Student Voice as a Methodological Issue in Academic Literacies Research

Autor/in	Paxton, Moragh
Titel	Student Voice as a Methodological Issue in Academic Literacies Research
Quelle	In: Higher Education Research and Development, 31 (2012) 3, S.381-391 (11 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0729-4360
DOI	10.1080/07294360.2011.634382
Schlagwörter	Foreign Countries; Postsecondary Education as a Field of Study; Higher Education; Educational Research; Research Methodology; Ethnography; Sociolinguistics; Academic Discourse; Power Structure; Student Empowerment; Second Languages; English (Second Language); Observation; Researchers; Cultural Pluralism; Cultural Awareness; South Africa + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Ausland; Hochschulbildung; Hochschulsystem; Hochschulwesen; Bildungsforschung; Pädagogische Forschung; Research method; Forschungsmethode; Ethnografie; Soziolinguistik; Discourse; Diskurs; Studienberechtigung; Second language; Zweitsprache; English as second language; English; Second Language; Englisch als Zweitsprache; Beobachtung; Researcher; Forscher; Kulturpluralismus; Cultural identity; Kulturelle Identität; Südafrika; Süd-Afrika; Republik Südafrika; Südafrikanische Republik
Abstract	Academic literacies research has been identified as an emerging but significant field in higher education. This article extends the discussions around methodology in academic literacies research by drawing on the current text and context debates in sociolinguistics and linguistic ethnography. It uses illustrations from a recent academic literacies research project to reflect on methodology and to emphasise the importance of a prolonged engagement with participants' writing practices and experiences as well as the collection and analysis of a range of types of data to allow the researcher to become more familiar with the context. Methods such as allowing students to interpret their own writing, classroom observation and students' written literacy histories gave the researcher real insights into the way students made connections to their own familiar contexts in order to learn. The research also highlighted the manner in which communication between students and teaching staff can break down because teachers misinterpret student utterances when they do not understand or know the contexts that the students are drawing on. At the same time, however, the researcher sounds some caution about the use of dialogue in ethnographic methodologies because communication is a two-way process and allocation of linguistic resources has been unequal. Therefore, where students' resources do not match the context, they may struggle to communicate with the interviewer and to interpret their written texts. In these cases, interviewees who are first language speakers from privileged schooling backgrounds may be able to contextualise and interpret their writing more fully than interviewees who are speakers of English as a second or foreign language and who come from poorer rural schools. (Contains 3 notes.) (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10