5016 reading
From Studyplace
[edit] on p.109, Heath mentions that Trackton people are aware of the peculiarities of their way of speaking to their young children. What is the implication of this awarenes for the interpretation of the overall case?
This is a comment not related to the to the posted Study Place conversation question but my own observation. I think it’s interesting how little the issue of gender has come up both in our discussions of the ethnographies we’ve been reading as well as the ethnographies themselves. In Heath’s book, she mentions briefly how marginalized girls are in Trackton in terms of the amount of attention they receive, especially non-infant girls. For example, when relatives or other visitors come with gifts, the understanding is that girls are not the main recipients of these gifts and that they must rely on the altruism of their male or younger siblings to share. They are also not usually the main participants in the public square, which is the place where children are allowed to be expressive. In Roadville as well, Heath spoke about how girls are restricted to playing with toys connected to traditionally feminine realms such as home and parenting. In Peggy Miller’s book, we also saw that men were only peripherally involved in the language instruction of children. Yet, neither author discusses these observations further. I wonder about the implications of gender differences in terms of language instruction for schooling later on. It has been commonly observed that boys tend to dominate classrooms (American Association of University Women. (1992). How schools shortchange girls. Washington, DC: American Association of University, and Orenstein, P. (1994). School Girls. New York: Doubleday), regardless of whether or not their answers are correct, while the opposite is true for girls. The silencing of girls is a pervasive problem in schools and throughout society, and I think this topic should have a place in our discussions about language and communication, and especially within the ethnographies themselves. – Kara Balemian
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