclusions The study presented in this chapter reports that supporting students in need of special support outside their regular class in high schools is a routine practice used extensively and is managed by the schools’ special educational professionals and also other school staff. It shows that this location of support is more extensive than support within the students’ regular class settings. These results are in line with the findings of previous research (Giota and Lundborg 2007, Isaksson 2009, Johansson 2009, Möllås 2009, SNAE 2009, 2010), which point out that special support activities are often carried out in segregated environments. This manner of providing support contrasts, in many ways, with what policy advocates and previous research has identified as a contributing factor to social exclusion. Having said this, not all schools provide this kind of special support, and nor do schools only provide support in this manner. However, the overall dominant configuration of support from the schools is provided outside the students’ regular classrooms. The question of how to reduce school failure and prevent students dropping out from high school is a large issue in most countries (Lamb, 2011). There is no simple or single solution that can be comprehensive. The educational system, in interaction with other societal factors (e.g., the labor market), has a key role here. However, the relationship between school dropout and special support in schools has been highlighted in previous research, which suggests that inclusive support decreases the social exclusion and marginalization of students. These relationships and causal explanations, however, need to be investigated further and in depth.

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One can suspect that an increase in the extent of support within the regular class settings could be a contributing factor towards decreasing the number of students who experience feelings of stigma and social exclusion, and, later on, increased risks of marginalization in the labor market. This might not be true for all students or schools, but is likely in many cases. As highlighted above, it would be of utmost interest to investigate this further in order to draw further conclusions on the relationships between the schools’ special support and marginalization processes. It is also striking that the dominant focus of special support within the schools, contrasts with what policies advocate. There seems to be a gap in many schools between the intentions of policies and the special support provided by schools. The present study also opens up spaces for further questions and issues related to support for students in need of special support. It would be interesting to focus on some schools that are deviant in their ways of organizing support, i.e. those schools that say that they only provide support within the students’ regular classes, or those that say that they provide all their support outside the students’ regular classrooms. What differences can be revealed from further studies of these schools? It would also be helpful to investigate, in depth, how the students, special educators, teachers and principals, etc. experience the different placements of support, in combination with different arguments that are expressed for different locations of support.

Notes 1

A previous version of this chapter has been presented in Ramberg (2015), with a reference to this publication. 2 Special education providers in Sweden can hold two different professional roles: special educators and special teachers. Their intended work assignments are somewhat different, but their roles in the daily school practices are intertwined with one another. Previous research by Gerrbo (2012), Isaksson (2009), Mattson and Hansen (2009), Rosenqvist (2007) and the Swedish National Agency for Education, SNAE (1999) points out that it is hard to distinguish them apart. Therefore, they together constitute “special educational resources” in this study, which is elaborated further in Ramberg (2013).

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[Dropout problems in a European perspective. A literature review], edited by Skolverket. Stockholm: Skolverket. —. 2007. Genomströmningen i gymnasieskolan. Före och efter gymnasiereformen [Student flow in the high school. Before and after the high school reform]. In Utbildningsvägen—vart leder den? [The education path—where does it lead?], edited by Jonas Olofsson. 143155. Stockholm: SNS förlag. Murray, Åsa and Sundin, Sven. 2008. “Student flows and employment opportunities before and after implementation of a third year in vocational programmes at high school.” European Journal of Vocational Training, 44(2): 110-130. Myklebust, Jon Olav and Båtevik, Finn Ove. 2005. “Economic independence for adolescents with special educational needs.” European Journal of Special Needs Education, 20(3): 271-286. Möllås, Gunvie. 2009. ”Detta ideliga mötande”—en studie av hur kommunikation och samspel konstituerar gymnasielevers skolpraktik [”Always these meetings”—A study of communication and interaction constituting the school practice of high school students]. Jönköping University: ARK Tryckaren AB. Norwegian ministry of education and research. 2006-2007. Summary of report No. 16 (2006-2007) to the Storting. OECD. 2011. Education at a glance 2010: Education indicators. OECD Publishing. —. 2012. Education at a Glance 2012: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing. Ramberg, Joacim. 2013. “Special Educational Resources in the Swedish Upper Secondary Schools: A Total Population Survey.” European Journal of Special Needs Education, 28(4): 440-462. —. 2015. Special Education in Swedish Upper Secondary Schools: Resources, Ability Grouping and Organisation. Doctoral Thesis. Stockholm University. Malmö: Holmbergs. —. 2016. “The extent of ability grouping in Swedish Upper Secondary Schools. A national survey.” International Journal of Inclusive Education, 20(7): 685-710. Rosenqvist, Jerry. 2007. ”Några aktuella specialpedagogiska forskningstrender” [Some current special education research trends]. In Reflektioner kring specialpedagogik: sex professorer om forskningsområdet och forskningsfronterna. [Reflections on Special Education: six professors on research area and research fronts], edited by Claes Nilholm and Eva Björck-Åkesson, 36-51. Stockholm: Vetenskapsrådet.

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SCB. 2007. Ungdomar utan fullföljd gymnasieutbildning [Adolescents without completed high school education]. Tema: Utbildning, nr 4, 2007. —. 2008. Youths without completed high school education—a survey with many challenges. Örebro: Statisitics Sweden. —. 2017. Unga utanför? Så hard et gått på arbetsmarknaden för 90-talister utan fullföljd gymnasieutbildning [Young people left behind? The situation on the labour market for those born in the 1990s without completed upper secondary education]. Statistics Sweden 2017. Shildrick, Tracy. 2010. “Young People, social inclusion and exclusion within Europe. COYOTE.” Youth work, Training, Research, Policy, 33(15): 14-17. Slavin, Robert E. 1987. “Ability grouping and student achievement in elementary schools: A best-evidence synthesis.” Review of Educational Research, 57(3): 293-336. —. 1990. “Achievement effects of ability grouping in secondary schools: A best-evidence synthesis.” Review of Educational Research, 60(3): 471-99. Smelter, Richard W. 1994. “Thinking of Inclusion for all Special Needs Students? Better Think Again.” Phi Delta Kappan, 76(1): 35-38. SNAE. 1998. Gymnasieskola för alla ... andra. En studie om marginalisering och utslagning i gymnasieskolan [High school for all … others. A study of marginalization and exclusion in the high school]. Stockholm: Skolverket. —. 1999. Nationella kvalitetsgranskningar 1998. Rapport nr 160 [National quality reviews 1998. Report no. 160]. Stockholm: Skolverket. —. 2001. Utan fullständiga betyg—varför når inte alla elever målen? [Without complete grades—why dont all students reach the goals?]. Stockholm: Skolverket. —. 2007. En sammanfattning av resultat och erfarenheter under tre år [A summary of results and experiences over three years]. Stockholm: Skolverket. —. 2008a. Studieavbrott och stödinsatser i gymnasieskolan. en kunskapssammanställning [Study breaks and support in the high school. A knowledge compilation]. Stockholm: Skolverket. —. 2008b. Studieresultat i gymnasieskolan. En statistisk beskrivning av ofullständiga gymnasiestudier [Study results in the high school. A statistical description of incomplete high school education]. Stockholm: Skolverket.

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—. 2008c. Varför hoppade du av? [Why did you drop out?]. Stockholm: Skolverket. —. 2009. Vad påverkar resultaten i svensk grundskola? Kunskapsöversikt om betydelsen av olika faktorer. Sammanfattande analys [What affects the results in Swedish compulsory school? Knowledge overview of the importance of different factors. Summarized analysis]. Stockholm: Skolverket. —. 2010. Risk för IG. Gymnasierektorer om skolornas stöd till elever som riskerar att inte nå målen [Risk of not passing. High school principals about support of students at risk not achieving educational goals]. Stockholm: Skolverket. —. 2011. Betyg och studieresultat i gymnasieskolan 2010/11 [Grades and study results in the high school 2010/11]. Stockholm: Skolverket. —. 2012. High school 2011. Stockholm. Skolverket. SOU. 2000. Välfärd och skola. SOU 2000:39 [Welfare and School SOU 2000:39]. Stockholm: Fritzes. —. 2000:1. En uthållig demokrati! Politik för folkstyrelse på 2000-talet. Demokratiutredningens betänkande [A sustainable democracy! Politic for public governance in the 2000s. Democracy inquiry report]. Fritzes: Stockholm. Svensson, Allan and Reuterberg, Sven-Eric. 2002. Vad har hänt i gymnasieskolan under de senaste fem åren? [What has happened in the high school over the last five years?]. (IPD-rapport nr 2002:09). Göteborg: Göteborgs universitet, Institutionen för pedagogik och didaktik. UNESCO. 1994. The Salamanca Statement and framework for action on special needs education. Adopted by the world conference on special needs education: access and quality. Paris. UNESCO. Östh, John, Andersson, Eva and Malmberg, Bo. 2013. ”School choice and increasing performance difference: A counterfactual approach.” Urban Studies, 50(2): 407-425.

PART II: MARGINALIZATION INSIDE, OUTSIDE AND ACROSS SCHOOL SETTINGS

CHAPTER THREE ADHD IN THE CLASSROOM: A PEDAGOGY AND ITS PARADOXES EVA HJÖRNE

1. Introduction Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a globally prevalent mental disorder that is rapidly increasing and currently estimated to affect between 5 and 11 percent of children (Holmberg 2009, Hinshaw and Scheffler 2014, Graham 2007). The ratio of boys and girls in Sweden with this diagnosis is estimated to be four to one; that is, four times as many boys receive a diagnosis of ADHD than girls (Kopp 2010, Velasques 2012). In the U.S., about 15 percent of boys are reported to have ADHD (Hinshaw and Scheffler 2014). In addition to gender, social class and ethnicity are factors as well. Children at or below the poverty line are more likely to receive an ADHD diagnosis than children from upper middle-class families (Hinshaw and Scheffler 2014). According to the American Psychiatric Association (APA 2013), the “disorderly” element of ADHD consists of such behavioural symptoms as inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity—all of which can affect a child’s social skills, school performance and interpersonal relationships (Barkley 2006, Biederman 2005, DuPaul, Weyandt and Janusis 2011). Some examples of the symptoms said to indicate the presence of ADHD are: Inattention: a) Often fails to pay close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in schoolwork or other activities; and b) Often has difficulty sustaining attention in tasks or play activities. Hyperactivity: a) Often fidgets with hands or feet or squirms in seat; and b) Often leaves seat in classroom or in other situations where remaining seated is expected.

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Impulsivity: a) Often blurts out answers before questions have been completed; and b) Often has difficulty waiting for a turn.

Moreover, children with ADHD are more likely to be rejected socially (Hinshaw 2002). Academically, they are likely to receive low grades and be identified as requiring special education (Loe and Feldman 2007). They are also at a higher risk for dropping out of school than their peers who do not have ADHD (Barbaresi et al. 2007). In schools, the diagnosis is widely used as a category to classify pupils’ academic difficulties and to organize special teaching and learning activities. In many cases, the pupils with ADHD are placed in special teaching groups, in special schools, in so-called resource schools, or in some other special educational setting (Hjörne 2006). Interestingly, little research is available “regarding instructional, curricular, or classroom environment manipulations aimed at enhancing the learning and academic performance of these children” (DuPaul and Stoner 2003, 174). Therefore, the aim of this chapter is to highlight the educational strategies that practitioners consider relevant when organizing the teaching and learning practices aimed at children who have been diagnosed with ADHD. The primary research questions are: To which pedagogical measures does this diagnostic category correspond? What is the role of ADHD as a category in this setting? How does this contribute to the formation of a pupil’s identity?

2. Normality and deviance: Categorization and its consequences Ever since there have been schools, there have been pupils who have had trouble adjusting to them. As Mehan (2014) puts it, “difficult-to-teach students” have always existed, and they can be found all across the world. However, what is seen as normal or deviant behaviour, and what categories or explanations are used in schools to account for learning difficulties, have changed over the years. The categories used reflect the eras in which they were created and put to use. For example, throughout the nineteenth century, children were categorized using such terms as “vagrant” or “idiot”. In the twentieth century, a new terminology emerged and pupils began to be categorized as “weak”, “slow learners”, “psychopaths”, or “left-handed”, to mention but a few. Gender, class, age, ethnicity, religion, and ability are other examples of categories through which we understand and categorize each other in our daily intercourse.

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Categories are as consequential in the educational system as they are in other social institutions. In the past, pupils who were considered to exist outside of the mainstream were offered a variety of different forms of education; for example, they were offered less schooling, were expected to repeat years, or were placed in special schools or special classes (Hjörne and Säljö 2013). In recent decades, neuropsychiatric diagnoses, such as ADHD, ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), and so on, have been widely used as explanations for academic failure, as mentioned above. In addition, categories are associated with certain characteristics through which we are able to classify people and this affects how we act in different settings (Sacks 1992). This implies that “having an identity” in the context of a school is to be understood in terms of specific social categories. In addition, the identification of a child with special needs or having ADHD results in extra resources being made available for both the individual and the school. Thus, in most cases, belonging to the ADHD category results in a child’s placement in a special class for students with this specific diagnosis. This begs the question: what pedagogical practices do pupils encounter in special classes and how do they benefit from them?

2.1. Segregating strategies and identity formation When put into practice, the “one school for all” policy creates fundamental dilemmas regarding the inclusion and exclusion of children with different kinds of abilities and from different types of backgrounds. It is, as Ainscow (1999) describes, “difficult to escape from the legacy of our past, where pupils were divided into the ‘normal’ and the ‘less than normal’ in order to provide the latter group with a different form of education” (1999, 60). Categorizations emanating from such assumptions of normality and deviance are in a fundamental sense part of the school as an institution. The segregating strategies organized for the less than normal generally result in so-called compensatory solutions. This implies that the shortcomings of pupils form the basis for organizing their teaching and learning (Nilholm 2007, Evaldsson and Karlsson 2012). The teaching of children with special educational needs (SEN) relies on the allocation of extra resources, and the goal is that the pupils will eventually be able to return to a regular class setting. The institutional logic behind this solution today relies on giving the child a diagnosis. A diagnosis thus serves as an argument for the provision of extra resources. This strategy is problematic in several respects. For instance, the diagnosis is often “uncertain and highly influenced by existing cultural values” (Haug 1998, 16, my

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translation). In addition, the diagnosis concerns children who are still developing, which suggests that its prognostic value is limited. The use of diagnosis may also lead to a number of other consequences. For example, it is generally accepted that “people spontaneously come to fit their categories” (Hacking 1986, 223). This implies that the categories used will generate people who fit into them. Furthermore, the diagnosis is like “a symbolic vehicle for the identity processes of the child” (Abbey and Valsiner 2003, 1); or, as Thomas and Loxley (2001, 76) explain, “to be called ‘special’ is to be given a new identity within the schooling system”. The results of a Swedish study on remedial classes show that the pupils in these classes were described by other pupils in the school “as failures, as DAMP (Dysfunction in Attention, Motor function and Perception) kids, as idiots and as stupid” (Ljusberg 2009, 56). Using categories that indicate that a child is “less than normal”, the child will be labelled a “weak,” “deviant,” or “special” pupil. Consequently, the people they meet (staff, classmates, and others) will treat them accordingly. Thus, from this perspective, identity should not be understood as the passive adoption of a particular personal character. Rather, identities are shaped by people in interactional settings, and people actively contribute to establishing and maintaining a certain identity for themselves and for others (Antaki and Widdicombe 1998). Therefore, a diagnosis works as a lens through which everyone involved—the child, parents, teachers, and others—interprets and understand different behaviours and problems. In this sense, a diagnosis will be “the relevant thing” (Edwards 1998, 19) about the child in many settings, and this will have consequences for the child throughout his or her education and even later in life. The limited research that is available in Sweden on the consequences of segregating strategies focuses on the effects of special education in general (see Giota and Lundborg 2007, for example). These studies indicate that children who have not been diagnosed and segregated in school do better both in school and later in their working life than children with similar levels of ability who have received a diagnosis and some kind of special education (Sonnander, Emanuelsson and Kebbon 1993, Johnson 1962). In the so-called ‘DPA-project’ (Didactic Process Analysis), teaching strategies used in remedial classes (the forerunners of special teaching groups) during the 1960s in Sweden were explored. The results show that the teaching and learning practices implemented were not appreciably different from the practices used in the regular classes. This is interesting, since the pupils who were placed in remedial classes were there because it was assumed that they could not benefit from traditional

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pedagogy. Thus, the results reveal no obviously positive learning results for the children who received special needs education (Gustafsson and Stigebrandt 1972; see also Giota and Lundberg 2007).

2.2. ADHD and schooling The focus here is on the pedagogically and politically significant question regarding the use of diagnosis in school settings and demonstrating the connection between a diagnosis and the educational strategies offered to students in practice. From the literature, it appears that this connection is often unclear. As Haug explains, what characterizes the situation is a “great variety of diagnoses and a low number of pedagogical strategies” (1998, 16) that correspond. In spite of the great interest in, and the impact of, diagnoses of the kind previously mentioned in schools, there are surprisingly few, if any, studies on the educational strategies applied to, and classroom lives of, these children (see also DuPaul and Stoner 2003). The existing research has reported concerns regarding the effect of medical treatment on learning benefits, for example. Some researchers claim that medication is successful for these children since they become more disposed to learning (Green and Chee 1997), while others report the opposite. An extensive line of research (see, for example, Swanson et al. 1993 and Hechtman et al. 2004) has demonstrated that the use of medication does not result in an improved learning capacity for the medicated child but in behaviour that is more amenable and classroomappropriate (Slee 1994, 1995). Some researchers claim that even though medication and behavioural interventions may lead to reductions in ADHD symptoms and improvements in classroom behaviour, these interventions have minimal effects on academic achievement (DuPaul and Stoner 2003, Prosser 2008). In a review of the interventions recommended for use when dealing with ADHD in the classroom, researchers found that educational interventions related to the teacher’s choice of pedagogy or their ability to engage children in learning were more successful than any other intervention (Purdie, Hattie and Carroll 2002). Some researchers have taken this idea one step further and point to the risk of viewing ADHD-related behaviour as strictly biological and therefore beyond the teachers’ expertise when medicalizing the educational problem of disruptive behaviour in schools (Prosser et al. 2002, Graham 2008). One U.S. study on educating pupils with ADHD shows that some schools may tend to focus on interventions for behaviour control, which, “while effective for reducing disruptive activity are rarely sufficient to

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address social and academic difficulties” (DuPaul and Weyandt 2006, 171). However, there has been little research done on the “actual behavioural strategies teachers use in the classroom management of pupils with ADHD, or the reasons behind teachers’ use of those strategies” (Kos, Richdale and Hale 2006, 149). Whether ADHD is a “myth or reality” (Graham 2008, Hinshaw and Scheffler 2014) is, to put it mildly, a controversial question. While this debate is primarily between experts from the medical and social sciences, there exists a strong disagreement within the medical community as well (see Barkley 2006, Lloyd and Norris 1999, Slee 1995). My own studies on diagnostic processes show that an ADHD diagnosis is used to account for a wide range of problems in schools (Hjörne and Säljö 2004, 2013). It is applied to pupils who are described as disruptive and also to pupils who are considered passive. In some cases, it is connected to learning difficulties, in other cases it is not. Evidently, there is inconsistency in the nature of the relationship between various problems or behaviours and the use of ADHD to account for school difficulties. In addition, some researchers claim that the diagnoses serve as “labels of forgiveness” (Slee 1995) for everyone involved, including teachers and parents. The message is that no one is to blame for the difficulties of the child. Disregarding, for the moment, whether these diagnoses are legitimate, their use is already a social reality. Furthermore, their consequences for schools and for education are considerable, not least when discussing the allocation of resources.

3. ADHD in the classroom—the empirical study The empirical study presented in this chapter focuses on daily life in a special teaching group intended for children aged 7–12 with an ADHD diagnosis. The study was carried out two days a week over one academic year. The ADHD class consists of six boys (two boys aged 7, while the others were 8, 9, 10, and 12 years old) and five teachers. The pupils usually stay in this class for three years. The data in this ethnographic study consists of field notes, informal conversations, and interviews with the participants. Relevant steering documents, like the Working Plan (a document written by the teachers describing the goals and how to achieve them), were also collected. The focus of the study is on the physical and social arrangements in the classroom as well as on the pedagogical strategies used and the interactions between pupils and teachers. Thus, the study is concerned with what happens when children are placed in a special teaching group and it considers the sorts of pedagogy

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and education that are offered to them. In this case, an ADHD-specific group setting is examined and the following specific questions are posed: a) What teaching and learning strategies that unfold in this setting can be considered appropriate for children diagnosed with ADHD? b) What behavioural interventions are developed in this setting? and c) What kind of pupil identities are shaped in this classroom? The study is inspired from theories of communication and social interaction in that it focuses on a) how categories are used in institutional settings when handling dilemmas of the kind outlined here; and b) the concrete consequences of these categories (Sarangi and Roberts 1999, Wetherell 2001). From a methodological point of view, the work builds on an analytical discourse and micro-ethnographic approach (Mehan, Hertweck and Meihls 1986) where common practices and interactions in the classroom are documented and analysed. This involves viewing processes and practices in school as dynamic and interactionally produced in order to meet certain institutional ends.

4. Intervention strategies—some findings The research findings are presented in two sections. The first concerns the strategies for determining pedagogy and organizing an optimal learning environment. The second concerns the strategies for behavioural interventions whose aim is to prepare and teach the children the proper and expected behaviours that they will need in order to return to a “normal” class.

4.1. Pedagogy and the environment— some organizing principals As far as the modes of setting the pedagogy for improved academic achievement are concerned, the results show that the pedagogical practices that unfold in the ADHD classroom are strictly framed by some central organizing principles. These principles address ideas regarding the separation and isolation of the children and the notion of “structure”. 4.1.1. Segregating the segregated Teachers claim that the idea of separating and isolating the children from one another is an important element in the provision of education for children categorized as having ADHD. Along the same lines, the environment is designed to create small groups without external stimuli;

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that is, the environment is devoid of any pictures or other items that might distract the students. Therefore, the physical setting is designed with the intention of not only isolating these students from the children attending the regular school, but also from the other pupils in this specific school where the class is situated and even from the other children in the same class. Some manifestations of this idea are reflected in the following: a) The class observed is taught in a room on the fringes of a regular comprehensive school. None of the children in the class lives in the catchment area. They belong to other schools in the city and travel to this school by taxi every morning. The pupils are in this sense separated and isolated from their regular class and peers. b) The children are also separated from one another in the classroom by placing their six desks along the walls. c) The pupils are further isolated from one another by the placement of walls around the desks. d) There is an extra classroom available for use when there is a need to separate a pupil or a group of pupils from the rest. e) There is also a smaller room with a computer next to the classroom. The room is used by the eldest pupil in this group. Exclusion from their regular class and separation from one another within this special setting seems to be the basic organizing principle for educating children with ADHD. According to the teachers, the idea is to help the children to pay attention. Separating the children from one another is also a way of preventing the expected disruptive behaviour from occurring. Segregating “difficult-to-teach children” from those who are “normal” is not a new strategy in the history of schooling. Rather, this has always been a strategy that has been used when children do not fit into the school setting in expected ways (Deschenes, Cuban and Tyack 2001, Mehan 1993). 4.1.2. The idea of “structure” Furthermore, “a distinct structure and firm routines” are strictly recommended in the Working Plan of the class. Thus, the idea of “structure” seems to be a very important strategy when organizing the education of these children, and it is also a strategy that is recommended in the biomedical literature (Gillberg 1996, Kos, Richdale and Hale 2006). In the class examined here, the teachers created a firm schedule without any surprises across the different days of the week. As can be seen in Figure 3-

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1, the schedule is almost the same every day and is characterized by short working periods, frequent breaks, sessions involving sharing, and games. Monday

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Friday

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Fig. 3-1. The schedule

Another relevant observation is that non-academic activities (such as watching videos, painting, walking, playing, games, sharing time, and breaks) seem to be the main activities in this educational practice. There is little room for practising academic skills such as reading, writing, arithmetic, and so on. This is the same for all pupils, regardless of age and how long they have been members of the group (they usually stay in the group for three years). Thus, lowered expectations for the SEN pupil’s academic achievements seem to be the standard. This finding supports the results reported in other Swedish studies (see, for example, Hellberg 2007). Instead, the pupils in the ADHD group practise behaviour control and social skills and learn how to master their disability (see below). It is also interesting to note that the school day is much shorter in these settings (as compared to regular classes). The “structure” and the firm routines imply that there is no flexibility in this rigid organization. A dispute arose between the teachers and a pupil on one occasion when Kenny wanted to surprise his classmates with ice cream on his birthday (see Example 3-1). Example 3-1 builds upon my field notes and describes this issue further. During sharing time in the morning, the teacher says the following while she is writing the daily schedule on the board: T: Today after sharing time something different will happen. All pupils together: What? T: Kenny, you can tell. K: No, not now.

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T: Yes, we have to write it on the board because it is something different today. All pupils (except K): Ice cream! T: Yes, Kenny will serve you ice cream today because it is his birthday. (Kenny looks disappointed. He probably wanted to surprise his classmates.) Example 3-1. The ice cream story

The teacher went on to write “ice cream” after lunch in the schedule on the board. According to the symptoms of the disorder (see APA 2013), these children are assumed to have difficulties dealing with change and thus need to be prepared when something new or different is going to transpire. In a regular class, the teacher would probably not have disclosed such a “secret”. The question that can be raised is whether this type of intervention allows the children to be prepared for life in a “normal” class?

4.2. Behavioural interventions—learning to be a “normal” pupil The Working Plan of the class describes what goals are supposed to be achieved in this setting and how they will be achieved. According to this document, the overall intention of making certain arrangements for the provision of education for pupils assigned with the diagnosis of ADHD is to “help the individual pupil so that he can work socially and pedagogically in a way that enables him to fit into a regular school” (quoted from the Working Plan, my translation). This implies that one of the main goals is to make the pupil “fit in”, and that some normalizing strategies for preparing the children to fit in and be able to return to regular classes will unfold in this setting. More specifically, these strategies concern working through some of the difficulties that the children are expected to have according to the core symptoms of the ADHD diagnosis (such as inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity, and disruptive social behaviour). Accordingly, the children should learn and practise overcoming their presumed shortcomings. These include: a) difficulty concentrating and impulsivity; b) difficulty when paying attention; c) difficulties related to poor social skills; and d) remaining in their seats like “normal” children do in a regular classroom. According to the teachers, these interventions will also help the children become aware of their disability and their shortcomings, which is also an important goal set out in the Working Plan.

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4.2.1. Strategies for learning concentration and controlling impulses During the Work period in the schedule (see Figure 3-1), between 8.30 and 9.30 every day, the pupils work with their individual schedules. This primarily consists of five minutes allocated for mathematics, reading, spelling and motor exercises for each pupil. In Karl’s individual schedule (see Figure 3-2), we can find the following: 1. Computer 2. Skip the rope 3. Read words 4. Cards with pictures 5. My letters Ff 6. Trampoline 7. Maths p. 14-15 If you have time, cross-word

Fig. 3-2. Individual schedule for Karl

The nature of the work done in this class is illustrated by the individual schedule. The activities here consist of a mixture of games and academic exercises. The working periods are very short—five minutes for each activity. The pupils are required to do motor exercises between each activity. In doing so, the pupils practise their concentration; at least according to their teachers (see Example 3-2). Teacher: They’re doing maths, then they lose their concentration after a while, then we usually put in a motor exercise. Example 3-2. Interview with the teachers

Practising their concentration seems to be central to the classroom strategies. Having concentration difficulties is one of the core symptoms leading to a diagnosis of ADHD and it is something that the teachers relate to (see Example 3-2). However, during the yearlong fieldwork period covered in this study, these concentration periods were never extended. This implies that after three years of being in this group, the pupils continue to work in five-minute stretches. Consequently, the children might not be prepared to concentrate for longer periods of time, even though this is a necessary skill in a regular classroom.

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The Games period immediately follows the break in the schedule. During this period, or very short lesson, the pupils play different kinds of games. For example, they play Uno (a card game), Bamse-game (a character in a children’s book), Letter-Bingo, bowl using toilet paper rolls, and so on. The three children are playing Letter-Bingo and after six rounds, they have each won twice. At 11.45, they switch to Uno. One teacher helps Kenny, the other helps Karl, and Chris plays by himself. All the pupils are noisy and the teachers tell them to be quiet and to concentrate. Example 3-3. Playing games

Example 3-3 is one of many instances when the teachers explicitly discuss and instruct the pupils to concentrate. Inattention and lack of concentration are also core symptoms of ADHD and by explicitly commenting on this, the teachers make the pupils aware of their shortcomings. As has already been highlighted, this is also one of the main purposes of the classroom’s activities—to make the pupils aware of their disabilities. On another occasion, the children are playing Letter-Bingo during the Games period. All the pupils get their counters. Kenny is dissatisfied with his and throws a counter at Chris. Kenny: ADHD kid (!) Teacher: That was an impulse … children with ADHD have impulses. Example 3-4. Letter-Bingo

Example 3-4 illustrates a short sequence in which the pupil is reminded of one of his shortcomings—impulsivity. In a regular classroom situation, the teacher would probably have instructed the pupils to be quiet and continue to work or to raise their hands, but in this case, the teacher capitalizes on what happened when Kenny refers to Chris as an “ADHD kid” in order to remind the children of their disability, saying “that was an impulse . . . children with ADHD have impulses”. By making use of this predicate of an “ADHD child”, the social identity of the disabled pupil is openly communicated and confirmed (Hester 1998, Freebody and Freiberg 2000).

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4.2.2. Strategies for learning to pay attention During the Newspaper classroom period, or short lesson, on the schedule on Tuesdays (see Figure 3-1), the teachers generally read reports on accidents, violent deaths, and similar dramatic news stories. For example, they read about a man falling from a balcony, a train destroyed by a fire, and so on, and the pupils are supposed to paint the stories later on. The teachers account for the use of such themes by arguing that it is a means of capturing the pupils’ interest: “otherwise we won’t get their attention”. Lack of attention is considered a characteristic of children belonging to the category of “ADHD pupil”, as has already been mentioned, and the teachers justify their practices by referring to this attribute (see Example 3-5). The teacher reads from a newspaper, first the headline: “Man died, fell from the balcony”. She continues: Teacher: He lay on the ground and there was blood there and you can’t survive if you fall from such a great height. The police were called and another man was arrested; a crime was committed. It was murder (she shows the pupils a picture from the newspaper). Peter: Is he still there (?) Teacher: No, I guess it’s a spot of blood, which they’ve tried to remove. The pupils talk about the event and raise some issues. The teacher takes a sheet of paper and shows the pupils what they are required to do: Teacher: Here you can draw a high-rise building with many storeys and balconies. Example 3-5. Learning to pay attention

According to the teachers, their intention is to improve the pupils’ ability to pay attention by referring to shocking world events. In some respects, the lesson is similar to a regular lesson with clear teacher/pupil roles (Mehan 1979) and a more “traditional pedagogy” where the teacher has the role of transmitting knowledge to the pupils (cf. Prosser 2010). Thus, the teacher stands in front of the pupils and reads something, upon which the pupils are expected to comment. The difference in this classroom is that the interaction takes place in a context where there are five teachers and six pupils, and the discussion is on grisly incidents with the aim of keeping the pupil’s attention focused. The content seems to be of little importance since the explicit goal is simply to practise paying attention.

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4.2.3. Strategies for learning social skills During the scheduled Break, the pupils are, according to the teacher, required to “practise social rules such as turn-taking and learning to score a goal”. They do this by playing basketball or football under the teacher’s supervision (see Example 3-6). A break is scheduled at 11.20. All the pupils are supposed to play basketball. The younger ones play together and the older ones play at another basket. The teachers instruct them to stand in a queue and wait for their turn to throw the ball. They do not really play, but they throw the ball into the basket. Example 3-6. Learning social skills

Interestingly, just as they decide the content in the classroom, the teachers also decide the content during the break. This implies that the teacher/pupil roles are maintained throughout the day and that the social order outside the classroom is the same as it is inside the classroom. Furthermore, the teachers reprimand the pupils in the same manner as they do in the classroom. Children assigned with the diagnosis of ADHD are assumed to have problems following rules. Based on this premise, they have to practise overcoming this shortcoming, and in this example, they explicitly practise following social rules, i.e., to stay focused in a line waiting for their turn to throw the ball. Thus, at school, the pupils have to learn how to socialize with other people, but perhaps more explicitly, they have to learn how to behave properly in a school context, irrespective of whether it is during a “break” or in a classroom-based lesson. No other classes in the regular school experience such an arrangement. However, when serving lunch other rules seem to be in place for the pupils from this class; they do not have to stand in line and wait for their turn to be served. Instead they pass the line (Example 3-7). The schedule says it is time for lunch. The school canteen is situated just outside the classroom’s cloakroom. The pupils from this class do not have to stand in a queue. They enter the dining hall before the other children at the school and have access to their lunches right away. Example 3-7. Practise standing in line

This strategy of giving the pupils from the ADHD class priority at lunch is connected to the core symptoms associated with the diagnosis of ADHD. These pupils are not expected to be able to stay focused in a line

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without getting into trouble with the other pupils. Rather, it is assumed that the pupils will misbehave if they have to wait in a line. Therefore, the teachers are trying to prevent trouble from occurring. It is relevant to compare this situation to Example 3-6 above where the pupils are required to practise standing in line. Here, one can ask whether the pupils risk becoming confused when in one situation they have to practise queuing and in another, they are not expected to be able to do so. After three years in this class, they continue to practise the same skills under the same conditions. During Sharing Time, the pupils and the teachers gather around a large table in a regular classroom, as described in Example 3-8. All the pupils and four of the teachers are here. According to the schedule, it is sharing time. Everybody is supposed to say something about what happened during the break. Karl raises his hand. Karl: First Conrad, Kenny, Chris, and myself, we were pals and then we started to quarrel with each other— Chris: Yes, we— Teacher: Karl has to finish his story first. Karl: We can tell it together. Teacher: You tell it one at a time; that’s how you do it in school. Example 3-8. Learning “normal” behaviour

Example 3-8 demonstrates pupils practising how to behave in a regular classroom setting. More precisely, they are learning how to not interrupt when exchanging stories. As we can see, the teacher does not comment on the substance of what is being said, but rather focuses on their social skills and adherence to social norms. The teacher explicitly highlights the importance of social skills by instructing the pupils how to tell a story when they are at school. This is yet another example of behaviour modification. The teacher points out what is expected from pupils and what is “normal” behaviour in a regular classroom. Consequently, this is supposed to prepare the students to eventually return to a “normal” class. 4.2.4. Practising sitting in their seats for a return to a “normal” class On some occasions, the pupils practise being in a “normal” class. While this is an explicit goal in the Working Plan, it seems to not only be the intended learning outcome, but is also the pupils’ aim as well.

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Chapter Three Researcher: Why are you here? Conrad: I couldn’t sit still before, but now I’ve learned how to do so. Researcher: What do you think about your home class? Conrad: All my friends are there. Researcher: Do you see them now? Conrad: Yes, we play all the time when I’m at home. Researcher: When are you supposed to return? Conrad: I don’t know.

Example 3-9. Interview with a pupil

In the conversation presented in Example 3-9, it is clear that Conrad wants to return to his former class, and he thinks that he has improved and achieved an important goal, which is to sit still. However, he seems to have no idea as to when or if he can return to his former class. During a discussion on progress between the teachers, the parents, and another pupil, Oscar, it is evident that Oscar also wants to return to his regular class. His opening phrase during the meeting is: “How can I return more quickly to my home class?” The teachers tell him that first he needs to practise how to behave in a regular class. Thus, the data illustrate that the pupils want to return and the teachers have to prepare them for a return by teaching them what “normal” behaviour is expected of them. In this sense, the teaching and learning interventions in this context could be seen as mainly compensatory and normalizing strategies. Sometimes some of the children join a regular class that is situated within the school to follow some lessons and practise being in a “normal” class. Example 3-10 highlights how this activity is framed. Teacher: What did you do when it was messy around you? Conrad: I concentrated more. Chris: What did he do? Teacher: He practised being in a large class. Example 3-10. Practising being in a large class

Chris, another pupil who is only seven years old and has never accompanied Conrad to the “normal” large class, is not familiar with the meaning of “concentrated more”. Consequently, the teacher has to reformulate the response and answers “he practised being in a large class”. By doing this, the strategy of practising concentration and being in a regular class is made explicit to the pupils. It is worth pointing out that the meaning of “to concentrate” and “to practise being in large class” is identical in this context.

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Another part of the normalizing strategy is to teach the pupils to raise their hands when they want to speak in the classroom, as described in the scenario below. Teacher: Now we are going to talk about Denmark. Olli: I [wonder]— Teacher: [I don’t] want you to interrupt me; you have to wait and raise your hand if you want to say something. Now we are practising being in a big class, and all pupils cannot talk at the same time; you have to raise your hand and then I’ll speak for the remaining time. Example 3-11. Practising raising hands

Learning to be in a “real-world” class or in a “large” class includes learning to recognize the traditional teacher/pupil roles. This implies that the teacher gives the initiative to respond to the pupil who is expected to reply and that the teacher will evaluate the answer (see also Mehan 1979 for a deeper analysis of such an I-R-F, or initiative-response-feedback, exchange). The context for this exchange is exceptional since the classroom has only one teacher and two pupils, making the teacher’s comment unique. This exchange communicates a perspective on how to behave in a classroom. However, the ambiguity of this social order becomes obvious when there are only three people in the room, which could imply that one does not need to raise one’s hand to speak.

5. The diagnostic culture in school—some conclusions At present, neuropsychiatric categories like ADHD are widely accepted as viable means of understanding children’s difficulties in school, and it shows the firm grip that a diagnostic culture has on the school system. The medicalization of school problems implies that the focus is on the child and his or her alleged shortcomings. This has obvious implications for the child, the school and society. For the school, established practices and structures may be left more or less as they are, since the consequences imply that children are taken out of their regular classrooms and placed somewhere where their problems are perceived as expressions of their condition and evidence of their diagnosis. The introduction of so-called ADHD classes and even ADHD schools further demonstrate the impact of this diagnostic tradition and its consequences for ideologies, children’s (and professionals’) identities and the use of material resources. This general trend to seek out medical explanations has resulted in a sharp increase in the number of children

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who are categorized as disabled in some sense. In spite of the huge interest in, and the impact of, diagnoses of the kind discussed here in school, there are surprisingly few, if any, studies on the associated educational strategies for these children and their life in the classroom. In this chapter, particular educational practices that were adapted to the needs of children assigned with the diagnosis of ADHD have been explored. The specific mode of educating these children was motivated by the diagnostic culture and the core symptoms leading to the diagnosis of ADHD were made relevant in a pedagogical context. Thus, the impact of the medical discourse is decisive and visible in all activities throughout the school day (cf. Mehan 2014). Behavioural interventions, such as controlling impulses, practising concentration, learning to pay attention, social skills, and so on, have been identified as the main educational strategies in this setting (see also DuPaul, Weyandt and Janusis 2011). However, it is interesting to note that what the pupils learn in terms of essential academic skills, such as reading, writing, spelling, mathematics, and so on, seem to be of minor concern. Rather, teaching and learning practices are intimately tied to the traditional symptoms of ADHD: students practise behaviour control and social skills and learn how to master their expected shortcomings and disability. The question is whether these skills will prepare the pupils for their return to a “normal” class. Furthermore, considering that the pupils stay in the class for three years without any pedagogical progress being made in the activities in which they participate, the pressing issue is whether this adequately prepares them for life in a real-world school. Even after three years in their separate class, they continue to work in five-minute sessions, and practise concentration, behaviour control and standing in line, etc. In addition, one of the key goals in the observed practices is to make the pupils aware of their shortcomings rather than focus on their strengths. Thus, the diagnosis is used in the segregated classroom to remind children of their alleged disability and to correct their behaviour. Therefore, the diagnosis eventually shapes the identity of the child. This process could be compared to the central role of discourse that Foucault (1972) noted in his work on the shaping of individuals and the emergence of “technologies of the self”. In the classroom activities, the discourse of neuropsychiatry operates as “practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak” (1972, 54) in very much the same manner that Foucault argued. The assumption seems to be that teaching children to adopt the identity of a pupil with ADHD will serve as a “technology of the self” and shape their future behaviour.

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The pupils in this study are segregated from the “normal” pupils at the school. In this sense, the segregating policy, the curriculum, and the educational strategies work together to create and maintain the division between the “normal” pupils and the “less-than-normal” pupils (Ainscow 1999). In other words, segregating pupils into special groups, such as the ADHD class, separating them from the “normal” pupils, and encouraging them to practise recognizing their shortcomings serves to create pupils who are aware of their “deviant” identities. As a result, this is in direct opposition to the concept of “a school for all” in which the explicit goal is to be inclusive.

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Johnson, George. O. 1962. “Special education for the mentally handicapped—a paradox.” Exceptional Children, 29(8): 62-69. Kopp, Svenny. 2010. Girls with Social and/or Attention Impairments. Göteborg: Intellecta Infolog AB. Kos, Julie. M., Richdale Amanda, L. and Hay, David. 2006. “Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and their teachers: A review of the literature.” International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 53(2): 147-160. Ljusberg, Anna-Lena. 2009. Pupils in remedial classes. PhD thesis. Stockholm: Stockholm University. Lloyd, Gwynedd and Norris, Claire. 1999. “Including ADHD?” Disability and Society, 14(4): 505-517. Loe, Irene M., and Feldman, Heidi, M. 2007. “Academic and educational outcomes of children with ADHD.” The Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 32(6): 643–654. Mehan, Hugh. 1979. Learning lessons: social organization in the classroom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard. —. 1993. “Beneath the skin and between the ears: A case study in the politics of representation.” In Understanding practice. Perspectives on activity and context, edited by Jean Lave and Seth Chaiklin, 241-268. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA. —. 2014. “The prevalence and use of psychological-medical disourse in special education.” International Journal of Educational Research, 63(1): 59-62. Mehan, Hugh, Hertweck, Alma and Meihls, J. Lee. 1986. Handicapping the handicapped. Decision making in pupils educational careers. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Nilholm, Claes. 2007. Perspektiv på specialpedagogik [Perspectives on special education]. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Prosser, Brenton 2008. “Beyond ADHD: a consideration of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and pedagogy in Australian schools.” International Journal of Inclusive Education, 12(1): 81–97. —. 2010. “Engaging Pedagogies: From Psychomedical Deficits to ‘Virtual Schoolbags’.” In (De)constructing ADHD: Critical Guidance FOR Teachers AND Educators, edited by Linda Graham, 165-186. New York: Peter Lang. Prosser, Brenton, Reid, Robert, Shute, Rosalyn and Atkinson, Ivan. 2002. “Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: special education policy and practice in Australia.” Australian Journal of Education, 46(1): 65–78. Purdie, Nola, Hattie, John and Carroll, Annemaree. 2002. “A review of the research on interventions for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder:

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what works best?” Review of Educational Research, 72(1): 61–99. Sacks, Harvey. 1992. Lectures on conversation (Vol. 1). Oxford, England: Blackwell. Sarangi, Srikant and Roberts, Celia. 1999. Talk, work, and institutional order. Discourse in medical, mediation and management setting. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Slee, Roger. 1994. “Finding a student voice in school reform: student disaffection, pathologies of disruption and educational control.” International Studies in Sociology of Education, 4(2): 147–172. —. 1995. Changing theories and practices of discipline. London: Falmer. Sonnander, Karin, Emanuelsson, Ingemar and Kebbon Lars. 1993. “Pupils with mild mental retardation in regular Swedish schools: Prevalence, objective characteristics, and subjective evaluation.” American Journal of mental Retardation, 97(6): 692-701. Swanson, James. M., McBurnett Keith, Wigal, Tim, Pfiffner, Linda J,. Lerner, Marc A., Williams, Lillie, Christian, Diane L., Tamm, Leanne, Wikkcutt, Erik, Crowly, Kent, Clevenger, Walter, Khouzam, Nader, Woo, Christina and Crinella, Francis M. 1993. “Effect of stimulant medication on children with attention deficit disorder: a ‘review of reviews.’” Exceptional Children, 60(2): 154–162. Thomas, Gary and Loxley, Andrew. 2001. Deconstructing special education and constructing inclusion. Buckingham. England: Open University Press. Velasques, Adriana. 2012. ADHD i skolans praktik. En studie av normativitet och motstånd i en särskild Undervisningsgrupp [ADHD in everyday school practice. A study of normativity and resistance in a special teaching group]. PhD thesis. Uppsala: Uppsala universitet. Wetherell, Margreth. 2001. “Debates in discourse research.” In Discourse theory and practice. A reader, edited by Margreth Wetherell, Stephanie Taylor and Simeon J. Yates, 380-399. London: Sage Publications.

CHAPTER FOUR DEAF STUDENTS’ ACCESS TO INFORMAL GROUP-WORK ACTIVITIES SEEN IN LIGHT OF THE EDUCATIONAL INTERPRETER’S ROLE SIGRID SLETTEBAKK BERGE AND PATRICK STEFAN KERMIT

1. Introduction The focus of this chapter is on the sign-language interpreter’s role in informal group-work situations with deaf students and their hearing peers. In Norway, most deaf/hard-of-hearing students receive their upper secondary school education in mainstream classroom settings where signlanguage interpreters are present to mediate the ongoing communication. The deaf students’ access to information and the level of participation will thus be influenced by the teacher’s organization of the activities and the interpreter’s capacity to mediate the participants’ utterances. Some dialogues are more difficult to mediate than others, and the analysis in this study shows that communication barriers are especially present in informal group-work situations. The interpreter’s role is thus closely linked to marginalization processes and to the question of deaf students’ access to participation. The presented data material has been taken from a qualitative classroom study in Norway where the empirical material comprises observations, video-recordings, and interviews. One recurring observation has been that when the teacher tells the students to work on an assignment, most of the hearing students work together in pairs or in larger groups, while the deaf/hard-of-hearing students work alone. The interpreter sits on the side, waiting for more “proper” talk to mediate. This mediation strategy seems inconsistent both with the intention of the mainstream education that the deaf students are members of and with the interpreter’s

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code of ethics. The goal of this study is therefore to better understand which dialogical structures challenge the interpreter’s role to create an effective mediation in informal group-work situations where students with and without hearing loss are working together. We have not been able to find any other research studies on interpreted, informal group-work situations in upper secondary school, or in other educational settings. The most relevant works are studies by Winston (1994, 2004) where she problematizes the talk taking place between hearing students while they are working on their assignments and the consequences this might have for the deaf student’s level of involvement. In the second section, we will first introduce the organization of deaf education and then present models for understanding the interpreter’s role. This will be followed by a presentation of the methodology and the empirical analysis before we conclude with a discussion on the mutual responsibility of teachers and interpreters to create a classroom environment that optimizes interpreter-mediated communication.

2. Deaf education in Norway In the context of the interpreter’s roles in deaf education in Norway there are two noteworthy historical aspects that need to be considered. First, in accordance with the intentions outlined in the Salamanca Statement (UNESCO 1994), most special needs educational facilities were closed down and special needs education was moved into the mainstream local school. Second, since 1997, Norwegian Sign Language (NSL) has been recognized as the primary language of deaf pupils, and they have been granted the statutory right to learn NSL and to be taught in a signing environment (KUF 1996). To facilitate the new program, primary and lower secondary schools (years one to ten) were mandated to employ teachers with sign-language competence. At the upper secondary school level, this plan did not seem feasible as each teacher has their own subjects, requiring that a large number of teachers would have to learn NSL. The solution was therefore to hire an interpreter who could accompany the deaf student in his or her classes at the upper secondary level. Throughout the country, from that time on, the local schools were responsible for hiring qualified interpreters. However, the authorities also recognized the fact that some deaf students preferred to be members of the larger sign-language community. During the second half of the 1990s, five upper secondary schools in different regions of the country were given the status of Cluster Schools for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. The idea was that the teaching of

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deaf students should be provided in classes together with hearing peers, and that to maintain an inclusive learning environment, the schools would encourage teachers to attend courses and administrate an effective interpreter service. The schools were required to establish a sign-language environment as there would be several students using NSL in the classes; even if this was not the case, there would be someone they could meet during breaks. Today, along with the Public Interpreting Services for the Deaf and Deaf-blind, these schools are the principal places where signlanguage interpreters are employed. Up-to-date research into the daily affairs of these cluster schools is virtually non-existent. Only one small evaluation study has been carried out, and that was in 2003 (Berge et al. 2003). This report, cited in Parliamentary report no. 14 (St.meld. nr. 14 2003-2004), describes in detail a situation where most of the interviewed participants were positive to the idea of the cluster schools, but it also points out that teachers lack relevant training and that the interpreter’s role was a regular topic of discussion. The study presented in this chapter will hopefully contribute some new insights on this issue as it is based on data material collected at one of these cluster schools.

3. The sign-language interpreter’s role The role of the interpreter has been the subject of ongoing debate, and ideas about the interpreter’s responsibilities have changed according to historical conceptualizations of D/deafness and descriptions of interpreted communication. The literature generally distinguishes between four models. The first, called the helper model, was a pre-professional stage that was terminated in Norway around 1979. During this period, the service was provided as unpaid favors by relatives or people who were connected to the deaf community. At that time, there was an underlying assumption that deaf people needed help to understand what was best to do and say in any given situation (Llewellyn-Jones and Lee 2014, 25). The interpreters here allowed them to freely express their assessments and select which information they would share between the interlocutors according to an anticipation of what would be the best possible outcome for as many as possible (Kermit 2007). At the beginning of the 1980s, the Deaf community demanded the human right to be an independent part of society and wanted interpreters who regarded them as being just as competent as their hearing partners. This required a new ethical standard. The interpreter’s role was now to act as a neutral transmitter of words from one language to another, and to be as invisible as possible within this role. Additional tasks, such as explaining, coordinating, and advising were

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strongly rejected. This model, called the conduit or machine model (Pöchhacker 2004), is said to have had a strong influence on how the role of the interpreter has developed. The facilitator model came into prominence in the new millennium (Pöchhacker 2004). This approach was introduced in the works of Wadensjö (1998), Roy (2000), and Metzger (1999). The objective, invisible interpreter was here viewed as a myth and although the interpreter rarely expressed his or her own opinions, it was acknowledged that his or her background knowledge would influence meaning making and thus what information was mediated to the other interlocutors. This model also recognizes that interpreted communication has interactional structures that differ from situations where the participants can speak directly with one another, thus suggesting that the interpreter’s role also includes such tasks as coordination of the interlocutors’ speaking turns (Roy and Metzger 2014). The final version, the bilingual-bicultural model, recognizes that humans are more than just users of a language, they are also members of multiple cultures, and for an interpretation to be truly effective, the interpreter must contribute information that is familiar in one culture and language system but not in the other (Mindess 1999). While the facilitator and the bilingual-bicultural models are theoretically accepted, the invisible-role approach has been hard to achieve in practice (Llewellyn-Jones and Lee 2014). As a result, several new models have been proposed. Today it appears that we have reached a turning point in the field of interpreting where a situated role performance is in focus. For example, Llewellyn-Jones and Lee (2014) present a role-space model where they investigate interpreters situated latitude in the actions they can take. Their argument is that the interpreter has several possibilities within a given situation and that many of these possibilities are not fully utilized in today’s practices. Accordingly, they promote a normalization of the interpreter’s role where the idea of invisibility is reduced: the interpreter is present and is expected to act as though she is present. Taking this into consideration, Dean and Pollard (2011) promote a teleological-ethical framework where the overall goal for the interpreter is to “do no harm”, meaning that professional action (or inaction) that has a harmful effect is seen as unethical. A similar paradigm has also been suggested by Hauser and Hauser (2008) in which they promote a deaf-professional-designatedinterpreter model where the interpreter is seen as an ally who has the responsibility to empower the deaf participant in the situation, equalizing the dialogue and supporting involvement for all. Bearing this in mind, Hale (2007) found that when studying community interpreting, all the

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involved interpreters emphasized a flexible, situated role performance. She then asks whether the interpreters’ code of ethics or the practice where their services are used needs to be adjusted. This also constitutes a relevant debate in the field of educational interpreting. All in all, there seems to be agreement on the dual role of educational interpreters as it is recognized that language mediation is their main but not their sole responsibility. This duality can be described as a hybrid role position (Turner 2005), and the intention is that this empirical chapter will contribute further insight into the duality of the educational interpreter’s role.

4. Methodology Ethnographic studies of authentic dialogues performed in their contexts are valued as a useful strategy for research on interpretation, even though this method has not been used too frequently (Hale and Napier 2013). The data material focused on here has been collected from fieldwork conducted at ten Norwegian upper secondary-school classrooms where the students are around 17-19 years of age. The data comprises observation notes, interviews with interpreters, teachers, and students (both deaf and hearing), and video recordings.1 All in all, the first author observed five classes in two subjects (sometimes three) about four to five times each.2 40 classroom observations were conducted, of which 14 were filmed. The interviews ranged from being informal talks in the setting, to wellprepared focus-group interviews. Selected extracts from the video recordings were watched and discussed with the participants. The analysis in this chapter uses information from all these sources. The video recordings and the interview data represent different types of access to knowledge: the video recordings document the interpreter’s actions and the sequential interaction order between the participants (Knoblauch 2006, Luckman 2006), while the interview data provides insight into the interpreter’s accounts of her own role performance. The triangulation of data sources gives a deeper insight into the professional practice in terms of practical, theoretical, and ethical considerations (Gustavsson 2000). We are aware that it might be an unusual approach to combine action and accounts analysis in the same study, but we are responding to the suggestion that qualitative researchers should use multiple strategies to explore their topic of interest (Silverman 1993). To ensure confidentially for the participants, the dates of the data collection are not mentioned. This chapter presents a discourse analysis of authentic interpreted mediated classroom activities (Sarangi 2010a). At the beginning of the

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fieldwork, the focus was on studying interpreter-mediated learning situations in general. One learning activity that occurred frequently relates to different kinds of group-work situations, where the initial analysis found two types of siutations which the authors have called formal and informal group-work activities. Formal group-work activities are problemsolving situations where the teacher clearly introduces what the students are to do, who is to work together, and where they are to be seated. Informal group-work activities are problem-solving situations spontaneously arranged by the students themselves. The latter can be described as “work-and-talk” situations where the students’ orientation fluently shifts between academic discussions to more private talk. The interpreters frequently described this latter type of activity as challenging to their role as mediators. All the interviews were transcribed, the observation notes were written down as texts, and the video-recordings were closely transcribed in terms of what was said and done by the participants. This material was then coded according to repeatedly observed activities and repeatedly mentioned themes (Hammersley and Atkinson 2007, Coffey and Atkinson 1996). Representative excerpts were then collected together in activity directories (Sarangi 2010). One situation from the informal group-work directory was chosen for in-depth analysis. This case was chosen because it was representative of the topic of interest for the purposes of this study. At the same time, it appeared as a deviant case (Heath, Hindmarsh and Luff 2010) with respect to the interpreter’s strategies (the informal group work was interpreted) and the deaf student’s level of participation. Moreover, all the involved participants were informative storytellers, meaning that a thick data set was available, and from this “a thick description” could be constructed (Coffey and Atkinson 1996). The analysis of the interview data from the selected case3 followed the pattern described in Coffey and Atkinson (1996): we first coded the interview data and identified key patterns and themes, and then we grouped the themes together into categories. Following this, we interpreted the categories against the backdrop of related theoretical concepts. However, this was not a linear process as the codes, data categories, and concepts were closely related, and the important analytical work involved establishing such links (Coffey and Atkinson 1996).

5. A situated data analysis This section presents an analysis of an interpreted, mediated informal group-work activity where one deaf student, Lisa, and three hearing

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classmates, Anna, Betty, and Carol are participants. The activity lasts for about 16 minutes. The setting is a history class with 25 students. Two interpreters are assigned to this class, but the analysis here focuses on one of them. Lisa, Anna, Betty and Carol are seated at the end of the back row. The activity starts in the middle of the session after the teacher has finished his lecture and introduced a new assignment to the students. The transcription below (Figure 4-1) presents the characteristic features of what transpired during this introduction phase. Reading through the video transcription, this can appear to be a welladapted learning situation: the students work on their tasks and the interpreter stands between them providing Lisa with information so that she is included in the learning activity with her hearing peers. The teacher expresses a similar sentiment when he says that: “the interpreter is good at getting up there and interpret what the students say” (interview data). However, when analyzing the situation “activity by activity” we can point to several fragments that indicate that the interpreter’s role is in fact very challenging: there were conversations between the hearing students that Lisa was not involved in (line 4), there was a sequence of clarification between Lisa and the interpreter as to whether the interpreter’s services were needed (line 5), there was hardly room for the interpreter to stand (line 7), and the last observable topic is that a much older person had to blend into an activity involving young students. Figure 4-1 illustrates one scene from the video recording. To gain insight into the interpreter’s professional evaluation of her role in this informal group-work activity, we turn to the interview data with the interpreter. Analyzing the transcription revealed four categories in the interpreter’s accounts of the dialogical structures that challenged her role to effectively mediate the students’ dialogue: 1) the students’ membership status, 2) the spatial arrangements, 3) the work of framing the parallel dialogues and activities, and 4) back-stage access. The theoretical links between the categories can be related to the concepts of role and professional decision making where the interpreter must actively frame the situation and then use that reflection to determine how she wants to act (Goffman 1974). Excerpts that illustrate the substance of these categories will now be presented.

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1

Context:

The teacher has just finished his lecture about UN Human Rights and is now standing by the lectern, looking in his textbook. He looks up at the class and says:

2

Teacher:

“Well, that’s enough talking. Now you can work on the questions on page 267.”

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Interpreter:

“LECTURE FINISH. NOW TASK, PAGE 267”

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Context:

The sign-language interpreter sits down in her chair, which is placed by the left wall at the front of the classroom. Lisa starts to turn the pages in her book, as does Anna, seated next to her. Betty and Carol start to talk with one another, and soon the two girls seated in front of them are engaged in their conversation as well. Anna looks at them now and then and sometimes she joins in with some response signals or comments. As several of the other hearing students also start to chat with each other there are voices melting together into a buzzing sound in the classroom. The interpreter is watching them and from her chair she establishes eye contact with Lisa and signs to her:

5

Interpreter:

“DO YOU WANT ME TO COME BACK?”

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Lisa:

“YES” she nods in reply.

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Context:

The interpreter moves along the side of the classroom to the back, squeezes herself between the rows, and places herself in front of Lisa’s desk. It is cramped and there is hardly room for her to stand; her thighs touch Lisa’s desk while the back of her body touches the student seated in the row behind her. She briefly smiles towards Lisa and the three students in front of her. They, however, carry on with their activities: Lisa and Anna turn pages and Betty and Carol continue to talk. Their voices blend into the buzzing sound in the classroom. Meanwhile, the interpreter turns the pages in the textbook she has brought with her. The interpreter looks at them and at Lisa from time to time. Once she calls for Lisa's attention to pass on a side comment between Anna and Betty. This continues to be the situation for about five minutes, then Betty turns her face to Anna and says:

8

Anna:

“Well, this was exciting. Should we do the tasks when we have read it through?”

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Betty:

“Yeah...but I’m just not that concentrated today. Do we need to read everything?”

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Interpreter:

“INTERESTING…”

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Context:

The interpreter looks at Lisa who is looking down, reading in her book and does not notice that Anna and Betty have started to talk. The interpreter lays her right hand on Lisa’s desk. Lisa looks up and the interpreter mediates Anna’s and Betty’s talk concerning whether they should work together as a group or not (...) Transcription 18.05/20XX

Fig. 4-1. Establishment of an informal group-work situation

5.1. Negotiation of membership positions In this setting, it was not clear whether or not the teacher was introducing a group-work situation: when the teacher told the students that they should “work on the questions on page 267”, he created a new frame for the students’ learning activity. However, his utterance gave the students information about what to do, not how to go about doing it (e.g. individually, in pairs, or in small groups). The students can, however, assume that there is an underlying expectation that the teacher wants them to work together since the tradition in this institutional teaching setting is generally based on a student-active learning approach. This produces a situation where each student is given the responsibility to negotiate his/her own membership position with respect to the other students (Goffman 1959). As Lisa, Anna, Betty and Carol are seated next to each other they are all possible members of the same group, but their membership position is not clearly defined. This unclear frame of participation status leads to an unclear situation for the interpreter as she does not know whether the students want to collaborate, and if she should approach them or not. The interpreter describes her own role evaluation in Excerpt 4-1. Interpreter:

Often the teachers don’t communicate clearly what the students are supposed to do: are they supposed to discuss the topic in a small group, just in pairs, or are they supposed to work alone? Then it’s like: “should I interpret the conversations between the students, or not?” I tend to ask Lisa to let me know when she wants to use me. Sometimes it’s better that she makes that decision on her own. Especially when there’s not much space in the room, because then it feels very obtrusive for her if I just barge into the group.

Excerpt 4-1. Challenges to interpreters’ role position

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This excerpt illustrates that the ambiguous frame for participation challenges the interpreter’s role position as it is not clearly stated whether the informal communication between the students is to be mediated or not. Therefore, when an informal problem-solving situation arises, the interpreter falls back on a strategy where she sits down in her chair and waits to let the student decide whether she needs her services or not. In this situation, Lisa says “yes” and the interpreter quickly enters the scene, but the fact that interpretation is provided only when Lisa requests it means that there are probably times when informal group-work dialogues between the hearing peers are not mediated to her. The interpreter accounts for her strategy by saying that Lisa can be embarrassed if she suddenly barges into an activity (Excerpt 4-1). Here, the interpreter’s considerations can be seen as attempts to help Lisa save face (Goffman 1959), as she refrains from doing anything that Lisa may find obtrusive. This element is essential if group communication is to work at all. On the other hand, the interpreter’s strategy can be understood as placing a professional responsibility in Lisa’s hands and can be experienced as an extra burden: the presence of the interpreter can give Lisa some extra attention vis-à-vis her hearing peers. She may find this unpleasant, and such a stigma may cause her to feel the need to make as little fuss about herself as possible (Goffman 1963). One solution would be to decline the interpreter’s services and choose to work individually. Such a solution would be in direct conflict with the political ideology of inclusion. Adopting the organization of informal group-work situations is therefore a mutual responsibility of the interpreter and the teacher. The next category that has emerged in the analysis documents lines of professional involvement for how this responsibility is shared between them.

5.2. Stage arrangements In the specific activity or setting in focus, the interpreter had to stand up while Lisa and her classmates were seated. It seems that her position was making her more visible than necessary. Borrowing one of Goffman’s (1959) theatre metaphors, the interpreter was performing like an actor without an assigned place on the stage. This indicates that the spatial arrangements were not suited to the interpreter’s participation: it was so cramped between the rows that the interpreter’s thighs touched Lisa’s desk while her back touched the student who was seated behind her. Excerpt 42 reveals how the spatial environment tests the interpreter’s role performance.

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Interviewer:

On the way out of the classroom you said you felt uncomfortable in that situation, what was the reason for that?

Interpreter:

There just wasn’t any room! I had no place to sit, so I just had to stand there very straight. It was so cramped that I felt like I was a bother to everyone around me, both those sitting behind me and those in front. I couldn’t just leave, either, because Lisa wants me to be available. We’ve told Lisa that it’s a bad placement when she sits at the very back of the room, and she sees that we get a bit, “Where am I supposed to put myself when you want me to come back here and interpret for you?” but she wants to sit with the students who know some signs and with whom she knows she can communicate well.

Excerpt 4-2. Spatial environment related challenges

Standing too close to Lisa and her classmates means that the interpreter is infringing upon their comfort zones, and she finds this quite unpleasant. She is also afraid that it could raise the threshold for the hearing students’ willingness to have her there, which again would relate to the question of her capacity to mediate their utterances. However, she cannot walk away because Lisa has asked her to be available. Excerpt 4-2 reveals that the interpreter’s role performance is dialogical in the sense that it is shaped in relation to the other participants and the context within which she finds herself. She is present, and she is aware that she is noticeable to the other participants. At the same time, her role performance seems to be shaped by the conduit model since she does not introduce herself to the students, suggesting a rearrangement of the stage so that she could be seated as well (Llewellyn-Jones and Lee 2014). Rather, to solve this situation the interpreter opens a book in front of her to create a focal point on which she can direct her gaze (see Figure 4-1), and the book can be seen as a situated tool (Wertsch 1991) where its function is to manage the interpreter’s bystander position vis-à-vis Lisa and her hearing classmates (Goffman 1981). The interpreter has in this way constructed a strategy that works for her, in a specific situation. However, as can be seen, this strategy does not involve an overall change of the classroom arrangements. Changing the overall classroom structure raises the issue of crossing role boundaries between the teacher and interpreter, and this topic is reflected in the interview data with the teacher (see Excerpt 4-3).

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Interviewer:

Could the interpreters have taken more responsibility to change the physical placement?

Teacher:

I don’t think it should be the interpreters’ responsibility to arrange the classroom in a way that optimizes learning; the teachers should be able to do that on their own. Of course, the interpreters should give input, but they shouldn’t be the ones arranging the accommodations. It seems risky, because the teacher would be abdicating a lot of his responsibility.

Excerpt 4-3. Hierarchies of professional status

Excerpt 4-3 suggests that there is a hierarchy of professional statuses where the teacher and the interpreter have different positions when it comes to making decisions about adapting the spatial arrangements: in this setting, there is an agreement that the interpreter can inform the teacher about needed adjustments, but that it is the teacher’s responsibility to carry out these adjustments in practice. This arrangement seems to be a possible area of role conflict: in order to coordinate their role performances, the teacher and the interpreter must work together as a team, protecting each of their positions so that each of them can maintain their duties (Goffman 1959). In the analysis, this topic is related to how the teacher adapts his teaching practice to accommodate for being in a mediated dialogue situation. Even though the teacher expresses appreciation for the interpreter’s input, in practice he seems to forget how he can, in the most optimal manner, arrange the learning activity. Other studies have found similar results; the interpreter’s presence can draw the teacher’s attention away from his responsibility due to the assumption that the interpreter alone should solve the communication problem in the class (Harrington 2000, Marschark et al. 2005a). The teacher in this study expresses similar thoughts when he says that the informal group-work situation is well adapted since the interpreter is good at “getting up there and interpret what the students say”. An absence of effort on his own part is then covered by the presence of the interpreter and it appears that the teacher can potentially recognize his responsibility and use the information provided by the interpreter to adapt his teaching practice.

5.3. Overlapping, communicative project A characteristic of the informal group-work situation is its playfulness and the fact that the conversation can take surprising turns (Goffman

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1981), and this speaking genre (Baktin 1986) challenges the interpreter’s role as a mediator (see Excerpt 4-4). Interpreter:

The challenge in interpreting group work is that there are so many people talking at the same time. It’s difficult to keep track of the conversation and there are many digressions, a lot of slang and trivial comments. And I don’t hear all of what the students say, either. So, the biggest challenge lies in the interpreting itself.

Excerpt 4-4. Challenges of tracking overlapping talk

The students’ speaking style is described by the interpreter as full of digressions, slang, and trivial comments (Excerpt 4-4). Mediating the students’ talk can therefore be challenging as there is no guarantee that the interpreter understands what the students are talking about. In one of the interviews the interpreter states that she even read glossy youth magazines to gain insight into the students’ language use and topics of interest. Another topic highlighted by interpreters is the overlapping of the talk during group work. The establishment of side-talk conversations means that there are sequences where several dialogues are taking place at the same time (Linell 2009). This creates a professional dilemma as the interpreter can only mediate one speaker at a time, and this means that she has to make decisions about which speaker to mediate and which to put on hold, or ignore (Napier 2002). This kind of omission can be seen in different ways. The facilitator model describes these tasks as a natural responsibility given to the interpreter, but the conduit model can see this as a conflict with the ideal of maintaining objectivity and neutrality (that everything should be translated and that the interpreter’s personal evaluation should not be reflected in the mediation). The responsibility to decide which participants’ contributions will be mediated can therefore be seen as a hybrid responsibility (Sarangi 2010b, Turner 2005), and might explain why the interpreters in this study find informal group-work activities to be especially challenging. It also seems that the nature of the classroom teaching practice comes into conflict with the ideals for what is considered to be a “good” role performance for the interpreter (Kermit 2007). A similar dilemma is also seen in situations where the teacher and the students are simultaneously involved in different communicative projects (see Excerpt 4-5).

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Interpreter: It is often just as important, and perhaps more important, to interpret the social talk among the students as it is the academic talk from the teacher. Because when the students sit and talk about something really fun that they did outside of school, Lisa is often much more interested in following the conversation taking place among the students than in following what the teacher is saying. Perhaps that’s what leads to Lisa and the hearing students being able to have a bit more contact with each other, and why should she sit there and just get “bla, bla, bla” [from the teacher] when none of the other students care about what’s going on?

Excerpt 4-5. Challenges of different communicative projects in the classroom

Excerpt 4-5 shows that the interpreter is bracketing the classroom activities into shared and unshared units. In complex and overlapping dialogue situations it is a more or less accepted fact that the interpretation does not capture the same information as the original dialogues (Seal 2004). In this setting, the interpreter says that in some situations she has decided to set aside the instructions given by the teacher in favor of the local ongoing social project among the students, and this omission is related to what she thinks Lisa is most interested in (Excerpt 4-5). This account is related to the dialogical model for understanding how interlocutors take the others’ perspective into account when managing a dialogue and their own role performance (Bakhtin 1986, Linell 2009). The challenge here is that the interpreter is the only one who knows what information is mediated and what is not. From the teacher’s perspective: when he sees that the interpreter is signing he can assume that Lisa is tracking his lecture (see also Holmström and Bagga-Gupta, this volume). From Lisa’s perspective: when the interpreter is interpreting the social talk between the students she might not be aware that the teacher has resumed instructional activities. The interpreter’s responsibility to share information about her choices of omission seems to be important for how the other interlocutors can understand the communication stage—of which they all are a part but which they evaluate differently. One can assume that Lisa’s feelings of trust towards the interpreter are related to the interpreter’s competence in framing the overlapping events. In contrast to the hearing students who can decide for themselves whether to focus on the teacher or their own social conversation, Lisa is dependent on the interpreter’s ability to effectively bracket the activities in her best interests (Goffman 1974). The interpreter emphasizes the value of the informal talk and she wonders why Lisa should listen to “bla, bla, bla”

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when none of the hearing students care about what is going on (Excerpt 45). This indicates that sequences with overlapping talk create a shift in the interpreter’s footing where she needs to balance her mediation between front-stage and back-stage activities (Goffman 1981). A related topic is how the interpreter adjusts her personal role performance in a manner that is acceptable to the informal dialogue arenas.

5.4. Back-stage access The interpreter’s access to the talk that she is required to mediate between the students is tested by the fact that she is an adult in an activity where young students are participating (Winston 2004). In the situation that is focused on here, the interpreter walks down to Lisa and her peers and places herself in front of them (see Figure 4-1, line 7). This movement indicates that the interpreter walks from a front-stage that is shared with the teacher towards a back-stage that is shared with the students (Goffman 1959, 1974), and this seems to shift the interpreter’s footing. She displays her awareness that a certain role performance is needed to achieve access to the students’ back-stage dialogues (see Excerpt 4-6). Interpreter:

I can’t appear threatening: I can’t sit there in a blazer and heels and say in a stern voice, “alright now, time to discuss your assignment!” and “you can’t talk about other things!” An important part of what happens during group work is the social talk, and if I sit there and try to control them it creates a bad atmosphere in the situation. It’s unthinkable that I would do that. I’ve tried to say this to the teachers, but not all of them understand this.

Excerpt 4-6. Access to back stage dialogues

The interpreter in Excerpt 4-6 highlights that successfully gaining access to and preventing “a bad atmosphere in the situation” requires that she takes her clothes, her vocal intonation, and her facial expression into consideration as all these can influence how the students relate to her presence. In her account, the interpreter also emphasizes her impartiality: it is not her responsibility to control the students’ talk or their actions. She accepts the fact that they talk socially with one another when they should actually be working, and does not attempt to lead them into a more academic project, even if that is the teacher’s intention. This can create a hybrid role position as, on one instance, she has to front the teacher and his

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education project, while in the next moment she has to front the private back-stage project among the students. The interpreter’s role can therefore be described as a position with double impartiality; her loyalty is shared with both the teacher and the students. The interpreter reports that not all the teachers understand this position and a recurring topic of discussion relates to the interpreters’ responsibilities for disciplining the students or keeping them on task (Excerpt 4-6). Moreover, the students might also be unfamiliar with interpreter-mediated communication, as was the case when Lisa started to use an interpreter (see Excerpt 4-7). Interpreter: In the beginning, Lisa wanted us to sit outside the area where the students were. She would ask, “Can’t you sit over there?” and then she’d point to a spot far away from where she and the other students were sitting. Then I had to explain that: “that doesn’t work, because over there I can’t hear anything. I need to be able to sit closer”. You see, Lisa thought in the beginning that the interpreter was a burden for the other students. For example, if I asked a student to move a bit so that I had enough room to sit, Lisa’s blood would start to boil because she thought that the hearing students would get mad at her because I controlled them too much. Then I tried to say to her that “it’s fine” and that it wasn’t a problem for the hearing students to have me there. Now, this topic isn’t a problem any longer.

Excerpt 4-7. Novice student’s use of interpreter services

In this class, the use of the interpreters in informal group-work activities has gradually been accepted. In the beginning, Lisa did not accept the interpreter’s presence and did not ask the hearing students to adjust their seating arrangements. The reason given for this was that Lisa was afraid that her hearing classmates would be irritated with her if the interpreter made too much of a fuss (Excerpt 4-7). By the end of the fieldwork, the interpreter could position herself in the middle of the class without Lisa and the other students paying much attention to her presence (see Figure 4-1, line 7). This change in acceptance can be understood as an institutionalization of the interpreter’s role and can help Lisa save face (Goffman 1959) vis-à-vis the hearing students as the interpreter’s presence is taken for granted, but, on the other hand, it seems that they forget to make communicative adjustments to include Lisa in their activity. The only ones who truly seem to remember this are the interpreter and Lisa herself.

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6. Discussion The study presented in this chapter has focused on the educational interpreter’s role in relation to informal, group-work activities. The analysis has documented that even if the interpreter is highly skilled at her job, she cannot alone resolve the communication gap in these kinds of learning activities. This raises issues related to how the teacher and the interpreter can work together to create an interpreter-friendly environment, which in turn can ensure better opportunities for the inclusion and participation of all students. One issue here relates to whether the interpreters’ responsibilities should include involvement in decision making when it comes to making spatial and communicative adjustments. Currently there is no consensus when it comes to which responsibilities educational interpreters should assume (Antia and Kreimeyer 2001), and there is a dichotomy in the practice of the profession: in some settings, the interpreter’s role is exclusively one of language mediation (the conduit model), while in other settings the educational interpreter is seen as a member of the educational team (the facilitator model). In the latter role capacity, the interpreter is expected to execute the language mediation in a “helping way” and to maintain additional tasks such as tutoring, sign-language instruction, language modelling, educational planning, disciplining, and encouraging communication between the students (Seal 2004). There are benefits and disadvantages with both positions. If the interpreter just focuses on the language mediation task, her professional knowledge about adaptations will not be available to the other participants. On the other hand, if the interpreter positions herself as a member of the pedagogical team, this could be a potential source of conflict, especially when the students’ expectations concerning confidentiality are tested (Antia and Kreimeyer op. cit.). The historical intention behind the interpreter’s impartiality was to safeguard deaf peoples’ autonomy and to enable them to do and say whatever they wanted to. In terms of the educational setting this means that the interpreter should not control the students’ actions or tell the teacher what she has seen or heard in the classroom. There is a realization, however, of the fact that the interpreted mediated learning situation involves some linguistic, cultural, or interactional barriers that need to be explained to the teachers, and sometimes, in relation to their professional background knowledge, the interpreter is in a position where she can discover and explain these structures. However, in terms of the conduit model, the interpreters’ role description has not been conducive to this

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kind of openness. This has had a bearing on deaf students’ possibilities for academic success (Harrington 2000). Current discussions seem to be unwilling to return to the original helper model and construct a role description for interpreters that does not respect deaf students’ autonomy as independent learners. The critical question is how educational interpreters can share their insights “without causing any harm” to the deaf student’s autonomy (Dean and Pollard 2005). Bearing this in mind, current discussions focus on the interpreter’s role, relating it to the teachers’ need for a colleague. Historically, the position of the teacher of the deaf was a specialized role with a recognized status in the community (Raanes 2013). This involved practicing a role within specialized educational institutions where the spatial environment was adapted for visual communication. The team of teachers shared similar experiences, they were trained, and they were more or less proficient users of a signed language. The situation today is different. The shift towards inclusive education has created a situation where general teachers have become the new teachers of the deaf. This means that they may not know how to optimize their education and adopt the approach of “languaging” (Linell 2009) to create an interpreterfriendly practice. This can create situations where deaf/hard-of-hearing students receive less representation compared to the amount of information that the hearing students receive (Marschark et al. 2005b). An important theme then seems to be that “the new teachers of the deaf” need to recognize their own role and responsibility, and determine how they can act as collaborative partners with the interpreter working in their class. One topic they could be better aware of is how their use of informal groupwork activities impacts the interpreter’s role as she mediates the informal talk between the students, and how this might influence deaf students’ academic learning outcome and their feeling of inclusion and belonging. Educational interpreters also need to reflect on their role; increasing specialization in the field of interpreting means that interpreters working in a variety of arenas face different problems. This raises the question of whether different role descriptions are required. Educational interpreters are often (at least in Norway) employed on a full-time basis and are in a stable relationship with the consumers of their services. Their working conditions stand in stark contrast to community interpreters, who usually work in isolated settings with people they might not meet again. Based on their institutional differences, one can assume that community and educational interpreters will have some elements in common, while other challenges will be quite different. This condition acknowledges the need to develop situated role performance (Dean and Pollard 2011, Hale 2007,

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Hauser and Hauser 2008, Llewellyn-Jones and Lee 2014). The goals within the broader activity can be used as guidelines for their situated role performance (Berge 2003). In this case, the aim of the guidelines will then be to determine which efforts can support the deaf student’s participation in the informal group-work situations, and to find the situated line for how the interpreters can be actively involved in making these adjustments. The present study appears to show that educational interpreters can allow themselves more latitude compared to what they allow themselves in today’s practice. Somewhere along the road it appears that the educational interpreters in this study have given up trying to manage the informal group-work situations: the data analysis shows that the most common way for the interpreter to deal with the informal work and talk situations is to sit on the side-lines and wait for the signal that their services are needed. This can be perceived as a rather passive strategy. From this data, it appears that the interpreter hesitates to do anything other than inform the teacher and Lisa about their availability, and is not actively involved in decision making. The analysis of the interpreter’s accounts gives us the impression that her role performance seems to be linked to the conduit model with a desire to blend in and be invisible in the situation. We are left to wonder whether this is an effective strategy. For instance, if the interpreter is aware (from earlier experiences in the classroom) that the spatial arrangements will reduce her possibilities to mediate in the informal group-work situations, there would be times where she and the teacher could cooperate and together arrange the seating differently. The interpreter’s argument that she has to avoid doing things where her presence might irritate Lisa and the hearing students must, understandably, be taken into consideration when finding effective strategies for dealing with the situation. However, small adjustments in the spatial arrangements can have a huge effect. For instance, if the seating arrangement was aligned so that the students were automatically placed in groups of three, their negotiation over group membership would be supported. Moreover, if there was more room between the desks, there would be room for the interpreter to sit down and facilitate the informal group-work communication. She would then be like an actor with an assigned place on the classroom stage. Making this type of adaptation is dependent on the application of professional knowledge and the willingness of all parties to cooperate with one another. The facilitator model which emphasizes the interpreter’s bilingual and bicultural competence and her role as coordinator of the communication between the interlocutors seems to be an effective approach for facilitating informal group-work activities. A suitable approach in future work could be to put more emphasis on a

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situated role performance where the interpreter’s responsibility is defined in conjunction with the overarching goal of the activity at hand (Dean and Pollard 2011, Harrington and Turner 2000). In this setting that would indicate that efforts supporting the deaf students’ opportunity to take part in the learning activity on equal terms with their hearing peers are part of the interpreter’s role and responsibility. More research on this and related subjects would be deeply welcomed.

Notes 1

All in all, ten deaf/hard-of-hearing students, ten interpreters, ten teachers and ten hearing students were interviewed. 2 The fieldwork has only been conducted by Berge, but both authors have worked on the data analysis. 3 The dataset consists of ten classroom observations in three subjects. Three of these are video recordings. Four interviews were conducted with the history teacher, and six with two other teachers. Eight interviews were conducted with the two interpreters who were following the three subjects. One focus-group interview was conducted with the interpreters and the teachers together. In addition to informal conversations, Lisa, the deaf student in focus here, participated in one in depth interview, and four hearing students participated in a group interview.

References Shirin, Antia D. and Kreimeyer, Kathryn H. 2001. “The role of interpreters in inclusive classrooms.” American Annals of the Deaf, 146 (4): 355365. Bakhtin, Michael M. 1986. Speech genres and other late essays, edited by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press. Berge, Sigrid S. 2003. Tegnspråktolkens handlinger [The sign-language interpreter’s actions]. Trondheim: Tapir. Berge, Sigrid S., Holm, Astri, Dons, Calle and Ekeland, Jon. 2003. Undersøkelse av knutepunktskoler for hørselshemmede [A study of cluster schools for hearing impaired pupils]. Trondheim: SørTrøndelag University College. Coffey, Amanda and Atkinson, Paul. 1996. Making sense of qualitative data: Complementary research strategies. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage. Dean, Robyn K. and Pollard, Robert Q. 2005. “Consumers and service effectiveness in interpreting work: A practice profession perspective.” In sign language interpreting and interpreter education: Directions for

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research and practice, edited by Marc Marschark, Rico Peterson and Elizabeth A. Winston, 259-282. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dean, Robyn K. and Pollard, Robert Q. 2011. “Context-based ethical reasoning in interpreting: A demand control schema perspective.” The interpreter and translator trainer, 5(1): 155-182. Goffman, Erving. 1959. The presentation of self in everyday life. London: Penguin Books. —. 1963. Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. London: Penguin Books. —. 1974. Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. New York: Harper and Row. —. 1981. Forms of talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Gustavsson, Bernt. 2000. Kunskapsfilosofi: Tre kunskapsformer i historisk belysning [The philosophy of knowledge: Three forms of knowledge viewed historically]. Smedjebacken: Wahlström and Widstrand. Hale, Sandra and Napier, Jemina. 2013. Research methods in interpreting: A practical resource research method in linguistics. London: Blomsbury Academic. Hale, Sandra B. 2007. Community interpreting. New York: Palgrave. Hammersley, Martyn and Atkinson, Paul. 2007. Ethnography: Principles in practice. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge. Harrington, Frank J. 2000. “Sign language interpreters and access for deaf students to university curricula: The ideal and the reality.” In Critical Link 2: Interpreters in the community: Selected papers from the second international conference in interpreting, edited by Roda P. Roberts, Silvana E. Carr and Diana Abraham, 219-238. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Harrington, Frank J. and Turner, Graham H. 2001. Interpreting interpreting: Studies and reflections on sign language interpreting. Coleford: McLean. Hauser, Angela B. and Hauser, Peter C. 2008. “The deaf professionaldesignated interpreter model.” In Deaf professionals and designated interpreters: A new paradigm, edited by Peter C. Hauser, Karen Finch and Angela B. Hauser, 3-21. Washington D.C.: Gallaudet University Press. Heath, Christian, Hindmarsh, Jon and Luff, Paul. 2010. Video in qualitative research: Analysing social interaction in everyday life. London: Sage Publications. Kermit, Patrick S. 2007. “Aristotelian ethics and modern professional interpreting.” In Critical Link 4: Professionalisation of interpreting in the community, edited by Cecilia Wadensjö, Birgitta E. Dimitrova and

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Anna-Lena Nilsson. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Knoblauch, Hubert. 2006. “Videography: Focuced etnography and video analysis.” In Video analysis: Methodology and methods: Qualitative audiovisual data analysis in sociology, edited by Hubert Knoblauch, Bernt Schnettler, Jurgen Raab and Hans-Georg Soeffner. Frankfurt: Lang. KUF. (1996). "Læreplanverket for den 10-årige grunnskolen" [Curriculum for the 10-year primary school]. Oslo: Kirke, utdannings- og forskningsdepartementet. Linell, Per. 2009. Rethinking language, mind, and world dialogically: Interactional and contextual theories of human sense-making. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Llewellyn-Jones, Peter and Lee, Robert G. 2014. Redefining the role of the community interpreter: The concept of role-space. Lincoln: SLI Press. Luckman, Thomas. 2006. “Some remarks on scores in multimodal sequential analysis.” In Video-analysis: Methodology and methods: Qualitative audiovisual data analysis in sociology, edited by Hubert Knoblauch, Bernt Schnettler, Jurgen Raab and Hans-Georg Soeffner. Frankfurt: Lang. Marschark, Marc, Sapere, Patricia, Convertino, Carol and Seewagen, Rosemarie. 2005a. “Access to postsecondary education through sign language interpreting.” Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 10(10): 38-50. Marschark, Marc, Sapere, Patricia, Convertino, Carol and Seewagen, Rosemarie. 2005b. “Educational interpreting: Access and outcomes.” In Sign language interpreting and interpreter education: Directions for research and practice, edited by Marc Marschark, Rico Peterson and Elizabeth A. Winston, 57-85. New York: Oxford University Press. Metzger, Melanie. 1999. Sign language interpreting: Deconstructing the myth of neutrality. Washington D.C.: Gallaudet University Press. Mindess, Anna. 1999. Reading between the signs: Intercultural communication for sign language interpreters. Maine: Intercultural Press. Napier, Jemina. 2002. Sign language interpreting: Linguistic coping strategies. Coleford: McLean. Pöchhacker, Franz. 2004. Introducing interpreting studies. London: Routledge. Raanes, Eli. 2013. “Døve på slutten av 1800 tallet: En språklig og kulturell gruppering?” [The deaf at the end of the 19th century: A linguistic and

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cultural minority?]. Maal og Minne [Language and Memory], 105(1): 84-118. Roy, Cynthia B. 2000. Interpreting as a discourse process. New York: Oxford University Press. Roy, Cynthia B. and Metzger, Melanie. 2014. “Researching signed language interpreting research through a sociolinguistic lens.” Translation and Interpreting, 6(1): 158-176. Sarangi, Srikant. 2010a. “Practising discourse analysis in healthcare settings.” In The SAGE handbook of qualitative methods in health research, edited by Ivy Bourgeault, Robert Dingwall and Raymond de Vries, 397-416. Los Angeles: Sage. —. 2010b. “Reconfiguring self/identity/status/role: The case of professional role performance in healthcare encounters.” Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice, 7(1): 75-95. Seal, Brenda C. 2004. Best practices in educational interpreting, 2nd ed. Boston: MA Pearson. Silverman, David. 1993. Interpreting qualitative data: A guide to the principles of qualitative research. 4th ed. London: Sage Publications. St.meld. nr. 14. (2003-2004). “Om opplæringstilbod for hørselshemma” [Educational provision for hearing impaired pupils]. Oslo: Utdanningsog forskningsdepartementetet. Turner, Graham H. 2005. “Toward real interpreting.” In Sign language interpreting and interpreter education: Directions for research and practice, edited by Marc Marschark, Rico Peterson and Elizabeth A. Winston, 29-56. New York: Oxford University Press. UNESCO. 1994. “The Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education.” World conference on special needs education: Access and Quality. Salamanca: Spain 7-10 June. Retrieved from: http://www.unesco.org/education/pdf/salama. Wadensjö, Cecilia. 1998. Interpreting as interaction. New York: Longman. Wertsch, James V. 1991. Voices of the mind: A sociocultural approach to mediated action. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Winston, Elizabeth A. 2004. “Interpretability and accessibility of mainstream classrooms.” In Educational interpreting: How it can succeed, edited by Elizabeth A. Winston, 132-167. Washington D.C.: Gallaudet University Press. —. 1994. “An interpreted education: Inclusion or exclusion?” In Implications and complications for deaf students of the full inclusion movement, edited by Robert C. Johnson and Oscar P. Cohen, 62-69. Washington D.C.: Gallaudet University Press.

CHAPTER FIVE “LETTING THE NATURAL HAPPEN”: STACKING NEUROSCIENCE AGAINST SIGNED LANGUAGE BILINGUALISM IN THE CONTEXT OF PEDIATRIC CIS LAKSHMI FJORD

Hunt revises the figure of stigma as a visible mark that so memorably begins Goffman’s Stigma. “I think,” Hunt writes, “the distinguishing mark of disabled people’s social position is that they tend to ‘challenge’ in their relations with ordinary society” (Hunt 1966, 146, in Schweik 2013).

1. Background In a large lecture hall at the University of Oslo, Norway, the stadium seats had filled for the 1998 presentation of much-anticipated, five-year outcomes research of Nottingham, England’s renowned pediatric Cochlear Implant (CI) center. Entitled “Letting the Natural Happen”, this first longer-term outcomes report held many a professional career in the balance. Since the bioethical use of implants in young children had been highly contested, scientific and popular interpretations of these outcomes would seriously impact the international reputation, even the destiny, of the pediatric CI.1 The presenter, a Norwegian otologist2 trained and working in England, ended his formal lecture with a video segment of one of Nottingham’s implanted children, a girl aged around 9. In the audience sat the wide spectrum of people familiar to those in D/deaf3 arenas, no matter the location: People whose “embodied ways of seeing” (Berger 1973) related to their phenomenological and social experiences as auditory deaf or hearing, and to their professional and/or private relatedness to sociocultural institutions with ties to deaf children, including families, deaf communities, schools, and medical clinics. Not surprisingly, then, who

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and what this audience saw projected on the huge lecture screen was the projection of what they already knew and believed about deafness and deaf children, and what they hoped for and feared within the intensely conflicting pros and cons argued about the pediatric CI at the time. In the discussion period that followed (interpreted for me by Arnfinn Vonen from spoken Norwegian and Norwegian Sign Language to spoken English), a young signing deaf woman expressed her feelings of kinship for the deaf child in the video. A kinship, she signed, based on their shared deafness and also on their shared “thousands of hours of speech training”. The doctor replied: "She will never [his vocal emphasis] be in your category. She can do whatever she likes!” The shocked silence that followed his retort marked its provocative nature to a knowledgeable audience in Norway, where the then prevailing ethical imperative was to offer a signed-language-first preference for deaf infants of both hearing and signing deaf parents as a basis for learning written/spoken Norwegian and other languages (successive bilingualism).4,5 In my dissertation from which this fieldwork vignette is taken, Contested Signs: Discursive Disputes in the Geography of the Pediatric Cochlear Implant, Signed Languages, Expertise and Kinship (University of Virginia 2003) and elsewhere, I critique the as if natural reconstitutions of long-held Anglo-American false binary oppositions to which the otologist reverts to hold his CI overcoming narrative intact. These include: deaf or hearing worlds, as if 92 percent of deaf children do not have hearing families; signing/seeing or hearing/speaking languages with distinctive parts of the brain allocated to each as if language making did not involve both sides of the brain; cochlear implants or signed languages when there is no known neuroscientific reason that signed languages interfere with learning to hear and speak; medical or cultural models of deafness when all medicine is cultural practice. My five years of comparative research in the U.S. and Scandinavia uncovered the discursive uses of neuroscience to establish as if scientific bases for these binary oppositions (Fjord 2000, 2003, 2010). To quickly dispel the young signer’s evidence for kinship with an implanted girl—the opposite conclusion the entire presentation was intended to prove—the surgeon swiftly placed the mark of stigma on her use of a signed language (Goffman 1963). His response, however crudely conveyed, was in keeping with both a longstanding aversion by hearing deaf educators in England to giving full national language status to British Sign Language, and also the centerpiece of the Nottingham, England Center’s marketing of the pediatric CI to hearing parents. CI children would emphatically not have kinship with other deaf people, but with their

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hearing families, because they would not need to use signed languages. But, in this context, the message was a cultural mismatch. Speaking in Norwegian and as a Norwegian, he had brought a historically English stigmatization to her use of Norwegian Sign Language as a derogated mark of deaf personhood, assigning stigma to her person and a presumption of lack of life choices as a Norwegian. In critical disability terms, he disabled her—intentionally negated the then Norwegian cultural ethic to assign linguistic minority status to deaf signing personhood.6 Over time, I came to understand this move as a one-two punch for newly marketing the pediatric CI, which at that time had sizable image problems. Implant deaf toddlers and the CI would erase disability in deaf children. But first, in Scandinavia, much of the U.S., and wherever signed languages had undergone a resurgence of popularity in deaf education, and among hearing people as a second language, it was necessary to recreate disability in un-implanted signing children. The otologist’s prickly response makes sense in Hunt’s terms (above). The young woman challenged the Nottingham Center’s then carefully constructed narrative that to learn to hear and speak with a pediatric CI was a simple process of implantation and then “letting the natural happen”. Not hard work. She put her finger on a core, sore point in oral educational deaf history. That is, if born deaf, learning to speak and hear does not “come naturally”. Most significantly, oral approaches historically create social marginalization when children do not have access to signed languages with which to fully communicate with their majority hearing families, with which to learn spoken/written languages and gain general knowledge in education and daily life. Now, apparently, in the auditoryverbal (A/V) method used post-implantation by the Nottingham Center, implanted deaf children also needed to work just as hard to learn to speak and listen with the CI—also without use of signed languages to ensure social inclusion while in the process. Linking herself in kinship with the implanted girl on the screen seriously undercut the newly formulating strategy by Anglo-American providers of the pediatric CI to represent CI technology as more than just a technologically advanced hearing aid, but the means to live as if not-deaf. I have written about pediatric CIs’ commodity career elsewhere, noting that pediatric CI manufacturers and providers had to devise an “overcoming narrative”, in disability studies terms, to transform pediatric CIs’ stigmatized “monstrous” and “freakish” past (Fjord 2003, 2010). In its new image, the pediatric CI was now being touted to hearing new parents as an alternative to a signing deaf life for their children. The CI would bypass hearing parents’ current need to learn signed languages,

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would bypass bilingual approaches (signed and spoken/written national languages) to deaf children’s achievements of literacy, educational parity, and future employment. However, the Norwegian audience immediately drilled down into Nottingham’s outcomes evidence in the statistics provided, which revealed different realities than the presenter’s polished narrative or the report’s title. Medical clinicians and parents of deaf children were present, but the audience mostly comprised adult deaf people and long-time educators of the deaf. These were people with firsthand experience of the lived effects of non-deaf experts touting the latest fashions in linguistic and educational methods for deaf children—each in its time thought to be the answer— most without benefit of deaf experiential expertise. Thus, audience questions focused on the problems associated with deaf children’s marginalization from hearing family and social groups. The outcomes report revealed not grand successes but troubling social relations problems even at first glance: how few Nottingham CI children’s speech could be understood by an unknown person; how few in turn could understand unknown speakers; how few could beneficially use telephones. These outcomes led several in the audience to ask what was so very different about the pediatric CI than a good hearing aid? Especially when the child in the video demonstrated that having a CI did not mean parents could just “let the natural happen”. Instead post-CI, everyone would be working very hard indeed. Parents’ and therapists’ hands were going to have to be placed over mouths every time they spoke to the implanted child so that no visual language stimulation would be provided. Yet even so, problems with auditory discernment looked exactly like those with children using existing technology, hearing aids, not radical improvements in understanding others’ speech in multi-frequency sound environments (recess, group work in classrooms, work environments, parties). CI children still needed FM magnification in classrooms, still needed one-on-one support staff. What, the audience wanted to know, was new or evolved about the pediatric CI? In 1998, Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish social policies were to promote their national signed languages as “first language” for profoundly deaf children (deaf in the frequencies of speech). Such policies (not laws) were based on a shared ethic of “letting children be children” (Mahshie 1995; Marie Paulson, personal communication, Denmark, 1997).7 As “visual learners,” letting deaf children be children translated into practices in which they should not have to “work hard” to have a shared language with parents, families, teachers, and peer groups. The “hard work” in their policies and ethos lay with hearing parents’ responsibility to learn the

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national signed language. And, these nations would provide public support for them to do so. Underlying these policies were desires to both resist stigmatizations of deaf people and their languages and also to affirm their full participatory citizenship (Durr 2000)—improve agency and access to life choices in these nations. As such, the otologist’s public stigmatization of a Norwegian signing woman for signing and for lack of choices was a breach of social ethos and highly disrespectful of her person.8 At the time this event in Norway occurred, I was certain that the careful, evidence-based critiques of Nottingham outcomes data made by the Norwegian audience would expand more widely. Surely these discerning readings would form the basis of bioethical critiques of solely monolingual post-implantation methodologies, would lead to more scientific comparative effectiveness studies with bilingual approaches. Why accept without research evidence only a monolingual, non-signing post-pediatric CI approach then favored by the Nottingham program and other Commonwealth and Anglo-American centers? Others would critically read and understand the implications of these five-year outcomes from the Nottingham, England study. I believed the discursive erasures of problems with hearing and speaking, as well as the deeply flawed comparative cost benefit analyses of monolingual against bilingual approaches, would be recognized as biased science used to promote certain privileged researchers’ favored methods. Yet, the reverse occurred over time. I soon noticed and wrote about erasures of Swedish bilingual post-implantation research presented at international pediatric CI conferences, submitted along with other outcomes research papers in their panels yet singled out for rejection by US medical journal reviewers as “not scientific” and “misleading” (Fjord 2000, 2003, 2010). Since I’d observed in the Swedish school settings where the research took place and read the researchers’ submitted drafts, I knew their work followed the same protocols as the Nottingham and other CI centers that used the A/V only post-implant approach. Each took place in children’s school settings, used parental reporting, and similarly assessed specific expressive or receptive language skills. None at that time considered other social factors, including parental attributes (education, first language, or economic status). Yet, the monolingual method was solely anointed as “scientific” and considered worthy of publication. Later I will discuss how the entire foundation of these biases occurred through careful misinterpretations of neuroscientific studies of adult deaf signer’s brains “applied”, as if scientifically proven, to young children’s brains “on signed languages” or even gestures or speech-reading—visual stimulation full stop.9

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Once I could describe the cultural expertise that encircled a newly diagnosed deaf child as a “constellation of perspectives” made up of the parents, deaf adults, other parents of deaf children, teachers and psychologists who specialize in deaf education and children’s emotional development, and doctors. However, marketing misinterpretations of hemispheric studies of adult, deaf signers’ brains to claim that visual languages compete for imagined scarce hemispheric resources with hearing/speaking languages in deaf implanted children’s brains marked both signing and signers as impaired, with less-than fully functional neural capacities (Fjord 2000, 2003, 2010). These disabling representations fly in the face of what neuroscience was then beginning to tell us about the human brain’s enormous plasticity, especially in children. At once, this discourse marginalized the expertise of adult deaf signers, who in Scandinavia were then considered essential cultural and linguistic consultants to aid hearing parents to navigate how to parent a deaf child. In this new conceptual world of deafness, the only expertise that counted was that of hearing medical professionals whose outcomes studies were becoming more and more biased towards spoken language monolingualism. Odd, I noted, since written language like signed languages also require visual acuity, thus visual neural stimulation. At the time, I thought countering evidence from neuroscientific research on the benefits of bilingualism and multi-modal language on children’s brains would surely displace ideas based on fixity; on a mythos of signed languages’ purported detrimental neurological effects on learning auditory/spoken languages, for developing vocabulary, for sociality and senses of belonging to families and nations. I thought that trends in cross-racial and transnational adoption towards parents to seek out role models and mentors from the child’s birth populations, with the cultural implications of not doing so, would also grow exponentially for hearing parents of deaf children. However, neither trend occurred. Despite being internationally known as highly developed, technologically advanced nations with strong social ethics towards bilingual if not multi-lingual fluencies for the individual and common good, the social practices of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway turned towards greater support of a characteristically Anglo-American monolingual approach of not-signing with post-implanted deaf toddlers. Parent associations once fixtures in Scandinavia to support signed language approaches were soon overshadowed by A/V only ones. In this sense, one could say, such indigenous Scandinavian approaches to a sociolinguistic problem—to use pediatric CIs as a hearing aid to support an ethic of bilingualism, a complementary or multi-modal approach—were

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made to seem outdated by the claims of more “highly scientific” methods of certain most-cited research centers. This follows a pattern in the globalization of medical expertise more generally. Yet, such a second-tier status is not customary for Scandinavian medicine, which is usually considered of the highest caliber by U.S. medical reviewers.

2. Research parameters and conceptual frameworks This chapter reflects upon my dissertation fieldwork and its surprising applicability to marginalization when revisited in the present. In effect, my dissertation consisted of efforts to understand the socio-cultural and economic forces at-work in home, medical and educational contexts. I looked for what constituted “challenging one’s society” (Hunt 1966) by profoundly deaf children, such as in the dialogic exchange above and hundreds of others that I witnessed over five years of comparative fieldwork in the U.S. (1993-97; 1998-99), and Denmark, Sweden, and Norway on a Fulbright dissertation research fellowship (1997-98). My comparative ethnographic method is based on that of Brigitte Jordan ([1978]1993) who researched birth in four cultures to identify the ethnoscientific bases of birthing technologies and whose expertise matters in birthing. As an anthropological researcher performing participant observation, I located my fieldwork perspective in the experiences of hearing parents, who represent 92 percent of parents of deaf children. Most are new to signed languages and deaf culture when they first receive the diagnosis that their infant or child is profoundly deaf (deaf in frequencies of speech) and cannot learn language as they did. The minority of parents who are deaf themselves are deeply significant for the expert knowledge they bring to deaf children’s language and learning, to deaf visual arts including signed languages, teaching methods, creative uses of technologies, and deaf sociality within majority hearing societies throughout the world. However, by focusing my participant observation on new hearing parents first navigating the waters of an historic, long-debated arena of purported choices to make for languages and biotechnologies, I was better able to place these bioethical dilemmas within larger, never acknowledged socio-ethical and economic pressures.10 As a result, my work places the ethics of kinship squarely into the realm of global biotechnological imperatives, science and technology studies, and gender as it pertains to the mothers of children considered disabled within their societies (Fjord 2000, 2003, 2010; for mothers of disabled children see Landsman 2008).

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The theoretical and conceptual frameworks I developed based on five years of fieldwork were, I until recently believed, of near-historical and not current bioethical interest; no longer relevant to parents of deaf children, culturally Deaf adults or healthcare and education policy-makers. However, key indicators point to why my original ideas still lie at the core of critical science and technology studies of pediatric CIs, with ongoing implications for deaf children’s linguistic and social fluencies and feelings of inclusion or marginalization. First and most importantly, young deaf adults implanted as toddlers and trained using A/V only, monolingual post-implant approaches now express dismay about the denial of childhood access to signed languages so often given to hearing infants through Baby Sign or hearing students as a popular second language. They are talking back to hearing parents’ language decisions based on parent projections about deafness as lack or loss. As it would be to hearing adults, but not to children born deaf for whose perceptual worlds nothearing is normal. Since implanted deaf children will always be deaf; will always need to charge batteries to ensure their CIs work; will always need the support of captioning or professional aides or friend allies in certain auditory settings; and, may need to take off the CI to play sports or when swimming; this backlash is not just ordinary teen-age rebellion (see also Holmström and Bagga-Gupta, this volume). Since most deaf infants in the world will not receive pediatric implants because of lack of access to both the technology and the habilitation needed, this “talking back” by young deaf adults may be compared with children born intersex. Immediately tracked into one sex surgically and/or hormonally by parents pressed to make “choices” using medical technologies, intersexual attributes are, in Euro-American obstetrical contexts, opportunities for medical personnel to practice technological interventions that forestall other approaches. As these children mature, there are enormous individual and social consequences from these forced early choices. In birth settings, intersex personhood is posed similarly as a threat to fixed rather than ambiguous, multi-various or “queer” (non-normate) ways of being (Fjord 2003). Such fixity, however, has become much less attractive to young persons with greater experiences of identity across national borders, languages, social media relations, and working experiences. With the realization that there is still much to discuss in the arena of pediatric CIs, and signed languages, I revisit the persuasive power of Nature discourse and its claims to “science”. Which, upon closer examination, reveal underlying economic vestments in certain postimplant approaches and outcomes research while repressing contrary

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evidence and outcomes. Medical research generally is under pressure to become more transparent about methods and researchers’ vested interests. However, in this instance, where medicine meets national language policies and education, its dispersal over multiple professional spheres and literatures has made scientific transparency more difficult. In what follows, I take a limited critical methods archaeological core sample of CI outcomes studies. Reading across the pediatric literature, I chose a few exemplary examples to bring to the surface recurring methods problems and biases. This is not to prove that pediatric CIs do not “work,” for they do work—provide electronic sounds at multiple frequencies that are unavailable to the deaf child without this technology. Many children and adults have greatly benefited from this technology. Mine is not an anti-CI implant exercise. My focus is entirely upon the marketing strategies for the pediatric CI that falsely convey to consumers that the CI is a “cure” for deafness, and, that signed languages with implanted children are threats to learning to hear and speak spoken languages. My intent is to question the research methods used to develop “the science” and “the bioethics” underlying key pediatric CI literature used to support globalization of the monolingual post-CI model rather than a bilingual approach. To do so, I include further discussion of the Nottingham first outcomes research, a critique of existing cost-benefit analyses comparing pediatric CIs with residential schools for the deaf in the U.S., and raise questions based on more recent comparative outcomes research. I foreground what happens when binary categories are made real in post-implantation approaches towards deaf children’s languaging and learning processes11 in terms of fluencies and sociality, perhaps even neural plasticity. The creation of binary oppositions is achieved and recognizable in deaf arenas by examining the commodity careers (Appadurai 1988) of pediatric cochlear implants and national signed languages. By space constraints, I gloss my prior analyses and create linkages between Nature discourse and discursive “enfreakments of Others” (Thomson 1996a, 1996b, Fjord 2007) and their technologies—to which I add languages as tools—used to argue for or against each post-implant approach as “bioethical” or not.12 I will also argue in support of multi-modal research methodologies, such as the finely grained analyses of videotaped classroom interactions pioneered by Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta in the Deaf Studies stream of the CCD research environment at Örebro and Jönköping universities, Sweden and her graduate students, for instance, Ingela Holmström (see chapters six, nine and fourteen, this volume; Holmström and Bagga-Gupta 2017; see also Holmström, Bagga-Gupta and Jonsson 2015).13 Their work points

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to the benefits of careful documentation of teaching and learning practices for signing and cochlear-implanted deaf children to reveal the actually quite flexible, categorically ‘messy’ ways of languaging and learning used by deaf people, hearing people, all people. Some of this work explicitly highlights how CI implanted children are putting on and taking off their receivers depending upon the aural environment as they desire, and not as they are told to do by CI providers or parents (see Bagga-Gupta and Holmström 2015, Holmström, BaggaGupta and Jonsson 2015). By documenting what people do rather than what they say or think they do, we learn how ideologies and politics of culture (Handler 1988) can limit imaginative possibilities and contribute to the marginalization of any child or cultural group that learns differently than the normative ideal. Other projects at the CCD environment have also explored languaging in alternative settings (for instance Bagga-Gupta 2016, Gynne 2016, Massina Dahlberg 2015, St. John 2014). My critiques of claims of “science” for a monolingual only approach with pediatric CIs arose from observing firsthand the methods, problems associated with research that left out comparative, alternative methods. These critiques find current resonance in medical science more generally. When Barack Obama first took office as president of the U.S. in 2008, he requested the NIH (National Institutes of Health) to create a “Top 100 List of Priorities” for comparative effectiveness research (CER) of competing methods of treatment when, among other criteria, there were huge variations in methods that had not been directly compared.14 Included in the First Quartile as #2: Compare the effectiveness of the different treatments (e.g., assistive listening devices, cochlear implants, electric-acoustic devices, habilitation and rehabilitation methods [auditory/oral, sign language, and total communication]) for hearing loss in children and adults, especially individuals with diverse cultural, language, medical, and developmental backgrounds (CER 2009, 3).

I then learned the scientific jury was still out on this issue because no comparative studies had ever been undertaken. Today, the CER plan lies in shambles, a victim of the politicization of healthcare in the U.S., and the heavy lobbying against it by entrenched mono-modal interests. What stands: ongoing, encompassing critiques of “one size fits all” approaches and claims of science for one intervention method over another without direct comparisons of monolingual approaches and both/and complementary research—as bilingual methods would be in the arena of pediatric deafness and cochlear implants.

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3. “Letting the Natural Happen”: Nature discourse in bioethical practice Discursive contests over signed and spoken languages with profoundly deaf children (whether post-CI or not) most often return to core tenets about and contests over what is “natural” language for deaf children whose parents are hearing or simply what are “natural” languages of deaf children full stop. And, what is “natural” for hearing parents to want in languages for their deaf children living within hearing majorities or “natural” for those deaf young people to want when they grow old enough to make decisions about language for themselves. In contexts of creating binary oppositions between signed or spoken language, deaf or hearing communities, language questions are also fundamentally questions about kinship, chosen and familial, and how best to access and participate in the resources of citizenship in majority societies and nation-states. Thus, the more that methods of deaf children’s languaging and learning depend upon oppositional thinking and between chosen or familial kinship, the higher the stakes for each individual deaf child. Exclusions of flexible, multimodal practices in available toolkits deny the certain diversity of deaf children’s needs and capacities. “Letting the natural happen” could as easily have been the rallying cry of advocates for signed language-first approaches to profound infant deafness and to bilingual approaches post-implantation. If profound deafness = inability to hear in the frequencies of speech, then visual, signed languages have historically provided an “on-hand” means to communicate for sighted deaf children.15 The literature on deaf children’s development of “home signs” with hearing families in the absence of a formal system of signed language points to “contact language” creation when desires to communicate are present (Meadow-Orlans 1980, Meadow-Orlans et. al. 2003). In the following definition of ASL (American Sign Language) may be discerned the potency of “the natural” in language politics: [ASL is] the visual-gestural language used by members of the deaf community in the United States. It is a natural language with an autonomous grammar that is quite distinct from the grammar of English. ASL is also quite distinct from artificially developed systems that attempt to encode English and can include the use of speech, ASL signs, and invented signs used to represent English morphemes […] which are often referred to by the generic term Signed English (Lucas 1989, 11]).

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Key words in Lucas’s definition are “deaf community”, “natural”, “autonomous”, and “quite distinct”. Each of these concepts “talks back” to previous oppressions of signed languages and deaf people using the same discursive concepts often used against them. To people who argue for the benefits of signing deaf culture for all deaf children, efforts to extinguish reliance on vision (as A/V methods for post-implanted children do in order to focus neural stimulation on auditory/speaking development) “handicap” the child, are “unnatural” and bioethically suspect (Lane and Bahan 1998). A recurring theme in deaf culture story-telling involves tales of “before and after” that contrast the isolation of a deaf child before discovering other deaf people and a shared language (cf. Polich 2000), and, after, the utter transformative thrill of being able to finally have satisfying communication (Lane 1984, Padden and Humphries 1988). Vygotsky calls this developmental milestone the “dialogic leap”, ([1926]1963)—from a solely perceptual to a conceptual world. Such leaps to language fluency can only take place in interpersonal interactions, and educators of deaf children variously describe this phenomena in their students as “he sucks in everything, as though he had never seen it before”, “an awakening”, filled with “boundless wonder”, and “incandescent interest in everything” (Sacks 1990, 54). When young deaf adults have described to me the relief of learning to sign after growing up “oral”, they narrate how layers of tension fell away from years of miscommunications based on hearing aids and lip-reading guessing. Thus, arguments that a monolingual, spoken language only approach to post-implantation are “unethical” are based on first person experiences of living without signed languages now applied to a technology that cannot be implanted at birth, depriving infants of the most developmentally vital period of time with no shared language with parents. Considered further bioethically suspect is depriving implanted children of access to signed languages when, throughout their lifetimes, they will never be not-deaf. If solely dependent upon electronic devices to communicate, what about all those times when they have to take their implants off to play land and water sports, when batteries die or disasters remove them from power sources and especially, in most social events, which are complex auditory environments? Lack of fluency in a signed language deprives this group of deaf people from visual languages that would be both “functional back-up”— technologies for when implants fail or cannot be used—but also, more poignantly, deprive them of the linguistic pleasures of signed poetry, story-telling, theater, and sociality with groups of signers. Finally, since the majority of deaf people in the world do not have CIs, to be fluent in a

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signed language makes it far easier to communicate with deaf signing people across borders. This is a bonus for signers that the members of the National Theatre of the Deaf reported to me after extensive international travel. The mimetic skills learned when signing across different levels of fluency at home are then useful tools when signing between different signed languages abroad. In contrast to the ease of applying “natural” to visual languages when sighted deaf, any attribution of “natural” when applied to pediatric cochlear implants was initially quite a difficult sell to deaf people and even hearing parents. Early in the commodity career of the pediatric CIs, the first-implanted teenagers sometimes experienced spontaneous explantations.16 These stories made their way through international DeafWorlds and, whether sometimes apocryphal, thoroughly enfreaked CIs for parents, including hearing ones. However, over the course of my five years of fieldwork, the CI lost its Frankenstein-esque character for U.S. hearing parents, in particular. From saying, “absolutely not!” to surgical incisions in their toddlers’ heads to one mother telling me that perhaps “she needs a new implant” when the barrettes no longer held her daughter’s receiver in place (a cranial anomaly required this solution, rather than being as frivolous as it may appear). Although tested during implantation surgeries, implanted receivers do fail, and not as rarely as hoped. Several implanted children I have met more recently were on their second and even third cochlear implants because of device failures, according to parents’ reports from doctors. U.S. parents in the latter years of my research approached their child’s device failures not as signs he or she was not a “good candidate” for CIs, but as the necessary evil attendant upon technology use. As with all evolving new surgical interventions, surgical problems led to the development of better cranial placement and suturing practices. The 22-channel models had been tested and fine-tuned, and the marketing of pediatric CIs with auditory-verbal training as “natural” began in earnest. Certainly, to counter the once actual sight of CI receivers bulging from beneath sutures to becoming historical artifact or myth required a domestication of the implant’s fearful qualities for parents. This process was rapid and composed of equal parts growing popular familiarity with toddler surgeries, the growth of parent support groups, and heightened desires for marketed curative effects on potential family rifts. To displace signed languages’ popular and educational fluorescence based on linguistic, neuroscientific, and educational outcomes studies required appropriations of “the natural” to sell implants to hearing parents who primarily have no prior experience of profound deafness or fluencies in signing.

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Tapping into the desires of hearing parents for “sameness” in language kinship with their profoundly deaf children, the commodity career of the pediatric CI became charged with certain more general longings towards biotechnologies as prosthetics of kinship (Fjord, Chen and Konety 2017). Increasingly, people in technologically rich nations have come to expect biotechnologies to mitigate the frailties of human bodies and, for the most part, to expect that technologies will change lives always towards the better. Biotechnologies are prosthetically linked to notions of evolutionary progress against debilitation or death. However, the technology that was the aural-only telephone was a prosthestic of devolution for deaf people from full participatory citizenship for over a hundred years. Thus, the cochlear implant as a morally-“sound” device, the habilitation for which has been to proscribe signed languages and even visual stimuli describes another prosthetic of devolution—this time of signed languages and deaf chosen kinship and cultures (Lane and Bahan 1998). I found that most hearing parents quickly got over their initial squeamishness about the surgical requirements of the pediatric CI. Aided, I noticed through participant observation in U.S. pediatric CI clinics, by an enfreakment of signing deaf people, signed languages, and even visual stimulation. Audiologists and otologists with no experience of deaf people or ASL became hearing parents’ only reference to “deaf community”, as I learned when one parent asked me, “Where is this deaf community Dr. Preston told me deaf people are living in?” Literature on “losing one’s child to deaf community” located culturally deaf signing people as not among “us” but “out there” vying for their child’s affiliation against hearing families.17 Daniel Ling, the creator and foremost practitioner of the auditoryverbal (A/V) training approach to post-pediatric CI habilitation told those of us assembled at an auditory-verbal conference held in Washington, DC in 1997: “the more visual attention the child is paying, the less attention to auditory clues”. He continued, “[By signing with children] you are giving them an abnormal way of learning by giving them extra clues that help them to fill in gaps in their information. But it is more important that they learn to use their hearing and not rely on lipreading [because it uses vision to discern mouth movements, i.e. is actually speech-reading]”. Ling’s words inadvertently summed up the bioethical issues at the heart of critiques of A/V monolingual post-CI approaches by culturally deaf, signing adults and signed language activists from its first iteration onwards. Following Montaigne’s observation, “We call contrary to nature, what is contrary to culture” (1580), the hearing, non-signing Ling marks signing as “abnormal.” Then, he demotes signed languages from full

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language status to assistive technologies—prostheses that give deaf children “extra clues to fill in gaps in their information”. Since signed language-based deaf education’s successes lay in “filling in deaf children’s gaps” in orally based education and general knowledge, bilingual advocates wondered why anyone would want to deprive deaf children of such linguistic tools as signed languages had proved to be? The worrisome nature of the A/V method to deaf adults lies in its linkage to personal and cultural histories of deaf education when deaf children are/were forced into oral-only expressive language. With hands once tied or weighted, every subject in school was a speech class instead of focus on learning content knowledge. Cohen described the effect: “While hearing siblings are learning all about agriculture, the deaf student is learning to say the word ‘bean’” (1994, 13). Fears that A/V only approaches might reintroduce learning and languaging gaps during critical developmental stages, including learning social cues during socializing, are reality-based. They harken back to systemic marginalizations of deaf children in the notdistant past. A/V proponents underpin their claims for “the natural” by pathologizing the effects of visual stimuli on the brains of post-implanted children. With hands over mouths, audiologists and A/V therapists I observed sought to extinguish visual stimuli—whether signing, gesturing, or speechreading—and emphasize exclusive use of auditory stimuli. Only through cross-culturally comparative participant observation was the “oddness” of these U.S. pediatric CI clinical familiars made evident. Wondering where U.S. audiologists and A/V proponents were getting these ideas, I remembered the early brain hemispheric studies of life-long deaf signing adults undertaken by Klima and Bellugi at the Pasteur Institute (1979). Analyses of their findings provided evidence that signed languages act on the brains of their users in exactly the ways that spoken languages do— evidence of their full linguistic and grammatical capabilities. These studies also served as examples of neural plasticity in adults when PET scans showed often-auditory portions of the brain now being allocated towards visual acuity. A/V post-CI proponents turned such neural plasticity on its head: now, these studies of deaf adults were “evidence” that signing/vision is “at-war” with speaking/hearing for scarce hemispheric resources in post-implanted children. That this border-making discourse about languages at war is a particularly Anglo-Saxon way of thinking about languages competing for sovereignty over each other, applied to children’s brains “on languages”, was exemplified by Swedish otologist, Goran Bredberg’s (not a pseudonym) response to my query about neural plasticity. “I don’t think

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there is a war going on between signing and speaking. If there is an equal situation for each [bilingualism], they should both benefit the child’s neural development” (personal communication, Sweden, 1998). These widely differing neuroscientific notions about language modalities and their effects on children’s developing brains reflect fundamental differences in the histories of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway versus the U.S., I conjectured. No colonizing English immigrants who derogated indigenous American Indian languages and lifeways had taken over these countries centuries ago; no Scandinavians experienced applications of the race concept first conceived by the English about the Irish in the 1300s or “Indians” later to justify harsh and unequal treatment of subaltern populations. Instead, in Denmark during my research year, archaeological digs uncovered indigenous Bog People whose stomachs were full of the same grains and seeds familiar to present-day Danish agriculture. Despite whatever glories obtained by Viking explorers in the distant past, no present-day Scandinavian had delusions of glory about the role of their countries on the world stage. As Northern Europeans, these countries expected successive bilingual fluency in Danish and then English (post WWII) of all students, as preparation for participation in world markets. Such historical differences, I have proposed, have direct effects on the descriptive metaphors used by providers of pediatric CIs to prospective consumers, and about post-implant languages. In the U.S., CIs were called “miracles” that “cured” deafness. The A/V approach would preclude the need for signing and thus bilingualism—under fire by backlash against “unassimilated” Spanish-speaking immigrants. In Denmark in 1997-98, CIs were described to Danish parents—bilingual in Danish and English— as “high-powered hearing aids” that emphatically did not cure deafness, and would support bilingualism in Danish Sign Language and written/spoken Danish, followed by ASL and written English. And, several of the older deaf children I met in Denmark were well on their way towards that goal—using ASL to communicate with me. Yet, using my own fieldwork data as outcomes evidence, the longer my fieldwork in the U.S., the more parents of children I was following over the long term became seasoned parents of post-implanted children. No longer were they unreservedly sanguine about the CIs “curative” attributes or unambiguously successful outcomes (Fjord fieldwork, 19932000; Christiansen and Leigh 2002). Instead, they spoke about “realistic expectations”, and the hard work of habilitation undertaken by mothers, in particular, to work daily with implanted children to ensure their inclusion in school and play. When I returned to the U.S. to report stories from my

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fieldwork with hearing parents in Scandinavia, every mother with whom I spoke expressed great sadness that she felt so alone, as if her child were “the first deaf child in the world”. Each contrasted her isolation with then Scandinavian practices to bring parents together with seasoned parents of deaf older children, and into contact with deaf adults who could ease some of the worries about their children’s futures. In other arenas of U.S. parenting, the notion that “differences” between parents and child require mediation by contact with “same” other adults, has become normative when “white” parents adopt children “of color”. The belief that adult mentors who have learned survival skills in the everyday racism their child will face in U.S. society is considered rational and responsible parenting. Further, many parents in my fieldwork nations who trans-nationally adopt acknowledge natal differences by return visits and/or instruction in natal languages. Yet, perhaps because deaf history has such a fractured and even tragic past in the U.S.,18 only U.S. parents during my fieldwork were not immediately put in touch with other parents of deaf children or deaf adults. To return to Hunt’s description of disability, then, the sort of challenge that deaf infants pose at birth (when newborn screening occurs) is of immediate threat to familial kinship of a disabled person who cannot learn to speak as they did. Thus, the selling point of the pediatric cochlear implant as curative “speaks to” desires for a technology that will remove “the mark of stigma” associated with deaf personhood and its derogated “signs”—signed languages, schools for the deaf, and deaf culture. Puzzling as it may be to U.S. hearing parents who increasingly enjoy using Baby Sign with hearing infants before they are capable of spoken language, or to hearing university students who line up on waiting lists to learn ASL to fulfill foreign language requirements, it has become quite difficult now for U.S. parents of deaf infants to have access to ASL. Or, for that matter, for deaf children with or without CIs to be educated using ASL by fluent ASL signers.

4. Interpreting outcomes data: from marketing tool to more nuanced methods At the time of my dissertation fieldwork, Britta Hansen, co-founder and then executive director of The Deaf Center for Sign Language and Total Communication (KC), Copenhagen, Denmark made to me the following general statement:

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By 2015, this rosy social and economic picture for sign language speakers and culturally deaf community building in Denmark has disappeared. In Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, individual yet collectively seismic shifts in ethos and praxis have taken place. Social policies of successive bilingualism in signed and then spoken/written national languages have almost entirely shifted to using signed language only as a “baby tongue” or not at all until deaf children can be bilaterally implanted. With this shift comes the displacement of cultural expertise about deaf children from deaf, signing adults to medical doctors who specialize in the ear and hearing. In general, and across national borders, in disability diagnoses such as profound pediatric deafness and ADHD,19 we find circumstances where medical doctors provide both diagnostic tests and the interventions they prescribe—a closed circle that erases existing alternative or even both/and complementary approaches and forms of expertise. Particularly troubling is the absence of deaf adults to offer experiential knowledge to parents. Parental access to alternative methods and their outcomes research would present a more nuanced or even ambiguous picture about “success” rates. CI providers have controlled the outcomes literature almost entirely since 1995, when the NIH Consensus on Adults and Children with Cochlear Implants cleared their use in children two years and older. Extending beyond their training and experience, CI providers counsel hearing parents about what language to use or educational placement post-pediatric CI. Yet, no medical provider in my fieldwork settings had experiential expertise with deafness, nor was the study of neural linguistics or social relations included in any of their training; none had direct research experience in classrooms, homes, and other social spheres. What then were the bases of expertise and evidence that tipped the scales in Scandinavia away from post-implant approaches that more closely reflected key ethos for languages and social development? How did such an enormous change in ethos and practices towards signed languages’ statuses as national languages occur so quickly when, at the emergence of the pediatric CI, “the battle for sign language had been won” in the realm of first language for deaf infants and their education? In 1998, I received the first inkling of how a bilingual approach post-implant was

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going to be characterized by CI providers during Ole Pettar Tungland’s public lecture at the University of Oslo (1998): From a medical point of view, if you have a treatment that helps 85 percent of the population, then it’s almost unethical NOT to give this treatment to those who need it. I put this so strongly that if you had cochlear implant and let the natural happen then it is almost unethical NOT to let this happen. Early sound stimulation is SO extremely important.

Closely examining the Nottingham Center’s outcomes research as he spoke, several in the Norwegian audience politely contested his statements as ignoring red flags in the data. Such as the fact that the 85 percent of children that Tungland cited represented just 17 children—only 18 of the original 42 who began the study were involved at the five-year mark. In clinical trials, such dismal dropout rates would only point to a treatment’s lack of success. Could one-size-fits-all generalizations be applied to such a small number of individuals left from the number implanted? Further, the 83 percent (the correct percentage noted in the hand-out) were just 17 children whose speech was “intelligible to known speakers” after five years with the CI. Parental reporting on how few children could “understand a speaker over the telephone” worried deaf adults and teachers in the audience who read these as signs that face-to-face communication was still required for deaf children to do well with the pediatric CI, just as with hearing aids. Between the lines of each of the outcomes could be discerned tremendous gaps for languaging and learning using the auditory-verbal only communication method required of Nottingham participants. Audience members knew from experience these “gaps” translated into years of miscommunications and losses of information gathering for these CI children that hearing children or signing children could expect to accumulate during the same time period. In 2000, I met up again with Cassie, a U.S. mother whose daughter’s post-CI progress I had been following since 1995. “She is doing well in school because she has an aide, but I am worried because now as a preteen, she is becoming isolated from her peers. She doesn’t understand what is going on at sleepovers when everyone is talking at once, and of course they can’t be expected to slow down for her”. Presciently, at the Oslo presentation, one teacher of the deaf said, “These [Nottingham CI] children seem to be hard of hearing now [not deaf], and we find hard of hearing children are the most handicapped—they’re neither here nor there”. In Scandinavia then, “hard of hearing” people (in Danish, “the unreal deaf”) lived in a permanently liminal language category, which was why parents of hard of hearing children in Denmark lobbied for their

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children’s inclusion in bilingual signed and spoken language programs; and also, why post-pediatric CI programs in the Scandinavian countries first adopted bilingual post-implant methods. In seeking more nuanced analyses in current outcomes literature, I find few longer-term studies that take both/and complementary approaches to examine post-implantation outcomes. One evocative example is research by Jimenez, Pino and Hurruzo (2009) comparing 18 post-CI children to assess various sets of outcomes: The fact that the children in the spoken language group were better able to use grammar and displayed better pronunciation is to be expected, since they are immersed in an exclusively oral environment. Similarly, it is not surprising that the bilingual children were able to express meaning using gestures. However, the unexpected and therefore somewhat paradoxical finding is this latter group displayed superior skills in terms of verbal fluency, since they were able to evoke a greater number of words using a picture as a stimulus, which might suggest a generalisation of verbal skills from sign language, learned earlier on, to spoken language (2009, 113).

If one uses a non-binary oppositional approach to analyze their findings, a different interpretation from the authors would be as follows: Since spoken languages are not communication technologies set apart from speaking practices by speakers, skills in learning to “read” gesture, facial and body expressions are integral practices to learning spoken languages as spoken by individual people. Reading written languages also requires visual acuity and discernment, and strong reading skills enhance both spoken and written vocabulary. Hence, the greater neural capacities of signers’ visual acuity/discernment skills provide beneficial skills for learning both signed and spoken languages. Only a false binary made between spoken and signed languages, between hearing and visual portions of children’s brains, would lead to the invention of oppositions between language modalities or the need to police false neural borderlands. Instead, this small study points to a multi-modal (visual+auditory) method approach for greatest neuro-linguistic development. Most outcomes studies continue to be of small numbers of children using A/V only methods post-implantation. Scramm, Boehnert and Keilmann (2010) comparatively assessed the receptive and expressive spoken language skills of just five implanted, A/V toddlers with five hearing ones, and their work exemplifies the methods questions such studies raise. While they find that all implanted children did develop linguistic skills, the results between each child were highly variable. The

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authors attributed the wide variability in outcomes measures between each of the five implanted children, not surprisingly, to developmental and dependent variables, which in three of the five included significant device problems. The authors propose, “When a CI user achieves scores similar to those of normally developing children it does not mean that the CI user has ‘normal language’, it only suggests that he or she has age appropriate skills in the language tasks assessed by the test” (2010, 818). This tiny research population was assessed over the relatively short span of three years of CI use. Yet, their narrative conclusions echo questions about children with CIs raised by the NIH CER (Comparative Effectiveness Research) when describing the studies still needed to better understand best practices for deaf CI children: We believe that more longitudinal studies with larger populations are needed to evaluate the hearing, speech, and language development in young children with CIs […] Furthermore, against the background of longitudinal studies, it is also always of great interest to investigate how children with CIs manage in mainstream educational settings (Scramm, Boehnert and Keilmann 2010, 818-819).

Two of Scramm, Boehnert and Keilman’s comments on methodology deserve further attention. The researchers emphasize that care needs to be taken when extrapolating about general outcomes from (the limitations) of the “language tasks assessed by the test”; and, that much more finely grained day to day observational data is needed about implanted children in mainstream settings rather than one time only snapshots and tests that capture fixed data points. Each comment points to the need to better assess CI children’s social relations, their “social and emotional development” (Fjord 2001), competencies and fluencies that are both social and linguistic. Social and emotional development outcomes are not captured in the vast majority of pediatric cochlear implant outcomes literature, which in general is characterized by focus on some small bit of data or use of a single, proprietary, receptive or expressive outcomes tool, with few numbers of children. For lack of a better term, and one that has been appropriated by cost-benefit analyses, the studies that do not yet exist conceptually fall under “quality of life” measures. In the case of pediatric CIs, these quality of life assessments going forward must include both parents and their deaf children’s self reporting since parental reporting is a key source of outcomes data. As I learned from years observing in clinical settings, it is parents who are being assessed as “good” or “bad” candidates for their child’s pediatric implant. Not because of genetics or predispositions, not because of economic or

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immigrant status, but because their lives will be completely entwined with the habilitation work needed to learn to hear and speak with the implant. As such, more accurate cost benefit analyses must be undertaken to prepare parents for this challenge.

5. Drilling down into pediatric CI cost-benefit analyses methods and problems To make the case to insurance companies or Medicaid in the U.S. that pay for pediatric cochlear implants (but not hearing aids), and to public entities that pay in the Scandinavian and other Northern European countries, that pediatric cochlear implants enhance quality of life while cutting costs to societies, noted pediatric cochlear implant provider, John Niparko of Johns Hopkins University, performed “comparative costbenefit analyses”. He and his colleague compared costs of a residential school for the deaf in Maryland and medical costs for pediatric CIs and post-CI habilitation at John’s Hopkins (Wyatt and Niparko 1995). Now considered an international expert on such measures of pediatric implant cost-utility, Niparko quantified these costs to an audience of mostly doctors and audiologists I attended at the University of Virginia in 1997. To do so, Nikparko added up the actual monies spent for the pediatric implant—pre-op, surgery, post-op hook-up and follow-up re/habilitation visits for implant tuning and speech and listening training—divided by “qualyears”.20 And, then compared these with the total cost of residential school tuitions and ASL interpreters. My critiques of these researchers’ methods are two-fold. First, they base their quality of life measurement baseline for deaf children on survey answers by U.S. deaf adults seeking a cochlear implant. This group, lobbying for U.S. insurance coverage of the procedure, not surprisingly rated their quality of life as deaf very low indeed. Multiplying that data about despondency and depression in adults over their average lifespan— as if despondent from earliest childhood onwards—is a misleading baseline. Especially in the U.S. where CIs are marketed as a “cure” for deafness, highly impacting rating scales in adults who seek to be identified as greatly in need of them. A baseline of deaf adults who were not seeking an implant would correct this skewing of quality of life factors in the measures used to factor qualyear costs. Second, their methods of data analysis obscured a very significant distinction between who exactly was going to be paying what in social and economic costs when comparing linguistic and educational methods postCI: whether insurance companies, taxpayers for both residential and

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mainstream schools, or parents, with time and life expectations of mothers who use the A/V method that are quite high. The purported side-by-side comparison of direct financial costs to educate deaf children in residential schools or mainstreamed with pediatric CIs “proved” that the A/V method and mainstreaming plus implant hardware, surgery, and rehabilitation cost less money than schools for the deaf and signed language education.21 Yet, mainstreamed schools were as if free, when cost per deaf pupil to taxpayers is much higher than average, and even average costs were not included. Residential schools are state schools and tuition is also from taxpayer coffers. However, as Goffman suggests, the true clients of any intervention to forestall stigma, in this case for profoundly deaf children, are parents. Thus, Nikparko and Wyatt’s cost benefit analyses are marketing towards their principal consumers—hearing parents. Except, this cost benefit analyses leave out significant costs in time and money that parents will require to undertake monolingual A/V habilitation not covered by insurance or schools taken from their own pockets and workdays. Accurate cost benefit analyses would reflect the social and economic costs for parents in order to make informed comparative decisions about the best fit for their family circumstances. Of particular interest to parents would be specifics about who pays what costs for re/habilitation therapy post-implant and the length of time such additional intensive support will be necessary. Costs to parents include time needed to undertake pre- and post-implant habilitation at home; in travel time to implant centers for implant mapping (auditory testing to set levels for each of the 22 channels of electronic input in most implants); and money and time spent on professional A/V therapy. In contrast, residential schools in the U.S. and Scandinavian countries offer on-site CI mapping, speech and listening therapies, and slot these into the child’s school day on-site, without needing parental time. The Nottingham outcomes title, “letting the natural happen”, underscores that the pediatric implant is designed to save parents the time needed to learn a signed language. Yet, the parents in my U.S. study who chose the pediatric CI and the A/V monolingual approach quickly learned that A/V methods attention throughout the waking child’s day for a variably considerable length of time. Mothers at an A/V conference I attended in Washington, DC in 1997 talked with each other about “cutting back their hours” at work or quitting work altogether to “work with” their deaf babies prior to the earliest age of implantation (then 9 months at a few centers, the NIH recommendation was 2 years). What they would later find out from the mothers of post-CI children was that this need for intensive round-the-clock A/V therapy

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would continue for long periods of time post-CI, as well (for U.S. mothers of disabled children more generally, see Landsman 2008). A major theme across national borders of my fieldwork findings was firsthand observations of the gendered expectations of mothers of deaf children to perform the heavy lifting of habilitating their child to whatever linguistic method then considered ethically imperative in their society. In Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, when using the national signed language as first language for deaf infants was the recommendation, I found mothers were most often the parent who became fluent sign language users, as were mothers in the U.S. At the time, the Danish organization, KC (Deaf Center for Sign Language and Total Communication), was starting father classes. Organizers of this class told me that Danish fathers had expressed doubts to teachers about their abilities to learn to sign, a sort of performance anxiety many hearing people express about learning signed languages. Good grammar in signing requires what seem to be “exaggerated” facial movements, facility with visual recognition of similar looking signs with very different meanings, and body movements that build an architecture of language in three dimensions not customary to Northern European and English languages. The KC was also in the process of discussing classes solely for Muslim mothers to counter problems with Muslim husbands who would not let their wives attend gender mixed “ethnic Danish” parent classes. In every context, irrespective of whether at the time the imperative was to learn signed languages or to learn how to constantly perform A/V therapy with their post-CI child, mothers were held accountable for the failures of their child without reference to device failures or other factors. In the U.S., a mother had just left the clinic, when the audiologist said, “She is not trying hard enough. She complains that she has to drive from another state to get to the clinic, pay for a motel, and that she doesn’t have the money to come. But Medicaid paid for the implant! Now, it’s up to her whether or not he learns to speak” (U.S. 1999). In Denmark, I heard hearing psychologists talking about “Muslim” mothers of deaf children who wanted the pediatric CI because they were “not going to learn spoken Danish anyway, much less Danish Sign Language”. Each set of professionals similarly “shocked” at certain mothers’ lack of work ethic towards their child’s inclusion in majority society. With this gendered backdrop in place, of mothers already expected by their societies to do the heavy lifting of extra kin-work needed for learning signed languages, the pediatric CI brought further and greater expectations of mothers in time and economic costs (see also Christiansen and Leigh 2002). In fact, by the late 1990s, a decision about whether a given child was a candidate for implantation in my U.S. sites, beyond medical reasons,

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was largely tied to assessing “parental drive”—the capabilities mothers were thought to possess or not to perform required post-implant linguistic and hearing therapy work. One mother reported: I’m going to speech therapy twice a week. A teacher of the deaf is coming in twice a week, I’m going to [the implant center] two hours away once a week. All day long at home, I’m saying, “Can you hear that?” (Christenian and Leigh 2002, 150).

Or, this example from one of my U.S. study respondents, “I will do whatever it takes to get my son to therapy. Even if it means driving four hours each way twice a week. But, they [a center with a no-signing policy] won’t accept him, because he’s in a residential school. I’m so mad!” Thus, representations of pediatric CIs and A/V therapy as replacing the need for residential schools, meant that U.S. parents could not “have it all” at that point; could not use a both/and, multi-modal approach post-implant. For, they would be dropped as candidates. Providers were deeply reluctant to allow post-CI mapping of the 22 channels and habilitation therapy to take place in residential schools, with whom they were directly competing. The unfortunate consequences for everyone were further hardening in the U.S. of invented oppositions between methods and competing interests. The social costs never factored into cost benefit analyses. This omission extends beyond individual families to deaf people writ large within and across nations. The huge disparity between families who can afford the necessary costs of support therapies and those who cannot afford them creates new sorts of social inequality. Even at the family-tofamily level, we find huge differences: at the time of my fieldwork, only in the U.S. were mothers quitting their jobs to work fulltime on the “hard work now, big rewards later” A/V method of habilitation. Since all four of the countries of my comparative study share ethics of gender parity for work (if sometimes seemingly only in lip service), women’s losses of working time and opportunities for promotion have enormous social and personal costs that must be included in fair cost comparisons for families and societies. Displacing onto parents the responsibility for post-CI therapy, shifts responsibility for unequal outcomes for children of immigrant parents whose first languages are not the majority language, impoverished children, children whose parents have addiction issues, who are chronically ill, and so on. Further, as with conflicts in the U.S. about public school funding and charter schools that may filter out high cost disabled pupils, schools for the deaf are state-funded. Most now are places for those children who are “implant failures” or have multiple disabilities or co-morbidities that make

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learning and language development exponentially more difficult. All of these individual students cost far more per student, driving up the average costs of residential schools not properly factored into in comparisons with children able to be mainstreamed in local public or charter schools. To close a summary discussion of cost-benefit analyses and their methods, Wyatt and Niparko’s figures largely served to make the case for pediatric cochlear implants to insurance companies in their state, Maryland, with a strong school for the deaf, a large, educated, culturally deaf population, and a then state policy in which that school was the first contact for hearing parents after diagnosis of profound deafness. The proprietary interests attached to descriptions of pediatric CIs as “replacing sign language” or “replacing schools for the deaf” were invisible to hearing parents of deaf children in my U.S. research because doctors and audiologists were their only cultural authorities on deaf embodiment. Parents who consulted them would not be able to discern a conflict of interest in offers of specific treatments and intervention strategies since the literature on outcomes and cost-effectiveness was already skewed towards CI providers and their situated post-implant approaches. Such methodological critiques point once more to lacunae in comparative effectiveness research on pediatric CI outcomes, as broadly identified by the Top 100 CER list issued by the NIH. To accurately reflect the real-world consequences of undertaking different post-implant approaches to languaging and learning, social relations and quality of life factors would need to be included; costs of time and costs of hardware, of schooling, of support technologies that include signed language interpreters and captioners, classroom aides, and mothers. Revised cost benefit analyses need to reflect everyday lived costs, and the growing cohort of young deaf adults with CIs could provide unprecedented feedback on every aspect and outcome of living with CIs over time. Certainly, we know that many deaf children and adults have received great benefit from using cochlear implants. The as yet unanswered questions remain because of entrenched biases post-implant. That is, whether there is also a great benefit to CI users who are bilingual in sign languages. Retrospective analyses of the barriers to inclusion and marginalization issues that an informed cohort of lifelong CI users have faced at each stage of their development, and also their experiential expertise in the best practices that aided their inclusion in school, work, and leisure activities, represents a rich social resource. Their participation as research experts would greatly alleviate ongoing methodological issues in research undertaken by those with vested interests in particular outcomes and evidence.

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6. Conclusion With the increasing sovereignty making that is taking place within the globalization of medicine and its bioethical imperatives (Starr 1984)—the anointing of particular treatments and expertise and the economic rewards of doing so—it is ever more important to critically analyze universalisms invented by bioethics and science. Especially problematic is the erasure of competing forms of treatment expertise and comparative outcomes research by designating them as “unscientific”, “vernacular”, or “culture”, denying the cultural bases of all medicine and the economic competition involved. In the arena of pediatric deafness, there is nothing inherently “natural” about the historical invention of binary oppositions between signed languages and spoken ones, between adult deaf signers and parents of deaf children and ear doctors, or early intervention therapists. Processes of marginalization of children in classrooms, homes, and public arenas arise from linguistic, cultural, and embodied attributes that do not fit with the dominant ethos, whether local or national. Forcing homogeneity, we lose creative possibilities as well as flexible bodies and societies. Ignoring the very real concerns about the limitations of an A/V, oral-only approach to post-implant languaging and learning expressed first in my presence by Norwegians closely reading Nottingham’s five-year outcomes research, delayed bioethical critiques of relying solely on that approach until affected children themselves grew up and could pose them. On a return visit to Örebro, Sweden in 2012, I spoke at length with a young woman who had been bilaterally implanted and taught using the A/V method. Now, she asks, “Why don’t we know how to use Swedish Sign Language? It would be so much better in many situations”, which she then proceeded to elaborate on, including all of those interactions and dynamics brought up by the Norwegian audience members so long ago. Eventually, problems with the “science” used to derogate signed languages in bilingual approaches revealed themselves more widely, as evidenced by the NIH Top 100 priorities for comparative effectiveness research—a sign that science is definitely not aligned solely with one approach. Unfortunately, however, it may be very difficult to find places in the U.S. to test such comparative effectiveness now. For, in a fundamental disability paradox, it has become ever more difficult for U.S. hearing parents of deaf infants and their deaf children to learn ASL because of the predominance of pediatric CI marketing discourse that A/V methods must be followed. Still more troubling, fewer deaf children have access to fluent ASL interpretation while more and more hearing university students receive instruction from the highest caliber ASL teachers.

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Perhaps answers lie in studies such as the ongoing work by Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta, Ingela Holmström and others on a “third position” in deaf children’s language and learning (Bagga-Gupta 2007, 2016, 2017a, 2017b, Holmström 2013). Based on years of closely studying the interactions of deaf children, their teachers, and classmates in real time, children with CIs are taking their implants on and off to suit their desires for sound input or not, a user-centered model reflective of technology studies more widely (Holmström, Bagga-Gupta and Jonsson 2015). Their videographic method builds upon Bagga-Gupta’s earlier work on “chaining” in hearing communities and in Deaf-Worlds, for instance where adults teach language using all modalities possible (Bagga-Gupta 2000, Gynne and Bagga-Gupta 2013, Humphries and MacDonald 2000, Massina Dahlberg 2015). As such, the possibilities for creating more flexible and inclusive methods that attend to the diverse learning, linguistic, auditory, visual, social, and emotional variables of individual deaf children, points to antidotes for centuries of binary thinking made normative by cultural practices.

Notes 1

Controversies over cochlear implants involved only their use in children. These have ranged across many areas: from bioethical questions concerning safety, efficacy, and accompanying communication supports for habilitation to listening and speaking, signed languages, FM transmitters, captioning; and, who would receive paid services for those supports—deaf or hearing signing teachers or auditory-verbal trainers, signed language interpreters and/or speaking classroom aides. 2 In the U.S. the following criteria distinguish an otolaryngologist (Ear, Nose, and Throat-ENT), otologist, and audiologist: the first two are MD’s with training in ENT, including surgeries; otologists complete a further one-two year fellowship and specialize in ears and vestibular issues; audiologists are not MD’s, receive a MA or PhD in audiology, and many are trained to develop the frequency tuning “maps”—sound frequency programs that set levels of sound in individual CI processors. In Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, audiologists are MD’s who specialize in hearing. Audiology technicians develop “maps” with CI users. 3 In an essay discussing cross-culturally comparative research, I use D/deaf in this first reference to deaf people who self-ascribe to a shared cultural affiliation. To use the now-customary U.S. capital D to refer to deaf cultural ascriptions in other places would be inappropriate in Scandinavian languages that do not always use capital letters for national, linguistic and other cultural categorical proper nouns. Henceforth, I will not use the U.S. norm when referring to cultural association, but

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will add the adjective necessary to distinguish between cultural and auditory designations (a fine point, since auditory testing is also a cultural practice). 4 For this concept of “ethical imperative,” I am indebted to the anthropologist, Brigitte Jordan, who extended Starr’s (1984) seminal work on “moral imperatives” in medicine in its cultural context, to perform a four-country cross-cultural comparison of the very different moral imperatives of birthing across the countries ([1978]1993). Her methodology was the basis for my fieldwork methods and theories. 5 One of my principal contributions to this field has been to identify the discursive uses of neuroscience to claim that signed languages threaten spoken languages by over-stimulating visual portions of the brain, despite a lack of neuroscentific evidence. In this chapter, perhaps seemingly randomly, I attempt to distinguish between signed languages as recognized, grammatically full and complete languages as a category and signed languages as compared with spoken languages to foreground modality, embodied actions, and brain functions. 6 Because the concept of disability is based upon cultural practices that create social and environmental barriers to full participation by people with sensory, cognitive, mobility, behavioral/psychological, learning/developmental impairments, I foreground these practices as disablement or disabling as they occur in social interactions, policies, laws, spaces, and social institutions (including medical/clinical). Within deaf signing communities or spaces of signed language fluency, where proficiency in signed languages is not only a necessity but highly valued, then living as deaf is not represented as disability. 7 All of my study participants’ names except published authors on these topics are pseudonyms. 8 Methodologically, I arrived at these understandings by comparing linguistic educational policy differences between deaf children and the category “Muslim” immigrant children (in Denmark: first Turks, then refugees from Pakistan, Somalia, and Kurds from several war zones) who were not offered the opportunity to start their educational experience towards bilingualism by using their “mother tongues”. Their parents were expected to learn Danish as part of this social experiment, and their children expected to undergo immersion from first school days onwards. Since hearing immigrant children are able to hear spoken Danish, a different ethos than towards deaf children applied, and was described as, “We treat them [children able to hear] all the same”. 9 Cross-cultural and intra-cultural comparisons revealed how culturally constituted are these discursive uses of neuroscience to market the pediatric cochlear implant and monolingual auditory verbal post-implant habilitation approaches instead of bilingual signed and spoken languages post-implant. I mark these uses as discursive, rather than scientific because there is no actual neuroscientific evidence to back up claims that signed languages, because they require vision, threaten the acquisition of spoken languages. I have written on this topic elsewhere in greater depth, linking Anglo-American CI discourse on children’s brains with English ideas about colonization and indigenous threats to dominant English immigrants (2000, 2003, 2010).

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10 The notion of parental “choice” is misleading. In the U.S., a parent may decide to take a signed language first approach, but would have great difficulty finding ASL classes in which to learn or to find classrooms for CI users using ASL/bilingual methods. Private insurance and Medicaid pay for the surgeries and hardware of pediatric CIs but not hearing aids, making CIs surprisingly accessible across socioeconomic strata. However, most habilitation costs are not included. Certainly, the costs associated with cochlear implants make them prohibitive in societies that do not publicly fund them. These language and technology access inequalities are a subset of the bioethical issues within and across national borders (Fjord 2003, 2010). 11 I am indebted for this concept to the organizers and attendees at the languaging and learning conference organized by the CCD research group at Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden in February 2012. Following Hopi Indian linguistic tradition (and yoga teaching), participial phrasing better captures processual experience—one is never “there” but always in process. 12 For the concept of enfreakment, I am entirely indebted to Rosemarie GarlandThomson’s pioneering work and conceptual framework to think about the relationship between freakery, freak shows, and being enfreaked by others and post/colonial attitudes toward stigmatized minorities, including physically disabled people (1996a, 1996b). I have extended her ideas into analyses of post-Katrina New Orleans and false media reports of un-evacuated Black residents performing freakishly violent acts, which created binaries between NOLA residents and “the rest” of the U.S. and delayed humanitarian aid (2007). In this chapter, I apply enfreakment to the discourse of opponents of the pediatric CI about its surgical implications. And, to the way opponents of signed languages post-implant misrepresent young children’s brains “on signing”. 13 I had the good fortune to be a visiting scholar at the School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences, HumES, Research Group Communication, Culture and Diversity, CCD Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden in the spring semester of 2012. The CCD research group is, since 2016, situated at Jönköping University, Jönköping, Sweden (www.ju.se/ccd). 14 Today, when a patient and physician, perhaps with other clinicians and family caregivers, discuss the best course of treatment for a medical condition, they often gloss over other alternatives in which they do not specialize. Although there may be studies that indicate that a treatment is efficacious relative to a placebo, there frequently are no studies that directly compare the different available alternatives or that have examined their impacts in populations of the same age, sex, and ethnicity or with the same co-morbidities as the patient” (CER 2009, 1). 15 Because deaf/blind children require tactile signed language—such as fingerspelling written languages into the palm—and cochlear implants enhance perceptual stimulation, deaf/blind children are not a focus of the study presented here. 16 In early surgical methods, implant receivers sutured into shallow, carved cavities in the skull sometimes worked their way back to the surface and emerged from the skin flap covering them.

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17 For thoughtful, extended analyses of pediatric cochlear implants, including parents’ perspectives, please see Christiansen and Leigh (2002) and Blume (2010). 18 “Deaf regardless of etiology” was the 8th category of person allowable to be sterilized under the Eugenics Law of 1929 in the U.S. (Lombardo 1985, 2010, Fjord 2003). 19 Schwarz, Alan. 2013. “A.D.H.D. Experts Re-evaluate Study’s Zeal for Drugs”. New York Times, December 29, 2013. Accessed December 30, 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/30/health/adhd-experts-re-evaluate-studys-zealfor-drugs.html. 20 “Qualyears” is an attempt to quantify the quality of life per year of projected life left to the statistically average individual—an attempt to assess the benefit of a particular intervention to the emotional, mental, and physical health (including “social function”) of a non-specific, “standard person” recipient of this intervention. Qualyears do not measure individual attributes whether socioeconomic or environmental, or whether the patient has “co-morbidities”—such as multiple disabilities or illnesses and conditions that would affect benefit from pediatric cochlear implants. Or, would affect theirs or their families’ abilities to do the post-operative habilitation to make the surgical risks worthwhile. 21 Of significance, is the fact that figures for the Maryland School for the Deaf (at the time of their writing) were $42,000 per boarding student or $29,000 per day student per year. Bottom-line totals for the implant were $251,567, including $50,000 for the implant surgery and post-op hookup, and three to six years of habilitation costs. They compare these to bottom-line totals of $348,000 (using day student baseline) for the Maryland School for the Deaf, with a net difference of $64,364 with an actual range of $15,665 (if the implanted child still needs interpreters or classroom aides) to $182,233 in savings (if she or he doesn’t need additional “support”). Except all the children in the Nottingham study used classroom aides and later needed captioners in educational settings, just one of the costs left out of these comparisons.

References Appadurai. Arjun. 1988. The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Bagga-Gupta, Sangeeta. 2000. “Everyday literacies: students, discourse and social practice.” Discourse and Society, 11(3): 428-430. —. 2002. “Explorations in (deaf) Bilingual Instructional Interaction: A sociocultural perspective on literacy.” Learning and Instruction, 5(2): 557-587. —. 2007. “Going beyond the Great Divide: Reflections from Deaf Studies, Örebro, Sweden.” Deaf Worlds: International Journal of Deaf Studies, 23(2 and 3): 69-87. —. 2016. “Signed Languages in Bilingual Education.” In Encyclopedia of

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Education and Bilingualism, edited by Stephan May (General Ed.). Ofelia García and Angel M.Y. Lin Volume 5: Bilingual and Multilingual Education, 1-15. Rotterdam: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3319-02324-3_12-1 —. 2017a. “Center-staging language and identity research from earthrise perspectives. Contextualizing performances in open spaces.” In Identity revisited and reimagined. Empirical and theoretical contributions on embodied communication across time and space, edited by Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta, Aase. L. Hansen and Julie Feilberg, 65-100. Rotterdam: Springer. —. 2017b. “Language and Identity beyond the mainstream. Democratic and equity issues for and by whom, where, when and why.” Journal of the European Second Language Association, 1(1): 102-112. http://doi.org/10.22599/jesla.22 Berger, John. 1972. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin Books. Blume, Stuart. 2010. The Artificial Ear: Cochlear Implants and the Culture of Deafness. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Christensen, John B. and Irene W. Leigh. 2002. Cochlear Implants in Children: Ethics and Choices. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press. Cohen, Leah Hager. 1994. Train Go Sorry: Inside a Deaf World. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. Durr, Patti. 2000. “Deconstructing the Forced Assimilation of Deaf People via De’Via Resistance and Affirmation Art.” Visual Anthropology Review, 15(2): 47-68. Fjord, Lakshmi, Chen, Lee-may and Konety, Badrinath. [2017] “’I have to do it for my daughter’: Gifting Advocacy for Advanced Biotechnological Cancer Treatments by Older Patients.” Journal of Oncology. Fjord, Lakshmi. 2000. “Voices Offstage: How Vision Became a Symbol to Resist in an American Audiology Lab.” Visual Anthropology Review, 15(2): 121-137. —. 2001. “Ethos and Embodiment: The social and emotional development of deaf children.” Scandinavia Audiology, 30(53): 110-115. —. 2003. Contested Signs: Discursive Disputes in the Geography of the Pediatric Cochlear Implant, Sign Languages, Kinship and Expertise. PhD thesis. University of Virginia (available online at dissexpress. umi.com) —. 2010. “Contested Signs: Deaf Children, Indigeneity, and Disablement in Denmark and the U.S.” In Deaf and Disability Studies:

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Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Susan Burch and Alison Kafer, 67-100. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press. Foucault, Michel. [1963]1994. The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception. Translated by A.M. Sheridan Smith. New York: Vintage. Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie. 1996a. Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body. New York: NYU Press. —. 1996b. Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature. New York: Columbia University Press. Goffman, Erving. 1961. Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. New York: Doubleday. —. 1963. Stigma: Notes on a Spoiled Identity. New York: Touchstone Press. Gynne, Annaliina and Bagga-Gupta, Sangeeta. 2013. “Young people’s languaging and social positioning: Chaining in ‘bilingual educational settings in Sweden.” Linguistics and Education, 24(4): 479-496. Gynne, Annaliina and Bagga-Gupta, Sangeeta. 2015. “Languaging in the twenty-first century. Exploring varieties and modalities in literacies inside and outside learning spaces.” Language and Education, 29(6): 509-526. DOI: 10.1080/09500782.2015.1053812. Handler, Richard. 1988. Nationalism and the Politics of Culture in Quebec. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Holmström, Ingela. 2013. Learning by hearing? Technological framings of participation. PhD thesis. Örebro: Örebro Studies in Education 42. Holmström, Ingela and Bagga-Gupta, Sangeeta. 2017. “’Va sa han?’– Technologies and participation strategies in mainstream school settings” In Marginalization Processses. Studies of participation across sites, edited by Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta, Chapter 6. Newcastle-uponTyme: Cambridge Scholar Publishing. Holmström, Ingela, Bagga-Gupta, Sangeeta and Jonsson, Rickard. 2015. “Communicating and hand(ling) technologies. Everyday life in educational settings where pupils with cochlear implants are mainstreamed.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 25: 256–284. doi:10.1111/jola.12097. Hunt, Paul. 1966. Stigma: The Experience of Disability. London: Geoffrey Chapman. Humphries, Tom and MacDougall, Francie. 2000. “Chaining and other links: Making connections between American Sign Language and English in two types of school settings.” Visual Anthropology Review,

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(15)2: 84-94. Jimenez, Marı´a Salud, Pino, Marı´a Jose´ and Herruzo, Javier. 2009. “A comparative study of speech development between deaf children with cochlear implants who have been educated with spoken or spoken + sign language.” International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology, 73,109-114. Jordan, Brigitte. [1978]1993. Birth in Four Cultures: A Crosscultural Investigation of Childbirth in Yucatan, Holland, Sweden, and the United States. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. Klima, Edward S. and Bellugi, Ursula. 1979. The Signs of Language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Landsman, Gail. H. 2008. Reconstructing Motherhood and Disability in the Age of “Perfect” Babies. New York: Routledge. Lane, Harlan.1984. When the Mind Hears: A History of the Deaf. New York: Random House. Lane, Harlan and Bahan, Ben. “Effects of Cochlear Implants on Young Children: A Review and Reply from a DEAF-WORLD Perspective.” Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, 119, 297-308. Lombardo, Paul. 1985. “Three Generations, No Imbeciles: New Light on Buck vs. Bell.” New York University Law Review, 60(1): 30-62. Mahshie, Shawn Neal.1995. Educating Deaf Children Bilingually. PreCollege Programs, Gallaudet University, Washington, DC. Meadow-Orlans, Kathryn. 1980. Deafness and Child Development. Berkeley: University of California Press. Meadow-Orlans, Kathryn, Mertens, Donna M. and Sass-Lehrer, Marilyn A. 2003. Parents and Their Deaf Children: The Early Years. Washington: Gallaudet University Press. Messina Dahlberg, Giulia. 2015. Languaging in virtual learning sites: Studies of online encounters in the language-focused classroom. PhD thesis. Örebro: Örebro Studies in Education 49. Montaigne. 1580. “Of Cannibals.” In The Complete Works of Montaigne. Translated by Donald Frame. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1967, 152-154. National Institutes of Health: Cochlear Implants in Adults and Children. NIH Consens Statement Online 1995 May 15-17 [cited 2015, August 20]. 13(2): 1-30 Padden, Carol and Tom Humphries. 1988. Deaf in America: Voices from a Culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Polich, Laura. 2000. “The Search for Proto-NSL: Looking for the Roots of the Nicaraguan Deaf Community.” In Bilingualism and Identity in

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Deaf Communities, edited by Melanie Metzger, 255-302. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press. Sacks, Oliver. 1990. Seeing Voices: A Journey into the World of the Deaf. New York: Harper Perennial. Schweik, Susan. “Stigma Management.” Approved for publication, Disability Studies Quarterly. Schramm, Bianka, Andrea Bohnert, and Annerose Keilmann. 2010. “Auditory, speech and language development in young children with cochlear implants compared with children with normal hearing.” International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology, 74, 812–819. Spencer L.J., S. Bass-Ringdahl. 2004. “An evolution of communication modalities: Very young cochlear implant users who transitioned from sign to speech during the first years of use.” Int Cong Ser ,1273, 352355. St. John, Oliver. 2014. Approaching classroom interaction dialogically. Studies of everyday encounters in a ‘bilingual’ secondary school. PhD thesis. Örebro: Örebro Studies in Education 46. Starr, Paul. 1984. The Social Transformation of American Medicine: The rise of a sovereign profession and the making of a vast industry. New York: Basic Books. Vygotsky, L.S. [1934]1962. Thought and Language. Translated and edited by Eugenia Hanfmann and Gertrude Vakar. New York: MIT Press and Wiley. Wyatt, JR, Niparko JK, Rothman, ML, deLissovoy G. 1995. “Cost Effectiveness of the Multichannel Cochlear Implant.” American Journal of Otology, 16(1), 52-62.

CHAPTER SIX ”VA SA HAN?”: TECHNOLOGIES AND PARTICIPATION STRATEGIES IN MAINSTREAM SCHOOL SETTINGS INGELA HOLMSTRÖM AND SANGEETA BAGGA-GUPTA

1. Introduction The teacher begins to read from the book, and Anna is standing next to her but does not sign. Maja nibbles at a piece of fruit and looks distractingly out the window at the playground. Her gaze returns to what she is eating and to her classmates, and then once again she looks back out at what is happening in the playground. As the project interpreter (PI) begins to sign, Maja´s attention turns to her and she notices that Anna, her resource person (RP) is not signing what the teacher is reading aloud. Maja turns to Anna and signs to her: “SIGN”1. Maja repeats this request: “SIGN”. Anna looks at her and signs back “NO NOW ONLY LISTEN”. “PLEASE”, Maja signs imploringly, but Anna responds with a firm “NO”. Maja looks around, then turns to the PI, who has just translated something for the PR. Maja waves to the PI, gets her attention, and signs: “SIGN TO ME”. The PI appears surprised at this request. She starts translating what the teacher is reading aloud into Swedish Sign Language.

Fig. 6-1. Thick description of reading aloud episode (see also Transcript 6-1) Participants: Maja, pupil with cochlear implants (CIs), Anna, Maja´s Swedish Sign Language (SSL) resource person (RP), Teacher, who only uses oral or written Swedish, PI, SSL interpreter for project researcher, PR, project researcher (first author)

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The study presented in this chapter examines communicative strategies in Swedish public-school classrooms where pupils who use the surgically implanted hearing aid cochlear implant (CI) are members together with hearing pupils. Today, an increasing number of parents choose to send their deaf children to local community schools rather than the segregated deaf schools, and there is a lack of knowledge about the nature of everyday life in different types of school environments where children with CIs are members. The study presented here seeks to contribute to this gap in knowledge. In this chapter, we examine mundane life generally and communicative strategies in mainstream classrooms specifically where pupils with CIs, hearing pupils, and adults, namely, the teacher and pupils with CIs’ resource persons, RP are members. We are especially concerned with the use of different technologies, intellectual and material tools, and how these relate to communication and identity. This also includes the ways in which various technologies enable or limit the participation of students with CIs, and shape the latters’ identity positions. This study focuses on dimensions of interaction that have previously been referred to as “visually-oriented” (Bagga-Gupta 2004). As compared to either visual or auditory communication, a visual-orientation highlights dimensions of (i) the signing modality, (ii) the written-textual modality and (iii) the auditory modality in settings where deaf individuals participate. Leaving behind a normative visual communicative or an auditory communicative perspective, a “visually-oriented” communicative perspective attends to the ways in which human beings—deaf and hearing—interact in different settings (Hansen, Bagga-Gupta and Muruvik Vonen 2009). The present study is data driven and builds upon sociocultural perspectives where an ethnographic approach to fieldwork has been employed. It is part of project Communication, Identity, and Technology (CIT; www.ju.se/ccd/cit), which examines how technologies are related to and shape issues about communication and identity, especially vis-à-vis the everyday lives of deaf (and hard of hearing) individuals inside and outside institutional settings, currently and historically. CIT is interested in communication in a broader perspective than language issues per se: it explores the way children with CIs interact with others in various settings, such as home, school, and during leisure time. The next section presents our theoretical framework. Thereafter we present the project CIT classrooms, their members and specific features. Analytical examples are discussed in the section that follows with the aim of highlighting the technologically mediated communicative strategies in mainstream educational environments where one participant has bilateral

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CIs. Finally, the results of the analysis are presented and discussed. The conclusion focuses the results of this study.

2. Learning, interaction, and identification processes From a sociocultural perspective, social interaction in itself is understood as fundamental to developing knowledge, building social relationships, and relating to oneself and the world (Lave and Wenger 1991, Sahlström 1999, Säljö 2010). Language use is a fundamental aspect of social interactions since it provides the basis for our thinking and learning. Vygotsky (1978) argued that children (or people in general) are capable of more than they can on their own and this is enabled in interactions with others who are more experienced; he frames this in terms of the zone of proximal development (ZPD): the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers (Vygotsky 1978, 86).

Wertsch (1998) and Säljö (2010) have extended Vygotskys’ ideas through the notion of mediated action. This stipulates that individuals engage with cultural tools (e.g. material tools such as pens and calculators and intellectual tools such as language) in the world. Mediated action provides a kind of natural link between action [...] and the cultural, institutional, and historical context in which action occurs. This is so because the mediational means, or cultural tools, are inherently situated culturally, institutionally, and historically (Wertsch 1998, 24).

Säljö (2010) argues that appropriating cultural tools in interaction socializes us into cultural beings. Learning, thinking and other abilities are outcomes of social practices. In other words, he stresses that knowledge development is contingent upon participation rather than the transfer of pre-packaged units between individuals. This highlights the importance of peer-peer interaction in classroom contexts. These have been closely investigated recently and compliment the dominant body of knowledge on whole classroom interaction (Sahlström 1999). Pupil-pupil ”private” exchange of comments, gestures, glances, chat, etc. during whole class teaching has been recognized as an important aspect of pupils development and socialization (Sahlström 1999, Schieffelin and Ochs 1986).

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The key aim of CI surgeries on deaf children is to enable their participation in spoken communication both inside as well as outside educational settings (Giezen 2011, Hyde and Punch 2011). In addition to training oral language skills, calls have been made for making additional languages such as Swedish Sign Language (SSL; or other forms of communication, for example signed supported speech) available in order to increase children with CIs’ opportunities of participation in different situations: access to the signed modality will provide the children with the opportunity to use communicative means other than spoken language whenever needed to, for instance, in challenging listening environments, in the case of device malfunctioning or when interacting with deaf peers without a CI (Giezen 2011, 168).

Several recent studies indicate that children with CIs who have access to different forms of communication use these to varying degrees depending on the specificities of the situation and the communicative preferences of the people they interact with (Hyde and Punch 2011, Wheeler, Archbold and Skipp 2007). Furthermore, more recent classroom interactional research indicates that many pupils with CIs use special support, for example interpreters or specialist teachers, in order to participate in everyday communication and instructional activities (Punch and Hyde 2010). Within the framings of a sociocultural perspective, our study is interested in both issues of participation and in addition identity positions in everyday interaction (Bagga-Gupta, Hansen and Feilberg 2017, Lave and Wenger 1991). We do not treat human identities as being fixed or static. They are (re)created in interaction with others and through the creation of the other (Bagga-Gupta 2012, 2017a, 2017b, Harasym 1990). Thus, human identities are here understood relationally and cannot be said to consist of an authentic core self. Instead, the self is constituted of multiple layers of possible identifications; individuals “play out” various positions (such as women, immigrants, homosexuals, etc.) within the framings of mundane (inter)actions. None of these positions is more fundamental than any other positions. They are negotiated in daily life and thus vary in different contexts (Leigh and Maxwell-McCaw 2011). The study presented here is interested in the positions that technologies, including the technology of CI, enables (or disables) in mainstream school settings. CI has been the subject of recent discussions in relation to identity. For instance, Leigh and Maxwell-McCaw (2011) highlight that the background

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to such discussions lies in that the “Deaf Community” initially saw this specific technology in terms of a threat against deaf identity, and a deaf way of living and being: Implantation was viewed as a process of invading a healthy body and creating an artificial modification when one could easily be happy following a culturally Deaf way of life (Leigh and Maxwell-McCaw 2011, 100; see also Fjord, this volume).

However, several recent studies have also shown that people who have chosen implantation surgery position themselves in terms of context specificity rather than in terms of an either-or dichotomy, i.e. “hearing” or “deaf” (Leigh 2017, Leigh and Maxwell-McCaw 2011, Wheeler, Archbold and Skipp 2007). Children with CIs “can and do often have a clear identity and can shift between identity categorizations as the situation demands” (Leigh and Maxwell-McCaw 2011, 106). Our interests in the present study do not relate to what or which identity/ies pupils with CIs themselves experience, or how teachers and classmates talk about them and their identity/ies. Instead, our aim here is to throw light upon how different technologies (including CIs) interactionally frame membership positions in the classrooms; for instance, positions enabled for pupils with CIs that may or may not resemble positions available to other pupils (without CIs) in the class. How are identifications played out in relationship to technologies, particularly CIs? Are pupils with CI privileged as far as obtaining assistance is concerned? Is their access to everyday participation framed in any specific manner in mainstream classrooms?

3. Empirical contexts and data The ethnographic data in this study comes from case studies in two mainstream classrooms in Swedish public-schools (school A and school B), and consists of field notes from participant observation, informal discussions with key members in these classrooms, digital snapshots of arenas and artifacts in the field, and approximately 25 hours of video recordings. The two classrooms were selected after a process of first obtaining ethical approval from the Swedish Regional Ethics Board, identifying and getting access to parents and schools where pupils with CIs were enrolled.2 The project schools were geographically located in different parts of Sweden. The pupils in the project lower-middle classes were in the age range of 7-11. Each class consisted of 10 to 15 hearing pupils, one pupil with bilateral CIs, a teacher, and one or two resource persons.3 The pupils with CIs, Ella and Maja, in the project school’s A and

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B respectively, had bilateral CIs which they had been using for several years at the time of the initiation of Project CIT. Both received their first CIs before the age of three. According to the teachers, neither Ella nor Maja had any additional disabilities and their current academic progress was satisfactory. Both families of the girls and the resource persons in the schools used oral talk, and in addition signed, when communicating. The other pupils and the teachers used only oral talk when communicating with Ella and Maja. Our analysis suggests that the focused pupils with CIs themselves primarily used oral Swedish when communicating with others. The pupils with CIs signed primarily when they were in direct contact with their resource persons during ongoing teaching or oral communication with others in the classrooms.4 One resource person in classroom A knows SSL and primarily assists Ella.5 In classroom B, where Maja is a pupil, two teachers were present with two resource persons who could use SSL.6 None of the resource persons in the project classrooms are certified interpreters and they are not employed as such.7 Instead, their work is to support the pupils with CIs during the school day. Such support gets played out in terms of the following: visually mediating oral communication by using SSL or by mouthing (i.e. enabling lip-reading), checking that the hearing technologies are functioning, giving the pupils with CIs additional explanations orally, etc. The resource persons have an education in SSL and have taken some courses in education, but they are neither teachers, special teachers nor interpreters. While the teachers plan the lessons, they occasionally schedule meetings with the resource persons to discuss the teaching and especially the situation of pupils with CIs. The teachers in the project classrooms have a teaching degree, but Ella and Maja are the first pupils with a hearing loss that they have encountered in their professional lives.8 Figure 6-2 illustrates the organization of space in classroom B. This organization is similar in both project classrooms. Pupils sit in a Uformation to make it easier for them to see one another and the teacher. Maja sits at the bottom end of the U, with the teacher and resource person directly in front of her. The video data has been generated from the position of the camera capture-angle indicated by the project researcher in Figure 6-2. A range of discursive-technological tools are present in the project classrooms. These are focused upon in the next two analytical sections. Classroom rules (see Figure 6-3) draw attention to how pupils are expected to behave in classroom A (i.e. work silently, raise hands when one wants to talk, etc.). Breaking these rules can result in punishment i.e. detention in the classroom for 10 to 15 minutes during lunch break.

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However, as we highlight in Transcript 6-2, such rules are broken, especially when it comes to the case of pupils with CIs.

Teacher´s desk

Resource person

Teacher

Project interpreter

Maja Pupils’ desk

Pupils

Pupils´desk

Door

Pupils’ desk Project researcher

Fig. 6-2. Floor map of project classroom B: Organization of space

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Here in 4th class: - we are silent when we are working - we raise our hands when want to say something - we talk one at a time and wait for our turn - we follow the school rules If we break rules, we have to remain inside during the lunch break and work for 10 to 15 minutes, depending on what we have done.

Fig. 6-3. Classroom rules pinned to a board wall

Three key findings are highlighted through three representations of the mundane interactions of the daily life in the project classrooms. These three examples are illustrated by an expanded transcription (see Transcript 6-1) and the use of thick descriptions (see Figure 6-1). Following classical conversation analysis (CA) as developed by Sacks (1972) and Schegloff (1968), where oral communication is in focus, and given the aims of the study presented here, specific interactional dimensions have been added in Transcript 6-2. When several communicative modes were of analytical interest, a CA transcription system was found to be insufficient. Paying attention to the complexity of simultaneous spoken and signed language varieties in parallel, including different body orientations, required that the CA system be augmented. Specific descriptions have therefore been incorporated in separate lines. A table format has been developed (see Transcript 6-1) to include all the participants in the same turn. Each block in a turn contribution in the interactional flow consists of lines where the participants’ oral communication, signed communication and body orientation are represented systematically. In other words, simultaneously occurring dimensions of communication are included in separate stacked lines in the same turn. As our theoretical points of departure, and in keeping with a “multimodal-turn” (Jewitt 2009), center-stages, these types of finally grained analysis of naturally occurring communication are highly relevant in order to understand meaning-making processes. Finally, an interactional order where neither oral nor signed communication holds

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currency for the participants has been analytically attended to in our study (see Transcript 6-3). Noise levels and the mobility of participants in the instructional contexts of some mainstream settings (e.g. swimming lessons, physical training lessons, and wood craft lessons) implied that oral and signed modalities are not just difficult to orient towards for the pupils and adults, but also for us —the analysts, in the video data generated in these settings. A “phased” transcription system that explicates the actions of key pupils and the teacher are presented in phases to highlight challenges related to inclusion in school settings. These three representational systems build upon both recent developments in the CA field and traditions developed by interactionally focused researchers in the Deaf Studies field. To summarize, the representations of everyday interactional analysis are pushed in the present study to evoke and make available i) certain aspects of the complexity of interactional data in the mainstream educational settings studied, and ii) focus on the primary aims of this study. A detailed transcription key for all the examples used in this study is presented in Appendix A.

4. Technologies—a common dimension of classroom life This study is especially interested in how different types of technologies are used by members in the institutional environment and how the technologies relate to questions about communication and identity. We are, among other things, interested in the ways various technologies enable (or limit) the CI-pupils’ participation in classroom interaction. Several studies have highlighted the important roles that different technologies play in different contexts where people with hearing loss are members (Bagga-Gupta 2012, 2004, 2017c, Dillehay 2011, Holmström and Bagga-Gupta 2013, Keating and Mirus 2003). Three main types of technologies have been identified in our data i) hearing technologies, ii) literacy technologies, and iii) communicative-link technologies (see Bagga-Gupta and Holmström 2015). Hearing-related technologies facilitate sound perception in the classroom. They include microphones (see Figure 6-4), the CIs, and adjunct noise-reducing technology such as school desks with self-closing lids. The classroom ceiling may also be fitted with acoustic tiles to create a good acoustic environment.9

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Fig. 6-4. Teaccher’s microphoone and pupil’ss microphone

Literacy--related technnologies or literacy l toolss (Bagga-Gup pta 2012, 2004, 2017cc) such as SM MARTBoards,, pictures of tthe alphabet combined c with the SSL L hand alphabbet for each leetter (see Figuure 6-5), pictures, pens, books, etc., constitute liteeracy tools in the t project claassrooms. Latin alphabets, SSL fin ngerspelling han nd-shapes and d pictures

SM MARTBoard scrreen

ARTBoard and alphabets Fig. 6-5. SMA

We referr to the third set of techno ologies identiffied in our an nalysis as communicattive-link technnologies. Herre human beinngs or textuall artifacts are central aand the focus is i on human beings b and theeir linguistic behaviors. b They incluude interpreteers or resou urce personss who relay y spoken communicattion into SSL L (see Figure 6-6) but it caan also involv ve posters with the SS SL hand alphabet, or word ds and phrasees in English or other language vaarieties. The latter l support and give staatus to comm municative resources inn the environm ment. Deaf pu upils can, for instance, be supported s in their learrning by visuual aids posted d in the classsroom and thee hearing pupils at thee same time arre given access to importantt resources fro om SSL.

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Fig. 6-6. Resource person who knows Swedish Sign Language

These three different technologies are used by different actors and in different practices, and these shape, as the analysis in the next section highlights, everyday interaction in specific ways in the classrooms.

5. Communicative strategies in classroom interaction This section presents three key communicative strategies identified in the analysis. The excerpts presented here are illustrative examples of strategies that are deployed in mainstream settings where the data has been generated. We contend that it is significant to highlight such findings from micro-level studies, since firstly, CI operations are commonly performed on infants inside and outside Sweden and children with CIs are commonly mainstreamed, both in Sweden and elsewhere.10 Secondly, we know very little about the mundane nature of everyday life inside mainstreamed educational settings where children with CIs are enrolled. Our aim here is not to generalize results with life in other mainstream settings but rather to give a glimpse of how mundane school life can look like in classrooms where children with CI participate. The first example is drawn the from classroom B data while the next two examples are from classroom A data.

5.1. Pupils with CIs’ orientations towards communication forms A common aspect of the ways in which pupils with CIs orient towards auditory or visually-oriented communication in the classroom is illustrated in Transcript 6-1. This representation makes available mundane interaction, including body orientations, of four primary members: Maja, the project interpreter (PI), the teacher, and other classmates. Maja is

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sitting in the row directly in front of the teacher and resource person (see Figure 6-2). In addition to the teacher and Maja’s resource person (RP), there are two more adults in the classroom: the project researcher (PR) and the project interpreter (PI)11. The interaction represented in Transcript 6-1 takes place in a lesson context where the teacher is reading a story aloud from a book. The RP stands beside her but does not sign. The pupils, for the most, sit quietly with their attention directed towards the teacher. Maja’s gaze wanders around the classroom, out through the window and down to the fruit she is eating. During the 57 seconds, mundane classroom episode represented in Transcript 6-1, the PI does not translate into SSL what the teacher is reading orally (see also Figure 6-1). Instead, the PI is presenting the following information about the classroom’s acoustic environment to the project researcher through SSL: i) the classroom is quite and calm, and ii) a pupil has started talking while the teacher is reading aloud (line 1 PI). When the PI begins to translate what this pupil is saying, Maja’s attention briefly turns to the PI (line 1 Maja). Maja appears to be reminded that the RP can sign what the teacher is reading aloud, and she looks at the RP, asking her to sign (line 2 Maja). Maja repeats this request twice. The RP signs “NO” and says that during this part of the lesson, the pupils should just listen (line 2 Field notes). Maja is not satisfied with this answer and again implores by signing “PLEASE” (line 2 Maja). The RP then replies with a definite “NO” in SSL (line 2 Field notes). While this RP-Maja conversation is in progress, the teacher, continues reading aloud to the class (lines 1-2 Teacher) when she is interrupted by a pupil (lines 2-3 Classmates). The PI translates the pupil-teacher exchange into SSL for the project researcher (lines 2-4 PI) and Maja once again turns her gaze toward the PI (line 3 Maja). When the PI completes the translation (line 4 PI) and the teacher returns to the task at hand, i.e. reading aloud (line 4 Teacher), Maja catches the PI’s attention and asks her in SSL to sign to her (line 4 Maja). The PI expresses surprise and, after a brief hesitation, she begins to translate into SSL what the teacher is reading aloud (line 4 PI). The PI’s translation focus shifts from the project researcher to Maja at this point.

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Transcript 6-1. Orientations towards visual communication forms

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Here, Maja uses various means to participate in the classroom communication. When the RP rejects Maja’s request to listen to the teacher’s oral reading via SSL, Maja does not give up, but shifts her strategy by turning to another hearing adult in the classroom who knows SSL: the PI. Maja succeeds in accessing visually-oriented communication by orienting towards an alternative resource that is available in the classroom. Maja’s possibilities to access this would have been limited had the PI not been available. It is also interesting to note that Maja positions herself both as an active member in the whole class instruction as well as draws upon her knowledge of another language variety (SSL) that is available to her (potentially through the RP) and through which she can access auditory, as well as visually-oriented, communication in the ongoing activity. This brief episode illustrates a recurring theme in the data: pupils with CIs in our project are almost always required to use oral Swedish in classroom settings, despite the presence of an RP who can sign. Transcript 6-1 shows both how repeated requests for visuallyoriented communication by them are turned down by the RP, and how one pupil employs an alternative strategy to access the teacher’s oral reading, rather than trying to keep up with the dominating oral communication in classroom settings. While Maja makes an explicit effort to access participation through visually-oriented communication, the teacher continues reading aloud orally. Rather than paying attention to the teachers reading, Maja has a parallel interaction with two other adults in the classroom, the RP and the PI. Maja’s learning space thus differs from that of her classmates because their focus and interactional orders have different starting points and develop in different directions. The teacher does not seem to notice Maja’s marginalized status in the mainstream instructional activity and the RP engages in a one-on-one conversation with Maja without asking the teacher to pause her reading. We therefore suggest that Maja has access to a “special” identity position that allows her to interact with the adults (e.g. RP, PI) in the room while the explicit instructional whole class activity is taking place. Pupils with CIs (in the project classrooms) are allowed to routinely bypass a classroom rule (see Figure 6-3) that forbids unsolicited and unrequested interruptions during instructional activities. Maja is never chided or reprimanded, as are her other classmates when they interrupt ongoing teaching. This atypical norm where Maja does not need to follow an important classroom rule makes available special learning spaces as well as a specific identity position, for instance of what it means to be a pupil in such mainstream settings.

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5.2. ”Va sa han?” [”What did he say?”] Another recurring communication strategy that emerges in the analysis is the explicit requests that pupils with CIs direct to an adult asking for what another pupil has presented orally. Transcript 6-2 represents a situation when an RP is not present in the classroom and opportunities to receive visually-oriented communication are limited. It represents mundane interaction from a lesson in natural science in classroom A. A pupil microphone is positioned in the middle of the room, the teacher wears a microphone attached to the top of her dress (see Figure 6-4), and Ella has both her CIs switched on. The teacher lifts up a large poster of an animal that she is about to introduce to the class. 1 Lärare: 1 Teacher: 2 picture)) 3 3 4 5 6 6 7 question)) 8 9 9 10 11 11 12 Viktor: 12 Viktor: 13 Lärare: riktigt= 13 Teacher: 14 Ella: 15 Ella: 15 Ella: 16 Teacher: 17 Lärare: 17 Teacher:

hä:r har Barbro hittat en jättefin bild he:re Barbro has found a very nice picture ((walking towards the middle of the classroom holding a big här på m- m- morgonen som (.) fanns i- i- i en gömma. just in the m- m- morning which (.) was in- in- in a corner. (1.2) ((holding up the picture to the class)) ?. ?. ((several children raising hands as the teacher asks the (1.2) ((noise in the background)) . . (0.9) ((teacher turning towards Viktor)) känner du igen de Viktor? do you recognize it Viktor? rådjur roe deer de skulle man nästan kunna tro att [dä: men] dä: ä dä inte you could easily think [so but] tha:t´s not quite right= ((turning towards the teacher asking)) [va sa han] [what did he say] ((turning towards Ella)) =han sa att de va ett rådju:r =he said it was a roe dee:r

Transcript 6-2. Va sa han? [What did he say?]

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The visual-orientation in the classroom interaction when a RP is not present differs from the interactional order reflected in Transcript 6-1. The teacher holds up the poster so that it is visually accessible to everyone (line 5). Her gaze pans the room as she asks whether anyone recognizes the animal (line 6). Several pupils raise their hands making a bid to be selected. She repeats the question (line 9) and fixes her gaze on Viktor, who gets selected to respond (line 11). All but Ella who had their hands raised put them down when Viktor is selected. Viktor answers that it is a roe deer (line 12). Ella continues to have her hand raised, appearing not to have perceived Viktor’s response. Ella’s focus shifts and turns towards the teacher (line 14) while all the hearing pupils gaze is fixed on Viktor. With her hand raised, half-standing up from her seat and her body inclined forward, Ella seeks clarification by asking the teacher “What did he say?” (line 15). Ella’s raised hand perhaps indicates that her present query is not the response that she wanted to provide to the teachers’ question. The teacher turns to Ella and relays Viktor’s incorrect answer in line 17. In this 26-second long episode, the common recurring pattern that is explicated can be recognized as an IRE sequence. The teacher initiates (I) the topic (lines 6, 9, and 11), the pupils respond (R)—partly by raising their hands in line 7 and keeping them up until line 11, and partly through the response Viktor gives in line 12—and the teacher then evaluates (E) the response she has received (line 13). The pupils are aware that they need to wait with their responses until the teacher selects one of them, and they all respect this classroom rule (see Figure 6-3), even when the teacher repeats the question before selecting a pupil to respond. However, Ella breaks in without being selected. Such behavior on Ella’s part is common. She is, as we also saw in Transcript 6-1, allowed to break classroom rules to get clarifications. Ella’s interactional strategy to elicit clarifications contrasts with that of her classmates in two significant ways: firstly, the frequency of her clarification requests far outnumber those made by other pupils; secondly, while Ella directs her requests overridingly to an adult in the classroom, the other pupils almost always direct such occasional requests to the classmate or adult whose oral talk they cannot follow. This communication strategy, like the one explicated above, also illustrates that pupils with CIs are allowed access to an identity position that is unavailable to other pupils in these settings. The practice of breaking into ongoing instructional spaces to ask the adults in the classroom to relay or repeat what another pupil has said is a frequent interactional strategy in the data. Since the teacher has a microphone attached to her body, her oral speech may be more accessible to the pupil with CIs as compared to what gets captured through the

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microphone in the middle of the classroom, i.e. what the hearing classmates say orally. The teacher also speaks in a calm, clear voice that may be easier to understand. Ella’s strategies for participating in classroom interactions differ from Maja’s in Transcript 6-1. Ella attends to the oral communication and only initiates a request for repetition from the teacher when she appears unable to keep up with what her hearing peer Viktor has said. Ella’s focus is primarily directed towards the teacher and only marginally towards her classmates. The teacher’s visual behavior—in terms of her gaze orientation and her use of a literacy tool (see Transcript 6-2)—supports Ella’s perception of what is in focus. The presence of the poster with the animal picture aids Ella’s visual-orientation and such tools are especially significant in institutional settings where no acoustic adjustments exist. Aspects of visual-orientation in the communication strategies employed by pupils with CIs are focused in the final empirically driven analytical section of this chapter.

5.3. Communication strategies in instructional activities outside the main classroom A common situation that pupils with CIs encounter during instructional activities outside their regular classrooms (like wood work lessons, physical training lessons, etc.) is highlighted through the example presented in Transcript 6-3. During swimming lessons, pupils with CIs must remove their hearing technological aides, since CIs cannot be used in water. Thus, for all practical purposes a pupil with CIs is deaf in such a setting and has no access to oral communication here. The noise level in the public swimming pools where school swimming lessons are conducted tends to be high (as is the case in wood craft lessons that are held inside school settings; see Holmström, Bagga-Gupta and Jonsson 2015; see also Bagga-Gupta and Holmström 2015). This noise level shapes the communication for the hearing participants, though in less dramatic ways. The video data generated from these types of settings too pose specific analytical challenges. However, understanding everyday life in these settings is significant in order to provide a comprehensive view of our aims. The interactional order represented in Transcript 6-3 focuses upon the overall level of the activity, rather than the specifics of the oral or signed communication. The central participants in this sequence include Ella, her hearing classmates, the teacher and two RPs. The analysis highlights four interactional phases: 1) oral introduction (17.96 sec), 2) waiting and uncertainty (12.07 sec), 3) SSL relaying and explanation (28.17 seconds) and 4) observation (5.72 seconds).

Technologies and Participation Strategies in Mainstream School Settings 185 Phase 1 introduction

Phase 2 – Relaying/ Repeating

Phase 3 – explanation to CIpupil

Phase 4 – CI-pupil tracking classmates Ella, RP and 2nd RP participate in this interaction.

Participating members & body orientations

All pupils (except Ella) and adults participate in the instructor’s talk. Ella looks only at the RP

Ella, RP and 2nd RP participate in this interaction.

Ella, RP and 2nd RP participate in this interaction.

Auditory orientations

Instructor is talking orally

Oral communication

((Instructor talks, xxxx))

Visual orientations

Ella looks at her RP; other pupils and adults look at the instructor and pool

Ella looks constantly at RP and shift directly to her. RP looks around the setting and at the other pupils. 2nd RP looks around and thereafter looks at them WHO?. Other pupils move into the pool

Ella looks constantly at RP, who looks at her and gives her an explanation using sign sand body positioning. 2nd RP watches them

RP leads Ella to the front of the pool to watch the classmates’ activities.

Signed communication

none

none

YOU LOOK HOW DO NOW (gesture) TRAIN HOW TO LIE IN POOL (xxxx) YOU DROWN ((RP takes Ella’s right hand in her left and holds it)). ALWAYS POINT-ONHANDx2 ((moves her hand while holding onto Ella)).

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Chapter Six THEREAFTER ((moves Ella’s hand and arms to demonstrate what to do)) (xxxx) LIFEWEST ((moves her hand, which has a grip on Ella’s)).ALWAYS THEREAFTER HOLD LIFE-WEST SWIM BACK SWIM ((RP lift Ella’s second arm and also moves her own leg to demonstrate)) English translation: Now, you should look how to do. You will train how to lie in the pool (xxxx) you drown ((RP takes Ella’s right hand in her left and holds it)). You should always hold it so ((moves her hand while holding onto Ella)). Thereafter ((moves Ella’s hand and arms to demonstrate what to do)) (xxxx) Take the life vest ((moves her hand, which has a grip on Ella’s)).You will always do in this way. Thereafter you hold onto the life west and swim on your back ((RP lift Ella’s second arm and also moves her own leg to demonstrate))

Transcript 6-3. Communicative strategies outside the main classroom

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The pupils are sitting in their swimming costumes on benches, listening to a swimming instructor describe what is expected of them during the lesson (phase 1). Barring Ella, all participants have their gaze fixed on the instructor and they occasionally glace at the swimming pool. Ella has her gaze and body oriented towards the RPs, who are standing turned away from Ella. No (simultaneous) SSL instructions are made available to Ella. All the pupils except Ella move into the pool at the start of phase 2. Ella instead walks over to the RPs. The RPs gaze across the swimming pool before one of them turns her focus onto Ella. Phase 2 can be conceptualized in terms of Ella’s uncertainty regarding what is expected of the pupils, as well as her initiative when she turns to her RP(s), while the other pupils have moved into the swimming pool. Ella’s uncertainty is understandable given that she was unable to participate during the oral instructions during Phase 1. She takes the initiative to get access to the information in a visual modality. Phase 3 sees the RP focusing Ella and relaying briefly the instructional contents provided orally during phase 1, using SSL and demonstrating, using gestures, what Ella is supposed to do. The interactional order shifts when the RP has relayed the explanation via SSL. She, in phase 4, conducts Ella to the pool side and lets her observe what task her classmates are focused upon. Transcript 6-3 illustrates Ella deploying several strategies in order to participate in the instructional activity. She has her gaze fixed on her RP, who can support her with visually-oriented communication; she takes the initiative to access the oral information that the instructor has orally presented to the rest of her classmates; she receives relayed instructions from the RP; before she is taken to observe what her classmates are doing. Ella’s visual-orientation is much more prominent during instructional activities where the noise level is high, as compared to her oral and visually-orientation inside the relatively calm level of the main classroom (as exemplified through the examples presented above), where different hearing technologies can support hearing and oral communication. However, Ella’s learning situation in high-noise level instructional settings like the swimming pool differs significantly from that of her classmates. She is deaf in such settings and is required to take the lead in order to access the instructions themselves. She is literally positioned at the periphery of the instructional activity and cannot participate as a fullfledged member of the class. The salient communicative strategies that have been identified in our analysis, and illustrated here through a series of transcripts, highlights

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among other issues that pupils with CIs are active pupils whose explicit actions shape their access to communication and learning. They use different strategies in order to engage in the ongoing instructional activities. The teachers also use a variety of communication strategies, while the RP is explicitly entrusted with the role of intermediary. The RP potentially plays a vital role in facilitating the participation of pupils with CIs in classroom interactions. The use of different hearing technologies is also significant for supporting participation. However, as our microanalysis clearly suggests, neither the presence of RPs nor advanced hearing technologies can guarantee access to oral communication in mainstream environments.

6. A summary of common communicative strategies 6.1. Pupils with CIs The most common strategy employed by pupils with CIs in our data is the posing of “Va sa han? (What did he say?)”-questions directed to the adults, rather than the classmate whose utterance is unclear. This strategy is common during “whole-class-instruction” and more infrequent during dyadic or triadic interactional activities. Other strategies include asking adults for repetition and relaying of information at the end of a group presentation and visually observing what other pupils are doing. Pupils with CIs in our data appear to be active and use different strategies to gain membership in instructional interaction; they often direct their visual attention to the RPs and elicit support, sometimes initiating visually-oriented communication (SSL and also lip-reading) with them. The special U-shaped seating arrangement and the use of a range of literacy tools also contribute to a visual-orientation in these mainstream classrooms (see also Bagga-Gupta 2004, 2017c). These together complement the dominating auditory-oriented instructional communication here. Looking directly at a speaker is another common strategy that pupils with CIs deploy. They direct their eyes, head, and body towards the speaker, and a flickering of eyes can often be noted during rapid multiparty conversations. Pupils with CIs also direct their gaze and bodies towards specific actions and sound sources and they follow the direction of the teacher’s gaze. While such strategies may be common for hearing pupils, visual access to communication at different levels appears to be central for pupils with CIs, and this becomes more tangible in instructional contexts where auditory technology does not work optimally or is not

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available. Another strategy that is widely used in mainstream settings is the control and adjustment of auditory technology: pupils with CIs, not uncommonly ask if the microphone is on or off; they (and not uncommonly the adults) adjust the level of their CIs, and sometimes announce that their CIs are unable to perceive the ongoing oral talk (see Bagga-Gupta and Holmström 2015, Holmström, Bagga-Gupta and Jonsson 2015). Such attention not only directs explicit focus on the auditory technology by the adults and the peer group, but also positions the pupils with CIs as special and as different.

6.2. Adults While pupils with CIs’ communicative strategies are important, the adults’ communicative strategies are significant for creating inclusive environments in mainstream settings. Teachers use a quiet, wellarticulated, clear voice in the classroom. They reinforce a classroom role that requires all, except the pupils with CIs, to raise their hands and wait for their turn before they can say something. Pupils with CIs are thus implicitly framed as special. Adults also occasionally check if all the pupils have understood what has been said, sometimes asking pupils to repeat their oral contributions. It is also common to repeat oral contributions made by hearing pupils, as well as respond to “What did he say?” questions from pupils with CIs. The RPs task is to support pupils with CIs and assist in situations where technology falls short. While the teachers rely upon the RPs supportive role, they are not in a position (as we have seen in Transcript 6-1) to monitor whether this support is actually provided to the pupils with CIs. Another common strategy that emerges in the analysis is ways in which adults control auditory technology in classrooms. Teachers tend to turn off the microphone they are wearing when the pupils start working independently. They often also turn off pupil microphones during such activities. They report that this is done in order to ensure a calm and quiet environment for pupils with CIs. Furthermore, adults, frequently use controls to raise or lower the volume of the CIs. Such control of technology places pupils with CIs in a special position as compared to their classmates (the latter’s hearing cannot be turned on or off by adults; see Bagga-Gupta and Holmström 2015, Holmström, Bagga-Gupta and Jonsson 2015). Regular class teachers use different strategies to facilitate participation and learning for all pupils and appear to be informed about the needs of pupils with CIs. This awareness appears to differ from that of subject

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teachers who do not meet the pupils regularly. The latter are infrequent members in the classrooms and tend to not demonstrate the same adaptation and knowledge regarding hearing technologies or visuallyoriented communication as the regular class teachers.

7. Discussion Zooming into micro-level interactions of everyday life in educational settings where pupils with CIs are members’ highlights strategies that are significant for understanding inclusion and marginalization as well as the kinds of mundane identity positions that are enabled therein. Such microlevel studies framed within sociocultural perspectives, wherein identity issues are conceptualized in terms of fluidity and communicative processes, are needed in order to understand the quality of interactive experiences and learning in mainstream settings. The study presented here highlights that pupils with CIs participate in institutional settings in a variety of ways. In Transcript 6-2, we saw that Ella participates in classroom interaction in ways that are similar to that of her classmates, until a point when she does not understand what one of them expresses orally. Ella then poses a “What did he say?”—question to the teacher. As we have argued above, Ella’s privileged identity position allows her to break in and ask for a relay of information when she fails to perceive the oral communication. When the class activities take place in a noncommunicatively controlled environment (Transcript 6-3), Ella’s participation is very differently framed. In such environments, she cannot use her CIs and is completely deaf. Here, Ella is placed at the periphery of the interaction and risks being marginalized unless she herself finds ways to get involved. In such activities, Ella cannot be said to be a full member of the classroom community. When the RP does not spontaneously and simultaneously translate the oral communication, and waits for Ella to take the initiative before providing a visual explanation, she contributes to this marginalized identity position. To sum up, a major responsibility is put on the pupils with CIs wherein they are required to assert their right to participate in the ongoing mundane classroom life. We have also seen that (in Transcript 6-2 and even more clearly in Transcript 6-1), when Maja’s request for visual communication is rejected by the RP, she solves her dilemma by obtaining help from the project interpreter, who is present in the classroom. The positions of pupils with CIs in mainstream classrooms thus can be framed in terms of an implicit strategy that requires them to be active and creative to a much higher degree than their hearing classmates. Our analysis illustrates that technology plays an important role in

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mediating participation, especially auditory-oriented technology. However, when the teacher turns off the microphones in the classroom to create a silent environment for those who wear CIs, this prevents such pupils from listening to their classmates’ small talk and the teacher’s oneon-one explanations with other pupils. The teacher’s considerations conflict with the rights of pupils with CIs to participate as regular members in classroom interaction. Also, it positions those pupils as people whose hearing and concentration can be controlled. One of the pupils with CIs in our data preferred to have one of her CIs in the “loop mode” (position T which picks up only the mike sound) and the other on position M (which picks up all sounds) in order to access all oral communication. This constitutes yet another example of how pupils with CIs take responsibility for their own participation in the classroom. Maja is more controlled by the adults in classroom B, where a remote is frequently used to control the volume and mode of her CI. The adults have a position of power vis-à-vis the technology and they primarily privilege the public discourse in the classroom. Pupils with CIs can become marginalized if they are excluded from classroom interactions of any kind. For example, if a hearing pupil suddenly leaves the classroom after an altercation with a teacher and the RP does not visually mediate what is being said, a pupil with CIs has no access to what has taken place. The study presented here indicates that the RP potentially plays the role of communicative-link technology, because she has the task of facilitating communication between the pupil with CIs and other members in the instructional space. However, the analysis also shows that this communicative-link technology (the resource person) does not always function as the primary facilitator. Rather their assistance is taken when the spoken communication or hearing technologies become insufficient. Pupils with CIs are expected to use their CIs as well as other technologies (see for example Figure 6-4) in order to keep up with the spoken communication. At the same time, this and other studies in project CIT show that hearing technologies alone are insufficient to meet the needs of pupils with CIs in the course of regular school activities. Nor is language technology in the form of RPs sufficient because they are not always included in all activities, and sometimes they are absent due to illness or leave. While they may at times be positioned at a distance and are unable to hear the ongoing oral communication, they may also decide that the pupil with CIs needs to listen to oral communication and therefore decide not to support them visually. When such language support is wanting, we see that literacy-technologies, such as SMARTBoards (Figure 6-5) become even more important for the participation of pupils with CIs.

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Thus, technology can both enable but also curtail opportunities for participation, and may also give pupils with CIs an identity position of being different from their classmates. Recognizing the extra effort that pupils with CIs are required to put in, to enable their own participation in the everyday life of classrooms is an important finding in this study (see also Bagga-Gupta and Holmström 2015, Holmström, Bagga-Gupta and Jonsson 2015). This and other communication related challenges that have been identified are significant for the mainstream or public-schools that today receive an increasing number of pupils with CIs.

Notes 1

Generally, Swedish Sign Language or manual signs are represented by capital letters (see the transcription key in Appendix A). 2 Despite the implantation of almost all deaf infants, since the turn of the century, no national registry exists on the exact numbers or school placements of children with CIs in Sweden. The CIT project schools and classrooms were recruited after a lengthy and systematic search with support from the National Agency for Special Needs Education and Schools (SPSM) and the parent’s association Swedish National Association for Deaf, Hearing-Impaired and language-Impaired children (DHB)—both of whom we have long-standing research collaboration with. More information regarding the identification and selection of the cases is available in Holmström (2013). One of our newer projects—project PAL, Participation of All? (www.ju.se/ccd/pal)—is, in part, currently mapping deaf pupils, including those with CIs, in the school system all across Sweden. 3 The number of pupils in classes in Swedish schools differs. Small village schools have small class sizes, 12-15, but in cities, the classes can consist of about 30 pupils. The project classes had fewer pupils on account of the presence of pupils with CIs in them. 4 In addition, they occasionally signed some words to the project researcher or project researcher’s interpreters. 5 The resource person is also responsible for supporting all the other pupils with their tasks or questions, especially when the pupils must work with their individual tasks. 6 All four adults are rarely present in the classroom together and work in overlapping shifts. The presence of two teachers is explained on account of the main teacher being away on study leave one day a week during the semester when fieldwork was conducted. 7 Certified interpreters in Sweden work with interpreting between two languages. Their role is to interpret, not to support participants or get involved in the everyday ongoing actions. It is common practice to use interpreters in education of older pupils e.g. aged 13-14 years and above. Resource persons appear to be preferred in

Technologies and Participation Strategies in Mainstream School Settings 193 the primary and lower-middle school years because they can provide a range of support in addition to interpreting. 8 Teachers in classrooms that receive or have pupils with CIs receive information, both prior to the arrival of the pupils and during the course of the school year, are offered in-service training on areas such as audiology and hearing loss from SPSM and from special education advisors. 9 For more information about how the classrooms can be adjusted to support pupils with CI, see e.g. An educator’s guide to the Nucleus Cochlear Implant System, http://hope.cochlearamericas.com/educators/early-interventionists/ educators-guide. 10 Our ongoing parallel micro-level studies of this data highlight these as well as other issues related to the everyday lives in educational settings where pupils with CIs are members. 11 The PI’s presence can be accounted for by the project researchers need to access oral communication in the classroom. The PR is deaf.

References Bagga-Gupta, Sangeeta. 2004. “Visually Oriented Language Use: Discursive and Technological Resources in Swedish Deaf Pedagogical Arenas.” In To the lexicon and Beyond: Sociolinguistics in European Deaf Communities, edited by Mieke Van Herreweghe and Myriam Vermeerbergen, 171-207. Washington DC: Gallaudet University press. —. 2012. “Privileging identity positions and multimodal communication in textual practices. Intersectionality and the (re)negotiation of boundaries.” In Literacy Practices in Transition: Perspectives from the Nordic countries, edited by Anne Pitkänen-Huhta, and Lars Holm, 75100. Cleveland: Multilingual Matters. —. 2017a. “Center-staging language and identity research from earthrise perspectives. Contextualizing performances in open spaces.” In Identity revisited and reimagined. Empirical and theoretical contributions on embodied communication across time and space, edited by Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta, Aase. L. Hansen and Julie Feilberg, 65-100. Rotterdam: Springer. —. 2017b. “Language and Identity beyond the mainstream. Democratic and equity issues for and by whom, where, when and why.” Journal of the European Second Language Association, 1(1): 102-112. http://doi.org/10.22599/jesla.22 —. 2017c. “Going beyond oral-written-signed-virtual divides. Theorizing languaging from social practice perspectives.” Writing & Pedagogy, 9(1): 49-75. https://doi.org/10.1558/wap.27046 Bagga-Gupta, Sangeeta and Holmström, Ingela. 2015. “Language, Identity and Technologies in classrooms for the differently-abled.” Communication Disorders, Deaf Studies & Hearing Aids, 3(4): 1-19.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2375-4427.1000145. Bagga-Gupta, Sangeeta, Hansen, Aase L. and Feilberg, Julie, eds. 2017. Identity revisited and reimagined. Empirical and theoretical contributions on embodied communication across time and space. Rotterdam: Springer. Dillehay, Jane. 2011. “Genetic Research, Bioethical Issues, and Cochlear Implants: An Overview of the Issues Affecting the Deaf Community.” In Cochlear Implants, Evolving Perspectives, edited by Raylene Paludneviciene and Irene W. Leigh, 20-38. Washington DC: Gallaudet University Press. Giezen, Marcel. 2011. Speech and Sign Perception in Deaf Children with Cochlear Implants. LOT dissertation series. Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics. Landelijke: LOT. Hansen, Aase, Bagga-Gupta, Sangeeta and Muruvik Vonen, Arnfinn. 2009. “Visually oriented multilingual communication in the classroom.” Paper presented at the 37th Congress of the Nordic Educational Research Association, Literacy as world-making, Trondheim, March 57. Harasym, Sarah, editor. 1990. The post-colonial critic. Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. New York: Routledge. Holmström, Ingela. 2013. Learning by Hearing? Technological Framings for Participation. PhD thesis. Örebro Studies in Education 42. Örebro: Örebro University. Holmström, Ingela and Bagga-Gupta, Sangeeta. 2013. ”Technologies at work. A sociohistorical analysis of human identities and communication.” Deafness and Education International, 15(1): 2–28. DOI: 10.1179/1557069X12Y.0000000012. Holmström, Ingela, Bagga-Gupta, Sangeeta and Jonsson, Rickard. 2015. “Communicating and hand(ling) technologies: Everyday life in educational settings where pupils with cochlear implants are mainstreamed.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 25(3): 256–284. DOI:10.1111/jola.12097. Hyde, Mervyn and Punch, Renee. 2011. “The Modes of Communication Used by Children With Cochlear Implants and the Role of Sign in Their Lives.” American Annals of the Deaf, 155(5): 535-49. DOI: 10.1353/aad.2011.0006. Jewitt, Carey, editor. 2009. The Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis. London: Routledge. Keating, Elizabeth and Mirus, Gene. 2003. “New Technologies and Minority Language Communities: The Deaf Community, Visual

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Virtual Language and Computer-Mediated Communication.” In MINOR LANGUAGES Approaches, Definitions, Controversies, edited by Thomas Stolz and Joel Sherzer, 103-120. Bochum: Universitatsverlag Dr. N. Brochmeyer. Lave, Jean and Wenger, Etienne. 1991. Situated Learning. Legitimate Peripheral Participation. New York: Cambridge University Press. Leigh, Irene W. 2017. “The Complexities of Deaf Identities.” In Identity revisited and reimagined. Empirical and theoretical contributions on embodied communication across time and space, edited by Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta, Aase. L. Hansen and Julie Feilberg, 207-223. Rotterdam: Springer. Leigh, Irene W. and Maxwell-McCaw, Deborah. 2011. “Cochlear Implants: Implications for Deaf Identities.” In Cochlear Implants, Evolving Perspectives, edited by Raylene Paludneviciene and Irene W. Leigh, 95-110. Washington DC: Gallaudet University Press. Punch, Renee and Hyde, Mervyn. 2010. “Children with Cochlear Implants in Australia: Educational Settings, Supports and Outcomes.” Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 15(4): 405-421. DOI: 10.1093/deafed/enq019. Sacks, Harvey. 1972. “An initial investigation of the usability of conversation materials for doing sociology.” In Studies in social interaction, edited by David Sudnow, 31-74. New York: The Free Press. Sahlström, Fritjof. 1999. Up the hill backwards: on interactional constraints and affordances for equity-constitution in the classrooms of the Swedish comprehensive school. PhD thesis. Uppsala: Uppsala studies in education 85. Schegloff, Emanuel A. 1968. “Sequencing in conversational openings.” American Anthropologist, 70: 1075-1095. Schieffelin, Bambi B. and Ochs, Elinor. eds. 1986. Language socialization across cultures. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Säljö, Roger. 2010. “Digital tools and challenges to institutional traditions of learning: technologies, social memory and the performative nature of learning.” Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 26(1): 53–64. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2729.2009.00341.x. Wheeler, Alexandra, Archbold, Sue, Gregory, Susan and Skipp, Amy. 2007. “Cochlear Implants: The young People’s Perspective.” Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 12(3): 303-316. DOI: 10.1093/deafed/enm018. Wertsch, James C. 1998. Mind as Action. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Vygotsky, Lev. 1978. Mind in Society. The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. London: Harvard University Press.

CHAPTER SEVEN MARGINALIZATION AS A DYNAMIC PROCESS: THE MICROANALYSIS OF INTERACTIONS OF A DEAF STUDENT IN A MAINSTREAM CLASSROOM SARA A. GOICO

1. Introduction This chapter examines how marginalization is conceptualized in academic and educational circles, through an analysis of the interactions of a deaf student with no access to the majority spoken language in an allhearing classroom setting. The situation presented would appear to be one of unequivocal marginalization: the student is the only deaf individual in an entire school of hearing teachers and students, and does not receive the necessary support services to navigate the academic material. Nevertheless, she appears comfortable with her surroundings, actively participating in and unconfused by the classroom routines. How can we account for this seemingly contradictory data in a model of marginalization? A review of the current research literature reveals a continuum of perspectives on models of marginalization, from treating it as a static state, to working with it as a dynamic process. My empirical investigation yields two significant findings that argue for the latter. First, I find that interactions among individuals are the sites of marginalization. Second, because interactions are characterized by their emergent properties, with each interaction there is a new context and new participants, therefore, the center and margins, as well as where individuals fall in relation to them, are not static. Instead, I observe that they are in a constant state of negotiation. Furthermore, I propose that the microanalysis of human interactions as methodology provides a particularly useful tool for capturing the dynamic processes of

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marginalization. The resulting understanding afforded by such a perspective is highly beneficial, not only for researchers investigating marginalization, but also for policy makers and teachers trying to address the negative effects of marginalization in the classroom.

1.1. Special education responses to marginalization For researchers of education, marginalization is a particularly pertinent topic of investigation. With frequent stories in the news of bullying—both on and offline, school shootings, and student suicides, marginalized populations are of concern to families and schools. One particular area of education that has become increasingly concerned with marginalization is special education. Historically across the globe, children with disabilities have not had access to education—at best they were educated in separate schools, often referred to as segregated schools. Following the UNESCO led Education for All initiative of 1990, global attention turned toward tackling the marginalization of children with disabilities in education. In 1994 the World Conference of Special Needs Education was held in Salamanca, Spain. The Salamanca Statement signed by representatives from 92 countries declared inclusion education “a child-centred pedagogy” that is “the most effective means of combating discriminatory attitudes, creating welcoming communities, building an inclusive society and achieving education for all” (UNESCO 1994, viii-ix). Inclusion education means that all students, including those with disabilities, are accepted and welcomed in regular education and age-appropriate classrooms that are organized in such a way that all students can participate in the various aspects of classroom life. In response to this statement and other international declarations focusing on education and disability (e.g. UNESCO 2000, United Nations 2006), Peru is one of many countries to have recently adopted a policy of inclusive education for children with disabilities. Educación inclusiva1 was incorporated into the Peruvian education system in 2003 as part of the Ley General de Educación, Ley N° 28044. Prior to this date, children with NEE (Necesidades Educativas Especiales—Special Education Needs) were educated in separate institutions known as CEBEs (Centros Educativos Básicos Especiales— Special Education Schools). With the new policy, students presenting mild to moderate disabilities are sent to regular education schools and the CEBEs are dedicated to providing attention to children with severe or multiple disabilities. In Peru, educación inclusiva refers to the full-time placement of students with disabilities in regular education classrooms. A

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team from the CEBEs known as SAANEE (Servicios de Apoyo y Asesoramiento para la atención de Necesidades Educativas Especiales— Support and Assessment Services for Special Education Needs) is in charge of tracking special needs children in regular education schools. Their work includes half-hour visits to the classroom once a week and evaluating and charting the progress of the child throughout the school year.

1.2. Mainstream education in Iquitos Although educating children in mainstream settings is becoming popular across the globe (Ainscow 1997, Foster et al. 2003), there has been little research done on the implementation of this policy, especially in developing nations, such as Peru (Vasishta 2011, 352).2 My research over the 2010 school year provides a case study of mainstream education of one deaf child in the city of Iquitos, Peru. Iquitos has a population of half a million people and is the capital of the Loreto region. The city was at the center of the Amazon rubber boom around the turn of the 20th century, but now has an economy based primarily on tourism and extraction of timber and oil from the rainforest. The city is geographically isolated from the rest of Peru because of the surrounding rainforest, and cannot be reached by road. Travel to Iquitos can only be achieved by plane or by boat following the many tributaries of the Amazon River. The investigation I conducted in 2010 included observation and filming of one deaf student, Estefany,3 in her second-grade classroom of 31 students. At the time Estefany was the only deaf student in the school. Once a week a teacher from the SAANEE team from the CEBE in the district visited Estefany in the classroom. Other than this one accommodation, Estefany did not receive any outside support services. Interviews with SAANEE teachers demonstrate that there is confusion about whether their job is to work primarily with the student or with the classroom teacher. In the case of Estefany, the SAANEE teacher would either work with Estefany or with the entire class to discuss disability and the importance of accepting difference and diversity. My first encounter with deaf children in Iquitos was at a school for the deaf4 where the students were learning Peruvian Sign Language5. I quickly discovered, however, that unlike the students at the deaf school, Estefany did not know a signed language. She also did not have hearing aids or other hearing assistive devices that would allow her access to the oral language of Spanish. Estefany had a limited amount of residual hearing and therefore had learned to pronounce a few Spanish words, such as the

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numbers and common classroom words such as, baño—bathroom and profesora—teacher. In terms of literacy skills, however, I did not see Estefany produce any of her own sentences. In order to communicate, Estefany used gestures, facial expressions, the manipulation of her environment, and as mentioned above, infrequently a few words from Spanish (for further description of Estefany’s communication system see Goico 2012). The communication system that Estefany used can be best described as a homesign, or an idiosyncratic gesture system (GoldinMeadow 2003). Homesigns develop when deaf individuals grow up in hearing families and do not have access to a language model, such as a signed language. These children are generally isolated from other deaf individuals, as was the case with Estefany. The linguistic context in which Estefany is educated would seem to place her unequivocally on the margins of the classroom; she cannot access the conversations around her or the materials presented by the teacher. And yet, I was surprised to find that Estefany appeared remarkably comfortable and unconfused in the classroom. She was very aware of her role as a student, and her teacher often described her as both hardworking and a good student. This observation does not fit seamlessly with the label of Estefany as a marginalized student. By focusing on Estefany’s interactions with peers and teachers in the school it is possible to identify the nuances around the processes of marginalization in the classroom and to identify many of the ways in which Estefany challenges her placement on the margins.

2. Previous research on marginalization in the classroom Many scholars have addressed the topic of marginalization in classrooms either directly or indirectly. These articles run the gamut from treating marginalization as a static state to working with the process of marginalization as dynamic in nature. The former is exemplified by Pang (2006), who opens her abstract with, “Asian American students are marginalized in US schools” (67). The fact that this is the very first line of text that one reads is jarring. It brings to mind the questions: Are all Asian Americans marginalized? And are they all marginalized in the same way even though the term Asian American lumps together people from very diverse cultures and backgrounds? Within the article, Pang (2006) advocates that schools need to acknowledge the diversity within the Asian American population. However, the fact that she discusses marginalization in terms of “Asian American students” reinforces the idea that there is a homogeneous Asian American group.

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Evans (2000) presents a more dynamic understanding of marginalization than Pang (2006). In her discussion of the marginalization of gay, lesbian, and bisexual students, she uses a continuum developed by De Surra and Church (1994) and then modified by Connolly (1999) to account for some of the diversity that characterizes the experience of marginalization. The continuum includes explicit marginalization, implicit marginalization, implicit centralization, and explicit centralization. Although Evans (2000) describes the diversity of gay, lesbian, and bisexual identity development in her chapter, during the discussion of marginalization, the community is still presented as a uniform group. Moreover, the broad categories of implicit and explicit marginalization and centralization only touch the surface of describing the range of experiences of gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals. Messiou (2002, 2006a, 2006b) goes even further than Evans (2000) or Pang (2006) in addressing the dynamic process of marginalization in her work in mainstream classrooms. She stresses that categories such as special needs do not necessarily mandate that a child experiences marginalization and if he or she does, it is not necessarily because of his or her disability. Therefore, Messiou (2002, 2006a, 2006b) surveys the entire classroom (2002) or school (2006a, 2006b) in order to determine which students appear to be experiencing marginalization. Messiou (2002, 2006a, 2006b) advocates arriving at the decision of which students are marginalized through the triangulation of the students’, teacher’s, and her own perspectives. While Messiou (2006a) encourages the use of a dynamic concept of marginalization, her earlier article (2002) seemed to present the children she identifies as marginalized as existing in a static state. However, in later discussions she acknowledges that while most students may have experienced some form of marginalization in the classroom, she is concerned “with the constant kind of marginalization that might be experienced by a child” (Messiou 2006a, 41) and that though some children were identified as possibly experiencing marginalization, and therefore lying outside these boundaries, there were still occasions when the same children were found crossing them (Messiou 2006a, 52).

The most significant difference between my approach and that of Messiou’s (2002, 2006a, 2006b) is that I locate the construction of centers and margins in interactions. Messiou (2006a) would seem to counter this viewpoint. She writes,

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To limit the smaller circles to an entire classroom is problematic. Within a classroom there are tables, friendship groups, small activity groups, etc. Each of these creates its own “circle” during a particular activity and redefines its center based on the context, participants, and activity at hand. Although Messiou (2006a) and I would seem to disagree that marginalization occurs at the level of interaction, it is interesting to point out that all of Messiou’s excerpts of children discussing their experiences of marginalization take place in interactions with others. Additional research, which implicitly addresses classroom marginalization, also highlights interaction as the location where processes of marginalization occur (e.g. McDermott 1993, Mehan 1993). Mehan (1993) uses a case study to discuss how teachers refer their students into “learning disabilities” (LD) programs through written referrals. He writes, “These texts [the referrals] become divorced from the social interaction that created them as they move through the system” (Mehan 1993, 246). In this quotation, Mehan (1993) directly states that the view of a student as “educationally handicapped”, and thus academically marginalized and in need of being placed in an LD program, comes about because of teacherstudent interactions within the classroom. These ethnographic examples provide support for interactions as the site of the social construction of the center and margins. Using interactions as the cite to investigate marginalization, requires acknowledging that interactions, and therefore marginalization processes as well, are dynamic and variable in nature. As the participants and contexts of interactions constantly shift, so does the center and margins. As opposed to a constant state of being marginalized, individuals continuously redefine who is at the center and who is marginalized. In line with this definition, Messiou (2006a) writes, The social boundaries of the circles are determined by notions of normality, created by members of the society, and members of the society are socially situated within or outside these boundaries. The notions of normality are socially constructed, and hence are likely to change from one setting to another (52).

In this chapter, I use the microanalysis of interactions to capture this variability in the experience of marginalization. To argue this point, I use

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the case study of one deaf student, Estefany, in Iquitos, Peru who is educated in a mainstream classroom with all hearing students. Below, I analyze one interaction between Estefany and her hearing classmate Jorge from two different perspectives. The comparison of these two analyses highlights the emergent nature of centers and margins.

3. The empirical setting 3.1. Description of the interaction On the particular day in which this interaction takes place, Estefany is seated at a table in the back-left corner of the classroom with Luis and Juan. The three are looking through a classroom textbook and discussing a question on the exam that the teacher has recently handed out. Jorge approaches Estefany from the front of the classroom and stands by her left shoulder. When she glances in his direction but fails to acknowledge his presence, he proceeds to tap her on her left shoulder (see Figure 7-1). When Estefany ignores him, he taps her again, but this time tapping her incessantly until she responds. Jorge is holding a pencil in his left hand and when Estefany turns to look at him, he twists the pencil in the fist of his right hand in order to ask if she has a pencil sharpener (see Figure 7-2). Estefany shakes her head no, and then points with the index finger of her left hand toward Alicia (see Figure 7-3), who is sitting at the table in the front left corner of the room. He follows her finger with his eyes, and subsequently points with his right index finger to Tanya (see Figure 7-4), the girl sitting next to Alicia, while he looks back at Estefany. Estefany voices the word “No” and shakes her head at the same time. She points again to Alicia (see Figure 7-5) and mouths the name of the girl (see Figure 7-6). Once again Jorge points with his pencil toward Tanya (see Figure 7-7). Estefany mouths Alicia’s name one more time (see Figure 78) and points with her left index finger toward the girl (see Figure 7-9). This time Jorge points toward the correct girl with his pencil (see Figure 710). Estefany nods, then with her right hand she points to her chest (see Figure 7-11) and then waggles her finger back and forth while shaking her head (see Figure 7-12), and ends with a point at the girl one last time (see Figure 7-13). Estefany continues to look toward the front of the classroom as Jorge proceeds to ask the wrong girl for the pencil sharpener (see Figure 7-14) and then to walk away confused (see Figure 7-15).

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Fig. 7-1. Jorge taps Estefany on the shoulder. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings

Fig. 7-2. Jorge asks for a pencil sharpener. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings

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Fig. 7-3. Estefany points to Alicia at the other table. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings

Fig. 7-4. Jorge points to Tanya. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings

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Fig. 7-5. Estefany points to Alicia again. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings

Fig. 7-6. Estefany mouths Alicia’s name. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings

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Fig. 7-7. Jorge points to Tanya with the pencil. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings

Fig. 7-8. Estefany mouths Alicia’s name again. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings

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Fig. 7-9. Estefany points to Alicia. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings

Fig. 7-10. Jorge points to Alicia and Estefany nods her head. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings

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Fig. 7-11. Estefany points to her chest. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings

Fig. 7-12. Estefany waggles her finger and shakes her head. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings

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Fig. 7-13. Estefany points to Alicia. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings

Fig. 7-14. Jorge asks Tanya for the pencil sharpener. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings

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Fig. 7-15. Jorge walks away without finding the pencil sharpener. Source: Goico 2010 Iquitos video recordings

3.2. Context of the Interaction In order to understand where the center and margins lie in the conversation between Estefany and Jorge it is important to understand a little about the dynamics of the classroom in which the interaction is situated. Prior to the start of the interaction I have described above, the teacher had handed out an exam for the students to fill out. The exam consisted of six questions about the family and natural disasters. In order to write down his answers to the questions, Jorge approaches Estefany to look for a pencil sharpener. Common objects such as pencil sharpeners, erasers, pencils, and pens of various colors are important in the context of the classroom because students are responsible for bringing them from home. Many families in Iquitos are poor and do not have the money to buy school supplies for their child or to replace the supplies when the child loses them. Therefore, these items are highly valued and one can witness their constant exchange around the classroom over the course of a school day. This practice is not unique to Estefany’s classroom. In my own English classes, which I taught at a teacher training college, the practice became problematic when students were exchanging erasers and pencil sharpeners during exams. In Estefany’s case, she happens to have many of

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these classroom items and on numerous occasions I observed students approach Estefany to borrow them.6 There are two main participants in this interaction, Jorge and Estefany. Although the girls at the other table are involved in the interaction because they are the referents of the many indications that Jorge and Estefany enact, the girls do not produce any utterances, nor do they even seem aware that the interaction is taking place. Although I never spoke with Jorge about his relationship with Estefany, the two of them never sat together in class. Estefany often sat with Luis or another girl Marta, and Jorge tended to sit with the other boys in the class. Estefany was the only girl in the class who would sit with the boys, but there were only certain boys she would sit with. Although the boys and girls often sit separately from one another, they did not appear to have trouble approaching each other in search of these various classroom items.

4. An interactional analysis 4.1. First perspective: Jorge at the center and Estefany on the margins From one point of view it is possible to perceive the interaction between Estefany and Jorge as another example of the ways in which Estefany is linguistically marginalized in the classroom. Jorge, who has access to the Spanish language, is positioned at the center of the interaction, while Estefany is located on the margins because she cannot access the majority language. From this perspective, the failed interaction is a clear example of how Estefany’s inability to hold a conversation in Spanish results in Jorge being unable to achieve even the simple task of retrieving a pencil sharpener. It is clear that a large part of the miscommunication at the beginning of the interaction arises because Jorge cannot determine the referent of Estefany’s pointing gestures. In the interaction Estefany points to the girl with the pencil sharpener a total of four times. After both the first and second pointing gestures Jorge responds by pointing to the wrong girl, demonstrating that he was unable to determine who Estefany was referencing. After the third time, Jorge finally points to the correct girl. However, after Estefany’s last utterance he is confused again and asks the wrong girl for the pencil sharpener. Jorge struggles with this portion of the interaction for good reason. Pointing occurs so commonly in our everyday interactions that it is often overlooked. Clark (2003) complicates the unquestioned view of mere pointing by placing it within a larger framework of indications, or any

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attempt to direct someone’s attention. Clark (2003) proposes that there are two categories within the larger framework of indications—directing-to and placing-for, which are distinguished by what is manipulated in order to direct someone’s attention. Directing-to is achieved by moving the addressee’s attention toward an object, while placing-for moves an object into the addressee’s attention (Clark 2003). Pointing with the index finger is only one of many different types of directing-to gestures. In this short, videotaped interaction we see that Jorge uses two kinds of directing-to gestures; he points to the girls at the other table with both his pointer finger and his pencil. Directing-to gestures are one of the most prevalent elements of Estefany’s communication system (see Goico 2012). However, Jorge’s ability to determine the referent of Estefany’s directingto gestures is far from an easy task to accomplish. The first difficulty for Jorge in understanding Estefany’s directing-to indication is determining which of the myriad of objects in his vicinity is actually the referent of the point. In the case of pointing with the index finger it is necessary for Jorge to trace the vector of Estefany’s finger to the referenced object (Clark 2003). Therefore, Jorge must be an active participant in determining the referent of the point. Commonly, in order to avoid ambiguity speakers often explicate the referent of their point in the surrounding talk. Clark (2003) writes, “Directing-to ordinarily gets its description from outside, usually from the accompanying talk” (250). For example, I can say, “That’s my computer” while I point to the laptop sitting on the desk. In another scenario someone could ask, “Which desk is yours?” and in response I can point to a particular one. Since Estefany either does not provide descriptions for her indications or unsuccessfully conveys the description, at those times when disambiguating the referent from a number of possible objects is necessary, recipients can find her pointing gestures particularly difficult to understand. We see examples of both these problems in the interaction between Estefany and Jorge. After Jorge initially asks Estefany for a pencil sharpener, she shakes her head and points toward Alicia, but with no description of whom she is indexing. Due to the number of girls at the table, an indication by itself is too vague and Jorge misunderstands the referent of the point. During the second indication Estefany points to Alicia again, but this time mouths her name. However, by the time Estefany begins to mouth the name, Jorge has already turned his gaze toward the table of girls to follow the direction of the indication. On the third point, Estefany first mouths the name and then points, to ensure that Jorge attends to both. Finally, Jorge points to the correct girl, but Estefany’s last utterance leaves him lost once again and he asks the wrong girl for the pencil sharpener.

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In the videotaped interaction between Estefany and Jorge, we see that Estefany struggles to indicate to Jorge who has the pencil sharpener, and Jorge struggles to determine which of the girls at the table Estefany is referencing. Since directing-to gestures are such a large part of Estefany’s communication system it is not difficult to imagine how often this problem occurs in the classroom. This interaction provides an example of the miscommunication that is a common problem in Estefany’s interactions with her classmates. Although Estefany does not exist in a static state of marginalization, many of the interactions she is involved in, such as her conversation with Jorge, relegate her to the margins because she cannot effectively participate in the majority language. In the next section, I present a contrasting perspective of where the center and margins are situated in the interaction between Jorge and Estefany.

4.2 Second perspective: Estefany at the center and Jorge on the margins It is a common inclination, especially of someone from the hearing majority, to witness Estefany and Jorge’s miscommunication and to assume that the problem lies with Estefany. She is the only individual who cannot speak Spanish in the classroom and this fact places her on the margins of the interaction, and Jorge, as a native speaker of Spanish, at the center. However, choosing this particular framework is only one possible perspective. Another interpretation re-frames the interaction with Estefany at the center and Jorge on the margins. I will use the method of Conversation Analysis (CA) developed by Harvey Sacks, Emmanuel Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson in order to analyze the interaction from this perspective. According to the basic assumptions of CA, everyday, mundane conversations are organized into a turn-taking system with little to no overlap or gaps in talk, even though the order of speakers and what is said is not predetermined (Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson 1974). However, as Schegloff (1968) notes, the ABABAB turn taking structure of two-person conversations does not account for how conversations begin. Therefore, he describes the Summons-Answer (SA) sequence as one common structure that interactants use to start conversations. An SA sequence is one of many examples of an adjacency pair, a common structuring principle in everyday interactions. Adjacency pairs consist of two turns by different speakers that occur sequentially and consist of a variety of different types, such as question-answer, greeting-greeting, and summons-answer (Sacks 1992, Schegloff 2007). The first turn of an adjacency pair is also called the

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first pair part (FPP) and the second turn is called the second pair part (SPP). In the case of the SA sequence, the FPP, or the summons, is an attempt to achieve the attention of a person or a group of people. The SPP, or the answer, is a response indicating one’s availability to talk. An SA sequence can be categorized as an adjacency pair because the presence of an answer is contingent upon the existence of a previous summons, and once the summons occurs the lack of an answer is seen as an absence (Schegloff 1968). For example, the fact that we repeat a summons when it is not answered, such as yelling someone’s name louder the second time, suggests that an answer is expected. The FPP of an adjacency pair not only expects an answer, but there are also preferred and dispreferred responses (Sacks and Schegloff 1973, Schegloff 2007). For example, in an SA sequence a preferred response is a go-ahead response that accomplishes the task of the FPP. Therefore, it would facilitate achieving the recipient’s attention so that the interaction can continue. In contrast, a dispreferred response to an SA sequence is a blocking response that prevents further interaction (Schegloff 2007). In the interaction between Estefany and Jorge, it is Jorge that initiates an SA sequence in order to get Estefany’s attention. First, Jorge taps Estefany quickly on the shoulder three times, but there is no response. The lack of response from Estefany is a dispreferred response and since an adjacency pair expects an SPP, Jorge, after waiting almost two full seconds, taps Estefany on the shoulder again. This time he does so unceasingly for over two and a half seconds, switching from a tap to pressing on Estefany’s shoulder until he receives a go-ahead response, Estefany turning her head and eye gaze toward him, thus indicating that she is paying attention (see Table 7-1). Summons-Answer Sequence

Description

Summons

Jorge performs three quick taps on Estefany’s shoulder (.2sec) [No response] (1.8 sec) Jorge taps Estefany’s shoulder (1.8sec) and presses on Estefany’s shoulder (1sec) (2.8sec total) Estefany turns her head and eye gaze toward Jorge

Answer Pause Summons

Answer

Table 7-1. The structure of Jorge and Estefany’s summons-answer sequence

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This opening sequence is particularly relevant because of the roles it establishes for Estefany and Jorge during the interaction. As I mentioned above, Estefany is one of the students in the class who has many common school items that they all regularly use. This gives her a level of status in the classroom because other students need these items and must ask her for them. In this interaction, Jorge, who needs a pencil sharpener, must approach Estefany in order to find it. However, Estefany, who is busy interacting with the people at her table, has very little interest in his search. This is portrayed clearly in the SA sequence outlined above. Estefany first chooses to ignore Jorge’s summons, even though Jorge is physically standing next to her and can witness her rebuff. Then, when Jorge repeats his summons he must continue it for quite some time and even upgrade to a more persistent attention getting device, pushing his finger into her shoulder and wiggling (Schegloff 2000, 2007). Although common features in interactions, SA sequences are frequently not the main reason for an interaction. Generally, an SA sequence is initiated in order to get someone’s attention before moving onto the point of the interaction. SA sequences are what are referred to as pre-expansions to a base pair (Schegloff 2007). A base pair is the adjacency pair that is the primary sequence that frames an interaction and a pre-expansion is a precursor to that base pair. Pre-expansions are only one of three types of expansions, which also include insert and postexpansions. Insert expansions can occur either after an FPP or before an SPP, while post-expansions follow after the SPP. Expansions add much of the length and complexity to interactions that revolve around a two-part adjacency pair (Schegloff 2007, Sidnell 2010). Sidnell (2010) writes, “Expansions are themselves typically built out of paired actions and can thus serve as the bases upon which further action takes place” (95). The SA sequence that Jorge initiates is a pre-expansion to the base pair of the interaction, which is a question-answer (QA) sequence. The question or FPP consists of Jorge twisting his pencil in the fist of his right hand, which translates roughly to “Do you have a pencil sharpener?”. Estefany answers with the SPP by shaking her head no. Although this response technically answers the question, it is not a preferred response since it does not accomplish the task of facilitating Jorge’s acquisition of the pencil sharpener. Since Estefany is aware that this is not the preferred response to Jorge’s question and she knows who has a pencil sharpener, she initiates a post-expansion and points toward Alicia at the neighboring table. In contrast to Estefany’s first response, the post-expansion is a preferred response and would ideally lead to some indication of acknowledgement that Jorge now understands where to find the pencil

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sharpener. However, as opposed to assisting Jorge in finding the pencil sharpener, Estefany’s response leaves Jorge confused because he cannot determine which of the girls at the table she is pointing to. In order to solve this problem, Jorge sets off a chain of repairs (see Table 7-2). Repairs are sequences “addressed to recurrent problems in speaking, hearing, and understanding” (Schegloff, Jefferson and Sacks 1977, 361). In this case the repair is an insert expansion, specifically a post-first insert expansion. It is referred to as an insert expansion because it is inserted between the first and second pair part, and post-first because it handles problems that occur from the FPP. In this example, we can see the emergence of some of the complexity that I was referring to in the paragraph above. Estefany’s post-expansion on Jorge’s QA base pair occurs in the form of another adjacency pair, one which we can call an information-acknowledgment sequence. But as opposed to reaching completion, this adjacency pair is interrupted by an insert expansion to address Jorge’s lack of understanding. Name

Part of Sequence

Action and Translation

Jorge

FPP of Base Pair QA sequence

Estefany

SPP of Base Pair QA sequence Post-expansion of SPP/ FPP of informationacknowledgment (IA) sequence FPP of QA post-first insert expansion of IA sequence

Twists pencil in the fist of his right hand (RH) “Do you have a pencil sharpener?” Shakes head “No” Points to Alicia with left hand (LH) index finger “She does”

Estefany

Jorge

Estefany

SPP of QA insert expansion

Estefany

Post-expansion of SPP/ FPP of IA sequence

Jorge

FPP of QA post-first insert expansion of IA sequence

Estefany

SPP of QA insert expansion Post-expansion of SPP/ FPP of IA sequence

Estefany

Points to Tanya with RH index finger. “Her?” Mouths “No” while shaking head back and forth. “No” Points to Alicia with LH, when her hand comes down, mouths Alicia. “Her, Alicia” Points to Tanya with the pencil in his LH. “Her?” Skipped—answer implied by her continuing gestures Mouths “Alicia” and then points to Alicia with LH “Alicia, her”

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Jorge

FPP of QA post-first insert expansion of IA sequence

Estefany

SPP of QA insert expansion Post-expansion of SPP/ FPP of IA sequence

Estefany

Jorge

SPP of IA sequence

Points to Alicia with the pencil in both hands. “Her?” Nods head once. “Right” Index finger of RH touches chest. Wags RH index finger and shakes head. Points to Alicia with RH. “I don’t have one, she does.” Jorge turns away from Estefany and goes to the other table to ask for the pencil sharpener.

Table 7-2. Expanded base sequence as a result of a dispreferred response to the base pair in Jorge and Estefany’s interaction

Jorge’s repair takes the form of a QA sequence. He points to Tanya at the neighboring table with his right index finger and looks back at Estefany for confirmation. Estefany completes the insert adjacency pair by mouthing “No” while shaking her head. Once again acknowledging that this was a dispreferred response to Jorge’s question, Estefany makes a second attempt to indicate the correct girl by adding a post-expansion. This time she indicates the girl and also includes a description of her directing-to gestures by mouthing Alicia’s name. However, Estefany states the name right as Jorge is shifting his eye gaze in the direction of the directing-to gesture. Jorge, still unclear on the referent, inserts a new repair sequence and with the pencil in his left hand, points toward the wrong girl again. As opposed to answering the Yes-No question, Estefany skips right to responding by mouthing Alicia’s name and then pointing to her once again. The choice to repeat the name of the girl demonstrates that Estefany is very aware of where Jorge’s eye gaze is during the interaction. Goodwin (1980, 1981) finds that speakers often systematically use restarts, pauses, and hesitations in order to ensure that all parts of their utterances are attended to because eye gaze is a marker of ‘hearership’. Goodwin (1980) found two rules that generally govern speaker and hearer eye gaze in interaction. “Rule 1: A speaker should obtain the gaze of his recipient during the course of a turn at talk” (Goodwin 1980, 275). And Rule 2, “A recipient should be gazing at the speaker when the speaker is gazing at the hearer” (Goodwin 1980, 287). When Estefany sees that Jorge is not gazing at her while she pronounces Alicia’s name, she restarts, and repeats the name. After Estefany says Alicia’s name and points to her, Jorge enacts a third repair sequence. “Her?” he implies as he points his pencil, this time

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toward the correct girl. Estefany nods her head once to answer the QA repair sequence, indicating that Jorge is correct. Then she tacks on another post-expansion and points to herself, subsequently shakes her head and waggles her finger back and forth to indicate no, and finally points to Alicia one last time. A loose translation of this utterance might read, “Right. I don’t have one, she does.” However, Estefany’s last utterance confounds Jorge once again, which is demonstrated by the fact that he approaches Tanya, the wrong girl, and asks for a pencil sharpener. When Tanya does not have one he walks away dejectedly and does not turn back to Estefany. There are a number of significant findings to take from this analysis. First, as demonstrated by the SA sequence, in the context of this interaction Estefany has information that Jorge is trying to access. This starts off the interaction with Estefany in a position of power, since Estefany could have access to the pencil sharpener at any time, but Jorge remains in the dark. Second, both Estefany and Jorge are using very similar directing-to gestures, but it is only Jorge who continues to initiate repair sequences. The repairs indicate that there is a lack of understanding on his part. This is noteworthy because, as the first scenario discussed above demonstrated, one’s initial reaction with any problem of communication is to find Estefany’s lack of language as the culprit. However, a microanalysis using CA demonstrates that Estefany is not struggling to understand the interaction; it is only Jorge who is having this problem. From this perspective, Estefany is positioned at the center of the interaction and Jorge at the margins because she possesses knowledge that Jorge needs and fails to access. Furthermore, through the use of CA, I am able to determine where in the interaction the understanding breaks down and to make hypotheses about why this breakdown occurs. A string of repair sequences may not be the most effective method to determine who has the pencil sharpener, but nevertheless, by the third repair Jorge points to the correct girl. However, at the end of the interaction Jorge asks the wrong girl for the pencil sharpener. Some aspect of Estefany’s final utterance leaves Jorge confounded. Since Estefany’s gestures do not accompany speech, she uses strings of gestures that are not necessarily familiar to her interlocutors. Estefany’s final utterance is more complex than her previous ones because it includes more elements, because of the ordering of the elements, and because there are two people indicated. The elements present in Estefany’s last utterance include a head nod, a head shake, indications with her index finger, and finger wagging. First, Estefany nods once to indicate that Jorge has found the right girl. Then she points to her own chest followed by wagging her

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finger, while simultaneously shaking her head to say that she doesn’t have a pencil sharpener. Finally, Estefany points toward Alicia. The initial head nod and the final point toward Alicia are meant to indicate that Alicia has a pencil sharpener. The elements that come between these two—the point toward her chest, the finger wagging, and the head shake—all refer to her, Estefany, not having the pencil sharpener. The multiple referents and the use of both an affirmation and a negation in the utterance ultimately leave Jorge confused. In this way, Jorge remains on the margins of the interaction because he cannot access the information that Estefany has.

5. Conclusions The presentation of the interaction between Jorge and Estefany from two different perspectives, one of Estefany at the margins and the other of her at the center, should not be confused as a claim that Estefany does not experience marginalization. One would be hard pressed to support such an assertion, either academically or socially. The fact that I witnessed numerous instances of Estefany’s teacher instructing her to pay attention to a lesson in which the teacher was standing at the chalkboard talking with her back to the class or walking around the room initiating call and response questions, would refute any such claim. There is no alternative perspective to such interactions. The other students in the classroom have access to many dimensions of the lesson that Estefany does not. Similarly, however, the point of the exercise is not to label Estefany as strictly marginalized either. Such a label cannot account for the instances where Estefany is not marginalized, which occur both academically and socially. In one classroom lesson the teacher sat down with Estefany one-on-one to teach her subtraction. A large portion of the student body got up from their work to watch and to try to participate in the interaction. The students encircled Estefany and provided a physical representation of the center and margins. What my discussion has sought to illustrate, instead, is that both perspectives exist simultaneously and both are accurate representations of Estefany’s experience in the classroom. A microanalytical approach is useful because it makes both perspectives available to the researcher. Being open to the variations in marginalization and identifying clear instances when an individual is marginalized, when he or she is not, and when it is ambiguous will allow researchers to provide accurate portrayals of marginalization as it occurs in interaction. For this reason, I argue that microanalysis is a particularly effective tool to use when researching marginalization in classrooms.

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Furthermore, it is necessary for researchers to begin to investigate marginalization processes at the micro level because it is only through understanding and initiating reforms to affect micro level processes of marginalization that macro level changes can occur. For example, comprehending the emergent and socially constructed nature of centers and margins can have far reaching practical implications for teachers and administrators. The inclusion philosophy calls for a “child-centred pedagogy” that takes into consideration the needs of all children. In order to address the needs of each and every child, and the ways in which he or she experiences marginalization, researchers and teachers must start at the root of where marginalization occurs, in the student-student and teacherstudent interactions. Attention to these interactions can demonstrate trends that indicate where a child often seems to be relegated to the margins. For example, in Estefany’s case, academically, lectures to the class, and socially, large group conversations among peers, present particularly marginalizing experiences because she cannot access the spoken language of Spanish. However, attention to these interactions also provides evidence of those situations where Estefany is at the center. Academically this occurs when the teacher works with her one-on-one, and socially when other students need access to the classroom objects that she possesses. Awareness of this variability will allow teachers and administrators to implement reforms and adaptations in the classroom that specifically address the needs of students, as opposed to simply making broad sweeping changes. In addition, attention to participants in interactions provides a lens to view the resources that students bring to the classroom. Students are not merely passive participants in their academic lives, but they actively shape their educational experiences. Students bring different resources into the classroom from home and are able to utilize them in a variety of ways during the school day. One of Estefany’s resources that we witnessed in the interaction with Jorge is the fact that she possesses many common classroom objects, which other students need to borrow. A final practical application is the effect that a dynamic view of marginalization can have on teacher training. It is beneficial for teachers to be trained to attend to interactions as sites of marginalization for two reasons. First, when teachers are aware that the context and participants of interactions are important to determining the center and margins of a group, then they can pay attention to which students are marginalized in different groupings of students. With this information, teachers can actively manage group settings (e.g. seating arrangements, activity groups) to account for these marginalization processes. Second, teachers can use it to address their own stereotypes and prejudices. Teachers often have

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biases about the ways in which they think disabled or other groups of students are marginalized. This may cause teachers to treat certain students differently or to give special treatment. In these ways, the conceptualization of the processes of marginalization as dynamic and the understanding that centers and margins are emergent properties of interactions is not only important for researchers of classrooms, but also can have profound effects on the reforms that schools enact to counter marginalization.

Notes 1

The Spanish term for the program established in Peru is educación inclusiva (inclusion education), however, the policy does not actually provide the support services necessary to create an inclusive education for students with disabilities. To make this distinction, when referring to the Peruvian policy I will use the Spanish term educación inclusiva and when referring to a classroom with a student requiring special services, I will use the term mainstream. 2 The classification of developing nations is taken from the United Nations’ World Economic Situation and Prospects 2015 (United Nations 2015). 3 All names of students and schools in this chapter are pseudonyms. 4 This school for the deaf, the only one that existed in Iquitos, closed as of December 2013 and it is unlikely that it will reopen again. 5 Peruvian Sign Language is generally understandable throughout Peru, but there is local variation. The school for the deaf in Iquitos stressed using American Sign Language (ASL) materials in order to connect to the international Deaf world, thus increasing the amount of ASL present in the signs used in the city. 6 At the time of my research I did not investigate why Estefany had so many of these classroom objects. It may be that she came from a family that was able to provide her with more classroom supplies or because Estefany was better than some of her classmates at keeping track of her things.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank Miranda Shilati for her work converting the video images into line drawings.

References Ainscow, Mel. 1997. “Towards Inclusive Schooling.” British Journal of Special Education, 24: 3-6. DOI:10.1111/1467-8527.00002. Clark, Herbert H. 2003. “Pointing and Placing.” In Pointing: Where Language, Culture, and Cognition Meet, edited by Sotaro Kita, 243-

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DOI:10.1111/1467-9604.00249. —. 2006a. “Conversations with children: Making sense of Marginalization in Primary School Settings.” European Journal of Special Needs Education, 21: 39–54. DOI:10.1080/08856250500491807. —. 2006b. “Understanding Marginalisation in Education: The Voice of Children.” European Journal of Psychology of Education, 21: 305– 318. DOI:10.1007/bf03173418. Pang, Valerie Ooka. 2006. “Fighting the marginalization of Asian American students with caring schools: focusing on curricular change.” Race, Ethnicity, and Education, 9: 67-83. DOI:10.1080/13613320500490754. Sacks, Harvey. 1992. Lectures on Conversation, vol. 2. Edited by, Gail Jefferson. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Sacks, Harvey, Schegloff, Emanuel A. and Jefferson, Gale. 1974. “A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation.” Language, 50: 696-735. DOI:10.1353/lan.1974.0010. Schegloff, Emanuel A. 1968. “Sequencing in Conversational Openings” American Anthropologist. 70: 1075-1095. DOI:10.1525/aa.1968.70.6.02a00030. —. 2000. “Overlapping talk and the organization of turn-taking for conversation.” Language in Society, 29: 1-63. DOI:10.1017/s0047404500001019. —. 2007. Sequence Organization in Interaction, vol 1: A Primer in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schegloff, Emanuel A. and Sacks, Harvey. 1973. “Opening up closings.” Semiotica, 8(4): 289-327. DOI:10.1515/semi.1973.8.4.289. Schegloff, Emanuel, Jefferson, Gail and Sacks, Harvey. 1977. “The Preference for Self-Correction in the Organization of Repair in Conversation.” Language, 53: 361-382. DOI:10.2307/413107. Sidnell, Jack. 2010. Conversation Analysis [electronic resource]: An Introduction. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. United Nations. 2006. Convention on the rights of Persons with Disabilities. A/RES/61/106. New York, New York. Available from http://www.un.org/disabilities/. —. 2015. World Economic Situation and Prospects 2015. New York, New York. Available from http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/policy/wesp/index.shtml. UNESCO. 1994. The Salamanca Statement and Framework For Action On Special Needs Education. ED-94/WS/18. World Conference on Special

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Needs Education: Access and Quality, Salamanca, Spain, June 7-10. Available from http://www.unesco.org/education/pdf/SALAMA_E.PDF. —. 2000. Dakar Framework for Action. ED-2000/WS/27. World Education Forum, Dakar, Senegal, April 26-28. Available from http://www.unesco.org/education/efa/wef_2000/. Vasishta, Madan. 2011. “Response: Social Situations and the Education of Deaf Children in India.” In Deaf Around the World: The Impact of Language, edited by Gaurav Mathur and Donna Jo Napoli, 352-358. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199732548.003.0022.

CHAPTER EIGHT A FAIRER FUTURE? IN SEARCH OF NEW MEANINGS OF INCLUSION FOR MARGINALIZED YOUNG PEOPLE: IN THEIR OWN WORDS ALISON FIELDING

1. Background to the research project Discussions with careers practitioners and colleagues about the nature of “inclusion” and “inclusive education” were the starting point for the project that forms the basis for the study presented in this chapter. We were exploring what it means to be part of society at a time when some of the certainties were being dismantled. This was in the time just following the 2010 General Election in the UK, and policy was being rewritten by the new Coalition Government. Finding out what the Government’s idea of “inclusion” might be proved difficult, though their document “The Equality Strategy—Building a Fairer Britain” (Government Equalities Office 2010) sets out some broad policy strands. How far do young people’s experiences reflect the government ideals? This question set the scene for this preliminary small-scale research project. It struck me that much of the literature was written about young people (Coleman 2011) and I decided to adopt a more, young person-centred approach— effectively to begin to find out what young people think about their own lives.

2. Methodology My research is qualitative. I am concerned to understand individuals’ perceptions of their world through their reports of their experiences (Denscombe 2010). A narrative approach recognizes the intrinsic value of

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the stories recorded, as well as providing an opportunity for the participants to begin to understand the significance of their own narratives, and the possibility of working with the themes as they arise (Merrill and West 2009). The value of a small-scale research project with a narrative focus lies not in the generalizability of the data, but in the recognition of emerging themes, relevant to the specific group at a particular moment in time, which may inform further research (Andrews 2007, Merrill and West 2009). It is increasingly recognised that the “voice” of members of disadvantaged and marginalized groups is not heard, and this is especially the case for young people (Coleman 2011). This point was particularly important for me in this research study, and fits well with latest Government thinking (Department for Education 2011, 71): It is essential that the voice of young people that is heard through youth participation arrangements reflects the diversity of local young people and their experiences, and the views and needs of those who may not otherwise have their voice heard.

Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2010) suggest that focus groups can be appropriate where there is a wish to develop themes flexibly, to draw on the insights of the group members, to gather data on attitudes and values, and to provide a forum for participants to speak out in their own words. Focus groups are useful for collecting qualitative data, and the narratives of the young people recorded in the session provide a rich source of insight into the opinions of the participants (Cohen, Manion and Morrison 2010). Analysis of the data gathered followed Merrill and West’s immersive process, integrating “data, interpretation, theory and process insights into a living document” (2009, 137). In this chapter, I attempt to capture and present that living document. The intention of this small-scale study, is not to draw generalisations from the research (Andrews 2007), though it is hoped that the narratives of the young people will provide a background for future debate about the nature of inclusion during the second decade of the 21st century. The intention was to provide a “transactional space” (Merrill and West 2009) for the young people to share their thoughts, and the opportunity to tell their stories enabled them to clarify their ideas and begin to construct meaning of their situations through the narratives (Cohen, Manion and Morrison 2011).

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3. Research questions The main research question for the study was “How do young people describe their experiences of education and what it means to be included?” In order to explore this, I facilitated a loosely structured discussion based around some broad questions: x What do you hope to achieve in your life? x What things or people can help you to achieve or may prevent you achieving? x What areas of your life would you like to see improved? x How could this happen, and who should make it happen? I chose not to use the terms “inclusion” or “exclusion” so as not to lead the young people to respond in particular ways (Reid and Fielding 2007).

4. The research process A focus group meeting was held in early February 2011. The session lasted approximately one hour, and was recorded, and transcribed verbatim. In analysing the data, I listened repeatedly to the recording to immerse myself in it, and used Linden West’s (Merrill and West 2009) proforma to capture the emerging and developing themes. I chose to use a focus group approach for a number of reasons. Firstly, and pragmatically, the opportunity was offered by a school to spend a morning with young people who were students there. In addition, a focus group approach has a number of advantages when the participants’ agenda is predominant (Cohen, Manion and Morrison 2011), as in this situation. The tone of the session was deliberately informal to enable the young people to express their views freely. All the participants were involved on a voluntary basis, and consent was sought from the young people in advance, and a consent letter was also sent to parents/carers by the school. The group was not necessarily intended to be representative of the wider population, rather the discussions aimed to provide a picture of these young people’s lives, the issues that concerned them at the time, and their thoughts about their future.

5. Narratives, politics and young people To hear some young people’s own stories seemed a good starting point. Merrill and West share their “belief, based on extensive experience of

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doing biographical research, that such methods offer rich insights into the dynamic interplay of individuals and history, inner and outer worlds, self and other” (2009, 1). This interplay was something I hoped to capture in conversations with young people, particularly at a time of significant political change. I was initially concerned that politics might get in the way, but it soon became apparent that, as this is an overtly political issue, it is not possible to discuss experiences of inclusion and exclusion without addressing the political context. The young people involved in the focus group were themselves very politically aware. My anxieties were allayed by Andrews: Finally, how do people place themselves within the political world that they identify? I am, then, interested in what kinds of stories people tell about how the world works, how they explain the engines of political change, and the role they see themselves, and those whom they regard as being part of their group, as playing in this ongoing struggle (2007, 8).

This expressed my own thoughts so well that it gave me confidence to address the political aspects of the young people’s stories as they arose. The power of stories to bring about change, to shape reality, is at the heart of narrative approaches to work with young people (Winslade and Monk 2007), and I was conscious throughout the research process that young people have knowledge about their world, but may never have had the opportunity to express this and to be taken seriously. One of my key motivations was to enable professionals and policy makers to hear the concerns of the young people.

6. Focus group The focus group was made up of five students at a state secondary school in South-West London. They were all in Year 11 (aged 15) and due to take their GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) examinations in June 2011. The young people volunteered to take part. The school is in one of the most deprived areas of London, with one of the highest proportions of deprived households, and the highest proportion of severely deprived households. The area has a large proportion of “other white” people, including many Portuguese people, as well as an increasing Black population. A large proportion of these were born outside of the EU (Lambeth Council 2012). Many students at the school have English as their second or third language, and do not speak English at home. Against this backdrop, the school has a strong culture of inclusion, and works in many ways to ensure that all pupils have the opportunity to

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achieve. It has recently gained Academy status (Department for Education, online). The opportunity to undertake some research in the school came about as a result of my involvement in teaching members of non-teaching staff on the Foundation degree in Working with Young People and Young People’s Services. I had heard from them about initiatives in the school to ensure inclusion, such as the various centers for students with specific needs—for example ESOL (English as a second or other language), various learning difficulties, behavior problems—all encompassed within what is referred to as “School within a school” so that students still see themselves as part of the school despite specialized or individualized provision. I was interested to know how these are perceived by the pupils. The young people were all high achievers within the school, were used to working together, and volunteered their time to the project. They had all taken some GCSEs in the summer of 2010, and were due to complete the rest in 2011. In addition, they attended a local college one day a week where they were studying for a vocational diploma. Reflecting the school population, the group included young people from different ethnic backgrounds, including African/Afro Caribbean, Asian and White British: U hopes to become a Doctor, though she understands the challenge that this will entail. C has ambitions to become a photographer. K wants to go on to study Law eventually, to become a Barrister and then a Judge. O is also keen to become a Doctor, but also has ideas about the kind of family life he would like. A’s ambition is to become a professional footballer, and he says that several professional clubs are ‘watching him’. His other idea would be to become a teacher. Archer considers the experiences of minority ethnic young people in education, and suggests that they “complexly are variously excluded from the identity of the ‘ideal pupil’—and that these positionings are shaped by racialized, gendered and classed discourses” (2010, 247). This complexity and variety will be explored in relation to the young people’s experiences.

7. Findings—Key themes Three key themes emerged from the analysis of the focus group discussion:

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x The pressure that young people feel to do well in education and achieve academically x Concerns for their future, particularly around going to university x The political awareness of the young people These themes will be illustrated by using the young people’s own words, and explored in relation to current theory and policy. Discussion will, in this way, be placed in the context of the young people’s experiences, as Reid and Fielding (2007) suggest.

7.1. Pressure to do well in education and achieve academically As these young people were all identified by the school as particularly able, there were expectations that they would do well and achieve academically. This has benefits for the school in terms of league tables, but, as Furlong and Cartmell suggest, “young people are pitted against each other in a bid to maximise their educational attainments so as to survive in an increasingly hostile world” (2007, 16). This brought advantages and disadvantages for the participants, for example U said: U: Also, I would say this is a positive thing and a negative thing. You know like in some schools they have like, they say some students are gifted and talented—they put you on more courses, but it doesn’t mean you can do all this. They put us on this college course, and it’s really hard, the amount of work we have to do is a lot, and yeah, they expect a lot from us, but there’s only so much we can do. Like I revised really hard for my science but that doesn’t mean I can balance it with my college work.

The additional pressure of a vocational diploma affected all the young people: C: I think personally, the two years they sent us [to college], it’s like the most important years, and me and U do Society, Health and Development at L College and we do it all on a Friday, and what they do is they tell us we’ve got to get this done by so-and-so, and we think well OK. So, we’re still struggling, but we’re getting pressured and told we should get this done by then, but most of the time we’re doing exams early and then we do retakes, we get a chance to do them again so it’s all that work together. Sometimes it just gets over you and you can’t concentrate and you forget what you have to do.

The college environment, different from the calm order at school, was also an issue:

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The differing expectations of school and college led to tension: U: And also, the teacher at the college, [...] she thought we were just doing exams in June and July, and it was just our Maths, English and Science and maybe one extra subject. And we were like ‘no we’ve got lots of extra ones added on cos we’ve done some early’. And she didn’t realise that and she gave us lots and lots of work to complete by a certain time, and when we came in the next week she was like ‘You guys haven’t completed it, you’re taking liberties’ so we said ‘Miss, have you sat down and thought what we’re doing at school. We’re not just studying in college, we’re doing school work as well’. C: It’s focus, you’ve got focus on college and you’ve got focus on school work. The last exam series we had, I had to do six exams. (All: six exams!) C: Six exams in the space of two weeks and they expect us to come back to college with our work completed. So how can I finish it?—I’ve got six exams!

Despite the pressure, the young people were able to see the positive side of what they were doing: K: Even though this is all like hard, it’s setting us off to leave school with like 15, 16, GCSEs which is really good. O: Especially this school they let us do our GCSEs early like which means there’s less strain on us in Year 11 when they all come together so it makes it easier to balance it out. C: And like going to college is like really pressuring, but they like really push us to make us push ourselves, maybe what we don’t know we can do. When we leave, maybe pushing myself will prepare me to go out and be more independent, so maybe it has its good points and bad points. It’s just while you’re doing it, you don’t really realise till it’s finished.

The young people recognised that there are many students at their school who are not as motivated as they are, and were concerned about the impact that the behaviour of these students can have on the more motivated ones:

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O: Most people, most people only come to school because it’s compulsory at the age of 16. C: I think if you’re in a classroom and there are people who want to get on with work, and there’s people who aren’t really bothered, I think a lot of the time people who are focused miss out because teachers are too busy telling them off or sorting them out or going up the classroom, that’s time that you’re missing, and all the time in every lesson it all adds up, so I think it does affect your learning. Overall, how much time the teacher spends with pupils who aren’t bothered, and people who are, it adds up, the more you miss out.

This tension is widely recognised both from the perspective of students (Visser et al. 2010) and teachers (McIntyre 2010). The participants in this study were also very aware of the difficulties facing students who were excluded. The tension between the needs of the majority who are engaged in school, and the disruptive few was the subject of some discussion: U: Well maybe instead of school they should use another, sort of, service, maybe not exactly school, maybe like work experience, a bit of learning, create a different sort of environment for those that are not really interested in school. O: But they have centres for that. U: Centres are not the same, as work experience and going into the workplace. K: In centres, like you feel like you have done something wrong to be there. O: You have, though. The point is, you’ve got thrown out of school, so you have to go somewhere. K: Yeah, but, like, everybody deserves as many chances as it takes to improve. They should forgive and forget.

The school places great emphasis on the achievement of large numbers of qualifications at this stage for the most able students, and the latest school Ofsted report1 (2008) highlights possible reasons for this, as, while the “proportion of students who achieve five or more A* to C grades at GCSE including English and mathematics is broadly average”, the “proportion of students who achieve five or more A* to G grades at GCSE is still below the national average although it rose significantly in the most recent examinations”. These able students are contributing to the overall average of GCSE results which can affect the school’s standing. However, it is doubtful whether these results will really make a difference to the young people in the future. As Furlong and Cartmell indicate: “These general systems are inherently inflational in that while young people are provided with an incentive to maximise qualifications, a

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general increase in the stock devalues the currency” (2007, 18). Put simply, the more you have, the less they buy. For these young people, one key advantage that the additional college-based qualifications may provide is the knowledge of what study after school will entail. As C says, it may ensure that they are to some extent prepared for future challenges, and that they feel that they can deal with these.

7.2. Concerns for their future, particularly around going to university The young people were all extremely concerned about the impact that changes in education policy, particularly in relation to funding, would have on their future. British Prime Minister David Cameron’s ideal of the “Big Society” is one in which more power and opportunity is given to individuals. One aspect of this is to devolve decision-making from central to local government (Norman 2010), but at a time of financial constraint the opportunities available to young people are likely to be curtailed. The participants showed themselves to be very aware of what the current economic climate would mean: U: Where are we going to get like the money to pay, and how are we going to pay to get to college, and bus fares and all the transport? They’ve cut EMA2 so how are we actually going to do that. They may say ‘Well you can get a job or we’ll give you vouchers’, but the vouchers only cover the books and that they don’t cover like eating, getting to college. K: So, they’re stopping ways for us to get money so it’s leaving our parents to carry on providing for us, and they’re cutting benefits and stuff like that which is going to make it even harder, so they’re just creating a worse environment.

The young people were also concerned about the impact that rises in university tuition fees would have on their future. All five participants focused in this study hope to go to university, but coming from one of the most deprived areas of South London, they will almost certainly struggle to do this. Despite the Government Equalities Office promising: “We want a fair society where every child has the opportunity to progress as far as their talents will take them, not one in which people’s chances are driven by where they come from, how others see them, or who their parents are” (2010, 8), these students felt strongly that their circumstances would affect what they were able to achieve.

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U: I think the fact that they’ve raised the tuition fees it affects a lot of people especially that live in like poor areas. O: Especially for people like me and U and K, who want to be lawyers and doctors and for university that’s a very long period. For doctors that’s a minimum of 5 years, and they raise the prices which means they’re depriving people from going to university because they can’t afford to go out with like £70,000 debt or something [...] which is astonishing.

The Government Equalities Office recognises that: “The chances for children in lower income families of being socially mobile are lower in the UK than most international counterparts” (2010, 7). For the young people in my focus group this was a worry, and they could not see how they could achieve their aspirations. For K there was a possible solution: K: um well the thought of university like now it hasn’t had an impact on me as much as it has on anyone else because I’m thinking like that’s ages away, everything could change by then, or maybe it won’t be as bad as everyone is making it out to be, so, that’s my back up plan. I plan to go to America to study.

Though she, and the other group members, laughed, for some young people this may become a realistic way forward. The need to earn money to fund their further education was a recurring theme, though the difficulties in actually getting a job were apparent. Young people from disadvantaged backgrounds face greater challenges in this than their more affluent counterparts (Furlong and Cartmell 2007).

7.3. The political awareness of the young people The young people in this study discussed their attitude to their situation from a very politically aware position. A developing political awareness is characteristic of the late teens (Coleman 2011), and all the members of the group said that they thought it was important to vote, in both national and local elections, as this was the means by which they could change their situation. They had had a debate in school about whether the age to vote should be reduced from 18 years to 16 years, and were generally in favour of this. The public perception is that young people lack political awareness, or are even politically apathetic, but this seems not to be the case for these young people, and there is some evidence that increased engagement in education leads to increased political participation (Furlong and Cartmell 2007). The group members all felt that political engagement was the key to changing their lives.

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Social mobility is an important issue, particularly for these young people from a deprived area, and the UK Government have recently published “Opening Doors, Breaking Barriers: A Strategy for Social Mobility”, in which they state: A fair society is an open society, one in which every individual is free to succeed. That is why improving social mobility is the principal goal of the Government’s social policy. No one should be prevented from fulfilling their potential by the circumstances of their birth. What ought to count is how hard you work and the skills and talents you possess, not the school you went to or the jobs your parents did (Cabinet Office 2011, 5).

They recognise that the income and social class of parents still has a significant influence on outcomes for young people, and that there are challenges for Government in addressing this. However, for the young people in the group, the reality may be different. Roberts (2011, 182) states: [I]t is not difficult to demonstrate that people who are born into different social classes have very different, very unequal life chances. […] Within Sociology a prevalent feeling has always been, and remains, that lifechance inequalities are so wide that they cannot possibly reflect neither more nor less than merit alone.

The young people recognised how hard it would be to break out of the environment in which they are growing up, despite their determination to succeed and the efforts they are willing to put in to achieve. U: I think the government have sort of been like blind, in that they set sort of laws and that, but they haven’t been in the same position we have. They haven’t had the experience of being raised in an area where there’s high crime rate. They don’t give us the support that we should deserve because we’re, like, lower class. I think the fact that they’ve raised the tuition fees, it affects a lot of people especially that live in like poor areas.

There was also a feeling that, despite the expectations to succeed placed on the young people by the school, there was a lack of understanding of the social barriers they faced. O is an Afro-Caribbean young man whose chances of succeeding educationally and occupationally are reduced because of his ethnic background (Furlong and Cartmell 2007, Roberts 2011). He wanted to be seen as an individual rather than a stereotype.

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O: I also think the teachers, they can prevent you because they don’t see your full potential. They put you in, like, a category and it is very difficult to break out of there, so I think they don’t give you enough help and take their time to understand you as well.

This was also echoed by U: U: They fail to see us all as individuals, and I think it’s important to promote individuality, diversity, so no one person’s the same as everyone else.

One of the young people, A, felt that he had a possible way of improving his situation. At the time of the focus group discussion he was hopeful that he would have a good chance of becoming a professional footballer. A: I am actually pretty close [to the dream of football] and I’ve got a lot of people helping me like my coach, like a personal coach to help me to become a footballer because I’ve had a lot of like professional teams like watching me and liking what they see.

Young people very often disengage with sport as pressure of school work increases in the later teens (Coleman 2011), though A was determined to continue to work towards his dream. Sport, and football, in particular, has often been seen as a means for working class young people to create a better future for themselves. The group identified some of the problems associated with this and talked about Wayne Rooney as an example: A: The way the media portray young footballers, like, they claim that they’re like bad. Say like Wayne Rooney for instance, he probably got forced [to do things] like, he may have gone through, like a breakdown and started doing bad things. It all changes when he tries to be good, but people still portray him as a bad person. O: He’s a role model in society. People look up to him. You expect him to behave well, cos people’s wages go on him cos when they go see him play they pay. So, you expect him to be portrayed in a positive way and when he does negative things it rubs off on children, so yes, he deserves to be scrutinised in the media.

One of the attractions of a football career for A is the possibility of earning a lot of money, and achieving financial independence. Young people typically remain dependent on their parents for longer than the previous generation, and their family has a significant impact on their

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attitude to education (Furlong and Cartmell 2007). All the young people identified their families, as key sources of support for their aspirations, though, for K, there were some contradictions. K: Your family could be a big issue towards what you do, like I live with my sister and I help her a lot with her baby, but it sort of hinders me from doing my school work and completing work on deadlines, so if your family doesn’t realise all the stuff that you have to do then they’re really going to get in the way, so you need [...] you need to be alone just every once in a while.

K’s sister, with whom she lives, offers support, but had a very different experience of education and has little understanding of the pressures facing K, so she cannot meet K’s needs. K: And, like, adults, they fail to see how much we have to go through. When I talk to my sister, she, like, says ‘You have it easy compared to what we had it’, and I’m like ‘No, we don’t because there’s like new stuff introduced to school now and we do this, that and the other’. Every time I come home and complain about school, she’s always, like, ’You’re meant to be a smart girl, they wouldn’t put it on you if you didn’t know what you was doing’. And it’s like I’m not coming home to tell you for you to throw it back in my face, I want you to give me advice, I want you to support me.

The idea that social and cultural capital has an impact on levels of attainment, with middle-class children having significant advantage over their lower-class counterparts (Furlong and Cartmell 2007), is clearly an aspect of K’s experience. Despite the challenges, all the young people had a very optimistic view of their future, and a determination to succeed.

7.4. Fairer Future The young people in this study were keen to end the discussion by looking forward. Despite possible barriers to success—and Archer (2010) suggests that traditional definitions of success may not be appropriate for many young people—their aspirations remain intact: O: I’m actually excited especially as we’re leaving this year. And the college I’m going to there’s not going to be many people from this school so there’ll be the opportunity to make new friends. And A Levels are going to be difficult, I know that, and there’s going to be extra pressure but not sixteen subjects, only four.

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K: Like my visions of the future, I said I want to be a lawyer but, like, I have no practical plan of how to get there but, like, now I’m starting to think about things more and do things to help me get there quicker and easier, but yeah, it’s exciting. You want to be able to grow up and experience life, how adults experience it and like handle your own problems, and have your own responsibility. C: I think the future is quite interesting cos you never know what could happen so it’s taking every day as it comes and trying my best. That’s what I’m most excited about. A: I would like to become a professional football player, or a teacher. The things that may help to get to where I want to be are my qualifications and my positive attitude.

Government initiatives acknowledge the need to support these young people and their contemporaries in achieving their goals. The Equality Strategy (Government Equalities Office) makes this clear: It is not right or fair that people are discriminated against because of who they are or what they believe. So, we need to stop that discrimination and change behaviour. And it is not right or fair that the opportunities open to people are not based on their ambition, ability or hard work, but on who their parents are or where they live. So, we need to break down the barriers that hold people back and give them the opportunities to succeed (2010, 6).

How this aspiration will be achieved remains to be seen.

8. Conclusions My motivation in undertaking this admittedly small-scale research project was to allow the young people’s voices to be heard. As is often the case with narrative research, we are left with a new set of questions, rather than generalizable conclusions (Andrews 2008). The young people focused in this study do not talk about “inclusion” and “exclusion”, but have definite views about how society could be “fairer”. New definitions remain elusive, but the young people who took part in this research study will, no doubt, continue to have strong views about the nature of the society in which they live. Hopefully, they will also want to have an impact on how that society develops a fairer approach to all. These issues, that seem to me of greatest significance, are related to ensuring the continued engagement of young people in ensuring that their future is fairer, that they do not lose their political commitment as a means to achieve this, and that they continue to have the opportunity for their

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voice to be heard. This is not straightforward, as Archer suggests: The question remains, of course, as to how such trenchant and persistent inequalities might be usefully challenged. [...] The power of these discourses, and the complex way in which they coalesce, are slippery and resistant to rational intervention (2010, 247).

The young people in this study felt positive about their future, though aware of the difficulties that they may face. It seems appropriate, therefore, to leave the last word to one of the young people, looking forward to her possible role in ensuring a Fairer Future: U: Yeah, for the future, I want to the person, or the representative for some of the groups that struggle. People will be amazed to think, well she has actually done it, so a sense of pride and, like, you’ve completed your goal.

Notes 1

Ofsted is the Office for Standards in Education, the Government official body for inspecting schools. This report has not been referenced due to the confidentiality agreement with the school in relation to this research, whereby the school would not be identifiable. 2 Educational Maintenance Allowance was a £30 per week allowance to enable young people from poorer backgrounds to continue in education post-16. It closed in January 2011. It is replaced by a bursary scheme for students aged 16-19 in financial hardship, but many young people are unaware of this.

References Andrews, Molly. 2007. Shaping History: Narratives of Political Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —. 2008. “Never the last word: Revisiting data.” In Doing Narrative Research, edited by Molly Andrews, Corinne Squire and Maria Tambouku, 86-101. London and Thousand Oaks: Sage. Archer, Louise. 2010. “The impossibility of minority ethnic educational ‘success’? An examination of the discourses of teachers and pupils in British secondary schools.” In Equality, Participation and Inclusion 2: Diverse Contexts, edited by Jonathan Rix, Melanie Nind, Kieron Sheehy and Katy Simmons, 232-249. Abingdon: Routledge. Cabinet Office. 2011. Opening Doors, Breaking Barriers: A Strategy for Social Mobility. London: HM Government. Cohen, Louis, Manion, Lawrence and Morrison, Keith. 2011. Research

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Methods in Education, 7th ed. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Coleman, John. 2011. The Nature of Adolescence. 4th ed. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Denscombe, Martyn. 2010. The Good Research Guide: For small-scale social research projects. 4th ed. Maidenhead: Open University Press/McGraw Hill. Department for Education. 2011. Postive for Youth. A new approach to cross-government policy for young people aged 13 to 19. London: HM Government. —. 2012 “About Academies” Accessed April 10 2012. http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/leadership/typesofschools/acade mies/b0061252/about-academies Furlong, Andy and Cartmell, Fred. 2007. Young People and Social Change. 2nd ed. Maidenhead: Open University Press/McGraw Hill. Government Equalities Office. 2010. The Equality Strategy. Building a Fairer Britain. London: HM Government. Lambeth Council. 2012. “Lambeth.” Accessed April 10 2012. http://www.lambeth.gov.uk/NR/exeres/611F94A3-F7D2-4B0E-BA3FCD221C452AAB.htm McIntyre, Donald. 2010. “Has classroom teaching served its day?” In Equality, Participation and Inclusion 1: Diverse Perspectives, edited by Jonathan Rix, Melanie Nind, Kieron Sheehy and Katy Simmons, 6789. Abingdon: Routledge. Merrill, Barbara and West, Linden. 2009. Using Biographical Methods in Social Research. London: Sage. Norman, Jesse. 2010. The Big Society. The Anatomy of the New Politics. Buckingham: University of Buckingham Press. Reid, Hazel and Fielding, Alison. 2007. Providing Support to Young People: A guide to interviewing in helping relationships. Abingdon: Routledge. Roberts, Kenneth. 2011. Class in Contemporary Britain. 2nd ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Visser, John, Cole, Ted and Daniels, Harry. 2010. “Inclusion for the difficult to include.” In Equality, Participation and Inclusion 2: Diverse Contexts, edited by edited by Jonathan Rix, Melanie Nind, Kieron Sheehy and Katy Simmons, 43-50. Abingdon: Routledge. Winslade, John and Monk, Gerald. 2007. Narrative Counselling in Schools. Powerful and Brief. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks: Corwin Press.

PART III: MARGINALIZATION INSIDE, OUTSIDE AND ACROSS ADULT EDUCATIONAL SETTINGS

CHAPTER NINE BECOMING AN IMMIGRANT IN THE LANGUAGE LEARNING CLASSROOM: INTERSECTIONS OF GENDER AND NATIONAL IDENTITY JENNY ROSÉN

1. Introduction Teacher: Hilda: Teacher: Samira: Teacher: Hilda: Teacher:

you got it a bit tough at home yes yeh hihihi you get to work a lot not help but (.) oh then you have to tell your [husband] (.) if he is going [yes hihihi] to live in Sweden then he has to start helping out a bit

Transcript 9-1. Identity investment in a language learning classroom

The conversation displayed in the transcript above (excerpted from Transcript 9-4) took place in a language focused classroom between a teacher and two students we shall call Hilda and Samira. Hilda and Samira are students in the Swedish language learning program, Swedish for immigrants (SFI). The SFI program was developed in the mid-1960s for adult immigrants who lack basic language skills in Swedish. Hilda and Samira participate in one of the five classrooms included in the research project Categorization of Identities and Communication (CIC)1. Project CIC is interested in both the social practices and the discourses that frame a tailored education for adult immigrants in Sweden. The aim of the study presented here, which is part of the project, is to illuminate the complex relationship between gender equality and integration policies in the

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learning and the doing of identity positions among participants in the SFI program. As noted by Pavlenko and Lantolf, language learning can be seen as “a struggle of concrete, socially constituted, and always situated beings to participate in the symbolically mediated lifeworld of another culture” (2000, 155). Language learning involves the investment of one’s identity as well as a transformation of that identity, as students negotiate their position in relation to the community of practice in which they seek to participate (Kanno and Norton 2003). Thus, learning a new language, which is the explicit aim of the SFI program, involves a transformation of identities, as people negotiate who they are and who they can become in their new community. Taking a sociohistorical and postcolonial point of departure, the study presented here examines the doing of identity positions in the language focused classrooms included in project CIC. The concept of identity is used as “a way of talking about how learning changes who we are and creates personal histories of becoming in the context of our communities” (Wenger 1998, 5; see also Bagga-Gupta, Hansen and Feilberg 2017). However, as will be developed in this chapter, the transformation of identity is viewed as a gendered process involving the negotiation of gender in relation to class, ethnicity, race, age and other positions. The interaction between the teacher, Samira and Hilda in Transcript 91 is one empirical example of how boundaries between immigrants and Swedes are constructed through discourses about gender and gender equality. A number of researchers have examined the relationship between gender equality and integration in Sweden, highlighting that gender equality is imagined as a central part of “Swedishness” (e.g. Carbin 2008, de los Reyes, Molina and Mulinari 2005, de los Reyes and Mulinari 2005, Eduards 2007, Magnusson, Rönnblom and Silius 2008, Towns 2002). Little attention, in a Swedish context, has been given to the relationships between gender, race and class within educational spaces such as the SFI program. The complex relationships between gender, race, class, language and age when learning a language have only been partially addressed by scholars in the United States and Canada. The researchers who have addressed these relationships have been able to show the importance of gendered identity in second language learning (e.g. Menard-Warvick 2009, Norton 2000, Skilton-Sylvester 2004, Warriner 2004, 2007, 2010). This chapter is divided into five sections, starting with this introduction. In the next section, the empirical materials are presented. Next, the theoretical framework emerging from sociohistorical and feminist postcolonial theory is addressed. The analysis and the findings of the study are presented in the section titled Findings and analysis: Identity work in

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the language learning classroom. Three transcripts are used in order to illustrate the analysis. The transcripts have been translated from Swedish and are available in the original form in Appendix C2. In the final section, the main findings of this study are highlighted and discussed.

2. The study The study presented here draws upon work conducted within project CIC. The focus of the project has been the social practices and discourses that frame a language learning course which has been designed for adult immigrants in Sweden. The project encompasses historical text material including curricula, commission reports, public inquiries, political proposals, laws and teacher manuals from 1965 to 2011, and approximately 95 hours of audio and video material, including ethnographic field notes from five different classroom settings involved in the SFI program. The audio and video material, including field notes, was created during an ethnographic study at a learning centre for SFI, in Sweden. The material was created through participation in a range of activities both inside and outside the project classrooms during the first decade of the 21st century. This chapter presents an analysis of material collected from two of the five participating classrooms. Participants in the typical SFI classroom include 10-20 persons categorized as adult immigrants. These adults have diverse language experiences and cultural resources. The students in these two classrooms, came from the various geopolitical spaces of Iraq, Somalia, Palestine, Thailand, and Serbia. Most of the students had been institutionally categorized as immigrants with poor or limited educational backgrounds. At the time of the classroom observations, the amount of time the students had been studying at the learning center ranged between a few weeks to a year. During this time, the students had participated in the lower level course within the SFI program. Every class had one teacher who taught the students until they were ready to move up to the next level. An educational program designed for immigrants, SFI has been an established educational program in Sweden since 1965. SFI is free of charge for persons categorized as belonging to the intended target group. The program is organized at the municipal level, delivered either through the adult education program organized by the municipality or through private agencies (see also Rosén and Bagga-Gupta 2013, Rosén 2013, 2017). The overall aim of the program was described in the 2012 syllabus as follows:

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Swedish Tuition for Immigrants is advanced language instruction aiming to give adult immigrants basic knowledge of the Swedish language. Students with a mother tongue other than Swedish should in the education learn and develop a functioning second language. The education should provide language tools for communication and active participation in daily activities, societal and working life (National Board of Education 2012).

3. Theoretical framework 3.1. Gender and nation Feminist scholars have stressed that, historically, women have been given contradictory roles in the construction of nations. Early feminist works on nationalism focused primarily on making women’s active participation in nation formations and national struggles visible and explored the different ways women are affected by ethnic and national transformations (Anthias and Yuval-Davis 1992, Cockburn 1998, Enloe 1990, Jayawardena 1986, Yuval-Davis 1997). Legitimizing control of women in the name of the nation has taken different forms of expression in diverse contexts. A case can be made that in societies, such as Sweden, where emancipation and gender equality are perceived as a central part of the national identity, women tend to be controlled in order to maintain stereotypical images. According to Eduards (2007), there is interdependence between nationally coded gender politics and the emancipating and democratic forces in the discourses of national identity, security, welfare, and democracy. However, female participation in the national project is complex and there is not one “female experience”, since gendered identity positions are embedded in structures of race, class, sexuality and (dis)ablity (de los Reyes, Molina and Mulinari 2005, de los Reyes and Mulinari 2005, Mohanty 2004). The need for intersectional analysis, including an analysis of the different categories, has been stressed (see e.g., Davis 2011, Lykke 2003, 2005, 2011, Marx Ferree 2011, Yuval-Davies 2011a, 2011b). The decision to utilize an intra-category approach (McCall 2005) is based on the fact that the present study does not aim to deconstruct categories, but rather to examine how people negotiate meaning through categorizations in a specific educational context. By scrutinizing the use categorizations in social interactions, the construction of identities, by the participants, in the language learning classroom is highlighted. A number of scholars in the feminist and postcolonial fields have spoken out against the essentialism and universalism of women (e.g. heterosexuality and whiteness), and against the generalization of

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patriarchy that has positioned women as passive recipients and nonparticipants in the determination of gender relations. Behind the concept of universalism lies a hegemonic system of norms that, in a historical perspective, has legitimized global relationships based on domination. However, while trying to avoid a universal understanding of women, some feminists have, instead, essentialized cultural differences (Narayan 2000, Wikan 2002). Hence, women living in or born in geographical spaces of the so-called “Third World” have been viewed as the Other, often in terms of passive victims (objects) of barbaric and primitive practices. In the Global North, scholars have examined the construction of gender equality as a core value of Swedish (Nordic) national identity. Several researchers in the feminist and postcolonial fields have shown how certain understandings of gender equality (between men and women) and a feminist consciousness are constructed as a central part of Swedish national identity (Carbin 2008, de los Reys, Molina and Mulinari 2005, de los Reyes and Mulinari 2005, Eduards 2007, Honkanen 2008, Keskinen 2009, Magnusson, Rönnblom and Silius 2008, Towns 2002, Tuori 2007). In an ethnocentric discourse, in which gender equality is defined in accordance to Swedish norms, women and men who have migrated to Sweden are positioned as outsiders. A specific understanding of gender becomes a marker for difference in Swedish society (de los Reyes 2005), thereby constructing a binary position between Swedes and Others (see Bagga-Gupta 2017a, 2017b). Values understood as specifically Swedish (such as gender equality, the right to choose one’s partner, men who disassociate themselves from domestic violence, and caring fathers) are perceived as threatened by the Other (see Hübinette and Lundström 2011). According to Towns (2002), the perception of Sweden as an international champion of gender equality and a model for other countries emerged in the mid-1990s as a result of several processes: Swedish membership in the EU in 1995; the declaration at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 that Sweden was the most gender equal state; the declaration by the Interparliamentary Union in 1995 that Sweden had the most gender equal political system; and the 1994 Swedish elections, in which gender equality became an important political issue. Hence, the discourse regarding gender equality became “implicated in a new inequality, namely the categorization of the population of Sweden into ‘Swedes’ and ‘immigrants’ and the hierarchical ordering of these categories” (Towns 2002, 174).

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3.2. The doing of identities For many people, modern life is an existence filled with complexity and instability, where boundaries regarding place and time are continuously being challenged. In a globalized world, people move across national borders legally or illegally. By doing so they not only traverse geographical spaces, but are also positioned through specific discourses into certain categories, such as immigrants, asylum seekers, foreigners or second language speakers. Societies that continue to be dominated by the ideal of the nation-state, set boundaries between insiders and outsiders on the basis of such categorizations. According to feminist and postcolonial writers, such processes are always gendered since notions of nation and ethnicity are intertwined with those of gender and class. The linguistic turn has emphasized the importance of language and language use in relation to identity. In the past, research on gender and language was dominated by a fixed, modernist understanding which attempted to illustrate the differences in male and female language usage (Coates 1993, Lakoff 1975). As part of a general post-structuralist paradigm shift, the focus has moved towards the construction, negotiation, and reconstruction of gender identities in linguistic practices. The work of Butler (1997, 2007) has brought into focus the performance of gender, that “there is no gender identity behind the expression of gender” (1990, 25). Hence, “language is thought of ‘mostly as agency—an act with consequences’, an extended doing, a performance with effects” (Butler 1997, 7). Performative theory deals with language as an act and the way in which individuals, through their use of language, construct categories, Butler uses the classical work of J. L. Austin (1962) about “doing things with words” in order to show how people use language to perform certain identities in their daily acts, where norms regarding the concepts of male and female are negotiated and performed. Individuals act upon these norms as they perform their gender identities in everyday life. However, “it is not simply that the speech act takes place within a practice, but that the act is itself a ritualized practice”, meaning that “a performative ‘works’ to the extent that it draws on and covers over the constitutive conventions by which it is mobilized” (Butler 1997:51). Thus, the idea of performativity reveals how identity positions are constructed through and within the use of language or languaging (Bagga-Gupta 2013, 2014a, 2014b, 2017a, 2017b). In similar manner, a dialogical approach on language (Bakthin 1981, Linell 1998, 2009) stresses that meaning (including identity) is constructed, rather than expressed, during the interaction between participants. Thus, it

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is through languaging that meaning about ourselves and our identity positions, are constituted, negotiated, and transformed (Bagga-Gupta, Hansen and Feilberg 2017). Linell emphasizes the indispensable interplay between situated interactions and sociocultural resources and practices. Here he highlights a “double dialogicality”, where participants in a communicative activity are engaged, both in the situated interaction and in a sociocultural (trans-situational) praxis (Linell 2009).

4. Findings and analysis: Identity work in the language learning classroom This section consists of an analysis of the construction and negotiation of identity positions in two classrooms included in project CIC. Three excerpts are used to illustrate the identity work of the participants. The examples reveal how questions regarding gender equality become important markers for constructing differences between the concepts of modern and traditional, good and bad, and, Swedes and immigrants. As noted earlier, previous research has pointed out how images of the traditional immigrant have been constructed in opposition to the modern, democratic and gender equal Swede. Such images are also found in the interaction in the SFI classroom, illustrated in Transcript 9-1 from classroom A. The teacher is introducing an exercise in which students are required to discuss the topic of gay marriage in church, something they had previously viewed on the television news (see Transcript 9-2; the Transcription key is available in Appendix B). The teacher writes, “It is good that homosexuals can marry in church”, on the board and instructs the students to begin their discussions on the topic. However, the students are not sure about the meaning of the word homosexual and therefore ask the teacher to clarify its meaning. One student, Miriam, who is taking part in this conversation, shifts the topic towards marriage and the rights of women and men in Iraq. In the conversation, displayed in Transcript 9-2, Miriam introduces the issue of marriage between men and women in Iraq and the fact that people cannot choose to marry who they want. By doing so, Miriam restores a heterosexual norm to the discussion about marriage. The teacher seems uncertain about what Miriam is trying to say, as shown in line 46, when she begins her turn with “you mean”, but expresses an interpretation that concerns parents in Iraq deciding who their children can marry. Miriam does not fully agree or perhaps does not understand the teacher’s interpretation and there is an uncertainty of sorts displayed in lines 48-49,

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Transcript 9-2. Constructing traditional immigrants and progressive Swedes T: Teacher; M: Miriam student; A: Amhne student

until the teacher says that it is a good question. Miriam confirms this (line 51) and is then asked by the teacher to explain why women and men in Iraq cannot marry who they wish to (line 52). Miriam begins by repeating the teacher’s query, which in view of the intonation and the break that follows may be interpreted as a query in order to be certain about what the teacher has asked. Miriam then continues to explain that men and women cannot marry anyone they want to and that in Iraq parents often ask children to marry their cousins (lines 53-54). Although not being able to marry whoever one wishes to is addressed as a problem by Miriam in her initial questioning of the practice (line 43), the teacher asks her twice if she thinks whether this is a good practice. The fact that the teacher repeats the question even though Miriam clearly responds to it in line 56, shows that the teacher is trying to make the point that this is neither a good nor acceptable practice (outside of Iraq). Embedded in the teacher’s question is the insinuation that Miriam, who is positioned as an immigrant woman

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from a Muslim country, is expected to regard such practices as normal or legitimate. In her final turn (lines 64-66), the teacher makes a clear distinction between the problem addressed by Miriam and the situation in Sweden. Through her words and body language she expresses that although such practices—like parents choosing marriage partners for their sons and daughters—may have existed in Sweden in the not-too-distant past, they are not part of contemporary modern life. By using both her body language and her words to display how such traditions took place in Sweden a long time ago (“one hundred years ago”), the teacher not only positions Sweden and herself (as a Swede), as modern and gender-equal, but also positions the practices in places where immigrants like Miriam are born, as traditional and unequal. Thus, the identity position of the good, modern, egalitarian Sweden is constructed by the teacher who, at the same time, ascribes to Miriam (and other students) a traditional, unequal, and inferior position as immigrant(s). A similar pattern of identity work can be seen in classroom B where, as illustrated in Transcript 9-3, a binary position between immigrants representing the “traditional”, in opposition to the “modern” Swede, is carried out by the teacher. The conversation in the transcript is part of a longer discussion about the division of labor between men and women in a household. This is a topic that surfaces on several occasions in classroom B. One of the women in the class, who positioned herself and is positioned by the teacher as a Thai woman, describes how she takes care of her husband and the household. Her husband is positioned as Swedish and the discussion revolves around the relationship between Thai women who marry Swedish men and inequalities regarding the division of labor between them. Women linked to the geopolitical spaces of Thailand are characterized in the conversation as “Thai women”. Women in this category are spoken of as objects, having been brought to Sweden in order to take care of the household and their Swedish husbands. As was seen in Transcript 9-2, participants in the conversation in Transcript 9-3 have a perception of gender equality as being a part of their image of contemporary Sweden, whereas a traditional division of labor between women and men is viewed as a part of the past, i.e., old Sweden. The teacher positions himself as having the identity of a good Swedish husband who is free from gender bias (lines 12-19). He compares his own relationship with his wife to that of his father and his father’s generation, positioning the men of the older generation as incompetent and unable to take care of themselves (lines 8-12). With regards to a longer, earlier conversation about Swedish men bringing Thai women to care for them and their households, the teacher positions himself in opposition to

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incompetent men who need to be taken care of, thereby creating an alternative Swedish masculinity. The category of immigrant women is further subdivided into the category of Thai women, that is, women who previously lived in the geopolitical spaces of Thailand and now reside in

Transcript 9-3. Images of gender equality in Sweden T: Teacher; N: Nadir, student; S: Soria, student; K: Kalaya, student

Sweden—often together with someone categorized as an ethnic Swedish man. Furthermore, the ethnic Swedish man who brings a Thai woman to live with him causes a dilemma with regards to the image of a gender equal, modern and democratic Sweden. The teacher partially resolves this by positioning men who do not do housework as belonging to an older generation, while modern Swedish men take care of themselves. The positions ascribed to the teacher’s wife strengthens the image of a gender equal Sweden. Being positioned as a Swedish woman in the conversation, the teacher’s wife is portrayed as a woman who refuses to do all the housework and who will force (lines 14-19) her husband to do his own laundry. The position of the Swedish women as independent, demanding, and equal is created in opposition to that of the Thai women previously discussed in the class. However, the ethnification of gender equality is not uncontested in the classroom. The supposition of gender equality as a specifically Swedish value is challenged by Nadir (line 13), where he positions himself as an

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individual who can take care of himself. This can be interpreted as a sign of resistance to being positioned as an immigrant man tied to culture and tradition. The examples shown in Transcripts 9-2 and 9-3 highlight how binary positions between Swedes as “modern and gender neutral” and the immigrant as “traditional” are negotiated in the classrooms. The interaction represented in Transcript 9-4 illustrates how the transformation of identity, in accordance with a Swedish norm, is regarded as essential for the integration of immigrants into Swedish society. With the aim of discussing different photos in their textbook, the students were divided into smaller groups. The conversation here involves four students and the teacher. The topic is places where one can eat in the summer time. The teacher asks one of the students, Aziza, where they would eat in Somalia, and Aziza tries to explain. Soon the discussion centers on who does the cooking and who does the work of collecting material for starting a fire. The teacher continues by asking the other female students about their role in their households and about the role their husbands play. In line 195 the teacher begins by asking what Samira’s husband does at home. This is a question that Samira does not seem to fully understand, as her answer consists of the phrase “no not husband” (line 196). The teacher then asks if Samira’s husband watches TV and Samira replies by listing several things that her husband does, such as studying, playing Play Station and football, which is also confirmed by Hilda. In line 205, the teacher assesses Samira’s situation at home as difficult because she “get to work a lot” (line 207), thus ascribing to her the identity position of the immigrant woman who is a victim of tradition and inequality. Samira partly confirms this position, but laughs as a face saving action, and later reinforces the teacher’s view by saying that she does not receive any help from her husband (line 208). The teacher responds by suggesting that Samira should tell her husband that if he is going to live in Sweden, he has to start helping out around the house. At this point, Hilda interrupts the teacher and, in line 210, begins giggling. Her giggling can be interpreted as a face-saving strategy. This exchange with Hilda is followed by a similar exchange between the teacher and another student named Aziza. The teacher asks Aziza if her husband helps with the household chores or if he simply leaves the chores to Aziza. Aziza replies in a clipped manner with “no” and “not” to the queries raised by the teacher. The teacher then responds by telling Aziza that if her brother wants to succeed in Sweden, he has to “do things that girls and women do” (lines 225-228). In summary, success for immigrants in Sweden, particularly immigrant men, is tied to a transformation of one’s gender identity. Finally, the teacher

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Transcript 9-4. Integration and expectations of shifts in identity T: Teacher, S: Samira student; H: Hilda, student; A: Aziza, student

closes the discussion by remarking that it is hard to live in Sweden when you are a man, since men need to be willing to perform household chores. As illustrated by the three transcripts presented in this section, inequality is mainly addressed with regard to the division of labor and constructed as a problem that immigrants face. Immigrant men are portrayed as lazy and failing to take care of the household. The geopolitical space of Sweden is presented as a society free from gender bias where immigrants who wish to live and succeed must conform to the cultural norms. Breaking away from traditional ways of being is considered essential in order to thrive in Sweden. However, the identity work being done in the classrooms does not only revolve around the binary positions of Swedes and immigrants, but also the

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institutional identities of teacher and student. The interaction order in the classrooms can be framed in terms of Initiation Response Evaluation (IRE) sequences (Heritage and Clayman 2010, MacBeth 2004). IREs are used by the teacher to position his/herself as an instructor by asking students questions and evaluating their answers. The statements presented by the teachers in lines 209-211 and 223-225 have a lecturing tone, as the teacher tells the two women, Samira and Aziza, what they should say and how they should act in their homes. The sociohistorical tradition of the classroom situation needs to be recalled in order to understand the interactional order of question, response and evaluation illustrated in the three transcripts, and how they shape the identity positions of teacher and student. The division of power embedded in this relationship makes the kind of questioning and lecturing presented by the teacher possible and legitimate. The intersection between the identity positions of Swede and teacher on the one hand, and of immigrant and student on the other hand, strengthens the hierarchy between the participants. In Transcript 9-4, the voices of students like Samira and Aziza are limited to short responses to questions initiated by the teacher. This structure provides the students almost no space to express alternative interpretations of the topics that are being discussed.

5. Conclusion The analysis of the transcripts in the previous section illustrates the ways individuals constitute and negotiate meaning about the world and who they are (their identity positions) in the classroom interaction. Conversations about gender and gender equality constitutited a common theme in the two classrooms presented in this study. In the three examples discussed above, gender and a specific understanding of gender equality intersects with positions of national belonging and ethnicity. These are manifested in the identity positions of the Swede and the Other (the immigrant). With regard to the feminist postcolonial framework referred to earlier, a) the status of women, and b) equality between women and men, are issues through which identity positions are negotiated in the classroom. This mainly takes two forms. First, Sweden and persons categorized as Swedes are invoked and positioned as being free from gender bias, modern, and good, in opposition to individuals who are constructed as the immigrant Other. Thus, the immigrant is associated with the traditions of oppression and inequality. Moreover, fluidity between past, present and future is found in the identity work, as the participants are positioned and position themselves both in relation to their “homelands”, the institutional classroom setting and who they can become in the imagined Swedish

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community. Second, issues concerned with gender equality become a safe topic through which demands of assimilation and adaption by immigrants in Sweden can be addressed. Hence, a specific understanding of gender equality has been regarded as a central part of such Swedish core values. Moreover, since its inception in the mid-1960s, SFI has been seen as a tool to help immigrant women break out of their presumed isolation and away from their presumed traditional gender identity. Thus, empowering immigrant women constitutes an important task in order to reproduce and strengthen the images of the modern, egalitarian Sweden. Finally, there is hierarchical division at work between the two imagined groups, where Swedes not only possess the power to define the concept of gender equality, but also establish the mission of educating immigrants. Accordingly, individuals positioned as Swedes are given both voice and agency. Discussing the oppression of women in terms of an imagined Other does not mean that oppression and marginalization of those positioned as immigrant women does not exist. Oppression, isolation, and marginalization of women regardless of their place of birth exists in the geopolitical spaces of Sweden as well as in other geopolitical spaces. However, when gender equality becomes ethnified as Swedish, women positioned as Swedes are presumed to be treated equally, although many may not experience themselves as such. Thus, people positioned as Swedish women and men are not given a voice to address their oppression or alternative interpretations of gender equality. In addition, those positioned as immigrant women and men are not being given voice or space to address alternative experiences and interpretations of gender equality, since there is an assumption that Swedes have nothing to learn from an immigrant. Thus, voices for alternative interpretations of gender equality are marginalized. Miriam, in Transcript 9-2, serves as a good illustration of this, as she tries to address a problem she has experienced concerning marriage, but she is questioned by the teacher regarding her views on courtship. The notion that persons positioned as belonging to the category of Swedish women may have something to learn from the experiences and knowledge people positioned as immigrants becomes an impossibility. Through the analysis of empirical material, the present study has sought to describe and interpret the intersection of identity positions of gender and national belonging. Thus, the complex relationship between gender equality and integration policies, as well as the perception of gender equality as a central part of “Swedishness”, is present in the SFI classroom. Whereas previous research of this interplay has consisted mainly of analysis of policy documents and newspaper articles, this

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chapter has attempted to show the ways in which similar discourses circulate and shape meaning in and through everyday interactions. While learning Swedish in the SFI classroom, students need to negotiate their identity positions in relation to such discourses, and thus convey the boundaries that demarcate insiders and outsiders in the Swedish community.

Notes 1

www.ju.se/ccd/cic. The translation of talk-in-interaction in the SFI classroom has been a complex process both in the process of transcribing the recorded talk of the participants and later translating it into English. Dimensions related to pronunciation, vocabulary and syntax tend to disappear in the translation process and therefore the original excerpts in Swedish are presented in Appendix C.

2

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CHAPTER TEN EDUCATING DEAF TEACHERS FOR INCLUSION: INCLUSIVE EDUCATION FOR DEAF TEACHERS AASE LYNGVÆR HANSEN

1. Introduction Norwegian Sign Language (NSL) has been both the language of instruction and a core subject for deaf students with NSL as their primary language since the school reform of 1997 in Norway, which implemented a new curriculum for grades 1 through 10 (primary and lower secondary school) (KUF 1996). The Norwegian curriculum reform in 2006 also included upper secondary schools, so deaf pupils now have NSL as a core subject and a language of instruction throughout all of their school years (UDIR 2006). Just as the goals and philosophy of the primary and secondary curriculum are mirrored in the regular teacher education program, the goals and philosophy of the bilingual (NSL and Norwegian) curriculum for deaf pupils are mirrored in the teacher education program for deaf students. This chapter builds on an analysis of empirical material from teacher education within a Norwegian context (Hansen 2005). For many years, groups of deaf students have been participating in a four-year teacher education program at a teacher training institution. After completing the program, they are qualified as teachers for deaf pupils. In many countries, deaf people’s access to higher education has been an important issue during the last few decades. If deaf students demonstrate that they have the necessary aptitude and educational background for acceptance into different academic programs, and adequate interpreting services are made available to them, then it could be argued that higher education has fulfilled its responsibilities towards deaf people/the deaf minority. In some areas of study, access to the discourse(s) of higher education in the majority language has been shown to be sufficient for some deaf

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individuals. I would argue that, in a teacher training program that educates deaf teachers of deaf pupils, it is important to develop a discourse of higher education in NSL, as well. Representing a marginalized group, a handful of deaf students in an adapted program at a teacher training institution with about 500 hearing students challenges the concept of inclusion in an educational setting. Here, classes for deaf student teachers are mixed classes with both hearing and deaf students. However, the deaf and hearing students do not necessarily study all classes or subjects together. Some subjects are taught in deaf/signing classes only. Interpreting services for deaf students in this teacher education program, as well as for deaf students in general, were systematically developed for over more than ten years and gradually deemed satisfactory by prevailing standards in Norway at the time. Interpreter teams work in close cooperation with both hearing teachers and deaf student teachers. To the greatest extent possible, the same interpreters interpret the same subjects for the same students over the entire course of the program This provides the interpreters with valuable and necessary insight into the subject matter as well as the preferences and experiences of the students and teachers for whom they interpret. Even though the interpreter service is deemed good, there is much potential for improvement to benefit all participants—the students, the teachers and the interpreters themselves. One crucial aspect of a good learning environment is easy and effortless interaction between students and teachers. Instead of accepting new deaf student teachers into the program each fall, the program admits first-year groups of deaf student teachers every other year, with the intention of increasing the overall size of the group. Some benefits of being part of a group of deaf students (instead of being a sole deaf student) include the possibility of having another deaf student to work with on group assignments or to study with. Deaf students are not precluded from working or studying with non-signing students, though the latter entails greater effort in setting up formal appointments with interpreters, for instance. In the study presented here, we will focus on a group of five deaf student teachers in their second year of a four-year teacher education program. The empirical material is divided into two parts. The first part of the empirical material consists of video recordings from three classroom contexts. In context 1, the subject was NSL. Five signing students and a signing teacher participated here. The students sat in a semi-circle and had visual access to the teacher, the blackboard, the videoscreen and one another, as illustrated in Figure 10-1.

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Fig. 10-1. Norwegian Sign Language Classroom: Signing competent teacher and deaf students

In context 2, the subject was educational science. Five signing students, an oral speaking teacher and two interpreters participated here. Here, too, students sat in a semi-circle with visible access to the orally speaking teacher and the interpreter, who stood beside the teacher using NSL. The second interpreter sat at the side (see Figure 10-2), supporting the active interpreter who stood beside the teacher. The seated interpreter gave voice to the students using NSL. Here too, the student teachers had full visual access to the blackboard and what was written there, and they could see and communicate with one another. In context 3 the subject was also educational science. The five signing students sat in the first row in the classroom. They had visual access to the blackboard, the oral speaking teacher and the sign language interpreter, who stood to the left of the teacher. Behind them were 21 non-signing (oral speaking) students. The second interpreter sat on a chair by the wall at the front of the classroom (see Figure 10-3).

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Fig. 10-2. Educational Science Classroom: Oral speaking teacher, five deaf students and two interpreters (one stands beside the teacher and the other sits by the side)

Fig. 10-3. Educational Science Classroom: Oral speaking teacher, five deaf students, two interpreters and hearing students

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The second part of the empirical material consists of video recorded interviews with the five signing student teachers, the signing teacher, the non-signing teacher and the three interpreters, all of whom were focused on in the project. The 21 non-signing students were not interviewed or focused on in the project.1 In this chapter, I will discuss mainstream teacher education against the background of the experiences of the five deaf student teachers and present some indications of how (learnt) experiences can create knowledge that might be applied when such students start working as qualified teachers for deaf pupils.

2. Theoretical framework The theoretical basis of the research presented in this chapter builds on a sociocultural perspective on learning, wherein dialogue is central (Dysthe 2001, Kress and Van Leeuwen 2001, Linell 1998, Säljö 2000, Vygotsky 1978). Methods within qualitative classroom research that build upon traditions from academic areas such as learning psychology, social psychology, anthropology and communication studies are taken into account. The focus is on practices in which human beings actively participate in different socially constructed and meaningful activities. In the visually oriented classrooms that were studied, both the organization of time and the space and patterns of language use were understood as cultural tools that were deployed to create meaning and learning opportunities (Bagga-Gupta 2002, 2004). Language and learning were linked. In the learning process, language was used both to create meaning and to promote thinking. The participants in the classrooms represented communities of practice working together (Lave and Wenger 1991). At the same time, they were part of a larger community of practice: the teacher education program at the university college. In this institutional setting, the deaf student teachers acted and interacted with other student teachers (deaf and hearing), and they also interacted with the teachers. Within this sociocultural and historically shaped context, the discursive construction of identity processes could be focused on (Bagga-Gupta, Hansen and Feilberg 2017, Breivik 2001, Ivaniþ 1998). Ohna and colleagues (2004) claim that an important challenge for educating the deaf relates to the creation of a learning environment that provides opportunities for cooperation, participation and recognition. With this as a theoretical backdrop, I will focus on the analysis of learning in the three classroom environments described in the Introduction in which the five deaf student teachers were members during their second

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year of a four-year teacher education program. My analysis focuses upon the following research questions. 1. What types of practices contributed to making the group of deaf student teachers feel included in the educational settings? 2. What practices contributed to making the group of deaf student teachers feel excluded in the educational settings? 3. How will these experiences influence the students when they start teaching and attempt to create inclusive education for deaf pupils, in both schools for the deaf and mainstream schools?

3. Methodological framework The study took an ethnographic approach. Classroom activities were videotaped with three cameras. One camera focused on the teacher (or the teacher and the interpreter) and a second camera focused on the student holding the conversational floor (utterance) in the sequentially organized classroom interaction. To synchronize this interaction, the video recordings from these two cameras were fed into a mixer and displayed on a split-screen, where both interlocutors could be seen. In addition, a third camera captured all the students. While one student actively participated in the “official” interaction with the teacher, the other students would either follow this “official” interaction or communicate with one another, usually on the main topic that was being discussed in the classroom (though sometimes on other topics). The third camera captured this latter type of classroom interaction. Sixteen hours of classroom activities videotaped in different contexts were transcribed and analyzed on macro, meso and micro levels. On the basis of the findings of these analyses, the participants were interviewed one year later. All interviews were also videotaped. The interview data added valuable insight to the interpretation of the video material from the classrooms. The classroom practices constituted a small part of the larger educational setting, and I wanted to explore the participants’ experiences and perspectives with regards to both the videotaped classroom activities and the cultural institutional setting of teacher education that they were members of. A three-hour group interview with the five signing student teachers was conducted. The students were shown specific video sequences from the classroom data and asked to comment on what they saw. Topics of focus in this group interview included:

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1. The students’ general experiences of their situation in this educational setting 2. The learning environments within the subjects NSL and educational science, both in general and in relation to the chosen video sequences from their classroom activities 3. The use of interpreters in educational settings The group of signing students had common socio-historical experiences as a result of having been student teachers for two and a half years. In addition, they met as individuals with their own personal experiences from previous educational settings and as members of a specific teacher education program. A two-hour group interview was also conducted with the interpreters. The three interpreters who participated in this study had many years of experience working as interpreters for deaf students in higher education. The interpreters were also shown video sequences from the classroom data. Topics of focus in this group interview included: 1. Interpreting in higher education, in general 2. Interpretation of specific academic concepts 3. Interpreters’ experiences of being members of the classroom interaction Studying the spontaneous interaction that emerges amongst group members produces valuable insights that can be difficult to reach through other methods (Stewart and Shamdasani 1990). The group of students and the group of interpreters discussed and inspired one another during the focus group interviews. Together, they highlighted experiences and reflected upon their own roles. The situations in the classroom were defined, redefined and given meaning. The two teachers who were part of the videotaped classroom material were interviewed separately. They were responsible for different subjects (NSL and educational science, respectively) and had different experiences of teaching deaf students. My stance was that individual interviews with them would create optimal conditions for relevant data generation. A one-hour individual interview with the signing teacher that built on video sequences from the NSL classroom was conducted. The topics of focus included: 1. Deaf student teachers in education 2. Language experiences of the student teachers2

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3. Learning in the subject NSL A one-hour individual interview with the non-signing teacher was also conducted. This interview was based on video sequences from the two educational science classrooms: one with only five deaf students and another with five deaf students and 21 hearing students. The topics of focus in this interview included: 1. The subject of educational science in teacher education, in general 2. Deaf students in teacher education 3. Learning in the subject of educational science As highlighted above, the 21 hearing students were not interviewed. Analysis of the interview data in the project provided additional information and knowledge that, together with the analysis of video material from the classroom contexts, gave rise to issues for further analysis (Steyart and Bouwen 1994). The analyses of the interviews took the following four topics as points of departure: 1. 2. 3. 4.

The organization of the adapted study The student’s role The teacher’s role The interpreter’s role

These four topics were focused upon from the students’ perspective, the teachers’ perspective and the interpreters’ perspective. Together, these perspectives highlighted issues about the possibilities created (or not created) for student learning. Based on the main topics from the interview guide, an analysis web (Dalen 2004) was used. In this web, the different topics were represented vertically and the participants’ perspectives were portrayed as horizontal threads (see Figure 10-4). The research questions in this study were attended to at a macro level; these focused on the possibilities that this marginalized group in higher education experienced with regards to cooperation, participation and recognition (Ohna et al. 2004). Such experiences could provide them with knowledge and competencies in their later work as teachers of deaf pupils. In this section I will also, on a macro level, indicate practices that these students experienced as excluding in learning situations within higher education.

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Fig. 10-4. Analysis web

4. Analysis The analysis focuses on the practical organization (that is, organized arrangements), according to a sociocultural theory of learning that builds on Vygotsky (1978), Wertsch (1985) and Säljö (2000) and a dialogic theory that uses Bakhtin (1981), Linell (1998), Nystrand (1997) and Dysthe (2001). Student perspectives are center-staged in order to convey the ways in which student’s experience inclusion and exclusion in the learning environment of higher education. If inclusion builds upon cooperation, participation and recognition, then what allows students to experience themselves as included in the learning situation? What kinds of including practices do we find here? The first topic highlighted by the students is interaction. People interact through language, and language is a tool for learning. The five deaf student teachers have different degrees of hearing loss, but they all use NSL when communicating with one another. Because they are a group of deaf students, they interact directly and are able to discuss topics related to their education (this contrasts with the situation of individual deaf students). In the educational subject of NSL, the teacher uses NSL fluently. This means that the students are able to interact directly with the teacher.3 The teacher and students use NSL as a direct communication tool to build

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knowledge. The student teachers in the group interview describe the classroom interaction in which all participants use NSL as follows:4 Anna: In these situations, we feel comfortable and recognized. We do not hesitate to interrupt the teacher if there are things we don’t understand, we are a small group of students, we know each other and we have good relationships with the teacher (Student video 2: 10:28–10:36). Ingrid: We can interrupt her at a critical moment in the middle of a sentence if there are things we don’t understand. She reads our faces and can also see when she needs to change her formulations to help us understand better (Student video 2: 11:34–11:48).

In the situations described here, the student teachers feel relaxed and included, and, in cooperation with the teacher, they build temporarily shared social realities and create meaning (Rommetveit 1974). Discursive and technological tools are used in visually oriented settings (Bagga-Gupta 2004) where participants co-operate in a community of practice within a common sociocultural context. When the teacher of a subject does not sign, the university college provides organized interpreter services. Interpreters are employed on a regular basis and work in the same subject area throughout the year. They take part in the teachers’ and students’ classroom experiences within a particular subject and have, in a way, the same socio-historical context— similar experiences as the other participants in the classroom for that subject. The interpreters are given time to prepare—for instance within the subject, itself—and are able to cooperate with the teacher (e.g., to better understand the meanings of special expressions within a subject) and students (e.g., to learn the conventionalized signs for specific subject terminology). The interpretation is also a kind of including practice that allows the students to access knowledge through their primary language. The students report satisfaction with the interpreter services that are provided and, in particular, the two-way interpretation: from spoken language (from the teacher and non-signing students) to NSL and from NSL (from the signing students) to spoken language. For many of the non-signing teachers at the university college, it is the first time in their careers that they are required to use NSL interpreters. They are not familiar with signing and deaf culture and, for some, it is the first time that they have met deaf people. The deaf student teachers are aware of this. The group interview data highlights that students see the need for these teachers to be better prepared and they think that more

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information should be given to these teachers before they meet the deaf students and interpreters. They want their hearing, non-signing teachers to have more knowledge of what it means to be a deaf student in this learning situation. Ingrid: We do not expect that all hearing teachers here at the university college are fluent in NSL, but we are lucky to have three teachers who sign and with them we can communicate directly. As for the other teachers who do not sign, we just want them to have some knowledge about deaf, deaf culture, ways of communicating etc. (Student video 1: 14:53–15:46).

These students highlight an important issue that demands more attention. These students point out that, even if things could be better, they experience participation in the educational setting. They can use NSL to discuss their subjects, and interpreters are always present in the classroom when they are communicating with a non-signing teacher or non-signing students. Nils: We experience being a part of the university college, and are not just members of a small group of five students. That is important, to feel socialized as a student. We follow lessons and can compare ourselves to the other students. Ingrid: Yes, you are right. We are a part of the university community (Student video 3: 17:29–18:15).

In the excerpt above, Nils and Ingrid use the concept of ‘community’ when they talk about their experiences of being part of the larger teacher training institution. What they study in educational science and what they will subsequently work with as teachers after completing their education are dimensions of their own school situation. They participate in subject lessons and not, as they say, in their deafness. In the interview, Ingrid points out that when they are in the big group, the focus is on the subject; but sometimes when they are in the small group in the subject of educational science, the focus turns to their deafness and to them as student teachers who must prove their worth. In addition to providing teacher training, the university college also offers courses in NSL for hearing students and interpreter education. Therefore, many students on campus can use NSL. This gives the deaf students a potentially larger number of people with whom they can communicate during breaks and lunches. There is also a big student organization for NSL communicating students from both the university

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and the university college. Many deaf and hearing students are members of this organization. Being part of a large teacher training institution makes the deaf student teachers feel equal to their hearing peers. They are part of a learning community and, when they sit in the larger group with the hearing students, their focus is on learning. They take part in the classroom and feel recognized. Here, they report not feeling like a special group, even though they must receive the teacher’s utterances visually through the interpreter whilst the hearing students get the teacher’s talk directly through oral speech. To a certain degree, the students are therefore included in the learning environment. They interact through their primary language, directly or via an interpreter. They interact with one other, they interact with signing teachers and they interact with the non-signing teacher through interpreters. The analysis of the small group classroom data indicates that the teachers and students participate intensively in multi-party interactions. In other subjects, where the deaf student teachers are in the larger group and hearing students are in the majority, the analysis indicates that the interactional patterns are different. The deaf student teachers frame this as follows: Nils: One thing is negative. When we are in the class together with the hearing students, we do not have the courage to interrupt and ask questions as we do when we are in the small group with only deaf students (Student video 3: 17:48–17:53).

Although they are linguistically included through the use of interpreters, the deaf students indicate that they are not active in the same way in the big classroom setting as they are in the small group with only deaf student teachers. In the larger group settings with both deaf and hearing student teachers, the deaf student teachers report being excluded from the overall learning environment in a number of ways. This is substantiated by previous analyses of the classroom data (Hansen 2005). At the beginning of this chapter, language was framed as an including factor. However, in some settings language can also be an excluding factor. First of all, the presence of a majority of orally speaking people makes classroom interaction follow audiological rules, with sound as a strong factor governing interaction and communication. Visually oriented settings, where deaf student teachers are in a group on their own, are not very prominent in their education. The time lag in interpreted utterances and the fear of not posing the right question at the right time contribute to making the deaf students more passive in classroom interactions in the larger group setting.

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Chapter Ten Ingrid: I think it is difficult to raise questions when we are in a big class with many hearing students. Therefore, it is good also to be in a small group where we can raise all the questions we have (Student video 2: 47:57–48:20).

The students also mention other practices that contribute to their experiences of feeling excluded. One of these relates to their placement in the classroom when they are in the big group. In order to have free visual access to the interpreters, the deaf students sit in the first row of the classroom, with the hearing students behind them. This placement, however, also functions as an excluding mechanism. The deaf students have no eye contact with the hearing students behind them, and they have to look at the interpreter when the hearing students present comments to the class. This means that they often do not know who is talking, only what is being said. The data illustrates that the deaf student teachers are aware of these issues and see the risks involved in sitting in a group at the front of the classroom as well as being dispersed among their hearing peers. Another excluding practice experienced and reported by the deaf student teachers relates to the way in which they are sometimes addressed. When they are in the larger group setting with hearing students, the teachers give orders and name the students as “You deaf.” The linguistic use of “You” is experienced as excluding the deaf persons from the larger group context of which they are a part: “You deaf students and the others.” In addition, the deaf student teachers report an excluding experience in relation to the student lists on the Internet. For instance, one of the students, Anna, highlights that she does not like having a capital “D”5 placed next to her name on these lists. These examples indicate that the deaf student teachers sometimes experience, what they deem, an unnecessary focus on their deafness. This focus makes them feel alienated and excluded. One of the students, Laila, who was born hearing and became deaf in her late teens, compares her school years when she was always regarded and treated as a hearing person to her current experiences as a deaf student within higher education. Laila learnt NSL after she lost her hearing and it was a new experience for her to be in a group of deaf students: Laila: Sometimes I feel that some of the teachers think that hearing and deaf students are not at the same intellectual level (Student video 1 10:02– 10:08). Nils: We have to prove that we are clever all the time, and I do not understand why. For instance, when I was out practicing in a school, the class I taught had one deaf and 18 hearing pupils. The supervising teacher,

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who was observing and mentoring me, told me that I was doing a very good job, and that she was impressed and astonished that I was so good. Then, I wondered, why was she astonished? What expectations did she have? Did she not expect a deaf student to do that well? (Student video 1 10:08–11:53).

Here we see that some people’s positive expectations contribute to making the deaf students feel excluded. Despite the fact that the deaf student teachers are aware of excluding mechanisms in their educational setting, they want to stay at the university college and to complete their teacher education. They experience the teaching level as good, and the opportunity to share in the interactions and dialogues of hearing students is important to them. From a sociocultural perspective on learning, dialogues are central, and in this perspective the connection between cognition and communication is important. Within dialogism theory, Bakhtin focuses on the different “voices” that perpetually influence our thinking and cognition. Attending a class with a large number of participants gives students the opportunity to experience a large repertoire of voices and to engage in others’ ideas and thoughts.

5. Reported findings As the analysis presented above has shown, there were both excluding and including practices present in the student teachers’ learning environments. To some extent, the same phenomenon (e.g. language) could function as both including and excluding. The findings presented in this chapter are summarized in Figure 10-5. One of the university college’s guiding principles in the organization of education for deaf student teachers was to give them the “best of two worlds”. To a certain extent, this can be said to have been achieved. However, there are opportunities for improvement to prevent the deaf student teachers from being marginalized in terms of “the others” and to enable them to be included as “us” and as belonging to the university college.

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Including practices Language Visually oriented communication Organized interpreter service Participation as student Recognition as student

Excluding practices Language Audio based communication Lack of knowledge of deaf field Focusing on deafness Physical placement of students

Fig. 10-5. Practices influencing the deaf student teachers’ learning environment

During one of the lessons in educational science in the classroom data, the topic of focus was inclusion–exclusion versus integration–segregation in educational settings. During this discussion, one of the deaf students raised the following question: Anna: What about us, here at the university college, are we included or just integrated in our educational science class? (Videotape 1 05.02.02).

The deaf student teachers decided to raise this question and discuss it with their hearing student peers. An interesting discussion on the concepts of integration and inclusion ensued, wherein the deaf student teachers articulated their own experiences within the framework of the teacher education setting. The deaf student teachers will, upon completion of their studies, be certified as teachers for deaf children aged 6 to 16 years. Many of the students will be teachers in regional schools for the deaf where pupils are, in many ways, included both linguistically and organizationally. There is, furthermore, a need for deaf teachers in local (mainstream) schools. Here, deaf teachers’ experiences from their own teacher education can contribute valuable strategies for the organization of education for one or a few deaf pupils in a local school. Deaf teachers are in a unique position to advise school authorities on the optimal arrangements for deaf pupils in mainstream classrooms. Furthermore, deaf teachers are key partners for deaf children in a setting where practices are both inclusive and excluding. The research and discussion presented in this chapter highlights that deaf teachers’ range of higher education experiences has specific significance, in that it can equip them with the knowledge needed to frame inclusive education for deaf pupils in both schools for the deaf and schools for deaf and hearing children.

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Notes 1

Looking back, interviews with the non-signing hearing students would have added more knowledge to the project, but because of time limits and other practical reasons, these were not conducted. 2 Some of the students had used NSL and Norwegian from childhood, whilst others had learnt NSL later on in their lives. 3 In the educational subject’s drama and rhythmics (instead of music) and English for the deaf, the teachers were also fluent signers, but classroom interactions from these subjects were not part of the material for this study. 4 The students use NSL in the videorecorded group interview. Their utterances are, in this book chapter, translated to written English. 5 “D” for “Deaf.”

References Bagga-Gupta, Sangeeta. 2002. “Explorations in bilingual instructional interaction: A sociocultural perspective on literacy.” Learning and Instruction, 12(5): 557–587. —. 2004. “Visually oriented language use: Discursive and technological resources in Swedish deaf pedagogical arenas.” In To the Lexicon and Beyond: Sociolinguistics in European Deaf Communities (Sociolinguistics in Deaf Communities Series, 10), edited by Mike Van Herreweghe and Myriam Vermeerbergen, 171–207. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press. Bagga-Gupta, Sangeeta, Hansen, Aase L. and Feilberg, Julie, eds. 2017. Identity revisited and reimagined. Empirical and theoretical contributions on embodied communication across time and space. Rotterdam: Springer. Bakhtin, Mikhail M. 1981. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M.M. Bakhtin. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Breivik, Jan-Kåre. 2001. Deaf Identities in the Making: Metaphors and Narratives in Translocal Lives. PhD thesis. Oslo: University of Oslo. Dalen, Monica. 2004. Intervju som forskningsmetode [Interview as research method]. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Dysthe, Olga (ed.). 2001. Dialog, samspel og læring [Dialogue, interaction and learning]. Oslo: Abstrakt forlag. Hansen, Aase Lyngvær. 2005. Kommunikative praksiser i visuelt orienterte klasserom: En studie av et tilrettelagt opplegg for døve lærerstudenter [Communicative practices in visually oriented classrooms: A study of organized learning activities for deaf teacher

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students]. PhD thesis. Trondheim: Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Ivaniþ, Roz. 1998. Writing Identity: The Discoursal Construction of Identity in Academic Writing. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Kress, Gunther and Van Leeuwen, Theo. 2001. Multimodal Discourse: The Modes and Media of Contemporary Communication. London: Arnold KUF. 1996. Læreplanverket for den 10-årige grunnskolen [The Curriculum for the 10-year compulsory school in Norway]. Oslo: Royal Norwegian Ministry of Education, Research and Church Affairs. Lave, Jean and Wenger, Etienne. 1991. Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Linell, Per. 1998. Approaching Dialogue: Talk and Interaction in Dialogical Perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Nystrand, Martin. 1997. Opening Dialogue: Understanding the Dynamics of Language and Learning in the English Classroom. New York: Teachers College Press. Ohna, Stein Erik, Vonen, Arnfinn M., Hjulstad, Oddvar, Grønlie, Sissel M., Hjelmervik, Ellinor and Høie, Grete. 2004. “Om opplæringstilbod for hørselshemma – en kommentar” [About educational provisions for hearing impaired – a comment]. Spesialpedagogikk, 69(2): 22–25. Rommetveit, Ragnar. 1974. On Message Structure: A Framework for the Study of Language and Communication. London: Wiley. Stewart, David W. and Shamdasani, Prem N. 1990. Focus Groups: Theory and Practice. London: SAGE. Steyart, Chris and Bouwen, René. 1994. “Group methods of organizational analysis”. In Qualitative Methods in Organizational Research, edited by Catherine Cassell and Gillian Symon. London: SAGE. Säljö, Roger. 2000. Lärande i praktiken. Ett sociokulturellt perspektiv [Learning in practice: A sociocultural perspective]. Stockholm: Prisma. UDIR. 2006. Curriculum for the deaf and severely hard of hearing. Accessed 13.12.2013, at: http://www.udir.no/Stottemeny/English/Curriculum-in-English/_ english/Curriculum-for-the-deaf-and-severely-hard-of-hearing/ UFD. 2002. Meld St. nr. 16 (2001–2002) Kvalitetsreformen Om ny lærerutdanning. Mangfoldig – krevende – relevant Oslo: Det kongelige utdannings og forskningsdepartement [White paper no.16 The quality reform. About new teacher training. Diverse – demanding – relevant Oslo: Ministry of Education and Research]. Accessed 30.03.2012, at: http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/kd/dok/regpubl/stmeld/20012002/st

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meld-nr-16-2001-2002-/5/8.html?id=326858 —. 2003. Rammeplan for Allmennlærerutdanningen [Curriculum for general teacher education]. Oslo: Ministry of Education and Research. Accessed 20.04.2004, at: http://www.dep.no/archive/ufdvedlegg/01/04/2Ramm012.pdf Vygotsky, Lev S. 1978. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wertsch, James V. ed. 1985. Culture, Communication and Cognition. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.

CHAPTER ELEVEN OUT OF BOUNDS: BOUNDARY, COMPLEXITY AND MARGINALIZATION PROCESSES IN ADULT EDUCATION JANE EVERSHED

1. Introduction Dominant discourses in many societies represent marginalized groups according to pre-determined, and often unquestioned, indicators of poverty and social deprivation. This rationalization conceptualizes what it means to live in spatially defined ‘disadvantaged’ communities and involves a series of ontological and epistemological processes which lead to resource interventions designed to (re)incorporate them into mainstream society. In England, statistical data is the cornerstone of much government resourcing and in particular, levels of educational attainment, where low levels are viewed as synonymous with unemployment and marginalization. Improving education is considered an essential weapon in the government’s arsenal aimed at mitigating social exclusion within these designated communities. However, national policy, allied to notions of accountability, also strictly defines and controls not only where, but also when and how resources should be targeted. In doing so, these pragmatic approaches, while designed to ameliorate marginalization, can also severely challenge the distinctiveness of existing shared socio-cultural history and individual ways of learning and living. It is this tension between uniqueness and commonality which is empirically exposed in this chapter at a critical time when national policy on educating pre-school children and post-compulsory ‘lifelong’ adult education impact on a marginalized community. Through their conversations the respondents, in the study presented here, illustrate how

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their own customs and unique ways of being are marginalized by others, perceived as sub-standard, deviant and transgressive, rendering them ‘out of bounds’, invisible and easy to ignore. This chapter begins by firstly reviewing some of the theoretical foundations and challenges of promoting boundaries as a means of structuring society. An alternative view to static boundaries is then considered before these understandings are positioned in prevailing discourses through which marginalization and education in England are theorized and articulated. Finally, these understandings are brought together and specifically situated within a narrative and empirical study of learning and marginalization in Corrington, a small town considered to be ‘disadvantaged’. The research locates some of the intrinsic problems associated with the fixing of boundaries and makes explicit more temporal, and psychological marginalization processes. These include notions of flexibility localness, ownership, personality, brokerage and visibility which are layered and interwoven into ways of being. The study suggests that although these more complex and fluid concepts of boundary are considered by contemporary policy as being ‘out of bounds’, ignoring them can have important implications for processes of marginalization.

2. Boundary theory. Foundations and challenges 2.1. Theorizing boundaries In contemporary, market-led societies theoretical boundaries or contexts provide a means of rationalizing many complex and abstract notions by making them appear concrete and tangible. They are constituted by society, media, academia and government departments to describe, for example, different types of learning or spatial areas of social deprivation that occur within specifically boundaried spaces and at specifically boundaried times (Edwards 2005). An easily recognizable spatial boundary in education is the institution itself with its limits as school gate or the bricks and mortar from which it is constructed. Overlaid upon these spatial boundaries are temporal boundaries which, with very few exceptions, determine at what age each of the different types of establishment becomes accessible and when examinations occur. Each establishment is labeled accordingly as a pre-school, primary school, college, university, adult learning center etc. In England, theoretical boundaries are also drawn in society around communities which, for example, have larger than average numbers of teenage pregnancies and single parents and lower than average disposable income, employment

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levels and educational qualifications. Just as learning establishments are labeled, so are these “disadvantaged” communities. Furthermore, much contemporary policy and resource distribution relies on establishing boundaried concepts in society to provide the frameworks by which funding and other resources are distributed. Interventions are judged successful by comparing and contrasting quantifiable data and they make it possible to determine whether value for money has been achieved. However, there are several epistemological and ontological issues associated with ascribing boundaries in these ways, two of which will be expanded here; firstly, the question of who determines what the boundaries are and how they are maintained, and secondly how boundaries can objectify and come to represent groups of individuals as homogeneous entities.

2.2. Power and voice in conceptualized boundaries The conceptualization of boundaries relies upon the acceptance of specific attributes in order to partition and organize education and wider society (Lash and Urry 1994). They are often ascribed according to processes of “instrumental rationality, underpinned by positivistic notions of objective knowledge derived through accepted canons of scientific enquiry” (Sanderson 2000, 218). Hence, boundaries are mapped by the most vocal and powerful in society who set priorities according to their own understandings and experiences of the world and aspects of life that they themselves perceive as essential (Percy-Smith 2000). The implicit hypotheses and assumptions held by those in power determine, for example, what kind of education is appropriate and how it should be resourced. The voices of those represented by these boundary maps are distanced from the top-down decision-making process. Furthermore, the indicators selected to justify, weigh and judge success in contemporary society are generally ones which can be measured and counted. However, these quantifiable metrics can only ever tell a partial story of success or otherwise. For example, appraisal of any program designed to redress social disadvantage through the improvement of selfesteem or confidence requires consideration of more qualitative data. It was Adorno (1990) who claimed that reliance on measuring only the quantifiable outcomes of learning denies ‘knowing’ people. He argued that doing so negated any notion of uniqueness and subsumed difference to the extent that everyone could be regarded as simply an exemplar of the boundary in which they were placed. Thus, any boundaried view of societal groups will always give rise to a degree of misrepresentation of

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those individuals considered to be contained by it.

2.3. (Un)representational boundaries A second problem with conceptualizing boundaries in society is that the theory assumes the world is a coherent one which can be fully described through the formation of representational categories (Antonio and Kellner 1994). Bateson (2000) describes representation as an erroneous ontological process as it encourages values to be attached to and comparisons to be made between specific groups of people. These comparisons often involve viewing one group as being in deficit to another, based only on superficial and causal abstractions of reality. In other words, despite being without material form, contexts can act to either include or exclude. They can be used, for example, to determine the relative values of various educational institutions, what counts as education, what constitutes ‘normal’ society and what does not. The effect is to de-individualize society, creating the impression that education, for example, or poverty or single parents can be contained within discrete contexts. The borderlands described by Bagga-Gupta illustrate how communities can never be regarded as “‘pure’, ‘original’ or ‘exclusive’ […groups] have always been influenced from the ‘outside’, and have simultaneously influenced other groups” (2013, 38). Ignoring the complexity and significance of interactions between groups in society exposes individuals to being described by essentialized characteristics. For example, regarding those living within areas labeled as ‘disadvantaged’, as uneducated or unemployed, reflects back the inherent assumptions that society places upon such communities, ascribing group homogeneity through the denial of difference and supporting many of the one-size-fitsall policies found in many market-led economies.

2.4. Complex and expansive boundaries An alternative view to a containerized definition of learning is provided by Dave, who contests that it: covers formal, non-formal and informal patterns of education and attempts to integrate and articulate all structures and stages of education along the vertical (temporal) and horizontal (spatial) dimensions. It is also characterized by flexibility in time, place [and] content (cited in Moreland and Lovett 1997, 203).

Engeström (2007) and Osberg, Biesta and Cilliers (2008) also theorize

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different ways of thinking about education and the part it can play in conceptualizing inclusion in society. They shun representational and spatial models, preferring instead to recognize more expansive, temporal notions of marginalization as part of an emergent process. For these theorists, living and learning can never be adequately represented by the models offered by spatially constituted contexts evaluated against purely quantitative indicators. Models of complex systems “cannot be understood to ‘stand for’ or depict reality [...] there is no isomorphism between the world and our descriptions of it” (Osberg, Biesta and Cilliers 2008, 218). Hence, the difference between representation and reality means that the language and logic of context is too simplistic and fails to account for one of the most important features of society, namely its heterogeneity. Engeström proposed the concept of symbiotic mycorrhizae as a metaphor for describing emergent views of learning. Extending this metaphor, social inclusion is: impossible to bound and close [is] very hard to kill, but [is] also vulnerable [it] may lie dormant for lengthy periods […] then generate again vibrant and visible…when the conditions are right. [It is] made up of […] participants working symbiotically, thriving on mutually beneficial or also exploitative partnerships (2007, 10-11).

Thus, it is possible to view society and the part that education plays not as static and boundaried, but as a host of organic, non-hierarchical and expanding processes that incorporate a symbiotic reliance with their surroundings. In this world of epistemological complexity, learning can be thought of as being in constant flux and continual renewal, where knowledge, society, inclusion and exclusion constantly ‘come into being’. As Osberg, Biesta and Cilliers contend: the combination of the […] relational past with the […] unrepresentable to produce new emergent [knowledge] ensures that it is never fully ‘present’ at any point in time, because an integral part of it is that which is not part of it. It therefore remains always in the process of becoming without being (2008, 225).

Indeed, this process of continual renewal suggests that it is only through our transactions with our surroundings that our understanding emerges. This involves temporal elements “where knowledge has to do with the relationship between our actions and their consequences” (ibid., 222). Thus, spatial models cannot exist as the representation of the world (Biesta and Burbules 2003) because “however we order the world, there

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will always be more ordering yet to come [...] there cannot be a notion of any final order” (Osberg, Biesta and Cilliers 2008, 214). However, social and educational policy in England often rejects the notion of fluidity. Society is conceptualized as boundaried and segmented, with policy interventions structured in more static and quantifiable terms as described in more detail in the following section.

3. Social and educational policy discourse in England In England, the term ‘social exclusion’ refers to “a disparate group of people living on the margins of society and [...] in the European context [...] to the objective of achieving social and economic cohesion” (PercySmith 2000, 2). The notion of social exclusion is central to many contemporary government policies, often with the focus on tackling low income and unemployment and viewing low educational achievement in the adult population as a characteristic marginalizing process. Access to learning for adults is strongly associated with this remit; its importance has variously swung between two main standpoints concerning the need for ‘formal’ learning that leads to qualifications and skills required for the workplace and ‘informal’ learning which can broaden and enrich learners’ lives (Coffield 2007). Attitudes towards the importance of learning in promoting social inclusion are not new and were formally highlighted by the publication of the Kennedy Report (1997) with its notions of widening participation designed to increase access and participation in both ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ learning. In 1998 the Government stated that learning: makes a civilized society, develops the spiritual side of our lives and promotes active citizenship [...] That is why we value learning for its own sake as well as for the equality of opportunity it brings (DfEE 1998a, 7). Learning is of particular importance to the socially excluded [...] the challenge [...] is to re-engage individuals in developing their skills [...] to promote equality of opportunity and outcome for people across all sections of society (DfEE 1998b, 5).

However, while the importance of education for adults remains a generally stated goal in contemporary policy, it is largely refocused around formal education which leads directly to qualifications and skills required for the workplace (BIS 2012). Much of the informal education, part of a more expansive educational network for social wellbeing, has diminished (Field 2006), including that which encourages adults without positive school experiences to re-engage with learning (Gough 2014).

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In parallel, new initiatives aimed at using education to reduce social exclusion of families with young children living in geographically ‘disadvantaged’ areas have ascended. These schemes rely on the conceptualization of social exclusion as a series of contextual boundaries which divide education according to age, geographical location and family size and contrast with broader themes of an integrated lifelong learning approach for all. One of the most significant of these initiatives over the past decade has been the national building program of “a Sure Start [children’s] Center in the 20 per cent most deprived wards in England” (National Audit Office 2006, 12), following the publication of Every Child Matters (DfES 2003). Sure Start centers were specifically designed to “improve the health, social and emotional development of children living in socially disadvantaged communities and to support parents in their aspirations towards employment” (DCSF 2010). Contemporary policy situates its attempts to challenge exclusion within these new centers and it was immediately following the opening of the Sure Start in Corrington that the research for this chapter was undertaken. This was an opportune time to explore firsthand any marginalization processes arising from the (re)constitution of boundaries around social exclusion in situ. Secondly, it was an ideal opportunity to study how individuals might (re)conceptualize boundaries of their own making. A qualitative, narrative approach was chosen to explore the emotions, ideas, experiences, opinions and attitudes of adult learners immediately following the event and the reasons for this choice are expanded upon in the next section.

4. An empirical study 4.1. An introduction to Corrington Corrington has been described by the Poverty Site index (2010) as being located within a socially deprived area where the numbers of adults with low qualifications and skills, lone parents, teenage pregnancies, working age welfare benefit recipients, transient groups and vulnerable older people are high compared to the national average. The small seaside town in the south of England is eligible to receive financial assistance from both national and local government to support education initiatives to improve social inclusion and the life chances of those living in the town. Until 2011, Corrington House, an ordinary pair of interconnected houses in a residential street at one end of the town formed the learning center. For over ten years it had attracted adult learners to its free and low cost accredited and non-accredited education programs including art,

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computing, literacy, numeracy, parenting, languages, dance and drama. It was a focus for families in the area with its pre-school activities, crèche, homework club, youth club, health center clinics and a place to meet with social services to discuss benefits and children's services. Informally, it was also regularly used as a drop-in center for those needing help to complete forms or requiring guidance as well as a space for socializing with friends and neighbors. This network of services and spaces clearly demonstrates how the once fixed boundary of a learning center has expanded ‘out of bounds’ to fluidly (re)incorporate community needs. The learning center was initially established by the town council and funded by national and local government to provide pre-school education and as a means of encouraging adults to improve their education by attending classes in a variety of subjects. It was organized by a group of community volunteers and a part-time salaried manager whose remit included arranging courses and events to raise funds and reporting the use of Corrington House to stakeholders. Her figures showed that the number of adults attending classes had risen from approximately 230 to 1400 a month (approximately 14 procent of Corrington’s adult population) between 2007 and 2010, of whom 397 accessed non-accredited programs and that there were 43 children enrolled in the crèche and pre-school and the youth club provided over 20 places each session for those aged between 11 and 18. In 2011 the final phase of the national building program reached Corrington and the Sure Start was built adjacent to the primary school in the center of the town. In stark contrast to Corrington House, it was light and spacious and secured behind a high, spiked metal fence and electric gates. Many of the services provided at the new center overlapped with those already provided at Corrington House. As funding was redirected to Sure Start the learning center could no longer cross-subsidize its activities and it closed, marginalizing many in the town from the services they had helped to develop and shape in the previous decade.

4.2. Methodological framework Holliday (2007, 1) states that qualitative research is “a social activity which is as ideological and complex as those it studies”. Researchers such as Mills (2000) and West (2001), advocate that only research into the subjective stories of individual lives can demonstrate the complexity of social situations. Indeed, notions of plurality and the positioning of self in research have led to much debate on the need to base education and social research on a qualitative footing. Writers including Stanley (1992) and

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Hunt and Sampson (2006) suggest that interpretative methodologies can be used to investigate more than general cause and effect of policy and to focus on the subjectivities of individual lives. Subjective research investigates the emotions and experiences of people and how they perceive change; however, it must be recognized that this can be fraught with difficulty. As Hammersley states, the assumption that such research provides a ‘truer’ picture of what has occurred is false, for to: .

treat participants’ accounts as giving us direct knowledge of causal processes is to assume that participants themselves have privileged awareness of the factors that motivate them and also of the wider social conditions and historical developments that generate those motivations (1990, 211).

Furthermore, the positioning of the researcher in the research must also be taken into account. According to Kress et al. (2005) transcriptions can only ever be partial and are never value free. Indeed, it would be impossible not to acknowledge that researchers themselves are socially located and that their own subjectivity can affect their understandings. However, this does not imply that it is “a means of legitimating personal opinion or biases [...] indeed it is rigorous and demanding” (Pole and Morrison 2003, 133). They contend that integrity is sought through the rigor of triangulating ideas and the constant review of transcripts to hunt for assumptions. Ethnographers and biographers do not deal in certainties and there are no simple answers. Neither objective nor subjective methodologies can provide a complete picture of the complex structures and interactions in society. Researchers studying perspective, as here in Corrington, must therefore be aware of this when analyzing and reporting their findings, but this approach is still highly valuable when attempting to highlight the subtleties of the lives of those involved in this study. The findings demonstrate a depth which could not be achieved by, for example, a questionnaire based on what a researcher wants to know rather than what the respondent wishes to relate. This process follows those who advocate that there is a place for both quantitative and qualitative paradigms in research, but what is most important is to determine a methodology based on what is more likely to elicit the most detailed answers (Sanderson 2000, Denscombe 2007). Reliability and validity in any research relies on the application of rigor and “whereas the rigor in quantitative research is in the disciplined application of prescribed rules [...] the rigor in qualitative research is in the principled development of strategy to suit the scenario

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being studied” (Holliday 2007, 8).

4.3. Research method Interview transcription was selected as the most apposite method of gathering empirical data to investigate the effects of the learning center’s closure as felt by the respondents. The small-scale interview method gathered qualitative findings over a six-month period that were rich in feeling and introspection and grounded the situational reality experienced by the interviewees. It is fully recognized by the researcher that the members of any ‘group’ will not be alike in every way and that every ‘group’ “insists [...] on the diversity within their own” (Lippard 1990, 20). However, the interviews sought over time to locate some of that diversity, allowing individuals to express commonalities and differences formed through social interaction and a partially shared history. Interviewing of this type enabled conclusions to be drawn that were specific to the sample, but which also provided a reflective and explorative depth of each interviewee’s perspective (Rubin and Rubin 2005). An existing contact was used to communicate with the manager of Corrington House and she was able to identify a respondent who had recently attended classes at the center and would be willing to be interviewed. It was through that interviewee that another was found. This student nominated a fourth and so on. This ‘snowball’ method of discovering potential interviewees is “an effective technique to build up a […] sample, especially when used in a small-scale research project” (Denscombe 2007, 18-19). The key advantages of the method were twofold. Firstly, there was the relative convenience of being able to rapidly identify those within the purposive sample who would be interested in being interviewed and secondly, the researcher was ‘introduced’ to them through another member of the group, thus lessening some of the anxiety felt by allowing a researcher into a private home. One of the main disadvantages of this method is that the sample gained is largely self-selecting and it is more likely to consist of those who feel strongly about the closure of Corrington House. However, “qualitative research […] is intent on expanding rather than controlling variables” (Holliday 2007, 28) and it is these variables that provide the opportunity for producing richer and deeper investigations. A set of pre-planned questions based on general topics was prepared that would assist in loosely structuring the interview, but were designed to allow the interviewee scope to explore their own experiences in an organic way. Hence, there was no intended pre-determination of any coded

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categorizations for responses beforehand on the part of the researcher or intentionally planned into the research method. Such methods reflect the auto/biographical approach to interviews advocated by Merrill and West (2009). Finally, a series of reflective interviews were conducted with four people who had attended evening art classes in the month prior to the closure of the center, their teacher and the manager. Interviews were planned, recorded and transcribed and a research diary was maintained.

4.4. Research analysis The data were interpretatively analyzed using a thematic approach described by Holliday (2007), involving a four-stage process. Firstly, the transcripts, notes and written submission were read several times before being annotated with initial thoughts and any parts that may speculatively be connected to other interviews were identified. Secondly, these comments were brought together under broad themes and tentative connections were made with theory. This involved identifying any emergent notions, including any “interesting issues raised and new questions resulting from these” (Walliman 2001, 262). Communication with the interviewees was maintained and clarification was sought to ensure that the complex data were not being over-simplified during the process. With repeated readings, the third stage involved the gradual development of a thematic framework. Finally, causal inferences were made akin to a grounded theory method which is not concerned with whether a hypothesis is true, but to determine “how to account for the participant’s main concerns” (Glaser 1999, 840). During the analysis, it became clear that the interview material provided insights into many complex areas, thus, the temporal, spatial and psychological contextual themes are presented here in a narrative style, substantiating and grounding some commonly reported topics through the direct quotes of the respondents themselves. The case study that follows identifies notions of ‘flexibility’, ‘localness’, ‘ownership’, ‘personality’, ‘brokerage’ and ‘visibility’ of learning and marginalization processes. In the analysis below ‘Elin’, ‘Tom’, ‘Angela’ and ‘Rachael’ were learners, ‘Naomi’ was the center manager and ‘Dan’ was a tutor. All names and places have been anonymized.

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5. Research findings: A national case study—England 5.1. Flexibility All learning has a temporal aspect and all the interviewees expressed learning through their own concepts of time. Ancona et al. (2001) recognize five notions of time including clock time, seasonal time, life cycle time, predictable event time and unpredictable event time. Thus, a Tuesday evening art class can be described as a boundaried, predictable event time (weekly) of two hours duration (clock time) over thirty weeks of the year (seasonal) beginning in September and ending in June (life cycle). However, overlaid upon these rhythms are unpredictable events (for example illness or loss of employment) and also, perhaps more importantly, the temporal boundaries constituted by the respondents themselves. All the learners describe how their time is occupied with work and families; Rachael is kept busy as a young parent with three small children and a husband in the army; Angela is employed full time and cares for several of her grandchildren. For Tom, the pace of retired life is different and he considers himself to have “all the time in the world”. In addition, the timing of learning is expressed differently by Rachael who has “no time to learn now”, by Elin who learns through “reading books, looking things up [and] thinking about things” and by Tom who continues to practice his painting at home where “a few hours would feel like a few minutes”. Time is relative and so are the ways in which the respondents constitute temporal boundaries as if they were physical realities. Elin describes the class as being her time “for being an adult” and that without it “things take over”. Angela has yet to find “anything to replace that time [in class] apart from more housework and the cooking”. Elin describes her time in class as her only time to play and Angela’s learning time has been replaced by other things. What comes through strongly from the interviews is a psychologically constituted need to boundary and ‘set aside’ time for learning. This, I believe, is due to the way in which temporal hierarchical boundaries are created to prioritize our lives through ‘events’ as a way of coping with busy lives. When other priorities take over we psychologically feel we ‘run out of time’, that ‘time disappears’ or that ‘others take time away’. Temporal boundaries also appear to be significant for motivation. This is perhaps best described by Angela in her interview; “if you don't make the effort you just don't do anything […] it’s not for not wanting to, it’s that there's always something else to be done […] having the group together at a certain time motivates you”.

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Personal notions of time like these are further complicated by externally derived temporal boundaries. Tom, Dan, Elin and Naomi all express the importance of the flexible opening hours of the center. Naomi arranged classes at weekends and in the evenings and according to Elin “Corrington House was always open”. Tom describes how he would drop in for a chat and a cup of tea, attend the health clinics and use the computers during the day and go to art classes in the evening when the youth club was open. The provision of integrated services and longer opening hours meant that resources could be flexibly accessed. Following the closure many of these services were either allocated specific times at different venues or lost altogether, rendering them ‘out of bounds’ of the structures imposed by the latest policies. Tom summarizes the problem relating: they have clinics for one thing on one day and the social comes on another day—you can’t meet people there like you used to, now it’s get in and get out cos the next person’s in, a real shame.

He also mentions how his learning through the internet has been curtailed due to the infrequent and irregular opening hours of the library, now the only place he can access a computer. Paradoxically, the government strategy on Digital Inclusion (DfE 2014) states that closing the so-called ‘digital divide’ to improve social inclusion and widening access to learning is of paramount importance. Time was also an issue for Elin when she attempted to relocate the art classes to the primary school where she works. She says: they wanted us to pay for like 30 weeks in advance, who’s going to do that here? They wanted a commitment they said. What more commitment do they need than us to turn up after working all day or looking after the kids, after making the evening meal come rain or shine?

Concepts of time therefore, are socially constructed and personally mediated. They are relative and are impacted upon by externally imposed timeframes which are often constituted according to the requirements of organizational systems rather than by those who wish to access services.

5.2. Localness Because travel takes time, distance to a place of learning is also relative and subject to some of the same difficulties. However, when combined with limited public transport, economic deprivation and poor

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health, the geographical boundaries where learning can be described as ‘local’ can contract. Almost all the respondents spoke of distance as being significant in defining their learning opportunities which raises the question of ‘how local is local?’ Naomi spoke of her struggle with the planners to explain that other learning centers may be located only a few miles away, but that “five miles is like a hundred”, ‘out of bounds’ for those without access to transport, or a safe pavement to walk on. Disability adds a further layer of complexity for Tom who has no access to a car and for Angela, who, despite being able to drive, does not wish to travel further than five miles at night. Even within the administratively determined town boundary there are differences of opinion as to what is local. When discussing possible places to re-establish classes Angela said, “some people at the other end of town would probably think the old station too far to go, so that’s why I said the school is quite a good place because it’s central to the town” and yet for Tom, who doesn’t “see too well now”, the half mile walk into the center is too far and believes poses a threat to his physical safety with “too many after your wallet down there”. Any planner would pragmatically consider half a mile to be no distance at all and very local indeed. However, imposing systems of geographical and administrative boundaries on places without knowing the uniqueness of the people involved can clearly deny accessibility to services and raises other contextual questions surrounding notions of ‘ownership’.

5.3. Ownership Lefebvre (2000) argues that every part of society produces and ‘owns’ spaces that are meaningful to them. This certainly appears to be the case when interviewees describe some strong emotions as to what might constitute a different learning space for adults as a substitute for Corrington House. Angela explains that she knows “quite a few people round here that wouldn’t go to the school […] they said it was bad enough going to school when they had to so why go back now?” and Naomi explains how the size of the desks and chairs are inappropriate. Elin says how “we need adult space for adults” and goes on to say how the head teacher at the primary school where classes were to be initially relocated: won’t let us use the staff room for a break [out of school hours] in case we break something or steal something. I work there during the day and suddenly I become a thief of an evening [...] at The House […] we didn’t get any thieving or damage at all. It was ours.

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I believe this predilection for security in the school and at Sure Start is born from a fear of the ‘outside’ coming ‘in’. This notion makes explicit the disjunction between opposing sides of a boundary, where some learning can be considered inappropriate and ‘out of bounds’ of some spaces. At the new Sure Start, Naomi says everyone has: to press the buzzer if they want to get in and out, we are for ever having to leave what we are doing and open the door […] but we didn’t have to do that at The House, we knew each other so people came in and we would know which child went with each Mum […] It was about trust, it was a drop-in center so the older people used to walk through the playgroup area to get to the computers at the back, and they would have a laugh with the mums and the kids. It meant they mixed.

The question of trust and of being contextualized as ‘an outsider’ arises when societal fear about inadequate protection is incorporated into educational contexts. However, Dan recognizes the folly of this boundary for “they are the same people as they are outside—the same kids, the same parents, the same problems, the same opportunities”. If people do not feel they have a stake in the ownership of a venue it can have a real impact, such as the anti-social behavior that Naomi describes: And we had to put a big wire fence around this place [Sure Start] so the local kids didn’t get in and spray graffiti all over it—we never had problems like that at The House cos the kids came in and played pool and the youth club was there and it would have been like messing up their own house.

Angela explains how not everyone wanted a Sure Start in the first instance saying: It labels us doesn’t it? It's like saying we are all the same, all bad parents. Everyone knows that you put a Sure Start in where you have problem communities and we were doing OK actually. We were really working hard getting The House up and running and getting other [services] in […] and we were really turning it around […] and now it’s all closed down and we have this new building that tells everyone that we don’t look after our kids right and that we need help, but actually we can help ourselves you know?

This feeling is echoed by Dan who states that “Sure Start—kind of reassures us that we are no good so why bother trying?” Ownership was also explored by respondents when they considered the

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community hall, constructed in 2006 with lottery and government funding, as a possible venue for the relocation of classes. The Charities Commission described the hall as being built with the object of improving the conditions of life for the inhabitants of Corrington, but it is clearly not greatly valued by the respondents. Elin describes it as “a joke [...] way too big and impersonal” and Angela says “it’s too big and hollow when you go in. It echoes and it isn’t used [...] you forget the building is there. It just becomes part of the landscape”. This is a clear example of how being labeled as a ‘socially deprived’ community has triggered unsustainable interventions to help ‘solve’ social problems. Lovett (1982) believes approaches such as these are spearheaded by those who cannot truly understand the needs of the community as they parachute resources in with little reference to those whom it will affect. The uniqueness of lives conflicts with such modes of standardization and raises question as to who ‘owns’ and therefore ‘values’ spaces?

5.4. Personality During the conversations, I was struck by what Elin termed the ‘impersonal’ space of the community hall, implying that Corrington House was a more ‘personal’ space. Indeed, this feeling recurs in the transcripts of several other interviewees, including Tom who says, “you could treat the old center like home” and Naomi, who was re-employed as the manager of Sure Start after the closure of Corrington House, when she describes the importance of a “homely feel”. She says Corrington House is: a house and children and adults treated it as a house, so if you've got vulnerable families they will tend to go to that rather than bigger buildings or a village hall, they intimidate people, too impersonal.

Naomi feels this lack of personality is also an issue with Sure Start, making it feel that it was not for her and ‘out of bounds’ for many who accessed the old learning center. She describes her attempts at Sure Start to add a sofa and posters in reception, stating: now all the centers have to follow the guidelines as to what they look like and everything has to have their stamp on it [...] it’s too impersonal. It’s a brand-new building and everything is new and the parents and the kids are sometimes too worried they might spoil it so they don’t use it.

This tacit endorsement of learning echoes the thoughts of Lash and Urry (1994) who describe how educational institutions are often defined

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by their visual wrapping, constituting an object that has an identity and a personality projected upon it. The inappropriate scale of some learning venues can form psychological boundaries as to where it feels right to learn and where it does not and this is important for our sense of agency and motivation. As Angela states, “I wouldn't dream of going to university or a college, the places are too grand for me and most people round here” and though Naomi is really pleased that “two [students] got to university” she wouldn’t wish to go there herself, considering it ‘out of bounds’. Perhaps the economics of attending such institutions plays a part in this but some resistance may be reinforced by these establishments not offering adult evening classes, so there is little opportunity for people to challenge their pre-conceptions and render such education more accessible. This gradual process of assisting people in making a series of small revisions can free them from habitual ways of thinking and acting in what Mezirow (2000) terms perspective transformation.

5.5. Brokerage Tuomi-Gröhn and Engeström (2003) contend that brokers are essential in order to mediate the re-shaping of boundary perceptions. They encourage a feeling of being able to contravene the existing status quo and act beyond the accepted boundaries. This agency encourages ‘out of bounds’ thinking but often needs encouragement from others to broker the change. Dan mentions it when he says: [it often] just needs someone to say it’s OK to think about this and it’s not easy but it’s OK to think that way […] I hope I opened doors. I can’t make them go through, but at least I opened the door to some things [...] there are […] levels of complexity that [people] can cope with, but other things that are perhaps too, too difficult, too strange.

Angela describes how leisure classes can enhance her feeling of confidence and self-esteem and Rachael explains how learning has helped her to cope and gain confidence. Tom explains how, with the manager’s help he was able to complete his paperwork, use the computers at Corrington House to maintain email contact with his son in Australia and order his shopping on-line. His learning boundaries went far beyond the physical boundaries of Corrington itself, but since it closed he has limited contact with his son and relies on social services to deliver his weekly shopping. For people like Rachael with few positive learning experiences from childhood to rely on, brokers are essential to facilitate her sense of agency

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and to continue learning as an adult (Hart and Blincow 2007). For her there is a very real sense of regret when she writes, “I think sometimes it might be best not to know what it is like on the outside now I am stuck back here cos now I miss it and before I didn’t know it was there”. This articulates her perception of a fixed boundary through which she feels she can no longer travel and the emotional strangeness she senses having stepped outside the familiar. It is impossible for her to return to a state of ignorance about learning opportunities and it will “permanently alter […her] way of being in the world” (O’Sullivan 2002, 11). Without appropriate brokerage only those with sufficient agency and self-esteem are likely to continue to have the desire and motivation to reshape their own boundaries.

5.6. Visibility During her conversations, Naomi, the manager at Corrington House, mentioned how she was able to organize a class if a need emerged, stating: at The House I could put on a course if there were enough people asking for it, that’s how we did a lot of things there—it sort of grew out of what people wanted and I could combine literacy, health and numeracy or computers in with it. It made the learning accessible.

However, policy that directs learning towards equipping the UK workforce with economic skills is at present the main priority for national Government. At Sure Start Naomi describes how only classes that can be linked to nationally prescribed objectives can be offered. When Corrington House was open, adult classes also followed a similar pattern and only those that led to a qualification were fully funded, creating a hierarchy of learning content. Angela experienced an example of this reductionist mode of boundary which was imposed without reference to her unique situation. She had been a Teaching Assistant (TA) at Corrington Primary School for eight years. In 2010, she began the process of gaining a National Vocational Qualification (NVQ), which became the mandatory minimum qualification for those working as a TA. Her experience of learning beyond the boundary of the NVQ curriculum appears to count for very little. She says: Basically, I found […it] really frustrating because […] I’ve learnt nothing from [the NVQ] to help me do the job any better […] I was actually told off […for] giving too much information. They said to ‘write down what your knowledge of childcare is’ […] So I wrote pages, I’ve brought up six

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This demonstrates how narrow and prescriptive policy can hinder learning when people are made to ‘fit into’ inappropriately defined boundaries and made to feel that they have transgressed if they dare to travel ‘out of bounds’. It also indicates how legislation on equal opportunities and widening participation, designed to encourage learning, can be subverted by the need to achieve quantifiable results. Naomi also recognizes that metrics was used as a reason for the closure of Corrington House. Funding was contingent on her reporting the numbers of people using the center every month. However, only particular categories were requested on the form, which rendered many of the people using the center and their needs invisible. She says: There were about 1400 when I used to do my monthly figures and when I [first] went there it was 230 and they couldn’t see that because I couldn’t put certain types of learners down on the forms because they were outside the categories, like people over fifty-five and drop-in people. It had to be accredited numbers on courses for six weeks or longer. I used to write down […] the real numbers on the bottom of the form each month […] just to protest but nothing ever came from it [...] they were just ignored.

Dan also describes this as an issue when he discusses art qualifications. He says, “the outcome becomes the only part of the process that you have in mind so you end up not valuing or enjoying or even recognizing the stuff that happens along the way”. O’Sullivan suggests that spaces like Corrington House are in increasingly short supply as “leisure and contemplation […] have no value […] because none of these activities is governed by the motivation for profit” (2002, 10). Thus, learning spaces become instruments of narrow economic purposes at the expense of other considerations such as health, wellbeing and the social aspects of learning. The respondents recognized Corrington House as a thriving and non-threatening accessible learning place, but the metrics indicated otherwise and any such learning was considered irrelevant and ‘out of bounds’ to those who determined its future.

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6. Commentary and summary The use of fixed borders to express pragmatic understandings by which the respondents in this study explain their lives is much in evidence. Static contexts appear to deliver solutions to a range of perceived problems and are constituted to organize and resource ‘appropriate’ learning in ‘acceptable’ forms. Boundaries are formulated to perpetuate a safe and familiar perception of the world as a fixed reality that can be structured and explained. Notions of boundary permeate the grammar and vocabulary of the interviews and are so deeply embedded that it is sometimes difficult to remember that they only reflect reality and do not create it. The respondents’ transcripts are infused with the consequences of describing reality through fixed, representational boundaries. Firstly, they recognize the importance of involving those who access the services in their planning, implementation and organization. They are disconcerted by the inappropriately scaled community hall which “repels old-fashioned attempts to put down roots […] on which to erect a new life” (Buchanan and Lambert 2005, 22). Externally imposed temporal and spatial boundaries have directly impacted learning opportunities, with opening hours, course programs and venues being organized with little recognition of the voices of those most affected. Here the “routines and rituals that human collectives (re)create and provide structure and meaning to human life” (Bagga-Gupta 2013, 30) are deemed irrelevant and ‘out of bounds’. Secondly, for those involved in the study, the construction of a Sure Start at Corrington, built as a one-size-fits-all program to include marginalized communities in society, has achieved the opposite. It has disintegrated the ‘inclusive’ services provided at Corrington House and created an ‘exclusive’ learning space, ‘out of bounds’ to many in the community. This adjustment from ‘opting out’ from the inclusive learning space at Corrington House to the ‘opting in’ culture of exclusive educational institutions such as Sure Start, has alienated many of those interviewed from educational opportunities. Olkowski (1999) contends that at the heart of this issue are rationales which confuse ‘resemblance’ with ‘identicality’. It is through the inadequate representation of marginalization through understandings of static boundaries that leads to the imposition of universal remedies like Sure Start. Thirdly, limiting the understanding of community spaces to quantifiable metrics renders the positive aspects of more holistic and inclusive learning as undervalued or invisible by those who act from a distance (Rose and Miller 1992). If education is to play a substantive role in social inclusion, its wider and more qualitative benefits currently

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deemed ‘out of bounds’ need to be (re)drawn on the official maps of those that make policy. The territories thus described are always in constant need of adaptation and updating as social complexity is not only recognized but encouraged (Bateson 2000). So, what is the alternative to describing marginalization through the conception of simplistic, static boundaries? Without fixed borders, the system of representation against which we are all measured can be diminished. Without static boundaries and the hierarchies they provoke, comes ‘the ruin of representation’ (Olkowski 1999) and the demise of ‘out of bounds’ ways of being. In this mode of thinking, problem solving is not contained by time and space; it has interconnections to other places and times in the past and the future. Social space will no longer be confined by the boundaries of the space within which we move. Like Tom using the Internet, it becomes possible to imagine spaces that we have never visited, even ones that have yet to come into being (Fenwick, Edwards and Sawchuk 2011). However, ultimately, this dichotomy leads to a dilemma, for without hierarchically arranged discrete units to make sense of it all, if learning and disadvantage cannot be represented, then how is it possible to navigate a “brave new world without borders” (Buchanan and Lambert 2005, 17). A radical new framework for how society thinks about social inclusion and learning will not be easy to establish. It would require an epistemological shift that does not: seek closure […but] articulate[s] a different […] ‘way of being’ […] that is less concerned with representing the real than it is with living it out in different ways [...] it is the result [...] of participating in the creation of an unfinished universe (Osberg, Biesta and Cilliers 2008, 214-215).

Is it better to perpetuate the flawed notions of fixed boundaries and representation despite its negative consequences? A third way might be to conceptualize marginalization as occurring not at the border, but in the immediate borderlands between boundaries (Bagga-Gupta 2013). For this to occur, there is a very real need to recognize the voices of those currently living and learning ‘out of bounds’ of current representational boundaries and encourage more appropriate qualitative and quantitative indicators of progress to (re)emerge. My own views continue to evolve, but I believe that there have to be better ways of conceptualizing social inclusion and learning. After all, “how we conceive the world is absolutely relevant to how we live it” (Olkowski 1999, 94).

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References Adorno, Theodor W. 1990. Negative Dialectics. London: Routledge. Ancona, Deborah G, Goodman, Paul S, Lawrence, Barbara S and Tushman, Michael L. 2001. “Time: A new research lens.” Academy of Management Review, 26(4): 645-563. Antonio, Robert J and Kellner, Douglas. 1994. “Postmodern Social Theory: Contributions and Limitations.” In Postmodernism and Social Inquiry, edited by David Dickens and Andrea Fontana, 127-152. New York: Guilford Press. Bagga-Gupta, Sangeeta. 2013. “The Boundary-Turn: Relocating Language, Culture and Identity through the epistemological lenses of time, space and social interactions.” In Alternative Voices: (Re)searching Language, Culture, Identity, edited by Imtiaz S. Hasnain, Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta and Shailendra Mohan, 28-49. Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Bateson, Gregory. 2000. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Biesta, Gert and Burbules, Nicholas. 2003. Pragmatism and Educational Research. Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. Buchanan, Ian and Lambert, Gregg. 2005. Deleuze and Space. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Coffield, Frank. 2007. Running ever faster down the wrong road. An alternative future for education and skills. London: Institute of Education. Department for Business Innovation and Skills. 2012. BIS Review and Update of Research into Wider Benefits of Adult Learning. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_d ata/file/34671/12-1243-review-wider-benefits-of-adult-learning.pdf. Department for Children, Schools and Families. 2010. Children’s Centres. https://www.dcsf.gov.uk/everychildmatters/earlyyears/surestart/ surestartchildrenscentres/childrenscentres. Department for Education. 2014. Digital Inclusion Strategy. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-digitalinclusion-strategy/government-digital-inclusion-strategy. Department for Education and Skills. 2003. Every Child Matters. https://www.education.gov.uk/consultations/downloadableDocs/Every ChildMatters.pdf. Department for the Environment and Education. 1998a. The Learning Age: A new renaissance for a new Britain. London: The Stationery Office.

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—. 1998b. Strategic Framework to 2002. London: The Stationery Office. Denscombe, Martyn. 2007. The Good Research Guide for Small-Scale Social Research Projects. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill OUP Press. Edwards, Richard. 2005. “Contexts, Boundary Zones and Boundary Objects in Lifelong Learning.” Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Conference, University of Glamorgan, Wales, September 14-17. http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/143404.htm. Engeström, Yrjö. 2007. “From communities of practice to mycorrhizae.” In Communities of Practice: Critical Perspectives, edited by Jason Hughes, Nick Jewson and Lorna Unwin, 41-54. London: Routledge. Fenwick, Tara, Edwards, Richard and Sawchuk, Peter. 2011. Emerging Approaches to Educational Research: Tracing the Socio-Material. Oxford: Routledge. Field, John. 2006. Lifelong Learning and the New Educational Order. Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books. Glaser, Barney, G. 1999. “The Future of Grounded Theory.” Qualitative Health Research, 9(6): 836-845. Gough, Martin. 2014. “New Basic Skills, Nonbasic Skills, Knowledge Practices and Judgment: Tensions between the needs of basic literacy, of vocational education and training and of Higher and Professional Learning.” In Challenging the European Area of Lifelong Learning: A Critical Response, edited by George Zarifis and Maria Gravani, 51-60. New York: Springer. Hammersley, Martyn. 1990. The Dilemma of Qualitative Method: Herbert Blumer and the Chicago Tradition. London: Routledge. Hart, Angela and Blincow, Derek. 2007. Resilient Therapy: Working with children and families. Hove: Routledge. Holliday, Adrian. 2007. Doing and Writing Qualitative Research. London: Sage Publications. Hunt, Celia and Sampson, Fiona. 2006. Writing: Self and Reflexivity. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Kennedy, Helena. 1997. Learning Works: Widening Participation in Further Education. Coventry: Further Education Funding Council. Kress, Gunther, Jewitt, Carey, Bourne, Jill, Franks, Anton, Hardcastle, John, Jones, Ken and Reid, Euan. 2005. English in Urban Classrooms: A multimodal perspective on teaching and learning. London: RoutledgeFalmer. Lash, Scott and Urry, John. 1994. Economies of Signs and Space. London: Sage. Lefebvre, Henri. 2000. The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell.

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Lippard, Lucy. 1990. Mixed Blessings: New Art in Multicultural America. New York: Pantheon Books. Lovett, Tom. 1982. Adult Education, Community Development and the Working Class. Nottingham: University of Nottingham. Merrill, Barbara and West Linden. 2009. Using Biographical Methods in Social Research. London: Sage Publications. Mezirow, Jack. 2000. Learning as Transformation: Critical perspectives on a theory in progress. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Mills, C Wright. 2000. The Sociological Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Moreland, Rosemary and Lovett, Tom. 1997. “Lifelong Learning and Community Development.” International Journal of Lifelong Education, 16(3): 201-216. National Audit Office. 2006. Sure Start Children’s Centres: Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General. London: The Stationery Office. Olkowski, Dorothea. 1999. Gilles Deleuze and the Ruin of Representation. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Osberg, Deborah, Biesta, Gert and Cilliers, Paul. 2008. “From Representation to Emergence: Complexity’s challenge to the epistemology of schooling.” Educational Philosophy and Theory, 40(1): 213-227. O’Sullivan, Edmund. 2002. “The Project and Vision of Transformative Education: Integral transformative learning.” In Expanding the Boundaries of Transformative Learning, edited by Edmund O’Sullivan, Amish Morrell and Mary Ann O’Connor, 59-76. New York: Palgrave. Percy-Smith, Janie. 2000. Policy Responses to Social Exclusion: Towards inclusion? Buckingham: Open University Press. Pole, Christopher and Morrison, Marlene. 2003. Ethnography for Education. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Poverty Site UK. 2010. “Relative poverty, absolute poverty and social exclusion.” https://www.poverty.org.uk/summary/social%20exclusion. shtml. Rose, Nikolas and Miller, Peter. 1992. “Political power beyond the state: Problematics of government.” British Journal of Sociology, 43(2): 173205. Rubin, Herbert and Rubin, Irene. 2005. Qualitative Interviewing: The art of hearing data. London: Sage. Sanderson, Ian. 2000. “Evaluating Initiatives to Address Social Exclusion.” In Policy Responses to Social Exclusion: Towards inclusion, edited by Janie Percy-Smith, 216-239. Buckingham: Open

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University Press. Stanley, Liz. 1992. The Auto/biographical I. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Tuomi-Gröhn, Terttu and Engeström, Yrjö. 2003. Between School and Work: New perspectives on transfer and boundary crossing. Oxford: Pergamon. Walliman, Nicholas. 2001. Your Research Project. London: Sage. West, Linden. 2001. Doctors on the Edge: General practitioners’ health and learning in the inner city. London: Free Association Books.

PART IV: LANGUAGE RELATED HEGEMONIES ACROSS SETTINGS

CHAPTER TWELVE TWO GROUPS, TWO WORLDS: ITALIAN AND GERMAN IN BOZEN, SOUTH TYROL CHIARA MELUZZI

1. Linguistic perception in a multilingual setting The linguistic perception of people living in multilingual settings may reveal something about how languages are used and may also inform further and more relevant language policies for that area. Moreover, asking for speakers’ opinions may highlight instances of marginalization not evident by looking at the official data alone. In this respect, the purpose of this chapter is to investigate how Italian speakers in Bozen/Bolzano (South Tyrol, Italy) perceive their own language and the language of ‘the other’ linguistic group (i.e. German), and if and how they interact with this other linguistic group. Thus, the chapter will highlight if and what types of marginalization processes are in play within the Italian speaking group, at least in the perception of its members. Bozen represents a good setting for this kind of investigation, since it displays some specific peculiarities. South Tyrol is an example of language contact in a border region affected by many migration processes, and is also a good example of language policy that has been applied to a multilingual area. Although Bozen may be compared to other borderlands and/or to multilingual towns affected by analogous migration processes, the case of Bozen is special given the current extent of language contact and the unique language policy in place in South Tyrol. With respect to the two main linguistic groups in this area (i.e. German and Italian), it is worth emphasizing that a process of integration between the two communities started only after 1972 and constitutes an ongoing progress (see, for instance Brannick 2012). It might be argued that the extent of the contact between the two languages and groups is a personal affair: indeed, a central role is played by personal (or familiar) attitudes towards languages, and by personal or

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group’s self-perception of languages and linguistic groups. Many scholars have addressed the multilingualism of South Tyrol, by concentrating mainly on issues related to language learning and German dialectology.1 However, scholars have not explicitly dealt with either the Italian linguistic group (see also Meluzzi 2012) or the relationship between Italian migration in South Tyrol (see section 2) and language perception. A partial exception in this sense is represented by Veronesi’s (2008) work on linguistic biographies and the work on stereotypes in L2 speakers by Paladino et al. (2009). This chapter is structured as follows. Section 2 aims to give a brief contextualization of the study, by highlighting the history of multilingualism in South Tyrol, and the current linguistic situation of the main town Bozen. Section 3 presents the theoretical framework and the research design in terms of methods and data collection. Section 4 provides the analysis of the linguistic perception of Italian Bozen speakers, and section 5 discusses the results and opens up to further analysis on related topics.

2. Bozen and the challenge of multilingualism Ever since the Middle Ages, Bozen has been a multilingual town. It has hosted merchants from all over the world, and especially from Italy (e.g., Venice, Florence, etc.). This strong Italian presence is testified by the creation of a sort of Trade Chancellery, called “Magistrato Mercantile” in 1635.2 Up until 1918 Bozen belonged to the Tyrolean kingdom, and then to the Hapsburg kingdom. After the end of World War I, the macro-area of Tyrol became divided into North and South Tyrol; the latter became part of the Italian kingdom. A few years later, fascist language policies forced the so-called “Italianization” of South Tyrol: on the one hand, German was banned from public offices and schools,3 on the other hand, a strong migration of Italian speakers to South Tyrol (specifically to Bozen) was promoted by Mussolini’s government. Thus, a sort of colonization started, that aimed to wipe out German culture by building up a new Italo-Tyrolean identity.4 This atmosphere of intolerance and discrimination against German people as well as the “invasion” of Italian speakers, created the conditions for the rising of linguistic conflicts in the years that followed. At the end of World War II, with the defeat of Fascism and the introduction of a new Republican government in Italy, a special policy was needed to deal with the South Tyrolean situation. Both Italian and German speakers preferred to preserve their own languages and traditions. A new language policy was established in 1972 with the “Second Statute of Autonomy”, also referred to using the Italian title “Pacchetto”: the three

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languages spoken in South Tyrol (i.e. Italian, German and Ladin5) were recognized as equal and subsequently they were required to be taught at kindergarten and primary schools.6 The teaching of a second language, i.e. German for Italian speakers and Italian for German speakers,7 was also in place from primary school onwards. Citizens today continue to be divided into three different linguistic groups8 based on a self-declaration of affiliation made every ten years during the national census. The data of the last national census in 2011 reveal that in South Tyrol 69.41 percent of the population (self-)declared themselves part of the German-speaking community, whereas 26.06 percent identified as the Italian-speaking community, and the remaining 4.53 percent are Ladin speakers. This division plays a central role in South Tyrol administration: indeed, jobs in the public sphere are divided according to the proportion of the linguistic communities, that is to say with 69.14 percent of the positions reserved for the German group, 26.48 percent for the Italian group and 4.38 percent for the Ladin group.9 It is worth emphasizing that this model of language policy in South Tyrol has been positively evaluated, and it is an encouraging example for other countries dealing with the challenge of multilingualism (Freddi 1982, Egger 2001).

Fig. 12-1. Districts of Bozen (ASTAT 2012)

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However, it needs to be noted that within South Tyrol, integration between the two main linguistic groups, i.e. German and Italian, has not been reached. This is particularly evident in the main cities, such as Bozen, where about 73 percent of the population self-declared as part of the Italian community, and only 26.29 percent of the population belongs to the German-speaking community. This makes Bozen the town in South Tyrol where the Italian linguistic community is the largest. Historically speaking, Bozen has been divided into German and Italian districts (see Figure 12-1): the data from the 1981 national Census10 testifies that in Center and Gries more than 50 percent of the population belonged to the German speaking group, whereas in the other districts (Europa Novacella, Don Bosco, and Oltrisarco) the vast majority belonged to the Italian group (see also Table 12-1). Furthermore, up until very recently, the school system as well as cultural and sports activities were carefully divided: for instance, there are separated volley-ball clubs for German and Italian teens. In addition, from a linguistic point of view, German taught in Italian schools is very different from the German dialect(s) spoken by the German community.11 District

Total

Italian

German

Ladin

Centre

18.348 (17%)

49%

50%

1%

Gries-S.Quirino

32.848 (31%)

67%

32%

1%

Oltrisarco, Europa, Don Bosco

53.732 (51%)

85%

14%

1%

Homeless

252 (1%)

-

-

-

Total

105.180

73%

26%

1%

Table 12-1. The distribution of linguistic groups in Bozen districts in 1980 (adapted from Petri 1989, 251) This situation increased the sense of isolation of the Italian community. It might be argued that in South Tyrol there are two ‘minority’ languages: while German is a minority language at a national level, Italian is the minority language in South Tyrol (together with Ladin, which embodies the prototypical case of a minority language at the national and the local level). German and Ladin are officially recognized as minority languages, while this is not the case for Italian because it is the national official language. Finally, it is worth highlighting that a process of integration has begun more recently. Therefore, the degree of segregation/integration between the two groups is dependent upon personal attitudes, which, as mentioned above, is the focus of the present chapter.

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3. The research design 3.1. “Bringing the folks into linguistics” In this chapter, the investigation of speakers’ linguistic perceptions has been guided by a folk linguistic approach. Folk linguistics is nowadays considered a good instrument to investigate speakers’ perceptions of their own (or others’) speech (Niedzielski and Preston 2003, also Baker 1992). The main goal of this approach is the application to related fields, especially language policy, language teaching and learning. Wilton and Stegu (2011) have stressed the importance of folks’ attitudes and beliefs and relate this to applied linguistics, since linguists need to know what non-linguists think of the issues at hand, how their knowledge is generated, and how it can be enriched in order to help them solve language-related problems or change negative attitudes (Wilton and Stegu 2011, 12).

A folk linguistic approach can help in identifying speakers’ attitudes towards their own language and the language of the “other”, especially in multilingual settings. These attitudes could indeed be reflected in speakers’ productions, for instance in the way German affects Italian spoken in South Tyrol (or, vice versa, how Italian influences German).12 Studying folk attitudes in the special multilingual context of Bozen can also be a first step in the process of understanding (and also improving or trying to improve) the problems between languages and linguistic groups, taking into special consideration issues such as separation and language contact. Following Preston (2011), a discourse approach to folk linguistics has been used in the study presented in this chapter. Speakers were asked, in addition to providing a range of information, to express their opinions about German and Italian languages and to present some personal experience of contact with the ‘other’ linguistic group. The interesting part of such an approach is not only what the speakers overtly say, but also what they do not say, i.e. “what is presupposed” because “such presuppositions often involve deeply-held folk beliefs” (Preston 2011, 34). Presuppositions, pragmatic instances, such as self-repair or reformulations, do define speakers’ attitudes towards languages and could integrate a more general sociolinguistic model of language variation in a multilingual context.

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3.2. Method and corpus For the purpose of this study, face-to-face semi-structured interviews were recorded. Speakers were asked to present their family origins, and their own experience as Bozen and more generally South Tyrol inhabitants. Specific questions were posed in order to investigate their contacts and relationships with the other language, and linguistic group.13 After this socio-biographical section, the interview focused upon speakers’ perceptions of languages spoken in South Tyrol.14 Considering the role of language in linguistic communities, speakers often automatically switched from the previous topic to linguistic and ethnic identity and membership. If they didn’t do this spontaneously, they were invited to discuss this topic by the researcher.15 This last part of the interview touched on the core of the problematic relationships between linguistic groups in Bozen. Since this took place in the last section of the interview, speakers’ felt more relaxed and they generally talked more informally. As a result, powerful and strong expressions were often used, in a very colloquial speech style. Moreover, the danger of a possible social bias was avoided. The researcher is not part of the Bozen community (a point clearly specified at the beginning of the recordings): this enabled the researcher to both ask for more details and to steer clear of any prejudices or prior beliefs regarding the topic in focus. Most of the interviews were conducted with a single speaker, but the data also includes some cases where two speakers were interviewed at the same time. In the case of the latter, speakers were close friends or relatives and a social bias does not seem to have played any role.

Men

60+ years old

35-60 years old

18-35 years old

4

14

5

Women

7

9

3

Total

11

23

8

Table 12-2. The corpus stratified by the variables of age and sex The data were collected at the Free University of Bozen between October 2011 and March 2012, by using a ZOOM H2 recorder equipped with a microphone that was placed in front of the speaker. Each participant had been informed prior the session that the general purpose of the research was to study the Italian community of Bozen. Permission was obtained to record the participants (recordings would be anonymized). The recordings were then transcribed with the software ELAN, with an

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annotation tier specifically dedicated to conversational topics. The corpus consists of 42 semi-structured interviews with Italian speakers,16 for a total of 25 hours and 12 minutes, with a mean duration of 36 minutes per interview. The corpus has been stratified according to the two main variables of age and sex as shown in Table 12-2. Furthermore, the districts of residence have been taken into consideration in order to include an equal number of speakers from the more German districts (e.g. Centre), and from the more Italian ones (e.g. Don Bosco). Other sociolinguistic data was also collected: e.g. participants levels of education, their jobs, and parents’ origins. Two bilingual speakers, a man and a woman, both around 45 years old, were also added to the main corpus as a first control group.17

4. Linguistic perception and marginalization Speakers appeared to feel free to express their own opinion when (and only when) the dialogue, in the course of the interview, was explicitly informal: this was expected and achieved by discussing language related issues after about 10-15 minutes of recording, in order to let the speaker grow accustomed to the microphone. However, some speakers seemed to be a little uncomfortable, perhaps due to the formal setting of the interviews. A social bias could also have contributed to this discomfort: in the case of middle-aged men with a low education or middle-aged women with medium or high levels of education in the sample. In their interviews, a social bias is expressed in statements like “Personalmente non ho mai avuto problemi con i tedeschi” (literally, “As for me, I never had any problems with Germans”) or “I tedeschi che conosco io sono gente a posto” (“The Germans I know are nice people”). These responses were given when subjects were asked explicit questions about the relationships between the two linguistic groups in Bozen. They appeared to be introduced by the subjects in order to avoid misunderstandings or in order to avoid any explicit signs of racism. The results presented in this section are organized under three main topics. Firstly, the relationships between the two linguistic groups are considered as they emerged in the narration of Italian and bilingual speakers. Second, linguistic perception is directly addressed by considering speakers’ definitions and descriptions of the variety of Italian and German spoken in Bozen. Finally, the problem of isolation of the two linguistic groups is addressed by referring again to the narratives collected during the interviews.

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4.1. One town, two groups Even though officially bilingual, it seems that in everyday life there are few occasions of interactions in more than one language. Indeed, the participants’ perception is that the two linguistic groups are quite divided, at least in the big cities like Bozen. It is however worth noting that currently the situation has changed significantly and that contact between the languages is more frequent, as attested to by a 30-year old participant SLG (see Transcript18 12-1). 106SLG

107SLG 108SLG 109SLG 110SLG 111SLG 112SLG 113SLG

114SLG

115SLG 116CM 117SLG 118SLG

beh diciamo che rispetto al passato è molto migliorato [well let’s say that things have become much better as compared to the past] una volta c'era più distinzione di adesso [earlier there was a clear distinction as compared to nowadays] e adesso diciamo che è più anche [and now let’s say that it’s also more] le persone si aggregano di più [people congregate more] adesso è più insomma [now it’s more then] è più facile ecco anche [it’s easier well also] andare d'accordo perché le giovani generazioni [to get along well because younger generations] si sono insomma [yeah they are then]

infatti ci sono anche più matrimoni misti e compagnie miste

[indeed there are more mixed marriages and mixed groups] invece una una volta era più difficile [on the contrary earlier it was more difficult] tu avevi da ragazzo diciamo degli amici tedeschi o [when you were a boy, did you have let’s say German friends or] eh no amici tedeschi no però colleghi di lavoro sì [eh no German friends no but I had some colleagues yeah] colleghi di lavoro no c'andavo d'accordo eh [colleagues no I got along well with them eh]

Transcript 12-1. Language contact

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SLG’s last sentence (line 118) demonstrates his desire to avoid a social bias: after saying that he did not have German friends but did have German colleagues, he immediately clarifies that he has good relationships with them. This clarification is emphasized by the use of the discourse marker “eh”, with a noticeable raising in the prosodic pitch. This short interview segment also emphasizes how contacts between the two groups are partially linked to the age of the speaker. Thus, teens have greater possibilities to participate in mixed groups today, while adults or older participants in the study highlight that they did not have such opportunities when they were children. A 37-year-old man like SLG found it difficult or impossible to have German friends during his childhood (see Transcript 12-2).

151CM

152SLG

153SLG

ma da ragazzo quindi non avevi una compagnia mista diciamo come [so when you were a boy, people didn’t mix let’s say as] no [no]

in genere preferibilmente italiana [generally, they were mainly Italian]

Transcript 12-2. Language group contact

SLG’s response to the researcher’s question is quick and clear-cut (line 152), almost overlapping. After a long pause of more than 2 seconds, he adds a short statement (line 153) by specifying that his friends were “generally” all Italians. Children from bilingual families had some issues too, but they experienced a different situation. In Transcript 12-3, a bilingual adult, EK19 highlights her difficulties at school. She reports that she spoke Italian with her mother at home and studied at German schools because her father was German:

231CM 232EK 233EK

coi compagni come ti trovavi? [and how was with your mates] coi compagni [with my mates] ho legato subito [I immediately made friends]

Two Groups, Two Worlds: Italian and German in Bozen, South Tyrol 234EK

235EK

254CM 255EK 256EK

257EK 258EK

259EK

317

in realtà non è non è non c'è stato questo questa discriminazione dei compa- da parte dei compagni [actually, it wasn’t it wasn’t there hasn’t been this this discrimination of my ma- by my mates] no non l'ho vissuta [no, I didn’t experience it]

e la maestra anche? [and what about the teacher?] la maestra all'inizio era un po' così [the teacher at first was a bit like this] poi effettivamente si è un po' ravveduta probabilmente e alla fine mi voleva anche bene [then actually she changed a bit and probably in the end she even loved me] penso insomma mi ricordo che [I think well I remember that] diceva che avevo un bel carattere insomma non mi sono ribellata a lei ma s- ho cercato anzi di [she said that I had a nice character well I never reacted to her yet I- tried to] ingraziarmela un po' [get a bit on the right side of her]

Transcript 12-3. Language usage across settings

In Transcript 12-4, EK also argues that only nowadays is it possible to have friends from the other linguistic group, even though this strongly depends on family attitudes and on which district you live in.

348EK

349EK 350EK 351EK 352EK

mh da questa generazione in poi non c'è più un'esclusione a priori di amicizie tra [mh from this generation onwards there hasn’t been any a priori exclusion of friendships between] tra [between] mh gruppi linguistici [linguistic groups] sono un po' più aperti mentalmente almeno [they are more open-minded at least] gli amici di mio figlio e mio figlio [my son’s friends and my son]

318 353EK 354EK

355EK 356EK 357EK

Chapter Twelve parlo di questi poi [I’m talking about them then] forse dipende molto anche [maybe it also depends a lot on]

da dove vivi [on where you live] dai quartieri [on districts] ci sono credo quartieri dove questa cosa non è proprio così [I mean there are districts where it doesn’t work like this]

Transcript 12-4. Language contacts across age and districts

The data presented in the examples above illustrates how contacts and relationships between the two linguistic groups vary, according to both age and in which district the participant lives. It is, for instance, difficult to find mixed groups of young people in districts like Don Bosco or Europa Novacella, as indicated by the bilingual speaker EK in Transcript 12-5.

401EK 402EK

403EK

e lì ce ne sono pochi di tedeschi in realtà no? [and there are really few Germans there, aren’t they?] e forse l'integrazione non perché non vogliono ma perché non non è reale diciamo non è [maybe integration not because they don’t want it but because it’s not the actual let’s say it’s not] mh non è possibile per questioni logistiche proprio [mh it’s not possible because of the logistical issues]

Transcript 12-5. Segregated districts: Don Bosco and Europa Novacella

Thus, the linguistic composition of the districts may become the main variable in studying linguistic perceptions and language attitudes in Bozen. Since the possibilities for contact between the two linguistic groups are very limited, a real separation (or even segregation) can be assumed to exist. This separation is also accentuated by the Tyrolean school system; in South Tyrol there are indeed Italian and German schools, which are completely segregated and even when the two schools share the same building there exists no contact between Italian and German pupils and such contact may even be forbidden (Baur et al. 2008). The following

Two Groups, Two Worlds: Italian and German in Bozen, South Tyrol

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statement by SLG (Transcript 12-6) represents a complaint shared by most of the participants in the data. 201CM 202SLG 203CM

204SLG 205SLG 206SLG

207CM 208SLG

ma la scuola era hai fatto quelle italiane vero [you went to an Italian school, didn’t you?] italiane sì [Italian yeah] e durante la scuola non c'era possibilità di avere contatti con [and when you were at school, were there any possibilities to have contacts with] no [no] anzi no no no no no perché [well no no no no no because] eh facevano orari di entrata e uscita diversi orari di pausa diversi [eh there were different entry and exit times different break times]

eh no non ci credo proprio [eh no I can’t believe it] sì sì [yes yes]

Transcript 12-6. Language groups segregation within same school campus

In his response, the participant highlights an extreme division between the two linguistic groups at school, which increases the separation of the groups both during childhood and into adulthood.

4.2. Italian, German … and dialect! The separation between the two communities influences how German is perceived by Italian speakers; an issue that emerges in the responses given in many interviews. As a general remark, the participants from Bozen are sensitive to linguistic problems and display a good degree of linguistic awareness, including that related to small phonetic details.20 When asked about their perception of Italian spoken in Bozen, participants were able to discuss this issue by giving many examples and perspectives, as illustrated through the case of AC21 in Transcript 12-7.

320

349AC

350AC 351AC 352AC 353AC

354AC 355AC 356AC

357AC 358AC 359AC 360AC

361AC

362AC

363AC

364AC

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diciamo che diciamo che la li- mh [let’s say that the the mh]

sì ci sono secondo me delle influenze abbastanza [yes, there are in my opinion influences quite] cioè [I mean] si riesce a capire che uno viene da [one may understand if a person comes from] più o meno questa zona quando parla [more or less this area when he speaks]

ci sono forse [maybe there are] variano queste influenze anche in funzione dell'età [these influences vary according to age] delle persone che parlano [of who is speaking]

eh [well] diciamo che gli anziani hanno [let’s say that old people have] almeno nel quartiere dove vivo io ecco diciamo [at least in the district I live in, let’s say] hanno una [they have a]

prevalenza di accento veneto [predominant Venetian accent]

gli anziani [the oldest people]

i giovani forse hanno [the youngest maybe have]

più uno slang eh di qua mh [more a slang, well from this place]

Transcript 12-7. Linguistic awareness across groups

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The participant in Transcript 12-7 identifies differences within the Italian community, related both to the age of the speaker (lines 358-364) and his/her family origins. A diachronic and areal variation is thus recognized as characteristic of Italian spoken in Bozen (see also Meluzzi 2014). However, when the topic switches to the perception of German spoken by the other linguistic group, participants display a tendency to generalize, and they usually make very clear-cut statements. Moreover, very few instances of spoken German are provided to substantiate such statements. When an example is introduced, the speaker usually mimics Tyrolean pronunciation, by complaining, at the same time, about the impossibility of speaking Standard German outside the school context. With respect to this, two clear instances of such statements are provided in Transcripts 128 and 12-9, both taken from interviews with two women, CU and MaCP, aged 43 and 72 respectively. From these women, it can be observed how the participants describe the variety of German spoken in Bozen by using denigrating adjectives. 505CU 506CU

però a Bolzano non c'è un dialetto (italiano) [but in Bozen there doesn’t exist an (Italian) dialect] per la parte tedesca sì c'è lo quello schifosissimo tedesco che parlano loro [for Germans yeah there is that disgusting German dialect they speak]

Transcript 12-8. “A disgusting dialect” 401CM

402CM 403MaCP 404CM 405MaCP 406MaCP

eh lei cosa ne pensa del tedesco parlato qua in città? [well what do you think of German spoken in town?]

in#intendo dai suoi# [I mean by his] #è# dialetto [it’s dialect] uhm [uhm] è un dialettaccio terribile [it’s a horrible dialect] è un dialettaccio terribile [it’s a horrible dialect]

Transcript 12-9. “A disgusting dialect”

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In Transcript 12-8, CU categorically defines German spoken in Bozen as a “disgusting dialect” (line 506), and she also refrains from providing any further explanations for this statement. On the other hand, MaCP (Transcript 12-9) offers a clear-cut statement that overlaps with a previous question (line 403), and she specifies her position by using the denigrating expression “dialettaccio terribile” (horrible dialect), repeated twice in lines 405 and 406, with a short pause in between. After a pause, MaCP goes on to present two short stories to support her previous statement; both stories are presented in Transcript 12-10.

432MaCP 433MaCP 434MaCP 435MaCP

436MaCP 437MaCP

dialect eh] 438MaCP

439MaCP

440MaCP 441MaCP 442MaCP

443MaCP 444MaCP 445MaCP

quando vai nei negozi [when you go to the shops] e [and] alle volte ti parlano decentemente [sometimes they speak to you decently] e allora dopo tu parli in italiano ma capisci che cosa ti chiedono [so, then you speak Italian but you can understand what they’re asking you] [laugh] quando a un certo punto ti trovi davanti qualcuno che ti parla nel nel loro dialetto eh [when at a certain point you find someone speaking in in their ti cade proprio [it falls like]

come fai? [how do you do?]

qui parlano proprio dialetto [here they really speak dialect] anche quando senti parlare in giro [even when you hear talking all around] anche le le mie amiche quando parlano tra di loro in gruppo

[my friends too when they speak among themselves in a group] che parlano fra di loro e parlano magari veloce [they speak among themselves and maybe quickly] non le rieschi a capire [you can’t understand them] perché loro ci cacciano poi dentro un sacco di vocaboli dialettali

Two Groups, Two Worlds: Italian and German in Bozen, South Tyrol

446MaCP 447MaCP 448MaCP 449MaCP 450MaCP 451MaCP 452MaCP 453MaCP 454MaCP 455MaCP 456MaCP 457MaCP 458MaCP 459MaCP 460MaCP

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[because they put in lots of dialect words] e di conseguenza o capisci il senso generale [and so, you may understand the general meaning] oppure eh i vocaboli proprio ti sfuggono completi [or eh the words really elude you completely] e qui parlano così [and here they talk like this] guardi che quando un tedesco [look that when a German] un germanico [a Germanic man] chiede informazioni [asks for information] eh mh informazioni eh stradali di qualche genere qui a Bolzano [eh mh information eh of the way to take here in Bozen] non [can’t] capiscono [understand] cosa [what] rispondono [they answer] non capiscono [they can’t understand] perché parlano [because here they speak] terribilmente [horribly] eh è così [eh it’s like that]

Transcript 12-10. Stories about dialectical differences

The first story that is presented (lines 432-448) is a personal experience that also testifies to the impossibility for Italian speakers to interact with Germans in their own first language (i.e. Tyrolean varieties), even in mixed groups (lines 440-448). The second story that is presented (lines 449-460) is a general example that can also be found in the narratives of other participants in the study. These confirm the differences between Standard German and the variety of German spoken in South Tyrol. The participant specifies this difference also by using two different adjectives to refer to German people: in line 449 she starts her narration by saying “when a German (comes in Bozen)”, but then she rephrases this by

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replacing “German” with “Germanic” in order to distinguish between members of the German community in South Tyrol and “true” German people, namely the ones who come from the other side of the Alps. Furthermore, in the conclusion of her second narrative segment (lines 453459), she repeats that people from Germany cannot understand German spoken in South Tyrol. What is significant in this final remark is that MaCP divides each word of the sentence, by separating them with a short pause, thus emphasizing what she has to say. At the very end, she also adds the emphatic clear-cut remark “eh è così” (eh it’s like that, line 460) to reinforce her message.

4.3. Minority and minorities The data that has been analyzed highlights that the degree of contact between the two linguistic communities varies within the different districts of the town, and that this variation also influences the relationships between the two groups. Thus, participants’ linguistic perceptions of the languages spoken in Bozen is strongly influenced by the degree of contact (or lack of contact) between the two linguistic groups. However, things may go further, since this lack of interaction and communication is seen by many participants as the primary reason why the Italian community is isolated within South Tyrol. In their views, the Italian school system does not provide Italian speakers with a language in which they can communicate with the other linguistic group, since the German variety learnt in school (i.e. Standard German) is not useful for everyday communication with Tyrolean German speakers, who prefer German dialect(s).22 Again, the feeling of isolation and marginalization is particularly strong in Italian districts (e.g. Don Bosco), geographically far from the Center, and with a lower socio-economic status.23 Transcript 1211 provides a remarkable expression of this feeling of being marginalized. MP is a 43-year-old woman who was born and grew up in Don Bosco, and is a good example of the prototypical inhabitant of this district.24 501MP 502MP 503MP

ognuno usa il potere come ce l'ha [everyone uses power how he has it] diciamo che avere [let’s say that having] nei posti pubblici l'ottanta per cento di madrelingua tedesca sicuramente non tutela gli italiani [in public places, the 80 percent of German native speakers doesn’t protect Italians for sure]

Two Groups, Two Worlds: Italian and German in Bozen, South Tyrol 504MP

505CM

506CM 507CM 508MP 509MP

510MP 511MP

512MP 513MP

514MP

515MP 516MP 517MP

518MP 519MP 520MP

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questo sì [that’s it]

hai mai avuto la sensazione tu o il tuo gruppo diciamo insomma

[have you ever felt like you or your group let’s say] la gente eh che conosci [people you know] di essere quasi una minoran#za# [to be a sort of minority] #no# ma io sono una minoranza [no but I am a minority] no no ma noi siamo la minoranza qui eh! [no no but we are the minority here eh!]

ormai ma anche allora eravamo noi la minoranza qui [by now but also in the past we were the minority here] è solamente che politicamente io non mi intendo di politica eh?

[it’s only that politically I’m not involved in politics eh?] però ha sempre fatto comodo far passare loro [but it has always been useful to consider them] per la minora- eh il gruppo tedesco ma comunque noi siamo la minoranza [the mino- eh the German group but anyway we are the minority]

lo siamo sempre stati e non siamo stati tutelati [we have always been and we have never been protected]

perché comunque la tutela [because anyway the protection] ma basta vedere anche [but it’s enough to see also] eh i masi i masi chiusi tutti i [eh farms closed farms all the]

tutte le agevolazioni che vengono date contadini [all the facilities that are given to farmers] per eh [to eh] eh rifarsi i masi e per la casa e per questo e per quell'al- son tutte agevolazioni che noi [eh to reconstruct their farms and their houses and for this and that- all facilities that we]

326 521MP 522MP 523MP 524MP 525MP

526MP 527MP 528MP

529MP

Chapter Twelve come italiani non abbiamo se tu sei un italiano [as Italians we don’t have if you are Italian] e hai il maso [and you have a farm] e [and] ti si allaga il maso e la tormenta te lo porta via ti ma[your farm is flooded and the storm takes it away you must] cavoli tuoi [your business]

se ti chiami se ti chiami Stinfler eh Gruber eh [if your name if your name is Stinfler eh Gruber eh] sei tutelato se no no [you are protected if it’s not no] ma questo si sa cioè non non è vittimismo ma un dato di fatto

[but this is known that is it’s not not victimization but a fact] che la minoranza siamo noi [that we are the minority]

Transcript 12-11. On the isolation and marginalization in Italian districts

MP’s primary complaint relates to the different distribution of public places with respect to the self-declaration of affiliation (line 503). In order to interpret and specify what the speaker means by this, the researcher directly asks if she really means that Italians are a minority in South Tyrol (lines 505-7). MP’s answer is very clear-cut, and her response also overlaps with the last part of the question (line 508). Prosodically speaking, this line also shows a dramatic increase in her tone of voice. It may also be noticed that while the researcher’s question included the entire Italian community or at least MP’s group of friends, the latter’s first answer contains a first person singular pronoun with the declaration “I am a minority” (line 508). After this strong statement, MP takes a short break and rephrases this statement with a more general “we are a minority” (line 509). Here she uses an ambiguous first person plural pronoun that could refer to her close group of friends, to speakers from her district, or more generally to the whole Italian community. This statement is also emphasized by the use of discourse markers like “no no” and the closing “eh” in line 509. MP’s feelings are shared by other Italian speakers, even if in a more indirect and less emphatic manner. These statements demonstrate the

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existence, in South Tyrol, of three minorities: in fact, if Ladin speakers are recognized as members of a linguistic minority group, German speakers represent a minority at the national level, but are indeed the majority group within the borders of South Tyrol. Having said this, Italian speakers belong to the national majority group, even though they represent a minority within South Tyrol. As far as it is known, this situation has never been carefully addressed, even if it seems to be a major issue for some Italian speakers.

5. Discussion and further analysis The discursive folk linguistic approach adopted in the study presented in this chapter allowed the researcher to obtain a large amount of data about the linguistic situation of the Italian community in the multilingual town of Bozen. It has been noted that even if South Tyrol is officially multilingual, and German is taught from primary school onwards, the lack of contact between groups and the difference between Standard German and varieties of spoken Tyrolean do not allow for multilingual communication between the two main linguistic groups, at least in the main town.25 As Freddi (1982) and other scholars have already pointed out, the problem is related to the variety of German that has been taught in Italian schools, and what activities may be useful to increase contacts and knowledge between the two groups and languages. The situation has changed positively more recently, as shown also in Transcript 12-1. However, many Italian speakers continue to be burdened with the lack of opportunity of using the language learnt in school in everyday communication with the other linguistic group. In this chapter, it has also been noted how the separation of the two linguistic groups influences the perception and representation of the languages. As has been noted in Meluzzi (2014), Italian speakers define their own language in two main ways: (1) as a “standard” variety of Italian without any peculiar features; (2) as a “mixed” variety that emerges from the different dialectal features of its speakers. Further considerations emerge about the use of a special Italian slang, created around the 1970s in the Italian districts (mainly in Don Bosco). Cagnan (2011) has presented some items of this slang, which seems to mix elements from both Trentino and Venetian dialects,26 with some German loanwords. These German loanwords are often used with irony, as can be noted in the expression “sprechenare todesco” (German: “Deutsch sprechen”; English: “speak German”). The same irony or even nuisance is expressed by Italian speakers towards the language of “the other” in

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Bozen, usually referred to as “tedescaccio” (“bad German”). Here they specifically refer to the Tyrolean dialect that is commonly spoken among Germans, a dialect that is very difficult to understand for non-native speakers. This supports the proposition that is also noted by Baur, Mezzalira and Pichler (2008): language learning problems seem to affect Italians more than Germans. This may be linked to different reasons which participants expressed in this study: (1) Italians learn a variety of German which is not spoken in everyday situations; (2) they do not feel comfortable speaking German with native speakers since they are afraid of making mistakes (social bias problem); (3) in mixed groups, Germans usually switch to Italian if at least one Italian speaker participates in the conversation. These different issues co-occur (or seem to co-occur) and make it difficult for Italians to learn German. Furthermore, this situation could increase the separation and marginalization of one community or group. To conclude, the analysis presented in this chapter should be considered as a first level result of the analysis of language attitudes and linguistic perception in South Tyrol. Further studies could investigate how this dimension of marginalization is reflected in the formulations of Italian speakers, as compared with that of other speakers who do not share this feeling of being a minority. Moreover, it may be useful to compare results and observations presented in this chapter with other data collected from other minority groups or other multilingual regions in Europe as well as elsewhere. Such a comparison could also be of some help for the Tyrolean case, since by evaluating the Tyrolean situation not only at a local-specific level but also on an international and comparative level, some common problems and issues will arise together with different solutions. Such solutions will be particularly interesting for an area like South Tyrol, which has an explicit language policy and nevertheless displays problems as far as the integration of the two linguistic groups is concerned.

Notes 1

See, for instance, Franceschini (2011), Egger (1977), and, Baur, Mezzalira and Pichler (2008). 2 While a large amount of texts are preserved at the provincial Archives in Bozen, the multilingual nature and the history of Magistrato Mercantile has never been studied in detail. Some scholars have, more recently become interested in the economy and trades of merchants in Bozen. However, documents concerning the

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Magistrato Mercantile continue to remain un-investigated with respect to their linguistic codes. 3 However, some secret schools, called “Katakombenschule”, were created during this period: pupils were sent to ordinary houses, where they were officially taught to sew or learn similar tasks, but in reality, they studied German language and culture. 4 This ideology is also evident in the architectural development of the town, that continues to be visible and discussed today. In fact, some people are in favour of the demolitions of such monuments, since these are seen as a sign of intolerance and discrimination against German people during the Fascism regime. 5 Ladin is a rheto-romance language directly derived from Latin. Nowadays it is spoken in 5 valleys between Trentino-Alto Adige and Veneto (i.e. Fassa, Badia, Gardena, Fodom and Ampezzo). 6 Since 1972, Toponomastic has been officially bilingual (or trilingual in the case of the Ladin valleys) with the Italian/German name followed by its equivalent in the other language, i.e. the city name Bolzano/Bozen, or the area of Alto Adige/Südtirol. 7 In Ladin schools both Italian and German will be taught starting from primary schools with the same number of hours per week. 8 The linguistic groups are identified with the adjectives “ethnic” or “linguistic” according to the author orientations. Even if nowadays the use of “linguistic groups” is the most widespread and acceptable definition, it is also the case that public places continue to be divided according to an ethnic proportional representation. In this chapter, the adjective “linguistic” will be used. 9 See, for instance, Peterlini (1980). One may note that this proportional division of public spaces reflects the linguistic distribution of languages in South Tyrol. 10 After 1981, the Tyrolean Institute for statistics (ASTAT) has not provided data about the composition of the different districts of the town. 11 Egger (2001) has pointed out that German speakers prefer to use Tyrolean dialect(s) in ordinary conversations, and this does not enable Italian speakers to use Standard German learned at school. 12 In this respect, it could be useful to check the data in project “Kontatto”, at the Free University of Bozen, led by professor Silvia dal Negro (http://www.unibz.it/en/public/research/languagestudies/projects/KontattoSDalNeg ro.html; accessed on 07/08/2015). 13 For instance, questions like, “do you have friends from the other linguistic group? Were you aware of the existence of this other group during your childhood? When did you learn (if you ever did) the language of the other group?” etc. 14 For instance, “what do you think of Italian/German spoken in South Tyrol by mother tongue speakers?”. 15 For instance, “would you define yourself as a South Tyrolean, an Italian/German speaker or something else?”.

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16 Even though a private and silent room was used for the interviews, not all the interviews have a good resolution and all the data could not be included in the final corpus. 17 In this respect, a further phase of this research may aim to reinforce this control group by recording more bilingual speakers with the same research protocol adopted in the study presented in this chapter. 18 The transcripts first present Italian in italics, followed by an English translation between square brackets. SP indicates a short pause (less than 1 second), while LP indicates a long pause (more than 1 second). 19 EK is a bilingual speaker: her father is a German native speaker born in Bozen, while her mother is an Italian native speaker from Trento. EK studied at German schools in Bozen and married an Italian man who was also born in Bozen. 20 For instance, more than one participant in this study notices, as a peculiar trait of Bozen Italian, the pronunciation of the stressed /o/ in open syllables (e.g. tòpo “mouse” or mòto “bike”) with a close [o], although it should normally be pronounced as [‫]ܧ‬, as it common elsewhere in Italy. 21 AC is a 62-years old retired man, who lives in the district of Europa Novacella. His family moved to Bozen when he was around five years old. He spent his first five years in South Tyrol in a small village outside Bozen. 22 See Ciccolone (2010). 23 Historically speaking, farmers and workers in Bozen factories with a low or no formal education were settled in these districts during the massive Italian migration pursued by the fascist government (see section 2). 24 MP is a 43 years old woman with a middle level degree of education, who has always lived in Don Bosco. 25 In Bassa Atesina, however, the situation is slightly different. This area has been an historical point of contact between Tyrol and Italy, starting from Trento (see Ciccolone 2013, Meluzzi, Ciccolone and Fiorentini 2013). 26 On Trentino and Venetian features in the Italian of Bozen. See also Meluzzi (2015).

Acknowledgements I wish to thank all the speakers of Bozen who helped me in this research, and also offered their voices for the corpus CITABOL (Corpus of Italian of Bozen), available on the TLA website as part of the Bolzano/Bozen corpus. A special thanks to my colleague Constantijn Kaland and to my friend Heather Mary Cunnigham, who both checked my article in a very professional way (and also in record time).

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References ASTAT. 2012. Censimento della popolazione 2011 [Census of the population in 2011]. Bolzano: Città di Bolzano. Baker, Colin. 1992. Attitudes and Language. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Baur, Siegfried, Mezzalira, Giorgio, and Pichler, Walter. 2008. La lingua degli altri. Aspetti della politica linguistica e scolastica in Alto AdigeSüdtirol dal 1945 ad oggi [The language of the others. Language and school policies in South Tyrol from 1945 till today]. Milano: Franco Angeli. Brannick, Peter. 2012. Alto Adige è Italia! AND Südtirol ist nicht Italien! Language Place and Identity in Bolzano-Bozen: a Geosemiotic Approach. Presentation at the 19th Sociolinguistic Symposium (SS19): Language and the city. Berlin. 21-24 August 2012. Cagnan, Paolo. 2011. Lo slang di Bolzano. Frasi, parole, espressioni: il primo vocabolario altoatesino al 100 per cento [The Slan of Bozen. Sentences, words, expressions: the first 100 per cent South Tyrolean vocabulary]. Bolzano: Curcu and Genovese. Ciccolone, Simone. 2010. Lo standard tedesco in Alto Adige [German Standard in South Tyrol]. Milano: LED Edizioni Universitarie. —. 2013. Corpus-based analysis of language contact phenomena: First remarks on code mixing in an Italian-German corpus in South Tyrol. Presentation at the 7th International Conference on Language Variation in Europe (ICLaVE). Høgskolen i Sør-Trøndelag. Trondheim. 28th June 2013. Egger, Kurt. 1977. Zweisprachigkeit in Südtirol. Probleme zweier Volksgruppen an der Sprachgrenze [Two linguistic groups in South Tyrol. Problems of two ethnic groups at the border]. Bozen: Athesia. —. 2001. L’Alto Adige-Südtirol e le sue lingue. Una regione sulla strada del plurilinguismo [South Tyrol and its languages. A region on the way to plurilingualism]. Bolzano: Alpha and Beta. Franceschini, Rita. 2011. “The potentiality of Multilingualism: Four Scenarios for a Multilingual Country.” In New Theoretical Perspectives in Multilingualism Research, edited by Werner Wiater, and Gerda Videsott, 135-153. Oxford: Peter Lang Press. Freddi, Giovanni. 1982. “Maggioranze, minoranze e plurilinguismo nella Provincia di Bolzano” [Majorities, minorities and plurilingualism in the area of Bolzano/Bozen], Quaderni per la promozione del bilinguismo, 31/32: 29-52. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/lplp.5.1.05dan.

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Meluzzi, Chiara. (2012) La lingua italiana a Bolzano: una varietà ancora poco indagata [Italian spoken in Bozen: a still not-investigated variety], «Il Cristallo» LIV.1: 1-4. —. 2014. “Italiano e tedesco a Bolzano: la percezione degli informanti italofoni” [Italian and German in Bozen: the perception of Italian informants]. In Varietà dei contesti di apprendimento linguistico [Variation of linguistic learning contexts], edited by Anna De Meo, Mari D’Agostino, Gabriele Iannàccaro, and Lorenzo Spreafico, Studi AItLA, 1: 91-104 —. 2015. “Dialects and linguistic identity of Italian speakers in Bozen.” Globe: A Journal of Language, Culture and Communication, 1: 1-16. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5278/ojs.globe.v1i0. 697. Meluzzi, Chiara, Simone Ciccolone, and Ilaria Fiorentini. 2013. Contact Induced Innovation in a Multilingual Setting. Evidence from Italian, German, and Ladin in South Tyrol. 9th UK Language Variation and Change (UKLVC9). Sheffield (UK). 2-4 September 2013. Niedzielski, Nancy A. and Preston, Dennis R. 2003. Folk Linguistics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Paladino, Maria Paola, Poddesu, Luciana, Rauzi, Manuel, Vaes, Jeroen, Cadinu, Mara, and Forer, Doris. 2009. “Second Language Competence in the Italian-Speaking Population of Alto Adige/Südtirol: Evidence for Linguistic Stereotype Threat.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 28(3): 222-243. DOI: 10.1177/0261927X09335333. Peterlini, Oskar. 1980. Der ethnische Proporz in Südtirol [The ethnic proportion in South Tyrol]. Bolzano: Athesia. Petri, Rolf. 1989. Storia di Bolzano [History of Bozen]. Padova: Il Poligrafo. Preston, Dennis R. 2011. “Methods in (applied) folk linguistics.” In Applied Folk Linguistics, edited by Antje Wilton, and Martin Stegu. AILA Review, 24: 15-39. Veronesi, Daniela. 2008. “Rappresentazioni di lingue e di percorsi di apprendimento: la metafora delle biografie linguistiche di parlanti in Alto Adige-Südtirol” [Representation of languages and learning paths: metaphors in linguistic biographies of speakers in South Tyrol]. In Vie della metafora: linguistica, epistemologia, psicologia [The ways of metaphor: linguistics, epistemology, psicology], edited by Claudia Casadio, 120-45. Chieti: Prime Vie. Wilton, Antje, and Martin Stegu. 2011. “Bringing the ‘folk’ into applied linguistics.” In Applied Folk Linguistics, edited by Antje Wilton, and Martin Stegu, AILA Review, 24: 1-14.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN DIFFERENT KINDS OF WRONG: MARGINALIZATION PROCESSES WITHIN A READING TEST JENNY W. FOLKERYD, ÅSA AF GEIJERSTAM AND CAROLINE LIBERG

1. Introduction During the past decade, increased attention has been given to international knowledge assessments. The study designs used as well as the Swedish results in the tests affect political decisions, for example about education in Sweden and the design of national tests. The focus of this study is the international reading survey for students in fourth grade, PIRLS (Progress In Reading Literacy Survey). Although students in Sweden read well from an international perspective, a slight decrease in students’ reading ability has been shown in national as well as international reading tests. Explanations for this negative trend have been sought in socioeconomic changes in society as well as in changes within the educational system. The type of reading ability tested within these studies and thereby the potential marginalization of certain types of reading is more seldom discussed. This study will therefore focus on nonaccepted answers in PIRLS in order to investigate the norms of reading and reading comprehension constructed in this specific reading practice.

2. Theoretical and methodological framework The theoretical framework for studying students’ encounters with texts within this specific reading practice is found within socio-interactional theories and reader response theories of reading and reading comprehension (e.g. De Temple and Snow 2001, Kress 1989, Langer

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2011, Luke and Freebody 1997, Smidt 2004). Inspired by the work of the researchers mentioned above, Liberg, af Geijerstam and Folkeryd (2010) have developed the concept of ‘text movability’, a concept through which it is possible to discuss how students relate to texts and thereby express their understanding. Of interest for the development of the concept has, for example, been how Smidt (2004, 3132) discusses reading as a walk in a shifting landscape. This walk can be further described with the help of Langer’s (2011) discussions of how students build their envisionments or mental text worlds when reading by “being out and stepping into an envisionment of the text content, being in and moving through such an envisionment, stepping out and rethinking what you know, stepping out and objectifying the experience, and leaving an envisionment and going beyond” (ibid, 22-23). Langer considers all of these moves or stances to be equally important. Being a more advanced reader implies the ability to move between all of the stances in a functional way, i.e. when called for, being able to switch between reading “on the lines”, “between the lines”, and “outwards based on the lines”. Kress’ (1989) discussion of reading positions in relation to text comprehension has also been of importance for the development of the notion of text movability. Kress relates the reader’s experience of participating in different discourses and his or her genre knowledge to text comprehension and the position taken by the reader. Within the presented theoretical framework, the concept of text movability has in the present study been operationalized in terms of the students’ ability to move in a text as shown by how they answer the text questions, i.e. how the types of reading skills and strategies are demonstrated by the students through their answers. Text movability concerns the student’s ability to: a. b. c. d. e. f.

locate and reproduce information in the text reflect upon choice of wording extract main points from the text summarize the text explain passages that would require a reader to fill in gaps in the text generalize and expand from the main points in the text, distancing themselves from the text g. reflect upon motives, feelings and relations in the text h. examine the content in the text critically i. associate from the text to personal experiences j. express awareness of the functionality or genre of the text k. adapt the position of being a writer and writing for a specific purpose and reader

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More specifically, students’ ability to talk about the texts that they have read or written is discussed in terms of three major types of movability: text based movability (expressing aspects a-h), associative text movability (expressing aspect i), and interactive text movability (expressing aspects j-k) (Liberg, af Geijerstam and Folkeryd 2010). An assumption is that a broad repertoire of all types of movability will result in more successful participation in various reading practices. Of central importance for this study is also the discussion of if and how students’ readings of a text (discussed in terms of text movability) coincide with the norms of reading constructed within the test. For this discussion, we have used Anward’s concepts real and produced text. In his discourse analysis of classroom settings, Anward (1983, 100-140) discusses how the norms for constructing a text on a subject matter in a classroom affects the students’ ability to contribute to the text. Anward here uses the concept text for spoken as well as written utterances. He shows that these norms differ depending on the pedagogical practices and as a result different contributions are accepted or not accepted. The text that is accepted is called the real text. The real text is only part of the actually produced text about the subject in focus. Contributions to the subject area which are not accepted by these norms belong to the produced text. In some pedagogical contexts, the norms for the real texts are very strict and many contributions to the subject from the students are left out or ignored. The norms concern which aspects of a subject that are considered to be relevant and adequate. They may also regulate very strictly the order in which these aspects can be given and in what language shape they are allowed to appear. In other pedagogical contexts, more permissive and inclusive practices are used. In these cases, the real text is extended in such a way that it more or less overlaps with the produced text. For the present study, it is of interest to investigate the real and produced text constructed within the specific test practice of PIRLS and thereby the potential marginalization processes of certain types of reading.

3. The PIRLS survey The empirical materials for this study are collected from the international reading survey PIRLS. Starting in 2001, this survey has been conducted every five years, in order to measure “progress in students’ reading achievement as well as trends in the associated home and school contexts for learning to read” (Mullis et al. 2009, 7). The students participating are in their fourth year of formal schooling which for most

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participating countries means that the students are about 10 years old. The PIRLS survey includes different kinds of materials: questionnaires to students, parents and teachers, questionnaires to school principals as well as the reading test that is of specific interest for this chapter. According to the framework of PIRLS 2011, the aspects of students’ reading literacy that are tested in the reading test are (Mullis et al. 2009, 13): Purposes for reading; (i) reading for literary experience and (ii) reading to acquire and use information Processes of comprehension; (i) focus on and retrieve explicitly stated information (ii) make straightforward inferences (iii) interpret and integrate ideas and information (iv) examine and evaluate content, language, and textual elements

49 countries participated in PIRLS 2011. The total number of students who took the test in Sweden was approximately 4500. These students were selected in a sample procedure to represent the population of students in grade four. The PIRLS test in Sweden is given only in Swedish and no accommodations were allowed for students who are not able to complete the test with paper and pencil. These students are instead excluded from the sample procedure. The definition of the PIRLS target population is based on UNESCO’s International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) in identifying the appropriate target grade: all students enrolled in the grade that represents four years of schooling, counting from the first year of ISCED Level 1, providing the mean age at the time of testing is at least 9.5 years. For most countries, the target grade should be the fourth grade, or its national equivalent (Martin, Mullis and Kennedy 2007, 36).

This definition is known as “the international desired target population”. In the sampling procedure the participating countries, however, define their “national desired target population” as closely as possible to the definition above. This can include some section of the population, based on geographic or linguistic constraints, being excluded. After this step the “national defined target population” is sampled, where some exclusion at school level can be made. These exclusions could include schools that: -

are geographically remote have very few students have a curriculum or structure different from the mainstream education system or

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are specifically for students with special needs

After this step, the so called “effective target population” is sampled, and in this sample within-school exclusions are made. These exclusions apply to students who are part of a regular classroom but who are unable to be tested for a particular reason. These within-school exclusions are of three types: Intellectually disabled students. Students who are considered to be intellectually disabled in the professional opinion of qualified staff members, or who have been tested psychologically as such. Functionally disabled students. Students who are permanently physically disabled in such a way that they cannot perform in the testing situation. Functionally disabled students who are able to respond should be included. Non-native language speakers. Typically, a student who has received less than 1 year of instruction in the language of the test should be excluded, but this definition may need to be adapted in different countries. (Martin, Mullis and Kennedy 2007, 38)

The results from PIRLS are reported on a national level and thereby not reported to single students or schools.

4. Material In the PIRLS test ten different texts are used for the study of reading comprehension: five narrative texts and five informational texts. The focus of the present study has been the four released texts from PIRLS 2011 (two narrative and two informational texts), questions to these texts, answers from students in Sweden and the actual scoring guide of interest for the selected texts. Of specific interest for our study are those examples of answers that receive a zero mark according to the norms of the scoring guide. The analytical categories used were developed in a pilot study on PIRLS 2006. The examples given for the different categories will therefore be authentic English-speaking students’ answers from the scoring guide used in PIRLS 2006. All the reported quantitative results however, are from the analysis of answers given by students in Sweden that participated in PIRLS 2011. In total, approximately 13000 student answers have been analyzed (6000 answers on constructed responses and 7000 answers on multiple choice questions). 25 percent of the answers to the questions on the narrative texts received a zero mark while 32 percent of the answers to the items on the informational texts were assessed as not

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expressing comprehension. Altogether, these answers constitute a substantial part of the total number of student answers which makes an investigation of their nature all the more interesting.

5. Research questions The main purpose of the study discussed in this chapter is to investigate the norms of reading constructed in the test and thereby the potential marginalization processes of certain types of reading. In order to investigate this, the following research questions are addressed: 1. What characterizes the answers that fall outside the norms of successful reading in the test (i.e. answers that get the score zero)? 2. What quantitative differences can be observed between different types of answers that fall outside of the norms of successful reading in the test (based on results from investigations of research question 1)?

6. Categories for analysis In order to discuss how students move in and thereby express understanding of a text, categories were formulated to describe different types of answers that students have written as a response to questions in the test. The zero-answers can be discussed as falling within a restricted number of categories. Such categories emerge when the answers, according to the scoring guide, are wrong because they are: A. B. C. D.

Incomplete or non-independent Based on an alternative interpretation of the text or the question Too specific, generalized or vague Based on experience not expressed in the text

Of interest for the investigation is also whether these answers, despite the fact that no point was given according to the scoring guide, could be seen as expressing understanding of some type. All answers have therefore been analyzed according to the categories A-D and also in terms of whether they express potential understanding of the text content. In the following, the categories are discussed in more detail and illustrated with examples of student answers from the four texts (and related text questions) that were released after PIRLS was conducted in 2006.

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A. Incomplete or non-independent Answers that fall within the category Incomplete or non-independent may be partly correct but not credited for points since the correct part is insufficient in relation to the missing parts of the answer. The answers may also only repeat the question or part of the question. An example of this category can be found in the text “Searching for food” (item 15), which is a text about how to make different experiments with insects to learn about their behavior: 1 Which of the three projects did you find the most interesting? Use information from the text to explain your answer.

According to the scoring guide, a complete response selects a project (an ant project, a wormery project or a pill bug project) with specific information referring to the text, or may provide an inference clearly reflecting specific information in the text. An example of a correct answer would be: “The pill bug project because I would like to build the maze”. No points are credited if the response does not name a project, or it may name a project without providing text-based information to support the decision: 1. Pill bugs project 2. The ant project because it is interesting

In 1, the project is named but because there is no text-based information to support the decision and since this makes the answer incomplete, no points are given. In 2, a project is named and at first sight there also seems to be a motivation for the selection of the project. In this case however, stating that the project is “interesting” is a circular response as this is the word used in the question. The second example thus falls into the first category both because it is incomplete and because of the repetition of part of the question. B. Alternative interpretation of text or question When writing a response, the students express a certain interpretation of the text or the question. Very few students write completely irrelevant answers (like “I don’t understand” or “This is boring”). When the interpretation of the text or the question is not in line with the interpretation expressed in the scoring guide, the answer is given zero points. Some of the answers that fall within the category “Alternative interpretation of text or question” express a potential understanding of the

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text, although they are based on an alternative interpretation of the text than what is expected in the scoring guide. The student may, for instance, focus on another aspect of the text than what is expected. An example of this is found in the text “Searching for food”, item 5. Why do the ants scurry around after you’ve sprinkled the soil?

To receive a point on this item, the response should demonstrate understanding that the ants scurry because they have lost their trail or because they are looking for food: “The soil has covered the trail or they are searching for food”. An alternative interpretation of the ant’s behavior is found in the following answer: 3. They are confused

This response interprets the behavior as a sign of confusion, which could be seen as a reasonable interpretation of the situation. The answer is however focused on the emotional state of the ant, and not the direct and more concrete or practical reason for these feelings. This can be considered as an alternative interpretation of the text. Other answers that fall within this category do not express a potential understanding of the text or question. For example, the students may mix up two people who are mentioned in the text, or give an answer that makes it clear that they have only read and answered one part of a longer question. The answers that fall within this category are, we would claim, the answers that most scorers would agree on to score as “zero points”. An example of this can be found as an answer to the following question from the text: “The little lump of clay” (item 8). The text is about a little lump of clay that is about to dry out when it is saved and made into a beautiful cup. What wonderful thing happened after the lump of clay had been lying by the window for a long time? Why was this so wonderful for the lump of clay?

To receive the complete score of two points on this question, the response should state that the rain made the clay wet again, and made it soft: “It rained and made the clay go soft”. Partial comprehension (1p) is shown when the response does not make a connection between the rain and what effect it had on the clay: “the wonderful thing was that the rain came and his wish came true”. Below is an example of an answer that received zero points according to the scoring guide:

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4. because he got out of the wooden bin for once

This student has probably interpreted the question as “after the lump of clay had been lying in the “wooden bin” for a long time” and thus confused “window” with “wooden bin”. This reading is understandable, since the beginning of the text is about how the lump of clay has been in the wooden bin for a long time. It is however not a reasonable interpretation of the question. Other examples of answers that fall within this category are drawn from another part of the text than what is requested. The PIRLS test questions that ask for a specific piece of information from a specific part of the text often test the reading process: “focus and retrieve explicitly stated information”. This is also used as an argument in the scoring guide for why the answers that draw on other information in the text should be scored as zero points. These items are considered as straightforward and rather easy questions. An example of this is found in “The Little Lump of Clay” where the question is: At the beginning of the story, what did the lump of clay wish for?

To receive one point on this item, the response should provide an appropriate inference for the lump of clays’ feelings at the beginning of the story. The lump here wants to be used like the other clay in the bin “to be chosen” and it also wants to have a purpose or use “to be made into an object and used a lot”. A response that focuses on a wish that is expressed later on in the text is not given any points: 5. He wished to become a butiful shiny cup2

This answer makes a reference to a wish that the lump of clay expresses at the end of the story and not in the beginning. Another example of when the answer is picked up from the wrong part of the text is found as an answer to the question: “What wonderful thing happened after the lump of clay had been lying by the window for a long time? Why was this so wonderful for the lump of clay?” No points are credited for the following answer: 6. A girl picked it up and made it into a cup. It was wonderful because he hadn’t been used for a long time

This response expresses a reference to what happens at the end of the story and not to when the lump of clay had been lying by the window,

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which is an event that takes place earlier in the narrative. However, the answer cannot be considered “wrong” since the girl actually did pick it up after it had been lying in the window. The first wonderful thing that happened that is expressed in the text was, however, when the rain made the clay moist again. C. Too specific, generalized or vague Answers that fall within the category “Too specific, generalized or vague” fail to acknowledge the right amount of generalization demanded from the scoring guide for a correct answer. In some cases, the student gives an answer that can be too specific and in other cases the student answer is generalized beyond what is expected. Answers within this category may also fail to receive a score based on a linguistic vagueness rather than a misinterpretation of the scope of expected generalization. An example of this category is found in the text “Unbelievable night” (item 8): How did the magazine help Anina? Write two ways.

In the test text, the main character Anina is faced with a troublesome situation when animals in a magazine suddenly come alive. A correct response according to the scoring guide identifies ways that Anina used the magazine to help her situation, for example by feeding the crocodile flamingos that miraculously also appeared from the magazine. An example of such a correct answer would be: “It gave her something to feed the crocodile”. The following example does however not receive any score: 7. The magazine kept the crocodile from eating Anina

The content of the answer is a reasonable inference of the main message of the passage in the text. The answer is however considered too vague according to the scoring guide since such a response must mention feeding the crocodile. The student has, in this case, moved beyond focusing on feeding the crocodile and has instead commented on the more generalized consequence for Anina. Another example of this category can be found in the same text (item 11): You learn what Anina was like from the things that she did. Describe what she was like and give two examples of what she did that shows this.

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To receive a full score on this question, the response must provide at least one valid, appropriate description of what Anina was like with two things she said or did in the story that supports the description and illustrates her character. Partial comprehension can be credited if only one thing she said or did is mentioned or if the response provides at least one appropriate description without a reason. An example of such a correct answer would be: “She was clever and brave”. No score is however credited if the description of Anina’s character is too vague to be considered without textual support: 8. Anina was happy

The description of Anina is not wrong but, as in our previous example (number 7), the answer is not precise enough to capture the expected content. In this case a favored answer would rather pertain to judgement of character “clever, brave” rather than to the emotional state “happy”, although both expressions describe the main character. Not only is this answer too vague according to the scoring guide, it is also incomplete since some parts of the expected answer are missing (see category “Incomplete or non-independent”). Student answers may also be too specific to be credited a score. An example of this can be found in the text “The Little Lump of Clay” (item 6): The boy left the lump of clay in danger. What was the danger?

According to the text, the lump of clay is left out in the sunshine which causes danger. According to the scoring guide, a correct answer demonstrates understanding that the lump of clay was in danger of drying out, becoming hard or dying. An example of a correct answer would thus be “The lump of clay’s danger was that he might dry out”. No point is however credited if the response doesn’t provide an appropriate interpretation of the nature of the clay’s danger. The response may describe the plot events leading up to the danger or contributing to the danger, but does not describe the possibility of the clay drying out or becoming hard: 9. The clay was left in the hot sun

According to the scoring guide this answer does not describe the danger, i.e. the consequences for the clay being left out in the sun. When answering the question this student has concentrated on a specific piece of

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evidence expressed in the text to describe what the danger was. As mentioned above, answers may also fall within this category based on a linguistic vagueness, for example, the usage of pronouns instead of specific nouns or using an unaccepted paraphrase instead of an expected key word. An example of this can be found in the text “Antarctica” (item 7): Give three ways penguins are able to keep warm in Antarctica.

In order to receive a complete score on this question, the response demonstrates extensive comprehension by identifying most of the ideas in the article from which penguins’ ability to stay warm can be inferred, for example: “They have many feathers which overlap each other; They have a thick layer of fat; They huddle together in groups”. If the response does not describe any of the ways penguins are able to stay warm, no points are given: 10. Go into a cave. Dig a underground hole. Use their thik skin

The first two answers are not given as alternatives in the text while the last alternative is considered wrong as a paraphrase of: “thick layer of fat”. It is however reasonable to think that this student has grasped the main idea but chooses an inadequate expression. D. Based on experience not expressed in the text Some of the students draw on experiences from outside the text when they write an answer. The experiences can be based on other texts they have read, or based on experiences from everyday knowledge. These answers can express reasonable interpretations of the text, but are scored as zero points since the basis for the answers cannot be found within the text. The PIRLS questions are normally formulated to help the student orient their answers to what is written in the text, and not to personal experience. An example of this category is found in the text “Antarctica”, item 9: Think about whether you would like to visit Antarctica. Use what you have read in both Introducing Antarctica and a letter from Antarctica to explain why you would or would not like to visit.

To show complete comprehension on this question (2 points) the response should state a personal opinion and provide information from both texts to support the opinion: “No, because it is the coldest place on

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earth and there is nothing fresh to eat”. For “partial comprehension” (1 point), the response should state a personal opinion, and support the opinion with information from only one of the texts. In the answers that express “no comprehension” (0 points) on the other hand, the answer may provide a personal experience and support it with information, but the information is either inaccurate or unrelated to the text. Two examples of zero answers are thus: 11. No, I’d rather go to the beach 12. No, there is too much snow

In both these answers, the students express an opinion, but support it with information from outside the text. The first example: “I’d rather go to the beach” expresses a personal wish not related to the text. In the second example, however, you could argue that the student has found his or her information in the text since there are pictures in the text showing Antarctica, with lots of snow. You could of course also discuss whether these answers could be categorized as “alternative interpretations of the question” since it is possible to argue that the student only read parts of the question. If the student leaves out the middle part of the question, the answers are reasonable: “Think about whether you would like to visit Antarctica… explain why you would or would not like to visit”. However, by using the category “outside text”, we capture a central point in the PIRLS test. To be able to assess these tests in a reliable way in all participating countries, questions and answers have to be formulated close to the texts. This, of course, affects the norms of reading constructed in the test.

7. Results3 As previously mentioned, the zero-answers written by students in Sweden fall within the restricted number of categories described above. Using these categories, we can describe how students who receive zero points express their understandings of texts. This answers the first specified research question of the study, i.e. what characterizes the answers that fall outside the norms of successful reading in the test. It also becomes clear that these categories are represented to different degrees, a result that addresses the second research question, i.e. what quantitative differences can be observed between different types of answers that fall outside of the norms of successful reading in the test (based on results from investigations of research question 1). The largest

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part of the zero-examplees in the answ wers written bby students in n Sweden can be undderstood as expressing e an n alternative interpretation n of the question or ttext (see Figuures 13-1 and 13-2). Answerrs that are too o specific, generalized or vague connstitute aboutt 30 percent oof the total am mount of zero-answerrs in the info formational teexts, and aboout 40 percen nt in the narrative texxts. Incomplette or non-independent answ wers are not as common in this studdy; they consttitute only 5--10 percent oof the total am mount of answers. Thhe least comm mon type of answer is when the students base b their answers on experience noot expressed in n the text. Thhis category is however interesting ssince it marks a boundary between thee child's own world of experiences and the textual worlds thatt the child enccounters in thee test.

7%

5% A

41%

47%

B C D

Fig. 13-1. Diffferent Kinds off Wrong

Figure 13-1 presents the t proportion n of different types of zero o-answers for construccted responsee questions in n narrative texxts from PIR RLS 2011 (A= incompplete or non-inndependent, B= B alternativee interpretatio on of text or questionn, C= too sppecific, generralized or vaague, D = based b on experience nnot expressed in the text)

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11%

27% % A B 566%

C D

Fig. 13-2. Diffferent Kinds off Wrong

Figure 13-2 presents the t proportion n of different types of zero o answers for construccted responsee questions in n informationnal texts from m PIRLS 2011 (A= inncomplete or non-independ n dent, B= alternnative interpreetation of text or question, C= tooo specific, geeneralized or vague, D= based b on experience nnot expressed in the text). As menttioned under the section “M Material”, a llarger amountt of zeroanswers is found withinn the inform mational texts as compareed to the narrative texxts. There is also, as seen n above, a diifference betw ween text types concerrning the typees of zero answ wers, where thhe answers th hat are too generalized or specific are more co ommon in naarrative texts.. This is interesting ssince it can givve us a hint ab bout how studdents read and d interpret narrative texxts, and whichh degree of geeneralization tthey find reasonable in relation to thhe questions. As menttioned above, every answer was also anallyzed as to wh hat extent it expressedd a potential understanding g of the textt. In this anaalysis, we looked into signs of compprehension in the students aanswers, indep pendently of what was stipulated as a “right” and d “wrong” acccording to the scoring guide. This analysis, bassed on a broaad view of reeading comprehension, thus categoriized all the annswers as eitheer “expresses ppotential underrstanding” or “expressees potential misunderstandin m ng”. Here it bbecame eviden nt that the

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number of answers that express a potential understanding varies greatly between the investigated texts, from 20-60 percent. The line between potential understanding and potential misunderstanding is obviously difficult to draw. However, the results leave us with a substantial amount of answers that could be interpreted as expressions of understanding the texts if the norms of what constitutes reading comprehension looked different.

8. Discussion The main focus for the discussion in the present chapter concerns the norms of reading constructed in a specific test practice (PIRLS). This discussion is of utmost significance considering the increasing attention international knowledge assessments have been given in political decisionmaking on educational issues. In any educational context, norms differ depending on the pedagogical practices. In order to investigate the norms of reading constructed in the PIRLS test, we have analyzed what characterizes the answers that fall outside the norms of successful reading according to the test. The results also suggest what successful reading (according to the PIRLS test) thereby includes: -

writing extensive answers and using the right key words drawing the answer from the right part of the text understanding how specific or general the answer is supposed to be writing answers based on the content of the text rather than on personal experience

Together, such expected qualities constitute the norms of successful reading constructed in the PIRLS test. Answers that express these qualities and thereby are accepted could be discussed as the real text in Anward’s terms (1983). However, a substantial amount of answers could, with a more liberal interpretation, also be seen as expressions of understanding the texts. According to the norms of PIRLS they are however unacceptable and therefore fall outside the real text. Such non-accepted answers belong to the produced text. The results from the study can also be discussed in terms of text movability. To be a successful reader, according to PIRLS, the students must, for example, be able to locate and reproduce information in the text, extract main points from the text or generalize and expand from these points. All of these aspects fall within text-based movability. In other words, a norm of text-based movability is favored in PIRLS. Associating

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from the text to personal experience (associative text movability) or adapting the position of being a writer and writing for a specific purpose and reader (interactive text movability) are not aspects of reading included in the norm. An extensive repertoire of text movability is however an important dimension of reading comprehension also mentioned in the Swedish national curricula. In other words, we can here detect the construction of a reading norm and real text that are different from what is formulated in the national curricula.4 The norms of reading constructed in the PIRLS test have been described in this chapter. It is a strictly text-based norm that potentially places many different readings in the non-accepted produced text and thereby marginalizes certain ways of understanding and moving in a text. It is possible to argue that a more inclusive and permissive text practice would extend the boundaries of the real text constructed in PIRLS. This would also mean that additional types of reading would be included and possibly that the real text would, to a greater extent, overlap with the real text of other pedagogical practices (such as national curricula and national tests). However, it is also possible to argue that the PIRLS test constitutes a specific practice that has to meet certain conditions that make it impossible to have a more inclusive and permissive reading norm. To guarantee reliability in cross-country scoring, the scoring guide for example, needs to be explicit enough so that all student answers throughout the world are assessed in the same way. The role of the scoring guide has been discussed, for example, by Solheim and Skaftum (2009). They point out that the constructed response format was introduced in the PIRLS test in order to achieve a deeper and broader knowledge of students’ reading comprehension. However, they also argue that the scoring guide has had a tendency to narrow down the semantic openness that the constructed response questions were supposed to open up for. In this way, the scoring guide becomes central for what type of questions that are asked, i.e. precedence is given to what is possible to assess according to the scoring guide. What the study reported in this chapter emphasizes is the importance of discussing the different norms that are constructed in different pedagogical contexts and thereby also potential marginalization processes. Such discussions can constitute the foundation for critically evaluating different reading practices.

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Notes 1

For full length texts see Mullis, Martin, Kennedy and Foy (2007). The student answers are exemplified as written, i.e. including incorrect spellings etc. 3 For an in-depth presentation of these results, see also af Geijerstam and Folkeryd (2013) and Folkeryd, af Geijerstam and Liberg (2013) that are available in Swedish. 4 For a more extensive discussion of mother-tongue education and norms within the Swedish syllabus, see Liberg, Folkeryd and af Geijerstam (2012). 2

References Anward, Jan. 1983. Språkbruk och språkutveckling i skolan [Language use and language development in school]. Stockholm: Liber. De Temple, Jeanne M. and Snow, Catherine E. 2001. “Conversations About Literacy: Social Mediation of Psycholinguistic Activity.” In Literacy and Motivation. Reading Engagement in Individuals and Groups, edited by Ludo Verhoeven and Catherine E. Snow, 55–69. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Folkeryd, Jenny W., af Geijerstam, Åsa and Liberg, Caroline. 2013. Med fokus på elevsvar. Analys av svar som inte ger poäng i PIRLS 2011 [With a focus on pupils responses. Analysis of responses that do not get a point in PIRLS 2011]. Skolverket’s current analysis 2013. Stockholm: Skolverket. af Geijerstam, Åsa and Folkeryd, Jenny. 2013. “Fel men rätt på något sätt? En analys av elevers nollsvar enligt PIRLS-provet” [Incorrect but correct in some way? An analysis of pupils zero responses according to the PIRLS-text]. In Svensklärarföreningens årsskrift [The Swedish Teacher Association’s Year Book] 2013, edited by Gustaf Skar and Mikael Tengberg, 37–55. Stockholm: Natur och Kultur. Kress, Gunther. 1989. Linguistic processes in sociocultural practices. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Langer, Judith. 2011. Envisioning knowledge: building literacy in the academic disciplines. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University. Liberg, Caroline, af Geijerstam, Åsa and Folkeryd, Jenny W. 2010. “Scientific Literacy and Students’ Movability in Science Texts.” In Exploring the Landscape of Scientific Literacy, edited by Cedric Linder, Leif Östman, Douglas A Roberts, Per-Olof Wickman, Gaalen Erickson and Allan MacKinnon, 74–90. Teaching and Learning in Science Series. New York London: Routledge.

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Liberg, Caroline, Folkeryd, Jenny W and af Geijerstam, Åsa. 2012. “Swedish—An updated school subject?” Education Inquiry, 3(4): 477493. Luke, Allan, and Freebody, Peter. 1997. “Shaping the social practices of reading.” In Constructing Critical Literacies—Teaching and Learning Textual Practice, edited by Sandy Muspratt, Allan Luke and Peter Freebody, 185-225. Creskill: Hampton Press. Martin, Michael O, Mullis, Ina and Kennedy, Anne M. 2007. PIRLS 2006 Technical Report. Boston: TIMSS and PIRLS International Study Center, Boston College. Mullis, Ina, Martin, Michael O., Kennedy, Anne M. and Foy, Pierre. 2007. PIRLS 2006 International report. Appendix D. Sample Passages, Questions, and Scoring Guides. Boston: Boston: IEA. http://pirls.bc.edu. Mullis, Ina, Martin, Michael O., Kennedy, Anne M, Trong, Kathleen L. and Sainsbury, Marianne. 2009. PIRLS 2011 Assessment Framework. Boston: TIMSS and PIRLS International Study Center Lynch School of Education. Smidt, Jon. 2004. Sjangere og stemmer i norskrommet [Genres and voices in the Norwegian room]. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Solheim, Oddny Judith and Skaftun, Atle. 2009. “The problem of semantic openness and constructed response.” Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice, 16(2): 149–64.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN MAKING COMPLEXITIES (IN)VISIBLE: EMPIRICALLY-DERIVED CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SCHOLARLY (RE)PRESENTATIONS OF SOCIAL INTERACTIONS SANGEETA BAGGA-GUPTA AND OLIVER ST. JOHN

1. Various representations of a slice of classroom interaction In that sociocultural tools, including language, mediate a perspective of the world and do not merely mirror it, one can suggest that things correspond to other things in many different ways. In studies of interactional phenomena where analysis is afforded by transcription1 in pursuit of (re)presentations, choices are always made as to what level or limit of detail is or can be attended to. It is these choices that govern the extent to which transcripts set forth ‘naturally occurring interaction’ (Heritage 1984) and what kind of insights into the ‘interaction order’ (Goffman 1983) are gained. The study presented in this chapter seeks to explore and highlight some of the representational implications of the various ways complexities of mundane interaction can be treated by transcription. Consider the following three transcripts—14-1A, 14-1B and 14-1C— as (re)presentations of the same slice of classroom interaction encompassing thirteen turns from a seventh-grade French lesson in an English-Swedish bilingual school setting in Sweden2:

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Transcript 14-1A. Talk-in-interaction

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Transcript 14-1A projects primarily a talk-centered view of the classroom interaction that is taking place in two language varieties— Swedish and French. It majors on the details of the teacher and students orienting to one another verbally so that their oral talk3 is privileged in the (re)presentation. Symbols used in Transcript T1A are drawn from the conventions developed by Jefferson (see, for example, 2004) that commonly serve to mediate (and substantiate) conversation analysis (CA). Several features of classroom discourse might be noted in Transcript T1A to illustrate some affinity between classroom discourse and everyday conversation. For example, an analyst might point out, in line 1, the teacher’s abrupt micro speech pause after the preposition ‘på’ (Swedish: on) and subsequent shift over to the relative pronoun ‘som’ (Swedish: that) as an instance of self-initiated self-repair. For some reason which is not made apparent by this transcript, ‘på’ proves troublesome and the teacher adjusts her formulation with a momentary ripple in the rhythm of her delivery. In classroom discourse, as in other kinds of discourse, speech is repaired when there is no apparent factual or grammatical error involved (see Schegloff, Jefferson, and Sacks 1977). It is clear from lines 1 and 2 that the teacher is orienting to a book and is seeking to make relevant to the students a page in a book that is available to the students and that will enable them to answer her question. Whether this is the same book as the one the students have access to and what relevance the teacher’s orientation has for the ensuing verbal exchanges is not available through Transcript T1A. Another aspect illustrated by Transcript T1A which indexes participant orientations is the tightly sequenced nature of turn-taking; turns at conversation routinely minimize gaps and overlaps between contributions (Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson 1974). The three latched turns of lines 911—deployed in tight sequence—demonstrate the teacher’s and student A’s ability to project what kind of turn (construction unit) has been contributed and when it is likely to end, so that they can coordinate their interchanges to follow close up but not clip each other (see, for example, Hutchby and Wooffitt 1998). This detail displays the dyadic orientation of T and A to one another and is consequential for subsequent interaction: the latching reinforces vulnerable points of exchange in the boundaries of the dyadic zone set up between teacher and student A so that ‘intrusions’ such as student M’s in line 5 can be held at bay. Coordinative efforts seem to be suspended in line 12 where M’s reaction overlaps with the teacher’s continuation of her talk. However, the timing of M’s response, pitched with precision after the speech pause at the end of a syntactically complete utterance, indicates that M orients to

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the teacher’s remark (line 11) as a turn construction unit which has been completed and therefore as a legitimate place for him to take a turn. The coincidence of the teacher’s continuation with M’s exclamation does not show up M’s bid for the floor as an infringement (see Jefferson 1986). Transcript T1A illustrates the representation of social interaction that is commonly available in CA literature. Here oral talk predominates although other events and some aspects of body orientations are not uncommonly included in the transcripts as descriptions between double brackets either preceding or following a particular utterance (e.g. lines 1 and 13). While the privileging of talk is required by, for example, a focus on telephone behavior, transcripts restricted to verbal phenomena for studying other kinds of everyday and institutional environments risk rendering invisible or marginal the sense-making action of nonverbal dimensions routinely implicated in managing human interaction. A central aim of the present chapter is to exemplify how (re)presentations can in themselves expand or restrict empirically-derived results and throw different analytic light on the constitutive features of interactional phenomena and their generic workings. We now revisit this same social episode using other transcription formats to widen the representational aperture on some of the interactional detail. With the aid of Transcript 14-1B, certain aspects of the social interaction that were not available in Transcript T1A now become visible. Visual techniques used in Transcript T1B to represent the body-ininteraction with other members/bodies across time and spaces highlight the subtle ways in which visual-spatial dimensions of communication cooccurs alongside oral talk. Transcript T1B illustrates a number of ways the teacher (re-)aligns herself through physical action to other members in the classroom and various contextual features so that they are drawn dynamically into the specific participation framework which foregrounds what is currently relevant (at least for her). From Transcript T1B four details may help to illustrate the significance of the teacher’s bodily alignments for the production of situated meaning and social order. First, Figures 1a-1d in Transcript 14-1B, seek to show the teacher’s alignments to semiotic resources and other material artifacts at the beginning of the interaction in focus. In the course of delivering line 2, the teacher, who has been looking at a book in her hand (Figure 1a), performs a number of further physical actions: she initially moves towards her desk and glances down onto a second book lying open on her desk (Figure 1b); then she continues to the far side of her desk, places the book in her hand on the desk and, as she swivels her torso round, gazes directly at the open page (Figure1c); she then moves to the left side of her desk to reposition

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herself squarely behind the second book and targets it with her gaze (Figure 1d). Figures 1a-1d in Transcript 14-1B indicate the teacher’s bodily orientations to two books and her transition of alignment from one book to another framing her talk. These maneuvers are coordinated with the talk and, in view of her instruction in line 2, may well enact for those in the classroom a realignment the teacher is seeking to accomplish with her students. The words the teacher speaks while doing these actions (see line 2 and Figures 1b-1d) suggest that the second book is indeed open at page 60 and that the teacher is checking, aligning, her talk propositionally with the written text. An account of the teacher’s action in lines 1 and 2 without attention to the teacher’s bodily conduct and the semiotic resources they bring into play masks the way verbal production may relate to written language in this encounter; an absence of this dimension makes invisible the bearings of the teacher’s spatial alignments for the participants on what is being brought into current relevance. Whether the students are orienting to the resource in question and, if so, what it is they are expected to be orienting to is, however, not represented here in any detail. Second, as illustrated through Figures 1e-1k in lines 4-10, the teacher does focal finger work to coordinate the elicitation of all six French forms from student A. Triggered by each answer A gives (with the exception of the first) the teacher signals with her fingers, starting with index finger and thumb, the number of forms he has currently identified (Figures 1e, 1f, 1i, 1j and1k). Her actions both confirm each answer as correct and cue the next form in the series. After four forms have been elicited, talk is enlisted to strengthen the teacher’s cuing action by, for example, rising intonation (line 7) and vowel stretching (line 9) techniques. When the crash of a falling object in the background half obscures student A’s answer (line 8) in the recording and perhaps even for the participants, the teacher enunciates the whole form—‘êtes’ (French: are)—delivered with all five fingers of her left hand fully extended (line 9 and Figure 1j). Thus, hand gesture and oral talk work in tandem to sustain the dyadic engagement and keep student A on track in the face of another student’s challenge to his speaking rights (line 5) and auditory trouble (line 8). These teacher actions—gestural support and oral cues—dovetail into student A’s responses and ensure that he keeps the opportunity to deliver the full quota of answers to the teacher’s question.

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In this sequence of elicitation, the teacher conducts repair on both talk and finger work. Repair on talk (Schegloff, Jefferson and Sacks 1977) has attracted a large amount of attention in CA literature. As mentioned above, the teacher repairs student A’s half obscured answer in line 8 by pronouncing the whole French form, ‘êtes’, emphatically following the noise of a falling object in the classroom. The teacher also does gestural repair. In line 5, following a silence, student M calls out ‘sex’ (Swedish: six)—a relevant answer to the question posed in lines 1 and 2, but inappropriate in view of the form count underway in the ongoing dyadic activity. The teacher, whose gaze is on the textbook on the table, registers this answer by extending a fourth finger in response (Figure 1g). Her immediately following finger action—lowering her fourth finger to a halfextended position (Figure 1h)—shows that she recognizes she has responded affirmatively to an intrusive and procedurally deviating answer

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(four cannot affirm six). She rectifies the mismatch between student M’s answer and her finger count by realigning the gestural system in operation to student A’s current performance. When A delivers the next form in the sequence (line 6), the teacher is able to extend her fourth finger full stretch in response to his correct answer. Trouble emanates from both gestural and verbal behavior; that each trouble source is immediately addressed by repair work implies the recognition that speech and gesture, as different but concordant sign phenomena in classroom interaction, are equally potent partners in guiding students and producing meaning. Third, a series of screen stills, Figures 1l-1p in Transcript 14-1B, illustrate further details of congruence between talk and bodily conduct as the teacher seeks to make the six-item French present tense of ‘être’ (French: to be) salient to the students. With the first word of line 11, ‘sont’ (French: are), the teacher affirms verbally the sixth form elicited from student A and displays a visual profile of all six forms represented by the five fingers of her left hand and the thumb of her right (Figure 1l). Having constructed this manual aid, she parades it prominently in front of the students to coincide rhythmically with her speech. Figures 1l-1o in Transcript 14-1B attempt to portray the congruence between visual display and verbal commentary in the way the teacher drums out four evenlyspaced beats on the four syllables of ‘o-li-ka-for(mer)’ (Swedish: different forms) with her six-sign gestural structure. In this turn, hand and arm movement is so precisely synchronized with the delivery of talk that it is analytically problematic to single out either one as more central or primary than the other. It would be difficult to explicate the texture of the communication without attending to both what is happening bodily and verbally for oral and gestural conduct operate as a single unit; they are coordinated to mutually elaborate one another for enhanced effect. Figure 1p gives a glimpse of the larger interactional fabric that talk is an aspect of. At the end of the teacher’s utterance in line 11, she pauses very briefly in her speech. However, at this instant, her bodily orientations do not stop for she is in the throes of swinging from her position in Figure 1o towards the whiteboard while her left hand is already transforming from five-finger display into the initial positioning for her imminent pointing action (Figure 1p). So, although at this point there is a brief pause in talk, there is no interactional pause. Student M anticipates a transition relevant place at the end of line 11 so that his exclamation (line 12) is not, from a talk perspective, an interruption of the teacher’s action. However, the seamless flow of the teacher’s bodily orientations provides interactional continuity to her speech and offers another perspective on her actions in the context of whole class instruction. They suggest the teacher’s intention

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to continue making the French form salient and clearer by drawing on the support of the whiteboard to add instructional contrast. Thus, the transition from the gestural display (Figure 1l-1o) to interaction with the written text on the whiteboard (Figure 1q-1s), accomplished bodily without a break in movement, may be seen to operate as a field connector, as the enacted equivalent of a conjunction such as ‘and’ or ‘whereas’. Such fluid bodily backing to oral talk suggests that the teacher views lines 11 and 13 as a single, interactionally cohesive contribution despite the occurrence of brief cessations of talk. This constitutes a typical example of a ‘literacy practice or literacy event’ (Bagga-Gupta 1995, 2002, 2012, 2014, 2017a, Heath 1983, Street 1984) where oral and written talk is in close symbiosis. The overlap in lines 12 and 13 may be explained by student M’s attending only to the talk of line 11 and hearing it as a completed turn on the basis of, for example, falling intonation and micro speech pause, a reading which the teacher overrides in unbroken bodily movement as she orients towards written text. Figures 1q-1s in Transcript 14-1B highlight some of the teacher’s pointing work that partners oral talk in line 13 implicating written communication on the whiteboard. The impression given by Transcript T1A of this activity is that the teacher’s pointing occurs after her verbal utterance while Transcript T1B shows that these actions not only concur but that they are synchronized to achieve an alignment between the addressees and the written words displayed on the whiteboard. Goodwin (2003) describes the way talk, gaze shifts and postural configuration typically co-occur with a single act of pointing so that “[p]ointing is accomplished through the juxtaposition of very different kinds of semiotic phenomena” (2003, 9). Bagga-Gupta (2002) describes the “complexity of everyday instructional interactions” in terms of the “specific turn taking communicative devices or resources” that include oral talk, signed talk, written talk and pointing (2002, 580). The pointing gesture as represented by Figures 1q-1s in line 13 of Transcript T1B exemplifies some of these aspects as the teacher draws an additional visual resource into focal play by deploying her body and talk in collaborative action. On the first syllable of her utterance, the teacher sets her sight on the whiteboard spot she intends to indicate (Figure 1q) and proceeds to direct her reach towards its target with her gaze. In the following micro silence—having secured the success of her point—she turns her head and upper body towards her addressees to be able to refocus on them. On the second word of the utterance, the teacher’s body forms a diagonal axis from index finger of her left hand to crooked elbow of her right arm that invites student attention to what she is pointing at (Figure 1r). Then, holding eye

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contact with the students at the front, her index finger sweeps from top to bottom of the whiteboard, reaching its lowest point in congruence with the intonational fall of her final syllable (Figure 1s). With bodily movement configured with talk, the teacher displays a simultaneous dual orientation to the students she is addressing and the written language she is seeking to make currently relevant. In summary, Transcript T1B in contrast to what is visible in Transcript T1A, makes apparent that talk and bodily conduct not only concur, but are routinely mutually tuned for realizing precise situated meanings. Transcript T1B throws into some relief the central role of gesture, bodily movement and postural stance in displaying and coordinating the shifts of orientation which invites certain kinds of participation between actors, semiotic objects and other resources in the instructional environment. Transcript 14-1B thus offers a view of the interactional sensitivity between, for example, gesture and talk—one that goes beyond paralinguistic or auxiliary support and suggests communicatively indivisible partnership. Consequently, the body-in-interaction is, to some degree, brought into focus as interactional hub, (re)aligning, sidelining various participants, semiotic fields and other material resources into dynamically changing configurations which generate the moment by moment situated meaningmaking. Transcript T1B suggests that without some kind of representation of oral talk and bodily conduct-in-interaction, potentially key evidence on participants’ orientations is erased from view and lost to analysis. Let us finally revisit the same stretch of social interaction once again, this time in a rearranged and amplified format where the different language varieties and written communication that the participants have access to/use is represented. Transcript 1C—arranged typographically as a four-level score—aims to further widen the representational aperture on the social encounter in order to see if more layers of the interconnectedness between oral talk, body, written language and other communicative resources typical of classroom interaction become salient. Generally, each line is constructed by four tracks which represent a) the verbal production, b) an English translation, c) the speaker’s actions and d) the addressee’s simultaneous actions. Some of the actions are represented by symbols used in Transcript T1B, additional symbols (see transcription key in Appendix D) and line drawings reduced in order to integrate them into the action tracks. An attempt has been made to represent the synchronization of these actions graphically in much the same way as a musical score works so that when symbols align vertically, the positioning indicates simultaneous occurrences (see Holmström 2013, Holmström and Bagga-Gupta this

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volume, Holmström, Bagga-Gupta and Jonsson 2015, Sahlström 1999). Transcript T1C also makes more explicitly available the written language which is subject to focus by participants and pervades the interaction. This is done with the aid of scanned copies of some of the texts that are oriented to by the teacher and students, indexed in the Transcript T1C score as, for instance in the Figure 1t. The following analysis highlights three ways through which the inclusion of this focal dimension— members’ attention to written language—affects an understanding of the interactional workings construing this particular classroom event.

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Transcript 14-1C: Language varieties, textual artifacts and bodies-in-interaction

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First, a comparison of the teacher’s talk in the oral track of line 1 with line a), in the scanned figure of the page the teaching is looking at (Figure 1t), makes it clear that she is not simply asking a spontaneously selfcomposed question but relaying a written sentence on the page through oral talk to her students. The teacher’s utterance is governed by the written language being attended to at this specific point in time with the one adaptation of the written ‘du’ (Swedish: you, singular) to oral ‘ni’ (Swedish: you, plural). This linking of oral and written language puts another light on the teacher’s repair work featured in line 1. On the word ‘ni’ (Swedish: you, plural), the teacher looks up at the class and it is precisely here that she goes ‘astray’. Realizing that ‘på’ (Swedish: on) does not belong to the formulation of the written question, she breaks her talk fractionally, simultaneously glances down at the page in front of her and reconnects with the text on “som” (Swedish: that) to deliver the rest of the question as printed. The teacher’s orientation to “på” as troublesome and her substitution of the preposition with “som” is precipitated not by a grammatical error but by a departure from and subsequent realignment to a written text (Figure 1t); therefore, this instance of repair is not technically self-initiated, but script-initiated self-repair. The repair, implemented by the teacher but prompted by the printed word on the page, illustrates the way written and oral language cohabit communicatively in both everyday communication and in institutionalized instructional settings. The transcriptional inclusion of the text the teacher is orienting to reveals repair operating across modalities and explains why repair was occasioned. Second, Transcript T1C affords a view of the textual orientation that underlies the dyadic verbal and gestural interaction between teacher and student A. As highlighted in the discussion following Transcript 14-1B, the teacher’s gaze and bodily movements in lines 1 and 2 indicate a reorientation from one book (Figure 1t) to another (Figure 1u) and that this is a transition of focus she is seeking to make relevant to her students. What effects these efforts have is indexed by student A’s bodily conduct as tracked representationally by Transcript T1C. During line 1, student A’s attention appears to be directed to a book in front of him. In line 2, after the teacher delivers “sidan sexti” (Swedish: page sixty) and the speech pause, A shifts his gaze markedly sideways to focus on what appears to be another text on his desk. Given his attentiveness and the timing of his gaze shift in the immediate aftermath of the teacher’s instruction to look at page 60, it seems plausible that student A, in response to the teacher’s directive, reorients from one text (Figure 1t) to the textbook (Figure 1u) which, on page 60, contains the information the teacher is seeking to elicit.

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Realignment to this second book is a textual orientation that both A and the teacher maintain throughout their collaborative engagement on the task (lines 3-10). In their dyadic interaction, both participants’ gazes oscillate between the printed page in front of them and one another with the bulk of attention directed to the text (see lines 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 and 9). It is the gravitations towards the textbook page that provide them with a common frame of reference, a graphic navigator, for their dyadic participation. Earlier we highlighted the way both verbal latching (Transcript T1A) and student response-gesture coordination (Transcript T1B) serve to sustain and sanction teacher-student dyadic joint efforts in completing the task. What Transcript T1C shows in addition is that, although, at one level, it is the teacher’s gesture with talk that is coordinating the elicitation of the student’s responses, it is the teacher’s and student’s orientations to the same written text (Figure 1u) that anchors them in dyadic engagement and serves as ground for meaningful action. Third, the inclusion of the written language and its graphic framing on the whiteboard (Figure 1v) that the teacher orients towards in line 13 explicates the relevance of this literacy artifact for illuminating her spoken words and pointing conduct. On the board (Figure 1v) is a representation of the Swedish present tense of ‘to be’ displayed with the first three person forms and complemented by an elongated rectangular frame around the ‘är’ (Swedish: am, are, is) forms and the space below them to indicate the repetition of the same auxiliary for all persons. In the middle of line 13, the teacher points to ‘är’ (Swedish: am) of the first person form (Figure 1v) to make explicit that she is referring to the equivalent Swedish form of ‘être’ (French: to be) which has only one auxiliary. Then, she traces a trajectory with her index finger which follows the graphic structure on the board. The sweeping motion of her arm ‘completes’ the missing detail of the space in the rectangle to underline that the Swedish equivalent, in contrast to the French tense, is the same for all persons. Thus, the teacher’s actions—point and sweep—in relation to board display and alongside her talk engage collaboratively to explain each other and, in concerted action, to illuminate the ongoing instructional behavior. In summary, by giving more detailed representation of some of the textual material oriented to by the participants in this slice of interaction, it becomes possible to gain a stronger analytic grasp on the situated sensemaking role of written language. At the same time, distinguishing between French and Swedish talk in the verbal tracks (see both Transcript T1B and Transcript T1C) so that the original language is made available in the transcripts, allows for a greater appreciation of the interillumination4 (Bakhtin 1981) of languaging (Bagga-Gupta 2017a, 2017b, 2017c, 2014,

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Garcia 2009, Linell 2009, Messina Dahlberg and Bagga-Gupta 2014) including the interplay between oral and written communication. The interactional fragments focused on above are not constituted merely by verbal and bodily behavior bearing on surrounding material resources, but implicate the written word dynamically to frame current focus and significance in the classroom. Representing some of the talk variety (e.g. line 4) and textual detail (Figures 1t, 1u and 1v) affords richer representational coverage of the intertwined nature of oral and written language deployment as literacy practices and events; such attention furthers an emic view of the action.

2. Comment on the focus of this study Our interest in the present study is with issues concerning the way the details of naturally occurring phenomena are routinely attended to in scholarly work through (re)presentations of social interactions and, consequently, how interactional complexities are made visible or invisible in the analysis. Juxtaposing different ways in which analysts themselves (re)present social interaction, we have so far attempted to highlight the different points of departure afforded in analysis. Our aim, as suggested earlier, is to explore and illustrate how the windows of three different transcripts on the same slice of classroom life make available certain features of interaction and thereby affect our understanding of what is actually happening communicatively. While any transcript of social interaction is inherently reductionist (Duranti 1997), the question this study raises relates to the adequacy of representing face-to-face human interaction in oral talk-related terms when observation of its naturally occurring dynamics testify to a verbally, visually and spatially interdependent composition. Concern revolves around how an interactional order can be dissected transcriptionally when communicative meaning for participants hinges on multimodal interillumination that is, the operative alignment of different modes that mutually interpret each other (Jewitt 2009a, Messina Dahlberg 2015). This concern is important because transcription work is an integral part of analysis rather than a process that happens before analysis (see also Bird 2005, Hutchby and Wooffitt 1998). Since it is not possible to divorce the work of transcription from the analyst’s sense-making sensibilities (Green, Franquiz and Dixon 1997, Tilley 2003), the treatment of interactional phenomena with primarily talk-focused tools runs the risk of mediating partial and misleading analytic interpretations.

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As discussion following Transcripts T1A, T1B and T1C has illustrated, our concern here is to build upon existing conventions in CA and the fields of Literacy Studies and Deaf Studies, and thereby contribute to ways of (re)presenting different aspects of social interaction in academic reporting. A number of analysts, impelled by views of the concerted deployment of various media for producing interactional meaning and order, have experimented and continue to experiment with a wide range of representational means.5 Duranti (1997), Goldman, Pea, Barron and Denny (2007), Jewitt (2009a) and Melander and Sahlström (2010), including some of the work in our own research environment CCD (www.ju.se/ccd), present examples of visual representations, such as symbol systems, diagrams, figures, line drawings, photos, (series of) screenshots combined with concurring oral talk in hearing environments,6 to set forth multimodal interactions for analysis. Before we examine a second slice of instructional interaction from another language focused7 lesson in a hearing environment, we revisit some of the sociohistorical issues that pertain to representations of human interaction in research work.

3. Issues related to transcripts as representations of social life A glance at the literature and discussions related to analysis of social practices suggests that there is limited interest in issues related to transcription systems as representations. Bucholtz and Du Bois (2006), for instance, note both the wide range of areas where transcriptions are commonly used as well as the scarce attention that the same receive theoretically: Methodological and theoretical developments in several subfields of linguistics have led many linguists to draw increasingly on the data of spoken language as a primary source for a wide range of scholarly investigations. From the emerging focus on language documentation, field linguistics, and endangered languages, to the growing emphasis on corpusbased analysis of grammar, to phonologists’ longstanding interest in prosody, many are finding that naturalistic recordings of spoken language are of vital importance for addressing their current research questions. As linguists take up new kinds of research projects, many involving multimodal digital technologies that have only recently become widely available, they are beginning to confront with greater urgency the issue of how spoken data are to be represented in visual form. For researchers who have not previously drawn extensively on ordinary conversation as a primary source of data, such questions may be new; by the same token, although well established tools of transcription already exist in

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subdisciplines that use elicitation techniques in data collection, new issues arise when data sets are extended to include unelicited spoken language and longer stretches of discourse. Yet transcription remains largely undiscussed in many areas of the field (Bucholtz and Du Bois, 2006, 1, emphasis added).

Transcription data base searches yield relatively few results and raise the issue of whether, with regard to transcription as methodology and central frame of analytic reference, there is little critical reappraisal or tailoring of the systems and conventions researchers have adopted to investigate audio and video recordings of social interaction. What can be surmised is that analysts use established systems—primarily either reporting oral talk (natural or elicited) in verbatim manner or reporting social interaction at a micro level on the basis of conventions established within CA. The interesting issue for present purposes is that both traditions give primacy to oral talk even though CA theorizes and builds upon the explicit assumption that human interaction is more sophisticated than oral speech (see, for example, Schegloff 1984). In fact, revisiting the development of CA as a transcription system allows us to understand this primacy: a strategic choice was made in the 1970s when telephone conversations were identified as ideal materials for analysis because they did not include the added complexity of nonverbal orientations and movements (Hopper 1992, Schegloff, 1986). In addition, the costs and cumbersome nature of video-technology available during that time period fed into this initial preference in the choice of natural communicative data. While video-technologies have become both user-friendly and cheaper during the last 40 years (see Bagga-Gupta 2001, Battison 2000, see further below) the literature available where transcriptions are employed suggests that the bulk of the reporting from studies of hearing environments continues to occur either in the verbatim tradition or CA practices. Recent developments encapsulated in analysis framed by the “visual or multimodal turn” (Jewitt 2009b, 4, emphasis in original) and the Deaf Studies tradition mentioned earlier are exceptions and represent theorizing about and experimentation with transcription. Discussing this in terms of an “oral language bias” Bagga-Gupta (2012, 2017a, 2017b, 2017c) points out that “[s]uch emerging work suggests that analysis of audio/video recordings of social life continues to privilege representations of oral language use in scholarly writings, eclipsing a range of other significant aspects of human behavior including written communication” (2012, 75). However, as Flewitt, Hampel, Hauck and Lancaster highlight,

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Technology generally, user friendly access to the same documentation possibilities (ranging from field notes to digital recordings of social practices across time and space) have not only played an important role in illuminating sociogenesis and phylogenesis but have in a “revolutionary manner changed how we understand life generally and human interaction and communication more specifically” (Bagga-Gupta 2001, 56, our translation). Adelswärd (1999) makes this point in relation to the impact that the analog voice recorder had in the Language Sciences and particularly the area of conversation research. Similarly, videotechnologies have revolutionized possibilities for potentially detailed documentation and analysis. As mentioned earlier, a field that became possible to study in minute detail after video-technologies became more easily available was communication in deaf or visually-oriented settings with elicited and naturally occurring data (see Bagga-Gupta 2004, Holmström 2013). “The emergence of new consumer equipment that made recording of gestural data practical, affordable and accessible” (Battison 2000, 7) allowed for the emergence of the study of human behaviors in such settings in more sophisticated ways. The more recent shift from analog to digital recording technologies (and the accessibility of the same) have allowed for significant shifts for both analysts and analysis. Academic reporting, for instance at workshops and conferences, has more recently seen an upswing in how recordings (the primary data) are used to complement transcriptions; the latter however continue to focus primarily on features of oral talk. Some further salient issues can be highlighted in view of the study presented here. Firstly, body orientations and movements across time and space continue to be neglected (for the most) in the academic reporting despite the advent and use of newer recording media and a shift in the data focus from dyadic telephone communication to multiparty communication in face to face settings. Secondly, written languaging inside and outside institutional settings continues to be made unavailable in transcriptions and is thus invisible in the greater part of the academic literature. While there is some current experimentation with transcription methods—for instance through line drawings of body/hand movements in space (see for instance, Goodwin 2007, Martin 2004, Melander 2009, Sahlström 1999, St. John & Cromdal 2016), positions of participants in interaction (see for instance

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Bagga-Gupta 2000, Lundström 2010, Martin 2004), presence of central artifacts that participants orient to and use (see for instance Heath and Hindmarsh 2002, Holmström, Bagga-Gupta and Jonsson 2015, Luff, Heath and Pitsch 2009), gaze patterns and shifts over time and space (see for instance Bagga-Gupta 2000, Goodwin 1981, McIlvenny 1995), there is very little attention paid within the framework of micro level interaction in natural communication to how written language is used (for some empirical examples see Bagga-Gupta 1995, 2003, 2012, 2014, 2017a, Gynne and Bagga-Gupta 2013, 2015, Messina Dahlberg 2015). Finally, one of the salient contributions of the present study is making visible and highlighting the ways in which different language varieties (in addition to the different modalities used) are linked by participants cooperatively to facilitate the completion of tasks in instructional settings. This point is further illustrated below through Transcript 14-2.

4. (Re)presenting multimodal interillumination Transcript 14-2 represents a fragment from a second slice of classroom interaction, namely a picture-describing speaking activity in another French lesson from data with the same setting and members as in the previous transcripts. In this activity, students have been invited to describe a picture of spring (Figure 2)—one of four sketches depicting the four seasons (spring, summer, autumn and winter) in the textbook which teacher and students have in front of them on their desks. The transcription format is amplified by four tracks as introduced in Transcript T1C and a full key of the symbols is supplied after the transcript. Following this, three analytic points, drawn from Transcript T2, seek to illustrate that the interactional meanings in the fragment are generated by concerted collaboration between several modes which requires multimodal representation for analysis. Transcript T2 gives us a glimpse of the meaning-producing work done by several modes in cooperation. First, this slice of interaction is generally framed and affected by a multimodal graphic resource—a picture which not only prompts and constrains participants’ production of French but is instrumental in generating a large part of their interactional behavior. It is in reference to its visual detail that they make sense of the ongoing activity and recognize it as a routine French speaking activity. Teacher and students’ orientations to this textbook resource is evidenced by repeated gaze shifts between the figures and actions represented in the picture and addressees (lines 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 and 12). This gaze behavior characterizes artifact-aided ‘second language’ classrooms where there is a “reflexive relationship between pedagogy and interaction” (Seedhouse 2004, 80).

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Transcript 14-2. Language varieties, textual artifacts and gesture-in-interaction

Furthermore, the teacher’s pointing actions in line 8 illustrate the picture’s patterning of participants’ interactional performances. At the beginning of line 8, the teacher points energetically, full stretch, at student N in coordination with a stressed and prolonged “oui” (French: yes) to signal the success of N’s answer (line 7) and to herald his performance. Later on, in the same line, her pointing does different work; with arm bent like the neck of a swan, she does a double jab twice in synchrony with the

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syllables of “tu vois” (Fr: do you see) and “combien” (French: how many) in her second and third questions of line 8. The pointing actions stab the air rather than the selected speaker; they reinforce momentary meaning (how many) with a counting action and anticipate the more overt counting gesture of line 10 (see below). This pointing correlates to the image of a number of kittens in the picture’s lower right-hand corner (Figure 2) and is made sense of in the context of the common graphic frame of orientation which serves to stimulate the production of spoken French by students. The gaze and pointing instances above attempt to illustrate that the picture, as visual interactional resource, bears consequentiality for the participants’ oral and nonverbal behavior indeed, for their situated, distributed, sense-making. Therefore, without some kind of representation of participants’ orientations to this central artifact, a large part of their interactions would be marginalized or made invisible; it would become difficult to demonstrate the context participants are making relevant and expanding through their actions. This picture-describing activity illustrates the routine way visual and/or textual material resources impress communicative meanings in school instructional settings. Second, this slice of interaction is managed and made meaningful by processes of interillumination between talk, gesture and picture. The lines in Transcript T2 document participants’ orientations to the picture—an orientation which brings students to the limits of their French competence (see lines 1, 5, 9 and 11) but one which is scaffolded (lines 4, 6, 8, 10 and 11). An engagement in effort to cope with target language communication in collaboration with others has long been valued as a key condition for language development within the field of ‘second language acquisition’ (Deters et al. 2014, Ellis 1997, 2008). The teacher who, in this interactional fragment, is using a considerable amount of French to elicit student French contributions, shows signs of modifying her talk to elucidate her meanings. For example, in line 8, after affirming N’s answer, the teacher phrases her question in three different ways; each features the word ‘combien’ (French: how many) in increasingly simple clauses. The verbal track of line 10 has the same structure—an affirmation plus question in triple format; questions two and three successively paraphrase the first with the additional simplification of a shift to Swedish on the third. However, there are other significant illuminators at work in this slice of interaction. For instance, the teacher’s use of gesture in synchrony with her oral talk is salient in the exchanges (e.g. lines 4, 6, 8, 10 and 11). The pointing work contributing sense to the French in line 8 has been mentioned earlier. In line 10, the palm-down to palm-up open hand turn accentuates the teacher’s initial affirmation; in the second clause, the word

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‘compter’ (French: count) is enacted gesturally with a slicing action whose general span reproduces the file of the three kittens following their mother (see Figure 2 in Transcript T2). A similar shape is drawn out by the gesture alongside the word ‘famille’ (French: family) in line 4 to project expansion, increase. The following two gestures in line 10 with their similar circumscribing movements underline the teacher’s attempt to coax out an answer in French of the total number of kittens. The second of these two gestures move through an expanded arc in alignment with the amplified explicitness expressed in the shift to Swedish. The point is that it is not only oral talk that is serving to elucidate meanings; verbal language, gesture and picture throw light on each other. They not only operate concurrently, in various ways they stand for each other. Like paraphrases that unpack previous utterances, verbal and gestural conduct linked to textual artifact interpret each other communicatively. It is in reciprocal representational alignment that they achieve their purpose of generating intelligibility for eliciting student production of French. We contend that when transcriptional representation of the multimodal interilluminating work that is reflexively constitutive of the interaction is not made available, a truncated profile of the meaning-making effort is projected. A final example which illustrates the interconnectedness of talk, gesture and textual artifact in the realization of situated understanding occurs in line 11. Student N’s answer to the teacher’s question (line 10)— ‘tre’ (Swedish: three) delivered quietly in Swedish—aligns discursively to the teacher’s shift to Swedish in the preceding turn. Stoltz (2009) claims that students in secondary school French lessons answer in Swedish when the teacher’s previous question is presented in Swedish. The teacher, who is facing the student, nods her head while N is still delivering his answer and then, in the speech pause, flashes up three fingers (line 11). The nod affirms that ‘tre’ (Swedish: three) is not wrong, but the thrust of the ensuing gesture signals that something is still not right. In this interactional moment, the teacher’s three-finger sign must stand for something other than ‘three’ since student N has given this answer in Swedish; from N’s following response—“trois” (French: three)— displaying his understanding of the hand signal, as well as the teacher’s affirmation of his adjusted answer (line 12), the gesture in situ appears to mean “In French, please” for the participants. In this communicative moment represented in line 11, gesture deployed in response to ongoing talk and linked to previous bodily movement and pictorial artifact does focal work in eliciting the French answer “trois” (three). The instance illustrates the way various semiotic resources configured with one another can realize unique situated meanings

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which bear consequentiality for subsequent participant understandings and responses; because the interactional cooperation is instrumental to the way student N’s oral answer is achieved and the episode accomplished (line 12), it clamors for transcriptional representation.

5. Concluding reflections This chapter has attempted to raise a number of concerns related to how analysts attend to complexities embedded in the processes involved in representing naturally occurring human social practices in scholarly reporting. Claims to account for actual social order in fine detail and its consequentiality for participant relevancies (Jefferson 1985, 2004) and for scientific credibility (Sacks 1984) need to be borne out by the endeavor to attend to the interdependence of multimodal practices across time and space that routinely compose naturally occurring interaction. We have tried to show that oral talk as lexical resource is one of a range of semiotic modes that compose actual communication and thinking for situated sense-making (Bagga-Gupta 2012, 2017a, Jewitt 2009a, Linell 2009). Thus, participant orientations and consequential detail are commonly displayed through a verbally, graphically, visually, spatially interconnected order that is poorly represented by transcripts which focus primarily on oral talk. If any interactional detail “is consequential for the participants, we have good reason, indeed something of an obligation, to include it in our transcription” (Sidnell 2010, 46). A privileging of spoken language in transcription introduces the risk into analysis of projecting a view of verbal intercourse as operating relatively independently when, as we have tried to show in Transcripts 14-1B, 14-1C and 14-2, it “is inextricably interwoven with communication of other types” (Vološinov 1973, 95). As analysts, we need to consider critically what our transcripts make visible and invisible so that a commitment to representing social interaction and achieving emic analyses is not compromised. Our cultural tools or meditational means—in this case our transcription systems— always, inescapably, constrain as well as afford particular views of interactional phenomena (Wertsch 1998). However, while there is “no representation without taxation” (Mitchell, quoted in Wertsch 1998, 39) greater accessibility to previously marginalized and neglected parts of human interaction necessitates representational reform. With the advent of video technologies, the theatre of participant actions and their potential relevancies that can be studied in-depth has expanded significantly. Our concern is that an alignment to a particular research community for epistemological affordance and validation can generate a self-propagating

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process whereby constraints on the scope of studying interactional phenomena are reproduced by an uncritical adoption of tradition based transcription formats and frames. When striving to portray human communicative performance, our scientific loyalties are better directed towards representational justice. The methodological decision to analyze only one form of communication without reference to its semiotic frame is to implement a process of marginalization. While, such focus may be a pragmatic choice, it always effaces other semiotic resources whose right to representation is upheld by their cooperative contribution to the multimodal order of meaning production in human interaction. In order to do justice to the multiple methods participants use to realize “ever newer ways to mean” (Bakhtin 1981, 346) in and through interaction with one another as well as in participation with a range of empowering resources, it is vital that transcription systems and work retain an openendedness. Besides being complicated, conversational reality is characteristically unpredictable and novel (Sacks 1984). Research methods to adequately represent the fluid and fleeting communicative performances human beings accomplish must, like the actions they portray, be shaped by their context and be transformable. Transcription work is itself social action (Roberts 1997) and caught up in dialogic, developmental processes. Transcription as representation is dialogically provoked, created responsively and poised for further response. Many areas in the human sciences focus on and make available elicited or natural communication in academic reporting. The multidisciplinary areas of the Language Sciences (including semiotics and mathematics) are a domain where issues raised in the study presented here have central relevance. In addition, a number of other academic fields, for instance anthropology, sociology, and some emerging areas such as the field of “visualization” within microbiology, computational linguistics and its applications such as machine translations are also areas where representations are salient. Our work here is a contribution to the small and growing body of research that theorizes representations. Such work, it is hoped, contributes to more dynamic ways of understanding both social interaction and also how representations themselves make visible and invisible different aspects of the very stuff that holds potential to yield penetrating insights into human social life.

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Notes 1

Following Duranti (1997) we understand the term transcription as the process of recovering and reconstructing social action and transcript as the product of this process. As argued here, a transcript is never finished or full, but stands for what has been achieved analytically so far. A transcription system refers to the means and conventions that mediate the work of transcription. 2 The study presented here has arisen from the research project, LISA 21, Languages and Identities in School Arenas in the 21st century supported by the Swedish Research Council (nr 721-2005-2876; PI Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta). The project investigates issues related to classroom communication practices with an empirical base of audio and video lesson documentation and ethnographic field notes from different secondary schools in Sweden. 3 When the term talk is used in this text, oral talk is implied. This is in contrast to written talk or written communication in everyday life, in institutional settings like a classroom or in the communication that occurs in the context of social media. Oral and written talk also contrast to signed talk or signed communication in everyday life in “visually-oriented” (Bagga-Gupta 2004) settings where deaf and/or hearing human beings who use one of the world’s different Signed Languages interact. To keep such distinction salient in the text ‘oral’ and ‘written’ is occasionally inserted before ‘talk’. 4 The term interillumination is taken from Bakhtin (1981) to describe a process in which “languages throw light on each other” according to a relativizing force in which “one language can, after all, only see itself in the light of another language” (12). The term is closely associated with Bakhin’s key notion of dialogic interanimation (see Wertsch 1991). We suggest the ethos of interillumination is well attuned to multimodal analysis and aptly expresses the reciprocal interpretative, sense-shaping work that different semiotic resources can accomplish collaboratively in processes of multimodal meaning-making (see St John 2010, 2014). 5 The study presented in this chapter both contributes to and is also shaped by the ongoing experimentation with regard to representation of everyday interaction in different settings, including virtual arenas, by members of the CCD research environment. 6 Micro-interactionally focused reporting from deaf instructional settings have seen the development of slightly different conventions based on the ‘visually-oriented’ nature of signed languages and the spoken and written talk they concur with. Bagga-Gupta (2000, 2001, 2002, 2017a), Erting (2001), Hansen (2005), Holmström (2013), Humphries and MacDonald (2000) and Padden (1996) present examples of visual representations such as photos, line drawings, figures, symbol systems, etc. that reflect the current experimentation of representations we can note in CA. 7 The term ‘language focused lesson’ in contrast to for instance, a Mathematics lesson, is used in a school organizational sense to describe the general nature of the subject under study. However, from an analytic standpoint, we contend that all

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school lessons are language focused since all learning in schools (and other arenas) involves, indeed requires, language learning.

Acknowledgements The present study has arisen from the research project, LISA 21, Languages and Identities in School Arenas in the 21st century supported by the Swedish Research Council (nr 721-2005-2876, PI Sangeeta BaggaGupta). The project has also been part of the research group CCD, Communication, Culture and Diversity, at Jönköping and Örebro Universities, Sweden (www.ju.se/ccd; see note 2). We would also like to express our appreciation to Samuel Lidskog for his sketches of the gestures featured in the transcripts.

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CHAPTER FIFTEEN THOU SHALT NOT JUDGE: SELECTIVE PERCEPTION IN JUDGEMENTS OF LINGUISTIC CORRECTNESS KONRAD SZCZEĝNIAK AND CÁSSIO LEITE VIEIRA

1. Introduction In the sociolinguistic literature, a fairly self-evident assumption is often made that the perception of a person’s linguistic competence may affect that person’s social status. In other words, a person’s linguistic image may either benefit or hinder that person’s social or professional advancement. This has to do with the fact that certain dialects become standard by “ris[ing] socially with the fortunes of their speakers” (Edwards 2009, 66), and in a vicious circle, a speaker’s social rise is contingent on using a standard dialect, while it is jeopardized by speaking a dialect considered less prestigious. Just how powerful and significant the linguistic aspect is should become evident given the fact that non-linguists hold strong beliefs about the correctness of social dialects, with prestige varieties being habitually considered ‘pure’ and ‘correct’ and low-prestige ones as ‘wrong’ or ‘incorrect’ (Chambers and Trudgill 1998, Cunningham 1976). Negative judgments are formed about structures that deviate (“the car needs fixed” or “I done it yesterday”) from those found in the standard variety. The same effect also holds for sentences produced by non-native speakers— these generally tend to be less correct and idiomatic than those produced by native speakers. Such difference, whether actual or perceived, in turn, can have serious societal consequences because perceptions of linguistic forms can lead to “social discrimination against non-native speakers and NNS educators” (Radwanska-Williams 2008, 139). In practical terms, it is

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a fairly safe prediction that non-native speaker professionals may miss employment opportunities solely as a result of their prospective employers’ views and convictions on their language skills, which are universally believed to be inferior. This problem is perpetuated by the general sense that “native speakers represent a privileged class, while the non-native speakers are considered to be underdeveloped native speakers” (Deckert and Vickers 2011, 80). Linguistically-motivated social discrimination is not confined to non-native speakers only. As Trudgill (2001) observes, “[d]iscrimination on the grounds of accent still, unfortunately, occurs in British society. But this discrimination is no longer against all regional accents but only against those from, as it were, lower down the triangle” (2001, 8). The significance of this fact is spelled out in Wardaugh (2006), who notes that public discrimination on linguistic grounds is probably the only socially accepted kind of discrimination at a time when no other kinds of discrimination, such as on the grounds of race, religion or class, can be practiced openly (2006, 350). Thus, it seems obvious beyond the need for further argument that “[t]he inescapable reality is that people do use language as a discriminator in just about every sense of that word” (Wardaugh 2006, 349), with linguistic judgmental stereotypes being formed based on observable features such as accents (Trudgill 2001). In this study, we look to find out whether the consequences of linguistic status perceptions can go further and whether expectations may skew a person’s judgment of forms that do not bear characteristics of their perceived dialect. That is, may forms that do not differ from the standard be treated differently simply because their author represents a low-prestige dialect or is a non-native speaker? In this study of perceived status effects, subjects were asked to react to sentences containing colloquial vocabulary or constructions with semantic content (SzczeĞniak and Callies 2008). The sentences tested contain expressions coming from football commentaries (where by “football”, we mean soccer, not American football). This way we intend to provide evidence for selective perception effects in sociolinguistic settings. We hypothesize a tendency to impute deviation (and deficiency) where there is none, based solely on information about the speaker's sociolinguistic status. The main research question is whether sociolinguistic opinions can lead a person to form an illusion of grammatical malformedness.

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2. Grammatical Correctness 2.1. A prescriptive spirit in society Language is a rare area of knowledge where many non-specialists profess a degree of expertise allowing them to pass judgments of accuracy. Even those who do not consider themselves qualified enough to speak on matters of language correctness usually believe that proper linguistic expression is of vital importance and that many or perhaps most people, including themselves, at least occasionally violate the grammar rules of their language. As Pinker (1995, 370) observes, “for human language, most people think that [...] pronouncements [concerning inappropriate language use] not only are meaningful but are cause for alarm”. This widespread attitude is perpetuated by the existence of many familiar prescriptive injunctions, such as those against split infinitives or double negatives in English; as far as we can guess, these are present in all languages, as we know of no reasons to believe that any existing language is free from prescriptive rules of some sort or another that regulate matters of style. Associated with specific prescriptive rules is a blanket rejection of colloquial registers (with particular obloquy heaped on slang) by speakers convinced that that anything other than a truly literary style is inferior and unacceptable. Such prescriptive views have rather cumbersome consequences for researchers. Pinker (1995, 371) confesses that “the pervasive belief that people do not know their own language is a nuisance in doing linguistic research”. Simply, when it comes to collecting data from informants, it becomes evident that they cannot be relied on, as native speakers are known to dismiss as ungrammatical those forms that are otherwise widely attested.

2.2. Social prestige and language correctness In recent decades, sociolinguistics has managed to establish that linguistic variation correlates with social variation and that the variation is collective rather than idiosyncratic. This is also how dialectal variation is approached by speakers themselves, who assume that the correlation is collective. As a result, just by virtue of belonging to a given social class, a speaker can safely be categorized in accordance with stereotypes and presumed to speak a variety with the corresponding linguistic properties. In practice, this means segregation into value categories, with lowprestige dialects being considered not only different but inadequate. And

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there is considerable consensus on this question among language users themselves. Regardless of what dialect they represent, speakers seem to take as self-evident the notion that low-prestige dialects are not so much non-standard as plain substandard. There is a natural tendency to translate deviation into deficiency. This follows rather straightforwardly from the conviction of precariousness of language styles fomented by authorities on language usage. By analyzing ‘correct’ usage in terms that only a tiny minority of educated people could command, the codifiers ensured that correctness remained the preserve of an elite. The usage of most people was wrong, precisely because it was the usage of the majority (Leith 1997, 56-7).

What is surprising is that until quite recently, this elitist view also persisted among linguists too. Leonard Bloomfield made no secret of assuming that [t]here is such a thing as correct English. An ignorant person does not know the correct forms; therefore he cannot help using incorrect ones. In the process of education one learns the correct forms and, by practice and an effort of will (‘careful speaking’), acquires the habit of using them. If one associates with ignorant speakers, or relaxes the effort of will (‘careless speaking’), one will lapse into the incorrect forms” (Bloomfield 1927, 432).

Bloomfield goes on to elaborate this view and clarifies his subtle understanding of correctness as what turns out to be an impossible standard of careful style. Even some ignorant adults speak ‘good’ English; on the other hand, there are highly educated people, even teachers and professors, who speak ‘bad’ English. All speaking, good or bad, is careless; only for a few minutes at a time can one speak ‘carefully’, and when one does so, the result is by no means pleasing (1927, 433).

What needs to be stressed is that the above belief in quality differences between language variants is very real, and it affects not only dialects of the same language but may also extend to different languages coexisting in a community. The sense of superiority of high prestige variant is so strong that in many cases it leads to oppression in the name of high prestige, where people are punished for using what is considered an undesirable variant. For example, in Francoist Spain, children were forced to bear a “Basque stick” for using Basque words. Although for the most part this

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kind of oppressive language-based discrimination has, like racism, been eradicated, it is possible that, just like racism, there remain its hidden manifestations in the form of marginalization, whereby speakers of what is perceived as inferior language varieties are denied equal educational, employment, and more generally, social advancement opportunities. Given such a grave approach to matters of language correctness and adequacy, one can expect that, in experimental settings too, people should have strong opinions about forms produced by low-prestige speakers, especially when contrasted with forms coming from speakers of higher status. In this study, we focus on people’s evaluations of expressions produced by three groups, sports journalists, football fans, and non-native speakers. The novelty of our study consists in demonstrating that people can evaluate sentences based on information about the status of a sentence’s author on top of the linguistic properties of the sentence itself. We expect this effect to occur through the phenomenon of selective perception, which is discussed in the following section.

3. Selective perception This study focuses on a linguistic question of acceptability judgments, but we believe it involves general psychological mechanisms, which are sketched here. It has been noted that humans do not perceive their surroundings as completely objective observers. They tend to focus on some elements more than on others and the choice of focus often depends on their expectations and background knowledge. What seems to most people like a sense of unclouded perception is really an illusion; perception is far from being comprehensive, direct or unclouded because “humans see what they have been preconditioned to believe they will see” (Kiser 2010, 97). Indeed, it was demonstrated in study after study that people’s observations vary depending on their prior experience, expectations and other factors. For example, in a classic study, when shown a video of a football game, fans of the opposing teams (Dartmouth College and Princeton University) counted different numbers of infractions committed by the two teams. Predictably, the fans of one team A saw twice as many infractions committed by team B as the fans of team B admitted and vice versa (Kiser 2010). In another study, different groups of subjects were shown a visitor, with the twist being that in each group that person was introduced as either a visiting student, demonstrator, senior lecturer or a full professor. After the visitor left the room, the subjects were asked to estimate his height. The subjects’ memories of the perceived height correlated strongly with the title they thought the visitor

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had. The full professor version was on average two and a half inches taller than the least prestigious impersonation of the visitor. One reason why such inconsistencies happen is that our perceptive potential is quite limited given how much information competes for people’s processing resources. As Jeremy Wolfe put it “far more information lands on your eyes than you can possibly analyze and still end up with a reasonable sized brain” (quoted in a New York Times article— Blind to Change). In the act of perception, a person must segregate information that will be attended to more closely from accompanying white noise to be ignored. Although for the most part, these decisions are accurate enough for people’s functioning, they cannot be infallible. Some important details will inevitably escape, which is not without consequences for the resulting judgments of what was perceived. Perception is not a passive process and instead it contains elements of interpretation, during which people cannot help but bring in their biases. Also, cognitive processes are automatic and do not involve much conscious control (Fodor 1983), even if we are convinced otherwise. Just as the exact mechanisms involved in perception are unavailable to introspection, we are also not aware of the operation of the biases, even if we are aware of their existence. One such kind of bias which we suspect may be responsible for the effects observed in this study is the reliance on social status. This bias prompts the observer to adjust one’s judgment of a person to that person’s status. The question is what effect that status may have on the observer’s view. Will the observer be more likely to form a positive judgment of a higher-status person or the observer feel compelled to challenge the status? On the one hand, the former scenario seems justified if only because status is a very trustworthy attribute, especially if it is substantiated by a concrete title indicative of qualifications. Trust in status allows people to complement judgments on what cannot be analyzed fully or accurately, especially when lacking expertise, whether one is conscious of the deficit or not. However, if the observer feels or aspires to be an equal, there is good reason to expect an assertive tendency to question the evaluee’s status and pass harsher judgments precisely because of the higher status. This competing scenario seems all the more plausible in light of Ariely’s finding that people tend to reserve the most favorable evaluations for one's own decisions (2010).

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4. Study 4.1. Method The study presented in this chapter was conducted simultaneously in Brazil and Poland. In Brazil, readers of the science magazine Ciência Hoje were asked to fill out an online questionnaire. In Poland, visitors to the Web site of the University of Silesia’s Institute of English filled out a similar questionnaire. We used questionnaire forms provided in the Google Documents suite. Additionally, a paper-and-pencil questionnaire was distributed among first year students at the Institute of English. In Brazil 163 subjects participated in the study. In Poland, there were 130 subjects in the online study and 184 in the paper-and-pencil study. In both Brazil and Poland, the participants were asked to evaluate the acceptability of sentences in Brazilian Portuguese and Polish, respectively. The sentences were designed by the authors, but they were based on actual sentences found in online sports commentaries and carefully crafted to appear as authentic as possible. Each sentence was accompanied by a scale where the participants had been instructed to mark their evaluation of each sentence, as shown in Figure 15-1 below. Logo no começo, Ferreira mandou um torpedo que nenhum goleiro seria capaz de defender. (Drew, EUA, estudante de intercâmbio UFRJ) 1 Incorreto

2

3

4

5 Correto

Fig. 15-1. Portuguese sentence to evaluate (‘Right at the beginning, Ferreira fired a torpedo that no goalie would be able to save’)

The purpose of the study was to find out whether people’s reactions to sentences depend on the listener’s perception of who says them. Football expressions were used because football is one topic likely to be discussed seriously by speakers representing groups of varying status. We could therefore expect that the subjects in our study would take the sentences to be authentic, as they could plausibly be imagined as being produced by the speakers in the pictures. To conceal the study’s objective, we announced that the aim of the study was to examine people’s attitudes toward expressions used in the current language of football. To reinforce the impression that the study’s focus was on the language of football, we

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informed the participants that the study was conducted at the occasion of the 2012 Football Championship to be held in Poland and Ukraine. The questionnaires actually consisted of three versions, each containing the same set of sentences with the difference being that in each questionnaire the sentences were presented as coming from three kinds of authors: a sports journalist, a football fan and a foreign exchange student. Thus, in one questionnaire, the sentence in Figure 1 is shown as being produced by an American exchange student staying in Brazil, and in the two remaining questionnaires it was shown as coming from a Brazilian journalist and Brazilian football fan. Each questionnaire contained an equal number of sentences coming from each kind of speaker. A participant filled out only one of the three questionnaires—once they agreed to participate by pressing on the “Proceed to questionnaire” button, a random link directed them to one of the three questionnaires. One could not rule out the possibility of some participants taking the questionnaire more than once and noting that the “authors” of the sentences differ from those in the previous questionnaire. This could compromise the secrecy of the study’s objective, as participants could form more or less accurate guesses as to what the study tested and adjust their responses accordingly. To minimize this risk, the sentences appeared separately, and every next sentence did not appear until after the previous one was scored and submitted. This way, a participant could only see one sentence at a time without having a more global picture of the sentences which could facilitate memorization. Additionally, the sentences in each questionnaire appeared in different orders, so that a participant could not form an accidental but distinct recollection that for instance, the first sentence in the questionnaire came from a journalist and next time that very same sentence was from an exchange student. This problem did not arise with the paper-and-pencil questionnaire, because it was given to each subject only once. In the paper-and-pencil questionnaire, the sentences were listed together, one below another. This questionnaire contained three sentences, each presented as being produced by a speaker along with their photographs. Thus, this questionnaire included the pictures presented in Figure 15-2. The sentences chosen for the questionnaire featured instances of vocabulary use that could generate some controversy. We avoided choosing run-of-the-mill neutral-register sentences with literal uses of verbs, as there is good reason to believe that these would leave little room for individual variability. Instead, we included sentences with figurative uses of vocabulary, slang idiomatic expressions in a rather informal register.

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c

Fig. 15-2. Pictures of an exchange student (a) football fan (b) and a sports reporter (c) accompanying the sentences in the paper-and-pencil questionnaire (1)

Hoje foram para o lixo todos os pontos que a seleção havia obtido nas últimas semanas. (Translation: ‘Today the national team squandered all the points that it had won in recent weeks.’ Literally, “Today to the garbage went all the points that the national team had won in recent weeks.”)

Seven sentences used in the Polish and Brazilian part were translations of each other, with minor modifications involving changes to the names to make the sentences look more realistic in the respective national contexts. In the following example, the name of the goalkeeper is Carlos in the Brazilian sample, and Lavriü in the Polish counterpart. (2)

a. Carlos já defendeu tantos pênaltis, então ninguém entende como ontem ele conseguiu tomar um frango. b. Lavriü obroniá tyle karnych, wiĊc teraz nikt nie jest w stanie pojąü, jak on mógá wpuĞciü taką szmatĊ. (Translation: ‘Carlos/Lavriü had saved so many penalties, so nobody can understand how he managed to allow such an easy goal.’ In Portuguese, literally “take the chicken”; in Polish, “allow a rag”.)

4.2. Results Quite predictably, none of the sentences tested received consistent ratings. Although no sentence in the Brazilian or Polish batch violated any rules of Brazilian Portuguese and Polish, the ratings awarded by the subjects spanned the entire scale. This is a result of a non-linguist’s prescriptive attitude coupled with personal preferences/dispreferences for

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slang or figurative language. In almost all cases, the sentences received distinctly different ratings, suggesting that the information on the “source” of a given sentence plays a role in a person’s acceptability judgment. If the captions below the sentences were disregarded, the sentences would receive on average more or less similar ratings. In some cases, the differences were fairly pronounced. For example, in the Brazilian sample, the sentence in example (3) was scored higher when it was presented as authored by football fan, and slightly lower in the case of an exchange student, and lower still in the case of a sports journalist. (3)

Só o Edmilson sabia jogar a bola debaixo das canetas assim! (Translation: ‘Only Edmilson could pass the ball under the bridge, between the legs of an opponent, like that!’)

Fig. 15-3. Ratings for the sentence in example 3 (Brazilian sample)

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This tendency was observed for a number of other sentences in both the Brazilian and Polish sample. For example, in the Polish questionnaire, the sentence in example (4) received an average of 3.566 where it was shown as coming from a football fan, and only 2.368 from a sports journalist. (4)

Carlos wyáoĪyá siĊ na murawĊ i chciaá wymusiü karnego, ale przeaktorzyá i tylko dostaá Īóátą kartkĊ za symulowanie. (Translation: ‘Carlos fell flat on the ground trying to trick the referee into awarding a penalty, but he overacted and only ended up getting a yellow card for simulating’.)

Fig. 15-4. Ratings for the sentence in example 4 (Polish sample)

This represents a difference of 1.2 points, a fairly pronounced contrast also evident in the graphs, which show clear tendencies in the subjects’ evaluations. In the “football fan” sentence, the most selected rating was 5,

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and in the journalist sentence, the tendency was reversed, with rating 1 being selected most often. Not all the sentences yielded such strong differences, with some averages being too close among the sentence triplets to be statistically significant. For example, the sentence in example (5) was rated on average 3.394, 3.622, and 3,051 for the football fan, exchange student and journalist, respectively. This amounts to a 0.571 difference between the ratings for the exchange student sentence and the journalist sentence. (5)

Markowski wybiegaá i wydryblowaá wygraną dla druĪyny. (Translation: ‘Markowski ran and dribbled his way to victory’.)

This is probably because in the online questionnaire, the information about the author of the sentence was easy to miss. It consisted only in a short caption in parentheses, as is shown in Figure 1. However, in the paper-and-pencil questionnaire, this sentence was accompanied with photographs of a sports reporter, an exchange student and a football fan, as shown in Figure 15-2. The photographs seem to be responsible for a slight increase in the contrast between how the subjects perceived the acceptability of the sentences. The sentence in example (5), received lower ratings when accompanied with pictures than in the online questionnaire (which did not have any photographs), as is shown in Figure 15-5. Here too, the student sentence was rated higher than the fan sentence, which in turn was rated higher than the journalist sentence. The contrasts are slightly higher though, and the difference between the journalist and the student sentence is 0.671 (as opposed to 0.571 in the online questionnaire). student

fan

journalist

with pictures

3.058

2.633

2.387

without pictures

3.622

3.394

3.051

Fig. 15-5. Comparison of ratings obtained in the questionnaires with and without pictures for the sentence in example 5

Although none of the sentences was unanimously rejected or accepted by the subjects, there do emerge clear tendencies visible in the graphs. Sentence (6) in the Polish sample, which was generally considered toward the unacceptable end, was rated most unfavorably in the case of the journalist sentence. As the fan graph shows, the subjects felt rather evenly ambivalent about it. Slightly higher ratings were awarded to the student

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sentence, whose graph shows a tendency nearing a mid scale point 3. (6)

Averag e:

DziĞ poszáy na Ğmieci wszystkie punkty, które reprezentacja zdobyáa w ostatnich tygodniach. (Translation: ‘Today the national team squandered all the points that it had won in recent weeks’.) Student

Fan

Journalist

2,859

2,645

2,274

Fig. 15-6. Comparison of ratings for the sentence in example 6 obtained in the questionnaire without pictures

5. Discussion The results run counter to intuitions which would lead us to anticipate the lowest ratings given consistently to sentences produced by lowprestige speakers. The results turned out to be the reverse of that. This seems to suggest that listeners’ evaluations of language production are filtered through very specific expectations of a level projected on given groups of speakers. That is, a figurative or informal sentence that does not follow typical conventions may appear less acceptable in the mouth of a professional who “should know better”. Conversely, that same sentence may seem a lot less suspicious if it is claimed to have been produced by a low-prestige dialect speaker. By the same token, such a sentence may sound rather impressive in the mouth of a foreigner, who is after all still learning the language and would therefore not normally be expected to be very proficient. What is surprising is that the perceived lower status of the football fan and the non-native speaker does not prompt the observers to compound the negative effect and decrease their ratings below what would be awarded otherwise. Although the subjects in the study may unconsciously have adjusted their judgments, no Matthew effect was observed, whereby the high-status journalist

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sentences could enjoy the accumulated advantage of being passed off as language forms produced by a professional or where the low-status sentences could be treated more harshly simply because they were viewed as coming from incompetent “underdeveloped speakers”. In other words, while the variability of ratings suggests that the subjects brought their biases and personal preferences to bear on their judgment, they made their decisions independently, without relying on irrelevant—though tempting— clues. A serious but inevitable drawback of the present study is the relatively small size of the sample (477 subjects) and the fact that in the Polish sample, most subjects were students of English. While special care was taken to include only first-year students (still naive informants unaware of the prescriptive and descriptive approaches to language data), they are nevertheless individuals with an assertive sense of belief in their own language intuitions, strong enough to be able to be critical of high-status speakers. We do not know much about how less linguistically assertive subjects (uneducated persons or non-language students) would approach the task. Would they be more likely to unconsciously correlate the status of the speaker with the acceptability of a sentence? Would the contrasts between the high and low ratings be greater? These are questions that go beyond the capabilities of the present study.

6. Conclusions If representatives of low-prestige classes were evaluated more severely for using the exact same forms as those used by representatives of highprestige classes, one could argue that such double standards could lead to double discrimination. This would mean that their language production is viewed through the gray-tinted glasses of sociolinguistic prejudice, and the unfavorable perceptions could prompt people to rationalize their views of the inferiority of low-prestige speakers, thus compounding the discrimination. In our study, however, this effect does not occur. In fact, it turns out that low-prestige speakers may be enjoying a degree of advantage over high-prestige speakers. While sociolinguistic opinions do seem to lead listeners to form an illusion of grammatical malformedness (the illusion is evident enough, as none of the sentences used in the study was ungrammatical, obscene, or markedly non-standard), the strongest skepticism was reserved for the high-prestige speakers. This is a rather optimistic finding because it suggests that listeners, those linguistically assertive ones at least, are capable of ignoring stereotypes about dialect status and linguistic acceptability, and can thus evaluate language

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production on its own merits. If low-status speakers are seen as producing standard language, they will not be evaluated any less favorably as would high-status speakers. Our findings should not be taken to suggest that speakers of lowprestige varieties are free from language-related marginalization, because most listeners almost certainly retain their beliefs about linguistic inferiority and would be likely to put them in practice in real life conditions, where the stakes are significantly higher than in a study of grammatical acceptability, such as in a job interview. What we think our results do show, however, is that the relationship between the status of the speaker and the perceived grammatical accuracy is not a straightforward one. There is room for exceeding expectations that speakers of lowprestige varieties may benefit from. That is, a surprisingly well-formed utterance from a speaker not expected to demonstrate much proficiency may, initially at least, work to that speaker’s advantage and reduce the prospects of language-related discrimination or marginalization.

References Ariely, Dan. 2010. The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home. New York: Harper. Bloomfield, Leonard. 1927. “Literate and Illiterate Speech.” American Speeh, 2(10): 432-439. Chambers, Jack K. and Trudgill, Peter. 1998. Dialectology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cunningham, Patricia M. 1976. “Teachers’ Correction Responses to Black-Dialect Miscues which are Non-Meaning-Changing.” Reading Research Quarterly, 4: 637-653. Deckert, Sharon K. and Vickers, Caroline H. 2011. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics: Society and Identity. London: Continuum. Edwards, John. 2009. Language and Identity. An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fodor, Jerry A. 1983. The Modularity of Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kiser, Randall. 2010. Beyond Right and Wrong: The Power of Effective Decision Making for Attorneys and Clients. Heidelberg: Springer. Leith, Dick. 1997. A Social History of English. London: Routledge Pinker, Steven. 1995. The Language Instinct. How The Mind Creates Language. New York, NY: Harper Perennial. Radwanska-Williams, Joanna. 2008. “The ‘native speaker’ as a metaphorical construct.” In Metaphors for Learning: Cross-Cultural

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Perspectives, edited by Erich Adalbert Berendt, 139-156. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. SzczeĞniak, Konrad and Callies, Marcus. 2008. “Europameisterschaft zu erdribbeln. Manner of Obtainment Constructions in Sports Reporting.” In The Linguistics of Football, edited by Eva Lavric, Gerhard Pisek, Andrew Skinner and Wolfgang Stadler, 23-34. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. Trudgill, Peter. 2001. “Received Pronunciation: Sociolinguistic Aspects.” Studia Linguistica Posnaniensia, 36 (3-13). Wardaugh, Ronald. 2006. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN MARGINALIZATION AS AN OUTCOME OF MINORITY IDENTITY-BUILDING: MULTIPLE VOICES TOWARDS DISCURSIVE CONSTRUCTION OF LAZI IDENTITY NAZLI E. AVDAN AND JAN ANWARD†

1. Introduction Identity discussions in Turkey are carried out in the press with contributions from various social actors. Although the two dominant actors in the discussions about minority rights in Turkey are government officials and Kurdish nationalist politicians, Lazi activists have also been involved in this discussion since the 1990s, primarily through written commentaries published in Lazi journals. In this study, we examine the way these three social actors; the government officials, the Kurdish nationalist politicians and the Lazi activists, project each other’s identity. Through our analysis, we demonstrate that Lazi activists are confronted with a dilemma: commit to establishing or re-establishing a distinct Lazi identity with emphasis on a distinct Lazuri language and culture rooted in ancient history and risk marginalization, or fully integrate into Turkish supra-identity and risk the extinction of Lazuri. We also show how the Lazi are marginalized in diverse ways both by Turkish and Kurdish nationalist voices. The data on which this study is based upon consists of 463-individual written and oral commentaries, on the one hand by Lazi activists, and on the other hand, by government officials and Kurdish politicians (see Avdan 2011). Among those, 451 texts are taken from four Lazi journals: 130 from six issues of Ogni, 41 from two issues of Mjora, 109 from five issues of Sima, and 171 from four issues of Skani Nena. This data also includes a petition written by Lazi activists. Besides these texts produced

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by Lazi activists, we analyze five commentaries by Kurdish nationalist politicians, three statements by Turkish nationalist politicians, and three press releases by governmental offices. The first phase of the analysis explores how Lazi identity has been projected by non-Lazi voices, namely: the government officials who have ruled Turkey for over a decade and the Kurdish nationalist politicians who, for over thirty years, have been devoted to rebuilding a Kurdish identity and a collective memory. Representing two conflicting viewpoints, the discourses of the government officials and Kurdish nationalist politicians play a central role in Turkish national politics. More precisely, government officials represent the status quo and Kurdish nationalist politicians offer responsive reactions to the status quo. During the first phase of the analysis, the two keywords “Laz” (Lazi) and “Lazca” (Lazuri) were scanned in texts that reported government and Kurdish viewpoints in daily issues of a national newspaper, Radikal, between the years 2000 and 2011. Radikal was chosen as a source of information, because of its high circulation and availability on-line, and because of its reputation as an independent national newspaper.1 The second phase examines how Lazi activists project Lazi identity and carry out their identity building process. The third, and last, phase focuses on how Lazi activists project the “Other”. During these phases of analysis, the discursive constructions of Lazi identity and the “Other” by Lazi activists are traced in four Lazi journals: Ogni (1993-1994), Mjora (2000), Sima (2000-2011) and Skani Nena (2009-2011). These four Lazi journals are produced by Lazi activists who have been devoted to a revitalization of Lazi language and culture. What distinguishes these four journals from other written sources produced by the Lazi is the fact that these journals place particular emphasis on Lazi ethno-linguistic identity. In the first issue of Ogni (October 1993), Lazi activists define the journal as a product which is “completely Lazi”, and describe their mission in terms of protecting and promoting Lazi language and culture. Thus, the journals form part of a broader political effort, which also includes language workshops, conferences, petition campaigns, and law cases that emphasize Lazi language rights. At this point, it is essential to note that the analysis reflects the perspective of a limited group of Lazi and thus has no intention of offering a generalized understanding of Lazi identity among the Lazi. Nevertheless, the written sources in the journals provide an overall picture of the efforts for the revitalization of Lazi language and ethnic identity awareness. The analysis has been conducted on the original Turkish texts with quotations translated into English by the first author (Avdan 2011). In

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order to avoid personal interpretations, we have attempted in the translations to render the style and the contents of the original texts, with the result that incoherencies, ambiguities and grammatical inconsistencies found in the original texts are retained in the translations.

2. Theoretical Frameworks 2.1. Collective Identity Following Berger and Luckmann (1967), we define identity as a social construct that is maintained, modified, and even reshaped by social relationships. This definition recognizes the metaphoric quality of identity as well as its dynamic character, being bound to the interplay of individual consciousness and social structure. Likewise, the definition of a collective is not definite. That is, the features which constitute sameness among a certain group of individuals, and distinguishes them from “Others” are context dependent (see Moerman 1965 for an early demonstration). In some cases, territorial definitions may provide the common ground, as in nation-states, while in other cases, language may provide the basis for “we-feelings”. Why a collective identity is sought is mainly dictated by political objectives.

2.2. A Dialogical Perspective This construction of collective identity is, in a Bakhtinian sense, a dialogical process (Bakhtin 1986; see also Linell 2009 for a broad exploration of dialogicity). In a Bakhtinian understanding, language is constituted by individual utterances involved in a social, cultural and historical meaning-making process, in which each utterance “is filled with echoes and reverberations of other utterances to which it is related by the communality of the sphere of speech communication”, and emerges “as a response to preceding utterances of the given sphere”, and “refutes, affirms, supplements, and relies on the others, presupposes them to be known, and somehow takes them into account” (Bakhtin 1986, 91). This understanding of language as an on-going dialogical process serves as a guideline for our analysis of the construction of Lazi collective identity. Language, in this view, becomes the site of a struggle between a distinctive I and a dominant and/or suppressive “Other”, to which the presence of the I is bound, and, at the same time, an arena of identity construction, where I, Thou, and Others are aligned in various constellations.

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2.3. Critical Discourse Analysis We used a version of Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough 1992, 2003) to analyze our corpus of texts. Critical Discourse Analysis is a development of Critical Linguistics, launched by Fowler, Kress, Hodge, and others at the end of the 1970s, and shares with the latter the aim of a “critical interpretation” of texts: “recovering the social meanings expressed in discourse by analyzing the linguistic structures in the light of their interactional and wider social contexts” (Fowler et al. 1979, 195196). To get a better understanding of interactional and social contexts, we also used recent developments in Discourse Linguistics (Gee 2011, Linke 2007, Spitzmüller and Warnke 2011). To begin with, we regard identity discussions in Turkish newspapers as a stable communicative genre, which unites typical social contexts, communicative situations, and linguistic expressions (Bergmann and Luckmann 1995, Günthner and Knoblauch 1995, Linke 2007). In this communicative genre, a dynamic discursive space unfolds (Anward 2007), which is populated, on the one hand, by real actors, writers and readers, linked through changing participation frameworks, and, on the other hand, by linguistically introduced actors, inhabitants of different figured worlds (Gee 2011). It is within this discursive space that government officials, Kurdish nationalist politicians, and Lazi activists, directly or in reported speech, communicate with and about each other. By analyzing the use of pronouns and names of ethnic groups in our corpus of texts, we seek to determine who speaks to whom about whom in this discursive space, and thus which strategies of referencing and aligning are used in the construction of Lazi identities.

3. Background In order to explore the processes of discursive constructions of Lazi identity in written and oral texts, it is necessary to consider the social contexts in which Lazi identity has been revitalized. Here we provide relevant background information, which allows an insight into the motivational drives that have lead Lazi activists to “protect and promote” Lazi language and culture. Despite an intensive propaganda and promotion of Turkish as the standard national language for almost a century, the Turkish linguistic situation is characterized by the presence of a variety of minority and regional languages. It is quite difficult to state the number of languages

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spoken in Turkey since, consistent with the homogenization under the title “Turk”, both the population census and the statistical research conducted by the Turkish Statistical Institute exclude information about the ethnic origin and languages of the citizens. Relying on the latest data collected in Turkey in 1989, Ethnologue (2009) estimates that there are 36 individual languages of which 34 are living languages including Turkish Sign Language. However, the number of living individual languages is estimated at 28 by Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK). The Lazi are natives of the Black Sea region of north-eastern Anatolia, that comprises the south-eastern coast of the Black Sea. They speak a language called Lazuri Nena,2 that belongs to the south-eastern Caucasian language family. Laz,3 or as named by the speakers of the language, Lazuri, is among those languages which UNESCO (2009) describes as “definitely endangered” according to the nine scale criteria of language validity. Though the estimated ethnic population of Lazi across the world is between 150,000 and 250,000, the number of speakers of the language is no more than 130,000 (UNESCO 2010).4 On the other hand, Ethnologue (2009) estimated the number of Lazuri speakers at 33,250 in 1989. The inconsistency between the estimations concerning the number of Lazuri speakers is, as described above, due to the lack of reliable statistical information. The right to acquire a proper command of one’s mother tongue has been at the centre of discussions about human rights and minority rights issues since the late 1990s. However, the discussions do not embrace all linguistic groups in Turkey. This issue is mainly discussed in terms of the demands made by Kurdish people for the use of the Kurdish language. Nevertheless, there exist efforts to raise awareness among the Lazi community about the fact that Lazuri is a language in danger of extinction (UNESCO 2010). However, the efforts for the revitalization of Lazuri, by means of various activities, are limited to a group of Lazi activists who have been working towards this end since the early 1990s. Primary among these are the written texts included in the corpus of the present study.

4. Findings The representation of Lazi identity is a construction that is carried out through responsive interactions in the press with the involvement of different social actors such as politicians, government officials, and the Lazi themselves. In order to portray the discursive Lazi identity building process, this section presents a-two-phased Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of selected texts that exhibits the construction of the

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representational and identification meaning of “Lazi”. The first phase explores how the Lazi are projected by non-Lazi voices while the second phase examines how the Lazi activists project Lazi identity and their identity building process. In the first phase of the analysis, two keywords “Laz” (Lazi) and “Lazca” (Lazuri) are scanned in texts, that report on government officials and Kurdish politicians. The texts were published in the daily issues of the national newspaper Radikal between 2000-2011.

4.1. Representational and identification meaning of “Lazi” in nationalist non-Lazi discourses When the archive of Radikal, is scanned, it is observed that the Lazi are mentioned on four different occasions in utterances by government officials. The first of these is made by the then Prime Minister Tayyip Erdo÷an (Radikal January 9, 2006) during a political visit to New Zealand. In his statement, “[T]here are various identities in Turkey like Turkish, Kurdish, Circassian and Lazi. The element that unifies these is religion”.5 Erdo÷an describes the ethnic diversities in Turkey with respect to religious affiliation, and represents the Turks, the Kurds, the Circassians, and the Lazi as individual identities that are united by religion, by which he implies Islam. Hence, the Prime Minister presents his approach to diversity and unity among Turkish ethnic groups on the basis of a common religion, which is consistent with his Islamic political ideology. The inclusion of the Lazi in the depiction of Turkey’s ethnic structure is thus, in virtue of the Lazi’s reputation, that of conservative Muslims. Given that non-Muslim ethnic identities are excluded in Erdo÷an’s speech, Islam is the implied source of unity in Turkey. Similarly, on January 7, 2006, describing the organization of the Special War Department Board, Secretary General of National Security Council, Sabri Yirmibeso÷lu, mentions the Lazi as a component of the mosaic of Turkey. In accordance with Erdo÷an’s definition of Turkish diversity, Yirmibeso÷lu refers to the same ethnic groups: the Turks, the Kurds, the Lazi, and the Circassian, as components of the “mosaic of Turkey”. However, in 2008, Prime Minister Erdo÷an displays a different approach to ethno-linguistic diversities. The following statement which Erdo÷an makes in response to discussions about education in Kurdish, is not only the last mention of the Lazi by government officials, as reported in Radikal (2000-2011), but also relevant evidence of the Prime Minister’s point of view concerning minority language rights.

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When Erdo÷an (in Ma÷den, Radikal, January 29, 2008) says, “[I]f we give [the Kurds] the right to be educated in Kurdish, the Circassians, and the Lazi would also demand [education in their languages]”,6 the three ethno-linguistic groups are othered. They are excluded by the Prime Minister as he designates “we” in terms of the authority holder. Erdogan’s identification of “we” with “the giver”, and the representation of Kurds, Circassians and Lazi as the implied subsidiaries presupposes an asymmetry of power. However, the definition of “we” in the above quotation is rather obscure. As far as the context is concerned, “we” might be interpreted as “we Turks”, which would introduce a rather radical approach not only to the discussions about mother tongue education but also the legislative definition of “Turk” referring to “all the citizens of the Republic of Turkey irrespective of their ethnic, religious, or linguistic differences” (Constitution Ch.4, Art. 66). In this context, a single sentence does not provide enough data to reach such a radical conclusion. Nevertheless, the representation of “we” as opposed to “them” creates outgroups that are distinguished from self. In other words, Erdo÷an’s utterance contributes to the production of the “other” which is identified as the Lazi as well as the Circassians and the Kurds. This statement also implies his determination to preserve the status quo. In the texts by Kurdish politicians, the earliest mention of the Lazi in the discussions about minority rights is dated October 24, 2002. This text reports a media speech by DEHAP (People’s Democracy Party)7 party leader and Kurdish deputy, Mehmet Abbaso÷lu. The relevant extract from the news reads as follows: DEHAP Chairman Mehmet Abbaso÷lu asserts that other cultures living in Turkey are ignored due to the restrictions on political campaigning. He noted that in ùrnak 4 party members were arrested due to a campaign cassette recorded in Kurdish, Lazuri and Zazaki, and in some towns and districts investigations are conducted concerning the same topic to their organisations (Radikal, October 24, 2002).8

In the above statement, Kurdish, Lazuri and Zazaki are represented as a cluster topicalized equally by the speaker. The speaker mentions these three languages immediately after he presents his claim that “other [than Turkish] cultures are ignored in Turkey”. In this, the Lazi are equated with Kurdish and Zazaki as the victimized cultures due to restrictions on political campaigning. Moreover, if not incidental, by mentioning Lazuri second in sequence, between the two Kurdish dialects, Abbaso÷lu implies that Lazuri is accorded equal attention by his party.

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In somewhat similar manner, Nawruz celebrations held by DEHAP in Diyarbakr in 2004 were advertised with the slogan that “This Nawruz will be distinctive” (Radikal, March 20, 2004), and followed by the announcement that Lazuri songs would be sung during the celebrations. Though Nawrus is not a Lazi festival, DEHAP implies embeddedness among Kurds and Lazi with the inclusion of the Lazi in their traditional spring festival. This implies the beginning of a cooperation between Kurds and Lazi. During the referendum campaign in 2010, the Chairman of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), Selahattin Demirtas, declared a self-repair manifesto claiming that “BDP is Turkey’s party” and that they were determined to “correct the definition that it is a Kurdish party” (Radikal, February 7, 2010). In this, Demirtaú states the existence of a presupposition that the party is only concerned with Kurdish people’s rights and implies that such a presupposition is due to BDP’s poor definition of itself. In his self-repair speech, Demirtas includes Lazuri in their program and identifies with the Lazi by demanding radio and TV broadcasts on their behalf: BDP couldn’t introduce itself. We are going to correct the definition that it [BDP] is a Kurdish party. We are a political party for Kurds, Turks, Alaouites, workers, poor and all other oppressed. [...] We also want freedom for Turkish. We do not want education in mother tongue only for Kurds. We even want freedom for Turkish. Turkish also faces a great suppression and deterioration. If we do not overcome the atmosphere created by the capitalist popular culture, not only Turkish but also all other languages will face threat. Our approach is that all languages are valuable, thus we demand radio and TV broadcasts in Circassian, in Lazuri (Radikal, February 7, 2010).9

The last few months of 2010 are marked by intensive discussions about the Kurdish political party BDP’s petition to establish self-governing regions in Turkey. In his explanation of the governing mode they demand, BDP’s chairman, Demirtaú proposes a Lazi as well as a Kurdish selfgoverning region. Though he also states the impossibility of establishing self-governing regions on an ethnic basis, he equates the Lazi with the Kurds, based upon the assumption that the Lazi were demanding sovereignty. Radikal (September 14, 2010) reports Demirtaú’s statement as follows: “Demirtas asserts that, regional sovereignty cannot be built on the basis of ethnicity; ‘neither a Kurdish self-governing region, nor a Lazi self-governing region can be built on an ethnic basis’” .10

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Apart from the above-mentioned four occasions, no further mention of the Lazi has been found in the commentaries by Kurdish nationalist politicians as reported in Radikal between 2000-2011.

4.2. Lazi identity as represented in discourses by Lazi activists The second phase of the analysis examined how Lazi activists project Lazi identity, and their identity building process. The data upon which this second phase of the analysis is based were collected from four Lazi journals—Ogni (1993-1994), Mjora (2000), Sima (2000-2011) and Skani Nena (2009-2011)—published by Lazi activists who have been striving to raise awareness among the Lazi community for the revitalization of Lazuri. A larger study upon which this chapter is based (see Avdan 2011)11 concluded that the discursive construction of a Lazi identity has been a goal of a group of Lazi activists since the early 1990s. Many of these are in the publishing cadre of the Lazi journals that constitute the corpus of this study. The discourse of “a victimized ethnic community” emerges as a product of the feeling of being othered and ignored. The discourse of “Lazi as a victimized minority group” not only aims to strengthen the inter-group relationships, the “we” feeling, based on a sense of collective suffering, but also appeals to pathos by persuading the readers to take action against both “assimilation” and “marginalization”. In the texts by the Lazi activists, the fact that Lazuri is in danger of extinction is presented as the major consequence of marginalization and assimilation, that have been taking place since the foundation of the Republic of Turkey. This can be noted in the following two extracts: [T]he sentence that I define myself by is “Ma a Lazi vore” [I am Lazi indeed]. What does this sentence mean now, what does it witness? Above all, it tells about being “minority”. Being a minority, in other words being open to oppression, not being able to find supporters, not being intelligible, to be regarded as odd, being laughed at, to fear, not being able to speak Turkish well, not being able to speak your mother tongue, to cut it short, not being yourself! (Ogni, October 1993, 3). LAZI’s right to exist, right to regain and protect their identity with a modern structure, right to live free and fearlessly is also waiting to be attained. [...] LAZI as a component of the Anatolian mosaic are now obliged to ask the reasons why they have been compelled to resist chauvinist and denying glares, why they have been deprived of their indispensible and non-negotiable rights to freely speak their mother tongue and to use the name that they have inherited from their ancestors. (Ogni, October 1993, 2).

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As Giles and Johnson (1981, 199) assert, “the reinforcement or the creation of a cultural network around language transforms an unconscious language group into a self-conscious ‘identity group’”. Likewise, the representation of Lazi language as the victim of assimilation and oppression, and the declaration of a historical task to protect and promote Lazuri is a common discourse in the representation of Lazi identity by the Lazi activists. In the second extract, the representation of the Lazi as a subject of oppression contributes to the victimized image intended for portrayal by the author(s). The theme of the victimized Lazi is further developed in various expressions in the text as the author(s) presuppose(s) certain obstacles for accessing minority rights and implies fear of not being able to enjoy a Lazi identity. Consequently, the author(s) imply/ies an asymmetry between the Lazi and the impersonalized agent of presupposed mistreatment. The Black Sea peoples, but primarily the Lazi, have a distinctive regional accent when they speak Turkish. The traditional shadow theatre Karagöz and Hacivat depict stereotypes from different regions of Anatolia. Amongst these, “Laz” is the type distinguished by its restiveness and an accent which is presented in terms of an amusing trait. Numerous anecdotes about the Lazi ridicule their accent and contribute to the marginalisation of the Lazi, depicting them as amusing people with a hilarious Turkish accent. However, while their fellow citizens are amused by these jokes, the Lazi, we have previously argued, have established a low self-image regarding their Turkish accent and have internalized the imposed idea that blames their mother tongue for their “hilarious accent” (Avdan 2010, 27). In the following extract, the author depicts the low esteem of Lazuri expressed by his Lazi mother, as she echoes the imposed opinion that Lazuri interferes with learning to speak proper Turkish. As we left home to our hometown my mother used to warn me; “Do not speak Lazuri. Your Turkish will deteriorate.” Here is a sign. The colour of the assimilation that the Lazi are exposed to becomes apparent here (Ogni, October 1993, 3).

The South-eastern coastline of the Black Sea is considered to be the motherland of the Lazi. However, for various reasons, such as unemployment, education, and honour killings, the Lazi have moved to western Turkey or have migrated abroad. In fact, the efforts for the revitalization of Lazuri have been conducted mainly by second generation Lazi Diaspora. In discourses of Lazi activists, the Lazi who have left their homeland are supposed to lose their language and culture. Hence, they are

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represented as individuals who are doomed to an identity “in-between”. On the other hand, according to the Lazi activists, the loss of ethnolinguistic characteristics does not allow the Lazi to acquire “proper” Turkish identity. In the extract below, the author comments on the migrant Lazi’s identity crisis in a rather critical tone by describing the Lazi as “inbetween” characters who mimic the “other Turks”. Neither Turkish nor Lazuri. Neither Turk nor Lazi. A people pressed between two cultures, by no means familiar with its identity and suffering from identity crises. These people are Lazi in Istanbul. They are Turkish in Atina (Pazar), Viɡɡe or Xoppe. When he thinks of his lack of identity, he is confused, then he is ‘depressed’. Even if he dresses in fashionable clothes, his accent reveals him. They say; “you are Lazi”. They tell a Lazi joke and laugh. He is secretly offended as if being Lazi is something embarrassing. He cannot reveal his identity in any way (Ogni October 1993, 4).

The forces that lead to the Lazi Diaspora losing its Lazi identity cannot be reduced to their efforts to become modern and fashionable. In fact, it is implied that the Lazi are obliged to hide their ethno-linguistic identity in order not to be ridiculed and laughed at. In the extract above, “they, the other” is represented as the active agent that marginalizes the Lazi and hence the Lazi are represented as the victims who “cannot” reveal their identity due to the risk of being marginalized. Responsive reactions (Bakhtin 1986, 91-93) protesting and/or “correcting” prior assertions can be observed in various texts by Lazi activists. One of their concerns is the accusation of “separatism” which is in fact directed at Kurds who make demands for their language rights. Although the Lazi activists are in a position to demand their language rights and governmental support to maintain Lazuri, they are wary of becoming the target of accusations against other ethno-linguistic minorities, principally the Kurds, who demand language rights, and therefore enter the discussions defensively. Let us now present two controversial assertions that have encouraged responsive reactions. Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) held a series of workshops in December 2010 in which the party laid down a framework towards “democratic sovereignty”12 (Hurriyet, December 20, 2010). Language was one of the six main objectives in the framework. The framework states the objective of founding a Kurdish self-governing region in which Kurdish is defined as the official language together with Turkish (Hurriyet, December 20, 2010). The workshops and the framework quickly entered the national agenda and led to intensive discussions in the political sphere. A day after the framework was published, The Directorate of the

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General Staff posted a press release on its official website, expressing discontent about the recent discussions regarding the language of the country. In the press release, the General Staff is defined as the legitimate guard of a “unitary state” and “nationalism”, is identified as the essence of democracy in Turkey. The press release reads as follows: 1. The Great Leader Atatürk’s greatest work and gift to the Turkish nation, the Republic of Turkey, which is based on the sovereignty of the people, has reached our time as a democratic and legal system based on the philosophy of “unitary state” and “nationalism”. 2. The unalterable third article of the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey is: “the Republic of Turkey is a whole with its government, country, and nation. Its language is Turkish”. 3. The primary rule for being a nation is unity in language, culture and ideal. The results of lacking unity in language are apparent in various painful examples in history. 4. Nowadays, it is a point of concern that there have been discussions about “our13 language” in the public agenda which may draw the basic philosophy of the foundation of our republic to a radical change. 5. Turkish General Staff, as stated in our Constitution, has always sided and will always side with the protection of the Nation-State, a unitary and secular state, in order to protect democracy, the Republic, solidarity and unity of the nation and the indivisibility of the country (Turkish General Staff, December 17, 2010. Retrieved on March 28, 2011 from www. tsk.tr/).

In the extract above, the sequence of ideas contributes to the intended convincing tone. The Directorate appeals to ethos by mentioning Atatürk at the start of the text. The Directorate’s argument that “the primary rule for being a nation is unity in language, culture and ideal” follows the “unalterable” article of the Constitution. In that, The Directorate aims to represent its argument as a legislative rule. Indeed, the argument mentioned above is labelled in terms of a “rule”. In the fourth statement, a threat to “our language” and hence the so-called basic philosophy of the republic is implied. In the text, “our language” is identified as Turkish and hence, any language other than Turkish is negated and “othered”. Only a few days after the General Staff’s press release, the chairman of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Devlet Bahceli, entered the discussions by means of a press release14 in which the Nationalist Movement was defined as the guardian of Turkey’s national unity. In his written declaration, Bahceli expressed the Nationalist Movement’s devotion to “resist the efforts based on language, religions and ethnicity to separate and dissolve unity by causing chaos in Turkey” (Radikal,

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December 21, 2010). Parallel to the last item of the General Staff’s press release, Bahceli concluded his argument with an implied warning to those who are opposed to the [Turkish] nationalists; in his words: “History has not yet made its final decision. The Great Turkish Nation and the Nationalist Movement, which loves its land and nation without expecting anything in return, has not yet said its final word” (Radikal, December 21, 2010). Since the Nationalist Movement is identified with love of land and nation, the implied rivals are represented as a threat to national unity. In discussions about minority language rights in Turkey, the discourses of The Directorate of the General Staff and the chairman of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) constitute a summary of Turkish nationalist discourses displaying resistance against the exercise of language rights in Turkey. Such controversial assertions encourage responsive reactions that provide minority groups, particularly the Lazi who are the focus of this study, with a “definite position” (Bakhtin 1986, 91). The Lazi strive to revitalize Lazi identity while, in parallel, attempting to distinguish the Lazi as “not separatists”. Furthermore, the author of the next text highlights his discontent about Kurdish being at the centre of the discussions about minority and regional languages. Today, when languages like Lazuri which “have (relatively) fewer speakers” or which are called “regional languages” are brought to the agenda some people are trying to introduce “these languages” as a cause of “separatism”. On the other hand, some others are holding discussions about “education in mother tongue” or “mother tongue teaching” in terms of the “Kurdish language”. However, “these languages” are neither, causes of “separatism” as they are being introduced, nor is “Kurdish” the only language “spoken by (relatively) fewer people” or the only “regional language” spoken in Turkey (Sima, October 2003, 16).

Thus, the text emerges as a response to prior discourses that have introduced minority and regional languages as being the cause of separatism and other discourses that consider language issues in terms of Kurdish, ignoring the other minority languages in Turkey. Lazi activists’ attempt to respond to discourses of separatism can be observed in various other texts as well. This is done by defining Lazi identity as a component of citizenship in the Republic of Turkey gained through sacrifices and struggles during the National War of Independence. The following quotation is an example of Lazi activists’ efforts to, on one the hand, distinguish their efforts to revitalize Lazuri from the Kurdish nationalistic movement, while, on the other hand, counter possible

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accusations of separatism: “The Lazi, just like other subjects of the Ottoman, have made sacrifices and worked hard in the foundation of the Republic” (Sima, Spring 2001, 11). In addition to the construction or re-construction of Lazi identity as a distinct ethno-linguistic identity, there is also a prominent emphasis on the Lazi being an inseparable component of the Caucasian and Anatolian mosaic in texts by Lazi activists. Here they display a desire to remain in the larger collectives. While the Caucasian bonds are represented in terms of ethnic and linguistic relations, the Anatolian bonds are represented in terms of common national ideals and struggles. In this respect, the Lazi’s contribution to the National War of Independence is commemorated, and an explicit emphasis is placed on distinguishing efforts for the revitalization of the Lazi language from “separatist” deeds. Thus, the position from which the Lazi activists speak becomes, in practice, a contradictory position. There is of course nothing contradictory in being a minority with recognized rights and continuing to be part of a larger nation-state. However, Turkish minority rights discourse is structured in such a way that there is no position from which both a separate identity and an intention to remain within the larger national framework can be voiced.

5. Conclusion Commentaries by government officials on the Lazi conform to dominant ideologies based on Turkishness and hence serve to maintain the status quo. This is mainly achieved through silence rather than words. When the articles and columns in Radikal are studied, it is observed that the Lazi are rarely mentioned in commentaries by the government officials. Even when the Lazi are noticed, they are represented either as a component of the Anatolian mosaic or as one of the “others”, without any further identification. The emergence of the government officials as “wethe power holders” and their representation of the passive “them” as the Lazi, the Circassians, and the Kurds contributes to the construction of the “other” which consequently disrupts the collective and creates out-groups. On the other hand, in the commentaries by Kurdish nationalist politicians, the Lazi, if they are noticed at all, are identified with the Kurds as “victimized ethnic minorities”. Here, similar to the government officials’ stance, the Lazi are either ignored or represented without any reference to their viewpoints. Instead, the Kurdish nationalist politicians make declarations and demands on behalf of the Lazi. We thus argue that both in Turkish and Kurdish nationalist discourses the Lazi are denied a

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distinct identity. The discourses of government officials and Kurdish politicians, with their othering and ignoring of the Lazi, trigger incentives to promote a distinct Lazi language, culture, and history. The incentives to establish or re-establish Lazi identity with an emphasis on a distinct language and culture rooted in ancient history are typically combined with a determination to remain a component of the Republic of Turkey. In this way, Lazi activists attempt to distinguish themselves not only from the Turkish status quo but also from the contrastatus quo, mainly represented by Kurdish nationalists. However, this position is not a possible speaker position in Turkish minority rights discourses. Thus, the Lazi are confronted with a dilemma: a choice between participating in the dialogue of Turkish supra-identity from a subordinate “othered” position, risking the loss of Lazuri language and culture, or striving for a distinct ethnic identity, preserving their language and culture, but risking marginalization and exclusion from the Turkish dialogue entirely as a victimized minority.

Notes 1

Radikal’s reputation as a reliable source has changed during the last few years, due to the political atmosphere in Turkey. Independence of Turkish media is in question with the interventions of the present government. The newspaper was closed down in March 2016 (after the submission of this chapter). 2 In this chapter, the language is referred to as Lazuri. 3 Also recognized as Chan, Chanuri, Chanzan, Laze, Zan. 4 The estimated population of Laz people and the speakers of Lazuri displays a high discrepancy. Some (e.g. Lazuri Home Party) claim a population of 1.5 million Laz who live in Turkey, and of which 250,000 are supposed to know Lazuri. However, these numbers are not reliable and lack evidence. They are probably exaggerated for the sake of raising awareness for the revitalization of the language. 5 The original text is retrieved from www.radikal.com.tr. 6 Retrieved from www.radikal.com.tr. 7 DEHAP was a Kurdish nationalist political party which was accused of separatist activities associated with PKK and banned on March 13, 2003 by Constitutional Court (see www.anayasa.gov.tr, also available in English). 8 Retrieved from www.radikal.com.tr. 9 Retrieved from www.radikal.com.tr. 10 Retrieved from www.radikal.com.tr. 11 http://liu.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?searchId=2&pid=diva2:425446. 12 Demokratik Özerklik Taslagi Tam Metni (Fulltext of the Framework for Democratic Sovereignty; December 20, 2010). Hurriyet. Retrieved on April 8, 2011 from http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/16581435.asp.

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Authors’ emphasis. Devlet Bahceli’s Press release. (December 21, 2010). Radikal. Retrieved on March 6, 2011 from www.radikal.com.tr. 14

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Günthner, Susanne and Hubert Knoblauch. 1995. “Culturally patterned speaking practices. The analysis of communicative genres.” Pragmaticsm 5(1): 1–32. Linell, Per. 2009. Rethinking language, mind, and world dialogically [interactional and contextual theories of human sense-making]. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishers. Linke, Angelika. 2007. “Communicative genres as categories in a sociocultural history of communication.” In Germanic Language Histories ‘from Below’ (1700-2000), edited by Stephan Elspaß, Nils Langer, Joachim Scharloth and Wim Vandenbussche, 473-494. Berlin: De Gruyter. Moerman, Michael. 1965. “Ethnic Identification in a Complex Civilization [Who are the Lue?].” American Anthropologist, 67(5): 1215 - 1230. Ogni. 1993. October Vol 1. Issue 1. østanbul: Sifteri Publications, October. Sima. 2001. Southeastern Community Sevice Endowment, Journal of Culture and Literature, Spring 2001/April, Issue 2. øzmit: Fotosan. —. 2003. Southeastern Community Sevice Endowment, Journal of Culture and Literature, Fall 2003/ October). Issue 6. øzmit: Fotosan. Skani Nena. 2009. March Vol. 1. Issue 1. Istanbul: Lazi Culture Association. Spitzmüller, Jurgen. and Ingo H. Warnke. 2011. Diskurslinguistik. Berlin/ New York: De Gruyter. UNESCO Atlas of Languages in Danger [Intangible Cultural HeritageEndangered languages] 2009. Retrieved May 1, 2010 from http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?pg=00206.

AFTERWORD EXPLORING AND LIVING THE SUBLIMINALITY OF AN UNEQUAL WORLD SANJAY RANADE

Researchers across the globe are constantly looking at and studying phenomena to provide us with a better understanding of and a deeper insight into our lives. The present compilation helps us organize our thoughts and produces frames with which to comprehend and analyze our situation. This volume underlines some very significant issues and ideas on marginalization processes. Before presenting my reflections on the arguments and the conclusions of the chapters presented in this volume, I will give a brief introduction to my background, or more specifically the realities where I teach and learn communication and media. At the University of Mumbai, India, where I work, teaching spaces are representative of almost all the permutations and combinations that can be experienced in the sub-continent we call India. The chief reason for this is that the university is a publicly funded one. The ability of the teacher as well as the ability of the student is put to a rigorous test in such an environment. In a sense, the teaching-learning begins with an exploration of the relative disability of each student and teacher in the classroom, and gradually progresses to a realization, and at times an assertion, of individual abilities. In addition to what the Government of India recognizes in terms of disabilities (such as a hearing handicap, visual impairment, or dyslexia or autism), there are other disabling issues to be reckoned with—language, technology, context, social status and culture, economics, etc. It is in this context that I read the statement by Berit Helene Johnsen that ‘the stranger within us does not disappear, but reappears from situation to situation and from generation to generation’. When we read through the 16 chapters in this book we are left with a strong desire to reformulate our hypotheses about a number of issues that

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go beyond the scope of this volume. When India got her independence in 1947, most of the population was illiterate. Today, in the 70th year of Independence, we are heading towards full literacy. This has had some remarkable effects. For instance, in our classrooms we find many young women who are, for the first time, entering the job market. This job market has been created by a new economy where the service sector dominates over agriculture and industry. Young men, on the other hand, continue to imagine employment in the old economy where either the State was assumed to be the largest employer or it was agriculture. This is going to change the relationships of individuals within families and communities. In this sense, the variables we imagined, and even believed were related in one way or another, appear to have changed and new relationships are emerging that need fresh approaches as well as newer research designs so that they may be studied and understood. Our world was always a diverse universe but it is also becoming more unequal. We experience marginalization and encounter it all the time in our classrooms. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that within the framework of mass education, institutions across the world and especially so in countries that continue to face issues related to basic literacy, the classroom is a very violent place for both the student and the teacher. The architecture of our classrooms remains a design for mass education where students receive instruction and are educated in the political sense of the word. These are institutions where the State manufactures, what it thinks are ideal citizens for itself by exercising control over the composition of the syllabi and the examination and evaluation process. These are not spaces conducive to learning. These spaces are suited for the performance of traditional power play woven around race, caste, class, age and gender. Thus, on the one hand, our youth are inundated by qualitative, documented, manufactured and often very stylishly sculpted data from the mass media; on the other hand, their ability to process that data, assimilate and accommodate it within the sphere of their own life experience, and with which they could empower themselves, remains limited. The suggestion by Joacim Ramberg that ‘an increase of the extent of support within regular class settings could be a contributing factor towards decreasing the number of students who experience feelings of stigma and social exclusion, and, later on, increased risks of marginalization in the labor market’ could have a far-reaching effect both on the ability of the student as well as the teacher to engage in learning. What is more significant is that in the setting suggested by Ramberg, both the student and the teacher would be in a learning relationship. This is even more important in societies where the teacher may hold a high social status

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because of her position in an academic institution, but may feel or even be academically marginalized because of, say, weaker language skills. In this situation, asserting a social status without the necessary academic experience or skill would be ultimately detrimental to both the teacher as well as the student. Aase Lyingvær Hansen suggests teachers need inclusive education to effectively deal with the situations they encounter in classrooms. This is true not only in specific situations but also in general situations where we must transform ‘students’ into ‘learners’ as much as ‘teachers’ into ‘facilitators’ of learning. This point is also brought home by Sara Goico when she says that ‘when teachers are aware that the context and participants of interactions are important to determine the center and margins of a group then they can pay attention to which students are marginalized in different groupings of students’. The second point that emerges from a reading of the contributions in this book is that what we call development is a migration from one kind of poverty-discrimination to another kind of poverty-discrimination paradigm. This migration is currently throwing up new kinds of marginalization. Simultaneously, it also introduces new kinds of appropriation. We see a seamless chain of marginalization-normalization-appropriation activity. For instance, in colonized countries like India, every community and family has felt the impact of poverty and hunger deeply. Each community has created narratives and rituals for dealing with this. In doing so they have moved from one kind of discrimination to another, from one level within the social hierarchy to another. We can take the example of Indian languages. The period between the fifth and the fifteenth centuries is acknowledged as the time when Indian languages flourished. But is it possible for languages to flourish when people did not? But these, we are told, were our medieval years. Today, once again, Indian languages are flourishing as ordinary Indians claim their spaces on virtual reality via digital devices. The struggle for power over the individual is not new. We have seen five institutions grappling for power over the individual. The State, the Corporate, Society, the Community and the Family have always jostled with one other when it comes to exercising control over the individual. Every construct that we have used in research has, so far, been in one way or another, either marginalized or appropriated for their own purpose by these institutions. For instance, the ‘normal’ has been appropriated by each of these institutions in different ways. The marginalization processes unleashed by these institutions have helped them exercise greater control over the destiny of the individual. Thus, when we ask what contributes to

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and what prevents social exclusion and marginalization, we find that appropriation of new kinds may both contribute to and prevent marginalization. This point is driven home effectively by Eva Hjörne in her discussion of pedagogy and its paradoxes when dealing with children diagnosed with ADHD. A similar point comes across in the study by Lakshmi Fjord. Of the different institutions that have been vying for power over the individual all over the world, it is the Corporate that currently constitutes an emerging challenge for all the others. We can see this especially in the field of education where learning itself is getting marginalized. To begin with, the modern education system has prepared the individual to communicate with, and be communicated to, by the State. The citizenState equation has been central when it came to framing education policies and the individual learnt to exercise power over these processes. Over the past few decades, however, it is the Corporate that is increasingly defining education. One of the changes that this has brought forth is the constant quantifying of educational processes that have become increasingly technology-driven. This has resulted in a situation wherein the highly qualitative nature of the teaching-learning experience has been robbed of imagination, creativity, intelligence and most importantly, of a human face. This is one of the points that is brought forth in the study by Ingela Holmström and Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta. While their study focuses on Sweden, it is a matter of concern in developing economies where technology such as cochlear implants is provided free with government aid; such provision is based upon the assumption that the disabled body is static and can be fixed. The social-psychological and often financial support that the person provided with the implant requires is left to the devices of the individual, the family and society at large. If the body can be fixed by implants, then minds can be fixed by mass education and citizens can be shaped in the manner and form that the State or the Corporate desires. On a broader note, while space is created, owing to social and political pressure, for the socially, economically and educationally marginalized, the support required to operate these spaces is entirely missing, thus eroding the credibility of such positive affirmative action. In dealing with various abilities and disabilities in classrooms, we encounter a system paralysis because there are too many bridges to be built if one desires to create a level playing field for all. The challenges involved in such an effort are brought home effectively in the discussion on the role of the interpreter with respect to deaf students in the study by Sigrid Slettebakk Berge and Patrick Stefan Kermit. It has been my

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experience that while the bonding within communities and families is becoming stronger, the bridging is becoming weaker. The same holds for the definition of ability. The ‘able’, that was defined by the State, is now being defined by the Corporate. It is not that these definitions were never questioned and in fact, much of the rights that we see for the disabled today come from the contestation of definitions by the State. Such contestations have emerged from societies, communities and families, and sometimes from the individual. However, while human societies learnt to deal with the State, the emerging Corporate definitions of these constructs remain, to a large extent, uncontested. The present volume alerts us to these new formulations and suggests ways to organize ourselves to contest the emerging constructs. The chapters authored by Jenny Rosén, Chiara Meluzzi, Jenny W Folkeryd, Åsa af Geijerstam and Caroline Liberg, Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta and Oliver St. John, Konrad SzczeĞniak and Cássio Leite Vieira and Nazli Avdan and Jan Anward point towards important directions in terms of language issues broadly. Communication employs multiple modes such as gestures, the oral-aural, the written-textual and the visual. Across human societies, the journey of communication has been diverse and one of constant change. An access to communication and information technology has created its own marginalized and appropriated spaces. This communication universe has been expanding and evolving differently in different parts of the world. There are societies where the gestural and the oral-aural have been completely overwhelmed by the written-textual. There are societies where communication is heavily mediated and mediatized. On the other hand, there are large populations of human beings where the gestural and the oral-aural have been the dominant form of communication for several centuries and where digital technology was introduced only during the last two decades. In these societies, the written-textual form of communication, the power of the written/printed ‘word’ has never quite become established. The individual never did withdraw into a private space to grapple with her realities, to form her own personal epistemological frames within which she could make her own independent sense of herself and her universe. For instance, the videosphere in, say, the United States of America, is far more mature, as compared to in India where the video has become accessible only during the last decade, thanks primarily to smartphones. This affects what Americans expect from their television, their cinema and more importantly themselves, since they have been watching their own videographed images for many more decades as compared to the experiences of the average Indian. In Indian classrooms,

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the lecture is still the most preferred form of instruction because in this communication universe one is naturally inclined to listen and to talk. These two worlds, one where oral-aural communication continues to be dominant and the other where the written/printed word has come to dominate, are not demarcated by any real border. There are huge populations that occupy a subliminal space between this media technology and that—between television and the newspaper, for instance, or between this language and that—an Indian vernacular language and English, for instance. Thus, while communication becomes multi-modal, we are alerted to the need to appreciate and critique the multi-valence that arises from this multi-modal communication. While we deal with multi-modality and the multi-valence of language, the emerging challenge is to deal with the increasingly visual elements of language broadly—the script, be it a printed text or an image. We have seen how the Corporate is driving us towards a common script that it uses to communicate with us regardless of the language we use in our daily lives. Marginalization and centering is an ongoing and dynamic process in society. What defines it is the discrimination that follows one path or another. To be fair or be unfair to all, that is the question that is so effectively brought home by Alison Fielding. It can no longer be about inclusion or exclusion from one or the other situation since what is marginalization to one is appropriation to the other. A point that Jane Evershed alerts us to when she points out that ‘there is a real need to recognize the voices of those currently living and learning ‘out of bounds’ of current representational boundaries and encourage more appropriate qualitative and quantitative indicators of progress to (re)emerge’. The ninth century poet-saint Dnyaneshwar presents to us an approach to the challenges that are raised in the research presented in this volume. Dnyaneshwar, in his celebrated critique of the Bhagwad Gita, speaks about territoriality and sovereignty. He points out that human beings have always struggled over what is their territory and the scope of their power over themselves and their world. We have struggled to universalize as human beings despite our diversity, and now the diversity of our inequalities is upon us while equality itself continues to be imagined. Dnyaneshwar’s writings are treated as philosophical texts. However, this body of literature has important implications for human societies grappling with the subliminality of existence everywhere. Dnyaneshwar highlights that to firmly believe the universe to be one’s home would make us the universe itself. As we engage with the events and objects in our environment, we become them. While ‘we’ enlarge and expand, the ‘I’ shrinks gradually within itself. The present compilation of research alerts

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us to the need to improve our efforts in recognizing and appreciating marginalization as an ongoing process of becoming the universe itself.

APPENDIX A TRANSCRIPTION KEY FOR CHAPTER SIX

word

Talk in Swedish

italic

English translation

CAPITALS

“Talk” in Swedish Sign Language

HOLD-UP

Hyphenated words indicate use of one sign that describes several words

W-O-R-D

Fingerspelling

(xxxx)

Unclear oral or signed communication

………

Time line representing ongoing action

1-17

Interactional turns involving participants and field notes

[ word ]

Overlapping talk

(0.2)

Timed pauses in seconds

(.)

Noticeable pause

word

Accentuated words

:

Preceding sound stretched

°word°

Speech that is quieter than other talk

((ord))

Comments on things that happen or description of how the talk sounds

-

A sharp cut-off in the oral talk

.

Clearly noticeable pitch fall in the end of oral talk

?

Clearly noticeable pitch rise in the end of oral talk

Appendix A

430 < word >

Slow oral talk

o:rd

Pitch fall in stretched oral talk

nä:

Pitch rise in stretched oral talk

=

No discernible pause between two speakers' turns or between two oral words within a single speaker's turn

APPENDIX B TRANSCRIPTION KEY FOR CHAPTER NINE

Hello (xxx) (here)

[look] (.) Ļ Ĺ ĺ bed

stress inaudible uncertain transcription non-verbal action overlapping utterances pause indicates falling intonation indicates rising intonation indicates continuation of turn indicates original utterance in English

APPENDIX C SWEDISH ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPTS CHAPTER NINE

Transcript 9-2. T: Teacher, M: Miriam, student, A: Amhne, student

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Transcript 9-3. T: Teacher, N: Nadir, student; S: Soria, student; K: Kalaya, student

434

Appendix C

Transcript 9-4. T: Teacher, S: Samira, student; H: Hilda, student; A: Aziza, student

APPENDIX D TRANSCRIPTION KEYS FOR CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Transcript 14-1A Key T A, M [ ] = (1.5) (.) . ? , : word >word< ((sits))

Teacher Students Boundaries of overlapping or simultaneous talk Speakers follow each other without break or pause Silence shown in tenths of a second Micropause Falling intonation Rising intonation ‘Continuing’ intonation Prolongation of the (vowel) sound Stress or emphasis Rapid or rushed talk Description of additional actions

Appendix D

436

Transcript 14-1b Key Key to symbols in Transcript 1B (in addition to key to T1A) Roman Italics

Swedish (and Eng. translation) French (and Eng. translation) Concurrence of talk with other actions Direction (lateral) of body or hand movement Turn orientation Gaze direction

Marginalizattion Processes across a Differennt Settings

Transccripts 14-1C C and 14-2 Key (in additioon to key 1A & 1B)

Ļ

Low wers gaze ontoo or continues to look at (e.gg. text)

Ĺ

Raisses gaze onto or o continues to look at (e.g.. T)

m in th he classroom Direection of (T) movement

żĹ (Studdent) raises haand żĻ (Studdent) lowers hand h (T) nnods (head)

1t

Textt shown in figgure with samee index Classs (T’ss) gaze moves across the claassroom and bback

437

CONTRIBUTORS

Åsa af Geijerstam is assistant professor at Uppsala University, Sweden. Her research focuses disciplinary literacy, early school writing, reading and writing assessment. She participates in the construction of national tests in Swedish and has been an assessment leader of PIRLS in Sweden. [email protected] Jan Anward † (1947-2016). Former professor emeritus of Language and Culture (Theory of Language) at Linköping University, Sweden. Jan Anward’s research, spanning four decades, has been concerned with basic questions about human languages, their properties, and their role in everyday life. He has published extensively in areas such as language development as a life-long process, languages as open and dynamic systems, and Swedish as a European language. Nazli E. Avdan has recently completed her doctorate at the Department of Language and Culture at Linköping University, Sweden. Her research focuses patterns of intersubjectivity in stance-taking in parliamentary interaction. Her research interests include intergroup positioning in institutionalized settings and stance patterns in long-term sequences of small-scale encounters. [email protected] Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta is full professor of Education at Jönköping University, Sweden, and visiting professor 2016-18 at Aligarh Muslim University, India. Her ethnographically framed multidisciplinary research focuses issues of communication, learning and identity from sociocultural and decolonial framings. She publishes extensively and currently leads the Swedish Research Council project PAL, Participation for all? She is the scientific leader of the research group (i) Communication, Culture and Diversity, CCD and (ii) Learning Practices inside and outside Schools, LPS. [email protected] Sigrid Slettebakk Berge is associate professor in signed language and interpreting studies at the Department of Language and Literature, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU in Trondheim, Norway. Her multidisciplinary research focuses upon professional ethics,

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439

inclusion, accessibility and participation. Her publications address interpreted education for deaf students, and interpreted meetings for deafblind persons. [email protected] Jane Evershed is a PhD candidate at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK. She has written books on teaching, learning and assessment. Her current research interests are in creativity, complexity and inclusive education, particularly for older learners. She draws on her experiences from a wide variety of roles in higher, further, adult and continuing education. [email protected] Lakshmi Fjord is scholar in residence in Anthropology at the University of Virginia, U.S. Her research and publication foci concern ethics and social inequalities in medicine, education, and environmental studies. She is working on advocacy research with a front-line climate change community of elderly African American landowners, most descended from slaves, targeted as “the sacrifice zone” at the fracked gas pipeline compressor station. [email protected] Alison Fielding is assistant professor at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK. Her current research interests focus upon inclusive institutions, societal support for young adults and qualitative research methods. She teaches within higher and continuing education. [email protected] Jenny W. Folkeryd is associate professor at Uppsala University, Sweden. Her research focuses upon educational linguistics including reading and writing development, language across the curriculum, text analysis and literacy assessment. She participates in the construction of national tests in Swedish and is a member of the Reading Development Group of PIRLS. [email protected] Sara A. Goico is a PhD candidate in the Anthropology Department at the University of California, San Diego, U.S. Her research focuses on deaf education in Peru and the communication of deaf individuals who have not had access to a conventional language. [email protected] Aase Lyngvær Hansen is (emerita) assistant professor of Language and Communication at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway. Her multidisciplinary research focuses on interaction and learning in visually oriented classrooms. She has also worked for

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Contributors

many years as a teacher of the deaf and as a developer of teaching materials for the deaf in a range of media including video, DVD and the internet. [email protected] Eva Hjörne is professor in Education and Director of the Platform for Research in Inclusive Education and School Development (PRIS), at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Her research interests are in the analysis of learning and social interaction, processes of marginalization and mediated action with a special focus on categorization and student’s identity formation in school. [email protected] Ingela Holmström is assistant professor and researcher at the Department of Linguistics, Stockholm University, Sweden. Her research is directed towards communication issues in interaction between deaf, hard-ofhearing and hearing people both inside and outside school contexts. She is especially interested in bimodal bilingualism, and also conducts research on deaf-blind people’s communication. [email protected] Berit Helene Johnsen is Dr. Scient in Special Needs Education and Associate Professor at the Department of Special Needs Education, University of Oslo, Norway. Her research focuses on the history of educational ideas, teaching-learning-development, inclusive curriculum, and international comparative research. She has published extensively and has coordinated a number of international research projects inside and outside Europe. [email protected] Patrick Stefan Kermit is a full professor of disability studies at the Department of Social Work and Health Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway. His research focuses upon Deafness, interpreting, professional ethics, legal safety for deaf people facing the criminal justice system, and bioethics in cochlear implantation of deaf children. [email protected] Caroline Liberg is full professor of Education and dean at Uppsala University, Sweden. Her research focuses on language development and education in different subject areas, from a social-semiotic and a didactically based reception perspective. She co-leads the Swedish Research Council project, Function, content and form in interaction, heads the graduate school, The language of schooling in mathematical and science practices and the research group Studies of Language Practices. [email protected]

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Chiara Meluzzi is research assistant at the Free University of Bolzano/Bozen, Italy. She has taught Sociolinguistics at the University of Pavia (2014-2015). Her main research interests relate to Sociolinguistics and related fields. She has published many papers, and has won the “Franco Ferrero” 2014 price from the Italian Association of Voice Sciences (AISV). [email protected] Joacim Ramberg is an assistant professor in Special Education at the Department of Special Education at Stockholm University, Sweden. His research focuses on issues of democracy, inclusion and equity within the educational system. Currently he also works at the European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education as a project researcher. [email protected] Sanjay Ranade is associate professor and Head of the Department of Communication and Journalism, University of Mumbai, India. He focuses on communication design, especially the study of Indian communication. His research focuses on the use of the theory of Rasa and Dhvani, drama, music and narration as communication tools and processes. [email protected] Jenny Rosén is an assistant professor at the Department of Language Education at Stockholm University, Sweden and at Dalarna University, Sweden. Her research interests include communication, diversity and identity in educational settings, language policy and linguistic ethnography. Her current research projects involve mother tongue tuition and study guidance for newly arrived students. [email protected] Oliver St. John is an assistant professor and teacher educator at the School of Humanities, Education and Social Science at Örebro University, Sweden. His research has focused on bi- and multilingual interaction in school classrooms and his current research focus is on the inclusion of newly arrived students in regular classroom activity and school life. [email protected] Konrad SzczeĞniak is adjunct professor at the Institute of English, University of Silesia in Poland. He has worked at the University of Oporto in Portugal and at the Educational Testing Services, in Princeton, NJ, U.S. He mainly studies the use and meanings of grammatical constructions within the framework of Construction Grammar. [email protected]

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Contributors

Cássio Leite Vieira is a Brazilian science journalist and historian of physics. He is the International Editor at Ciencia Hoje magazine, published since 1982 by the Ciencia Hoje Institute, in Rio de Janeiro city, Brazil. Cássio Leite Vieira has a PhD in the history of science from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. [email protected]