Critical Qualitative Research in Second Language Studies

Agency and Advocacy

Edited by:
Kathryn A. Davis, University of Hawaii at Manoa

A volume in the series: Contemporary Language Education. Editor(s): Terry Osborn, University of South Florida.

Published 2011

This volume begins by locating critical inquiry within the epistemological and methodological history of second language study. Subsequent chapters portray researcher-participant exploration of identity and agency while challenging inequitable policies and practices. Research on internationalization, Englishization, and/or transborder migration address language policies and knowledge production at universities in Hong Kong, Standard English and Singlish controversies in Singapore, media portrayals of the English as an Official Language movement in South Korea, transnational advocacy in Japan, and Nicaraguan/Costa Rican South to South migration. Transnational locations of identity and agency are fore-fronted in narrative descriptions of Korean heritage language learners, a discursive journey from East Timor to Hawaii, and a reclaimed life history by a Chinese peasant woman. Labor union and GLBT legal work illustrate discourses that can hinder or facilitate agency and change. Hawaiian educators advocate for indigenous self-determination through revealing the political and social meanings of research. California educators describe struggles at the front-lines of resistance to policies and practices harmful to marginalized children. A Participatory Action Research (PAR) project portrays how Latina youth in the U.S. “resist wounding inscriptions” of the intersecting emotional and physical violence of homes, communities, and anti-immigrant policies and attitudes. Promoting agency through drawing on diversity resources is modeled in a bilingual undergraduate PAR project. The volume as a whole provides a model for critical research that explores the multifaceted and evolving nature of language identities while placing those traditionally known as participants at the center of agency and advocacy.

CONTENTS
Preface. Introduction: Towards Critical Qualitative Research in Second Language Studies, Kathryn A. Davis. PART I: SOCIOPOLITICAL CONTEXTS OF RESEARCH, LAW, AND POLICIES. When the Children of Their Fathers Push Back! Self-Determination and the Politics of Indigenous Research, Margaret J. Maaka, K. Laiana Wong, and Katrina-Ann R. Kapaanaokalaokeola Oliveira. In the Name of the Child: Best Interest Analysis and the Power of Legal Language, Susan Hippensteele. Discourses of English as an Official Language in a Monolingual Society: The Case of South Korea, Ok Kyoon Yoo. The context and Development of Language Policy and Knowledge Production in Universities in Hong Kong, Angel M. Y. Lin and Evelyn Y. F. Man. Sin(gapore En)glish Oracy Education: An Online Discussion Warren Mark Liew. PART II: PERFORMING IDENTITIES AND AGENCY. Hawaiian Methodologies of Indirection: Point-less vs. Pointless, K. Laiana Wong. Identity and Agency among Heritage Language Learners, Miyung Park. From East Timor to Transnational Dialogic Interaction: Agus Language and Literacy Journey, Yun Seon Kim with Agustinho Caet. Finding and Reading Road Signs in Ethnographic Research: Studying the Language and Stories of the Unwelcome Stranger, Carlos Ovando and Steven Locke. Agency as Seen through the Life Story of a Chinese Peasant Woman, Xiao Rui Zhang. PART III: PARTICIPATORY APPROACHES AND PRACTICES. Teachers Organizing to Resist in a Context of Compliance, Lucinda Pease-Alvarez and Alisun Thompson. Transformation and Agency: Participatory Action Research with Bilingual Undergraduates, Hye-sun Cho. Using Student-as-Researcher Models as a Mode of Resistance and Agency: Creative Maladjustment in an Urban High School, Renae Skarin. Promoting Translocal and Transnational Agency: A Multifaceted Learning Community in Japan, Hiromasa Tanaka and Ethel Ogane. Participatory Second Language Labor Education: Communities of Practice and the Foreign Worker Union Movement in Japan, John W. McLaughlin. Contributors.