Reading log Feinberg, Feuer, Tannen

Reading log Feinberg, Feuer& Tannen Spring 2009, Catarina Schmidt

Common schools – uncommon identities by Walter Feinberg

Walter Feinberg is professor of the philosophy of education at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. This book of him concerns the tensions between different cultural groups and the teaching towards a curriculum that recognizes their particular identities. His aim is to develop “a theory of education that is sensitive to the concerns of parents and community members who want the public schools to reinforce the values and identity of the home community” (p.1). At the same time he also wants to provide a theory that maintains a commitment to what he calls the principled reasons for public education. By using this term Feinberg refers to general justifications that view people as human beings rather than members of a particular social class, race, gender or religious group. The three principles that Feinberg addresses are equal opportunity, freedom of association and individual growth, principles that, according to him, are essential for the ideals of the liberal society:

Equality of opportunity operates in the vocational sphere and addresses the important role of the school in developing socially and economically useful skills. Freedom of association operates in the political sphere and serves to reinforce the democratic principle that everyone has a basic right to form independent associations. Individual growth operates in the personal sphere and indicates that in a democracy we each have a right to form our own conception of the good and choose our own course of development. (p. 9)

In his book Feinberg discusses what national and cultural identity means in a multicultural society of today. What Feinberg calls common school in America can be seen as a meeting place consisting racial, gender and social class lines, which are representing uncommon identities. “My identity is”, writes Feinberg, “as common to me as it may be uncommon to you” (p. 3). Cultural groups can be seen as different ethnic communities categorized by race, religion, national origin and traditions, but a cultural group can, according to Feinberg, also exist of deaf people, women or gays. Feinberg use the term pluralism to indicate the view that members of different cultural groups should be allowed to carry out their own thoughts and traditions in their communities. Multiculturalism, on the other hand, is different since it involves an active recognition of cultural membership and “addresses the children not just as citizens of one nation but in terms of their identity as members of different cultural groups” (p. 7). Where pluralism allows cultural identity to flourish, Feinberg’s multicultural ideal encourages it to do so. From my understanding Feinberg’s concept of multiculturalism seeks to give expression to the narratives and lives of cultural groups seeing them as members of different racial and ethnic groups or from the view of people with different sexual orientations. This is, of course, not unproblematic. Science teaching about Darwin’s theories might have the result that parents feel threatened in their religious believe. Another example is the traditional family who wants to maintain the boundaries between “normal” and “not normal” while others want to break down these boundaries. Parents to a homosexual young man might wish their son to be measured from his trustworthiness, honesty and academic merits rather than his sexual orientation. Nevertheless Feinberg argues for an inclusive national identity “that takes seriously the claims of different cultural communities and other identity formations for public recognition” (p. 27). Secondly Feinberg claims that “there are cases in which groups are justified in seeking public support to maintain a subcultural identity” (p. 28). The source of national identity is often connected to the belief that a people share a common history and language. Feinberg means that we are born into our national identity which has a random character to it in the way it includes some and exclude others. When children develop a national identity that involves, according to Feinberg, both collective inclusion and exclusion in a past, present and future stream of activities. The early common task of the public school was to give tools for a limited literacy and Feinberg refers to Dewey who points out that a child gradually extends the connection between its own actions and a certain community. For this communication and language standardized through print is necessary. So, when children are learning to read they are not only mastering a technical skill; “they are learning to experience a very large set of events from a particular point of view, from a center of subjectivity shared by their co-nationals” (p. 48). If the common school is seen as a development of nationalism, then Feinberg claims, nationalism must be seen as a development of modernity. The end of colonialism and the rise of the postmodern multicultural society creates new demands and challenges. My belief is that Feinberg wants us to understand cultural respect as a necessary element within a modern liberal society. Feinberg’s conclusion is that “in addition to teaching children to be members of a modern nation, the common school has to teach some of them how to be modern” (p. 49). Feinberg compares Durkheim’s and Dewey’s ideas about morality and social justification and it is interesting to follow this reasoning over the centuries. It is obviously that the school has played an important role in the shift from an old rural society to a modern urban industrial one. The task now, according to Feinberg, “is to provide a vision of public schools and national identity that allows for both the development of unifying national sentiments and the recognition of cultural differences” (p. 58). Feinberg admits that there are many arbitrary elements to a given national identity. Still there are many needs to be served by the development of such an identity. The solution that Feinberg points out is that “the justification of the common school can be strengthened by extending its public-forming role to include the idea of enabling culturally different formations within the same nation to flourish” (p. 58).

Culture is crucial for building and developing identities, it is with the words of Feinberg “implicated in self-development because the “I” is implicated in the “we”” (p. 64). Culture is by Feinberg seen as the system of meaning, which enables individuals to make sense of their own and other’s experiences and he refers to Bordieu who calls these patterns of apprehensions for habitus. Feinberg argues that the strong culturalist perspective is incorrect and that schools need not to carry out violence in order to teach children to move beyond the patterns and traditions of their own cultural group (this does not mean that cultural violence in schools has not occurred or will occur). Feinberg develops instead a theory about a citizenship education in a liberal multicultural society which has three goals; “to inform students about cultural diversity; to encourage respect for the practices of other cultural groups, especially disempowered minorities and women; and to encourage members of these groups to have pride in their own cultural heritage” (p. 123). The goal of citizenship education is to promote cultural identities and prevent cultural barriers for minority children. Feinberg means that new demands and questions come forward in a complex multicultural common school and takes the ancient Egypt as an example:

Few children are asked to consider whether ancient Egypt should be valued because of its contribution to the civilization of the region or devalued because it was a slave society. Those who believe that African American culture can be traced back to Egypt and those who believe it cannot should both be concerned to teach children about the problems involved in evaluating slave societies that have also made significant historical contributions. (p. 127)

The question Feinberg asks is “what are we teaching students when we teach them to respect another culture?” (p. 129) and as an answer he points out that the noun education belongs to the adjective multicultural and the other way round. According to Feinberg we have, for sure, weaker memberships of different cultures in our society. Different memberships in our society have different conditions; some are more dominating than others. “To be a stranger”, Feinberg writes, “is to be in a social world that does not respond in the way one anticipates” (p.137). The importance of cultural pride and cultural respect is therefore crucial, but as Feinberg writes; “multiculturalism is not respect for cultural formations under any and all conditions” (p. 142). The demand of multiculturalism has to be put into the context of modern social conditions. By developing his theory Feinberg is drilling deeper and deeper into his complex analysis. As a reader you have to follow closely while questions about what culture and identity is are raised. The more you read the more complex it turns out to be, especially when the concept of learning through culture is added:

Learning-through-culture is to be distinguished from simply learning about cultures other than one’s own. It is a concept that recognizes that there are distinctive ways in which cultures constitute both the process and the product of thinking and that these in turn become distinctive elements of learning. It is important not to confuse the fact that there are may be culturally different ways of learning and culturally different things to learn with the view that people from certain cultures are simply not capable of learning in the way which we do. (p. 146)

Learning through culture means developing identity and Feinberg explains it as “the name we give to a subject, that is, to one that has the capacity to organize experience and to be experienced as a coherent whole” (p. 161). As human beings we have identities and we experience ourselves in relation to others (but not all others). Feinberg describes identity as fluid and means that there is no single identity of race, gender or class. He claims that the concept of race is highly suspect and means that it is unwise to establish an identity on only biological reasons. Instead every single person has many identities built and developed from many complex aspects. I myself am a white, female, middle-aged, PhD-candidate with a middle-class upbringing in a small village in Sweden now entering the academic and digital world through Wikiversity. Feinberg argues that minimal recognition of minority children is not enough – instead robust recognition is needed in order to engage the child into cultural pride, cultural awareness and a growing identity. Robust recognition means that a group has a special right to have its story told both to its own children and to other. Stories about myself, my life and my experiences are the key to multicultural understanding and democracy, something which demands both negotiating and interaction. Feinberg refers to Paulo Freire who writes “that the oppressed have been silenced and that researchers must learn to listen in new ways if they are to hear and understand their experience” (p. 196). As I understand Feinberg we all need to meet each other in a national identity, but this identity must be renewed and reconsidered over and over again. “Nationality is an ideal that transcends cultural difference and enables members of different groups to recognize each other as sharing a common identity” (p. 207) Feinberg writes. Therefore we need to hear the different stories of the riots in Rosengård, Sweden in order to eventually and hopefully meet each other in a national identity. Feinberg even describes the national identity as an ethical community. The multicultural citizen needs therefore to develop cultural respect and cultural engagement both for one’s own cultural group and others. In order to do so dialogue is an important element:

At early levels, teachers may need to create models of respect by enabling students to treat all of their classmates, regardless of their cultural background, with consideration. The pedagogical issues are complex and teachers need to strike a reasonable balance between requiring that children respect other children and respecting a child whose response to others does not meet a high standard of respect. (p. 213)

A multicultural citizen needs also engagement in order to both understand cultural variations and allow them to persist. Feinberg’s theory of a possible multicultural citizenship education is for me a picture of a sustainable education. In order to survive we both need environmental and multicultural education and in the long run it is all about keeping democracy alive. The pupils and students that schools meet are not passive agents, they are individuals belonging to different cultural groups. For Feinberg respect is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for a multicultural citizen education:

Hence, one of the functions of the common school is to teach students how to advance their own ideas and to speak and write in an authentic and convincing manner. In other words, the common school has a role in teaching students how to advance their own concerns – including cultural ones – and to express themselves in ways that ring true. (p. 245)

For me Feinberg’s theory about a mutlticultural citizenship education is a valuable contribution for all learning conditions. I mean that this book is a necessary ethical foundation for every school, teacher, pupil, parent and society.

Who does this language belong to? Personal narratives of language claim and identity by Avital Feuer

The author, Avital Feuer, studies in her book an advanced Hebrew class at a university in Canada. The students have different ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds and they have also different motives and language experiences. One can see the book as an attempt to better understand feelings of displacement between languages, cultures and identities. Feuer uses both a personal and a research approach. She has herself strong connections with both Israel and Canada which gives her (at least) two identities. Feuer presents her personal narrative and analysis alongside the students’. One can say that Feuer takes me as a reader on a journey which covers both questions about language and cultural discovery. The aim, as I understand it, is to understand what happens in an adult Hebrew classroom with the language learning process and the fighting for identity formation. Feuer argues that “the notion of identity is multifaceted, fluid and constantly changing in relation to time, space and social or cultural context” (p. 2). Her research questions are the following:

What unique framework of ethnic identity did students and teachers of Hebrew construct for themselves?

What was the place of Hebrew in participants’ ethnic identities?

How did participants’ ethnic identity frameworks affect classroom dynamics? (p. 3)

Feuer claims that the study has a sociolinguistic perspective meaning that “language use is a symbolic representation of social behavior and human interaction” (p. 5). Therefore one can see language dialect and choice of words as social markers which will affect the interaction. Alongside with the sociolinguistic perspective Feuer presents a dialogical perspective based on the thoughts from Vygotskij and Bakhtin. Referring to Bakhtin, Feuer writes that “speakers learning a language take utterances from other speakers’ mouths and appropriate them as their own” (p. 7). When it comes to language learning and its need of interaction she refers to Vygotskij:

Vygotsky’s (1981) theory was based on the premise that an individual’s development occurs on two planes: first, through social interactions on the social or interpersonal plane, and subsequently on the psychological or intrapersonal plane. The transition between these planes is dependent on the mediated function of sign systems, or language: hence he concludes that developmental mental functions originate through social interactions. (p. 7)

The Hebrew class is seen as an ethnic group with a shared ancestry, language and history. What Feuer claims to study is how these students place themselves and others within this ethnic group and eventually what impact this does have on their own identity formation. Feuer refers to Hall (1994) and argues that individuals always must position themselves in a dialogic relationship with the Other:

The two elements of identity, a unifying oneness of experience and ruptured ”identities” caused by self- and Other-positioning (Hall, 1994), oppose an essentialist identity, and rather emphasize a hybrid identity: a shifting and nonsynchronous space that rejects previous notions of “rooted” identities based on elements such as language, ethnicity, or sequences of essentialism. (p. 11)

In order to develop identity the first language - your mother language and the language of your heart - is essential. There are several theories showing that learning a new, second language might have an effect on an individual’s identity and Feuer presents some of them. In my opinion the book here lacks theories specifically about second language acquisition since language learning and identity development cannot be parted.

In chapter three Feuer focuses on hyrbrid language and identity research and despite the many examples of heritage and immigrant language studies Feuer claims that there have been very few empirical studies about the relationship between ethnic identity formation and language learning. Using many languages develops a hybridity of identity and the result can be a double identity. It is easy to see that this is what Feuer has found in her own personal life and is looking after in her empirical studies. While referring to research among Israelis Feuer states the importance of the language; Hebrew is the primary mean of Jewish identification. The summary of earlier research helps the author to argue for the relevance of her study and in chapter four she describes her methodological approach. I appreciate the openness in the way Feuer reports her study. Preparation for the research, relationships to the teacher and the students are openly discussed. I feel as if I have witnessed all steps along the way to the author’s conclusions. The author enters a for her well-known world and she also states that she sees herself as a participant in the research study. In my opinion the book provides a personal narrative and at the same time basic empirical findings on language learning and culture in one specific context. Feuer demonstrates the different feelings and emotions of the students and their relationships with their classmates and as a reader I really liked to take part of the different portraits of the students. Though the book is specific to Hebrew and the Jewish culture I think that this research can be applied to many other minority cultures all over the world.

Beginning in chapter six the author presents the effects of anti-Semitism and the complexity of being a Jew and being from Israel. The students also agreed that they felt like a minority within a larger community but at the same time they had different reasons for studying Hebrew. The students who spoke Hebrew in their everyday lives had different motives from the Canadian born students who struggled with oral fluency and language proficiency. An interesting finding for me was that the oral skill had a more prestigious value than grammatical one. I will never forget my first (and only lesson) in Hebrew since it started out with only grammar. We did not even learn to greet each other and my desire to learn some of this language disappeared in a minute. Feuer indicates in her study that the oral fluency is a marker for a true Israeli identity. Within the class the Hebrew language, according to Feuer, functioned as an in-group code of Israeli emigrants and Jewish Canadians. Feuer explains that the language was “a vehicle of self-expression, a part of their personal and family histories, and a means of communicating with God” (p. 75). A unifying theme is solidarity with the Jewish community and/or Israel, but through observations during class discussions the author finds more and more complexities and nuances:

Participants asserted their feelings of minority and uniqueness in diverging from the worldwide population as a Jewish minority with a history of struggle, oppression, and genocide; not belonging in the national majority population as none felt a primary identification as Canadaian; and in distancing from the other subgroup through distinguishing differences between Canadians, Israelis, and further subgroupings. (p. 99)

In the classroom Hebrew functions as a unifier of a shared history. Interestingly for me were the comments from the students claiming that Canada has no history – or identity. The reason seems, according to Feuer, to be that because of the diversity there are no common values, history or narratives that are exclusively Canada’s. The author also refers to Cook (2006) who claims that Canada has what he calls a quiet nationalism. This is, according to Feuer, one reason for the strong identification with Israel among the students:

What is Canadian history based on? Multiculturalism, right? There’s nothing particularly historic about that and it was really put in place by Liberals. (voice of student p. 82)

Another student puts it like this:

People here, you know, their grandparents are born here, their parents are born here, and they still say they’re Italian or whatever, or Portugese. You know why? That means that Canada does not have an identity and people are not proud of being Canadian. (voice of student p. 83)

At the same time Feuer points out that the Hebrew language functions as a rift between the perceived Israeli and Canadian subgroups. The Israeli born students based their Israeli nationality on their native-speakerness and the Canadian born students strove toward fluency and were, because of their lack of this, labeled as the non-Israelis:

Individuals defined themselves and others based on whom they felt had a right to claim the Hebrew language as their own; they excluded others within their ethnic group who did not rightfully hold an authentic claim to the language. (p. 109)

By regognizing the hierarchy between native speakers and second language speakers, Feuer draws the conclusion that the atmosphere of learning must be changed and that the connection between true Israeli and correct usage of Hebrew must be washed away. In order to establish a communicative language classroom this is, of course, necessary.

Talking voices. Repetition, Dialouge and Imagery in Conversational Discourse by Deborah Tannen

Deborah Tannen is an American professor of linguistics at Georgetown University in Washington DC. This book of her focuses on the role of language in human relationships. The author begins the introduction to the second edition with introducing what she calls her theoretical paradigm. The essence of this paradigm is intertextuality which, according to Tannen, “refers to the insight that meaning in language results from a complex of relationships linking items within a discourse and linking current to prior instances of language” (p. 9). Tannen states that all chapters in some way or another contains examples of intertextuality and she starts right off with giving a variety of examples referring to important scholars during the centuries until today:

Language patterns that connect through repetition and rhythm (Bateson, 1979)

Contextual relations over time through language (Becker, 1995)

Construction of utterances including the fact that we always take them from someone else’s utterance (Bakhtin, 1986)

Using texts means both an appropriation of prior texts and prior human actions (Scollon, 2004)

Languages use shapes and forms identities and plays also a role when they emerges and disappear (Wortham, 2006)

There are relationships between texts and ideological structures and power (Fariclough, 2003)

Tannen’s book is not only a book about intertextuality, but for me knowing almost nothing about this theroretical paradigm it was worthwhile reading it the beginning. The more general aim with the book is, according to the author herself, “an understanding of the relationship between conversational and literary discourse” and “the study of everyday conversation” (p. 24).

The second chapter focuses on involvement in discourse. Tannen refers to Gumperz and explains that involvement is the result of conversational interference. To truly understand an utterance conversational coherence is needed. By referring also to Chafe (1985) Tannen gives an explanation of involvement on a more internal, even emotional level, and gives then her own explanation:

What may seem as first the self-evident claim that it takes more than one person to have a conversation, is actually a more subtle and significant one: that conversation is not a matter of two (or more) people alternately taking the role of the speaker and listener, but rather that both speaking and listening includes elements and traces of the other. Listening, in this view, is an active not a passive enterprise, requiring interpretation comparable to that required in speaking, and speaking entails simultaneously projecting the act of listening: In Bakhtin’s sense, all language use is dialogic. (p. 27)

In order to maintain conversation coherence and involvement are necessary ingredients. Next step for Tannen is to compare spoken and written language and she guides us through her and other’s different empirical studies, arriving to the conclusion that “ordinary conversation and literary discourse have more in common than has been commonly thought” (p. 30). Tannen lists what she calls involvement strategies that can be applied on the sounds and patterns of the language during a conversation – strategies that are also essential in literary discourse:

Rhytmic synchrony – a rhythmic coordination within the conversation. A word can be said together with a hand gesture and an eye blink in the very same moment. Conversational rhythm is composed of tempo, pattern of beats, and density, syllables or silence (Scollen, 1982).

Repetition – through patterns of sound, words, rhyme, phrases or chunks.

Tropes – figures of speech that operates on meaning. One example of tropes is irony.

item text

Constructed dialogue – how speakers frame their information they express – the rhetorical style is a tool used by the speaker to communicate affect (Besnier, 1992). Imagery and details – by using excerpts of this we can in our everyday speech emphasize emotions and imagery Narratives – literary storytelling can be seen as en elaboration of conversational storytelling. Using narratives is a way to organize and scaffold speech (Sacks, 1986).

In chapter three Tannen focuses on the strategy repetition and how it is used in discourse and in conversation. We have, as Tannen writes, a drive to imitate and I must say that I like her recognized myself in this impulse. One conclusion about repetition is that utterances do not occur in isolation. “One cannot therefore understand the full meaning of any conversational utterance without considering its relation to other utterances – both synchronically, in its discourse environment, and diachronically, in prior text” (p. 101), summarizes Tannen. The following chapter focuses instead on how dialogue is constructed in conversation. The construction of dialogue can, according to Tannen, be seen as an active participation in sensemaking which strongly contributes to the feeling and creation of involvement. The use of constructed dialogue differs from different speakers, therefore research in the field of conversations analyses covers different individual styles of maintaining dialogues. As mentioned before each individual’s communication is in dialogue with the echoes of others and Tannen uses this beautiful quotation from Bakhtin (1986) to illustrate this:

Each utterance is filled with the echoes and reverberations of other utterances to which it is related by the communality of the sphere of speech communication. (p. 103)

A word is therefore always embraced by its context. The reported speech, in line with Bakhtin and Voloshinov, is in an dynamic relationship to its reported context, but Tannen questions this and claim instead that “uttering dialogue in conversation is as much a creative act as is the creation of dialogue in fiction and drama” (p. 105). Tannen argues that reported speech (or indirect speech) is not reported at all. Instead she claims that it is constructed by a speaker in a current situation. Throughout her book Tannen gives many concrete examples from her vast studies of research. Despite this I as a reader now and then loses my focus on the content or on the meaning with it all. As I understand Tannen she is primarily a linguist, but this book can doubtlessly help me to achieve a more theoretical understanding of talk and social interaction. If the day comes when I have a huge empirical material with recorded conversation from a certain context I will return to Tannen and her involvement strategies of conversation. Individual imagination is, according to Tannen, “a key to interpersonal involvement, and interpersonal involvement is a key to understanding language” (p. 160). We have all a need to express ourselves. This need is the very foundation for communication. Communication through everyday conversation is made up of linguistic strategies, as mentioned above, which are traditionally regarded as literary. Tannen’s book is, in my opinion, a valuable summary of what intertextuality means and how its different strategies can be used as tools for the understanding of communication through conversation.