Discourses of Student Success

<p>This book offers a linguistic ethnographic account of secondary schooling in Umbria, Italy, examining the complex intersection of language, socioeconomic class, social persona, and school choice to provide a holistic portrait of the situatedness of student “success.”</p><p>The book explores the everyday sociolinguistic practices at the three types of Italian secondary schools in Umbria—the lyceum, the technical institute, and the vocational school—and the language ideologies and <em>de facto</em> language policies associated with them. An analysis of narrative, interviews, and classroom discourse unpacks the ways in which students are socialized by both peers and teachers into specific academic discourses and specialized forms of knowledge throughout their school careers. In those close analyses of the micro-interactional contexts of three classrooms, drawing on a corpus of naturally occurring classroom discourse, the volume illuminates the ways in which certain forms of talk are exalted while others policed and how students either submit to or resist the social labels ascribed to them. This account contributes new insights into the ways in which educational institutions are constructed and maintained via talk.</p><p>This book will be of interest to students and scholars interested in educational linguistics, linguistic anthropology, classroom discourse, streamed-tracked education systems, and education policy.</p> <p>LIST OF FIGURES</p><p>LIST OF TABLES AND TRANSCRIPTS</p><p>ACKNOWLEDGMENTS</p><p>ABSTRACT</p><p>CHAPTER 1: ENTERING THE WORLD OF SECONDARY EDUCATION IN ITALY</p><p><b>Introduction</b></p><p><b>Getting</b><b> to know Cittadina and finding my place in it</b></p><p>Gatekeeping at the three school field sites</p><p>The development of the modern-day Italian secondary school system (1859–present)</p><p>The contemporary tripartite Italian education system</p><p>"Lyceumization" and the "descending mobility reorientation"</p><p>Modern challenges for equitable education in Italy</p><p>Infrastructure</p><p>Logistics</p><p>Human Resources</p><p>Internationalization</p><p>Macro-level policy vs. micro-level practices</p><p>Research questions</p><p>Overview of chapters</p><p>CHAPTER 2: WHAT DOES AN ANALYSIS OF LANGUAGE TELL US ABOUT SCHOOL AND SOCIETY?</p><p>Why this book?</p><p>Language ideologies and <i>la questione della lingua</i></p><p>What does language use have to do with the social project of education?</p><p>Constructing the self and others in academic spaces</p><p>Performing academic knowledge</p><p>Collecting data for a linguistic ethnography of education</p><p><i>Getting to know the field sites</i></p><p>Observing everyday life in the three classrooms</p><p>Group interviews</p><p>Analyzing the data for a linguistic ethnography of education</p><p><i>Transcription</i></p><p>Collaborative playback sessions</p><p>Discourse analysis</p><p>Analysis of narrative</p><p>CHAPTER 3: SOCIAL PERSONAE AND SCHOOL CHOICE IN CITTADINA</p><p><b>Introduction</b></p><p><b>Representations of School Types Circulating via Social Media</b></p><p><b>Student Narratives of School Choice</b></p><p><i>The Technical School</i></p><p><i>The Vocational School</i></p><p><i>The Classical Lyceum</i></p><p><b>Discussion</b></p><p>CHAPTER 4: PUBLIC PERFORMANCES OF SCHOOLED KNOWLEDGE IN CITTADINA </p><p>Introduction</p><p><b>Data Presentation and Analysis</b></p><p><i>Interrogazione</i><i> in Latin Class at the Classical Lyceum</i></p><p><i>Interrogazione</i><i> in Mechanical Systems Class at the Technical Institute</i></p><p><i>Lab Sessions in Fashion Design at the Vocational School</i></p><p><b>Discussion</b></p><p>CHAPTER 5: PEER-TO-PEER PERFORMANCES OF EXPERTISE</p><p><b>Introduction</b></p><p><b>Ventriloquating "School Voice" in Language Play</b></p><p><b>"Outside Voice" for School Topics</b></p><p><b>Using "Nonstandard" Language Features to Talk about Schoolwork</b></p><p><b>Peer Commentary on the Surprise Performance of ‘Good Student’ Persona</b></p><p><b>Refusing to Accept Expert Positioning</b></p><p><b>Discussion: Underlife, Communicative Repertoire, and Double-Voicing</b><b> in Peer-Peer Performances of Expertise</b></p><p>CHAPTER 6: EVERYDAY DEFINITIONS AND EVALUATIONS OF ‘THE GOOD STUDENT’ ACROSS THE THREE SCHOOLS </p><p><b>Introduction</b></p><p><b>Defining Evaluative Terms: "</b><b><i>bravo</i></b><b>" and "</b><b><i>scolarizzato</i></b><b>"</b></p><p><b>Uses of the Terms across the Three Schools</b></p><p><i>Examples of bravo used spontaneously in the classroom</i></p><p>Definitions of terms by teachers</p><p><b>Other Ways of Describing Students and Student Performance </b></p><p><b>When Casual Evaluations Become Formal Grades </b></p><p><b>Conclusions and Implications of Using Overdetermined Language in Student Evaluations</b></p><p>CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION</p><p>Overview</p><p>Revisiting the Research Questions</p><p>How are the student bodies of these three school types (co)constructed via narrative and metacommentary?</p><p><i>How do students perform knowledge for peers and teachers?</i></p><p><i>What does "success" look and sound like within and across the three school types?</i></p><p>Implications and Future Directions</p><p>Concluding Remarks</p>