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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
In Search Of America, Ellen Bigler
In Search Of America, Ellen Bigler
Faculty Publications
Taken collectively, Latinos are now the largest minority group in the USA. This chapter, with a focus on U.S. Latinos, explores the changing face of the USA in recent decades and the significance of this demographic change for the ongoing construction and negotiation of an American identity. The culture wars (e.g., debates over the canon, curriculum, and language) of the late 1980s and 1990s, and the contested role of schools in the arena of critical multiculturalism, are examined for insights into the bases of resistance to change. The author draws from her experiences in public schools as both a teacher …
White Teachers, Race Matters, Ellen Bigler
White Teachers, Race Matters, Ellen Bigler
Faculty Publications
Educational anthropologists address in their works the legacy of an enduring history of racial oppression in the United States. Drawing on observations from teaching courses on multicultural education I examine the ideologies of future white teachers forged in particular racial and class locations. Students' faith in the existence of equality of opportunity emerges as significant in shaping their receptivity in interrogating the status quo. Course activities provide contrary evidence, permitting greater engagement with anthropological theories.
Dangerous Discourses, Ellen Bigler
Dangerous Discourses, Ellen Bigler
Faculty Publications
Contemporary historians of U.S. immigration and ethnicity, and those who chart the experiences of Puerto Ricans on the mainland, may recognize the flaws inherent in usingthe "immigrant analogy" to evaluate and anticipate the Puerto Rican experience on themainland. However, my ethnographic research in an upstate New York city with a growingPuerto Rican population suggests that such perspectives have yet to make their way intothe mainstream. In analysis of community and school discourse over a three-year period, Ifound ethnic success stories being used by community "old-timers" to "discipline" thosewho are judged to have failed through a dearth of hard work. Within …