This paper is based on the ethnographic multiple case study of four refugee background youths from Burma at four different schools in a midwestern urban school district in the US. My research finds that the normalization of English constructed the focal youths' language-related identities. I also argue that through this normalization, language…

This ethnography explores incarcerated students' experiences and dynamics of identity formation inside a youth prison school. Across two years, 100 students and 50 adults were engaged. The structure, discourse, and adult-student interactions revealed a fixation on framing students as threats with a racialized undertone while also exposing the…

This paper examines the process by which stereotypical mainstream representations of black males (as hard, as anti-school, and as disconnected from the domestic sphere) were reimagined in all-black, all-male manhood development classes for 9th graders in urban public high schools. Findings show that instructors debunked stereotypes and created new…

This ethnographic case study explores Nicaragua--Costa Rica cross-border dynamics, one of the most important South-South migration flows in the Central American region. I identify practices that prevent Nicaraguan children in a Costa Rican classroom from consolidating transnational identities and networks during the school day. Specifically, I…

This article uses the construct of "racial code word" to advance theory about unspoken, racialized expectations that accompany seemingly neutral historical concepts. Critical race ethnographic methods were used to examine how eight black teenagers made sense of the term "civil rights leader" and the assumptions that supported…

This article provides a socio-spatial analysis of youth identities within the context of school choice reforms. Unable to conform to cultural ideals inscribed in the American school, a diverse group of youth forced out of traditional schools mediate the local production of school choice initiatives through the formation of youth identities as…

This article examines the significance of the "struggling reader" identity on students' classroom experiences. Drawing upon sociocultural theories of literacy, performance theories of education, and psychosocial qualities of identity, I argue that such an identity is felt, lived, and embodied throughout students' daily…

This article examines how three Nashville educational support professionals' conceptions of empowerment map onto their civic expectations for their Latino/a students and themselves. It argues that these expectations are inversely related, with students standing as surrogates for professionals' civic selves or professionals acting as civic…

This article explores the process and impact of women organizing for educational justice in Northern California by documenting the efforts of a committed group of mothers who sought to address the disproportionate underachievement of Latino and African American students within their city's high school. Using a combined methodology of ethnography…

This article presents the experiences of three women who have chosen to move from secular, assimilated lives to lives characterized by the distinctive dress and practice associated with observant Islam, Orthodox Judaism, and Orthodox Christianity, respectively. All three relied upon informal, peer, and distance learning strategies for their…

Through an analysis of a contemporary rite of passage--the final stage of teacher preparation--I develop a new theory of liminality that both builds on and extends Victor Turner's enduring insights. The analysis focuses on how preservice teachers in an undergraduate education program engage in a process of identity formation within an…

In this article, I explore how talk about being "ready" or "not ready" for sex shapes teen and adult understandings of sexuality. I argue that this "discourse of readiness" poses serious threats to teens' identity development, sexual decision making, and educators efforts to help them through these processes. To illustrate, I draw from my…

On the basis of an ethnographic analysis of an Imam-Hatip vocational religious secondary school in Turkey, I examine teachers' and parents' expectations and the process of students' identity formation. Although the students attending the Imam-Hatip school were expected to accept a reality infused with an Islamic worldview, their schooling…

Based on a two-year ethnographic study at an urban middle school, this article describes the power that images created by and about Puerto Rican girls hold in shaping their schooling experiences. Using a black, critical, feminist framework, I show how dichotomizing the sexuality of Puerto Rican females against their intellectual development…

The idea that something external to the human organism, "culture," could contribute to human diversity was a pivotal paradigm shift when it arose at the end of the last century, but the power of the concept has been eroded through a reductionistic abuse of the term, and "culture" may give way to ideas of "identity." (SLD)