Reading 3

Spring American Education Chapter 4

Student Diversity

"...emphasis was on deculturalizaton or replacing what were considered non-American cultures with an American culture." (Spring, p.87) I am curious if this is past projection of reasons or if this truly was the reasoning. It is incontrovertible fact that to succeed and become a part of the diverse culture that you MUST learn English. Allowing citizens to keep within their communities would increase likelihood of strife between cultures that see themselves as having nothing in common as they are not able to communicated with each other. Because the requirement of learning English (and please note that their own languages were never outlawed like the use of Scots in the late 1700s) has been tagged with negative connotation then people fall in line to see the negatives instead of realizing the positives of such cultural beliefs. Knowledge is power and knowledge of the language of the vast majority of the people in the country is power and the decision to not learn is foolhardy. The eradication of primary language is alluded to many times but not a single excerpt has shown this. This may even have been the intent but I see no where the outlaw of the speech within the homes or everyday behavior. It doesn't even seem to be outlawed with respect to economic structure.

Teaching another language as seen as eradication of the language is a anachronistic leap. It is rational to follow that as California was conquered by the United States who language was English that the laws would be expected to be passed in English. How could they establish state's rights in a federalist system otherwise?

Similarly the requirement that school children learn the language should be seen as a stepping stone of empowerment. Children who speak dozens of languages (my grandparents are examples, both didn't have English as a second language) come into public schools every year and one language that the economy and society uses would be the intuitive language to teach to the children. Allowing bilingual education in Spanish only is ludicrous as well.

The people in power see that education is empowerment so they make laws to suppress it. Yet today it is free for everyone and who are the ones suppressing their own people and devaluing it? How does one increase the number of Latino students going to college id their families and parents do not understand the value of it?

Interesting that Spring does not mention coolie labor with respect to immigration numbers and makes it sound like the Chinese just didn't save enough money to get home. He does mention it later with respect to cultural stereotypes however. What the heck is yellow peril? Is it a disease?

The situation with Chinese students as well as Mexican students gives credence to my assertion that a single language is more conducive to learning as a group without de facto segregation within schools as well.

I have to note here the silliness in advocating Anglo-Saxon Christianity when Jesus was a Middle Eastern Jew. Also, do the Native Americans consider it their land? Or are we placing capitalistic mentality on a different culture in expressing their concerns for them? It became "their land" because the government called it "their land"

Table 4-7 Increase in percentage of school children who speak ESL but DECREASE in the number of students who speak English with difficulty.

As the census starts this year the note that classification of race is done by self-determination really struck me. At what point will people classify themselves as separate from what others would classify them. How do people who come from disparate cultures decide to classify themselves (Chinese and black for example).

My question is Why is the teaching of school in English necessarily considered eradication of a primary language?

Barker Cultural Studies Chapter 3

Linguistic Turn in Cultural Studies
Dress codes as speech. I'm reminded of a trip to Italy and France where we couldn't find any shorts. We were told that shorts were ONLY worn to the beach and walking the streets of Paris in them is equivalent to wearing a bathing suit. It also screams AMERICAN. So people are speaking and telling people who they are without saying a word.

Question: Are polysemic signs based on intent or on the receiver. All communication is made of three parts: Sender, Receiver and Message. Any part in the process which is not what was intended and/or expected creates a process in discord with intent.

"difference and deferral" Perhaps the reasoning behind this is the use of synonyms. Words all have shades of meaning and in taking the steps to share shades of meaning I am reminded of geographic speciation. As animals move further away and isolated from each other, a new species is developed through natural selection that can no longer successfully reproduce with the original species. In this the deferral process is a kind of word speciation.

Discursive practices: (Barker, 90)
Discourse constructs, defines, and produces the objects of knowledge in an intelligible way while excluding other forms of reasoning as unintelligible.

Discourse gives meaning to actions, beliefs, objects that ordinarily would serve other purposes.

Chapter 13 Youth Style and Resistance

Youth is not a scientific definition? I find this unclear. Adolescence and growth markers are used on ALL species. Life cycles are a form of biology study and youth (a time period of continued growth and physical maturity) is certainly a scientific part of that cycle. I think that youth waas constructed for legal purposes. Physically and mentally (and maybe even emotionally) the persons may be mature but the law is based on numbers (18 to vote and 21 to drink) so those who are in a time period where they seem "lost" to the law are labelled youth.

Style constitutes a group identity And by creating a new identity they find themselves a part of a greater whole just as they would be otherwise.

Self-damnation. This is something I would like to study more of as it is so incredibly irrational to me. Can I say again how insulting I find the term "working-class" I am working even if I am at my desk thank you very much. The problem I can't understand is why physical labor and education are exclusionary. My husband was raised in a farming family and his brother and father still farm while Craig works at a desk. But if given a choice Craig would farm as well but his value education places him in a different occupation until his children are through with their educations.

I appreciate that youth subculture is not just about resistance. I think that in labelling it only resistance or speaking out the control center of the culture was attempting to define youth through a tag off the center instead of acknowleding the cutlure in its own right.

Question for this chapter: If the youth or subgroups descend into the same beliefs that originally caused the culture then did the predominant culture win or was there ever a chance that the subculture would last and therefore it just ran its course through a process of maturity?