Foster, M., Lewis, J, & Onafowora, L. (2003). Anthropology, culture, and research on teaching and learning: Applying what we have learned to improve practice. Teachers College Record, 105(2), 261 – 277. Columbia University.
Summary of content.
In this 17-page article, Foster, Lewis, and Onafowora are examining the role of culture in teaching and learning. After providing an overview of applied anthropology (meaning culture) in its research role, they examine the studies that demonstrate how culture can be understood and used as a resource for teaching and learning . . . particularly the bringing into the classroom the various community practices and human resources.
Their paper presents a theoretical framework for the implementation of a current research project into urban communities in the form of an after-school program for elementary students. At the heart of the program is the linking of inexperienced teachers with master teachers who have demonstrated success in teaching culturally diverse students in urban schools. They present the results of this first year of the experiment.
The paper first bring us up-to-date on when and how anthropology became officially involved in educational research, pointing out that although the Anthropology of Education Quarterly has used center pieces since the 1970s, it was not until 1987 that the American Educational Research Journal introduced the subject of anthropology and ethnographic research on education (including classrooms practices and teaching and learning in general) and then continued to feature anthropology and its essential concept—culture—on a more regular basis.
This field often referred to as “cultural congruence, conflict, and discontinuity” focuses on cultural practices, specifically the ways of speaking and interacting that students learn at home and bring with them to school. Their intent is to unearth the ways in which community practices can either be better recognized and accommodated or devalued and discredited. Their hypothesis maintained that “some groups remain persistently poor because of cultural pathologies, deficiencies, and defects that are transmitted from parents to children.” Though many have disputed this hypothesis, saying that this apparent fact is not one of predisposed permanence but one of ignorance of the underlying facts (as they relate to the equally natural need to outgrow conditions), these authors want to further research the methodologies that allow such changes to happen.
Personal Reaction.
Their conclusions on the benefits of allowing cultural uniqueness to flourish parallel my own observances of ESL linguistic development. Even in my own case, had I been chastised every time I reminisced and brought into conversation cultural practices of my own adolescence, I would not have been nearly as comfortable in acculturating into mainstream U.S. culture including its most confounding aspect—so-called proper English. Considering that some of each nation’s most cherished poets were often peasants or least wrote and spoke in a vernacular that allowed the highlighting of the people’s treasured uniqueness, it is not surprising to read, hear, and experience a poor neighborhood’s strong resistance to change. Even my recent visit to an “English Only Europe?” forum in Brussels brought back to mind the desperation and passion with which grassroots group wish to preserve their culture. In Europe, the learning of English, though accepted as a subject, is not condoned (yet) as a common language for curriculum instruction. It is permitted, in fact uniformly accepted, as the language of choice for doing Ph.D. dissertations, but judging by the prevailing mood and political pressures at that Forum, it will be many generations, if ever, that Europe will allow any one language to dominate and thereby destroy the minority cultures. I know many non-minorities can’t understand why anyone in their right mind would want to stay poor, but the truth is that many of them, besides not knowing how to get out of their neighborhoods, don’t even want to know the price of doing so. Too many of their cultural possessions would have to be left behind as well . . . and to many of them, this is not an option.