The American Anthropological Association is holding a virtual conference this year, Raising Our Voices 2020. With Monique Mills (U of Houston), I have a virtual poster, ‘People aren’t going to tell stories in the same way’: A mixed-methods study of adult perceptions of Black children’s narrative language. This poster reports on a mixed-methods study of adults’ perceptions of Black children’s narrative language conducted by a linguistic anthropologist and a speech and hearing sciences researcher.
anthropology of childhood
SLRF 2017 Proceedings is out!
The Selected Proceedings of the 2017 Second Language Research Forum, edited by Hope Wilson, Nicole King, Eun Jeong Park, and Kirby Childress, has just been published. I have a chapter therein, ‘Engaged Second Language Research: Studying Stakeholders’ Perspectives on Preschool DLLs’ Science and Language Learning’, co-authored with Brian Seilstad, Jackie Ridley, and Somin Kim. We provide an overview of the Expanding Repertoires project, framing it as an example of engaged L2 research. We focus on the exploratory study in Central Ohio, which examined the perspectives and experiences of informal science and ECE educators and the various bi/multilingual families they serve across contexts.
AAA 2018 panel honors Elinor Ochs
This year at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association I had the pleasure and privilege of participating in a panel in honor of my doctoral advisor, Elinor Ochs. The panel, ‘Experiencing Language: The Contributions of Elinor Ochs to Anthropology’, examined five areas in anthropology that have been inspired by Elinor’s’ work: ethnography of language acquisition across cultures (Amy Paugh), language socialization in educational contexts (Kathy Howard and me), language in ethnic and racial social contexts (Patricia Baquedano-López), autism and communication studies (Laura Sterponi and Wendy Klein), and family and ethics (Tamar Kremer-Sadlik). Bill Hanks and Judith Irvine were the chairs, and Elinor was the discussant.
AAA 2017
At AAA 2017 in Washington, DC I presented a paper ‘Investigating language practices and ideologies with and within museums and preschools’ as part of a double panel on The Anthropology of Education Matters’ in Informal Learning Contexts. As always, the AAAs were an opportunity to reconnect with far-flung friends. This photo shows me with Dr. Marilyn Merritt, a linguistic anthropologist at George Washington University whose work has inspired me since my graduate student days.
Learning How to Look & Listen
A great resource for students interested in video-based research on social interaction is now available at Learning How to Look & Listen. This website brings together resources from a conference supported by the Spencer Foundation at Arizona State University where an interdisciplinary group of older and younger scholars gathered to document and illustrate the basic patterns of visual and auditory attention that are employed by researchers who use video to study social interaction. Two scholars who trained me, Chuck Goodwin and Barbara Rogoff, are part this fabulous group.
AAA 2016 paper
Today at the 115th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, my advisee Sirad Shirdon is presenting our paper ‘The co- and re-construction of classroom competence in a Somali-centric Kindergarten’. We are part of the panel Language Socialization in Classrooms: Culture, Interaction, and Development, organized by Matthew Burdelski and Kathryn Howard and invited by the Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group (ACYIG). The panel previews an volume edited by Matt and Kathy, to be published by Cambridge.
Navigating Languages, Literacies, and Identities
The edited volume Navigating Languages, Literacies and Identities: Religion in Young Lives has come out! Edited by Vally Lytra, Dinah Volk, and Eve Gregory, the volume showcases innovative research at the interface of religion and multilingualism, with an analytical focus on religion in children and adolescents’ everyday lives and experiences. I have a chapter on my research in northern Cameroon and Central Ohio.
Children Seen and Heard Across the Globe, Part II
I will be participating in a workshop this coming week at the Lorentz Center in Leiden. Child development research has been dominated by studies in western urban societies. The aim of the workshop ‘Children Seen and Heard across the Globe‘ is to bring together a small group of scholars working with hard-to-reach non-Western communities in order to build interdisciplinary collaborations around the collection and analysis of video data sets from these communities. This week-long workshop follows up on the NIAS workshop held in April-May 2015.
Expanding Repertoires project website live
Now live, the website for the NSF-funded project Expanding repertoires of practice: Improving informal science learning experiences for preschool dual language learners.
Fulbright follow-up at Utrecht U
I am in Utrecht for 2 weeks, a follow-up to my Fulbright at Utrecht University in AY 2015-16. I will give a lecture and lead discussion groups in the course ‘Youth, Education & Society 02: Global Perspectives’, a core course in the Masters program Youth, Education & Society. My host and lead instructor of the course is Professor Mariette de Haan.