This article was downloaded by: [Northern Arizona University-ClineLibrary]On: 18 October 2014, At: 23:54Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number:1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street,London W1T 3JH, UK

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Making and MoldingIdentity in Schools: StudentNarratives on Race, Gender,and Academic EngagementCatherine RassiguierPublished online: 08 Nov 2010.

To cite this article: Catherine Rassiguier (1998) Making and Molding Identityin Schools: Student Narratives on Race, Gender, and Academic Engagement,Journal of Curriculum Studies, 30:5, 595-598, DOI: 10.1080/002202798183486

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been`mean-spirited’ (p. 63)± andsoon.The argument which underpins thebook ± that the school curriculum it-self ) hasbeenstructuredinwayswhichlegitimize knowledge which assertspre-existent cultural authorities andpower relationships ± is intellectuallyabsorbing, but it is pursued in fre-quently unhelpful ways. For GoodsonandMarsh, all curriculumanalysis anddebate is self-referential: curriculumisa set of discourses, and perspectiveswithin these discourses can be testedonly against each other as competingintellectual traditions. References out-side this discourse-laden world are ru-led out of court. Thus, HMI’sobservation of an insu� cient match inEngland between teachers’ academicquali® cations and the content theywereaskedtoteachis cited, but simplyto foreclose a whole debate aboutwhether . . . subjects . . . (are) aneducational vehicle’ (p. 155).References to pedagogic contentknowledge appear in this bookonly ininverted commas, so that for all itsconcern with the development of sub-jects there is little analysisof the thingswhich teachers actually teach. But, toparaphrase, this is all to foreclose adebate about what teachers might beexpected to teach if it is not some so-cially-structured form of knowledge.In other places, counter-evidence tothe Goodson/Marsh thesis is cited,but set aside rather than confronted.For example, the discussion of the de-velopment of English as a school sub-ject cites the arguments of JohnDixonand Fred Inglis for a democratic, op-positional strand in the rise in status ofthe subject, before going on simply toassert thata farmorenegativecasecanbe made’ on the basis of other sources(p. 106). The analysis of the 1988NationalCurriculumestablishesapar-tial truth ± the almost direct matchbetween the subjects listed in the 1988

Act and the 1904 Revised Code ± butdoes not go on to explore the ways inwhich the form and structure of theNational Curriculum itself became afocus for curriculum debate and dis-cord after 1991 precisely as a way offocusing di� cult perspectives on thepurpose and nature of schooling. Eachchapterinthebookendswithaseriesofquestions for re¯ ection: for example,the ® nal chapter ends with four ques-tions, of which the second is `Do youagree that school subjects are aperfectdevice for conservation and stability?’(p. 166). As a question, it scarcelypasses muster in promoting higher-level analysis andre¯ ection. As arally-ing cry onwhich toconclude the book,it summarizes the disappointment anddejection which its authors appear tofeel. Theirs is, at root, a call for therevival of curriculum experimentationwhichtheylocateas thehallmarkof the1930sand1960s, andfortheremovalofcentralized models of curriculumcon-trol. Goodson and Marsh weave anabsorbing account of the constructionof subject identity, but their view ofcurriculumandof schoolingseemscur-iously at odds with the ways in whichschool subjects are currently confront-ing challenge andchange.

Chris Hu sban d s

Making and Molding Identity inSchools: Student Narratives on Race,Gender, and Academic Engagement

Ann Locke Davidson (StateUniversity of New York Press,Albany, New York, 1996), 288pp.,$19.95 (pbk), isbn0-7914-3082-0.

What is it, within schools, that makessomestudents identifyandengagewitheducation? And what is it that makes

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others turn their backon school-basedlearning?Theseare thebasicquestionsthat AnnLocke Davidsonaddresses inMaking and Molding Identity inSchools: Student Narratives on Race,Gender and Academic Engagement.These questions are important if onlybecausedisengagementwithandalien-ation from schooling a� ect variousgroups of youth in adi� erent manner.Working-class students, students ofcolour, and female students across theboard are more likely to pay a higherprice from constructing identitieswhere schooling and education aremarginal to their sense of self.Educationalattainmentandcredential-ing, we have ample evidence, positionpeople within the structure of oppor-tunity and rewards di� erentially alongclass, racial/ethnic and gender lines.Knowing, therefore, whether or notschools impact educational engage-ment, and perhaps by implicationeducational success, can be extremelyusefulboththeoreticallyandinrelationto on-going policy debates abouteducational reforms.

Davidson’s analysis takes its pointof departure in her reaction to educa-tional theories that merely link educa-tional engagement to outside forcessuch as familial and community in¯u-ences, cultural expectations, and his-torical perceptions of structures ofpower and dominance. These forcesare at play, Davidson concedes, buttheyalone cannot account for the vari-ous ways in which youth, in the US,relate toschoolingand education.

Davidson is clear about the meth-odological boundaries of her study.Making and Molding Identity inSchools does not aim to evaluate therelative in uence of predictors’ ofstudents’ educational engagement andoutcomes. Rather, thestudy focusesonthe ways inwhich school practices anddiscourses a� ect students’ sense of

themselves. This study is designed toforeground the voices of the studentsand their own perceptions of howtheynegotiate suchdiscoursesandpracticesonadailybasis. Davidson’s workthen,inscribes itself within agrowing tradi-tionof educational studies that explorethe ways in which students constructtheirsocialandpersonalidentitywithineducational settings. What makesDavidson’s book particularly interest-ing, however, is that it o� ers a multi-layered analysis of the ways in whichschools participate in the making ofthese identities.

Framed around the voices of thestudents themselves, Davidson’s studypries open the black box’ of fourCalifornia urban, desegregated highschoolsandgives thereaderathoroughtopography of the internal working ofthese institutional settings. Morespeci® cally, in Making and MoldingIdentity in Schools, Davidson sets outto look at the linkages betweenstudents’ ethnic/racial identities, theiracademic engagement, and the factorsthat shape both in particular educa-tional contexts. The analytical schemeusedbyDavidsonmoves fromthegen-eral to the speci® c ± from general pat-terns of meanings to speci® c casestudies illustrating those patterns.

Davidson’s analysis begins withdatagathered fromathree-year longi-tudinal investigation of 55 adolescentsdrawn from a wide array of ethnic,racial, linguistic and academic back-grounds. These datawere collected bya team of researchers, includingDavidson herself, as a way to explorethe complex sociocultural worlds ofadolescents. Drawing on interviewdata from this longitudinal study, inChapter2Davidsonteasesoutpatternsand identi® es ® ve school-based factorswhich, accordingtothestudents them-selves, can contribute to disengage-ment and alienation, and lead to the

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formation of an oppositional stance visaÁ vis schooling and education. Thisseems to be the case especially amongstudents from marginalized ethnic/racial groups. These factors include:patterns emanating from academictracking; signi® cant speech acts con-cerning diversity (negative expecta-tions and di� erential treatment ofvaried ethnic/racial groups); bureau-cratized relationships and practices;and barriers to valued information(especially related to higher educationandcareer planning).

The rest of the book is devoted toan in-depth analysis of six case studiesthat areusedtoillustrate three typesofstudents’ responses to speci® c educa-tional contexts and three patterns ofidentity construction that these re-sponses elicit: unconventional, confor-mist, and transcultural identities. InChapters 3 through 8 then, we areintroduced to six students whose per-sonal accounts give us a texturedunderstandingof mechanismsof exclu-sion and marginalization, as well ascounter-mechanisms of inclusion andintegration.

Davidson’scloseattention, inthesechapters, toschool discursive practicesand to students’ complex and some-times contradictory responses to themiscompelling. Wecansee, for instance,howprocessesof trackingandacademicsegregation might worktohamper theacademic development of studentsalready marginalized because of socio-economic, racial/ethnic, and some-times linguistic factors. Particularlyin-teresting is Davidson’s analysis of thewaysinwhichtheseprocessesa� ecttheunequal dissemination of knowledgeabout college and future careers. Wewitness the pernicious e� ects of disci-plinary policies and bureaucratizedrelations that earmark and constructparticular groups of students astrouble-makers’, low achievers, and

non-collegematerial’. Wealsobecomeprivy to the ways in which certainschools ignorethecultureandlanguageof a large part of their racial/ethnicstudent population, how they fail tovalueandmakevisible theaccomplish-ments of their ESL students, howtheydeny those students the bilingual edu-cation they are entitled to.

These chapters demonstrate alsohow certain teachers and programmescan counteract negative representa-tions of particular ethnic/racial groupsthrough powerful speech acts. Theseteachers and special programmes pre-sent students with high expectations,multicultural curricula, andcrucial in-formation about higher education andfuture careers. Each case study illus-trates the ways in which a particularstudent negotiates sorting mechan-isms, disciplinarypolicies, andbureau-cratized relations within her or hisschool environment. While Davidsonshowsushowstudentsof colourtendtobe silenced and marginalized by thesepractices, it is clear that students’ re-sponses to school discursive practicesvary. We see how some students gen-erate strategies toglean missing infor-mation about college and careerplanning. We encounter others whoconstruct positive racial/ethnic identi-ties and for whomopposition toschoolculture does not necessarily translateinto an anti-education stance and aca-demic failure. But we alsowitness howother students develop school identi-ties that reinscribe dominant culturalvalues about racial/ethnic groups.

For the most part, I found thesechapters convincing and I appreciatedDavidson’s e� orts to frame her analy-tical scheme around the students’voices and perceptions. I was less con-vinced by the matching of each casestudywith aparticular type of identity(oppositional, conformist, transcul-tural). I found the division arti® cial

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and somewhat contradictory toDavidson’s theoretical claimthat iden-tity formation is a highly complex andmultifaceted’ phenomenon. The lock-ing of processes of identity construc-tionwithin types’, limits our ability toperceive and understand the complex-ity and ¯ uidity of these identities,which Davidson’s analysis of her dataclearlydemonstrates.

The absence of gender analysisthroughout the book is glaring, an ab-sencemadeevenmorenoticeablebythesubtitle of Davidson’s book: StudentNarratives on Race, Gender andAcademic Engagement, which o� ersthe clear promise of agender analysis.Fourof thesixcasestudiespresentedtous are based on interviews of femalestudents ± an imbalance addressed byDavidson in her introduction, whereshe does address some of the gendergender dynamics of her ® eld-workex-perience. But her attention to genderstops short after these fewremarks.

This is, in my view, the most ser-ious¯awof thebook. Davidson’sanaly-sis would have been richer, moreinteresting, andtheoreticallymorepro-voking if she had paid attention to theways in which gendered meanings in-formed the making and moulding ofthese students’ identities. The silen-cing of Marbella, for instance, cannotbe fully understood without an in-depth attention togender dynamics inschools and the ways in which girls’voices are silenced in a variety ofways. A close attention to gender andsexual dynamics would have no doubtstrengthened Davidson’s analysis ofCarla’s isolationandinvisibilitywithinthe school despiteher political pride inher ethnic identity and her academicdrive. Sonia’s construction of a crazy-Mexican self or Ryan’s white malenormal/neutral self are alsoembeddedwithindominant gender scripts. In thesame manner, Patricia and Johnnie’s

accounts o� er numerous opportunitiestoexplore the ways in which the socialconstruction of masculinities and fem-ininities informs and complicates themakingof ethnic/racial identitieswith-inparticular school contexts.

Making and Molding Identity inSchools o� ers us a textured portrayalof processesof identityformationwith-in localized educational contexts. Itgives us a better understanding of therole schools play in these processes.However, itmissesnumerousopportu-nities to fully explore the interestingand messy ways in which gender com-plicates the construction of racial/eth-nicidentitiesand, inreturn, thewaysinwhichraceandethnicityarticulatewiththe formation of gendered selves.

Cathe rin e Raiss igu ie r

L ondon’ s Women Teachers: Gender,Class and Feminism 1870± 1930

Dina Copelman (Routledge, NewYork, 1996), 312pp., $59.95(hbk), isbn0-415-01312-7.

This book is more than the story ofwomenteachers inone city inone timeperiod. In her deftly written andexpansive text, Dina Copelman pre-sents a new conceptual model forexplaining teachers’ work as a classedand gendered occupation, and in sodoing, she o� ers insights into con-temporaryeducational policyaswell aseducational histiography.

Copelman’s book is unique be-cause it takes on the problem ofteachers’ ambiguous class and genderstatus ± aproblemthat historians havebeen slow to address because teachingdoes not ® t easily intotraditional para-digms of waged labour. Copelman isnot the ® rst toargue that neo-Marxist

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