This article examines how students and teachers at an urban public high school embodied and understood various social categories of difference. Although ascriptions and experiences of racial and gender identities varied, these identities were often viewed as biological in origin and static in nature. The complexities and contradictions evident in…

This article explores how we can better understand the language ideologies of teachers working with second language learners through narrative analysis. This analysis draws on ethnographic data collected in an urban high school with a predominant Latina/o population and nearly a quarter designated as English learners. This analysis illustrates how…

Building on recent linguistic-anthropological work that investigates the temporalities of educational processes, the article examines how a marginalized classroom identity is interactionally formed over time in an undergraduate chemistry laboratory. The analysis demonstrates how social marginalization is enacted along multiple temporal scales via…

Rather than assume the relevance of "a priori" scalar distinctions (micro-, macro-, meso-), this article examines scale as an emergent dimension of sociospatial practice in educational institutions. Focusing on Buddhist debate at Tibetan monasteries in India, I describe how this educational practice has been placed as a rite of institution within…

Migration-based language pluralism and globalized identity conflicts pose challenges for educational research and linguistic anthropology, in particular, how we think about education and social inequality. This article proposes new conceptual tools, drawn from linguistic anthropology as well as world systems theory, for analyzing the role of…

In this article, I deconstruct the macro-micro dichotomy by arguing that the very same mass-media messages that appear culturally homogenizing (like catchy tunes and phrases) also invite creative recontextualizations (Bauman and Briggs 1990). Moreover, "the more widely circulated and mass-produced a message is, the more highly diverse the…

In moments of "dispersion, diaspora, and reterritorialization" (Amy Shuman 2006), the personal, the interactional, and the improvised (the "micro") cannot be separated analytically from circulating ideologies, institutional norms, or cultural flows (the "macro"). With a focus on the emergence of identities within social interaction, specifically…

This ethnographic study of a high school gay-straight alliance club examines unintended consequences of silence during the Day of Silence, a day of action aimed at addressing anti-LGBTQ bias in schools. While this strategy calls for students to engage in intentional silences to raise awareness of anti-LGBTQ bias, it does not necessarily lead…

In this article, we use our experiences to demonstrate the limits of the "studying up" metaphor to capture the complexity of the dynamics involved in doing research on groups that occupy positions of power within social hierarchies. The article focuses on different facets of the research process, alternating between our individual narratives and a…

Drawing on research on complementary schools in the United Kingdom, this presentation considers some of the issues in the research method used in studying this after-school community site. Processes of analysis employed by the ethnography team are disclosed so as to illuminate the dynamics of theory building in a large research team. (Contains 2…

In this ethnographic study, I investigate heterogeneous-language peer interactions in an English-only kindergarten classroom. English Learners and English Proficient students co-created language necessary to build an argument, one discourse valued in schools. Students developed complex oral language proficiency skills but were viewed as engaging…

Using ethnographic data, this article explores how Muslim women teachers from low-income Pakistani communities employ the notion of "wisdom" to construct and perform their educated subjectivity in a transnational women's education project. Through Butler's performativity framework, I demonstrate how local and global discourses overlap to shape…

In a context of globalization, individual aspirations transcend the local as people seek to move to distant locations to fulfill their own as well as larger social expectations. Formal schooling often does not lead to the acquisition of appropriate knowledge or relevant skills to attaining these aspirations, making students opt for vocational or…

This article concerns educational and livelihood trajectories of the Kazakh minority in western Mongolia. It outlines the trajectories of individuals over four generations of a Kazakh family and contextualizes these within social, political, and economic context. It describes the importance of family networks and considers the concept of social…

This article discusses some of the consequences of collectivization and subsequent privatization of handicraft in China in the second half of the 20th century on ways of learning and modes of apprenticeship. It argues that, after the privatization of the ceramics workshops of Dingshu, Jiangsu province, an ethos of sharing previously introduced by…