printer-friendlyMy major research interests are related to the social and cultural processes of schooling and literacy, including:
+ethnographies of childhood and, more broadly, of the experiential qualities of contemporary schooling for all participants
+the development of childhood cultures, especially the role of popular culture in that development, with a particular interest in city kids
+the development and use of written language in contemporary childhoods and cross-culturally
+the politics of identity and language in school, including the role of English variants, like African American Language
My current research centers on the intersection of literacy and childhoods. The latter is a relatively new interdisciplinary field which focuses on both how societies conceive of and arrange for “childhoods” and, also, on how children themselves act as agents in the construction of their own childhoods. I have examined institutional expectations of the proper child prepared for and learning written language (through a study of what is considered “basic” and, also, “appropriate” in content) and children’s expectations for each others’ use of written language. The children’s actions involve use of place-based resources (like environmental print on frequented neighborhood sites) and appealing and shared knowledge based on media (e.g., movies, television, radio). Briefly, then, the work, composed of two interrelated projects in different sites, entails a study of the ideological foundation of “basics” curricula (i.e., ideologies of language and of appropriate childhoods), their classroom enactments, and their interpretation by young, marginalized children (i.e., marginalized in the institution and society by class, race, and language).