Women Faculty of Color in TESOL: Theorizing Our Lived Experiences

Angel Lin; Rachel Grant; Ryuko Kubota; Suhanthie Motha; Gertrude Tinker Sachs; Stephanie Vandrick; Shelley Wong

Abstract: This article is based on an interview with Dr. Ryuko Kubota, a professor-researcher in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia, Canada. She is a leading author in the areas of critical applied linguistics, critical race theory, and critical pedagogy. More recently, her research has been focused on the issue of racism in TESOL. Her work has served as inspiration and encouragement for several new authors interested in discussing this topic. In this interview, we discussed her views on issues about racism in the TESOL profession, the westernization of countries or cultural imperialism through the English language, as well as the ownership of English and the teaching of culture in the EFL classroom. Keywords: racism, TESOL, EFL, NNEST, culture teaching***racismo, TESOL, Inglés como Lengua Extranjera, maestros de Inglés no-nativos, enseñanza de cultura

The impact of social identities like race and ethnicity is not restricted to experiences outside the English language classroom. It can be seen, for example, through the racism and ethnic bias inherent in the stereotypical white image and reified status of the native English speaker, which contributes to discrimination against teachers of color and the unjust hierarchies normalized and reproduced through teacher education in TESOL. A critical approach to understanding race and ethnicity is necessary to address racism and ethnic bias, and coursework and training on critical pedagogy for English language classrooms should be instituted in pre-service preparation and in-service professional development programs. Training activities, materials, and curriculum should model the same critical practices and methodologies being taught in the program to raise awareness of inequities and to support the key role that teacher education plays in combating racism and ethnic bias in TESOL.

This paper highlights the impact of gender differences in English Language Teaching. It explores students' learning styles as affected by the notions about men and women differences in communication. The data collected in 2008 from 20 males and 20 females' English students of the State University of Makassar. It is to reveal their attitudes towards speaking to different sex, strategy to express opinion, group work preferences, activeness/passiveness, and their perception to increase Eng-lish skills dealing with sex difference. It is revealed that female than male students were reluctant to speak to different sex; females preferred the direct way to express opinions (writing), work with the same sex, and tended to be passive in class. In addition , females saw the high possibility to increase their English skills by working with the same sex but the reverse is true for males. These different styles of female and male students in learning English were affected by the notions of women's language. Gender differences, which are socially and culturally constructed, are one of the interesting phenomena in contemporary society. Their impacts can not only be seen in political life, where women fight their political rights, or in households, in which women fight to reduce household harassment. Discourse on gender differences, in fact, also exists in the use of language for communication , highlighting that men and women are different in their ways of communication , and therefore they should be treated differently. 172

Volumes Menu QUARTERLY Founded 1966 CONTENTS Special Issue: Gender and Language Education ARTICLES Looking Back, Taking Stock, Moving Forward: Investigating Gender in TESOL 381 Kathryn A. Davis and Ellen Skilton-Sylvester The Complex Construction of Professional Identities: Female EFL Educators in Japan Speak Out 405 Andrea Simon-Maeda “I’m Tired. You Clean and Cook.” Shifting Gender Identities and Second Language Socialization 437 Daryl Gordon Constructing Gender in an English Dominant Kindergarten: Implications for Second Language Learners 459 Barbara L. Hruska FORUM Women Faculty of Color in TESOL: Theorizing Our Lived Experiences 487 Angel Lin, Rachel Grant, Ryuko Kubota, Suhanthie Motha, Gertrude Tinker Sachs, Stephanie Vandrick, and Shelley Wong Addressing Gender in the ESL/EFL Classroom 504 Bonny Norton and Aneta Pavlenko Language Learning: A Feminine Domain? The Role of Stereotyping in Constructing Gendered Learner Identities 514 Barbara Schmenk “The Devil Is in the Detail”: Researching Gender Issues in Language Assessment 524 Annie Brown and Tim McNamara ccclxxiv TESOL QUARTERLY Volume 38, Number 3 䊐 Autumn 2004 BOOK REVIEW A Comparative Review of Four Books on Language and Gender Stephanie Vandrick Gender in the Language Classroom Monika Chavez Language and Gender Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet Gender Identity and Discourse Analysis Lita Litosseliti and Jane Sunderland, Eds. Communicating Gender Suzanne Romaine Information for Contributors REVIEWS 539 545 ccclxxv QUARTERLY Founded 1966 Volume 38, Number 3 䊐 Autumn 2004 A Journal for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages and of Standard English as a Second Dialect Editor CAROL A. CHAPELLE, Iowa State University Guest Editors KATHRYN A. DAVIS, University of Hawai‘i ELLEN SKILTON-SYLVESTER, Arcadia University Associate Editor A. SURESH CANAGARAJAH, Baruch College, City University of New York Teaching Issues Editor BONNY NORTON, University of British Columbia Brief Reports and Summaries Editors CATHIE ELDER, Monash University PAULA GOLOMBEK, Pennsylvania State University Assistant Editor CRAIG A. TRIPLETT, TESOL Central Office Assistant to the Editor LILY COMPTON, Iowa State University Editorial Advisory Board Alister Cumming, University of Toronto Pauline Gibbons, University of Technology, Sydney Greta Gorsuch, Texas Tech University Constant Leung, Kings College London John Levis, Iowa State University Jo A. Lewkowicz, University of Hong Kong Patsy Lightbown, Harwich, MA Brian Lynch, Portland State University Paul Kei Matsuda, University of New Hampshire Lourdes Ortega, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa Charlene Polio, Michigan State University James E. Purpura, Teachers College, Columbia University Peter Robinson, Aoyama Gakuin University Miyuki Sasaki, Nagoya Gakuin University Norbert Schmitt, University of Nottingham Ali Shehadeh, King Saud University Mack Shelley, Iowa State University Elaine Tarone, University of Minnesota Kelleen Toohey, Simon Fraser University Jessica Williams, University of Illinois at Chicago Additional Readers Theresa Austin; Christine Casanave; Patsy Duff; Margaret Gebhard; Angel Lin; Sandra McKay; Suhanthie Motha; Bonny Norton; Aneta Pavlenko; Lucinda Pease-Alvarez; Sandra R. Schecter; Jane Sunderland; Kelleen Toohey; Stephanie Vandrick; Karen Watson-Gegeo; Shelley Wong Credits Advertising arranged by Sherry Harding, TESOL Central Office, Alexandria, Virginia U.S.A. Typesetting by Capitol Communication Systems, Inc., Crofton, Maryland U.S.A. Printing and binding by Pantagraph Printing, Bloomington, Illinois U.S.A. Copies of articles that appear in the TESOL Quarterly are available through ISI Document Solution, 3501 Market Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104 U.S.A. Copyright © 2004 Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. REVIEWS ccclxxiii US ISSN 0039-8322 (print), ISSN 1545-7249 (online) is an international professional organization for those concerned with the teaching of English as a second or foreign language and of standard English as a second dialect. TESOL’s mission is to ensure excellence in English language teaching to speakers of other languages. TESOL encourages professionalism in language education; individual language rights; accessible, high quality education; collaboration in a global community; and interaction of research and reflective practice for educational improvement. Information about membership and other TESOL services is available from TESOL Central Office at the address below. TESOL Quarterly is published in Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. Contributions should be sent to the Editor or the appropriate Section Editors at the addresses listed in the Information for Contributors section. Publishers’ representative is Paul Gibbs, Director of Publications. All material in TESOL Quarterly is copyrighted. Copying without the permission of TESOL, beyond the exemptions specified by law, is an infringement involving liability for damages. Reader Response You can respond to the ideas expressed in TESOL Quarterly by writing directly to editors and staff at tq@tesol.org. This will be a read-only service, but your opinions and ideas will be read regularly. You may comment on the topics raised in The Forum on an interactive bulletin board at http://communities.tesol.org/⬃tq. TESOL Home Page You can find out more about TESOL services and publications by accessing the TESOL home page on the World Wide Web at http://www.tesol.org/. Advertising in all TESOL publications is arranged by Sherry Harding, TESOL Central Office, 700 South Washington Street, Suite 200, Alexandria, Virginia 22314 USA, Tel. 703-836-0774. Fax 703-836-7864. E-mail tesol@tesol.org. OFFICERS AND BOARD OF DIRECTORS 2004–2005 President MICHELE J. SABINO University of Houston– Downtown Houston, TX USA President-Elect ELLIOT JUDD University of Illinois at Chicago Chicago, IL USA Past President AMY SCHLESSMAN Evaluation, Instruction, Design Tucson, AZ USA Northern Arizona University Flagstaff, AZ USA Treasurer MARTHA EDMONDSON Washington, DC USA Mary Ann Boyd Illinois State University (Emerita) Towanda, IL USA Christine Coombe Dubai Men’s College Dubai, United Arab Emirates Ays*egül Dalog¨lu Middle East Technical University Ankara, Turkey Eric Dwyer Florida International University Miami, FL USA Bill Eggington Brigham Young University Provo, UT USA Liz England American University in Cairo Cairo, Egypt Mabel Gallo Instituto Cultural Argentino Norteamericano Buenos Aires, Argentina ccclxxvi Aileen Gum City College San Diego, CA USA Lía D. Kamhi-Stein California State University Los Angeles, CA USA Anne V. Martin ESL Consultant/Instructor Syracuse, NY USA Mary Lou McCloskey Atlanta, GA USA JoAnn Miller EFL Consultant Mexico City, Mexico Suchada Nimmannit Chulalangkorn University Language Institute Bangkok, Thailand Executive Director/Secretary CHARLES S. AMOROSINO, JR. Alexandria, VA USA TESOL QUARTERLY QUARTERLY Founded 1966 Editor’s Note I would like to thank Kathryn A. Davis and Ellen Skilton-Sylvester for editing this special issue of TESOL Quarterly, which explores the issues concerning gender in language education and charts directions for future research in this area. Readers will benefit from their skillful selection and editing of articles that express a range of research results and perspectives. In anticipation of completing my term as editor of TESOL Quarterly with the next issue, I direct contributors to submit manuscripts to the new editor, A. Suresh Canagarajah, at ■ Box B6–247 Baruch College of the City University of New York One Bernard Baruch Way New York, NY 10010 At the same time, Roberta Vann will be ending her term as reviews editor. Book reviews should be sent to the new reviews editor, Adrian Holliday, at Department of Language Studies Canterbury Christ Church University College Canterbury CT1 1QU, UK Carol A. Chapelle In This Issue We would like to thank the authors and reviewers of this special issue on gender and language education for their intellectual insight, collegiality, and efficiency. We especially thank Amy Yamashiro for her thoughtful contributions in conceptualizing the issue and reviewing the initial submissions. Our appreciation goes to Leonor Briscoe who tirelessly kept multiple drafts of manuscripts and reviewer comments organized and who gently reminded us all when deadlines were approaching. The overview article ■ IN THIS ISSUE Vol. 38, No. 3, Autumn 2004 TESOL QUARTERLY 377 greatly benefited from comments from Thea Abu El-Haj, Andrea Maeda, Su Motha, Bonny Norton, Aneta Pavlenko, Kathy Schultz, Steven Talmy, and Stephanie Vandrick. It has been a pleasure to work on this issue of TESOL Quarterly, and we hope that the writing here will spark many valuable conversations, ideas for research and teaching, and visions for linking theory and practice in meaningful and powerful ways. The issue begins with our overview on gender research and pedagogical approaches that inform TESOL. We then introduce contributions to the volume by indicating how they represent broader dialogues about directions in second language acquisition, applied linguistics, and TESOL. The articles report on research that explores gender in three quite different language teaching and learning contexts: a diverse set of universities in Japan; the homes, classrooms, and workplaces of Laotian adult immigrants in the United States and Laos; and a kindergarten classroom in the United States that includes Spanish-speaking bilingual children. • Andrea Simon-Maeda argues that gender cannot be viewed as a freefloating attribute of individual subjectivities but rather must be examined as one of many components in an ever-evolving network of personal, social, and cultural circumstances. Based on life history narratives of EFL teachers in Japan, her article presents a complex representation of female teachers’ lives and in so doing, challenges and expands prevalent TESOL education theories about career trajectories in the field. This study also highlights how the participants engage with sociocultural circumstances in the face of ideological constraints, construct their educator identities accordingly, and mobilize available resources to contest oppressive forces in their professional lives. • Drawing on a multisite ethnographic study that spans educational, domestic, and workplace contexts in the United States and Laos, Daryl Gordon investigates the interplay between gender identity shifts and second language socialization, documenting the process by which working class Lao women and men redefine gender identities in the United States. She convincingly documents theoretical, empirical, and practical reasons why the study of gender and language teaching and learning must be more than the study of women and must move beyond the classroom. Gordon also offers suggestions for reimagining adult ESL teaching practices in light of her findings. • Barbara Hruska investigates the ways that relationships and interaction are mediated through gender and shape language learning opportunities for English language learners. Through a microanalysis of the interactions, relationships, and ideologies operating in a kindergarten classroom, Hruska’s study shows how understanding the gendered nature of the language learning process requires attending to critical factors beyond language. She argues that TESOL instructors and researchers cannot treat gender simply as a fixed, independent vari- 378 TESOL QUARTERLY able with universal outcomes; rather, they must pay attention to local contexts and the language learning consequences for local participants. Also in this issue: • The Forum: This special issue has an expanded Forum section with four substantial pieces that focus on the complexity of theorizing gender in TESOL as well as understanding gendered teaching and research practices in the field. Angel Lin, Rachel Grant, Ryuko Kubota, Suhanthie Motha, Gertrude Tinker Sachs, Stephanie Vandrick, and Shelley Wong use personal narrative and theoretical insights to highlight some of the gendered, raced, and classed hierarchies that women faculty of color in TESOL have encountered and to suggest how these hierarchies might be dismantled for the benefit of individual faculty and the future of the field. Bonny Norton and Aneta Pavlenko discuss a variety of innovative, gendered teaching practices found in ESL and EFL classrooms, focusing on the diversity of classroom contexts and approaches as well as on the emancipatory potential of the work that these teachers and learners produced. Barbara Schmenk takes on the widespread assumption that women are inherently better language learners than men, debunking this stereotypical view that reinforces essentialist gender positions and limits our understanding of how gendered identities affect language learning. Annie Brown and Tim McNamara discuss the impact of gender in language assessment, highlighting the methodological history of this research. They discuss the need for a range of quantitative and qualitative methods that allow for complex understandings of gender in test discourse and suggest how these multiple methods can contribute to knowledge that addresses the complex, socially constructed and locally contingent character of gendered language use in face-to-face interaction. • Reviews and Book Notices: Stephanie Vandrick reviews and compares four books on language and gender: Gender in the Language Classroom (Monika Chavez), Language and Gender (Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet), Gender Identity and Discourse Analysis (Lita Litosseliti and Jane Sunderland, Eds.), and Communicating Gender (Suzanne Romaine). Kathryn A. Davis and Ellen Skilton-Sylvester IN THIS ISSUE 379 Looking Back, Taking Stock, Moving Forward: Investigating Gender in TESOL KATHRYN A. DAVIS University of Hawai‘i Honolulu, Hawai‘i, United States ELLEN SKILTON-SYLVESTER Arcadia University Glenside, Pennsylvania, United States This article offers a historical overview, explores current trends, and suggests future directions of gender research and pedagogical approaches that inform TESOL. It highlights key theories, research paradigms, and subjects of study that contribute to SLA knowledge while addressing inequitable gendered social, pedagogical, and linguistic relationships in and out of ESL and EFL classrooms. The article also introduces the contributions to this volume by indicating how they represent broader dialogues about directions in second language acquisition, applied linguistics, and TESOL. I n 1996, Willett posed the question in TESOL Quarterly, “Why has the TESOL profession taken so long to examine gender?” (p. 344). Since Willett’s challenge, scholars concerned with English language teaching have explored a broad range of topics and issues related to gender, including the relationship between gender and language or discourse (Goddard & Patterson, 2000; Litosseliti & Sunderland, 2002); the special concerns and issues of immigrant women (Frye, 1999; Goldstein, 1995, 2001; Kouritzin, 2000; Norton, 2000; Rivera, 1999); and women’s needs and voices in EFL situations (Lin et al., this issue; McMahill, 1997, 2001; Saft & Ohara, 2004; Simon-Maeda, this issue). Gender studies during the past decade have reflected a trend in TESOL and its parent disciplines, applied linguistics and second language acquisition (SLA), toward embracing social and cultural perspectives in understanding language learning and teaching. This shift in second language research from the positivistic conceptualization of gender as an individual variable to a constructivist view of gender as social relations operating within complex TESOL QUARTERLY Vol. 38, No. 3, Autumn 2004 381 systems has led to richer understandings of the relations between gender and language learning across societies, communities, and classrooms (see Norton & Pavlenko, 2004). Yet although the state of the art presents changing research philosophies and practices, traditional gender perspectives, such as the superiority of female language learners, persist among TESOL educators (Sunderland, 2000). To travel the distance between research on gender and the possibilities and practicalities of gender in language education, we have mapped the terrain of past and current inquiries while envisioning future directions. LOOKING BACK Research on language and gender and theoretical shifts in the field result from real-world changes brought about by political movements and therefore represent not only differences in academic perspectives on gender and language, but also changes across time in how gender and language are perceived to work in the world (Cameron, 2004). In the early 1970s, the feminist political movement that brought widespread attention to inequitable power relations among men and women also inspired gender studies in applied linguistics. Most subsequent applied linguistics research on language and gender focused on three major theories: deficit theory, the dominance framework, and the difference framework. The deficit theory reflects Lakoff’s (1973) work on language and women’s place. These studies emphasized the perceived negative aspects of women’s speech in contrast to the perceived normative language of men. In her analysis of verbal hygiene, Cameron (1995) reviews a history of pressure exerted on women to monitor and clean up their deficient language practice. In the mid 1970s, researchers adopted a dominance framework and began linking negative evaluations of women’s language to their social domination by men (Bergvall, 1999). Studies of gendered language structures and language use (Coates & Cameron, 1988; Philips, 1980; Philips, Steele, & Tanz, 1987; Tannen, 1996; Thorne, Kramarae, & Henley, 1983) suggested that men gain and maintain power over women in social interaction, for example, by interrupting and overlapping women’s speech, using a high volume of words, or by denigrating women. Research and activism in this area led to widespread adoption of guidelines for nonsexist English language usage (Cooper, 1989; Nichols, 1999). In the early 1980s, the difference framework, also known as the dualculture model, emerged as an alternative to the dominance model. The difference framework suggests that girls and boys are socialized into different ways of relating to one another in their predominately same-sex 382 TESOL QUARTERLY interactions and, thus, acquire different communicative styles. According to this model, if communication breaks down between men and women, it’s a matter of misinterpreting the other’s form of interaction (Tannen, 1993, 1996). By the mid to late 1980s, the difference model had come to include a celebrating-difference component that valued the positive aspects of women’s unique communicative styles. SLA studies specifically focused on gender differences in conversational style (Gass & Veronis, 1986; Losey, 1995; Pica, Holliday, Lewis, Berducci, & Newman, 1992), quantity of talk (Sunderland, 1992), and learning styles and strategies (Oxford, 1993; Willing, 1988). Although gender researchers and theorists (e.g., Cameron, 1990; Coates, 1993; Freed, 1995; Holmes, 1991; McElhinny, 1993) acknowledge earlier contributions, they have recently argued that gender behaviors are neither predictable nor universal. Studies subsequently began to shift from viewing gender as an individual and generalizable trait to viewing gender as a social construction within specific cultural and situational contexts (Eckert & McConnell-Ginet, 1992; Measor & Sikes, 1992; Sunderland, 1994; Thorne, 1993; Toohey & Scholefield, 1994; Willett, 1995; Wilson-Keenan, Solsken, & Willett, 1998). For example, in her study of a kindergarten classroom, Willett (1995) found that a male student’s locally mediated social isolation limited his language development and academic success, whereas the friendship and shared resources of three female students led to positive learning outcomes. The constructivist position views gender as a joint process among participants who create or reproduce social hierarchies through everyday interaction (Eckert & McConnell-Ginet). Theorists such as Connell (1987), Simon-Maeda (this issue), and Wodak (1997) also suggest that although gender behaviors change over time and are shaped by political and economic forces, sexist practices may persist and become institutionalized because they benefit those who hold power. Most feminist theorists and researchers now recognize that the difference, dominance, and dual-culture models are insufficient and, in some cases, damaging to emancipatory practices. Although SLA researchers and English language teachers still use these models to understand how gender affects language teaching and learning, this special issue represents a general shift in SLA from essentialist, positivist research on language learning to constructivist studies that acknowledge the historical, political, social, and cultural aspects of language learning. As we highlight this significant paradigm shift in taking stock of gender and language education, we want to echo Cameron’s (2004) point that there is no universal agreement on the conceptualization and investigation of language and gender and that multiple, often conflicting orientations overlap and intersect in the field. LOOKING BACK, TAKING STOCK, MOVING FORWARD 383 TAKING STOCK Although the current literature on gender and language education covers a broad range of topics, theories, practices, research approaches, and epistemological positions, these issues can be represented by three themes: (a) shifting conceptual frameworks and research paradigms, (b) expanding research purposes and tools, and (c) promoting praxis. Shifting Conceptual Frameworks and Research Paradigms SLA research and practice still perpetuate notions that gender differences can be reified, known once and for all, and are uniform across language learning contexts. For example, a number of theorists and researchers (Ehrman & Oxford, 1990; Ellis, 1994; Oxford, 1993) continue to assume female superiority in development. In a textbook on SLA research, Larsen-Freeman and Long (1991) report the generally accepted belief that females display a rate advantage, at least in the beginning stages of first language acquisition, and they cite two studies (Eisenstein, 1982; Farhady, 1982) showing female superiority in some aspects of SLA. Essentializing notions of language and gender have been the subject of numerous critiques. Ehrlich (1997), for example, argues that the biological and dualistic conceptions of gender that underlie much (past) work in second language acquisition exaggerate and overgeneralize differences between women and men, in addition to ignoring the social, cultural, and situational forces that shape gender categories, relations, and learner outcomes (p. 426). Schmenk (this issue) suggests that Instead of looking at what males are like and what females are like and constructing generalized images of male and female language learners as groups accordingly, critical voices note that language learners are themselves constantly engaged in constructing and reconstructing their identities in specific contexts and communities. (p. 513) Research on complex, multiple, and co-constructed identities operating in research studies and classrooms can reveal, for example, patterns that have been ascribed to women also appearing in the speech of men (and vice versa). In other words, many of the assumptions about who uses what forms have little to do with gender. The persistence of essentializing and dichotomizing gender research, despite theoretical critiques and evidence to the contrary, is most likely due to scholars’ underlying ontological and epistemological positions. SLA scholars who adhere to a positivist or postpositivist research tradi384 TESOL QUARTERLY tion that values the search for reality (or an approximation of reality1) and the belief that findings can be generalized may reject constructivist, critical-feminist, and poststructuralist research paradigms as unscientific.2 Lin et al. (this issue) suggest that positivistic philosophy was born from Enlightenment assumptions that “the ideal agent of knowledge, the ideal scientist, is a transhistorical, unitary, individual and a disembodied mind, whose scientific endeavors are not supposed to be in any significant ways shaped or constituted by their historical, social, cultural, and institutional contexts and locations” (p. 495). Lin et al. go on to describe SLA research’s common concern with how to “operationalize and quantify (i.e., define and measure in numerals) human and social phenomena (e.g., language learning and teaching) in terms of variables and to verify hypotheses about the relationships (e.g., causal or correlational relationships) among different variables” (p. 495). Yet applied linguists, SLA scholars, and the gender specialists represented or cited in this special issue are increasingly moving away from Modernist research frameworks toward richer understandings of the relationships between gender and language learning across societies, communities, and classrooms.3 Watson-Gegeo (2001) claims that a paradigm shift from positivism to constructivism, critical-feminism, and poststructuralism has already occurred in SLA. This shift is not only reflected in current mainstream research taking place in Great Britain, the United States, Canada, and Australia (e.g., Cameron, Frazer, Harvey, Rampton, & Richardson, 1992; Crookes & Lehner, 1998; Duff, 2002; McKay & Wong, 1996; Norton, 2000), but also on the periphery of teaching and learning English as a foreign language in non-Western settings (Canagarajah, 2002; Pavlenko, Blackledge, Piller, & Teutsch-Dwyer, 2001). As scholars such as Freed (1995) and Kitetu and Sunderland (2002) note, Western theory and research focused on adult, middle class, and white populations that have dominated SLA literature are biased in failing to represent other social and cultural contexts. Non-Western SLA scholars (e.g., Canagarajah 1999; Lin et al., this volume) along with those interested in immigrant, refugee, indigenous, and K–12 populations (e.g., Duff, 2002; Duff, 1 According to Hatch (2002), postpositivist qualitative researchers “are critical realists who subject truth claims to close critical scrutiny in order to maximize chances of apprehending reality as closely as possible” (p. 14). 2 The division and defining characteristics of paradigms are in many ways problematic; e.g., they may overlap to a great extent and researchers may draw on characteristics and methods from several paradigms. Yet we have decided to use positivist, postpositivist, constructivist, critical-feminist, and poststructuralist frameworks to promote discussion of the use of these paradigms in applied linguistics, SLA, and TESOL. 3 The paradigm shift occurring in gender and language studies and, more generally, in SLA has certainly been influenced by earlier postmodern and feminist work in fields such as education, sociology, anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and women’s studies. LOOKING BACK, TAKING STOCK, MOVING FORWARD 385 Wong, & Early, 2002; Harklau, 1994; McKay & Wong, 1996; Valdés, 1998) are increasingly criticizing studies that ignore situated values and practices. The shift toward constructivist and feminist-critical paradigms is evident in recent emphasis on the centrality of social relationships in gender theorizing and research. As Connell (2002) suggests: The key is to move from a focus on difference to a focus on relations. Gender is, above all, a matter of the social relations within which groups and individuals act. . . . Gender relations do include difference and dichotomy, but also include many other patterns. . . . Gender must be understood as a social structure. It is not an expression of biology, nor a fixed dichotomy in human life or character. It is a pattern in our social arrangements and in everyday activities or practices which those arrangements govern. (p. 9) There are several examples of SLA research that have moved beyond the traditional dichotomies by examining social relations. Goldstein’s (1995) ethnographic study of Portuguese immigrant women in Toronto illustrates the complex relationships among language acquisition, gender, and social context. These Portuguese women’s gendered roles within their community constrained opportunities to develop English proficiency, which, in turn, restricted their participation in the labor market. The factory jobs they were able to obtain further discouraged the use and acquisition of English. Norton (1997, 2000; Norton Peirce, 1995) shows how unequal power relationships inherent in ethnic, gender, and class differences limited the opportunities for five immigrant women to practice English. Cumming and Gill (1991) demonstrate social, cultural, and political reasons that twice as many immigrant women as men fail to acquire Canada’s official languages, English and French. Skilton-Sylvester (2002) illustrates the ways that Cambodian women’s relationships—as workers, mothers, and spouses—fundamentally influence their participation in adult ESL programs and consequently their language learning opportunities. Gordon (this issue) and Hruska (this issue) consider how gender operates in relations between spouses, among students, and between teachers and students within community and school contexts to shape English language learning. Constructivist, critical-feminist, and poststructuralist research paradigms now dominate studies of language and gender education. These paradigms suggest that specific language forms convey different meanings and accomplish diverse communicative functions depending on the speaker, the setting, the cultural context, and the interactions of ethnicity, class, gender, power, sexual orientation, and a wide array of other social phenomena (Freed, 1995). Gordon (this issue) reflects a profound shift in thinking about SLA by using the terms second language socialization and second language acquisition interchangeably. Specialists in the field (e.g., 386 TESOL QUARTERLY Eckert & McConnell-Ginet, 1992) argue that research on language and gender should • explain how social practices relate to linguistic structures and systems • describe the social construction of gender categories • examine how gender relations and privilege are constructed • consider theories and approaches from other communities of scholarly practice, especially those specifically concerned with gender • focus on the particular rather than (over) generalize. Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (1998) specifically call for research that takes into account the complexity of the intersection of identity (including gender), power relations, and linguistic practices: In the course of engaging with others, . . . people collaboratively construct a sense of themselves and of others as certain kinds of persons, as members of various communities with various forms of membership, authority, and privilege in those communities. In all of these, language interacts with other symbolic systems—dress, body adornment, ways of moving, gaze, touch, handwriting style, locales for hanging out, and so on. And the selves constructed are not simply (or even primarily) gendered selves: they are unemployed, Asian American, lesbian, college-educated, post-menopausal selves in a variety of relations to other people. Language is never encountered without other symbol systems, and gender is always joined with real people’s complex forms of participation in the communities to which they belong (or have belonged or expect to join). Individuals may experience the language and gender interface differently in the different communities in which they participate at a given time or at different stages of their lives. (p. 486) Freed (1995, p. 3) suggests that this recognition of the complex, interactive, and socioculturally specific nature of language and gender indicates the need for language studies within genuine communicative contexts and increased collaboration among linguists, sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists, philosophers, communication specialists, educators, and feminists. Among feminist-critical and poststructuralist scholars’ most important contributions to gender and language education is their focus on the effects of power relations. Research on power relations can reveal real or perceived strategic appeals to differences and document ways in which gender differences are constructed in interaction. Hruska (this issue) draws on Fairclough (1989, 1992) to understand the ideological conflict that may arise when various social groups enter into power relations with each other. She points out that analysis of power and identity dynamics can create conscious awareness of these dynamics and help teachers LOOKING BACK, TAKING STOCK, MOVING FORWARD 387 move toward curricular and pedagogical choices that transform unjust practices. Constructivist, feminist, and critical research paradigms have not only influenced what is studied and how the relationship between gender and TESOL is conceptualized, but also the purposes of research and the methods used to collect and analyze data. Expanding Research Purposes and Tools Gender and language education research has moved from focusing on research that is valued within the SLA field to studies that value teachers and learners. For some time, many SLA scholars respected only studies based on positivist or postpositivist assumptions. Real science for these researchers comprises experimental or quasiexperimental design, surveys, and postpositivist qualitative studies. Setting up such a hierarchy, however, ignores the wide-range of contributions made through other paradigms and excludes research participants’ diverse experiences, thereby creating conditions for inaccurate, inequitable, and discriminatory outcomes. For example, Brown and McNamara (this issue) point out technical problems of ignoring variation in the realm of assessment and suggest “the potential for the differential and unequal treatment of candidates in language tests on the basis of gender” (p. 523). Those who have investigated standardized testing bias have long acknowledged the political nature and ethical problems inherent in judging those who differ from mainstream social, cultural, ethnic, and class backgrounds (Gee, 1996; Valdés & Figueroa, 1994). Testing specialists and a growing number of others associated with TESOL studies (e.g., Shohamy, 2001) now commonly acknowledge the need for multiple research approaches. A hierarchy of preferred research approaches, topics, and participants can also result in discrimination against educational practitioners. Markee (1994) and Lin et al. (this issue) describe how SLA professionals experience “systematic, institutional suppression of research and teaching on minority and diversity issues” (p. 497). For example, they reveal that senior staff identified research by minority scholars on marginalized groups—as opposed to the adult, middle-class, and White populations that have dominated SLA literature—as “repetitive” and “trivial” (p. 497). This hierarchical tendency extends to TESOL professionals’ jobs. Lin et al. (this issue) identify a “gendered and racialized division of labor” in TESOL. “Those who teach future ESOL professors and researchers are at the top, those who teach future ESOL teachers come next, and those who teach ESOL are at the bottom” (p. 496). 388 TESOL QUARTERLY Applied linguistics, SLA, and by association, TESOL, have begun to value learners and educators by recognizing the theoretical and ethical contributions of naturalistic and transformative methods with marginalized and EFL populations. Many scholars (e.g., Olesen, 2000) also advocate studies for, with, or by rather than about, participants. Hruska (this issue), for example, who investigates second language development among minority students while practicing as an ESL kindergarten teacher, both contributes to SLA theory and draws on findings to initiate a transformative agenda. Her ethnographic study describes how “gender ideologies, gender constructions, and related behaviors . . . interacted with bilingualism, ethnicity, and friendships in ways that emphasized unequal power relations or shaped participation in classroom events,” which, in turn, affected the students’ second language development (p. 462). Hruska calls for teacher research on classroom interaction in English language teaching contexts around the world and observes that “teacher researchers are often more willing to engage in research and to accept findings that emerge from analyzing their own local contexts and configurations (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993).” Postmodern paradigms have additionally promoted the use of multiple and alternative methods leading to more complex SLA theory, situated instructional practices, and transformative education. For example, using such quantitative methods as surveys, statistical analyses, and document analyses from a poststructuralist position can show how political, economic, and other social factors affect language development across classrooms and communities (e.g., Thomas & Collier, 2002). Postmodern research designs have also generated innovative methods such as life history and other forms of narrative inquiry that inform language and identity theories (e.g., Simon-Maeda, this issue; Lin et al., this issue). In addition, language researchers commonly combine methods, such as ethnography and discourse analysis (e.g., Hruska, this issue), and explore the complex language and identity constructions operating through participation in multiple sites and across issues and situations (e.g., Gordon, this issue). Gordon not only conducted research at work, classroom, and community sites in the United States, but also traveled to Laos to better understand the cultural traditions and, thus, the identity changes that occurred among male and female Lao participants after they arrived in the United States. A constructionist approach in gender and language research additionally enables researchers to combine quantitative and qualitative methods. For example, McNamara (1999) considers validity in language assessment using Butler’s (1990, 1993) notions of gender as social construct and performativity. Olesen (2000) summarizes changes in feminist studies brought about by postmodernism as LOOKING BACK, TAKING STOCK, MOVING FORWARD 389 [an] increasing complexity in the feminist research enterprise: the nature of research, the definition of and relationship with those with whom research is done, the characteristics and location of the researcher, and the very creation and presentation of knowledge created in the research. (p. 217)4 The paradigmatic shifts and research forms described here and modeled in this issue’s contributions suggest exciting new directions not only for gender studies but also for second language studies as a whole. TESOL, applied linguistics, and SLA scholars are more frequently conducting research that is valued by teachers and learners across populations and situations rather than research that is respected only by some academics. One of the most promising avenues of research from this grassroots perspective combines the study of social, political, and linguistic phenomena with educational and social transformation. Promoting Praxis TESOL professionals and researchers from SLA and applied linguistics have sought the most effective practices for teaching English to speakers of other languages. Yet Lin et al. (this issue) point out that a more urgent task seems to be finding situated, dialogic ways of teaching and learning English . . . for relatively constraint-free understanding and communication among people coming from very different locations (geographical and/or social) and with very different sociocultural experiences (see Wong, forthcoming; Lin & Luk, forthcoming). (p. 501) This call for praxis, what Freire (1970) has described as the critical combination of both action and reflection in transformative education, suggests the need to expand SLA to include research on language and cultural diversity and to promote social justice (Lin et al., this issue). Norton and Pavlenko (this issue) provide an excellent overview of how educators have critically addressed gender in the English language teaching classroom, including the following: flexible curricula that recognize the diversity of the students’ needs; shared decision-making in the classroom; teaching and learning that incorporate 4 Much that has been written about how to conduct postmodern research can also be applied to research on gender and language education and other SLA studies. For example, Hatch (2002) provides an excellent overview of designing, carrying out, and reporting qualitative research in education settings from postpositivist, constructivist, feminist-critical, and poststructural paradigms. In addition, Denzin and Lincoln’s (2000) handbook explores postmodern qualitative research issues, methods, and future directions. 390 TESOL QUARTERLY students’ life trajectories; pedagogy that locates student experiences and beliefs within larger social contexts; and practices that encourage students to imagine alternative ways of being in the world. (p. 508) In addition to curricular and pedagogical changes, Gordon (this issue) calls for ESL texts that meet the real needs of immigrants and their families, such as those by Auerbach (1992, 1995) and Weinstein (1992, 1999), which offer language learners guidance in negotiating complicated social systems and assistance in acquiring relevant literacy practices. Hruska (this issue) directly addresses inequalities that result from sexist or limiting gender practices. She observes that because gender is not “fixed and can change over time . . . (Connell, 1987; Flax, 1987; Wodak, 1997)” (p. 481), discriminatory constructions are transformable. Acknowledging the work of Wilson-Keenan et al. (1998), Hruska recommends a critically oriented pedagogy in which students identify and change discriminatory or limiting practices (see also Benesch, 2001; Morgan, 1998). Simon-Maeda (this issue) discusses efforts to transform sexist and discriminatory conditions outside English language classrooms. She notes that her Japan study participants stand up against racist practices by recruiting non-White, nonnative EFL teachers and by developing cultural studies and EFL programs that raise awareness of gendered, sexual, classed, linguistic, and sociocultural identities and associated discriminatory practices. Lin et al. (this issue) point out the need to address TESOL’s complicity in contributing to the hegemonic spread of English in different parts of the world (see also Canagarajah, 1999; Pennycook, 1994; Phillipson, 1992). Yet, although many researchers, theorists, and educators have become comfortable with the postmethods era and the need for English teaching to be about much more than language, teachers are still often in situations that privilege test driven achievement in English and provide little time for reflective practice. The realities of teaching often require yes or no answers that support essentialist gender paradigms. “Are girls better than boys at x?” is not so different from “Is x method better than another?” In addition to encouraging teachers to move beyond these dichotomies, teacher educators are responsible for being aware of the constraints that future teachers will face. The notion of critical pragmatism (Benesch, 2001; Cherryholmes, 1988) addresses the need to acknowledge teacher constraints while moving toward transformative agendas. Benesch suggests that although decisions in TESOL are often made on a completely practical basis, teachers, researchers, and students need to engage in a critical pragmatism that addresses inequity while teaching and learning within contexts that LOOKING BACK, TAKING STOCK, MOVING FORWARD 391 ignore that inequity.5 Transformative education also means moving beyond the usual relationship between theory and practice, where theory drives practice. Critically pragmatic practices demand a practicetheory relationship where practice also drives theory, or as Dewey suggests, where ises (the realities of classroom practice) turn into oughts (as cited in Doll, 1993, p. 162). MOVING FORWARD Future directions in gender and language education involve pushing the boundaries of both research and pedagogy while seeking ways to reimagine knowledge creation in the field and build and sustain innovative practices. Pushing the Boundaries Although developments beyond positivist research and teaching appear in the literature in many ways, three prominent trends provide the basis for future inquiry: (a) moving out of classrooms, (b) investigating English language learning within the context of multilingualism, and (c) looking beyond language. It is not surprising that TESOL has focused on classrooms. After all, the very name of the field emphasizes teaching, and the most common home of teaching is the classroom. Yet the need for alternative perspectives is evident in, for example, Pavlenko and Piller’s (2001) review of gender and multilingualism, which emphasizes learning. A learning focus requires investigating contexts both inside and outside of classrooms and considering what the New London group (1996) calls students’ lifeworlds —ways of being in the world. Skilton-Sylvester (2002), for example, points out in her study of the adult Cambodians the need for teachers to know how students’ gendered identities outside of school often determined their engagement with classroom learning and even their ability to come to class. Recent scholarship in literacy (e.g., Hull & Schultz, 2002) also shows that the active, literate lives of learners are often invisible inside classrooms. The New Literacy studies theorists 5 It is important to note here that critical pragmatism does not mean treating “power as property . . . something the teacher has and can give to students” (Gore, 1992, p. 57), which, thus, ignores student agency. Ellsworth (1989) also cautions against imposing a critical agenda on unwilling participants, resulting in a form of oppression. Critical theorists such as Ellsworth (1989), Gore (1993), and Weiler (1996) call for researchers and teacher educators to reflect on critical pedagogical practices that might silence rather than raise consciousness. 392 TESOL QUARTERLY (e.g., Street, 1995) advocate looking at language and literacy practices outside of classrooms as a way of developing pedagogical practices relevant to student experience. These studies suggest the need for critical and feminist pedagogical approaches that connect curriculum with the literate and gendered lives of students. TESOL can also push the boundaries of gender and English teaching and learning by exploring multilingual perspectives. As with teaching, although English defines the field, looking multilingually sheds new light on the complexity of what Skilton-Sylvester (2000) has called ethnigendered language practices (see also Pavlenko & Piller, 2001). Past ethnographic studies that explored the relationship between gender and multiple language use suggest possible implications for English teaching and learning. In an early study, Gal (1978) described the HungarianAustrian women she studied as language innovators because they symbolically escaped their social position as peasants by relinquishing Hungarian in favor of German. Hill (1987) provides a detailed account of gender differences in using Spanish and the indigenous language Mexicano in central Mexico. She found that the women in the study did not speak Spanish as well as men because they lacked access to wage labor, a context where Spanish is spoken. Yet women’s Mexicano had more Spanish characteristics (e.g., stress patterns) than men’s because they had less solidarity with their Mexicano identity than males. Working in Peru, Harvey (1994) found similarly complex patterns of gender differentiated acquisition of Spanish over Quechua. These studies suggest how the complex intersection of gender, identity, and language access impacts the acquisition of particular languages or language varieties. SLA research on multilingualism has been limited even though TESOL scholars (e.g. Auerbach, 1992, 1995; Thomas & Collier, 2002), bilingual educators (e.g., Nieto, 2000), and the TESOL’s ESL in Bilingual Education Interest Section have long advocated bi- and multilingualism in schools and classrooms. Recent studies that address the interconnections among gender, culture, schooling, and English language teaching and learning include Willett’s (1995) study of boys’ and girls’ language learning in an international school, Walker-Moffat’s (1995) research on Hmong girls, Skilton-Sylvester’s (1997) exploration of the school experiences of Cambodian girls, Valdés’s (1998) research on immigrant girls, and Hruska’s (this issue) examination of English/ Spanish bilingual kindergarteners. In addition, studies of hybridity by applied linguists promise to inform gender and language education research and practice. For example, Willett, Solsken, and Wilson-Keenan (1999) found that bilingual elementary school students were able to utilize their hybrid discourses and social identities in complex ways to foster effective interaction among students, teachers, and parents. Davis et al. (in press) describes how teachers avoided exclusionary practices LOOKING BACK, TAKING STOCK, MOVING FORWARD 393 and identity conflict among Hawai‘i high school students by valuing their hybrid use of English, Hawai‘i Creole English, and one or more heritage languages in both oral and written activities. Studies are clearly needed of the complex ways in which identity constructions, including gender, interconnect with dominant discourse practices to support or hinder English language learning. In addition to moving SLA research and ESOL pedagogy beyond the classroom and English language learning, pushing the boundaries in TESOL also means addressing power relations across societal contexts. For example, Polanyi (1995) documents how the sexual harassment that female students experienced in a study-abroad program in Russia crucially affected the foreign language input that they received and the types of output they learned to produce (p. 288). Polanyi points out that although a woman will be treated as a gendered individual in a language learning situation, proficiency examinations will test her listening and speaking as an ungendered person (p. 281). Kline’s (1993) ethnographic study of women in a French study-abroad program confirms the negative effects of sexual harassment (9 of the 19 participants were physically attacked) on second language oral development, bringing into question both the efficacy and the ethics of study-abroad programs for women in some contexts. Although, to our knowledge, studies of the impact of sexual harassment on English language acquisition have not been pursued, there is clearly a need for examining language learning in the context of discriminatory gendered relations. Examining gender discrimination also means refusing to tolerate inequitable practices operating within educational institutions and professional organizations. As described so cogently by Lin et al. (this issue) and Simon-Maeda (this issue), language scholars need to examine the explicit and implicit practices across a complex range of issues, ethnicities, and topics that negatively affect professional women in TESOL and related fields. Examining unequal power dynamics among second language educators also demands transformative attitudinal and policy changes to bring about respectful and just practices. Reimagining Knowledge Creation In her discussion of feminisms and qualitative research, Olesen (2000) talks about the centrality of voice and highlights key questions about how knowledge is constructed through research by asking: “Whose knowledges? Where and how obtained and by whom, for whom and for what purposes?” (emphasis in original; p. 217). Moving forward in understanding gender and TESOL will require looking at these ques394 TESOL QUARTERLY tions about knowledge construction while (a) expanding the voices that contribute to what we know and (b) analyzing the gendered social, rhetorical, and analytical structures that shape how and if new voices are heard. For example, the knowledge being created about gender and TESOL often does not reflect students’ own gendered representations of language teaching and learning. Although student perspectives are included in this volume and in the field at large, these student voices are typically seen through the researchers’ lens. In a provocative series of essays in which young women of color discuss third-wave feminism (Rehman & Hernandez, 2002), one contributor (Hurdis, 2002) discusses how her femaleness is connected to many different aspects of her evolving self. As a Korean woman adopted by a white American family, she explores ways in which she is profoundly affected by the differences between how she and others perceive her. She discusses the pain caused by the invisibility of her complex identity and suggests that to see her at all, others, including peers and adults, must embrace that complexity. The Rehman and Hernandez (2002) volume shows why TESOL professionals must include students’ perspectives as they seek to create an expanding base of knowledge about gender and English language teaching and learning. In much the same way that recent collections of essays by applied linguists of color (see Belcher & Connor , 2001; Braine, 1999; Canagarajah, 2002; Lin et al., this issue) have expanded ways of thinking about TESOL research, theory, and practice, gender-oriented essays written by students from different backgrounds and experiences could also reshape what counts in discussions of gender and TESOL. Yet simplistic notions of including voices can mask more subtle and powerful hierarchies and even reinforce them. At a time when gender and education researchers are being urged to include the experiences of boys and men as well as or instead of girls and women (Yates, 2000), structural analyses of gendered relations are needed to counter essentializing and discriminatory practices. Kuzmic (2000) illustrates how including women in social studies textbooks has merely reinforced traditional gender hierarchies that privilege maleness: The extensive coverage given to individual men provides a norm for thinking about history as the action of individuals, but not about masculinity. That their significance, their importance, and, indeed, their power as historical actors is somehow embedded in and connected to their gendered identity as men is made invisible through the focus on individual men rather than on the privileged position that men as men occupy. . . . By making women visible, men are made even less visible, but more central. It is precisely this invisibility of men and masculinity that serves to perpetuate ideological messages and perspectives that mask patriarchy. (pp. 111–112) LOOKING BACK, TAKING STOCK, MOVING FORWARD 395 Kuzmic further shows how indexes of history texts illustrate male invisibility when they list women as a category but not men. Other scholars (e.g., Hanke, 1992; Stoltenberg, 2000) have compared gender’s role in perpetuating inequality to the role of whiteness in maintaining the status quo in discussions of race. Cameron (2004) has suggested that this same tendency toward dominant invisibility has allowed heterosexual norms to remain unmarked, thus leaving unexamined the ways that heteronormativity influences our understandings of gender and language and reinforces unequal power relations. Yates (2000) argues that the primary and often exclusive focus on women and girls in qualitative educational research has further limited understanding of gender and schooling: A consideration of gender, by its nature, has involved the development of theories and frameworks for investigating how women and men and how femininity and masculinity work: their discursive construction, their patterns of achievement and life patterns, the meanings and implications of “gendered subjectivity” and so on. . . . Yet it is also true that the great bulk of empirical qualitative work on gender, pedagogy, subjectivity and schooling in the past two decades has studied girls rather than boys. Frameworks and theories might have been concerned with both, but the substantive “findings” and insights were not equally spread. . . . Much of the feminist literature on schools with which we were familiar (particularly the literature directed to school-based action) did treat girls in sensitive detail, while leaving boys as a more shadowy “other”; and treated masculinity as a more crudely sketched out discourse against which femininities were examined. (emphasis in original; pp. 316–317) Education researchers call for examining both masculinities and femininities while acknowledging, as Stoltenberg (2000) suggests, that “there cannot be both gender polarity and justice on earth. They cannot coexist” (pp. xiv). This inclusive and social equity position suggests that future research in SLA and applied linguistics needs to show how the gendered subjectivities of men and women are not polar opposites, but complex, multiple, interconnected, locally defined,6 and intrinsically connected to unequal power structures. Alongside gender, as SimonMaeda (this issue) points out, SLA researchers must consider heteronormative as well as gay, lesbian, and transgendered identities (Cameron & Kulick 2003; Eckert, 1994; Livia & Hall, 1997). Yet researchers need to do more than be inclusive in the populations they study; they need to see how their written representations of students and teachers may reinforce 6 As Cameron (2004) notes, “Masculinities and femininities are produced in specific contexts or ‘communities of practice,’ in relation to local social arrangements. No assumption [can be made] that the same patterns will be found universally” (from handout). 396 TESOL QUARTERLY and/or contest inequality and work toward creating and sustaining innovative practices that question the status quo. Creating and Sustaining Innovative Practices TESOL and other education scholars continue to discuss how critical and feminist pedagogies might build and sustain innovative practices (Norton & Toohey 2004; Pavlenko et al., 2001; Vandrick, 1994, 1995). Critical pedagogy has been criticized for not focusing on real classrooms but rather on imagined, ideal classrooms. Once again, critical pragmatism becomes salient in examining how TESOL professionals travel the distance between the possibilities and practicalities of teaching English as we think about gender and social justice. The language and education literature is increasingly providing models of critical and feminist pedagogical approaches. McMahill (2001), for instance, describes how her students’ lives and social change became central in her adult feminist English class in Japan. In a forthcoming edited volume, Pease-Alvarez and Schecter expand the range of visionary work on situated learning in various formal and informal settings, including schools, homes, workplaces, and peer and community networks, by providing models of education reform and community enhancement. One contribution to the Pease-Alvarez and Schecter volume (Davis, Cho, Ishida, Soria, & Bazzi, in press) describes how high school language minority students engaged in critical participatory investigations of social issues within their own communities. Students explored issues such as ethnicity, gender, and academic discrimination by conducting research and creating documentary films, which also enabled them to acquire the academic English skills they needed to succeed in school. A critical teacher education program must not only include models of critical-feminist approaches to teaching, but also engage preservice teachers in imagining a critical pragmatism that will enable them to address the gatekeeping hurdles, such as testing, that their students will face. Skilton-Sylvester recently received an e-mail from a former TESOL masters-level student in Korea who said, “I’m doing well, but I haven’t found a way to use the theories I learned in the U.S. to teach here” (personal communication, February 16, 2003). This lament among many graduates of SLA, applied linguistics, and TESOL programs suggests that TESOL professionals have much to do in addressing the social, political, and educational contexts in which new graduates will teach and helping preservice teachers translate critical and feminist theories into pedagogy for their own lived realities. Positioning teachers as creators rather than consumers of knowledge about language teaching is one way to remedy the mismatch between LOOKING BACK, TAKING STOCK, MOVING FORWARD 397 theories and situated practices. Teacher research as a form of professional development allows instructors to work out complex understandings of how gender, language, and education work in their own classrooms. Sustaining teacher research, however, takes significant time, energy, and support (Burns, 1999; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993; Freeman, 1998; Sunderland, 2000). Educational administrators and policy makers must allow time for teacher reflection and discussion of how multiple identities, including gender, affect language learning. As portrayed in this issue’s contributions, moving forward calls for engaged research and practice that is more closely aligned with the lives of real teachers and students across diverse settings and situations. It will entail critique of the status quo and reflection from all corners of the field to keep SLA researchers and TESOL professionals engaged in sustained dialogue about how gendered practices shape language teaching and learning. The recent research paradigm shift from positivist to constructivist and critical-feminist approaches challenge SLA to explore the situated and political nature of language learning. Teacher educators are correspondingly called to find new avenues for moving not from theory to practice but from practice to theory. And finally, moving forward will require SLA scholars, applied linguists, and TESOL professionals to expose and transform social injustice through research and pedagogical practices within classrooms, schools, communities, and society at large. THE AUTHORS Kathryn A. Davis is associate professor in the Department of Second Language Studies and director of the Center for Second Language Research at the University of Hawai‘i. 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Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. 404 TESOL QUARTERLY The Complex Construction of Professional Identities: Female EFL Educators in Japan Speak Out ANDREA SIMON-MAEDA Nagoya Keizai University, Japan This article reports on the life history narratives of nine female EFL teachers working in higher education in Japan. An interpretive qualitative analysis of the stories suggested that gender cannot be viewed as a free-floating attribute of individual subjectivities but rather must be seen as one of many components in an ever-evolving network of personal, social, and cultural circumstances. Consequently, this study does not provide a unitary description of how gender intersects with English language teaching and learning. It offers a more complicated version of female teachers’ lives, and in so doing, it challenges and expands prevalent TESOL education theories that do not fully address the confusions and transitions in teachers’ career trajectories. I was especially interested in how, in the face of ideological constraints, the participants engaged with sociocultural circumstances, constructed their identities as educators, and mobilized available resources to contest oppressive forces in their professional lives. The in-depth, openended life history interviews enabled me to write and to understand work identities dialogically. Using local social actors’ narratives to foreground how their interpretations of work contexts interrelate with hegemonic ideologies provides access points that will help the field reconceptualize TESOL’s goals. INTRODUCTION I teach English at a conservative Japanese university in Osaka. I’m full-time and have tenure, and after 12 years, I’ve been promoted to full professor. I’m already known as a feminist, a union-member, and a troublemaker, and for that reason some faculty like me and some don’t, so I have nothing to lose now, right? During the last couple of years at the university, I have come out to selected professors and students. So far it hasn’t caused any problems, and it’s made me feel much closer to those I’ve come out to. They seem to find it interesting and admire my courage in telling them, but I haven’t come out to those people I dislike or those with whom I’ve been in conflict. I’ll probably TESOL QUARTERLY Vol. 38, No. 3, Autumn 2004 405 continue slowly coming out to students and teachers when I’m in the mood and the right occasion arises. My goal is that everyone at the school knows, though I’m still afraid of the school big shots hearing that I’ve actually said “I’m a lesbian” in the classroom. (Message posted to Nihon Dykenet, 2002) T he stories in this study provided a rich site for examining the striking range of possibilities and constraints in the careers of female EFL educators in Japan. Although employed near the top of Japan’s educational hierarchy, Western and non-Western participants spoke out about serious encounters with professional discrimination. Gendered discrepancies are most visible in Japanese politics and education, where men hold most of the top posts in national and local government, school administrations, and academic departments, and women remain underrepresented as political leaders, ministry officials, and university students and professors ( Japan Almanac, 2001). Female educators in Japan encounter a variety of work circumstances that differ from and at times overlap with those of their male counterparts. In their work lives, they must engage with local contextual factors, such as classroom culture, curriculum, and job conditions, as well as more comprehensive factors, such as sociocultural ideologies, and institutional and national policies. As the participants recount constructing their individual, multifaceted identities, their stories intricately involve the conflict between women’s professional and personal lives, gendered and racial inequalities, sexual orientation, ageism, cross-cultural norms, and socioeconomic background. They tell their stories from myriad standpoints, but taken together the stories have commonalities that TESOL education programs have not sufficiently addressed. Teacher training has traditionally emphasized instructional methods and proficiency measures while ignoring the realities of teachers’ lives both inside and outside of the classroom (see Freeman & Johnson, 1998; Johnson & Golombek, 2002). To address this problem, teacher preparation programs must consider actual work contexts situated within broader sociopolitical circumstances. Beyond the practical implications for teacher education, female EFL educators’ stories can reveal how hegemonic ideologies operate in the lives of marginalized individuals attempting to change the educational status quo through local teaching practices. NARRATIVE INQUIRY AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITIES Since the interpretive turn in the social sciences (Bruner, 1990; Geertz, 1973), analyses of storytelling have been used to observe how speakers use narratives to display a particular version of self and to 406 TESOL QUARTERLY understand their everyday worlds. The value of life history interviews as an investigative procedure in feminist research projects has been well documented (e.g., Gluck & Patai, 1991; Olesen, 2000; Reinharz, 1992). The education field especially has gained insight from teachers’ personal narratives of schooling processes (e.g., Clandinin & Connelly, 1987; Connelly & Clandinin, 1995). Postmodern feminist educationists (e.g., Britzman, 2000; Davies, 1993; Lather, 1991; Weiler, 1988) have used narrative methodology to “deliver voices that have been previously shut out of normative educational research” (Britzman, p. 35) and to highlight the ways that female teachers negotiate subjectivities with/in the dominant discourses of gender and education. TESOL researchers are increasingly recognizing narrative inquiry as a viable strategy for investigating how students experience language learning (e.g., Bell, 2002; Harklau, 2000; Kanno, 2000; Pavlenko, 1998) and how teachers construct their professional identities (e.g., Casanave & Schecter, 1997; Freeman, 1996; Johnson & Golombek, 2002; Johnston, 1997). Because narratives enable researchers to explore teachers’ knowledge base from the bottom up, they are particularly attractive to critical researchers who want to include the voices of women and other marginalized groups in academic discussions of teacher practice (e.g., Canagarajah, 1996; Pennycook, 1989, 1999). Although still relatively few in number, some notable examples of narrative analysis include Duff and Uchida’s (1997) ethnographic study of teachers’ sociocultural identity formations, Johnston’s (1997) study of teacher careers in Poland, and a handful of edited collections (e.g., Belcher & Connor, 2001; Braine, 1999; Casanave & Schecter, 1997; and Johnson & Golombek, 2002). For the current study, I adopted Polkinghorne’s (1988) concept of narrative as “a scheme by means of which human beings give meaning to their experience of temporality and personal actions” (p. 11) and, more specifically, Ochs and Capps’ (2001) notion of storytelling as “social exchanges in which interlocutors build accounts of life events. . . . a tool for collaboratively reflecting upon specific situations and their place in the general scheme of life” (p. 2). Using a narrative-analytic approach, this study contributes to recent trends in teacher-directed professional development by showing how educators’ identities are shaped at the nexus of local practices and larger ideological influences. METHOD To gain insight into the special circumstances of female EFL educators working in Japanese higher education contexts, I interviewed them to collect their life histories. I anticipated that my interviewees’ experiences would be comparable not only to male EFL educators’ experiences in CONSTRUCTION OF PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES 407 Japanese colleges (see, e.g., Haig, 1999, McVeigh, 2002) but also to women’s experiences working in different high-status educational positions elsewhere (see, e.g., Skrla, 2000; Smulyan, 2000; see also Chase, 1995, for life history approaches to examining the complex role of gender in male-dominated school leadership positions in the United States). Not adhering to a strict interview protocol with standardized questions, I instead used a more open-ended style (cf. Atkinson, 1998; Holstein & Gubrium, 1995) to maximize opportunities for dialogical authoring (Bakhtin, 1981) and co-constructed understanding of work identities. Initial interviews conducted with individual participants at coffee shops, school offices, and private homes lasted approximately 21/2 hours and generally covered family and academic background, entry into the EFL teaching profession, work environments, and pedagogical practices. During follow-up interviews, which provided a fuller view of the participants’ multiple identities, I clarified and expanded preliminary insights. To code the oral data transcripts and other textual material (researcher memos, e-mail messages), I used a qualitative data analysis software program called NVivo and noted recurring patterns, thereby establishing key links between conceptual categories that became the thematic strands in the interpretive commentary. Participants To enhance the findings’ transferability, I interviewed women of various ethnic, racial, religious, national, socioeconomic, cultural, and family backgrounds, and with diverse levels of EFL teaching expertise in different geographical areas and tertiary-level institutions in Japan. One of the participants was a close friend who introduced me to two other participants, and the rest I knew casually through various academic and teacher networks. The interviewees represented a diverse range of personal attributes (see Appendix A for participant profiles). Of the nine participants, one was Japanese and one a second-generation Korean born in Japan. The other female educators were not from Japan— another important aspect of their outsider identities that I will elaborate on in later sections. As a long-term resident of Japan and an American expatriate with a Japanese husband, I could not help but reflect on my own life and EFL teaching experiences while interviewing the participants; thus my life history became part of the research’s negotiated reality. In this study, identity is conceptualized as “emerging from an individual’s different sorts of relationships with others” (Litosseliti & Sunderland, 2002, p. 15), which accords with current language and gender theories that emphasize the dialectical relationship between identity formations and social interactions. Consequently, this study must 408 TESOL QUARTERLY now briefly address from its feminist stance those hegemonic contexts in Japan that delimit women’s accounts of their work experiences. Sociocultural Context of EFL Women Educators in Japan Extensive research literature exists on the general situation of working women in Japan. For example, Fujimura-Fanselow and Kameda’s (1995) collection of essays by female Japanese scholars presents a comprehensive picture of professional Japanese women’s status within the confines of traditional educational, economic, cultural, and political norms. In their case study investigating 120 professional Japanese women, Liddle and Nakajima (2000) conclude that Japanese societal ideologies define women “primarily by their relationship to domesticity, reproduction and the family” (p. 317), roles that they have not been allowed to move beyond. To my knowledge, however, no feminist qualitative studies have been published focusing specifically on female EFL educators’ lives in Japan or, for that matter, in other countries. The paucity of such information suggests that the field is still preoccupied with investigating educational contexts using mainstream “phallocentric knowledge systems which militate against women in the academy” (Luke & Gore, 1992, p. 193). Teachers’ professional identities develop within a network involving macrolevel sociocultural circumstances and ongoing microlevel private and public interactions inside and outside of the classroom. The ramifications of this last point are crucial for female educators, who, like their male counterparts, must contend with conflicts between their own idiosyncratic backgrounds and local conditions, but who must also grapple with prevailing institutional ideologies and practices that do not allow women to participate fully in higher education teaching contexts. This situation was brought to the fore in 1995 when a professional support network was established in Japan, Women Educators and Language Learners (WELL), to help Japanese and non-Japanese female language educators “cope with the isolation and sexism they personally experience or are personally sensitive to as women” (McMahill, 1998, p. 41). At the university and junior college levels in Japan, women still make up only 13.5% of full-time faculty positions (Monbusho, 2000), and the following comments from an opinion survey (McMahill, p. 42) administered to WELL’s membership depict what many women experience in a male-dominated work situation: I don’t have a voice. I feel like a symbol or decoration. CONSTRUCTION OF PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES 409 I was sexually harassed at my former university and realized that I had few people to turn to for support. The colleagues whom I approached about the sexual harassment generally treated it as a joke or refused to talk about it. I feel I have to work three times more than male teachers to be recognized that I am working. At my university, women have no positions of power. . . . A feminist proposed a women’s studies course the year before I arrived. It was refused as irrelevant to language learning. At my former university, I was only one of two full-time women and the only non-Japanese instructor out of some 35 faculty members. These quotes show that women educators remain in disadvantaged positions within Japanese higher education contexts and not simply because they share the biological attribute, female. Women’s everyday interactions occur within an elaborate network of power relations (Foucault, 1980), of which gender is only one component. Although feminist activism seeks to eliminate sex discrimination in the workplace, the reaction to hegemonic forces is not homogeneous. In other words, each woman’s particular experiences of oppression intersect with her class, ethnicity, nationality, and innumerable other variables, which precludes applying essentialist notions of “woman” or “women’s oppression.” As Haraway (1990) states, “There is nothing about being ‘female’ that naturally binds women. There is not even such a state as ‘being’ female, itself a highly complex category constructed in contested sexual discourses and other social practices” (p. 197). The stories of this study’s participants demonstrate that identity categories such as race, ableism, class, age, ethnicity, and sexual orientation may at different times become as important as the category of female because human ways of being in the world are transitory and unpredictable. Therefore, it is important to examine the microdynamics of the myriad meaningmaking and coping strategies that women of various backgrounds employ when confronted with professional disempowerment. For this purpose, life history narratives served as a window into the multidimensional lives of women who use the linguistic, sociocultural, and personal tools at hand to construct their teacher identities within and against prevailing hegemonic ideologies in Japanese society. INSIGHTS FROM THE LIFE HISTORY NARRATIVES Analysis of the life history narratives revealed numerous themes that indicated the participants’ understandings of what it means to be an EFL educator in higher education in Japan; because space is limited, how410 TESOL QUARTERLY ever, I will focus on only three aspects that seemed particularly salient in constructing teacher identities. I should reiterate that gender was only one of several dynamics, albeit a powerful one, that played a part in the discursive fashioning of professional lives. More specifically, it was the interface of gender and the following themes that contributed to narrativized perceptions of becoming and being a female teacher in a sometimes hostile traditional environment: • personal biographies (sociocultural and family background, previous teaching and learning experiences) • ways of dealing with (cross-cultural) conflicts in work environments • attitudes toward students and professional practices Personal Biographies At the beginning of each interview,1 I asked the interviewee to talk about her family background, past and present, and the influences, if any, on her career trajectory. Across the interviews, a clear pattern emerged of participants quickly pinpointing a specific juncture or state of affairs in their early years that they felt had affected their evolving selfdefinitions in relation to the EFL teaching profession. I Always Pushed Myself Forward Consider the following account from Celine, a 30-year-old White American with a serious visual impairment who was upgrading her educational qualifications to obtain a full-time, college-level teaching position: Andrea: So, you told me before that you wanted to continue on to the doctoral program. Celine: Right now it’s a completely greedy situation. I want the most money possible, so give me my Ph.D.; yeah, I would like to be called doctor, but I mostly want to go back to Montana and show all those people that said I would not graduate from university. People flat out told my folks, “Your daughter will not graduate from university, she won’t be able to get a bachelor’s,” because I couldn’t read. Because 1 In interview data, except for the researcher, the names of participants and places are pseudonyms. The following transcription conventions are used: italics (English) = emphasis marking via raised voice pitch, quality, and/or volume; a short overlapping utterance is indicated within the embedding utterance, enclosed by slashes. For easier readability, punctuation marks have been added and speech dysfluencies removed or restored. Brackets are used to enclose laughter and other noises, nonverbal actions, or any explanatory material. CONSTRUCTION OF PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES 411 in elementary school they told me I would fail, even teachers, halfway through elementary school they said, “Your daughter’s not going to finish,” or the percentage of students that went to that elementary school didn’t graduate, and I was going to be one of them, kind of thing. So I kind of want my Ph.D. to go back and say, “Excuse me, [chuckle] I did it [said in a sarcastic voice].” Yeah, I just want to show off and punch them in the nose, but even my mother’s aunt and uncle said I would never graduate, our own family said I wouldn’t. Being a recent doctoral graduate myself, I admired Celine’s determination to pursue a long, arduous academic journey that, in light of Japan’s current sluggish economy, will not necessarily lead to a lucrative job but is nevertheless required to move up the ranks of the teaching hierarchy. The idea of wanting to show off or prove one’s worth through academic or professional achievement appeared throughout other participants’ stories as well but with a kaleidoscopic array of different motivating forces. Julia, a White, 48-year-old American expatriate fluent in Japanese, spoke about trying to overcome her feelings of academic inadequacy: Julia: So, as I got into this then about writing and politics, and then my own experience, how marginal or how I feel in Japan as an academic, I always feel that I’m not, I don’t measure up to the standards, the Western standards. I had a Scottish professor at [name of university in Japan] who said because I was an American, I didn’t know how to write. I didn’t have my last year of high school English in the States because I came to Japan, and I haven’t gone to, you know, a Western academic university, so right along the way I feel like I never measure up to what the Western academic standard is. So when I started writing my master’s thesis for a British university, I kept coming up against this. I felt that I had to prove myself academically, I want to prove that I can do what an academic is expected to do and do it well and to really prove myself. A 48-year-old, second-generation Korean born in Japan, Se-ri told her story of racial discrimination and then added how she specifically chose a career as an English teacher as a means to “fight back”: Se-ri: 412 You know, my father, he wanted to send me to a private women’s junior high and high school, pretty famous one, and he went to one of the teachers at the school he had consulted about his daughter’s future and told the teacher the plan that, “I’m gonna have my daughter challenge taking the entrance examination to the school.” And that teacher said, “No, she can’t because she’s Korean and that school will not accept Korean students’ applications.” And my father got really pissed and he just told her that, “No matter what TESOL QUARTERLY you say, I’m gonna have her take the entrance examination.” So I couldn’t get a recommendation from her and I passed it, and when I got news from the school, many of my classmates came to me and said, “We heard that your father paid money to the school.” And I said, “What the hell, who is spreading that kind of stupid rumor?” And they said, “The teacher.” My father said that in order to survive in society and also in order to fight back against Japanese discrimination, education is the key. If I were an ordinary Korean, just living like an ordinary Korean housewife they [Japanese] don’t respect me. But if I say, “I speak English fluently and I was in the States for 6 years,” then their way of looking at me is completely different. My motivation was exclusively instrumental, if I master the language of the people [Westerners] who Japanese admire, then I can be equal to their [Japanese] rank, and they eventually have to respect me because I will be speaking their [Westerners’] language, that was the only reason I became an English teacher. Mariko, a 45-year-old Japanese EFL teacher educator, also expressed the idea of attaining the prestige that she felt she had been deprived of as a child because of her family background: Mariko: So, I was a kind of good student since maybe fifth or sixth grade. I had a consciousness I want to be good especially after that bullying incident [Mariko had previously related how she had been bullied in elementary school by students who wouldn’t talk to her because her father “works at night”]. I decided, I told myself, “Well, I’ll never be beaten by those regular girls,” you know, normally brought up girls, so that was a kind of competition I wanted to win over. If I could speak good English I thought I could get some jobs. So, then I decided to get a degree, so I have to be the same with other women, to be prepared for the real job which will give me lifetime assuredness. I started kind of organizing my life a lot and then that was the first time I thought about being an English teacher because I thought about my background and then being a Japanese woman in Japan, what job can give me good enough money with some social respect, that’s a teacher. I always pushed myself forward and forward just because I don’t want to be defeated. Likewise, Diana, a 40-year-old Black South African, juxtaposed an account of being ostracized at an English boarding school with her current educational philosophy: Diana: And there were lots of girls who had never seen a Black person. So for them it was a different sort of racism, it wasn’t racism, but it was, I was really something that they had never seen, they had seen on TV, but never had they been up close. So it was ignorance rather, so CONSTRUCTION OF PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES 413 that, “When you would have a shower does your skin rub off?” and when they looked at the palms of my hands, they couldn’t believe that they were white. I was 16 years old and I go there, they had their own little cliques, so here I came in the middle of the term, and it was very difficult to make friends and I was trying to please. So suddenly in this group I was really the outsider and I was Black and I mean just all these things, and the nuns had this thing that I was from Africa and so I was dumb, and they would say to me, “But you’re from Africa, and you know how you are, so you won’t pass the exam.” They would say things like that to me, can you imagine? So it was very hurtful and I cried a lot. People try to pull you down, I found that in life, but I never listen to them and that’s always my message to my students: Whatever you want to be, you can be if you believe in yourselves. Why do we always assume like teachers at Japanese high schools or universities that these kids are incapable, you know, because they aren’t; you’ve got to push them to do it. Janet, a White, 50-year-old British woman brought up in various excolonies, linked her awareness of the ethnocentric tendencies of EFL education to her opinion of her father’s racism: Janet: I later discovered that my father was very racially prejudiced, and that continued until he popped off. So that’s certainly probably a part of the consciousness that has made me a little doubtful about what ESL does. I mean how much of EFL outside of Englishspeaking metropolitan centers and ESL inside, how much of it is colonial intent, not intent necessarily, not conscious intent very often, but in effect. I have to say I don’t think I consciously theorized about it at all until, oh, probably my 30s. I was already in Japan by then, I was aware of it; of course I was irritated by it, I mean every time my father said something racist it irritated me. So it wasn’t really until I got into Afro-American studies, cultural studies, postcolonial studies that I could reflect on this part of my background. In diverse ways, participants recounted how family or previous schooling experiences intertwined in a complex set of relationships with their views on education, teaching, and self-identity. These women drew on multiple subject positions as daughters, expatriates, racial minorities, or socioeconomically disadvantaged as they worked out how their personal backgrounds affected their own learning contexts and how they experienced the EFL teaching profession. 414 TESOL QUARTERLY I’m The Man In The Family Six of the nine participants were married, and they had various perceptions of the spouse’s role in their career paths. Conventional gender ideologies in Japan are such that married women with professional employment aspirations may be, as Liddle and Nakajima (2000) contend, “required to bring with them higher levels of economic, social and cultural capital than comparable men if they are to convert these capitals into symbolic power in the form of recognition and respect as legitimate players in the field” (p. 222). Thus, sociocultural priority is given to male professionals who are expected to be the main breadwinners with supportive wives who adhere to a ryousaikenbo (good wife, wise mother) norm at the expense of their careers or juggling career and domestic duties. For Julia, whose Japanese husband was unemployed, her professional EFL teaching identity evolved from a different set of circumstances that did not follow the cultural mandate for working women in Japan but yet were in conflict with Julia’s personal ideals concerning married life: Andrea: And after you got married, I know this is a sensitive issue. Julia: I have been the breadwinner from day one. So, when I was working part-time I became pregnant and I had six classes so that was a really solid, stable income. But it wasn’t solid, stable as far as long term, and especially having a child and a husband who didn’t look like he was going to be working. And there’s a problem with me because, my hope, my ideal I think was to be a support to a man who had a career. Not that I wouldn’t have my own but I see myself, my makeup, as I have a very strong desire, it almost feels innate to be supportive, to be helpful, I like doing it, I mean, being supportive. Like doing housework, if my husband were out working all day, then it would be a delight to be the head of the house so that he comes home and feels he can relax, but maybe now because I understand what it’s like to be outside, working and coming home to a house that’s dirty and dinner isn’t ready, just makes life unpleasant. So I understand the value of housewife duties. Andrea: So you understand both, being professional and coming home, but also being at home and being supportive for someone who’s out working. Julia: Right, but I like to stay home and bake cakes and clean and do the stuff, the kind of traditional women’s stuff. Japan’s economic recession and high unemployment rate (“5.4% jobless rate,” 2003) made Julia’s concern with having a “solid stable income” quite understandable. Despite her own ideal of being a supportive wife at home, Julia was pursuing a professional EFL career by upgrading her teaching credentials so that she could maintain her CONSTRUCTION OF PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES 415 college teaching position and support her family, but not without considerable ambivalence: Andrea: So you made the decision to do the master’s and you did it. // Julia: Desired results but . . . // Andrea: Can we talk about that? // Julia: Ah, gee, depress me. It’s just that I’m not good at doing two things at once, and I like to do what I do well, so it was a very frustrating experience for me. And I still feel a kind of bitter taste in my mouth because I don’t feel that I did, I mean, it was a good experience and I’m so glad I did it and I learned a tremendous amount; the difficulty was that I expect myself to do well, and I want to do well and I couldn’t do well because I had priorities and it wasn’t my first priority. I couldn’t make it my first priority; my family was my first priority, my job was my second priority, and the master’s was my third, and I couldn’t change that, and it was tremendously frustrating. My whole master’s thesis was trying to come to grips with my own identity in Japan, and my whole identity in Japan, trying to be a professional is that I feel like a fake because I don’t have the . . . here you’re getting the self-confidence stuff, boy you’ve got one big lack of it right here. In contrast to Julia’s ambivalent attitude, Celine elaborated rather straightforwardly in an e-mail correspondence on her views concerning the domestic and career expectations of husbands and wives vis-à-vis the opinions of her female Japanese friends: I remember writing that I was the “man” in the family. [Laughter.] Many of my Japanese friends say so because [my husband] does all the shopping and holds the money, “purse strings,” takes out the garbage and hangs the laundry, so they say I’m the man in the family. This has made some of my friends uncomfortable, and as I mentioned, they have criticized me. When we went into our relationship I made sure I was clear about who I was. Of course I didn’t know I was going to further my education, but my goals and dreams, no one could stop. In fact, I’m probably the “man” in my marriage because we live by my standard. For unmarried female teachers as well, traditional societal ideologies served to constrain professional discourses: Andrea: Tell me what it’s been like for you as a single woman. Janet: Well, in fact our present dean still says, “Janet, kawaikattan dayo ne.” [You used to be cute]. So there’s that. There’s a very fatherly older teacher who’s now retired who used to make a great effort to find a husband for me. We’ve done that. I think we’ve probably all passed it now because I mean obviously, at this point, as one of my Japanese male friends tends to say, “Mou uren yo omae.” [You can’t be sold anymore.] [Laughter.] So in that sense, I’m sort of over that 416 TESOL QUARTERLY hill. Most of my female colleagues in my department are indeed married, . . . there’s one exception. Before getting married, Celine was also subjected to sexist remarks when her contract at her previous job ended: Celine: They don’t care where you go or what you do; in fact, everyone thought I was going back to the States to get married, it was so funny, ughh. This Japanese guy, he was young, he had perfect, beautiful English, native-speaker level of English, right down to the idioms and everything, even cultural understanding, really good grasp of everything. And when I left, and it was at my sayonara party that my school had given me, he said, “So Celine, you’re going back to get married, right?” I was like, “The contract’s making me go back”; I was like “Whoa guy, we’ve been teaching together for 2 years now and I can’t believe you’re asking me this question.” I just wanted to smack him, “What the hell’s wrong with you! Of course not.” And I told him that flat out, and he’s like, “But you’re 24 now.” And I’m like, “Yeah so, what’s your point.” Participants’ presentations of themselves were thus inscribed by normative Japanese expectations regarding a woman’s personal circumstances. Similarly, in her report on female teachers in the United Kingdom, Tamboukou (2000) comments on the frustrating dilemmas that professional women face: The ambivalent persona of the female educator is invested by the accumulation of a series of layers that emerge from the gaps, rupture, and interstices women have slipped into, as they have tried to avoid being positioned in the social structuring of a world that recognizes them only as belonging subjects, usually wives, mothers, daughters or sisters of enclosed spaces, like those of their families. (p. 470) In sum, the EFL teachers in this study have struggled to resolve conflicts inherent in the (re)negotiation of their subject positions, forged from personal backgrounds, within work environments that were not always conducive to enhancing their professional identities. Dealing With Conflicts in Work Environments Along with the ongoing career obstacles that all the participants confronted, the non-Japanese educators encountered additional crosscultural complications in their host country. In the interviews, they often described disempowering experiences as women or a sense of alienation as gaijin (foreigners), but they struggled to transform these problems into stories of individual solutions. As Chase (1995) puts it: CONSTRUCTION OF PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES 417 Stories about power and accomplishment through professional work have been the prerogative of middle-class, or upwardly mobile, White men. . . . Women—particularly women of color and women raised in working-class families—have not had access to well-paid, prestigious, professional jobs and so have not had access to discourse that is culturally intelligible within that realm. (p. 48) In other words, as women in a male-dominated work environment in Japan, our accounts of successful careers inevitably contain stories of inequity, disjunctions that force interlocutors to work harder to create narratives that construct viable professional identities. I’ve Felt Like a Second-Class Citizen McKay (1992) advises expatriate teachers that their role in their host country “is not to effect change in its social and educational structure but rather to attempt to increase their students’ proficiency in English as best they can within the existing structure” (pp. ix–x). Teachers in undesirable EFL teaching situations may leave the country, change institutions, or negotiate with the administration and students over matters such as language policies and curriculum. As more and more foreigners intermarry with Japanese ( Japan Almanac, 2001), many educators want long-term employment and/or permanent residency in Japan, so McKay’s first two alternatives do not seem practical. Additionally, in the case of non-Japanese couples, if career-oriented wives do not proactively maintain their jobs, they not only risk being excluded from the dwindling pool of EFL teaching positions but also might have more difficulty entering Japanese society. Celine elaborated on how establishing a professional identity as a college EFL instructor helped her to become a respected member of Japanese society: Celine: 418 So within [the private language school where I was previously employed] I did see that there were limitations, that in a sense no matter what I make of myself I was still being labeled as just an eikaiwa [English conversation] person and that it wasn’t taken too seriously in the community. And when people would ask me, “Oshigoto wa?” [What do you do?], if I wanted to tell them I would, but they always assumed that I was an eigo no sensei [English teacher]. That didn’t bother me, I happily admitted I was an eikaiwa teacher. But when I went to immigration, and would go, “Well, I would like permanent residence,” and you need permanent residence to get the bank loan to buy a house, that we would like to live here forever like the house that Jack built, he [immigration officer] basically told me to go out the door. There was nothing sound or substantial or serious that he was going to take from me when I said I was a [private language school] TESOL QUARTERLY teacher, like, “We know the eikaiwa turnover rate. We’re not going to accept your application for permanent residence. Come back when you’ve got something more secure.” If I can show them I have a salaried contract, tenure preferably, I have the greater chance of getting it. So in that respect, yeah I get a lot of respect. To make her point concerning her determination to become a professional higher-education teacher and achieve the attendant symbolic capital, Celine embedded within the central narrative a complementary story concerning an interaction with an immigration officer. A foreign instructor’s work status is highly contingent on larger socioeconomic factors as well as different educational institutions’ employment policies, some of which do not favor foreign instructors, as Janet explained: Andrea: You’ve been here for how many years? Janet: Twenty-three, this will be my 23rd year as a full-timer plus 2 years part-time. Andrea: And always on this kind of renewable contract. Janet: Absolutely. Andrea: What are you on now? Janet: One year. Andrea: Gee, I just assumed because you’ve been here so long that you had a very secure job. Janet: Well no, like I said, there was this big brouhaha about “Oh, you’re gonna stay forever.” And I even got, “Rokujugousai made kanou” [It’s possible for you to stay until you’re 65]. The idea was that, “You’re tenured and we will keep you until you’re 65,” and also the pension thing is tied up in this. And then suddenly at the end of 1995 it was, “All foreigners will now have the same length of contract, it will be 6 years and we can’t make an exception of you so understand the economic situation is such that we don’t want to hire any foreigners over the age of 35 because they’re too expensive, and therefore you and your aged colleagues will go at the end of 6 years like everybody else.” Andrea: This is just for the gaijin [foreigners]? Janet: Yeah. And I don’t want to end up so bitter about this; I mean Japan has been a home for, really, I’ve lived here longer than I’ve lived in any country, and to end up feeling bitter is not what I want. In addition to unfair work-related conditions, which are a concern for many teachers worldwide, a different yet related set of issues restrain non-Japanese college educators from developing a sense of professionalism on a par with their Japanese colleagues. In Japan, EFL teachers from Western countries are commonly perceived as a privileged group entrusted with teaching subject matter of considerable sociopolitical value. Notwithstanding the high prestige Japanese society places on being able CONSTRUCTION OF PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES 419 to speak English (see, e.g., Crystal, 1997; Kachru, 1989; Phillipson, 1992), teachers’ work experiences reveal a complex transformation of global factors. Julia explained the difference between the sense of “community” she felt with the Japanese staff at her former college as opposed to the atmosphere at her present job: Julia: At [my former school] they had really accepted me as part, I mean, I didn’t feel any sabetsu [discrimination] in the sense of, um, I really felt a part of the community, a part of the staff; we were treated equally. But when I came to [my present college] I have felt like a second-class citizen. Andrea: Why? Even after getting the degree [master’s]? Julia: Yeah, probably it’s more of the academia, probably if I had come in with a Ph.D. or something, you know, “Wow!” There’s that kind of attitude at [my school]. And also English teachers, I think they have a low evaluation, you know, anybody can teach English. The Japanese faculty in the English department think that anybody, foreigners, native speakers, that, you know, teaching English, is, you know, you’ve got to have an M.A., but basically when it comes right down to it, anybody can teach as long as they’ve got an M.A. We all feel that the Japanese feel that way. Janet interpreted Japanese administrator and faculty views of the foreign EFL teacher’ role in a similar way: Janet: When I was first hired, I taught the seminar in education in English for the juniors and seniors who were going to be teachers. Now there is no gaijin [foreigner] teaching any seminar class because that’s not what we’re here for; we’re supposed to be teaching English and, you know, we’re not up to that academic shit. In most Japanese colleges and universities, Japanese professors usually teach the seminar class, and it is accorded more academic prestige than courses like English Communication, which are reserved for the foreign instructors. In light of this situation, Janet later expressed the sentiments of many non-Japanese EFL teachers who feel that “we are only there to be parrots, walking tape recorders.” This one-dimensional view of the foreign teacher’s role also surfaced in Julia’s account of her college teaching job interview: Julia: 420 “Well, we expect you to be 100% American when you come here.” [Laughter.] And I just remember I didn’t say anything, I just said wakarimashita [I understand] or something, because to me it was such an affront to my whole experience. And what does it mean to be a 100% American? In fact, what they did, something they liked [ Julia’s Japanese fluency], but they didn’t want to face that up front, that, yes they knew that my Japanese would be a real TESOL QUARTERLY advantage, but they didn’t want that up front at all, like, “On the surface we want you to be 100% American.” From her unique insider-outsider position as a second-generation Korean born in Japan, Se-ri talked about the discrimination she saw in her college English department: Se-ri: They [college administrators] want to have fresh faces because they only look at you as an object, like a kazari [ornament], akusesarii mitai nee [like an accessory, right]; native speakers, White Caucasian, with blonde hair, blue eyes is the symbol of internationalization. So once [the teachers] become older [laughter] they want to switch. That kind of attitude should be really changed. That’s like, you know, I keep calling these Japanese, many of the Japanese English teachers are racist. Just as Janet alluded to job discrimination on the basis of age, Se-ri mentioned how the work status of foreign instructors depends on criteria that do not apply to her Japanese colleagues. Se-ri insisted later during the interview that a person’s English teaching capabilities should not be judged according to ethnic or racial background and that “one day we really should erase the categorical names like native or nonnative.” In the same vein, Mariah recounted an experience with racial discrimination in Japan, where Filipinas must contend with the negative stereotypes ascribed to japayuki (Filipina entertainers and sex workers): Andrea: Tell me about when you were hired. I guess you went for an interview, or how did you find out about the job? What was that like? Mariah: Maybe I could start by not directly answering that one. I have another experience when I first came to Japan. Because I’m very active in the Philippines and I want to work right away, I tried calling a school. But that man, I never met him, I think he’s biased. Andrea: What happened? Mariah: Because the announcement said “native speaker,” but I tried. I mean, in the Philippines, English is our official language, so everything is in English, policies, newspapers, etcetera, and they don’t particularize native speakers. Andrea: So, in Japan you’re not considered a native speaker? Mariah: Uh-uh, as capable of teaching English, I don’t know, this is my judgment. And I was thinking it’s not a matter of color or race or religion; it’s a matter of how effective you are as a teacher. If you are Black, Brown, or White, small eyes, big eyes, it doesn’t matter. Andrea: Is there anything that you can remember specifically about what that man said that made you feel that there was a kind of bias about native or nonnative? Mariah: So, in the hiring announcement itself, I already felt there is a bias. And when he asked me over the phone, asking me about my CONSTRUCTION OF PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES 421 country’s name, so there I remembered the announcement, what was written there. Though I wanted to tell him that, “Why don’t you just give me a chance to show if I’m capable or not? And if you think I’m not, then I’ll give up.” Although born in a former British colony and educated in a boarding school in England, Diana nevertheless faced a problem similar to Mariah’s when she decided to pursue a professional EFL teaching career: Andrea: Do you feel when you apply for a job that there’s some sort of competition with the White male or female Westerner? Diana: I don’t feel competition. What I feel is the Japanese are going to look at me, and I have to send a photo, and they’ll just chuck it to the side when they see, first, South African; she can’t speak English. Yet English is my first language and—I mean it is my first it’s not my native—but it’s my first language, you know what I’m saying? Andrea: I know exactly what you’re saying. Diana: So it’s not so much that I feel competition; I feel they are going to look, they already have their stereotypical, you know, this teacher should be Australian or American or New Zealander or British or Canadian and then, you know, “You can’t teach,” or “What are you doing applying?” The participants’ sentiments echo current discussions on “the professional hegemony of center-based ELT institutions” (Canagarajah, 1999, p. 127), where native speakers of English are considered to be the sacred dispensers of standard English. Women of color from outer circle countries like Mariah and Diana therefore have an additional hurdle to leap in establishing their professional EFL teaching identities in Japan, not only because of their non-White status but also because of the native speaker fallacy (see Phillipson, 1992), which privileges speakers and teachers of center-based Englishes. At every educational level from private language schools to junior and 4-year colleges in Japan, native speakers of English are preferred, as gleaned from a survey of 50 EFL job advertisements in The Asahi Shimbun newspaper over an 11-month period (February–December, 2002). Of the 50 positions advertised, only 10 did not specify “native speaker” as part of the necessary qualifications, whereas the majority explicitly stated a preference for “native English speakers,” “British nationals,” or “North American English instructors.” These ethnocentric attitudes toward English education severely limit job opportunities in Japan for EFL teachers from noncenter countries. 422 TESOL QUARTERLY What Am I Afraid Of? For lesbian educators, the homophobic atmosphere prevailing in Japan (see Summerhawk, McMahill, & McDonald, 1998) also constitutes a major obstacle to obtaining and maintaining a job as an EFL instructor. Because of this situation, Nicole, a lesbian educator, expressed her fears of being identified and requested that I use only the following quotation from her narrative: Nicole: I mean, I don’t, professionally knowing that I’m here in Japan, I’d rather not slit my throat. I’ve never had any problem, but I know my days are limited here [at my present college]. But I’d still like to make it a pleasant experience, and also thinking about the future, I don’t want to have any problem here that might continue someplace else. Recognizing the importance of my research and wanting to help out, she later suggested that I post a message on the Nihon Dykenet asking lesbian and queer EFL educators to share some of their work stories, and the following is a composite summary of their responses: Since coming to Japan, I am not out in my daily life, and it’s pretty strange for me. There are a few teachers that I’m friends with, but beyond them, I just don’t have much interest in revealing a lot about myself. Maybe my shyness and reluctance to talk about my personal life is related to my having been a lesbian all my adult life. Maybe I hate hearing people talk about their personal lives at work because I know that, even if I do, it won’t be received in the same way. Why am I so closeted? That is a question I sometimes ask myself because in theory I think it would be better if more and more lesbians and other sexual minorities were out. What am I afraid of? That people’s attitudes toward me might change. That my contract might not be renewed. That I might be laughed at. That I might become a more public figure. That I might always be viewed only as “the lesbian” rather than the multifaceted person I am. That I might be seen as a controversial person. I think it is much more difficult to come out as a university professor or teacher in elementary through high school, especially in a Christian school. Among my foreigner friends and in the EFL teaching community in general, I am very out. I think that being out among the foreigners here does make it easier to be closeted at work, even if nearly everyone around here is het. We’ll see if things change, but because I’ll only be here another year or so, I may keep the status quo. To keep the status quo, educators with different sexual identities need to adjust their personal and professional interactions according to Japanese heteronormative behavior. These educators might have to divorce their pedagogical ideals and practices from their lesbian, queer, or bisexual subjectivities, thereby isolating themselves and depriving CONSTRUCTION OF PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES 423 students of the opportunity to reflect on sexuality issues, an opportunity that, as Vandrick (2001) says, “could make an enormous difference in the academic atmosphere for all teachers and students, homosexual and heterosexual” (p. 31). The participants in this study are struggling against the grain as women in a male-dominant society and, at the same time, straddling multiple and shifting realities of cultured, classed, raced, and sexually oriented borderlands (Anzaldúa, 1987) in which we all live. In a positive light, this border crossing or sense of hybridity (Bhabha, 1985) can be an empowering force not only for an individual woman’s consciousness but also across diverse communities of marginalized people reinterpreting a world where difference is respected and not relegated to the borders. Attitudes Toward Students and Professional Practices The third aspect of the participants’ self-definitions as educators has direct implications for EFL teacher education. That is to say, biographical and sociocultural factors, together with ways of interpreting and dealing with career obstacles, profoundly influence pedagogical practices and perceptions of the female EFL educators’ role in Japan. Johnston’s (2003) view of language education emphasizes the moral dimensions of teaching contexts. His analysis of teacher-student relationships and the legitimization of teachers’ knowledge bases in discussions of teacher education are particularly germane. The “value-laden nature of our work” (p. 5) manifests in the philosophical attitude toward students and the act of teaching itself that educators adopt when describing their professional practices. Across all the life stories in this study, participants repeatedly framed the mundane aspects of teaching (choice of textbook, curriculum, teaching methods, etc.) within an overarching moralistic stance toward EFL education vis-à-vis the students’ personal, holistic needs. Norah, a single, 35-year-old White American, explained it this way: Norah: I think English takes a second, a back seat, I think it’s really second place in my goals. They’re just opening up, just beginning to realize that there’s a world out there, and to offer them other viewpoints, to let them see that there are other people, other cultures, other ways of doing things, other ways of thinking that they haven’t experienced before, that’s more important to me than English. If I can do that through English, terrific. Then they get two for the price of one. In addition to her teaching job, Norah was an AIDS activist and educator in Japan concerned with choosing textbooks that would create a more meaningful EFL curriculum: 424 TESOL QUARTERLY Norah: Most textbooks that you find on the market paint a rosy picture of life and don’t deal with any issues at all, and really, in life the number one thing you deal with is problems and it could be as simple as, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re saying,” or you could take it up to the level of “I really don’t understand where you’re coming from,” or “Why is this problem happening in the world?” It’s just different degrees of it, so yeah, I think using social issues is a really good way to think in English and honestly discuss things with people rather than just practicing a dialogue. How do we light that fire under the students to take the responsibility to do something about it, not that we have the solutions because we are not Japanese, we’re not in this culture, we don’t have their experience, but what is it to motivate them to make change? And it’s nice to see people think about things, and I know Afghanistan had an effect on them, well, New York, the terrorism, and the aftermath of that. To know that these are people who someday might be in the UN representing Japan, or in some capacity, I don’t know, but it’s just so nice to see them being concerned about other people, it’s great. As an Asian teacher of English in Japan, Se-ri also viewed the EFL classroom as a site for students to explore issues beyond their immediate language learning needs: Se-ri: So, even though I’m an English teacher, I am very much interested in sociology, and I don’t think I can avoid the Korean issues. Since they’ve been talking about internationalization a lot in Japan, I think they should internationalize internally, to focus on the foreigners living in Japan first. Andrea: Is there a large Korean student population here [at Se-ri’s university]? Se-ri: Yeah, of course they are using their Japanese names, and they are a very invisible group. But once they have a Korean teacher, they might get encouraged, and the Japanese students, they will change their views about Koreans. So I really owe something to this school [for hiring me] and I can make a big contribution to this university. Se-ri’s concern with making a comfortable learning environment for Korean students evolved from her own schooling experiences: Se-ri: At the age of 18, I disclosed myself as a Korean. At the graduation ceremony, I asked the teacher to call me by my real name. At that time at our high school, there were 20 Korean girls, but I was the only one who took the choice, the other Korean students said, “No way”; they didn’t want to lose their friends or something. And I went to [a prestigious college in Japan], and my GPA was very high, and I was the top student, but the teacher told me that “I cannot introduce you to a bank because the Japanese municipal banks CONSTRUCTION OF PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES 425 don’t hire Koreans.” So that was the first blow at my face of social discrimination. I was experiencing some kind of discrimination at the individual level; neighbors were giving us cold language like “dirty Korean.” That kind of thing is more on an individual level, but my job-hunting experience was the first time for me to experience social discrimination. Until elementary school teachers and family members surmised that Celine’s academic underachievement was caused by a visual disability, she was, as she said, “shuffled off with the mentally handicapped group into a special education class.” This experience of having been mislabeled as a child with a learning difficulty resurfaced in Celine’s approach to understanding students’ different learning styles: Celine: But when I look at that [slow learners], I think okay they could have had some kind of disability, so there’s all these different things out there that I’m aware of now, knowing mine, and just even the way someone learns a language; we have different ways of learning: Some people learn by reading, some people learn by listening, some by taking notes. So I’m aware if a student’s not, it drove me nuts when I would hear other teachers say, “Well you better write this down.” “No, I don’t have to write this down. Just don’t bug me about it.” So, yeah, I don’t want to put that onto someone else. If they don’t take notes, great, that means they’re a listener. If they’re looking down, fine, that means they’re a listener; if they’re looking up at me, okay, then they’re a visual. So I know there’s different learning techniques, and hopefully I accept all of them or at least acknowledge them. Julia, who was in charge of hiring EFL instructors at her college, explained her reasons for explicitly seeking non-Western teachers of English: Julia: 426 I felt for our students, it’s risky, I know, I’ve taken a big risk and I don’t know how it’s going to go, a teacher from Afghanistan. I want the students, this is where I get idealistic, naïve probably, to see a model. I’d like to have a Japanese actually teaching listening, speaking. It’s ingrained in the Japanese students I think, that Japanese don’t speak English. What I want to do is break that; I want them to feel that whatever English they’ve got, they can use and to feel good about it and to work from there, to go from there. I feel that really strongly; they don’t have to sound like a Brit or an American. I’m trying to get them to use the English they have in order to communicate, and the people they’re going to be communicating with in most instances are going to be nonnative speakers. TESOL QUARTERLY Julia then linked her “idealistic” views on students’ making English their own with her resistance or “writing back” (see Pennycook, 1994) to Western academia: Julia: But when I was doing my thesis, at the same time I had this real personal reaction of wanting to write back, I guess from my own experience. And then I realized that, as a woman, I started writing about the politics of writing, you know, some of the things that have just come out about gender in academics, especially in academic writing. And my own feeling, of reacting against the West, reacting against Western male academics that I was going to have to follow in order to get this thesis accepted, and it was a protest in a sense; I couldn’t write the thesis as an academic like I knew I should write it, I couldn’t do it, so I didn’t. Mariko elaborated on being “bullied” by male professors in her department, her reason for getting a doctorate, and the position she took in a teacher-student sexual harassment case at her college. Her account also portrayed the interconnectedness of the ideological and professional aspects of work contexts: Mariko: Getting the doctorate was a way to establish myself, an indirect way of fighting against those guys [her male superiors in her department]. Because those teachers who taught before me, they were the ones who taught communicative English; that was their territory. So looking at me talking better than they could with native speakers, they felt jealous. And one day, one of those teachers told me, “Your English is so vulgar.” And so I was careful not to speak [English] in front of him, even up to now. So, getting my doctorate changed me as a whole person, I think. Just a kind of, um, it’s hard to put in language, but I feel if something wrong happens, if something gets on my moral code, I’ll stand up and fight, like during the sexual harassment case involving a student. I had to do something, this is again a moral code; if I just go straight and ignore it, do nothing, that hurts me as a person. So I became the head of the sexual harassment committee, and we succeeded in having the male teacher who was harassing students fired. Andrea: Great. Why do you think you became the leader of that group? Mariko: Yeah, why? I’m different, you know. Andrea: What do you mean? Are you older than the other teachers [on the committee]? Mariko: No, I think I’m the youngest in a way. Actually, status-wise and seniority-wise I was the youngest and the lowest and, more than that, I was working in a different department. So whenever I talked to the teachers, “I feel kind of strange to be here and talking to you, but I can’t take it any longer.” Ah, because I’m the liaison person, that’s one thing, because those students trust me and disclose their CONSTRUCTION OF PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES 427 bad experiences to me so I thought I had to stand up for them. But more than that, I don’t want to let it go; mou yurusenai [I can’t tolerate it any longer]. A teacher’s personal set of values, an integral part of her or his identity forged from a lifetime of social interactions, shape educational beliefs and professional practices that in turn affect students’ learning contexts. This finding is not new in the TESOL field (see, e.g., Hall & Eggington, 2000); however, what was compelling about the stories in this study was how participants articulated the different dimensions of their gendered, raced, classed, disabled subjectivities at the same time that they were dialectically engaged in redefining constraining discourses, both in their own lives and in the lives of their students. Mariah eloquently expressed what I am attempting to develop: Andrea: So you feel that teaching English is one way of helping Japanese people? Mariah: Yeah, it’s very important for me. It’s an entry point. If my students will be very capable in using English in communicating with many nationalities or colors, they can come to be more open and flexible in any situation. They can also improve their image in society. I don’t know if this is a universal perspective, but in the Philippines, we have this perception of Japanese people, they are so closed, they don’t want to welcome other countries’ peoples. So maybe by learning the English language, maybe that will help them open their shell, because they can communicate, so it will lead to many positive things. I think I have the ability to share something; I hope they can get something. I ask my students, try to think about something you did that you feel very proud of and maybe that will be the beginning of your feeling proud of yourself; this kind of feeling would help you in learning to speak English and expressing yourselves. And maybe I can help them express themselves by also expressing myself first. So I try to tell them, uh, the things that I did which I felt very proud of and made me feel happy, and it built my confidence. For Janet, her experiences of having been raised in a British, postcolonial family in India and then later on coming to grips with the ethnocentric tendencies of EFL education played a part in shaping her pedagogical choices. She infuses a strong cultural studies component into the curriculum to encourage students to rethink, as she herself has, culturally embedded influences on identity formations: Janet: 428 You’re born into a historical time and that is going to influence all kinds of expectations you have, and you’re also born into a gender, and you’re born into a family and your sibling rank is going to TESOL QUARTERLY influence things. Your specific culture influences family and relations; you’re born into a region, and so on, the concentric circles go out. And I use that model with the freshmen as a way of looking at identity because of the whole business of “we Japanese are all the same.” Because what you end up with is, okay, you’ve got all these concentric circles but . . . and these things are all like influences or onion skins around you but affect the identity you have. But none of those skins is going to have a uniform effect on you and that’s what allows individuality to appear, to whatever extent it does. And so we go through this thing step by step and, um, “Okay, so you were born into what historical time, what have been the key influences, what expectations do you have?” I mean I usually have to get it started by saying, “You know, when I was born we didn’t have refrigerators.” [Laughter.] Andrea: Really? Janet: Really. Listen, I was born in the third world, that was Britain, you know, we didn’t have fridges, we had this little box. I remember punching my hand through it to get at the cheese, and we were still on rations when I was born you know, so I do that. Of course the students all go, “Oh my God, she’s even older than we thought she was!” Or, even the expectations of going to college and careers and that sort of thing. And then we get to gender and what kind of expectations that have been placed on them, and they’re not always aware of it, but with a little bit of thinking they get there. Particularly as we’ve had people with slightly different identities appearing here recently. Mariah and Janet’s descriptions of their teaching practices reflect postmodern feminist educationists’ theories concerning deconstructive (Lather, 1991) or engaged (hooks, 1994) pedagogies. Both teacher and student subjectivities become transformed when personal histories are used as teaching tools to explore both how prevailing discourses shape our identities and what alternative discourses are available to reinvent ourselves in more empowering ways. Ultimately, in constructing their EFL educator identities the participants drew on personal experiences that have mediated the reciprocal relationship between interpretations of self and pedagogical practices. Put differently, the stories that teachers tell and live by are discursive displays of professional and personal beliefs situated in specific social worlds and realized through interactions with others. CONCLUSION A close look at teacher narratives can enhance an understanding of membership in a TESOL culture (Edge, 1996) wherein the sole aim is CONSTRUCTION OF PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES 429 not to discover the most effective techniques but rather to explore how “the theoretical, the professional, and the personal intermingle” (p. 25). More specifically, by examining their own and other female EFL educators’ lived experiences, teachers and teacher educators can begin to realize how female teacher identities are discursively constructed, why professional discourses and identity formations are inscribed by gendered and sociocultural inequities, and how these discourses and identity formations need to be transformed to allow alternative, empowering discourses to become a part of female educators’ professional knowledge landscapes (Clandinin & Connolly, 1995). These results are directly relevant to administrative decisions concerning EFL/ESL teacher education policies and goals, which have historically depended on (mostly male) theorists’ interpretations of (mostly female) practitioners’ experiences (Pennycook, 1989). This situation calls for more than a “just add a feminist perspective and stir” approach; rather, it requires reconceptualizing from the bottom up how best to prepare prospective (male and female) teachers to address restrictive or inequitable societal conditions in their teaching contexts. Along with the implications for teacher education, the stories in this study reflect the need for TESOL professionals to better understand how ideologies of marginalization and discrimination work and how to confront them using professional practices. The stories both include and go beyond gender issues by examining the complex interaction of hegemonic ideologies, identity constructions, and ways of being in the world. For example, Diana and Mariah have struggled, with varying levels of success, against White native speakerism and ethnocentric protectionism in Japan. Se-ri has managed, after considerable perseverance in the face of ethnic discrimination, to use her prestigious position as a college professor to fight back on both an individual and institutional level. Having experienced marginalization in their professional and personal lives because of their skin color and racial or ethnic origins, these educators have challenged the system in their own unique ways. Diana and Mariah encourage students to expand their self-images beyond the confines of conservative cultural values and practices. Se-ri has extended her personal battle against discrimination in the EFL workplace by speaking out in both local and international professional forums on behalf of outsiders in the Japanese higher education system. The situations of White educators reveal a more subtle and complex interaction of ideological forces and teacher identities. For a variety of reasons, White native speakerism is valued by educational institutions; however, many educators who fit the preferred, stereotypical young, White, blue-eyed, 100% American category are often prevented from participating fully in Japanese academic and social spheres. This convo- 430 TESOL QUARTERLY luted inclusion-exclusion mechanism has resulted in EFL employment policies that reproduce ethnocentric attitudes and sustain a myopic vision of intercultural dialogue that seeks to maintain rather than cross boundaries. Reacting to this stifling condition, the participants in this study have attempted to change the ideological status quo by exposing their students to alternative perspectives on global and social concerns. Julia has taken a proactive stance against racist hiring practices by recruiting non-White, nonnative EFL teachers. In so doing, she has elevated the status of educators in disadvantaged positions in Japan and has provided Japanese students with nonnative-English-speaking models who more accurately represent English language use throughout the world. Janet’s cultural studies program aims to show how a homogeneous version of “we Japanese” leaves little room for students to explore the multiple layers of their own unique identities. Norah has combined AIDS education and EFL instruction in her classroom to show students that English language learning is useful for more than going abroad to buy a pair of designer shoes. In Japan, individuals with HIV or AIDS and people who identify as gay or lesbian are highly stigmatized groups whose only chance for legitimate recognition and understanding lie in socially aware educational policies aimed at replacing curricula that overemphasize decontextualized subject matter with curricula more attuned to the concerns of society’s marginalized members. By discussing these issues, foreign and indigenous educators together can contest oppressive ideologies in their own lives and in the lives of students, as the female educators in this study are attempting to do through their EFL teaching goals and philosophies. This study contributes to a small but growing body of TESOL research projects that use narrative inquiry to “present experience holistically in all its complexity and richness” (Bell, 2002, p. 209). The dialogically constructed nature of a life history narrative moves it far beyond the realm of narcissistic navel-gazing to a theoretically informed approach that allows the researcher to “better understand how the stories are being told, why they are being told in a particular way, and whose stories remain untold—or, for that matter, not heard—for a variety of reasons” (Pavlenko, 2002, p. 217). Closely examining teachers’ stories enables TESOL professionals to uncover the field’s political and ideological underpinnings and rework them toward more progressive ends, as Lawrence-Lightfoot (1994) explained in her plenary address: We will only begin to recognize the limitations and distortions of narrowly constructed analyses and policies when we begin to accumulate rich and various stories, and when because of their increasing number and power they begin to shape a new public discourse. CONSTRUCTION OF PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES 431 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I sincerely thank my participants for allowing me a window into their complex lives. I also thank the special issue editors, Kathryn Davis in particular, and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. Christine Pearson Casanave and Stephanie Vandrick provided encouragement on early versions of this article. 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Married to a Japanese businessman, Diana previously worked at the local United Nations development office and taught high school English. Having lived in Africa, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan, Diana has a very cosmopolitan view of life and has decided to send her son to an international school in Japan to avoid what she perceives to be a stifling Japanese educational system. Janet Janet is a single, White, 50-year-old British woman whose mother’s family lived in colonial India from 1800 to 1947. Janet was brought up partly in various ex-colonies and then educated at U.K. and U.S. institutions. She has taught EFL in Japanese universities for 25 years and has led teacher training workshops in Japan, the United States, and Thailand. Because of her age, Janet is worried about finding an equivalent job when her current contract expires. To encourage students to reflect on their own culture and identities, she incorporates cultural studies material in her EFL classes. Julia Julia, a 48-year-old expatriate White American, is married to an unemployed Japanese man, and they have one child. Having lived in Japan for 29 years and having received her undergraduate degree from a Japanese university, her Japanese fluency is highly valued by her employer because it enables her to help out with administrative duties. However, Julia feels that the school has placed more emphasis on her being, as she described, “100% American.” Mariah Mariah and her husband are both Filipino, and they came to Japan with their two children 5 years ago because of her husband’s research. An active nongovernmental organization worker while in the Philippines, Mariah, 33, is now a part-time college teacher. Although hoping to find a full-time EFL teaching job, she is unsure of her prospects because Filipinas have such a negative image in Japan and because she is a nonnative-English speaker. She and her family have decided to return to the Philippines in the near future. Mariko Mariko, a Japanese woman from a lower socioeconomic background, is both a full-time EFL college teacher and teacher-educator married to an American. At 45 years old, Mariko is a full professor, but she maintains that the sexual harassment in her department has constrained her professional life. She earned a doctorate to realign the power asymmetries that she sees between the male and female teaching staff in her department. Nicole and the Composite Participant A 28-year old White lesbian educator working at a well-known university, Nicole chose to withdraw from the research so as not to jeopardize her chances for future employment. From CONSTRUCTION OF PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES 435 the information Nicole gave me during our interview and from several messages received on the Nihon Dykenet from lesbian EFL educators, it is clear that Japan’s homophobic atmosphere forces these women to guard their sexual identities while teaching and job hunting. Norah Norah is White, American, 35 years old, single, and an AIDS activist and educator who includes a social issues component in her college EFL curriculum. Having recently received her master’s degree through a long-distance course, Norah would like to earn a doctorate to secure her college teaching position. However, because she is on a nonrenewable, 2-year contract at her college and supporting her mother who lives in the United States, Norah feels that pursuing another costly degree is not financially possible at this point. Se-ri Se-ri is a second-generation, 48-year-old Korean married to an Iranian. She received a master’s degree and a doctorate in education from U.S. institutions and is active in TESOL’s Nonnative English Speakers Caucus. She openly criticizes the Japanese’s racist treatment of Koreans living in Japan after World War II and the discriminatory practices that continue today in Japanese society. She feels that her own experiences have made her more aware of the unfair treatment of foreigners living and working in Japan. 436 TESOL QUARTERLY “I’m Tired. You Clean and Cook.” Shifting Gender Identities and Second Language Socialization DARYL GORDON Temple University Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States Drawing on a multisite ethnographic study that spans educational, domestic, and workplace contexts in the United States and Laos, this article investigates the interplay between gender identity shifts and second language socialization, documenting the process by which working-class Lao women and men redefine gender identities in the United States. Lao women in the United States experience increased opportunities for enacting their gender identities through expanded leadership roles and wage labor, but Lao men experience a narrowing of opportunities because they have lost access to traditional sources of power. Language learning both influences and is influenced by these changing identities. The author considers the impact of gender identity shifts on access to second language resources, with particular focus on workplace and domestic language events as venues for second language socialization, and discusses implications for ethnographic research on gendered second language socialization. This study highlights the need for ESL practitioners to investigate and address the complexity of the everyday language events in which adult ESL learners are engaged and raises questions regarding how adult ESL classrooms can become spaces for discussing, interpreting, and responding to gendered lives in a new land and a new language. S hifts in gendered cultural practices within the Lao-American community were a familiar topic in the ESL class I taught at the Lao Assistance Center. In a discussion about the gendered division of household tasks, a female student remarked that in the United States, when a Lao wife returns from a long day at the factory, she might tell her husband, “I’m tired. You clean and cook.” She perceived this comment as customary in the United States but unthinkable within a Lao cultural context. The tone of this conversation was light and humorous, with laughter from both male and female students. The deeply divisive nature TESOL QUARTERLY Vol. 38, No. 3, Autumn 2004 437 of these changes in gendered cultural practice would become apparent to me later, however, when a male student described how he experienced them. His wife now went out at night and had begun openly dating an American-born coworker. Although she told him that she was only following the “American way,” he mourned the loss of the relationship that he and his wife had in Laos, and he was frustrated and bewildered about the conduct of Lao women in the United States. He told me, “She says she’s independent. She’s American now. She can do what she wants. I say I don’t like that.” Sociological research on migration and gender (Foner, 1998, 1999; Haddad & Lam, 1994; Zhou & Nordquist, 1994) has documented similarly dramatic gender identity shifts within many immigrant and refugee communities. Pessar’s (1984) research with Dominican women in the United States illustrates that the shift to wage labor has resulted in women’s greater autonomy and equality within the household (p. 44). Kibria’s (1990) study demonstrates the effects of migration on gender identity and power in Vietnamese-American communities, revealing how the relative economic resources of men and women have shifted in the family. Because women in these communities earn money through wage labor and men’s jobs are less stable and lower paid in the United States than they were in Vietnam, men cannot support the family with their wages alone, as they had in Vietnam. Ui (1991) calls attention to the Cambodian men’s loss of traditional gender roles in the United States, demonstrating that although many tasks traditionally performed by women, such as housework and childcare, have endured in a new setting, Cambodian men have lost many of the traditional status markers. In the United States, they own no land, experience high rates of unemployment, and have no traditional leadership office to aspire to. Though one might expect such changes in gender identity to profoundly affect women’s access to second language resources, research in TESOL and sociolinguistics has paid little attention to this connection. In fact, many studies have underscored the limitations that women encounter when accessing second language resources, and they have neglected the sociocultural changes that could expand immigrant women’s opportunities for second language socialization. Rockhill (1993) offers a case in point. In that study, she documents how acquiring English literacy becomes “caught up in the power dynamic between men and women” (p. 156) and threatens gendered cultural practices in a Latino immigrant community. Rockhill shows that when women attempt to enter literacy classes, men respond with violence, and she explores how Latina’s “confinement to the domestic sphere” (p. 166) limits their opportunities to learn English. Although Rockhill calls attention to the social context of acquiring literacy in English and highlights the challenges faced by immigrant women, the Latinas in her study seem to 438 TESOL QUARTERLY experience none of the emancipation discussed in other accounts of immigrant women. Tran and Nguyen (1994) conducted similar research within the Southeast Asian refugee community, and they echo Rockhill’s finding that women often have few opportunities to learn English. They show that women are less invested in acquiring English because their work is centered in the home, while men consider English necessary for their primary role as economic providers. Though they carefully document the social context of immigrant women’s second language literacy, Rockhill (1993) and Tran and Nguyen (1994) neglect the dramatic changes in gender identity that the sociological research highlights. Additionally, these studies portray immigrant women inaccurately as oppressed and confined to the domestic sphere. This notion that immigrant women are oppressed became apparent to me when I mentioned my research topic to ESL teachers, who responded with stories of controlling husbands or boyfriends forcefully preventing women from studying English. Male violence and control do sometimes limit women’s access to educational and linguistic resources, and such distressing cases deserve both activist and scholarly attention. TESOL professionals should not assume, however, that these cases reflect the experience of all women hoping to acquire English. Such an assumption erases immigrant women’s agency by failing to acknowledge their role in changing, modifying, and choosing to accept traditional gender identities in different contexts and by ignoring simultaneous shifts experienced by immigrant men (Bhachu, 1993). Husbands often undergo dramatic identity shifts as their wives enter the wage labor force or receive welfare benefits that change the balance of power in the family. In addition to erasing immigrant women’s agency, the ESL teachers’ assumptions promote the inaccurate belief that immigrant women need English language skills only for domestic settings. The study reported here investigated the interplay between gender identity shifts and second language socialization, showing how Lao women and men redefine and restructure gender identities in the United States and how language learning both influences and is influenced by these changing identities. Watson-Gegeo (1988) suggests that ethnographic work in ESL has redefined language learning as language socialization rather than language acquisition. This perspective implies that language is learned through social interaction and refocuses the researcher’s attention not only on how discrete language skills are acquired, but also on how the larger framework of identity and context enables or limits access to second language resources. My analytical framework is founded on poststructuralist theory, which conceptualizes identity as multiply constructed, contradictory, and fluid and posits a mutually constitutive relationship between language and identity (Hall, 1996). This theoretical frame acknowledges that gender is GENDER IDENTITIES AND SECOND LANGUAGE SOCIALIZATION 439 constructed along with other identity categories such as class, race, and linguistic and cultural background (Eckert & McConnell-Ginet, 1992). I therefore employ the term gender identity rather than the more static gender role because it conveys the dynamic potential for identity to shift according to context (Davies & Harre, 1990). This ethnographic study of gender identity demonstrates that some Lao women have gained greater economic independence and decision-making power within the family through their access to wage labor and their knowledge of American cultural attitudes, laws, and public benefits that allow them to leave abusive or unsatisfactory marriages. English language gives these women access to information about American culture and available resources. METHODOLOGY I entered the Lao community in 1994, when I conducted a familyschool discussion group in Philadelphia’s Southeast Asian community. Pha,1 one of the two Lao women profiled in this article, participated in that discussion group. After I assisted Pha with an English language task, she invited me to her home and over baskets of steaming kau niau (sticky rice) and tam mak hung (green papaya salad), she told me stories about her homeland and her dreams and disappointments in the United States. Pha also introduced me to other Lao families, which made me a more familiar presence in the Lao-American community. My own female gender identity also became a salient issue: Because Lao culture frowns on unrelated men and women socializing together, my initial contacts through Pha were Lao women. When I later taught classes at the Lao Temple and a Lao cultural organization, my new identity as a teacher made it more acceptable for me to approach Lao men and talk with them about their experiences in the United States. Formal data collection took place between 1997 and 2000 in an urban, working-class, Lao-American community and in Laos. Ethnographic data collection took place in five distinct phases. During the first phase (November 1997–May 1998), I observed and interviewed participants at the Lao Temple, a religious and cultural center in the Lao-American community. During the second phase ( June 1998–August 1998), I intensively studied Lao language and literacy at the Southeast Asian Summer Studies Institute. Phase 3 (September 1998–May 1999) involved practitioner research in an ESL/citizenship class for Lao adults. Midway through this course, I selected five principal participants. Identifying the 1 Names of persons and organizations are pseudonyms. All quoted material is used with permission of research participants. 440 TESOL QUARTERLY principal participants began Phase 4 (December 1998–September 1999), during which I conducted focused participant observations and interviews in the participants’ homes, workplaces, and religious institutions. Over the next year, the fifth phase (October 1999–October 2000), I conducted research in Laos, which allowed me to visit the families of two of the principal participants and to learn more about the cultural differences between Laos and the United States. I conducted audiotaped interviews with research participants in English or with the assistance of a bilingual Lao-English translator, which I translated and transcribed myself. These data collection methods provided a broad and wide-ranging data corpus that enabled me to triangulate data sources. The data corpus contained 35 interview transcripts (15 from the initial interviews with Lao community members and 20 interviews with principal participants); field notes from participant observation in the Lao Temple, the ESL/ citizenship class, research in Laos, and in the principal participants’ homes, workplaces, and gathering places; documents from the ESL/ citizenship class, including class lists, lesson plans, student information sheets, student writings, needs assessments, student progress notes, and language use sheets; documents from the research sites, including Temple newsletters and mailings, pamphlets and memos from the Indochinese Assistance Association and the Lao Assistance Center, and letters received by principal participants from the welfare office, utility companies, children’s schools, and other institutions. I began the data analysis by searching the data corpus to identify emergent themes and generate empirical assertions and analytical categories (Erickson, 1986). Data were manually coded using colored labels. A written record was kept for each analytic category noting the dates of field notes or interview transcripts along with a brief description or comment on the event. BACKGROUND ON LAO MIGRATION Lao refugees were among the nearly one million Southeast Asians from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos who sought refuge in the United States after the Vietnam War ended in 1975. Because of its strategic border with Vietnam, Laos was bombed relentlessly by the United States between 1964 and 1973. The United States dropped a staggering 2,092,900 tons of bombs on Laos during this period, approximately twothirds of a ton for every, man, woman, and child in Laos (Tollefson, 1989, p. 25). Bombing effectively destroyed village life in Laos. The people fled their villages and the farms that had provided their livelihoods to seek refuge in caves or the jungle (Evans, 1998; Stuart-Fox, 1997; Takaki GENDER IDENTITIES AND SECOND LANGUAGE SOCIALIZATION 441 1989). During this period, approximately 25% of the population became refugees within Laos (Savada, 1994). When the Pathet Lao took power after the war, many Laotians left the country. By the end of the refugee exodus in the 1990s, approximately 305,000 Laotians, more than 10% of the population, had emigrated (Guttal, 1993, p. 3). The refugee exodus has three main waves. The first and second waves comprised highly educated elites from urban areas who had often worked closely with the U.S. military. Third-wave refugees, the focus of this study, were the largest group. These individuals came from rural areas; they had little money and almost no formal education (Kelly, 1986). Though all refugees experienced the trauma of leaving their homeland, third-wave refugees experienced the greatest hardships because they were the least familiar with Western culture, and their lives as subsistence farmers did not prepare them to live in the urban areas where they relocated. Third-wave immigrants to the United States comprised several ethnic groups, including the Hmong, from the highlands, and the Lowland Lao, the largest population in Laos. This study focuses on the Lowland Lao, whom I refer to as Lao. Third-wave refugees spent many years in Thai refugee camps before entering the United States. The participants in this study spent between 2 and 5 years in refugee camps. Although both men’s and women’s normal lives were disrupted in the refugee camps, men’s roles shifted most dramatically. Women’s traditional domestic labor continued in the camps because children needed care, food needed cooking, and clothes needed washing. Lao men, however, who had been subsistence farmers or soldiers, lacked any access to the traditional gender identities that had provided the framework for their lives (Hitchcox, 1993). When they entered the United States, Lao refugees attempted to adjust to an urban landscape that differed radically from the rural villages and rice farms in Laos. To complicate matters, Lao refugees entering Philadelphia encountered a grim labor market. During the 1970s, Philadelphia had lost 11.9% of its jobs. The manufacturing sector was hit hardest, losing 75% of jobs between 1955 and 1975. Like many northeastern cities, Philadelphia lost most of its industry after World War II, and with the loss of industry went stable, unionized jobs. Lao refugees entering the city in the 1980s found employment mainly in metalworking, woodworking, and garment production, nonunion jobs that pay piecework rates and provide no worker benefits (Goode, 1994). The tenuous nature of employment for most Lao refugees is reflected by their income levels. The median income for Lao households in 1990 was $19,671, well below both the national average and the average for immigrant groups. At that time, more than 40% of Lao households fell below the poverty line, and 44% of Lao households received public assistance (Portes & Rumbaut, 1990). 442 TESOL QUARTERLY PARTICIPANTS This article focuses on two principal participants, Pha and Viseth. When Pha entered the United States in 1986, she was 20 years old with a husband and three young children. Pha had received 6 years of formal education in her northern Lao village. During the course of this research, Pha received public assistance. Viseth was 21 when she entered the United States in 1982 and had received 2 years of formal education in Laos. She married a Lao man during her first year in the United States and later had two children. Viseth worked full-time at Empire Foam, a factory that is profiled later in this article. Both women were vibrant and active participants in the ESL class that I taught at the Lao Assistance Center. Pha, who had greater English proficiency than her husband, took responsibility for English interactions on behalf of their household. Though Pha did not work outside the home, her interactions with social institutions, related to care for her children and the household, provided her with many opportunities to acquire natural English. Viseth could speak and understand very little English, and we communicated mostly in Lao. Her husband took responsibility for tasks requiring English use because he was more proficient. Although Viseth worked full-time, she worked alongside other Lao immigrants and had few opportunities to acquire English. Several researchers (e.g., Goldstein, 2001; Holmes, 1993; & Rockhill, 1993) have examined the workplace as a venue for acquiring English naturalistically and have found that participating in the workforce affords immigrant men more opportunities to acquire English than it does immigrant women. In the working-class Lao-American community that I studied, however, neither men nor women reported a significant need for English in their agricultural and nonunion factory jobs, where their coworkers are primarily other Southeast Asian refugees. Domestic tasks related to household maintenance and childrearing, tasks more frequently performed by women, often required more contact with native-English speakers and greater proficiency in spoken and written English. To discover the gendered opportunities for language socialization, I interviewed Lao women and men in Philadelphia and found that they experienced radically shifting gender identities when they arrived in the United States. I also observed how they used language in the workplace and in the home. These data show that gendered opportunities for language socialization in this working-class Lao community differ in fundamental ways from such opportunities in other immigrant groups, demonstrating the importance of closely examining second language use in specific communities of practice. GENDER IDENTITIES AND SECOND LANGUAGE SOCIALIZATION 443 SHIFTING GENDER IDENTITIES IN MIGRATION Both men and women in this urban Lao community agreed that gender identities have shifted dramatically. As Lao women have acquired English and access to wage work, they have gained greater economic independence and authority in the family. However, although women perceived their access to American gendered cultural practices as enabling them to enact less restrictive gender identities, Lao men experienced these same changes as a loss of authority. Lao women’s growing English proficiency further erodes male authority because it facilitates women’s interactions outside of the Lao community. In the following interview excerpt, Pha talks about how material and cultural resources in the United States make Lao women “stronger”: D: How do women change so much [in the United States]? It doesn’t make sense to me. Pha: Um, because in here, is have police, have friends, have, uh, communities, help them about make the, make the woman stronger. D: Huh, that’s interesting. Pha: But in Laos, nothing to help them about make them stronger. Only tell her, patient and patient, you is a woman, you is a mother. You have to patient. You cannot do anything except patient. But in here . . . husband work, don’t give me money, I can work, too. The companies want me to work, too, right? (Interview 4/21/95)2 Here Pha clarifies how access to material resources affects women’s lives and their ability to refuse the positioning of traditional gender identities. She mentions the importance of police, referring to her previous comment that Lao women learn that they can call the police if they are being beaten by their husbands or boyfriends, a resource not available to women in Laos. She also stresses the importance of friends, communities, and paid work that support women and “make them stronger,” enabling them to make new choices about how they realize their identities as women in the United States. Pha also describes how Lao women have actively changed Lao gendered cultural practices in the United States using their awareness of American law and their ability to leave a husband and support themselves. In the following quotation, she describes that although Lao men in the United States wanted to continue the Lao practice of polygamy, or taking a “second wife,” Lao women introduced changes: 2 Interviews were conducted in English. When an interviewee experienced difficulty explaining a concept in English, I occasionally translated into Lao for clarification or sought the aid of a translator, often an interviewee’s friend or family member. 444 TESOL QUARTERLY Pha: In heres, um, Laos, Laos people, is uh, man, right? Man is, uh, they want to do the same thing, but the woman who’s live here long, about 2, 3 years, they know about Americans’ law. And if husbands go out, have girlfriend or have second wife, something like that, and the wife’s at home, they know about husband do like that. They impatient, they go out, too. They have boyfriend, too. If husband say get divorced, they don’t care. They get divorced. (Interview 4/21/95) Lao women in the United States resist the traditional practice of polygamy not only through their awareness of American laws, but also through U.S. culture’s less restrictive gender identities. Pha suggests that women might resist polygamy by having an extramarital affair or getting a divorce, options not easily available to women in Laos because of the traditional economic and cultural constraints. Although many Lao women appreciated the expanded gender identities available to them in the United States, they expressed concern about the increasing divorce rates within their community. When Lao men addressed gender shifts in the United States, they also attributed women’s greater independence to women’s wage labor and their access to American laws and cultural attitudes, but Lao men experienced this shift as a loss of authority within their families and community. In this interview with Nongsay and Sampeth, two Lao men who attended the Lao Temple, they discuss how Lao families and especially Lao women change after they have emigrated to the United States. Nongsay begins by stating his perception of gender identities in Laos: Women come second to men, and wives should listen to their husbands. However, as these men explain, and as they themselves have experienced, Lao women in the United States begin to question these identities: Nongsay: Girls gotta be second, man be number one. Whatever man say, girl gotta do. Girl over there [in Laos] listen, like a wife. Sampeth: That’s why when they come here, they say, “Why?” Nongsay: “Why, why, I have to listen to husband?” Whatever husband say, wife gotta listen and do. Sampeth: Most of Lao people want their wife to stay home. Nongsay: Yeah, like wife always raise the kids and cook. Sampeth: But when they come here, they complain a lot. Nongsay: They come here, they be like a boss. Sampeth: Equality, supposed to be like that. Nongsay: No, they want to be on the top, that’s why. Sampeth [laughing]: Women want to be top. Nongsay: Yeah! (Interview 5/31/98) GENDER IDENTITIES AND SECOND LANGUAGE SOCIALIZATION 445 As Nongsay and Sampeth discuss the changes that occur as Lao men and women transition to new identities, they both emphasize men’s ability to control women’s actions in Laos and women’s acceptance of that control (“girl over there listen”). Lao women in the United States resist this control and not only wish to be equal to men, but want “to be top” or to take the position of control from men. English represents both the language of the United States and the medium for accessing U.S. resources and institutions. English is the language Lao women might use to contact the police about an incident of domestic violence or to learn about American laws. The role that English plays in the gender identity shifts experienced in Lao families and the perception of English use by Lao men and women are important to explore. Women’s acquisition of English is a complex process because it can erode men’s sense of their own authority and change gender identities within the family. MAKING A LIVING The workplace and domestic spheres in the United States offer Lao women opportunities for second language socialization. Lao women’s transition to wage labor in the United States has rendered their contributions to the family economy more visible and changed family decisionmaking practices. Although women’s labor in Laos was similarly essential to the family economy, their work planting rice seedlings, hulling rice, and tending kitchen gardens was traditionally considered part of the family income. In the United States, however, Lao women receive income separately from the family in the form of a paycheck or welfare benefit. Women’s access to wages, either through welfare benefits or wage work, changes the gender roles within the Lao family, as Pha’s earlier comments demonstrate. She describes how a woman’s access to material resources influences the degree to which she can assert her influence within a marriage: Women can leave an abusive marriage and resist the practice of polygamy because they can support themselves independently. Though Lao women have traditionally engaged in domestic labor, Lao women in the United States often negotiate with social institutions on the family’s behalf, as these data show, and this advocacy represents a new context for these women. In Laos, especially in the rural areas, men would negotiate for the family with village and provincial authorities. Although the workplace has been heralded as a key site for second language acquisition, these data demonstrate that Lao women negotiating domestic events must use more complex English more frequently than they do in the workplace. Most working-class Lao men and women compete for a fairly small 446 TESOL QUARTERLY pool of jobs, almost exclusively unskilled labor in warehouses, factories, and agriculture. The blue-collar jobs available to this study’s participants did not require workers to speak or write English. Employers structured the jobs to obviate the need for English language skills, thereby enabling them to employ low-paid immigrant workers. Employers of Lao refugees noted in interviews that they valued job traits such as dependability, regular attendance, punctuality, and ability to perform a repetitive task with continued attention. Lao men and women often worked alongside other Southeast Asian refugees and Spanish-speaking immigrants, and a number of participants reported that they had learned Khmer, Vietnamese, or Spanish on the job to communicate with other workers. Acquiring these languages clearly indicates that they had limited contact with native speakers of English and that they did not see learning English as a useful or acknowledged job skill. For blue-collar Lao workers, English proficiency was extraneous to their unskilled jobs but lack of it was a barrier to gaining better-paid employment. EMPIRE FOAM Empire Foam, a factory where Viseth, a principal participant in my research, worked for 4 years, illustrates how superfluous English proficiency was in doing factory work. Empire employs approximately 100 workers; about half are Spanish speakers, from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, and half are Lao workers, but the workforce also includes a few immigrant workers from other countries and a few nativeEnglish speakers. The factory has capitalized on the workers’ native languages by creating separate work environments for Spanish and Lao speakers. Spanish speakers work on the upper floor, and Lao speakers work on the lower floor. Each floor has a bilingual supervisor who also acts as a translator for the office staff, exclusively U.S.-born native-English speakers, and the factory line workers. Approximately 70% of the workers are women and 30% are men. Men usually operate the forklifts and large machines that cut or punch out sponges, or they do heavy lifting and transporting. Although a few women workers operate smaller machines, most work separating newly cut sponges from a large piece of foam and packing them into boxes. Employees who operate machines are paid a higher wage, and those who operate larger, more complicated machines received the highest wages; workers who do heavy labor are also paid more than those who do packing. Because men generally operate the machines, they are paid higher wages; women, who almost without exception packed the boxes, are shunted into lower paying jobs. Factory supervisors clearly conceptualize the jobs as gendered. GENDER IDENTITIES AND SECOND LANGUAGE SOCIALIZATION 447 In the factory, Spanish-speaking and Lao-speaking employees work on different floors, an arrangement that actively encourages and supports native language use. The largest number of workers (exclusively women) separate individual sponges from the long pieces of foam. They work at very long tables: Six to eight women stand facing each other across the table. This physical layout encourages social interaction. When I participated in one women’s work group, they spoke exclusively in Lao, chatting about family and events in the neighborhood and at the Lao Temple. When I interviewed Bill, the floor supervisor, he echoed my own observations that workers spoke only in their native languages. He described the English proficiency of Lao workers as “about 10 to 20% have good English” (this group includes mostly second generation immigrants), “10 to 20% have okay English, and the rest, [their] English is pretty poor.” Workers who do not share the same language may communicate using gestures (e.g., gesturing or pointing to a box) or limited English vocabulary focused on work needs (e.g., saying the one word box). Bill also mentioned that a few Lao women had learned some vocabulary words in Spanish because they frequently interacted with Spanish speakers. To communicate with a monolingual English-speaking supervisor, Lao speakers can easily find a bilingual translator. When one Lao worker needed to communicate with her supervisor but was unable to express herself in English, her son, who also worked at Empire, translated her message. From the employer’s perspective, the work did not require English language proficiency. Although supervisors may have criticized workers for their lack of English proficiency, management did not see it as an important issue. Management seemed to conceptualize language diversity as a problem to be solved and once they found the right organization (e.g., native-speaking work groups), they did not consider it an impediment to work. Work at this factory also required minimal English literacy skills. For the groups of women filling boxes, one woman in each six to eight person crew must count the sponges, record the number on the box, and write her initials. Because only one woman within a crew is responsible for this task, a woman who cannot perform it can easily avoid it. Though workers do not need English literacy to work in the factory, they do need it to access information on safety or workers’ rights information. Safety signs in Spanish and English were posted throughout the factory, but there were no signs in Lao. Workers’ rights information in Spanish and English was posted on a bulletin board, but it was not translated for Lao workers. English is perhaps most useful for advocating for oneself in the factory. Viseth told me that she used her English skills to request a lifting belt, a wide leather belt that supports the back when doing heavy lifting, 448 TESOL QUARTERLY when she began having back pain from lifting large pieces of foam. She communicated her request to her employer, who issued her a lifting belt. Empire Foam comprises a number of separate worlds: one for nativeEnglish-speaking workers in the office, one for bilingual or monolingual immigrants, one for Puerto Ricans, and one for Lao; one for women and one for men. Neither male nor female immigrant workers at Empire had access to naturalistic English acquisition, and they had few opportunities for advancement or promotion. Female workers were particularly disadvantaged because they earned the lowest salaries. Holmes (1993), Rockhill (1987; 1993), and other researchers have indicated that immigrant men have more opportunities to acquire a second language through their everyday interactions in the workplace, while immigrant women have fewer opportunities because they more often work in the home. Goldstein (1995, 2001) demonstrated that Portuguese men entering Canada with some proficiency in English more easily obtained relatively high-paying jobs working with other English speakers, which helped them to acquire English naturally. Portuguese women had fewer opportunities to acquire English naturally because they worked primarily with other monolingual Portuguese speakers. For members of the working-class Lao community employed at Empire Foam, however, access to English language socialization in the workplace was limited for both female and male workers. Instead, domestic language events, defined as interactions with social institutions connected to care for children and the home, emerged as the most frequent opportunity for second language socialization. DOMESTIC LANGUAGE EVENTS Pha took responsibility for English domestic language events on behalf of her family, including interacting with school personnel, dealing with bills, and negotiating with the English-speaking landlord. Because Pha did not work outside the home and took responsibility for childcare, she had more opportunities to speak English than her husband, who worked full-time at a clam processing plant with other Southeast Asian refugees. Throughout the years that I knew Pha, she most frequently used English in interactions involving her sons’ welfare. I accompanied her to a number of her son’s court hearings and visits to her son at the youth detention center, where he was placed after having been convicted of a crime. Pha’s interactions in these situations required her to understand many different varieties and registers of English. For example, going to court required her to talk with a lawyer, to understand the intricacies of GENDER IDENTITIES AND SECOND LANGUAGE SOCIALIZATION 449 her son’s case, to understand questions from the judge about the boy’s character and attendance at school, and to understand the frequent court delays in his case. Communicating with the guards and visitors at the youth detention center, most of whom were African American and many of whom spoke African-American Vernacular English, required Pha to understand a very different register. Pha and the other women were also more willing than men to ask a native-English speaker for help, another important factor that contributed to women’s greater access to acquiring natural language. During this study, Pha asked me to help her complete a task that was beyond her level of English proficiency. Asking for help can threaten face, so for a Lao woman to request help may be more culturally appropriate than for a Lao man. Günthner’s (1992) study of Chinese students’ German acquisition substantiates this notion. Her study demonstrated that women were far more likely than men to ask native speakers for help on a language task; to save face, the men attempted to cope with these language problems themselves. For a Lao man to ask for help with language in a domestic matter would suggest that he cannot handle family affairs independently. Moreover, those most readily available to help him, such as ESL teachers or social workers, would likely be women and that would only increase the request’s threat to face, making him even less likely to ask for assistance. Two domestic language events demonstrated Pha’s responsibility for English language interactions on behalf of her family. The first is selling the family car, which required Pha to receive phone calls and negotiate with native-English speakers. When Pha’s husband decided to sell his car and posted an ad in the paper, Pha, who knows little about cars and cannot drive, assumed the responsibility for receiving the many phone calls in response to the ad because she was home during the day while her husband worked. To prepare for these calls, she studied the vocabulary about cars that she might use by looking up the words in a picture dictionary. Although Pha had studied the vocabulary, she had difficulty with the idioms and phrases necessary to communicate effectively and sell the car. After class one evening, she asked me whether she could use the phrase, “What do you bid?,” which I had used in class the previous week, to begin negotiating the price with a potential buyer. When I explained that this phrase would imply that the car did not have a set price, she asked for a list of common phrases used in negotiation. As we made a list including, “What are you asking for the car?” “The price is negotiable.” “The price is not firm.” “I’m willing to take a little off the price,” I realized the difficulty of this exchange and the extent to which it challenged her English ability. Pha had taken on this task not because of her English proficiency but because she did not work outside the home and was at 450 TESOL QUARTERLY home during the day caring for her child. Although she might have preferred that her son or husband handle these calls, their work obligations precluded them from doing so. Hence, Pha’s presence at home did not limit her second language socialization but in fact increased it because she was the only person available during the day to perform English communication tasks. The second incident involved her efforts to retain the family apartment after the landlord declared bankruptcy. In October 1998 Pha told me that she had received a notice from her landlord’s lawyer that she did not fully understand. The letter notified her that her landlord had declared bankruptcy. Because the family had a month-to-month lease, the landlord’s bankruptcy meant that they might have to move out with only a month’s notice. Pha was worried about having to move because the rent was very inexpensive and her husband had done many repairs to improve the apartment. She had talked with the other tenants in her building, all Cambodian and Lao families, who indicated that they were planning to vacate their apartments immediately. Anticipating the need to move quickly, Pha had spent many days searching for another apartment but found them all too expensive. She asked me to contact the landlord’s lawyer to inquire whether she and the other tenants could stay in the apartment. The following excerpt from my field notes describes the information I gathered in these calls: I called the lawyer and Community Legal Services to inquire about her rights in this situation. Then I called to tell Pha of my conversation with Community Legal Services and to tell her that I had found out that she may not need to move at all and if she does, she could petition the court for more time. I talked with the landlord’s lawyer and found that a trustee had been appointed and he would soon be making an inspection of the house in order to assess the property’s value. After this assessment, he would decide a course of action: keep with present landlord, sell it, or abandon the property. When I told him that I was calling on behalf of a Lao family who didn’t speak English well, he said he understood that was true of all families in house and that perhaps if they spoke more English, they could have negotiated a longer lease which would have provided them with more protection in this situation. (Gordon, field notes, 10/27/98) When I called Pha to tell her about these developments, our conversation demonstrated the complexity of the language necessary to convey this information. The situation required an understanding of complex sentences, hypotheticals, and specific vocabulary. For example, Pha had difficulty understanding such complex sentences as “The person at Community Legal Services said you may not have to move, and if you do, you could petition the court to stay longer.” and “The lawyer told me that the trustee will inspect the property and decide whether the landlord will GENDER IDENTITIES AND SECOND LANGUAGE SOCIALIZATION 451 keep it, the trustee will keep it, or it will be abandoned.” The lawyer’s comment that the families might have been able to negotiate a longer lease had they been able to speak English, though perhaps accurate, ignores the complex demands of this language situation, the time and effort necessary for successful second language acquisition, and the fact that a lease is an unfamiliar notion in rural Lao culture. This incident demonstrates Pha’s responsibility for dealing with this English language task as a result of her greater English proficiency, her having the time to devote to this task, and her willingness to ask for help from a nativeEnglish speaker. This situation also indicates how the family’s well-being depends on at least one family member’s ability to communicate in English or to obtain help from someone who can. The incidents involving selling the car and dealing with the bankrupt landlord demonstrate that some domestic tasks require English use and that these tasks increased Pha’s opportunity for second language socialization. These data contradict researchers’ assertions that women’s presence in the home limits their ability to acquire English (Goldstein, 2001; Holmes, 1993; Rockhill, 1993). Pha’s responsibility for tasks related to the domestic sphere required her to use much more complex English than Viseth’s interactions did at Empire Foam. Though increased opportunity for second language socialization may not directly lead to greater second language proficiency, examination of interview excerpts collected during 2 years of interviewing and closely observing the two women indicate that Pha’s language developed both syntactically and pragmatically while Viseth’s language demonstrated little change. Pierce’s (1995) work with immigrant women in Canada underscores the importance of considering both the language learner’s exposure to the target language and his or her investment in using these opportunities to communicate using the target language. The findings reported in this article suggest the need for further study into how shifts in gender identity influence second language socialization, especially for workingclass immigrants and refugees, groups that have received little attention in the field of language and gender. CONCLUSION The findings in this study have implications for research on gendered second language socialization within and outside ESL classrooms and on gendered topics and issues in ESL text and curriculum choices. Second language acquisition research does not typically examine language acquisition as a social phenomenon influenced by men’s and women’s different positions vis-à-vis social, economic, and political changes. 452 TESOL QUARTERLY Ethnography can augment research on learning a second language by providing holistic and detailed descriptions of the gendered social context. Closely exploring gendered language use in the home and the workplace provided complementary data for each context. Findings showed that domestic language events required more complex patterns of English use than the workplace did. Investigating the home context yielded insight into how English proficiency and English use altered the gender roles within families and how men and women perceived these changes. Because identity is multiply constructed and fluid, ethnographers and ESL practitioners need to investigate multiple contexts to gain a richer picture of second language socialization. Although this study focused on women, the research also demonstrated that Lao refugee men’s gender identities shift dramatically during migration. Identity theorists have begun to investigate masculinity itself as a constructed identity category rather than as an accepted norm against which to analyze femininity. However, few studies have explored the connections between masculine identity and language use, and further research is needed in this area, particularly concerning men of diverse ethnic backgrounds and socioeconomic levels (Pujolar i Cos, 1997; Teutsch-Dwyer, 2001). This study suggests that both researchers and ESL practitioners should explore multiple language needs, purposes, contexts, and topics among participants and language learners. ESL textbooks do not commonly cover the contexts in which this study’s participants often required English, such as the legal system. On the other hand, ESL textbooks commonly cover contexts in which the participants more often communicated in their first language, such as the workplace. This disconnect between language learners’ actual goals and the goals that textbook authors ascribe to them indicates that learners’ goals need to be assessed locally because these goals may differ between communities with differing socioeconomic backgrounds and bilingual support. This study’s principal participants used English primarily to negotiate within social institutions. Pha’s experience using English to negotiate a new apartment and guide her son through the court system indicate how crucial these interactions are to a family’s well-being. The complexity of these interactions suggests that these agencies need to provide bilingual support. The prevalence of these interactions indicates that ESL texts need to address not only the interactions’ language-learning aspect, but also to provide guidance for immigrants negotiating these complicated, and often confusing, systems. ESL textbooks (Wallerstein & Auerbach, 1987; Weinstein-Shr, 1992) and frameworks for curriculum development (Auerbach, 1992; 1995; Nash, Cason, Rhum, McGrail, & Gomez-Sanford, GENDER IDENTITIES AND SECOND LANGUAGE SOCIALIZATION 453 1992; Weinstein, 1999), which focus on participatory activities and problem-posing methods, are a resource for ESL practitioners who wish to center classroom activities on the lives of their learners. In addition to addressing the real language needs and purposes of immigrants, the findings regarding the dramatic changes occurring within immigrant families and communities present a challenge to ESL teachers and administrators: How can ESL classes become venues where immigrants and refugees can consider the shifts in gendered cultural practices that they experience in their families and communities? Norton (1997) discusses the tendency of many ESL teachers to perceive learners’ ethnic identity as predominant while ignoring the new cultural milieu’s influence on their identity. She writes, “Whereas immigrant learners’ experiences in their native country may be a significant part of their identity, these experiences are constantly being mediated by their experiences in the new country, across multiple sites in the home, workplace, and community” (p. 413). As this study shows, although Lao traditional gendered cultural practices are an important part of Lao women’s identities, so too are these women’s active negotiation and creation of identities through their experiences during migration, and in their workplaces, homes, and religious institutions in the United States. Many ESL texts consider the experiences of new immigrants and may discuss reactions to new foods and new settings. Yet ESL materials and classroom practices often fail to address the deeply felt cultural adjustments that long-term immigrants experience. ESL learners who attend classes for many years after having come to the United States are often experiencing cultural change on a very different level than those who are newly arrived. This article has closely examined the interplay between second language socialization and shifts in gender identity within a specific community of practice, a group of working-class Lao refugee women. Previous research in language and gender has demonstrated the importance of investigating the local construction of gender identities rather than generalizing across communities and contexts. Although one must use caution in extending the results of this research to other immigrant or refugee communities, this study raises questions and possibilities for future research in other communities and ESL classrooms: How do shifts in gender identities create new opportunities for women and men to access second language resources? How does second language socialization affect the formation of gender identity? How can ESL practitioners investigate cultural notions of masculinity and femininity in their classrooms? How can ESL learners document the process of shifting gender identities that affects their families and communities? I trust that future studies will investigate specific, local forms of gender, offering insight into how second language socialization influences gender identities and 454 TESOL QUARTERLY ideologies, thereby contributing to “the undoing of a single unified tale of language and gender”(Bucholtz, 1999, p. viii). THE AUTHOR Daryl Gordon has worked with adult ESL learners since 1988, teaching in Laos, Mexico, and the United States. She is assistant director of Project SHINE at Temple University’s Center for Intergenerational Learning and an adjunct professor in Temple University’s TESOL program. She completed her doctoral work in educational linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. REFERENCES Auerbach, E. (1992). Making meaning, making change: Participatory curriculum development for adult ESL literacy. McHenry, IL: Delta Systems. Auerbach, E. (1995). From deficit to strength: Changing perspectives on family literacy. In G. Weinstein-Shr & E. 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GENDER IDENTITIES AND SECOND LANGUAGE SOCIALIZATION 457 Constructing Gender in an English Dominant Kindergarten: Implications for Second Language Learners BARBARA L. HRUSKA The University of Tampa Tampa, Florida, United States This article is part of a year-long ethnographic study conducted in an English dominant kindergarten in the United States. The classroom comprised 6 Spanish-bilingual English language learners and 17 native English speakers. The study was based on a theoretical framework that views language as the site for constructing social meaning and negotiating power. Such theory provides the foundation for asking questions about interaction that move beyond a strictly linguistic focus (Fairclough, 1989). The study demonstrated how relationships and interaction mediated through local gender constructions support and constrain English language learners’ classroom participation. Based on these results, I argue that local gender ideologies operating in second language (L2) learning contexts affect students’ access to the interactions that they need to develop a second language. TESOL professionals cannot treat gender simply as a fixed independent variable with universal outcomes. Gender meanings shift and change in subtle and not so subtle ways, requiring that researchers attend to local contexts and to consequences for local participants. L anguage educators (Pennycook, 1990; Sunderland, 1994; Tannen, 1996; Vandrick, 1999; Willett, 1996) have called for TESOL professionals both to expand the way they conceptualize gender and to include gender in TESOL theory, research, and practice. Accordingly, researchers adopting a feminist perspective focus on the relationship between gender and language in L2 learning contexts by moving beyond the traditional focus on gender differences and gender as a unitary trait (Kitetu & Sunderland, 2002; Litosseliti & Sunderland, 2002; Losey, 1995; Norton, 2000; Pavlenko, Blackledge, Piller, & Teutsch-Dwyer, 2001; Toohey & Scholefield, 1994; Willett, 1995). These scholars see gender meanings as permeating interaction and reflecting hegemonic social interests, including sexist practices. From this perspective, so-called TESOL QUARTERLY Vol. 38, No. 3, Autumn 2004 459 normal or natural gender behavior differs across contexts (Wodak, 1997) and cultures (Kitetu & Sunderland) and changes over time (Connell, 1987; Flax, 1987). Like many of the theorists concerned with gender issues (Connell, 1987; Eckert & McConnell-Ginet, 1992; West & Zimmerman, 1991), this study looks at the macro- and micronuances of institutionalized social and political allocations of power and resources. In this case, the institution is the kindergarten classroom in the United States and the resources are opportunities for interaction in English. Rather than assuming that interaction is a source of linguistic input and output available to all participants, I conceived participants as using language to negotiate ideologies, identities, and relationships at local levels (Bloome & Willett, 1991; Duranti & Goodwin, 1992; Rodby, 1992). This perspective of language and interaction motivated the study, which sought to discover the complex interplay among gender, relationships, and second language learners’ access to opportunities for interaction in English. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK Fairclough’s (1989) view of language as dialectically related to society has helped me to articulate this study’s perspective on language and gender. Fairclough is particularly interested in the relationship between language, ideology, and power. He defines ideology as an “implicit common sense assumption” that is shaped by power relations and governs practice (Fairclough, 1989, pp. 2, 33, 91, 92). According to Fairclough, considering ideologies and related interactional routines as common sense legitimizes them as accepted modes of conduct, and those who exercise power in large part determine this process of naturalization. As a result, meanings, which most benefit dominant populations, can become invisible through being defined as commonsense practices. Thus, acceptable beliefs and related behaviors are endorsed and perpetuated by those who hold power. Fairclough points out that, at the same time, although “there is a constant endeavor on the part of those who have power to try [to] impose an ideological common sense which holds true for everyone . . . there is always some degree of ideological diversity, and indeed, conflict and struggle so that ideological uniformity is never completely achieved” (Fairclough, 1989, p. 86). He argues that this ideological diversity results not from individuals, but from the differences in positioning and interests among various social groups who enter into power relationships with each other. The nondominant ideological perspectives and practices often challenge the naturalized dominant discourses, and it is at 460 TESOL QUARTERLY these interfaces that creativity and change are most likely to flourish, though not necessarily without resistance. Fairclough (1989, chapter 9) contends that researchers can facilitate social change by identifying how ideology shapes commonsense assumptions and how language enables some people to dominate others. Researchers must consider how these power relations obtain at various levels of social interaction: societal, institutional, classroom, and situational. These levels are not separate, but interrelated. Interactions at microlevels influence those at macrolevels and vice versa. Fairclough (1989) further suggests that these struggles take place in language and are about the meanings of language. Language is both the site of the struggle and the focus of the struggle. Individuals use language to implicate and position others in their relationships and identities. Norton (2000) suggests that relationships, positioning, and identity construction can determine who has access to language interaction in a given context. English language learners’ intrinsic motivation alone does not ensure that they will have opportunities to use a second language or to interact with native speakers. Such opportunities are shaped by social relations of power. Fairclough’s socially oriented theory of language enables researchers to move beyond strictly linguistic questions about interaction in second language contexts to questions about contextual features. Using this conceptual framework, I intended to observe second language learners’ interaction, participation, and language use in their mainstream gradelevel classrooms, where they could interact with native English speakers. Although I did not initially focus on gender, it was so prominent in the data concerning access to local interaction that I used questions of gender to guide the data analysis: How do gender and bilingualism influence the relationships that provide access to interaction in English? How do classroom interactions enact gender ideologies? This study addressed these questions with particular attention to their implications for English as a second language (ESL) students in the mainstream kindergarten classroom. STUDY DESIGN This study combined an ethnographic approach with discourse analysis from a teacher-researcher’s perspective. Qualitative approaches, which have been underrepresented in TESOL research, provide contextual and interpretive accounts of English language learners and learning environments that add to the corpus of quantitative studies (Chapelle & Duff, 2003; Pennycook, 1994). As qualitative research practices have GENDER IN AN ENGLISH DOMINANT KINDERGARTEN 461 evolved in TESOL, researchers have acknowledged and explored the complexities of local contexts and their relationship to broader sociocultural and sociopolitical contexts. Although this study was initially oriented toward description and interpretation, the significance of the gender data moved the analysis in a critical direction (Anderson, 1989; Gordon, Holland, & Lahelma, 2001; Pennycook). Gender ideologies, gender constructions, and related behaviors described in the study sometimes interacted with bilingualism, ethnicity, and friendships in ways that emphasized unequal power relations or shaped participation in classroom events. Assuming the role of teacher researcher in this study gave me an emic perspective that forced me, sometimes painfully, to recognize previously unnoticed interactions and meanings. As the ESL teacher at this site for several years (and previously as a student), I was familiar with the school’s population, culture, and history. I gained a new perspective, however, because I purposely conducted research in non-ESL classroom contexts, which were less well known to me. Thus, I had the benefits of both familiarity and newness as I engaged in the research. However, I was not prepared for the degree of newness that I would encounter. Observing my students in their grade-level classrooms was startling. I had not been aware that the children’s social interactions had such a significant impact on their access to language. I had been so focused on supporting my students in developing academic English that I was more or less oblivious to their experiences outside of my classroom. Despite my feminist orientation, I was also unprepared for the extent to which the children’s gender ideologies and practices influenced their social interactions. Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1993) highlight the significance of teacher research by acknowledging both local (classroom and school) and public (the larger community of educators) contributions to the emic view. They argue that this emic view and the intentionality of analyzing local practices are a powerful combination that can be a catalyst for creating social change and critical pedagogy. Rather than being handed down from a university researcher, teacher research allows the practitioner to take a critical view of his or her own practice or local setting by choice. Data collection followed standard ethnographic procedures, including prolonged engagement, persistent observation, and triangulation to ensure the credibility of interpretations. Observations for the study spanned a period of one year, excluding the previous pilot study year. I typically conducted one to three 20- to 45-minute observations daily and videotaped at least two observations per week. Data sources used in this study were 830 pages of handwritten field notes, 40 hours of videotape, 4 hours of audiotaped teacher interviews, 113 seating charts, and 17 classroom documents. Having a variety of data allowed me to triangulate my findings by 462 TESOL QUARTERLY identifying repeated themes, confirming or negating hypotheses, and searching for negative cases across data sources. In addition to triangulating sources, I also triangulated roles. Because I approached the setting both as teacher and researcher, I was able to shift from being an observer, to a participant observer, to a complete participant. These varying roles afforded me a variety of perspectives from which to collect data, some fully involved, others more removed. In my case, I often became aware of classroom interactions and meanings when I was the most removed, as an observer. These multiple data sources and researcher roles brought a depth to data collection and analysis that enriched the interpretive process and ensured credibility. Data collection, management, and analysis began on the first day of school and continued throughout the study. Data were reviewed regularly using ethnographic analytic techniques (Goetz & Le Compte, 1984; Patton, 1990; Spradley, 1980). Analytic memos were composed weekly and were reviewed at several points during the study. These memos served to identify patterns, themes, questions, and hypotheses. Initial analyses involved scanning and indexing the entire corpus of data several times. Data were organized according to their relevance to the research questions. Selective coding was conducted on field notes, interviews, and videotaped data. For the purposes of microanalysis, 25 classroom events representing whole-class, small-group, and free-play activities were selected and transcribed (Erickson, 1992) according to their relevance to the broad research questions and the theoretical framework. Half of these transcripts were analyzed to identify patterns and exceptions. From this group, 7 were selected and analyzed in greater depth. The resulting microanalysis took the form of a list of answers to questions concerning the events, which served as the basis for interpretations. Cross transcript comparison, second opinions, and cultural informants were used in the interpretive process. STUDY SITE AND POPULATION The setting for this study was a public elementary school in a New England college town in the United States. Access and consent to conduct the study were obtained without difficulty. Except for my own name, I have used pseudonyms for the school, teachers, students, and the local newspaper. At the time of the study, the school, River Valley Elementary, had 380 students Grades K–6 in 18 self-contained classrooms. Approximately 35 students at the school were dominant in a language other than English. All 35 received pull-out ESL instruction, and 25 received pull-out GENDER IN AN ENGLISH DOMINANT KINDERGARTEN 463 Spanish transitional bilingual education (TBE) instruction for part of the day. These students were also assigned to a mainstream English dominant grade-level classroom, where they spent the remainder of their day (3–4 hours). The kindergarten had 23 children, 9 girls and 14 boys. The ethnicity of the students in the class was 70% European descent, 26% Hispanic, and 4% Native American. There were 17 native English speakers and 6 Spanish-dominant students. Four of the Spanish-speaking students were from Puerto Rico, one was from El Salvador, and one was from Mexico. The English proficiency of these 6 ranged from beginners to those who were nearly fluent (as determined by English proficiency assessments administered at the beginning of the year). By midyear, all 6 could understand and participate at some level in most classroom lessons and activities in English. These students will be referred to as Spanishbilingual to distinguish them from native English speakers and other bilingual students. Although they showed various levels of English proficiency and bilingualism, this term is chosen for its emphasis on their linguistic abilities rather than their deficiencies in English. Mrs. Ryan, the kindergarten teacher, is a skilled and respected African-American educator with more than 20 years of experience at the primary level. She has a master’s degree in multicultural education and is committed to social justice. She adhered to the principle of “unity through diversity” and was sensitive to separation or segregation, including the removal of students to attend ESL and TBE classes. She worked consistently toward creating a welcoming environment for all of her students. She is a native English speaker and had attended a French language immersion program as a child. She was learning basic Spanish vocabulary, but she relied on her bilingual paraprofessional for Spanish language support in the classroom. As the ESL teacher, I worked with the children for 45 minutes each day, usually in the ESL classroom. I am certified and experienced in both elementary education and English as a second language, with a master’s degree in ESL. When I began at River Valley Elementary, I had 6 years of experience as an elementary classroom teacher and 6 years of experience as an English language teacher. I am a Caucasian, native English speaker. I speak Spanish, French, and Danish at an intermediate level of proficiency. CHILDREN’S GENDER IDEOLOGIES A key construct in the study was the ideology about gender that the children brought to the classroom. I inferred their ideologies from the verbal discourse they engaged in both within and outside the classroom. Although the girls’ and boys’ talk overlapped, some areas were distinct. 464 TESOL QUARTERLY The girls, for example, would discuss and accuse each other of romantic liaisons. They seemed fascinated by conversations about who was going to marry whom, even though teachers discouraged this talk. The boys were much more likely to construct a competitive discourse—who could kick the highest goal, had the coolest dinosaur book, or had the most racing cars. Claims such as, “I know! I know!” and “I knew it before you even said it!” reflected knowledge. “I can read an eighth-grader book” demonstrated ability, whether accurate or not. Statements of ownership and quantity, “I have 10 of those at home,” were also popular among the boys. Although many U.S. classrooms exhibit this discourse pattern among boys (American Association of University Women [AAUW], 1992, 1995, 1996, 1998; Sadker & Sadker, 1994), it may have been accentuated in this classroom because it had more boys than girls. The boys’ competitive discourse, unlike the girls’ romantic discourse, was not limited to private conversation but permeated whole-class discussions, where status could be established and heard by all. Boys also demonstrated competition when they participated more frequently in whole-class discussions in general, both through calling out and being recognized by the teacher (Hruska, 1999). Sometimes the children appeared to engage in cross-gender interaction to construct and highlight gender identities. Often the boys initiated these interactions because they were intent on constructing themselves as superior to the girls. One such interaction occurred during the second week of school, while the children were in the hallway coloring large murals of whales. Kenny, who was working with a small group of boys, walked over to a mural nearby being completed by a group of girls: 1 Kenny: This is uglier than ours. [He walks on top of the girls’ whale in his sock feet.] Dumb whale. Do you know what our whale is? A killer whale. 2 Jenny: This is a baby beluga. 3 John: We don’t make baby whales. 4 Jenny: It’s a mama whale. 5 Alan: Ours is definitely better. I know where spouts go and all these things are used to kill with. That’s why we call it a killer whale. [Kenny continues to walk back and forth across the girls’ picture then returns to his own.] In Turn 1, Kenny initiated the cross-gender interaction with competitive discourse in which he compared the boys’ whale to the girls’ whale, claiming that the boys’ was better. What’s more, it was “a killer whale,” a powerful whale. When Jenny replied in Turn 2 that the girls’ whale was “a baby beluga,” one type of whale they had been studying, John supported Kenny’s comment in Turn 3 that the boys’ whale was superior by implying that they would never even consider making a baby whale, GENDER IN AN ENGLISH DOMINANT KINDERGARTEN 465 presumably because babies are associated with girls and inferiority. In response, Jenny changed the identity of the whale in Turn 4 to “a mama,” perhaps because she believed a mama whale had more status. This failed to impress Alan, who in Turn 5 managed in three sentences to (a) further construct the boys’ whale, and the boys, as superior, “Ours is definitely better”; (b) display the boys and their whale as powerful, “all these things are used to kill with. That’s why we call it a killer whale”; and (c) display his personal competence and knowledge about whales, “I know where the spouts go.” All three—superiority, power, and ability— were components of the boys’ gender ideology and related discourse. After only a few days into the school year, these boys were able to jointly construct themselves as more knowledgeable and more powerful than the girls. They also constructed their whale as superior to the girls’ whale, not because it was artistically more pleasing, but because it, too, was more powerful. They equated better with power and control. Given that they were able to construct this discourse so effectively after only a short time together in kindergarten, these boys were likely drawing on the dominant male discourse that existed outside the classroom. The girls, too, were behaving in ways they perceived as appropriate for females. The boys’ form of competition was not a common feature of the girls’ discourse. Jenny did briefly engage with the boys and change the girls’ whale from a baby to a mama, but she did not continue to participate. The girls may have felt they had nothing to gain by contributing to it, or they chose to resist the boys’ negative constructions of them by disengaging from the conversation. When the girls elected not to participate in the boys’ game of one-upmanship in larger classroom settings, they contributed to the pattern of male dominance in public settings by forfeiting the topics and discussions to the boys. Girls often have to choose either to engage in the boys’ discourse and interaction style or not to participate. Research dealing with classroom climate and interaction shows that to succeed in the traditional classroom structure, girls must adopt boys’ behavior. Foster (1995) notes that traditional classrooms tend to encourage students to compete with one another (p. 577). And the AAUW reports that attempts to treat girls the same as other individuals places them at an educational disadvantage if their school values a competitive ethos and if these girls have internalized the idea that girls shouldn’t demonstrate competitive or aggressive behavior. Although the classroom status quo doesn’t embody an intentional bias against girls, it nevertheless prizes values that conflict with many girls’ perceptions of appropriate feminine behavior. (AAUW, 1998, p. 65) Research about girls in school (AAUW, 1992, 1998; Brown & Gilligan, 1992; Orenstein, 1994; Sadker & Sadker, 1994) indicates that boys’ 466 TESOL QUARTERLY competitive discourse can eventually undermine girls’ self-esteem, reduce their willingness to participate in public cross-gender interaction, mute their collective voice, and reduce their access to leadership positions. Boys’ discourse compares the girls to boys and finds them lacking instead of looking at the strengths and skills that they bring to school. Because it damages girls’ self-esteem, it also causes girls to set limited goals for themselves and to see fewer available options well beyond their school years. Boys’ competitive discourse, along with the typically low status of linguistic and ethnic minority girls (Lee & Sing, 1994), has a significant impact on girls’ investment in school. In 2001, 22.1% of Hispanic girls ages 16 to 24 dropped out of school, compared to 9% of Black girls and 6.7% of White girls (National Center for Education Statistics, 2002). I do not intend to claim, however, that girls are always the victims of inequitable gender practices. Gender privilege is not so clear-cut. The boys’ competitive emphasis may also have negative consequences for them, especially those who cannot compete or maintain high positions in this hierarchy. Male language learners whose race, ethnicity, class, and language differ from the classroom norm may be especially vulnerable because the established hierarchy sometimes forces them to operate from lower status positions. In addition, ample evidence shows that boys receive lower grades, have lower literacy rates, and receive more disciplinary action in U.S. schools than girls do (Flood, 2003). Boys may have negative views of literacy, which they associate with femininity (Maynard, 2002; Newkirk, 2002). The high percentage of female teachers may very well privilege girls and work against boys (Millard, 1997). The point is not that girls always suffer; it is that in some contexts, gender operates in ways that privilege some participants over others. When these patterns of gendered interaction are frequently repeated, they can have significant consequences for both girls and boys. In the current study, I focused on mixed gender public interactions, which, as the transcripts demonstrate, often resulted in boys participating in this context more frequently than girls. GENDERED RELATIONSHIPS When children entered the classroom on the first day of school and sat down on the floor, they arranged themselves in a neatly divided circle, with girls seated in one half and boys in the other. With very few exceptions the children repeated this pattern whenever they were allowed to self-select seating. The children also segregated themselves by gender when they were allowed to choose what to do and where to go during indoor and outdoor free play, a pattern observed in other GENDER IN AN ENGLISH DOMINANT KINDERGARTEN 467 elementary settings (Thorne, 1993). Only a few activities were strongly gender associated: building blocks, soccer, and climbing trees for the boys, housekeeping and fantasy play for the girls. But because the children tended to make selections with their same-gender friends, they also tended to congregate in same-gender groups during free choice times, which resulted in primarily same-gender interaction. Gender was also highly significant in children’s relationship choices. They overwhelmingly chose same-gender friends within the classroom setting. Though several same-gender friendships persisted throughout the year, none of the cross-gender relationships endured. In all three cases the boys discontinued the relationships despite the girls’ efforts to sustain them. Developmental theories of gender identity might explain the children’s interest in same-gender peers at this age. It could also result from the boys’ co-constructed gender ideology that often emphasized distancing themselves from whatever they defined as female. The boys’ ideology, which was dominant, did not value long-term, crossgender liaisons in the classroom. Girls, in contrast, were more open to these types of relationships. This same-gender constraint on friendships automatically reduced the number of children available for long-term stable relationships, which was significant in this kindergarten because having a publicly recognized friend was a high-status identity (Hruska, 1999). The children’s interest in initiating, maintaining, and displaying their friendships permeated daily routines, activities, and discussions. And because several friendship pairs remained stable throughout the year, access to available children was at a premium. Gendered constraints only reduced the possible choices. These gender segregated practices and relationships in the classroom sometimes became problematic for the Spanish-bilingual students because they often worked and played in multiage, cross-gender groupings in the TBE room. The TBE teacher, who met with students K–6 throughout the day, cultivated a familial atmosphere in her classroom. The six Spanish-bilingual kindergarten children were accustomed to working together as a group and relying on each other for cultural and linguistic support, a cultural value emphasized in the TBE classroom. Although this context did not eliminate gender as a mediating factor, it did diminish the constraint of same-gender peers. When the Spanishbilingual students returned to the kindergarten classroom, they had to renegotiate their relationships. They had to decide whether to acknowledge their cross-gender bilingual friendships in the classroom (this was a more significant problem for some of the boys than the girls). If they did, they would identify their cross-gender bilingual peer as a friend, but doing so would challenge the classroom’s dominant same-gender friend practice. They could acknowledge their same-gender bilingual friends, 468 TESOL QUARTERLY which they often did, but their choices were limited. Susana and Claudia, the two Spanish-bilingual girls, for example, had a stormy relationship that often sent them seeking other companions. Alternative friends were in limited supply because three of the native-English-speaking girls formed a stable and fairly insular trio, making them less available to others. The bilingual children often made overtures to native English speakers, but native speakers did not always respond because they did not consider being bilingual as a high-status identity, even though the teacher, the paraprofessional, and I strongly promoted it. Unlike contexts where newly arrived English language learners are coveted as friends (Willett, 1987), the Spanish-bilingual children in this kindergarten class were not particularly sought after. Thus, they had to renegotiate their identities as friends and their cultural and linguistic identities when they returned to the classroom from the TBE setting. The bilingual children’s access to relationships with native English speakers for friends and the status and language these relationships provided was further restricted by the same-gender practice that shaped all student relationships. An exception to this pattern involved Francisco, one of the Spanishbilingual boys. During the course of the year, Francisco formed friendships with three different girls. Several factors may have encouraged this unusual crossover. Francisco was much smaller than his classmates. The teachers I interviewed referred to his doll-like appearance. During the first few weeks of school, teachers (myself included) commented in class on how tiny and cute he was and exchanged looks over his head, some of which were intercepted by the other children. Adults throughout the school (mostly women) gave him diminutive nicknames such as “Little Pumpkin” and altered their voices in ways typically associated with speaking to young children. The other children adopted this interactive style, and they began caring for him at the beginning of the year. Girls would help him put on his coat and boots and assist him in completing various routines. During whole-class meetings, the children, both boys and girls, would point out new English words he was using in much the same way that a family would attend to the first words of a toddler. They were much less likely to do this with the other bilingual students. Francisco was willing to be the object of their caregiving, something the other boys would not tolerate. This may be partially a result of Francisco’s cultural background and home environment. At home he had a nanny who dressed and undressed him, for example, so he was accustomed to having help. Because he was willing to be directed, Francisco was an attractive playmate to the girls. However, he also learned and participated in much of the male public discourse in the classroom. At times these gendered discourses came into conflict, as demonstrated in the following interchange that occurred while the ESL GENDER IN AN ENGLISH DOMINANT KINDERGARTEN 469 class was making popcorn. Five Spanish-bilingual children were present: Dalbert, Francisco, Claudia, Hector, and Susana. Hector initiated a discussion, which I did not hear because I was suddenly preoccupied with the popcorn, but it was recorded on the videotape: 1 Ms. Hruska: Everybody here likes popcorn? 2 Children: Yah, yah! 3 Ms. Hruska: Yeah! Finally a snack that you like! [I turn to attend to the popper, which has begun to explode.] 4 Hector: Raise you hand if you like popcorn. Raise you hand if you like popcorn. Raise you hand if you like popcorn. [All five children raise their hands.] In Turn 4 Hector initiated a survey, a genre that was popular with the children. He began by incorporating the theme of liking, which I had introduced in Turn 1. Another boy, Dalbert, extended this theme, using it as an opportunity to construct gender categories: 5 Dalbert: Raise your hand if you like racing cars. [All raise hands.] 6 Dalbert: I said racing cars. I didn’t say dolls. [Looking at the two girls.] Does anybody like dolls? If you like dolls, raise your hands. [The girls’ hands go up.] Dolls. [He appears to approve of this response.] If you like cars, raise your hand. Everyone could respond to Hector’s query that they liked popcorn without challenge because popcorn had no apparent gender salience to the children. When Dalbert asked about racing cars in Turn 5, however, he clearly felt that racing cars were not gender neutral, and when the girls claimed to like racing cars he rebuked them in Turn 6, “I said racing cars. I didn’t say dolls.” The survey continued moving, from dolls in general to Barbie dolls: 7 Hector: Raise you hand if you like Barbies. [The two girls and Francisco raise their hands. Then Francisco looks around and quickly lowers his.] Hector’s statement in Turn 7 served to further clarify the gendered toy domains. In response, the two girls and Francisco raised their hands. It is unclear whether Francisco understood that “Barbies” were dolls, but when he looked around and saw that the other boys had not raised their hands, he lowered his. He may have had female friends, he may have enjoyed playing with Barbies, but in this discussion he did not want to be 470 TESOL QUARTERLY identified with girls, perhaps sensing that the other boys would not see this as a positive identity. The girls, on the other hand, did not resist being categorized as girls. They were girls; they did play with Barbies. The boys constructed themselves as powerful not only by associating themselves with powerful things like racing cars, but also by insinuating that the girls were not powerful because they associated themselves with dolls. Because the boys conducted the surveys and chose the survey questions, they also controlled the discussion. In the following sequence, Francisco takes up the male discourse and participates in the boys’ competitive interchange: 8 9 10 11 Dalbert: Hector: Francisco: Dalbert: Raise your hand if you like cars. Raise you hand if you like racecars. I have a racecar. I have a racecar, too. I have a real racing car. I got a real one. 12 Francisco: And I got a real one. 13 Dalbert: And I got 10 million real ones. In this interaction, Francisco engaged in the boys’ competitive discourse by aligning himself with them and their gender constructions regarding male appropriate toys. Not only did he gain access to interaction and language use, but he negotiated a positive identity for himself within the context of this conversation. In contrast, the girls chose not to make similar claims, which effectively cut them out of this conversation. By maintaining both same-gender and cross-gender friendships within the kindergarten classroom, Francisco increased his options for relationships, his status as a friend, and his access to English language and interaction. These options were not as readily available to the other Spanish-bilingual children, even though three of them had more advanced English proficiency at the beginning of the year. In this setting, English proficiency did not increase access to relationships, a finding that contrasts with previous studies (e.g., Tabors, 1987). Gender flexibility, on the other hand, did increase opportunities for relationships. The more people available for relationships, the more possibilities for interaction, and the more access to language. At the beginning of the year, Francisco had the lowest English-language proficiency, but by the end he was the most socially and linguistically successful Spanishbilingual child. I do not claim that Francisco’s success resulted only from his ability to adopt both male and female friends but to demonstrate that classroom ideologies, such as gender, can shape who has access to whom, which in turn can affect second language learners’ access to language and high status identities like friends, which provide yet more access to English use. GENDER IN AN ENGLISH DOMINANT KINDERGARTEN 471 It is interesting to note, however, that Francisco’s classroom teacher reported during an interview that she saw him more strongly associated with girls than boys. Although his cross-gender interactions with girls may have been advantageous in the short term, it is possible that over time, or in another context, he would have been less successful at maintaining relationships with both boys and girls. If he continued to interact with girls, the boys may eventually have ostracized him from their network. Francisco returned to Mexico at the end of his kindergarten year, so no follow-up in this context was possible. GENDER IDEOLOGIES IN CLASSROOM INTERACTION Like the children, the classroom teacher operated from a set of ideological beliefs that she articulated in interviews and demonstrated through action. Mrs. Ryan stated that she believed in equality between men and women. She believed that gender stereotypes negatively affected all the children and worked at cross purposes to her humanistic approach to multiculturalism (Grant & Sleeter, 1993) by restricting people’s options and positioning both boys and girls in limiting ways. She also believed that she could broaden the children’s often restricted views of gender by addressing them and felt that teachers had a responsibility to do so: You know, I had a kid come over to the teachers at recess yesterday and he said, um, “There are kids playing over on the hill, and they say the boys can’t play. They’re all girls, and they say the boys can’t play.” And so the teacher said, “Well, what do you think?” And he said, “I don’t know.” And she [the teacher] said, “Well, do you think the boys can play?” And he said, “Yes.” And she said, “Okay, then the boys can play.” We can fill them with more garbage. We can fill them with more stereotypes. We can not fill them with anything, or we can take the opportunity to say here’s where we want them, so here’s what I’m going to teach them. Here’s what I’m going to tell them. And they take that and it becomes part of themselves. (Interview, October 6, 1994) Although Mrs. Ryan’s recounting of the recess event was intended to demonstrate that teachers should not ignore the opportunity to address gender-related inequalities and issues, the children were not easily convinced to abandon their practices. Their ideology was often more conservative and stereotypical than hers. And, unlike the child in the recess scenario, they often did not respond with, “Okay.” Mrs. Ryan often found herself trying to convince the children to embrace a wider variety of relationships and display less gender segregation, but they responded with their own beliefs and practices. For example, one day during the 472 TESOL QUARTERLY first month of school she wanted to draw the children’s attention to their gender-segregated seating arrangements. She opened the morning meeting with the following comment: 1 Mrs. Ryan: 2 3 4 5 6 Boy: Mrs. Ryan: Boy: Boy: Girl: Look at the circle to notice something. Raise your hand if you notice something. Those two girls aren’t touching knees. Who notices something strange? There’s spaces around. Somebody’s missing. Those two boys aren’t touching knees. In Turn 1, Mrs. Ryan was referring to the gender segregation in the circle. Because none of the children mentioned gender segregation, the children apparently did not find the seating arrangement strange or unusual. Rather, they tried to relate her question to rules that they had been told about how to sit during the morning meeting, which included sitting with crossed legs and knees touching to keep the formation circular and tight. The first three responses in Turns 2, 4, and 5 came from boys, which was congruent with their gender discourse. Typically, when the teacher directed a question to the entire class and the students were free to call out, the boys took the opportunity to respond quickly and display their knowledge. In addition to his dominant participation, the boy in Turn 2 found fault with how two of the girls were sitting. Building on this precedent, a girl in Turn 6 found the same fault with two boys. Both comments highlight gender, but not in the ways that Mrs. Ryan had intended. Gender discourse manifested both in how the students seated themselves and in how they participated in the event but in ways that the students’ themselves did not always perceive. Another morning, Mrs. Ryan tried again. She wanted to say that the only place where she condoned gender segregation was the bathrooms, which were clearly marked “Girls” and “Boys”: 11 Mrs. Ryan: 12 Kenny: Who knows one place that girls go, and boys go to another place? They [girls] can’t climb trees. Kenny’s response in Turn 12 was not what Mrs. Ryan had hoped to elicit; it displayed the boys’ gender ideology and named one of the gender segregated recess activities. Mrs. Ryan could not control comments like these when she invited children’s responses. Although she countered this remark below, all the children had heard it, and it may have merely confirmed their beliefs rather than challenged them. She continued: GENDER IN AN ENGLISH DOMINANT KINDERGARTEN 473 13 Mrs. Ryan: Are there any girls that can climb trees? [Girls raise their hands.] 14 Mrs. Ryan: I guess girls can climb trees. Think of something else. 15 Alan: The bathrooms. 16 Mrs. Ryan: Only the bathrooms. When you hear someone say, “Girls can’t do this! Boys can’t do this!” say, “Yes, we can!” Every morning we are going to check the circle. It’s good when different people sit next to each other. Fortunately, when Mrs. Ryan asked the girls if they could climb trees, they responded positively. The girls provided support for a counter discourse in this discussion. Counter discourse is not always possible, however, as the following transcript from a whole-class discussion demonstrates. It reveals how ideologies, including gender, can shape interaction in ways that position students differently and affect their participation. In this example, though Mrs. Ryan worked toward including all the students, the children highlighted their gender practices and friendship affiliations. This event began during morning meeting when all of the children were sitting on the floor in a circle with Mrs. Ryan and Ms. Díaz, the Spanish-bilingual kindergarten paraprofessional. Mike raised his hand and Mrs. Ryan recognized him: 1 Mrs. Ryan: 2 Mike: Mike, what would you like to say? Well, um, tomorrow is my lucky day ’cause tomorrow is my first day of soccer practice. Mrs. Ryan had the option of supporting continued discussion of this student-initiated topic or redirecting the conversation. In this case she chose to support Mike’s topic. She often used student-initiated topics or concerns to discuss events that occurred inside and outside of school. Seven or eight boys in the class participated in the fall and spring community soccer program. Although the boys did not obsessively talk about soccer, their public references to it reflected the prestige of being on a soccer team. In small groups before morning meeting, they had discussed which teams they were on. They had also brought their medals to show the class and shared pictures of themselves at soccer. Mike probably initiated this discussion about soccer because he perceived it as a high status topic among the boys, who were his probable target audience. Mike was on the periphery of the soccer group and may have hoped to align himself with them in a public arena. Participating in soccer had gender, relationship, and status implications. All of the students who participated in after-school soccer were native English speakers from middle-class families. None of the Spanishbilingual children participated in the community soccer program, however, and that limited their access to the discussion. 474 TESOL QUARTERLY Mrs. Ryan responded to Mike’s announcement about soccer practice and encouraged him to continue by asking him a question: 3 Mrs. Ryan: Tomorrow is, wooow. After school? 4 Mike: Mmmm . . . [Judd has his hand up. He is looking at Mrs. Ryan, puts his hand down, up, down then calls out when she doesn’t look at him or call on him.] 5 Judd: And today’s my first day. 6 Mike [continuing]: . . . Yup, I’m only gonna go for a little while . . . 7 Mrs. Ryan: Excellent. 8 Mark [calling out, overlapping]: I can’t be at my first soccer practice because I . . . [unintelligible]. 9 Mike [overlaps and repeats]: I’m, I’m only gonna go for a little while in after-school care. 10 Mrs. Ryan: And then a little, oh, in after-school care, and then you’re gonna go to the soccer practice? Is your soccer practice here? Are you on the team that practices here at River Valley? 11 Jim [answering for Mike]: Yup. 12 Mrs. Ryan: How many people, what team are you on? 13 Mike: White team. 14 Mrs. Ryan: Anybody else here playing soccer this season? Mrs. Ryan and Mike attempted to continue their one-on-one conversation, but other soccer-playing boys began calling out. This calling out was typical among boys across the school (Hruska, 1995). In Turn 14, Mrs. Ryan officially opened up the conversation to the rest of the class, increasing access to other participants even though the boys who had been calling out had already done so unofficially. As soon as she did this, hands flew up and other boys who were on teams began to call out and converse among themselves. This discussion continued from Turns 15– 33 focusing primarily on who was on which team and the names of the teams. The conversation began with one child sharing about an after-school activity. But because a large group of boys in this class saw this as a prestigious activity, they immediately took it up. Mrs. Ryan then formalized their participation by asking who else was on teams. The conversation evolved into an opportunity for the boys to publicly display and affirm their identities as soccer players, establish soccer as a prestigious activity, and claim their membership in an exclusive group. The discussion to this point had included only the boys who played soccer, but because the teams were co-ed, Mrs. Ryan attempted to shift the conversation to include the girls. This required a direct invitation. Even though three girls in the class had played soccer, they had not called out. Sarah had raised then lowered her hand when Mrs. Ryan had GENDER IN AN ENGLISH DOMINANT KINDERGARTEN 475 asked in Turn 14 who else was playing soccer, and when Mrs. Ryan invited the girls to participate, Sarah’s hand shot back into the air: 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 Mrs. Ryan: We have any girls playing here, I hope? Mrs. Ryan [calling on Sarah whose hand was raised]: Sarah. Sarah: I used to play at fall. Mrs. Ryan: You used to play? Sarah: With Laura. Mrs. Ryan: With Laura? Laura: I used to play. Sarah: We both played. Laura: Jenny used to play but she quit. Sarah: The first time. Laura: She quit. Mrs. Ryan [laughing a little, me in the background laughing]: Well, she had other things to do. By inviting the girls, Mrs. Ryan made a space for Sarah to contribute, which then encouraged Laura to speak up. But what happened next is probably not what Mrs. Ryan intended. Instead of broadening gender norms by affirming that girls play soccer, the girls contributed in Turns 35, 39, and 41 to the notion that girls do not like soccer. They no longer played, and Jenny had quit after the first practice. Both Mrs. Ryan and I laughed because we realized that the girls’ comments had backfired and only reaffirmed the children’s gender stereotypes. However, Mrs. Ryan did not want to convey these stereotypes to the group and quickly reframed Jenny’s situation by providing an alternative explanation in Turn 44, “Well, she had other things to do.” Jenny, the girl who had quit soccer, was present in the circle during this discussion but did not contribute. The fact that Jenny was mentioned and aligned with Laura and Sarah affirmed the girls’ close and publicly acknowledged friendship. They chose to emphasize their relationship with each other rather than align themselves with any of the boys who played soccer. In this case, the high status of the girl’s group in the classroom, coupled with the fact that they had all played soccer and quit, sent a strong message about girls and soccer to the rest of the class. In spite of her attempts to reconstruct soccer as a co-ed activity, Mrs. Ryan discovered that none of the girls in the class was currently playing soccer. The fact that the girls were not playing soccer constrained both the possible gender constructions in this event and girls’ access to the discussion. Unlike earlier interchanges, none of the boys interrupted to build on Sarah’s interaction. They were also in no hurry to mention that they had been on the same team with the girls or had played against the girls, though they had quickly affiliated themselves with each other. 476 TESOL QUARTERLY After more boy talk about teams, colors, and shirts in Turns 44–70, Jim announced that his mother was the coach: 71 Jim: 72 Mrs. Ryan: 73 74 75 76 Jim: Mrs. Ryan: Boy: Mrs. Ryan: My mom’s the coach. Your mom is the coach? Was your mom the coach last year? Yeah. And you were undefeated? We’ll probably be undefeated this year. Well, you really have to work to be undefeated, don’t you? You really have to work. Jim’s comment about his mom being the coach could have opened a discussion relating females to soccer, but the introduction of a parent and Mrs. Ryan’s reference to “hard work” shifted the topic enough so that Susana, one of the Spanish-bilingual girls, seized the opportunity to enter the conversation. Not having been on one of the community soccer teams, she had not had an opening until now. Maintaining the topic of soccer, Susana linked her comment both to parents and work: 77 78 79 80 81 82 Susana: My dad used to work in soccer ball in the summer. Mrs. Ryan: Does he like to play soccer, too? Susana: Yeah. Mrs. Ryan: Do you like to play soccer, Susana? Susana: Ohhhhhhh. . . . [Her intonation is noncommittal.] Mrs. Ryan: Have you ever played it? [Susana nods yes.] 83 Mrs. Ryan: And you like it? Soccer is a great game to play. Susana was the first Spanish-bilingual child to participate in the conversation. By strategically linking her comment to three previous themes—soccer, parents, and work—she was able to enter the discussion, which indicates that she had been closely attending to what was going on and understood the rules for staying on, or near, the topic in school conversations (Green & Harker, 1982). Because she had not been on a soccer team and because she was not nominated to speak by anyone else, her opportunities to participate were constrained but, as she demonstrated, not precluded. Soccer in Latin American countries is dominated by males, so it was not surprising that Susana had connected her father to soccer rather than herself. Plus, within the context of this conversation, soccer continued to be identified as a male-related activity. Mrs. Ryan responded to Susana’s overture and again tried to construct soccer as a sport that girls like to play, but she encountered Susana’s lukewarm response in Turn 81. That left Mrs. Ryan, not Susana, stating that Susana liked to play soccer. GENDER IN AN ENGLISH DOMINANT KINDERGARTEN 477 Susana’s entrance into the discussion may have alerted Mrs. Ryan to the fact that the Spanish-bilingual children had not been participating. Dalbert and Felix were absent, but she called on Hector and Francisco: 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 Mrs. Ryan: What about you, Francisco? Susana: I played a . . . Francisco: [Unintelligible on tape.] Mrs. Ryan: You’ve never played, Francisco, soccer? Francisco: Yes, at the school one day. Mrs. Ryan: One day at school? Yes, that’s good. Susana: I always saw my daddy to play w . . . I always saw my daddy to play . . . 91 Mrs. Ryan [to Susana]: In El Salvador, did you play soccer? 92 Susana: Uh-huh. By stressing in Turn 90 that not only did her father play soccer, but that it occurred frequently and she “always saw” her daddy play, she may have been trying to increase her father’s status as a soccer player and legitimize her continued participation in the interaction. This did not result in further elaboration. Instead, Mrs. Ryan asked Francisco about his affiliations with soccer: 93 94 95 96 Mrs. Ryan [to Francisco]: And in Mexico do they play soccer? Francisco: I don’t know. Mrs. Ryan: You don’t know? And how about in . . . Ms. Díaz [interrupts to clarify question to Francisco]: ¿Fútbol, juegan al fútbol? They call soccer the football. 97 Mrs. Ryan: Yeah, yeah. [Pause.] And how about in Puerto Rico, Hector? Do they play football there and soccer? Yeah, Hector plays really good soccer. Mrs. Ryan was probably aware that soccer is a popular Latin American sport and was attempting to use that to draw the Latino students into the conversation. Mrs. Ryan was also trying to increase Hector’s status with the other boys by constructing him as an accomplished soccer player. Ms. Díaz’s interruption in Turn 96 served to hold Francisco’s place in the conversation. As Mrs. Ryan was moving onto the next child, Ms. Díaz interrupted to make sure that Francisco understood the question, but her role as an aide restricted her from elaborating in ways that might have supported the Spanish-bilingual children’s participation. She could have, for example, introduced additional information about soccer in Latin American countries, although she might have had gender-constrained knowledge and soccer experiences herself. At this point the discussion shifted to the upcoming open house. John, who had gone on an errand earlier, returned. The soccer boys 478 TESOL QUARTERLY reintroduced the soccer discussion. As John entered the room, a boy called out: 98 Boy: 99 Mrs. Ryan: 100 Boy: Ask John what soccer team he’s on. John, are you playing soccer this year? He’s on the red, he’s on the Red Rockets with me. The boy who initiated the interaction in Turn 98 wanted to identify John as one of the soccer group. Comments such as these drew attention to certain friendships and alliances and were rarely extended to children outside the referenced network. These relationships were not always reciprocal, but naming and nominating certain children over others in a public arena demonstrated the significance of these relationships to the children and sometimes provided openings for them to participate. This whole-class event demonstrates how access to interaction and language use were not equal for all children, even though they were all sitting in the same classroom at the same time (Bloome & Willett, 1991). Who spoke, what they said and did, when, and to whom were significant. What was not said or done and who did not speak or was not named were equally significant. During this discussion, Mrs. Ryan honored a studentinitiated topic and tried to include as many children as possible. At the same time, the children tried to associate themselves with specific peers and construct positive identities for themselves limiting who was nominated or recognized. The gendered topic, soccer, also constrained participation. A boy had initiated the topic and mostly boys took it up and elaborated on it. More boys in the class participated in soccer than girls, thus boys were more likely to speak. The boys’ greater participation in large group classroom talk and their willingness to raise their hands and call out made the interaction more difficult for girls to access. The first two-thirds of the soccer discussion involved children who were on the community soccer teams. This restricted some of the native English speakers and all of the Spanish-bilingual children from accessing the interaction because they were not enrolled in the soccer program. The Spanish-bilingual children had limited contact with the mainstream children outside of school. They lived in different neighborhoods and were bused to River Valley School to attend the TBE program. So when native English speakers initiated classroom discussions of after-school events, which held interest and potential status for them, the Spanishbilingual children were at a disadvantage. Not only did the topic constrain their opportunities to use English, but they could not easily use the discussions of these events to affirm and display relationships or gain status in the eyes of the other children. Unlike Mrs. Ryan, the soccer players did not try to draw non–soccer players into the conversation. It would seem that Mrs. Ryan, because of her status as the teacher, GENDER IN AN ENGLISH DOMINANT KINDERGARTEN 479 would have had significant control and influence on what transpired in class discussions, and she was clearly able to draw girls and the bilingual students into the conversation, but she could not control what happened outside of school. She could not control the children’s interests or ideologies, and she could not control everything they said and did. The children based what they said and did in part on what they considered prestigious and important, often drawing on discourses operating in the broader community. As a result, Mrs. Ryan had to be constantly aware of how classroom topics affected all the students. Whom did they favor? Who was participating? Who was not? How might she create openings for those who could not access the topic being discussed? How could she invite the bilingual students into these discussions and support their participation and English language use? Or how could she introduce topics to which they could easily contribute? What meanings were being constructed during these discussions and what were their implications for the participants? For example, when Susana joined the discussion by associating her father with soccer, Mrs. Ryan assisted her in elaborating on the topic. Susana’s bid may also have cued Mrs. Ryan to the fact that the bilingual children had not been participating, although they had sufficient English to do so. Mrs. Ryan then elicited their participation, aware that such discussions provided access not only to English language use, but also to positive identities and potential relationships, which could in turn lead to greater access to English. IMPLICATIONS In this kindergarten classroom, students enacted gender in ways that they perceived to be beneficial to themselves, sometimes in traditional ways, sometimes not. Although gender will not be salient in the same way in all settings nor interact with other local discourses in the way that it did in this study, it is likely to operate in ways that shape interaction for other second language learners. Although dominant or common patterns of gender interaction may exist across sites, configurations specific to local sites may also exist that have equal significance for learners. Events where gender interacts with race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status may be particularly challenging for second language learners as they negotiate complex microcontexts. Second language acquisition theory and research must consider contextual features of language learning. The settings in which language learners operate affect their access to relationships and interaction in ways that can support or constrain second language use and development. Thus, focusing on gender as an independent variable or on best instructional practices 480 TESOL QUARTERLY does not provide an adequate understanding of how local environments influence language learners’ access and use of language. The notion that gender is not fixed but can change over time and from event to event (Connell, 1987; Flax, 1987; Wodak, 1997) is encouraging for addressing inequalities and limitations that result from sexist or limiting gender practices. Rather than accepting inequities as inevitable, TESOL professionals can transform sexist practices using alternative discourses. At the same time, Mrs. Ryan’s efforts demonstrate how difficult changing inequitable beliefs and practices can be, especially when classrooms are situated within broader sociopolitical and sociocultural contexts that influence what occurs in schools. As Mrs. Ryan discovered, initial attempts to directly address prevailing ideologies and practices or to impose a counter perspective in classrooms can magnify those very practices. Substantive change, therefore, requires a critically oriented pedagogy in which students help to identify discriminatory or limiting practices within the classroom and help to change them (see Wilson-Keenan, Solsken, & Willett, 1998). This study suggests that teacher researchers need to consider how beliefs and practices interact at local sites and how they affect learners and teachers (Wilson-Keenan, Solsken, & Willett, 1998). Teacher research on classroom interactions in second-language-teaching environments around the world would help researchers understand the complexity of these environments and would show how second language learners negotiate that complexity. Teacher researchers should also continue to explore non-Western contexts and theoretical paradigms to more fully understand how gender and other dominant ideologies and discourses produce meanings and how these meanings affect language learners across cultural contexts (Kitetu & Sunderland, 2000). Teacher researchers are often more willing to engage in research and to accept findings that emerge from analyzing their own local contexts and configurations (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993). For example, in her study of talking circles, Ernst (1994) concluded that the teachers’ role in second language classrooms can greatly influence student participation. The current study demonstrated that although Ernst’s conclusion may be true, teachers do not have total control of this process. What students believe, say, and do can have equal and sometimes greater influence on their participation than teacher contributions, and students’ beliefs and practices can conflict with teachers’ ideologies and goals. These conflicts become visible through classroom interaction when students and teachers work at competing agendas (Bloome & Willett, 1991). Teachers may find themselves negotiating with students on a wide array of beliefs and practices, including but not limited to gender. Practitioners could explore how these negotiations occur in classrooms and how they GENDER IN AN ENGLISH DOMINANT KINDERGARTEN 481 influence student participation, relationship building, and language acquisition. Educators who are aware of how discourses such as gender shape classroom interaction are better able to help language learners participate in class. Individual learner traits such as social skills, personality, or second language proficiency do not fully account for who participates and why. Educators need to consider not only who is talking, but also who has the opportunity to talk, and how these patterns develop and repeat over time. Even when language learners are surrounded by native speakers and have multiple opportunities to develop receptive language, they may have few opportunities to develop expressive language. To provide these opportunities, the teacher might have to intervene, leading whole-class discussions or integrating native speakers and language learners for specific activities or in specific seating arrangements. In contexts that mix native and nonnative speakers, the English speakers might not engage with language learners without help. The teacher might have to orchestrate and support opportunities by restructuring program models (Hruska, 2000, 2001). This study highlights the need to examine the local sociocultural and sociopolitical contexts for second language teaching. To consider these contexts’ complexity and dynamics, theories of second language acquisition and future research need to move beyond a focus on the individual and beyond an essentialist view of gender as a static, inherent trait. Rather than making universal claims about the meanings and effects of gender within or across contexts, researchers must consider the shifting and changing meanings of gender, who benefits from these meanings, and how they influence second language learners. THE AUTHOR Barbara Hruska is an assistant professor of ESOL education at The University of Tampa, where she provides ESOL training to preservice elementary and secondary classroom teachers. Her research interests include bilingual education, social relationships of second language learners, gender issues, and teacher supervision. 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Toohey, K., & Scholefield, A. (1994). “Her mouth windful of speech”: Gender and the English as a second language classroom. TESL Canada Journal/Revue TESL du Canada, 12(1), 1–14. Vandrick, S. (1999). The case for more research on female students in the ESL/EFL classroom. TESOL Matters 9(2), 1–3. West, C., & Zimmerman, D. H. (1991). Doing gender. In J. Lorber & S. A. Farrell (Eds.), The social construction of gender (pp. 13–37). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Willett, J. (1987). A socio-ecological study of children acquiring a second language in an academic context. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Stanford University, Stanford, CA. Willett, J. (1995). Becoming first graders in an L2: An ethnographic study of L2 socialization. TESOL Quarterly, 29, 473–503. Willett, J. (1996). Research as a gendered practice. TESOL Quarterly, 30, 344–347. Wilson-Keenan, J., Solsken, J., & Willett, J. (1998). “Only boys can jump high”: Reconstructing gender relations in a first/second grade classroom. In B. Kamler (Ed.), Constructing gender and difference: Critical research perspectives on early childhood (pp. 33–70). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton. Wodak, R. (1997). Gender and discourse. London: Sage. GENDER IN AN ENGLISH DOMINANT KINDERGARTEN 485 THE FORUM TESOL Quarterly invites commentary on current trends or practices in the TESOL profession. It also welcomes responses or rebuttals to any articles or remarks published here in The Forum or elsewhere in the Quarterly. Women Faculty of Color in TESOL: Theorizing Our Lived Experiences ANGEL LIN City University of Hong Kong Hong Kong SAR, China GERTRUDE TINKER SACHS Georgia State University Atlanta, Georgia, United States RACHEL GRANT The Pennsyvania State University— Harrisburg Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, United States STEPHANIE VANDRICK University of San Francisco San Francisco, California, United States RYUKO KUBOTA The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States SHELLEY WONG George Mason University Fairfax, Virginia, United States SUHANTHIE MOTHA University of Maryland, College Park College Park, Maryland, United States Without community there is no liberation, only the most vulnerable and temporary armistice between an individual and her oppression. But community must not mean a shedding of our differences, nor the pathetic pretense that these differences do not exist. (Lorde, 1984a, p. 112) This collective writing project originated from our participation (including African-American, Asian, and White scholars) in the gender in TESOL colloquium at the 37th Annual TESOL Convention and Exhibit in 2003. Although researchers have shown an increasing interest in analyzing how gender affects second and foreign language education ■ TESOL QUARTERLY Vol. 38, No. 3, Autumn 2004 487 (e.g., Pavlenko, Blackledge, & Teutsch-Dwyer, 2001; Sunderland, Cowley, Rahim, Leontzakou, & Shattuck, 2002) and how colleges and universities have marginalized women (e.g., Bagilhole, 2002; Halvorsen, 2002; Hornig, 2003; Jackson, 2002; Luke, 2001; Morley & Walsh, 1995, 1996; Walsh, 2002), they have shown little interest in analyzing how institutions have marginalized women faculty of color working in TESOL and related literacy education fields. The dearth of published research on women faculty of color suggests that the field has largely ignored us. However, our sharing of experiences reveals consistent hierarchical patterns across different institutional contexts that require feminist theorizing to attend to issues not only of gender but also of race and social class. Additionally, in the fields of TESOL and literacy education, issues of nonnativeEnglish-speaking professionals, speakers of World Englishes, AfricanAmerican English and various pidgin and creole speakers must be addressed. Discursive practices of gender, class, and race must be connected to histories of conquest, slavery, and colonialism. THEORIZING AS DIALOGIC, POLITICAL PRACTICE We feel a strong need to make deeper sense of our lived experiences by understanding and theorizing about the special ideological and institutional conditions underlying our lived experiences of marginalization and discrimination. This theorizing is, however, not meant to be merely private academic work but a dialogic, public, political practice. Although it starts as a textual practice (i.e., in the act of producing a textual product—an article), it is not meant to end there. As Hall puts it: I come back to the critical distinction between intellectual work and academic work: they overlap . . . but they are not the same thing. . . . I come back to theory and politics, the politics of theory. Not theory as the will to truth, but theory as a set of contested, localized, conjunctual knowledges, which have to be debated in a dialogical way. But also as a practice which always thinks about its intervention in a world in which it would make some difference, in which it would have some effect. (Hall, 1992, p. 286) By engaging in this collective, dialogic writing project, we hope to draw attention to the situation of women faculty of color in TESOL and literacy education and to help build a wider community of TESOL and literacy education scholars and researchers (women and men, and both women of color and White women) that will continuously engage issues of marginalization, discrimination, social justice, and togetherness-indifference (Ang, 2001) as part of our dialogic, critical practice and political intervention. As feminist standpoint theorist Hartsock wrote: 488 TESOL QUARTERLY Women’s lives, like men’s, are structured by social relations which manifest the experiences of the dominant gender and class. The ability to go beneath the surface of appearances to reveal the real but concealed social relations requires both theoretical and political activity. Feminist theorists must demand that feminist theorizing be grounded in women’s material activity and must as well be part of the political struggle necessary to develop areas of social life modeled on this activity. (Hartsock, 1983, p. 304) Following Hartsock, we are going to ground our theorizing in our lived experiences. We wrote our narratives and circulated them via e-mail so that we could respond to the emerging themes in one another’s writings. Using excerpts from our narratives, we summarize some emerging patterns and issues and analyze their underlying ideological and institutional conditions. With this analysis of our lived experience in mind, we suggest how TESOL professionals need to re-vision and reshape TESOL as a discipline. OUR LIVED EXPERIENCES IN DIFFERENT CONTEXTS Because space is limited, we provide only key excerpts from our narratives. We hope to give readers a feel for how we experience the different institutional contexts where we work. We are from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds: African American, Bahamian of African descent, Chinese American, Chinese, Japanese, Sri Lankan Australian, and European American; pseudonyms are used. Anne’s Story: The Paradox of (Hypo)Critical Pedagogy I am often positioned as an illegitimate faculty member in my department. In working with White women colleagues and administrators who project public images of being progressive, promoting ethics and social justice, endorsing critical pedagogies, and advocating for diversity, I have had the following disturbing experiences: being excluded from communication related to important decisions about the program that I work in, forced to do a large amount of work beyond my assigned duties, treated as if I were a teaching assistant by being deprived of decision-making power, blamed for students’ complaints about a program for which I am not primarily responsible, expected to do student-teacher supervision rather than teaching a graduate course, and given the lowest salary at my rank. Even worse, I was insulted by having my cultural and linguistic heritage devalued by a senior White female administrator: “I want you to do ESL [teacher education]; XXX [my native language] isn’t important” (even though I was originally hired to create a teacher education program for that language). The same THE FORUM 489 woman criticized me as being “sulky” and flippantly advised me to say “Fuck you” [sic] to another White woman colleague who had mistreated me; she said this would improve the situation for me. The paradox of (hypo)critical pedagogy seems to lie in some White women colleagues’ struggle to maintain their status in the racial hierarchy of power while claiming their role as advocates for the colonized/ marginalized and promoting postmodern decentering of power as colonizers who refuse (Collins, 1998; Memmi, 1965). How can women faculty of color cope with this hypocrisy? How can they have a diplomatic relationship with professed progressive White women faculty who marginalize them? Bertha’s Story: Exclusion of Women Faculty of Color From Tenure University X had been a segregated university until the 1960s. In the 1940s, Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first African American to be appointed to the United States Supreme Court, applied to and was denied entrance to University X’s law school. In the entire history of my former department, only two African Americans and one Hispanic have been granted tenure. To this day, my former department has never granted tenure to an African-American woman. At the time I was denied tenure in my department, the last five men who had gone up for associate professor with tenure or full professor had all been promoted, and the last five women who had gone up for associate professor with tenure or full professor were all denied. I had the equivalent number of publications as a White male who had been promoted the year before. But although I had been supported by my department (19 for, 2 opposed) and the college (5 to 0), the university promotion and tenure committee voted 4 against, 1 for, with 2 abstentions. Though the committee deemed my teaching and service sufficient, they questioned the quality of my scholarship. The committee wanted to know why I had not published in linguistics journals and why they had never heard of the journals in which I had published. They considered my work to be “too applied.” In addition, they pointed out that letters from external reviewers came from institutions that were not among the top ten research institutions, although the reviewers are all prominent figures in applied linguistics and TESOL, and they did not understand why the letters came from different departments, such as English, linguistics, and education. Catherine’s Story: The Great Divide in Asia I have spent more years of my professional life in Asia than in any other place. Although I received my professional credentials in North 490 TESOL QUARTERLY America, my only experience working in a university has been within the Asian context. As an assistant professor, I have developed preservice and in-service teachers in our bachelor of arts and postgraduate programs in TESOL. This work, for me, meant spending vast amounts of time in schools and working with teachers on a professional and personal basis. But working this way contravenes conventional university practice and standard assessment criteria, which require most professors to work in a laboratory or go into the field, collect and analyze quantifiable data, and then write a conventional report over a relatively short period of time. Academe still ascribes a very low status to the type of field-centered work that I do. I recall my profound happiness when a senior member of our faculty attended a conference session at which I, along with several teachers from my action research project, was presenting. The presentations by these busy teachers at an international conference validated my prolonged investment in supporting their professional development through action research. But at the end of the 90-minute session, the senior faculty member left without a question or an acknowledgment, and this faculty member has offered none since then. In a later meeting with TESOL colleagues and me, however, our senior faculty member, a linguist, mentioned “the trashy work we do in TESOL” when discussing our research publications and agenda. Denise’s Story: A Local Classroom Person Since I was hired I have been constituted as a local classroom person and designated to do the labor-intensive work of supervising the students’ practicum and coordinating school placement. Although I have extensive training in research methodology, including qualitative, ethnographic methods and sophisticated statistics and measurement theories and techniques, my employer focused on me as a local classroom person, which has provided my superiors a rationale for assigning me to the labor-intensive, administrative-heavy workload that the senior White members avoid. They also rationalize my position by arguing that they need someone who speaks the local language (and preferably a woman— isn’t a woman traditionally most suitable for a PR job?) to solicit practicum positions from the schools for our students. Whenever I counterargued that the local school personnel did indeed speak English, my superiors would respond that it was better to have a local person who is “more familiar” with the local schooling system when liaising with school personnel. This argument assumes that first, senior faculty members from overseas do not need to learn at least some local language, and second, they do not need to become more acquainted with the local educational issues and schooling system. THE FORUM 491 Ellen’s Story: Establish Yourself as a Scholar, Not a Minority Scholar The memberships I hold in two historically oppressed and disempowered groups, African American and female, has clearly been a critical factor in my emerging voice as a teacher educator. Race and gender have influenced my interest, my perspective, my experience, and my struggle. My experience as a literacy teacher educator has been that the silenced voice of Black females and other marginalized groups has been amplified. The policy has been, “Don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t deal with it.” I recall occasions early in my career when the well-meaning White females told me that I should “work to establish myself as a scholar, not a minority scholar.” For a time, I took this advice to heart, and I took great pains to mirror in my writing and teaching the objective (i.e., indifferent, disinterested, dispassionate, and value-neutral) stance (Ladner, 1987). For me, this approach meant that in the academy I was a singular, voiceless individual. It is within the context of a profession composed overwhelmingly of White, middle-class teachers and teacher educators that I have struggled against the value-neutral, color-blind, objective implementation of literacy used to prepare teachers and to teach children. The challenge for me has been to find opportunities to include my voice and the voices of marginalized groups by incorporating linguistic and cultural diversity into conceptions of literacy. Frances’s Story: Silencing Discourses We need to problematize the discourses of risk, safety, and vulnerability that surround discussions about diversity. I hear constant reminders about the comfort levels and safety of students from dominant groups. I hear that talking about oppression means taking a risk and therefore making students feel vulnerable. These warnings privilege the interests of dominant groups over the project of social justice. I challenge this construction of unsafe. Classroom discussions about race do not make students from dominant groups unsafe. Do they increase the likelihood of their being sent to jail, put to death, denied employment or housing? These are the consequences for minority children when discrimination is not challenged. Using the language of safety and vulnerability in discussions of diversity, the same language that is used to challenge discrimination, minimizes the experience of discrimination—the experience of truly being unsafe—and redirects our focus from subjugated groups, who have historically been left out, back to dominant groups. I do not discount the importance of creating appropriate spaces where members of all groups, including dominant groups, can safely deconstruct 492 TESOL QUARTERLY their biases; I simply suggest that concerns for safety must not disrupt work against oppression. In one assignment for a diversity class, I tried to problematize the notion of privilege by asking students to read Peggy MacIntosh’s essay, “Unpacking the Knapsack of White Privilege,” and to then unpack their own invisible knapsacks containing any facet of their identities that they believed afforded them privilege. White, male, able-bodied, Christian, heterosexual Wayne turned in a paper about how he did not have privilege because he considered himself to be poor. He embraced meritocratic ideologies that coupled work ethic and race, and he implied that I had been hired on the basis of my skin color and regardless of my qualifications. I was terrified that if I showed anger or impatience, I would alienate him and lose any opportunity to be heard. Between conversations with Wayne, I sought the advice of the other faculty teaching the cohort (all White), who were caring and supportive. But I noticed that that the overwhelming focus was reaching Wayne: “If your intention is transformation, you shouldn’t let him turn you off because then he’ll never hear what you have to say.” I have become increasingly troubled by discourses that feed the fear of disturbing dominant groups and by practices that charge minority groups with responsibility for reaching and raising the consciousness of members of dominant groups. Genevieve’s Story: Privileged Majority Member? Much of my published writing has been on issues of gender, race, social class, and sexual identity as they relate to ESL pedagogy. Through writing about these subjects, I am able to bring together my teaching, my scholarship, and my social and political beliefs. As a middle-class, heterosexual, White woman, however, I experience marginalization due to gender but not marginalization due to race, ethnicity, class, or sexual identity. For some others, such as women of color in TESOL, writing about these topics entails the possibility of negative consequences. For me, such writing is much less dangerous; in fact, to choose to write about such topics with little or no risk is a kind of luxury. If I have any personal knowledge of marginalization, it comes from being female. In addition, and closely related, however, it comes from being a member of a low-status discipline: ESL. Further, the marginalization of the discipline interacts with other forms of marginalization based on race, gender, class, and sexual identity, with a multiplying effect. So, given my protected position, is it my responsibility to speak out on racism, classism, and homophobia? Or is it presumptuous of me to do so? All I have to guide me is my belief that it cannot be wrong to speak out against prejudice and discrimination. But it is my responsibility to THE FORUM 493 educate myself, to listen to people of various backgrounds, to be reflective, to work collaboratively when possible, and to accept constructive criticism. It is my responsibility to keep trying to understand how various forms of privilege and oppression intersect and interact and to support TESOL colleagues of all identities. EMERGING PATTERNS OF SYSTEMATIC MARGINALIZATION It is important to note that gender and race are relational and not categorical, and that they do not invariably determine types of social experiences for persons to whom they apply; moreover, race and gender can sometimes be negotiated (Ng, 1995). Thus, we will refrain from essentializing our experiences. Nevertheless, although our narratives show a diverse range of experiences, some clear, common patterns of systematic marginalization and silencing emerge, indicating that these experiences are not isolated, random, individual happenings. As we analyze these structures, we will refer to some additional experiences that we have not yet mentioned. Gendered and Racialized Task-Labor Segregation Almost all of our lived experiences point to a common pattern of gendered and racialized task and labor segregation; that is, women faculty of color are often assigned to labor-intensive administrative and teaching duties. For instance, Denise was consistently asked to do the heavy administrative work of liaising with schools for students’ teaching practicum. Bertha and Ellen were asked to do the paperwork and revise the syllabi for the accreditation review. Anne was consistently excluded from communication related to important program decisions and was assigned a large amount of work beyond the assigned responsibilities. Feminist standpoint theorists pointed out 2 decades ago that modern academia segregates labor based on gender. For instance, Smith (1974, 1987) argued that the notion of women’s work frees men from everyday, practical chores, enabling them to immerse themselves in abstract concepts and theories. Moreover, the more successfully women perform their work, the more invisible it becomes to men. Denise’s experience supports Smith’s point. Without Denise’s heavy administrative work to secure places for students’ practicum every year, her department’s TESOL program would not be viable. The male faculty enjoys the benefits of her labor: They can teach the privileged theoretical courses and write research papers or take up departmental leadership roles. Anne was likewise excluded and exploited by her senior colleagues, White female faculty. Similarly, until Ellen left the university without receiving tenure, she had been shouldering a labor-intensive reading clinic. 494 TESOL QUARTERLY Given the experiences of these women faculty of color, we want to extend the feminist standpoint theorists’ model to recognize that academia very often segregates labor based not only on gender but also on race. Task segregation in modern academia parallels the welldocumented racialized task and labor segregation in the United States during the nineteenth century (Liu, 2000). We argue that such an invisible internal colonial model also operates in today’s academia, especially in TESOL, which seems to have a pecking order of tasks. This task hierarchy and task segregation has epistemological and political consequences. The Great Theory-Practice Divide As an applied discipline, TESOL has borrowed extensively from the theories and research methodologies of other pure disciplines such as psychology, cognitive science, and Chomskyan linguistics. Although the discipline’s top journals have more recently become receptive to research done using postpositivist, sociocultural, or critical paradigms, mainstream TESOL theoretical and research canons still follow the parent disciplines, which were established in the tradition of Enlightenment rationality and philosophy. Modern disciplines born of the Enlightenment subscribe to specific sets of ontological and epistemological assumptions. Under Enlightenment assumptions, the ideal agent of knowledge, the ideal scientist, is a transhistorical, unitary, individual, and disembodied mind whose scientific endeavours are not shaped or constituted by their historical, social, cultural, and institutional contexts. Their discoveries, their theories and findings are likewise eligible to claim the status of transhistorical, universal truths. (For a summary of feminist standpoint critiques of Enlightenment epistemology, see Harding, 1996.) In practice, mainstream TESOL research largely follows the paradigm of positivism and physicalism. Researchers using this paradigm seek to operationalize and quantify (i.e., define and measure in numerals) human and social phenomena (e.g., language learning and teaching) in terms of variables and to verify hypotheses about the relationships (e.g., causal or correlational relationships) among different variables. (For a theoretical alternative to physicalism and positivism in understanding human actions, see Taylor, 1985.) It is not trivial to note that the Enlightenment philosophers were men who occupied privileged social and economic positions at a time when slaves and serfs attended to their everyday practical needs, thus freeing them to do their theoretical work. The shadows of this gendered and racialized division of labor appear in academic disciplines such as TESOL, a discipline that models itself on applied linguistics and second language acquisition. In TESOL, those who teach future ESOL professors THE FORUM 495 and researchers are at the top, those who teach future ESOL teachers come next, and those who teach ESOL are at the bottom. Furthermore, ESOL teachers are disproportionately part-time, adjunct, or temporary, and females (and among whom many women of color) typically fill the bottom ranks. Feminist standpoint theorists have shown the unfortunate epistemological consequences of segregating labor based on gender. They hold that movements for social liberation advance the growth of knowledge: [Feminist standpoint theorists] explicitly call for women of color, workingclass women, and lesbians to be present among the women whose experiences generate inquiry. They all discuss the limitations of sciences emerging only from white, western, homophobic, academic feminism. (Harding, 1996, p. 311) It is precisely this gendered and racialized theory-practice divide in our discipline that has generated inadequate theories of practical knowledge concerning the work of frontline TESOL practitioners. Frontline TESOL workers (typically female classroom teachers) do not have a chance to incorporate their experiences and activities into prestigious mainstream theories and research because they are rarely given the institutional resources and time to theorize, share, and publish their experiences in the discipline’s prestigious journals. And when frontline TESOL professionals do engage in research, mainstream researchers often criticize their research agendas and projects as soft ethnographic work that does not qualify as hard science. For instance, Catherine’s 2-year, labor-intensive, action-research project with frontline EFL teachers participating as the key researchers culminated in presenting their research findings during an academic conference session, but Catherine’s senior faculty member criticized and dismissed their research efforts as “trashy work.” The senior faculty member, a Chomskyan theoretical linguist, could not see the value of teachers’ action research nor the theoretical value of knowledge generated by that research. Apart from the silencing effect of this kind of derision and the negative epistemological consequences of devaluing teachers’ knowledge embedded in teachers’ practice, this gendered and racialized theory-practice divide has grave political consequences. Because the knowledge created from the experiences and practices of female researchers and teachers, women of color, and women from different social classes and sexualities is not allowed to contribute to the discipline’s knowledge base or its curricula, students from these excluded groups are consistently denied knowledge and theories that speak to and value their own lived experiences. For instance, Bertha and Ellen were both silenced when they carried out research on minority groups; Bertha’s superiors 496 TESOL QUARTERLY discounted her research on multiculturalism and minority issues as “repetitive” in her work appraisal, and Ellen’s superiors saw her research as “trivial” when it focused on issues pertaining to marginalized groups. As junior faculty, Ellen was in fact often pressured not to pursue those issues (“Establish yourself as a scholar, not a minority scholar”). This kind of systematic, institutional suppression of research and teaching on minority and diversity issues has dangerous implications not only for the education of minority students but also for the education of White students: The result will be students who are cultured to hate; yet who still think of themselves as very, very good people; who will be deeply offended, and personally hurt, if anyone tries to tell them otherwise. I think this sort of teaching, rampant throughout the education system, is why racism and sexism remain so routine, so habitually dismissed, as to be largely invisible. (Williams, 1991, p. 87) Williams’s observation brings us to a recurrent theme in our experiences that requires analysis: We are often seen as angry women of color who make our White colleagues and students uncomfortable. Relations With White Faculty and Students: Problematizing the Angry, Sulky Image of Women Faculty of Color In “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism,” Lord writes: “Every woman has a well-stocked arsenal of anger potentially useful against those oppressions, personal and institutional, which brought that anger into being. Focused with precision it can become a powerful source of energy serving progress and change” (Lorde, 1984b, p. 127). Frances’s being advised by her well-intentioned colleagues to avoid looking like an angry woman of color shows how difficult it is for a woman of color to protest her marginalization without being seen as incessantly narrating her suffering. Anne’s White female colleagues have called her “sulky.” When someone perceives that he or she has been treated unfairly, anger (or indignation) is an understandable response in many cultures. When women faculty of color express this feeling, it is often seen as evidence of their emotional instability, their lack of reason, or their inability to enjoy themselves or engage in fruitful argumentation. Invoking the unsmiling, angry woman of color stereotype is a discursive ploy that silences and subordinates these women’s voices. For instance, when Denise protested against unfair work arrangements to her Chinese male superior and gave a well-grounded reason—his act reinforced the dominant perception that native speakers are more capable than nonnative speakers—he accused her of starting a “nonfruitful argument” and implied that she was not willing to sacrifice for the good THE FORUM 497 of the program. Women of color are frequently expected to sacrifice for the larger good, and when they protest against being treated unfairly, they are frequently accused of being unreasonable or emotional, and thus they are pushed to the margins and silenced. We are also painfully aware, however, that expressing anger can close down communication between people in very different social and political positions. Answering anger with anger only ensures that communication will breakdown. For instance, some colleagues have concluded that women faculty of color have unfairly taken jobs that should belong to them and that they are victims of universities’ unfair affirmative action policies. One of us saw this attitude played out after a conference presentation relating to race, when a White woman approached to express her anger that a woman of color had been given a faculty position for which she had applied. The White woman believed that the university had not considered her application seriously because she is White. How to respond to her anger raises the issue of how to communicate an ethic of togetherness-in-difference (Ang, 2001). Does a radical relativist version of postmodern discourse offer any common ethical grounds for discussing social justice, diversity, and mutual respect when everyone claims to be a victim based on his or her own experiences? TOWARD A COMMUNICATIVE ETHIC OF TOGETHERNESS-IN-DIFFERENCE How can we achieve a constraint-free understanding between differently positioned subjects, between colleagues who feel that affirmative action is an unfair policy and colleagues of color who think that it is a small step toward redressing the serious ethnic, racial, and gender imbalance in U.S. higher education faculties, especially in light of increasingly diversified student populations? Although we have not found a perfect solution, we believe that alternatives exist between the dichotic poles of Enlightenment transhistorical rationality and radical relativist forms of postmodernism. These alternatives can provide common ethical grounds for communicating between subject positions and cultures, for understanding social justice, minority, and diversity, and for recognizing and respecting difference. A Communicative Ethic of Risk Welch (2000) attempts to overcome the limitations of both Enlightenment universality and postmodernist fragmentation by proposing a communicative ethic of risk. Drawing on Foucault, she argues that dialogue across difference should be achieved not by searching for objective consensus but by “recognizing the differences by which we 498 TESOL QUARTERLY ourselves are constituted and . . . by actively seeking to be partially constituted by work with different groups” (Welch, 2000, p. 151). We add that the dialogue must continue even though successful communication is never guaranteed. A communicative ethic of risk demands that participants commit to the risk involved in communicating across different social positions even if that means making someone uncomfortable (e.g., by challenging one to rethink deep-rooted, takenfor-granted beliefs or one’s implication in social injustice). Welch (2000) points out that our society operates on “an ethic of control” (p. 23) that seeks to protect people from any risk or discomfort resulting from uncertainty or ambivalence when they interact with others who are different from them. Frances analyzed this point insightfully when she noted in her story that trying to make students “safely uncomfortable” might work against encouraging them to become aware of issues of privilege and power: I once heard a professor from another institution say: “We must talk about this [issues of diversity and social justice]. I want my students to be uncomfortable.” To which another educator replied: “Safely uncomfortable.” The problem is that adding “safely” to “uncomfortable” runs the danger of not only mitigating the point, but nullifying it. A communicative ethic of risk challenges people to enter into an often unsafe, uncomfortable dialogue, to open themselves up to different ideas and values of others, to make themselves vulnerable by engaging in the dialogic process of mutual challenge and mutual transformation. It is only through such a risky, dialogic communicative process that students and teachers can expand their knowledge, transcend their location- and privilege-induced blind spots, and become enriched both culturally and ethically. Welch (2000) points out the deep satisfaction and liberation that comes from saying no to the ethic of control and refusing to hold on to privilege or to allow privilege to become one’s sole identity, blinding one to social injustice. We add that middle-class women of color need to listen to working-class women (of color), and straight women of color need to listen to lesbian women (of color). Under the communicative ethic of risk, no one is exempt from the obligation to dialogue with others to discover and transcend the blind spots inherent in their respective subject positions. But this process must go beyond mere words; otherwise, it will degenerate into (hypo)critical pedagogy, as Anne’s story illustrated. The communicative ethic is also an ethic of accountability and respect. It demands that participants commit to accountability and give up privilege when they realize that their privilege perpetuates social injustice: “Accountability entails recognition of wrongdoing and imbalances of power and leads to self-critical attempts to use THE FORUM 499 power justly. Respect is not primarily sympathy for the other, but acknowledgement of the equality, dignity, and independence of others” (Welch, 2000, p. 15). Policies and Practices We call for comparative analysis of the different sociopolitical contexts (Wiley, 1999) in which women of color practice and the policies that support their continued oppression. The many overlapping dimensions of difference mean that being hired as a teacher in higher education and being selected for promotion and tenure is a complex and life-long struggle. Although academia seems to be recruiting more women of color into entry-level positions, certain institutional policies (awaiting further research and comparative analysis) seem to obstruct these women’s long-term success. We therefore advise the following policybased strategies. • Educational and administrative leadership should vigilantly support individual minority women’s research agendas by instituting policies that grant these women at least as much release time and graduate student support as their male and White counterparts. • Leadership should also monitor minority women’s advising, teaching, and practicum supervision loads to protect them from serving on too many committees. • Because scholars of color are often not privy to information that dominant groups consider common knowledge (e.g., Bertha was not afforded the same informal guidance about the academic publishing process as her White male peers), they need support to redress discriminatory and exclusionary practices, whether these be conscious or unintentional. They need thoughtful and supportive senior colleagues to help them negotiate the gap in cultural capital as well as guide them toward appropriate publishing forums. • They should also be paid as much as their male and White counterparts for equal work. Most of us have been paid less and for heavier workloads than other members of our departments. • In addition to the sexual harassment workshops that are raising the consciousness of academicians, universities need workshops to address other forms of discrimination, including harassment on the basis of religion, sexual orientation, race, immigration status, and language minority status. • Hiring and retention policies should ensure that more than one person of color is recruited within each department because the pressure of being singular marks scholars of color and subjects them to higher scrutiny. 500 TESOL QUARTERLY • Within each institution, the processes whereby policies become accepted practices and are adopted by those in the next tier of leadership should be examined critically to ensure that the policies are carried out as defined. Re-visioning TESOL’s Disciplinary Goals The TESOL discipline likewise needs to be re-visioned and reshaped to fit an increasingly globalized world. Instead of looking for certain (as opposed to situated, uncertain) knowledge of the most effective technology to teach English to speakers of other languages, our disciplinary goal should be the more urgent task of finding situated, dialogic ways of teaching and learning English (or literacies in the field of literacy education) for relatively constraint-free understanding and communication among people coming from very different locations (both geographical and social) and with very different sociocultural experiences (see Wong, in press; Lin & Luk, in press). The discipline needs to expand its traditional technicalized goals to include equally important concerns about how to value linguistic and cultural diversity and promote social justice as English spreads (often as the dominant language) to different parts of the world. In embarking on this collective, dialogic writing project, we are not aiming at “narrating our suffering” nor are we “invested in rewards” (Velez, 2000, p. 325). This project has given us a sense of community, and in this community we have drawn strength for healing and transformation. We are not alone in this world. What gives meaning to this job and profession of ours as we continue to work as women faculty of color in TESOL and literacy education? It is the hope that our work will contribute to a world with greater intercultural understanding and social justice, a world in which education affirms minority children’s and students’ races, ethnicities, classes, genders, and sexualities, values their experiences, and develops their potential. THE AUTHORS Angel Lin is an associate professor in the Department of English and Communication, City University of Hong Kong. With a background in ethnomethodology, conversation analysis, and social theory, her theoretical orientations are phenomenological, sociocultural, and critical. She serves on the editorial advisory boards of Linguistics and Education, Critical Discourse Studies, and Critical Inquiry in Language Studies. Rachel Grant teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in literacy education at Pennsylvania State University–Harrisburg. Her research focuses on critical interpretations for second language reading, urban education, and multiculturalism within teacher education. THE FORUM 501 Ryuko Kubota is an associate professor in the School of Education and the Department of Asian Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is involved in foreign language teaching and second language teacher education. Her research interests include second language writing, culture and politics in second language education, and critical pedagogies. Suhanthie Motha’s research explores the complexity of identity, power, language, and pedagogy in second language learning. Her work has been published in TESL Canada Journal and Educational Practice and Theory, and she serves on the editorial review board of TESL Canada Journal. She also teaches in the TESOL and the teacher education graduate programs at the University of Maryland–College Park. Gertrude Tinker Sachs teaches in the language and literacy unit of the Middle Secondary Education and Instructional Technology Department at Georgia State University. Her research interests include ESOL, and language and literacy development. She has investigated and published research on cooperative learning, literaturebased approaches in teaching ESL/EFL, and inquiry-oriented teacher development in EFL/ESL contexts. Stephanie Vandrick is a professor in the Communication Studies Department at the University of San Francisco. Her research areas include ESL writing and critical and feminist pedagogies. She is co-author of Ethical Issues for ESL Faculty: Social Justice in Practice; co-editor of Writing for Scholarly Publication: Behind the Scenes in Language Education; and author of several articles and book chapters. Shelley Wong is an associate professor in the College of Education and Human Development at George Mason University. She has taught ESOL in secondary, adult, and university settings in Los Angeles, New York, and the Washington, D.C., area. Her research interests include critical and dialogic approaches to teaching English to speakers of other languages, emergent literacy, and multilingual and multicultural education. REFERENCES Ang, I. (2001). On not speaking Chinese: Living between Asia and the West. London: Routledge. Bagilhole, B. (2002). Against all odds: Women academics’ research opportunities. In G. Howe & A. Tauchert (Eds.), Gender, teaching and research in higher education (pp. 46–56). 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Addressing Gender in the ESL/EFL Classroom BONNY NORTON University of British Columbia Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada ANETA PAVLENKO Temple University Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States During the past 2 years, while coediting a Case Studies in TESOL Practice book titled Gender and English Language Learners (Norton & Pavlenko, 2004), we have had the welcome opportunity to consider the diverse ways in which TESOL colleagues worldwide are addressing gender issues in their language classrooms. In this article, we share the insights we have gained not only from the contributors to the case study collection, but also from our engagement with the broader literature (e.g., Casanave & Yamashiro, 1996; Norton & Toohey, 2004; Pavlenko, Blackledge, Piller, & Teutsch-Dwyer, 2001). Rather than seeing gender as an individual variable, we see it as a complex system of social relations and discursive practices, differentially constructed in local contexts. This approach, situated within a poststructuralist framework, foregrounds sociohistoric, cross-cultural, and cross-linguistic differences in constructing gender. We do not assume, for example, that all women—or all men—have much in common with each other just because of their biological makeup or their elusive social roles, nor do we assume that gender is always relevant to understanding language learning outcomes. Instead, we recognize that gender, as one of many important facets of social identity, interacts with race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, (dis)ability, age, and social status in framing students’ language learning experiences, trajectories, and outcomes. In this article, we discuss how English language teachers worldwide address gender in the classroom in four ways: curricular innovation, that is, creating new programs and classes that address the needs of particular ■ 504 TESOL QUARTERLY learners; feminist teaching practices, materials, and activities; topic management, that is, how teachers can engage learners in critical reflection by incorporating gender issues into already existing classes; and classroom management and decision-making practices. We draw ESL examples from a variety of contexts in Canada and the United States. We draw EFL examples predominantly from Japan, where grassroots EFL feminist pedagogy first took shape in the 1970s. Feminist pedagogy has been documented there to some extent, and we hope it will continue to be documented in future research and feminist teaching practices elsewhere in the world. DEVELOPING A LIVED CURRICULUM Curricular innovation in teaching practices involves creating new programs, revising existing ones, and introducing new classes and modules, all aiming to better address learners’ needs. In ESL education, curricular changes often aim to accommodate the needs of immigrant women. The plight of immigrant women in English-speaking contexts is well documented. Their access to ESL classrooms can be constrained by numerous factors, such as their domestic responsibilities as wives, mothers, housekeepers, and caretakers (Frye, 1999; Kouritzin, 2000; Norton, 2000; Rivera, 1999), by transportation and safety concerns, especially when taking evening classes (Frye, 1999; Goldstein, 1995, 2001; Kouritzin, 2000), and by the need to prioritize immediate employment over educational opportunities (Goldstein,1995, 2001). Addressing these multiple concerns within a single curriculum can be a daunting task. Rivera’s (1999) case study of the El Barrio Popular Education Program shows how one program serves immigrant women’s needs. El Barrio is a community-based adult education program in New York City, where Latinas come to learn English, acquire literacy skills, improve their basic education, and prepare for the high school equivalency exam. Most participants are mothers with children attending public schools; many are unemployed workers. The program addresses their needs in a variety of ways: by scheduling meetings during the day when the children are in school, by choosing class locations in the neighborhood and thus not forcing the women to commute, and most important, by offering a bilingual Spanish-English curriculum that incorporates the women’s knowledge and experiences. The women also conduct research in their communities on a variety of topics, from housing issues and trash collection to the uses of English and Spanish. In contexts where creating new programs is impossible, curricula may be revised to include classes that target certain participants. Frye (1999) developed an ESL class for immigrant women in a community education THE FORUM 505 program in Washington, D.C., which otherwise focused on its male students’ needs. The new class used a problem-posing approach to teach language, literacy, and critical reflection skills, and it highlighted issues that the Latinas defined as central to their lives. Frye involved the participants in designing all aspects of the class, from child care and scheduling to deciding which topics to cover. In class, the teacher served as a guide, collaborator, and facilitator, while the participants generated themes for discussion such as employment practices, school policies, interaction with native English speakers, racial prejudice, and gender equity. Yet immigrant women are not the only ones who can slip through educational cracks. In EFL education, women’s needs and concerns may also go unacknowledged unless special efforts are made to incorporate their voices. Case studies from Japan offer an array of approaches to feminist language education (Cohen, 2004; McMahill, 1997, 2001; Saft & Ohara, 2004; Simon-Maeda, 2004). Simon-Maeda (in press) describes a feminist course she has developed in a women’s junior college. The course introduced a variety of topics: sexual harassment in the school and workplace, domestic violence, sexism in textbooks and the media, and sexuality. Throughout the course, the students examined gender inequality from a linguistic perspective that highlighted the discursive practices that construct gender. Further, the teacher did not expect the students to passively accept her Western feminist notions. Rather, she encouraged them to consider on their own terms why they might hold certain views and how women have come to be positioned in a given context. Simon-Maeda works with college students. Also working in Japan, McMahill (1997, 2001) facilitates feminist English classes for adults, which she has done for more than 20 years. The participants, Japanese women of various ages, manage the classes by deciding which foreign instructors to hire or to invite and by negotiating the class content with these instructors. The classes typically combine linguistic goals (improving one’s English) with feminist goals (presenting at international women’s conferences or translating feminist books). Yet gender issues can be productively discussed in places other than women’s groups. Saft and Ohara (2004) developed a 4-day module on gender to encourage both male and female Japanese university students to consider the dynamic quality of gender and to think critically about women’s position in Japanese society. During the module, Saft and Ohara examined the gendered use of language in English and Japanese, assigned reading on the position of women in Japan, and discussed the practice of onna rashii hanashikata (a womanly way of speaking in Japanese). Although both male and female students discussed the topic, some male students resisted the idea that Japanese women experienced 506 TESOL QUARTERLY discrimination, and female students recognized that if women are to have more options, men as well as women must be committed to gender equality. Our perspective emphasizes sensitivity to local contexts. We do not proscribe all-women’s classes nor do we exclusively focus on women’s needs. Rather, a feminist critical approach urges continuous needs analysis and reflection that examine the situation of all learners. Govindasamy and David (2004) describe a needs analysis study conducted in the International Islamic University Malaysia, where almost two thirds of the student population is female. The study determined that although male students do not feel intimidated in the classroom, they are less invested in language education, which does not adequately prepare them for the business world. As a result of the study, the department created a new course, Language for Occupational Purposes, which aimed to meet the needs of male students. To sum up, we emphasize that feminist curricular innovation is not equivalent to traditional “thinking up” of new programs and classes. Rather than working with a fully predetermined and decontextualized curriculum, critical TESOL educators organize and reorganize the curriculum around the needs and lived experiences of particular populations, be they young Japanese women, unemployed Latina immigrants, or male college students in Malaysia. Despite their diversity and everchanging shape, these curricula have much in common. All incorporate the participants’ experiences because feminist teaching practice generally recognizes that students are more engaged in their learning if they have an investment in the curriculum, and if they can relate their learning to the challenges they experience in life outside the classroom. The participants’ languages and cultures also become a meaningful aspect of the curriculum, whereby Latinas in El Barrio programs are learning literacy and critical reflection skills in English and Spanish, and Japanese college women compare linguistic constructions of gender in English and Japanese. IMAGINING ALTERNATIVE WORLDS The second area that deserves closer consideration is the practices common in feminist classrooms and the rich range of materials and activities they incorporate. We consider one advanced-level ESL writing class in Toronto, Canada, where students—predominantly female— expressed an interest in soap operas (Schenke, 1996). The teacher used this interest as an opportunity to explore with the students the personal histories evoked while watching soap operas, and how feminist analysis can frame such reminiscences. To do so, students read excerpts, sometimes paraphrased by Schenke, from Radway’s (1984) Reading the Romance; THE FORUM 507 Coward’s (1985) Female Desires: How They Are Sought, Bought, and Packaged; Hall’s (1990) “The Whites of Their Eyes: Racist Ideologies and the Media”; and Simson’s (1989) Adrift in a World Not of My Own Making: Feminism and the Melodramatic Text. They were asked to reflect on their own formations of femininity and, in the one case, masculinity. The vibrant oral discussions were complemented by written papers linking personal histories and critical analysis. Schenke suggests that “feminism, like antiracism, is thus not simply one more social issue in ESL but a way of thinking, a way of teaching, and, most importantly, a way of learning” (p. 158). In turn, Cohen (2004) describes an advanced EFL undergraduate course in a private university in Japan. Her textbook selections also had a feminist focus: Chaika’s (1994) Language: The Social Mirror ; SkuttnabbKangas’s (2000) Linguistic Genocide in Education; Cherry’s (1987) Womansword: What Japanese Words Say About Women; Nilsen’s (1999) Living Language ; and Walker’s (1983) The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. These texts were complemented by teaching sequences that helped students engage dialogically with the texts. One particularly effective teaching sequence used a Japanese TV news report delivered by a demure young woman and a confident older man. Cohen invited interested students to write up their translations of the presentations, which she then compiled for distribution, discussion, and analysis. Questions for class discussion included, “What accounts for the failure of two of the four student-interpreters to acknowledge the very presence of the female commentator?” Thus, using both provocative texts and innovative teaching sequences, Cohen drew on students’ lived experiences, encouraging students to develop oral, interpretive, and writing skills, while simultaneously gaining greater insight into gendered dimensions of language learning and use. Toff (2002), also teaching in Japan, describes how she uses life writing in English to help her female junior college students straddle “the language of experience with the language of narration” (p. 22). The use of life writing, she argues, enables her students to write with great depth and imagination, addressing topics that might otherwise have been deemed too controversial. She begins the course by giving students models of life writing such as “My Place” by Morgan (1987) and “Dakara Anatamo Ininuite” by Mitsuyo (2000), which inspire students to reflect on their own histories and experiences. She also uses Mah’s (1998) Falling Leaves to help students incorporate historical perspective in their writing, and McCourt’s (1996) Angela’s Ashes to learn about the centrality of voice in writing. By drawing a distinction between the “I” perspective of writing, which is grounded in personal experience, and the “eye” perspective, which provides an analytic framework, Toff encourages her students to develop greater awareness of how the reader and writer 508 TESOL QUARTERLY interact in constructing meaning. In this way, students learn to address personal and sometimes controversial topics, while gaining greater control over the writing process. All in all, we see that transformative practices, which include but are not limited to reading and reflection, personal storytelling, journal writing, and discussions of scenarios, incorporate students’ lived experiences and then locate their experiences and beliefs within larger social contexts. Such practices encourage students to imagine alternative ways of being in the world and to consider a range of life trajectories. TACKLING CHALLENGING TOPICS Regardless of which particular class one is teaching, be it language and gender, or simply English grammar, at some point every teacher is faced with a controversial question, comment, or topic. We firmly believe that teachers need to be well-prepared to handle such topics, while maintaining a positive dynamic in the classroom. In fact, they may do best by being proactive, as EFL and ESL classrooms represent unique spaces where different linguistic and cultural worlds come into contact. Such classrooms offer unparalleled opportunities for teachers to engage with cross-cultural differences and the social construction of gender and sexuality, and thus to help students develop linguistic and intercultural competence, or multivoiced consciousness (Kramsch & von Hoene, 2001). This approach respectfully acknowledges students’ and teachers’ own diverse backgrounds, while engaging them with alternative systems of knowledge, values, beliefs, and modes of gender performance. The way in which debates are framed, questions are asked, and responses are evaluated, is crucial in this regard. Nelson (2004) examines how one teacher, Roxanne, used lesbian and gay themes to explore cultural meanings in her grammar-based ESL class in a community college in the United States. In a lesson on modal auxiliaries, the students, hailing from 13 different countries and ranging in age from early 20s to 70s, were asked to provide a number of possibilities to explain the scenario, “These two women are walking arm in arm” (one of several ambiguous scenarios on a class worksheet). In the ensuing discussion, Roxanne coordinated a productive debate on lesbian and gay cultural practices by framing questions in a highly skilled manner. Instead of asking, for example, “Do you think lesbians should hold hands in public?” she asked, “How did you learn to interpret public displays of affection between two women in the United States?” This line of questioning enabled her to focus on the extent to which sexual identities are culturally situated and to demonstrate that what counts as normal is not inherent but socially constructed. The discussion also provided students with great insight into the ways in which modal THE FORUM 509 auxiliaries are used for acts of speculation. Blending grammar teaching with exploring gay and lesbian issues, Nelson powerfully demonstrates that topics previously seen as taboo have great potential for teaching both linguistic and intercultural competence. Morgan (1997) provides an example of how students’ experiences can be incorporated into a lesson on intonation. Drawing on a text called “Decisions, Decisions” (Bowers & Godfrey, 1985), he presented the predominantly Chinese students with a description of a scenario that addressed gender roles in a Chinese family. He then asked students what advice they would give to the female protagonist, Yuen-Li, who wished to learn English but felt constrained by family obligations. The class considered a number of options available to Yuen-Li, which were then incorporated into a scripted dialogue that Morgan brought into class the next day. The scripted dialogue was particularly helpful for students who had difficulty producing their own work but wished to participate actively in the discussion. It also provided students with the opportunity to read English dialogue, which in turn allowed Morgan to explore the politics of intonation. As students debated the multiple meanings of Oh in diverse intonation contexts, they drew on a range of experiences that might otherwise have remained unspoken. Although the case studies just discussed are situated in college-level and adult education classrooms, challenging topics can also be productively introduced in teacher-training programs. A case study by Boxer and Tyler (2004) explores how different international teaching assistants (ITAs) perceive scenarios that, in the view of U.S. undergraduates, involve sexual harassment. The authors found that in some cases, understandings of appropriate verbal and nonverbal behavior differed not only between undergraduates and ITAs but also between Chineseand Spanish-speaking ITAs and between men and women. Because what is considered sexual harassment differs from one context to another and one culture to the next, the authors recommend a scenario-based consciousness-raising approach for all ITA training programs. Our analysis shows that to recognize diversity and achieve parity and inclusiveness, teachers may introduce controversial topics that students have not raised. In doing so, they often opt for a problem-solving approach that invites students to respond to particular scenarios and discuss ways in which specific situations would be treated across languages and cultures. Ensuing discussions raise students’ familiarity with alternative discourses of gender and sexuality and enhance their ability to reflect critically, to interpret verbal and nonverbal behaviors in context, and to perform gender in context-appropriate ways. 510 TESOL QUARTERLY SHARING POWER Empowerment in the classroom may take place not only through explicit discussion of gender inequities but also through negotiation of power and control between teachers and students. As seen in the preceding discussion, the trademark of feminist critical pedagogies is a decentering of the teacher’s position, while students gain greater control of the classroom. This control means involving students in making decisions on meeting times, locations, child-care arrangements, and choosing and managing discussion topics (Frye, 1999; McMahill, 2001; Rivera, 1999). The research of Fujimura-Fanselow (1996) in Japan provides much insight into the ways in which unequal relations of power between teachers and students can limit classroom participation, particularly for women and girls. She makes a convincing case that the relative silence of young Japanese girls in not unique to the Japanese educational system but is characteristic of most societies in which women have unequal access to power (see also Julé, 2004). To address these power inequities, Fujimura-Fanselow structures her women’s studies classes in a way that requires active participation for teaching and learning. She achieves this by negotiating a curriculum that includes mini–research projects and makes them integral to the course rather than an adjunct to it. She suggests that by ensuring that both teacher and students serve as the audience for these projects, power relations in the classroom become less rigid and hierarchical. Another convincing example of power sharing, according to Jordan (2004), can be found in college-based writing centers. Working within the U.S. college system, Jordan explores the extent to which feminist composition pedagogy, which has tended to focus on native English speakers, can be applied to the ESL tutoring that takes place in collegebased writing centers. His work seeks to raise awareness of institutional and gender-related politics in and around these centers, and to show how these politics can be harnessed for the benefit of students in general and ESL students in particular. A writing center, Jordan argues, is an ideal place for the practice of feminist composition pedagogy because it is an educational site that views students as a source of knowledge, focuses on both process and product in writing, and seeks to decenter authority, particularly with reference to gendered inequities. Findings from his research suggest that a writing center can be a safe place that does not look or feel like a classroom, where teachers can exercise flexibility in engaging students’ native rhetorical abilities while addressing demands for standardized English expression. THE FORUM 511 CONCLUSION We have discussed a variety of transformative classroom practices common in feminist pedagogy: flexible curricula that recognize the diversity of the students’ needs, shared decision making in the classroom, teaching and learning that incorporate students’ life trajectories, pedagogy that locates student experiences and beliefs within larger social contexts, and practices that encourage students to imagine alternative ways of being in the world. We are grateful to the editors of the special issue for an opportunity to express our views on the topic, and look forward to future research that will deepen and expand the perspectives presented here. THE AUTHORS Bonny Norton is an associate professor in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Her research, supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, addresses the relationship between identity, language learning, and social change. Aneta Pavlenko is an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum, Instruction, and Technology in Education at Temple University, Philadelphia, United States. Her research addresses the relationship between multilingualism, identity, and gender as a system of social relations. REFERENCES Boxer, D., & Tyler, A. (2004). Gender, sexual harassment, and the international teaching assistant. In B. Norton & A. Pavlenko (Eds.) Gender and English language learners (pp. 29–42). Alexandria, VA: TESOL. Casanave, C. P., & Yamashiro, A. (Eds.). (1996). Gender issues in language education. Fujisawa City, Japan: Keio University Shonan Fujisawa Campus. Chaika, E. (1994). Language: The social mirror. Boston: Heinle & Heinle. Cherry, K. (1987). Womansword: What Japanese words say about women. Tokyo: Kodansha International. Cohen, T. (2004). Critical feminist engagement in the EFL classroom: From supplement to staple. In B. Norton & A. Pavlenko (Eds.), Gender and English language learners (pp. 155–169). Alexandria, VA: TESOL. Coward, R. Female desires: How they are sought, bought, and packaged. New York: Grove. Frye, D. (1999). Participatory education as a critical framework for immigrant women’s ESL class. TESOL Quarterly, 33, 501–513. Fujimura-Fanselow, K. (1996). Transforming teaching: Strategies for engaging female learners. In C. P. Casanave & A. Yamashiro (Eds.), Gender issues in language education (pp. 31–46). Fujisawa City, Japan: Keio University Shonan Fujisawa Campus. Goldstein, T. (1995). “Nobody is talking bad”: Creating community and claiming power on the production lines. In K. Hall & M. Bucholtz (Eds.), Gender articulated: Language and the socially constructed self (pp. 375–400). New York: Routledge. Goldstein, T. (2001). Researching women’s language practices in multilingual workplaces. In A. Pavlenko, A. Blackledge, I. Piller, & M. Teutsch-Dwyer (Eds.), 512 TESOL QUARTERLY Multilingualism, second language learning, and gender (pp. 77–101). Berlin, Germany: Mouton de Gruyter. Govindasamy, S., & David, M. K. (2004). Investigating the male voice in a Malaysian ESL classroom. In B. Norton & A. Pavlenko (Eds.), Gender and English language learners (pp. 59–68). Alexandria, VA: TESOL. Hall, S. The whites of their eyes: Racist ideologies and the media. In M. Alvarado & J. Thompson (Eds.), The media reader (pp. 7–23). London: British Film Institute. Jordan, J. (2004). Feminist composition pedagogies in ESL tutoring. In B. Norton & A. Pavlenko (Eds.), Gender and English language learners (pp. 43–56). Alexandria, VA: TESOL. Julé, A. (2004). Speaking in silence: A case study of a Canadian Punjabi girl. In B. Norton & A. Pavlenko (Eds.), Gender and English language learners (pp. 69–78). Alexandria, VA: TESOL. Kouritzin, S. (2000). Immigrant mothers redefine access to ESL classes: Contradiction and ambivalence. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 21, 14–32. Kramsch, C., & Von Hoene, L. (2001). Cross-cultural excursions: Foreign language study and feminist discourses of travel. In A. Pavlenko, A. Blackledge, I. Piller, & M. Teutsch-Dwyer (Eds.), Multilingualism, second language learning, and gender (pp. 283–306). Berlin, Germany: Mouton de Gruyter. Mah, A. Y. (1998). Falling leaves: The true story of an unwanted Chinese daughter. Indianapolis, IN: John Wiley & Sons. McCourt, F. (1996). Angela’s ashes: A memoir. New York: Simon & Schuster. McMahill, C. (1997). Communities of resistance: A case study of two feminist English classes in Japan. TESOL Quarterly, 31, 612–622. McMahill, C. (2001). Self-expression, gender, and community: A Japanese feminist English class. In A. Pavlenko, A. Blackledge, I. Piller, & M. Teutsch-Dwyer (Eds.), Multilingualism, second language learning, and gender (pp. 307–344). Berlin, Germany: Mouton de Gruyter. Morgan, B. (1997) Identity and intonation: Linking dynamic processes in an ESL classroom. TESOL Quarterly, 31, 431–450. Nelson, C. (2004). Beyond straight grammar: Using lesbian/gay themes to explore cultural meanings. In B. Norton & A. Pavlenko (Eds.), Gender and English language learners (pp. 15–28). Alexandria, VA: TESOL. Nilsen, A. P. (1999). Living language: Reading, thinking, and writing. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Norton, B. (2000). Identity and language learning: Gender, ethnicity and educational change. Harlow, England: Pearson Education. Norton, B., & Pavlenko, A. (Eds.). (2004). Gender and English language learners. Alexandria, VA: TESOL. Norton, B., & Toohey, K. (Eds.). (2004). Critical pedagogies and language learning. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Pavlenko, A., Blackledge, A., Piller, I., & Teutsch-Dwyer, M. (Eds.). (2001). Multilingualism, second language learning, and gender. Berlin, Germany: Mouton de Gruyter. Radway, J. A. (1984). Reading the romance: Women, patriarchy, and popular literature. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Rivera, K. (1999). Popular research and social transformation: A community-based approach to critical pedagogy. TESOL Quarterly, 33, 485–500. Saft, S., & Ohara, Y. (2004). Promoting critical reflection about gender in EFL classes at a Japanese university. In B. Norton & A. Pavlenko (Eds.), Gender and English language learners (pp. 143–154). Alexandria, VA: TESOL. Schenke, A. (1996). Not just a “social issue”: Teaching feminist in ESL. TESOL Quarterly, 30, 155–159. Simon-Maeda, A. (2004). Transforming emerging feminist identities: A course on THE FORUM 513 gender and language issues. In B. Norton & A. Pavlenko (Eds.), Gender and English language learners (pp. 127–142). Alexandria, VA: TESOL. Simson, H. Adrift in a world not of my own making: Feminism and the melodramatic text. Unpublished manuscript, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Department of Adult Education. Skuttnab-Kangas, T. (2000). Linguistic genocide in education—or worldwide diversity and human rights? Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Toff, M. (2002). A language of their own: Young Japanese women writing their life in English. The Japan Association for Language Teachers, 26(6), 22–26. Walker, B. G. (1983). The woman’s encyclopedia of myths and secrets. New York: Harper & Row. Language Learning: A Feminine Domain? The Role of Stereotyping in Constructing Gendered Learner Identities BARBARA SCHMENK Ruhr-Universität Bochum Bochum, Germany The study of gender and its significance in language learning environments has for a long time focused on difference. Critical views of the difference approach to understanding gender and language learning have emerged only recently (e.g. Ehrlich, 1997; Pavlenko & Piller, 2001). These critiques point out that difference approaches are inherently context- and culture-blind because they regard gender as a static, context-free category (e.g., Ehrlich, 1997; Schmenk, 2002; Sunderland, 2000). Based on poststructuralist premises, the critiques conceive of language learners’ identities as contested sites and argue for developing an enhanced framework for studying gender and its meanings within particular communities of practice (e.g., Norton, 2000; Pavlenko, 2001; Pavlenko & Piller, 2001; Peirce, 1995; Pennycook, 2001; Schmenk, 2002). Instead of looking at what males are like and what females are like and constructing generalized images of male and female language learners accordingly, critical voices note that language learners are themselves constantly constructing and reconstructing their identities in specific contexts and communities. To understand these processes and reflect on their possible implications for language learning and teaching, English language teachers, researchers, and teacher educators need to take into account individual learners and their respective positioning in particular social and cultural contexts. The present article aims to add to these recent views by focusing on a widely held assumption in many language learning environments, namely, ■ 514 TESOL QUARTERLY the belief that language learning is a feminine domain. Generalist assumptions such as “languages are girls’ subjects,” “girls generally have more positive attitudes than boys toward language learning,” “girls are better at language learning than boys” are widespread (even though they have not remained uncontested1), and they can influence language learning environments in multiple ways.2 I would suggest that such beliefs are to a large extent based on commonsense conceptions of gender and of language learning resulting from particular instances of stereotyping. My aim is therefore to introduce a conceptual framework within which I can theorize gender stereotyping and its role in discourses of language learning as a feminine domain3 and disentangle some of the complex relationships between stereotypes, gender, and language learning. Understanding processes of stereotyping is crucial for researchers who want to overcome essentialist conceptions of the sexes4 both inside the language classroom and beyond. After all, if TESOL professionals want to conceptualize gender as a socially and culturally constructed dynamic category, one of the key questions that emerges is how to deal with commonsense notions of masculinity and femininity in language learning environments. GENDER STEREOTYPING According to social psychological views, stereotypes are “shared beliefs about personality traits and behaviors of group members. By stereotyping we overlook individuality” (Fiedler & Bless, 2001, p. 123). Stereotypes can thus be described as social hypotheses or beliefs because they are 1 Sunderland (2000) points out that many of the available research findings refer to North American, Australian, and British contexts, fewer to Continental European and Asian contexts, and fewer still to other regions, most notably Africa, where many people are multilingual. This point is particularly salient with respect to TESOL and gender because the belief that language learning is a feminine domain is likely to be confined to specific, socioculturally bounded images of femininity, masculinity, and language learning. 2 See Headway Advanced (Soars & Soars, 1989), a popular textbook used in many EFL classrooms around the globe. Its introductory unit confronts teachers and learners with the statement that “females are better at languages” (p. 6), prompting students to ask why (not if) this might be the case. It is very likely that such suggestive phrasing influences learners’ as well as teachers’ perception of language learning and gender. 3 I use the term discourse in a sense derived from Foucault (1972), who argues that discourses consist of a group of statements, which provide a language for talking about specific topics at a particular historical moment. Hence, knowledge is discursively constructed and reflects specific orders of discourse within particular sociocultural contexts. 4 A straightforward distinction between sex and gender is probably impossible (Bergvall, 1999; Butler, 1990), particularly in the case of stereotypes. Stereotypical views of males and females (often pertaining to the dimension of sex, i.e., biology) usually link social aspects of gender (e.g., assumptions about personality traits or social roles associated with femininity and masculinity) to a biological given. As a result, stereotypes are a blend of biological, social, and psychological dimensions. THE FORUM 515 often learned from others and do not reflect only an individual’s perception. The process of stereotyping results from social categorization, that is, classifying people into groups according to their presumed common attributes (Franzoi, 2000). In the case of gender, stereotyping results from the classification of people into two groups, men and women, whose members are considered to differ according to divergent personality traits, abilities, and motives (according to what is commonly believed to be typically feminine and typically masculine). Stereotypes are fixed ways of thinking about people grouped into a social category, so gender stereotypes comprise static notions about feminine and masculine traits, regardless of social, cultural, or historical variations in the lives of women and men. Commonly held beliefs about the traditional man and the traditional woman center on the competency-independence pole and the warmthexpressive pole (Breakwell, 1988; Jordan & Weedon, 1995). Women are considered characteristically expressive, and men are considered characteristically competent. Stereotypical beliefs such as these are widespread and familiar in many cultural contexts throughout the world, although actual perceived differences are likely to vary considerably in different sociocultural contexts.5 Nevertheless, generalist assumptions about gender often claim to reflect universal phenomena about men and women prior to social, cultural, or historical contexts. Hence, it is not surprising that much commonsense knowledge of gender is based on stereotypes (Franzoi, 2000). Such knowledge in turn primes common perceptions of women and men, thus forming powerful gender lenses (Bem, 1993) that help to maintain ideologies about an essential, primordial difference between the sexes. This social-psychological framework suggests that stereotyping is integral to the discursive construction of knowledge about gender. Instead of asking whether or not gender stereotypes have a kernel of truth or otherwise assigning an immediate truth value to stereotypical knowledge about the sexes, this framework enables thinking about stereotyping as a process that may occur in various social contexts and conceiving stereotypes as powerful resources in constructing gendered images of language learning and language learners. It may help therefore to explain the view of language learning as a feminine domain without reifying generalist assumptions about women and men. 5 Researchers have shown repeatedly that stereotypical beliefs about gender are largely identical in many different cultures (Breakwell, 1988; Franzoi, 2000). Although gender and its meanings vary considerably across cultures, time, and different communities of practice, gender stereotypes are remarkably invariant in many different cultures and across generations. This does not mean, however, that gender stereotypes are assigned similar functions and values in different communities, nor does it suggest that processes of stereotyping take similar forms regardless of cultural contexts. 516 TESOL QUARTERLY GENDER STEREOTYPING IN CONSTRUCTIONS OF LANGUAGE LEARNING AS A FEMININE DOMAIN Gender stereotypes and stereotyping are well known in many cultures, so we can assume that a variety of social beliefs about gender help to shape and are shaped by conceptions of gender and language learning and teaching. Examining stereotypes more closely might help to more fully explain their role in maintaining dominant beliefs about the sexes in language learning. Concerning the belief that language learning is a feminine domain, at least three aspects could be related to stereotyping: (a) the claim that gender is a differentiating variable, (b) the claim that language learning success is causally linked to a person’s gender, and (c) the observation that girls and women worldwide tend to study languages more often than boys and men do. Gender as a Differentiating Variable The notion of difference generally characterizes commonsense conceptions of gender, which are reinforced by many scholars’ continuous search for differences between males and females and by the popular media’s frequently featuring the research results. It is important, however, to realize that this research tradition, the difference approach to studying gender, is itself inherently stereotyped. The difference approach treats gender as a social category. It begins with the assumption that men and women form comparable groups and that comparing them will bring about meaningful results, thus drawing on conceptions of gender as a dichotomous category. The difference approach and beliefs about the sexes as incommensurable opposites derive their power from the assumption that male and female are two fundamentally different, monolithic entities (Bergvall, 1999; Weedon, 1997). Essentialist views of gender look for specific traits inside the person, neglecting the socially, historically, and culturally constructed dimensions of gender in social communities. Even the argument that gender differences are socially constructed does not escape the fundamental binary because the difference approach has to assume that the social somehow causes the emergence of two largely divergent patterns of socialization. This epistemology of fundamental difference makes distinguishing between innate and socially constructed aspects impossible (Bergvall, 1999; Schmenk, 2002). Therefore, the difference approach to conceptions of gender implicitly reifies essentialist assumptions about women and men because it takes for granted that individuals who belong to the group of males differ from those who belong to females. This is why any difference approach to understanding gender necessarily widens the perceived gulf between female and male learners, and the difference approach underlies the THE FORUM 517 belief that language learning is a feminine domain because it is intimately tied to gender as a differentiating variable.6 Apart from assuming that gender is a binary category, the belief that language learning is feminine is related to other beliefs around language learning and gender, most notably the belief that females have superior linguistic ability. Explaining Female Superiority The question about which sex is better at language learning has for a long time dominated the study of gender and language education (see, e.g., Ehrlich, 1997; Sunderland, 2000). Based on the notion of gender as a differentiating variable, such quests to find differences between male and female learners have not shown clear-cut patterns of differential achievement—yet the belief in female superiority in language learning is more widespread than attempts to argue for male superiority in accomplishing the same task.7 In addition to relying on conceptions of gender as a fixed learner variable, arguments in favor of female superiority also rely on other instances of stereotyping. Consider, for example, the following explanations: [Example 1.] Maccoby and Jacklin’s (1974) work on sex differences suggests that females are superior to, or at least very different from, males in many social skills, with females showing a greater social orientation. . . . We think that social orientation is highly related to communication in both first and second languages. . . . Because social learning strategies have been found to be particularly important for exposing the learner to the target language, increasing the amount of interaction with native speakers, and enhancing motivation . . . , it is reasonable to anticipate that they will enhance verbal learning. (Ehrman & Oxford, 1990, p. 1) [Example 2.] Girls are more likely to stress co-operation and . . . learn to deal sensitively with relationships, whereas boys emphasize establishing and maintaining hierarchical relations and asserting their identity. The female “culture” seems to lend itself more readily to dealing with the inherent threat imposed to identity by L2 learning. (Ellis, 1994, p. 204) 6 This argument could of course be applied to other gendered domains as well. For example, some communities might consider language learning (or other fields of study) a male domain (see, e.g., Bügel & Buunk, 1996, on male superiority in EFL reading comprehension in the Netherlands). 7 For an overview of studies and their conflicting results, see, e.g., Ehrlich (1997), Schmenk (2002), and Sunderland (2000). It is worth noting that some researchers have constructed arguments in favor of clear-cut sex differences despite the research evidence available. Ellis (1994), for example, lists inconsistent results from empirical research, yet remains convinced that “female learners generally do better than male” (p. 202). 518 TESOL QUARTERLY Both examples refer to potential differences between male and female language learners, and they both establish or imply specific arguments in favor of female superiority or specifically feminine ways of learning language. In Example 1, Ehrman and Oxford speculate on females’ greater success in language learning, presenting a chain of hypotheses about female learners that result from their presumed greater social orientation.8 The authors thus conceive female superiority as an effect of a particular female trait that causes the female learner to use particular learning strategies that, in turn, cause successful language learning. In Example 2, Ellis also speculates about female superiority based on specifically feminine attributes. In this instance, Ellis presumes that female culture, characterized by cooperative behavior and sensitivity in dealing with relationships, causes successful language learning. Yet, the theory of language learning implied in Example 2 is quite different from the theory implied in the first example. Ehrman and Oxford’s theoretical explanation centralizes the role of social interaction, assuming that “social orientation” might facilitate communication with native speakers, which in turn may lead to high language learning achievement. Ellis, on the other hand, constructs quite a different theory. His reasoning assumes that L2 learning poses a threat to learner identities. Consequently, he speculates that females can cope with such a threat “more readily” than males. In both attempts to explain female superiority in language learning, the authors fail to escape stereotypical, generalist assumptions. Their failure shows that any attempt to hypothesize about female superiority remains confined to dichotomous thinking and infers prior knowledge about the sexes (which is itself a product of binary thinking). The result continually reproduces and reinterprets prior beliefs. At the same time, the theories of successful language learning that Examples 1 and 2 imply have little in common except their focus on difference and the shared belief that females are somehow better at learning language. Whether through a particularly strong social orientation or a specific sensitivity toward others, arguments in favor of female superiority often associate stereotypically feminine attributes and language learning success. Because the underlying difference approach requires discourses on female superiority to conceptualize successful language learning as a matter of typically feminine characteristics and behaviors, they bring about inherently feminized images of language learning. As a result, language learning itself appears to be gendered; it is feminized. These attempts to explain female superiority, however, rarely ask whether these feminized 8 This assertion of females’ greater social orientation pertains to a widespread stereotype (e.g., Breakwell, 1988; Jordan & Weedon, 1995). Yet Maccoby and Jacklin (1974) in their overview of studies into sex differences note that this belief is “unfounded” (p. 349). THE FORUM 519 images adequately reflect the behaviors of actual male or female learners and whether successful language learning does indeed require characteristics from the stereotypically feminine warmth-expressive pole. Rather, these explanations begin with the belief in gender as a variable that brings about dualistic patterns of behavior. This conclusion confirms what Cameron (1996) has observed in the field of gender and language: My research suggests that the single most important factor . . . is people’s eagerness to believe certain commonsense propositions about gender. Their desire to believe that “women are thus and men are so” is strong enough to compensate for what, from a purely academic standpoint, are obvious shortcomings or contradictions in the evidence presented. And indeed, academic discourse itself is not immune from a milder form of this tendency to interpret all evidence in accordance with certain forgone conclusions. (p. 49) Binary thinking and stereotypical views of women as cooperative, sensitive, and social persons inform discourses of female superiority and, consequently, of language learning as a feminine domain. Although this is not to say that researchers, textbook authors, and others intentionally embark on stereotyping, I would argue that it is indeed important to reflect on the fact that commonly held beliefs influence the world both outside and inside the language classroom. Therefore, it is crucial that social beliefs about the sexes be brought to the surface and be made visible—the only way to resist stereotyping lies in establishing a critical awareness of gender stereotypes and their role in social and cultural belief systems. MAKING A DIFFERENCE: FACTS AND STEREOTYPES ABOUT LANGUAGE LEARNING AS A FEMININE DOMAIN The numbers of female students in foreign language courses worldwide are exceptionally high. Yet these figures do not mean that women have specifically female or other common abilities, interests, or motives to study languages. The fact that they are women does not automatically explain their choice of study. But why so many women opt for language study is worth investigating. Instead of looking for reasons inside the woman (which can only reproduce generalist assumptions and hegemonic, essentialist beliefs about the sexes), researchers should explore individual persons’ choices in the light of gender stereotyping: • Which forms of gender stereotyping occur in particular communities of practice? Is it possible that learners ascribe stereotypes to themselves and act accordingly? Is it possible that others ascribe stereotypes to women and men in language learning contexts and thus influence individual decisions (and maybe achievement)? 520 TESOL QUARTERLY • Does the phenomenon called stereotype threat in social psychology (Kray, Thompson, & Galinsky, 2001; Steele, 1997), the tendency to confirm gender stereotypes when they are explicitly activated, occur in language learning contexts as well? What role do stereotyping and so-called self-fulfilling prophecies play in sustaining the belief in language learning as a feminine domain? Might women act in accordance with the belief that language learning is a feminine domain because they can profit from it? These questions address issues of stereotyping, power, and investment (McMahill, 2001; Peirce, 1995) and point to new directions of study. Investigating language learning as a feminine domain might reveal a very interesting and complex relationship between gender and power. The question of gender stereotyping and power is especially intriguing in this context because traditional stereotypes about men, women, and their respective roles and positions in many societies appear to be confused. The widespread belief in female superiority is extraordinary in some respects, given that cognitive abilities and achievements are stereotypically higher in men. Female superiority in language learning is therefore at odds with other beliefs about gender and cognitive abilities.9 Stereotypically feminine attributes, which are usually claimed to legitimize women’s subordinate positions in many societies, are reevaluated in the language learning context. Arguments in favor of female superiority assume that feminine characteristics facilitate language learning and stereotypically masculine attributes inhibit language learning. Thus, the language learning context seems to reverse traditional power structures and patterns of domination and subordination, which tends to confuse the overall picture of gender, language learning, and stereotypes. Whether this particular system of power and gender stereotyping plays a role in deciding to study languages remains to be seen; individuals could realize that language study offers many women positive self-concepts, selfconfidence, superiority, or other advantages. Hence, the choice to study a typically feminine subject would—ironically—enable women to escape traditional gender stereotypes. Confirming stereotypes could thus mean resisting stereotyping. 9 The most prominent example is the discussion about male superiority in mathematics (see, e.g., Li, 1999). Although this issue lies beyond the scope of the present article, it is worth pointing out that languages and mathematics are often viewed to form opposites themselves. Thus, being good at languages contrasts with being good at mathematics, which neatly fits the belief that women and men form two distinct social groups whose members have distinctly different strengths and weaknesses—that also happen to be differentially valued. THE FORUM 521 CONCLUSION: GENDER STEREOTYPING AND THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM Gender stereotyping is widespread and very often occurs unintentionally and goes unnoticed. In everyday life, various sources continuously reproduce stereotypical views of gender and difference. Conceiving of gender as a fundamental, binary opposition fuels the idea that stereotypes would indeed mirror what male and female persons, as groups, are like. Therefore, understanding gender stereotyping in language classrooms must begin by recognizing that learners (as well as teachers) come with prior knowledge and experience and are actively constructing identities. Yet, although gender is likely to be constructed within particular communities such as language classrooms, understanding gender stereotyping cannot be confined to specific community practices only. The belief that language learning is a feminine domain, for example, very likely derives from sources outside actual language classrooms, though it is reproduced inside classrooms as well. At the moment, further research is needed to determine how gender ideology is adopted and reproduced. Assuming that stereotypes somehow reflect what learners are like is misleading. Rather, stereotyping is best conceived as a discursive construction ascribed to persons and to language learning. This view is in line with the notion that gender and identity are not fixed but constantly constructed, reconstructed, and deconstructed in learning environments. Individuals might ascribe stereotypes, such as the belief that language learning is a feminine domain, to others or to themselves, but they can also reject stereotypes. In either case, teachers must adopt a critical stance toward generalist statements about male and female learners and develop a heightened awareness of gender stereotyping. Doing so will enable them to focus on individual learners as persons rather than as group members and encourage others to take off their gender lenses in the language classroom and beyond. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank the editors of this special issue, the anonymous reviewers, and Kristy Surak for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript. THE AUTHOR Barbara Schmenk is an assistant professor of applied linguistics at the Seminar für Sprachlehrforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, in Germany. Her research interests include gender and language learning, intercultural learning, and learner autonomy. 522 TESOL QUARTERLY REFERENCES Bem, S. L. (1993). The lenses of gender. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Bergvall, V. L. (1999). Toward a comprehensive theory of language and gender. Language in Society, 28, 273–293. Breakwell, G. (1988). Social beliefs about gender differences. In C. Fraser & G. Gaskell (Eds.), Psychological studies of widespread beliefs (pp. 210–225). Oxford, England: Clarendon. Bügel, K., & Buunk, B. P. (1996). Sex differences in foreign language text comprehension: The role of interest and prior knowledge. Modern Language Journal, 80, 15–31. Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble. Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Routledge. Cameron, D. (1996). The language-gender interface: challenging co-optation. In V. L. Bergvall, J. M. Bing, & A. F. Freed (Eds.), Rethinking language and gender research: Theory and practice (pp. 31–52). New York: Longman. Ehrlich, S. (1997). Gender as social practice. Implications for second language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 19, 421–446. Ehrman, M. E., & Oxford, R. L. (1990). Adult learning styles and strategies in an intensive training setting. Modern Language Journal, 73, 1–13. Ellis, R. (1994). The study of second language acquisition. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Fiedler, K., & Bless, H. (2001). Social cognition. In M. Hewstone & W. Stroebe (Eds.), Introduction to social psychology (3rd ed., pp. 115–149). Oxford, England: Basil Blackwell. Foucault, M. (1972). The archaeology of knowledge and the discourse on language. New York: Pantheon. Franzoi, S. (2000). Social psychology (2nd ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill. Jordan, G., & Weedon, C. (1995). Cultural politics: Class, gender, race, and the postmodern world. Oxford, England: Basil Blackwell. Kray, L. J., Thompson, L., & Galinsky, A. D. (2001). Battle of the sexes: Gender stereotype confirmation and reactance in negotiations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 942–958. Li, Q. (1999). Teachers’ beliefs and gender differences in mathematics: A review. Educational Research, 41, 63–76. Maccobi, E. E., & Jacklin, C. N. (1974). The psychology of sex differences. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. McMahill, C. (2001). Self-expression, gender, and community: A Japanese feminist English class. In A. Pavlenko, A. Blackledge, I. Piller, & M. Teutsch-Dwyer (Eds.), Multilingualism, second language learning, and gender (pp. 307–344). New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Norton, B. (2000). Identity and language learning: Gender, ethnicity and educational change. Harlow, England: Pearson Education. Oxford, R. L. (1995). Gender differences in learning styles: What do they mean? In J. M. Reid (Ed.), Learning styles in the ESL/EFL classroom (pp. 34–46). Boston: Heinle & Heinle. Pavlenko, A. (2001). Bilingualism, gender, and ideology. International Journal of Bilingualism, 5, 117–151. Pavlenko, A., & Piller, I. (2001). New directions in the study of multilingualism, second language learning, and gender. In A. Pavlenko, A. Blackledge, I. Piller, & M. Teutsch-Dwyer (Eds.), Multilingualism, second language learning, and gender (pp. 17–52). New York: Mouton de Gruyter. THE FORUM 523 Peirce, B. N. (1995). Social identity, investment, and language learning. TESOL Quarterly, 29, 9–31. Pennycook, A. (2001). Critical applied linguistics. A critical introduction. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Schmenk, B. (2002). Geschlechtsspezifisches Fremdsprachenlernen? Zur Konstruktion geschlechtstypischer Lerner- und Lernbilder in der Fremdsprachenforschung. Tübingen, Germany: Stauffenburg. Soars, J., & Soars, L. (1989). Headway advanced. Students’ book. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Steele, C. M. (1997). A threat in the air: How stereotypes shape intellectual identity and performance. American Psychologist, 52, 613–629. Sunderland, J. (2000). Issues of language and gender in second and foreign language education. Language Teaching, 33, 203–223. Weedon, C. (1997). Feminist practice and poststructuralist theory (2nd ed.). Oxford, England: Basil Blackwell. “The Devil Is in the Detail”: Researching Gender Issues in Language Assessment ANNIE BROWN The University of Melbourne Melbourne, Australia TIM MCNAMARA The University of Melbourne Melbourne, Australia The relationship of language tests to gender identity represents the intersection of two sites of social power and control. Increasingly, language tests are being understood in terms of their political functions and social consequences (McNamara, 1998; Shohamy, 2001). The dominant paradigm for investigating validity (Messick, 1989) emphasizes that language-testing researchers are responsible for investigating the extent to which the inferences made about individuals based on language test results are defensible, and for revealing sources of bias and error. But it also emphasizes the contestable values embodied in test constructs and the need to investigate the social consequences, intended and unintended, of language-testing practice. Language testers’ responsibility thus has an ethical dimension (Davies, 1997): Responsible professional practice in language testing involves care for the rights and interests of particular social groups who may be at risk from biased language assessments. The question of differential and unequal treatment of candidates in language tests based on gender is thus both a technical and an ethical/political issue. ■ 524 TESOL QUARTERLY In this article we examine research to date on the relationship between candidates’ and testers’ gender identity and score inferences, focusing in particular on face-to-face spoken-language testing. We discuss the complexity of factors involved and the lack of consistent findings, and we contrast traditional psychometric and more recent discoursebased research methods in unravelling this complexity. We argue that research on this topic can illuminate the broader issue of how macrosocial categories such as gender operate in the microsocial environment of face-to-face interaction. PSYCHOMETRIC RESEARCH ON GENDER IN LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT The issue of gender-related effects in educational tests has long been a concern of psychometrics. Operational test developers try to ensure that test items are not biased against particular subsets of the testing population because of their gender, ethnicity, or age, inter alia. To root out bias, test developers might elicit feedback from specialists on draft test items or conduct complex statistical analysis of candidate performance on pilot tests. For example, at Educational Testing Service in the United States, specially trained reviewers examine TOEFL, TOEIC, and other language test questions and materials for bias prior to test trialling. The recently updated ETS Fairness Review Guidelines (Educational Testing Service, 2003) documents the mandated subjective fairness review procedures. These procedures are not foolproof, however. In their study of bias in a reading comprehension test, Ross and Okabe (2002) found that reviewers tended to see bias as affecting whole passages rather than individual questions. Their study suggests that subjective rating tends to overestimate the extent of gender bias, which means that developers could omit sound items from operational tests. Psychometrics has developed sophisticated statistical methods for detecting bias. These methods typically involve analysing response data, often summarised as scores. Thurstone (Thurstone & Chave, 1929) and Glaser (1949, 1952) were among the first researchers to study response inconsistency between subgroups of test takers (defined by gender, age, language background, and so on), which involves looking for quantitative evidence of item bias or differential item functioning (DIF) in responses to test items. Masters (1988) defines item bias as follows: “If an item’s estimated difficulty is significantly greater when calibrated on one subgroup than when calibrated on the other, the item is considered ‘biased’ with respect to those two” (p. 17). Smith (1992) defines bias operationally as “statistically different item difficulty estimates for the same item in subpopulations of interest” (p. 89). THE FORUM 525 By the early 1980s, Kunnan (1990) and others had applied sophisticated methods for detecting DIF for multiple choice tests of reading and writing and of grammar and vocabulary. Using Rasch item response modelling, Kunnan (1990) analysed a university ESL placement test and found that 20% of the reading, listening, and grammar/vocabulary items favoured males. Lumley and O’Sullivan (2001) investigated gender bias in topics chosen for a tape-mediated speaking test given to graduates in Hong Kong. They found small and hard-to-predict effects for topic: One topic (horse-racing) favoured males, but another (soccer), which might have shown the same effect, provided no advantage for males. Detecting bias in speaking and writing tests has required analytic techniques for detecting bias in rating scale data, but this is not the only added complexity. Writers on performance assessment have stressed the complexity of the performance’s context and have suggested a systematic research program for estimating the effects of relevant variables (McNamara, 1996). In speaking tests, gender-related effects may be associated with the gender of the test taker, the interviewer, or the rater, and interaction among any of these three variables can produce further effect. Other factors can also have an impact, for example, the test takers’ cultural background or the degree of familiarity between test taker and interviewer. The mode of rating—from audiotape or from videotape—also seems to have an effect (Carroll, 1991). In fact, current research on gender and language testing often analyses the gender variable in isolation, without considering a range of other possible social identity variables. Initial psychometric studies of social identity variables within language testing were small scale and exploratory, looking at a single factor at a time, with inevitably conflicting results. For example, in a small study, Locke (1984) found that the gender of the interviewer had a significant effect for young Arab male students in a United Kingdom setting: The students received higher scores from a male independent rater (not the interviewer) than from a female rater. Porter and Shen (1991), however, using a similar design but with students of mixed nationality, found that candidates received higher scores when interviewed by a woman. In discussing the Porter and Shen study, O’Sullivan (2000) speculates that either cultural background or rater factors could explain these conflicting results. O’Sullivan’s (2000) own study involving Japanese students confirmed Porter and Shen’s findings. Buckingham (1997) further complicates the picture: In a study of Japanese learners of English, she found that female interviewees performed better when interviewed by a woman, and male interviewees performed better when interviewed by a man. In yet another small study, this one on the impact of raters, Carroll (1991) found that male raters gave candidates higher scores than female raters did; and both male and female raters gave male candidates higher 526 TESOL QUARTERLY scores than they did female candidates. Though Carroll does not report clearly on how the interviewer’s gender affects scoring, his study suggests that the rater’s gender has a greater impact. In paired or group oral speaking tests, the interlocutor factor is potentially more complex. In these tasks, candidates work together in pairs or small groups while a rater observes directly or via audio- or videotape. Again, the results are mixed. Berry (1997) found that gender influenced the discourse produced in dyads that included every gender combination. In contrast, O’Sullivan (2002) reported only limited effects for interlocutor’s gender in a paired oral task. Given the complexity of the context introduced in paired oral tests and in all direct tests of speaking, psychometric research needs to control for intervening variables and interaction effects. More sophisticated analytic tools will permit better and more complex designs, and some evidence suggests that this new research has begun. Lumley and O’Sullivan (2001) and O’Loughlin (2002) used Rasch bias analysis (McNamara, 1996) to study gender-based bias in speaking-test scores. Elder, McNamara, and Congdon (2003) used a variety of even more recent Rasch-based techniques for detecting bias in performance test data, although to date no studies of gender-related bias using these techniques have been reported. Using purely technical means for detecting bias, however, evades or even obscures the question raised by Sunderland (1995): Where does the true ability lie? Gender-related bias can cancel out or exaggerate any true differences in ability, thus masking them. DISCOURSE-BASED RESEARCH ON GENDER IN SPEAKING TESTS An alternative to studying gender effects in language test scores or item responses has been to study the spoken discourse produced in speaking tests. In a recent survey of the literature on discourse analysis and language assessment, McNamara, Hill, and May (2002) frame the remarkable growth of language-testing research based on discourse analysis in the following terms: “If structuralist linguistics was the source of the views on language of the formative period of postwar language testing, best represented in the work of Lado (1961), then discourse analysis has taken its place in the assessment of oral language” (p. 221). Their survey discusses a wide range of approaches, including conversation analysis (sometimes supported by microethnographies: see especially Jacoby, 1998; see also O’Loughlin, 2001, chapter 6), think-aloud protocols, and activity theory. Researchers have investigated gender effects in speaking tests by THE FORUM 527 analysing discourse data in differing ways. Some studies have focused on discourse products, often using counts of discourse features, which are then analysed statistically; others focus on the process of interaction. In either case, to explain observed score differences, researchers might relate the discourse-based findings to score patterns. Before looking at discourse-based studies in detail, it is worth noting that most of the studies do not consider variables such as participants’ ethnicity, class, or age, and gender is treated as “a static, context-free category” (Schmenk, this issue, p. 513) rather than as something constructed locally and contextually. We examine this issue at the microlevel of interaction later in this article. In an important discourse-based study, O’Sullivan (2002) analysed the discourse of paired oral interactions using measures derived from Skehan’s (1998) work on task design. He counted discourse features (syntax, morphology, and lexis) of candidate speech to yield measures of accuracy and complexity and then analysed them statistically. O’Sullivan found that candidate speech was more accurate when the interlocutor was female, but he found no gender effect for complexity; overall, gender did not have a strong impact on candidate speech. O’Loughlin (2002) used rather different measures in his study of discourse produced in the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) interview, where the variables were the candidate’s and the interlocutor’s gender. O’Loughlin based his discourse-analytic categories on features that the feminist linguist Coates (1993) claimed were typical of female and male conversation. One such feature is overlaps, that is, “instances of slight over-anticipation by the next speaker: instead of beginning to speak immediately following the current speaker’s turn, the next speaker begins to speak at the very end of the current speaker’s turn, overlapping the last word (or part of it)” (Coates, 1993, p. 109). Coates claims that male speakers are more likely to overlap than female speakers in mixed pair conversations because female speakers are reluctant to interrupt male speakers’ talk. O’Loughlin also counted the features analysed, and used raw score totals to conclude that the interviewer’s and candidate’s gender appeared to have little impact on the IELTS interviews studied. For example, minimal responses such as “yeah” and “mhm,” which Coates sees as supportive and finds more commonly in the females’ talk, showed no gendered pattern of distribution in O’Loughlin’s data. But what exactly did O’Loughlin count? O’Loughlin himself raises this issue. He found not only little evidence that using overlaps is gendered, but also that many of the overlaps actually facilitated talk. O’Sullivan (2000) elaborated this issue. He found almost twice as many minimal responses in male interviewers’ speech as in female interviewers’ speech (this finding contradicted Porter and Shen’s 1991 findings). 528 TESOL QUARTERLY But how the interviewers produced these minimal responses was apparently important: Men tended to produce monotonal responses delivered in a lower pitch; women more frequently produced bitonal or multitonal responses. Using minimal responses as the unit of analysis, however, did not enable O’Loughlin to capture how these responses affected perceived support. What, then, are researchers to do? Young and Milanovic (1992) suggest another avenue. In their study of discourse variation in oral proficiency interviews, they speculate that gender might account for the tendency of topics to persist when females interviewed female candidates, who tended to ratify examiner-introduced topics more frequently than male candidates did. Despite this finding, Young and Milanovic (1992) argue that researchers need to go beyond counting interactional features (i.e., examining discourse products) to consider the interactional process because counts of interactional features do not reveal the process by which the discourse is created through interaction but only gives us a snapshot of the product of that process. To understand how discourse is created we need to go into much greater detail in describing the nature of contingency as it exists between each set of turns. (pp. 420–421) An approach that analyses interaction turn-by-turn, as Young and Milanovic suggest, is conversation analysis (Atkinson & Heritage, 1984; Psathas, 1995; Sacks, 1992; Schegloff, Koshik, Jacoby, & Olsher, 2002). Although conversation analysis (CA) was originally applied to natural (i.e., nontest) conversational interaction, it is now also widely used to analyse institutional interaction, providing useful perspectives on how participants understand and carry out their roles within closely associated specific contexts (see Drew & Heritage, 1992). Supporters and critics of CA (Cicourel, 1992; Roberts & Sarangi, 1999; Sarangi & Roberts, 1999; Schegloff, 1992) and of other discourse-based methods such as critical discourse analysis (CDA) (Fairclough, 2000; Weiss & Wodak, 2003) disagree about the relationship between the macro- and the microlevels of interaction. CDA would map the macrosocial category of gender directly onto the discourse analysis; although CA recognises the potential impact of macrolevel categories, it posits a microlevel of sociality (the apparatus of turn-taking, preference organization, and the like) that is in principle independent of the macrolevel and through which macrolevel categories must be articulated. In other words, if the impact of macrolevel categories are to be demonstrated in discourse, they must be relevant on the microlevel of interaction. In this way, CA challenges the top-down determinacy of macrosocial categories and complicates their potential impact at the microlevel of interaction. In the context of the oral interview, CA can help researchers to THE FORUM 529 describe and understand how interviewers and candidates interact. Brown (2003a, 2003b, 2004) offers the most fully developed example to date of such an approach. Brown’s work illustrates the complexity of the interactional context from which test scores are derived and shows that when investigating the impact of gender in testing contexts, the devil is in the details. Brown’s (2003b) study of the IELTS interview examined the interactional styles of two interviewers, one male and one female. Both were middle-aged, middle-class, university graduates, but the male was from the United States and the female was from Australia. The interviewers had rated candidates at significantly different levels. As one might expect, given the general belief that females are interactionally more supportive, candidates tended to receive higher ratings with the female interviewer than with the male (for the analysis of score data, see Brown & Hill, 1998). To explore why this might be the case, Brown undertook a detailed analysis of a pair of interviews involving the same female candidate, Esther, with each of the two interviewers, Pam and Ian. The two interviewers differed in a number of respects, including their questions’ topical focus and functional pitch, their questioning techniques (the use of open and closed questions and indirect elicitation strategies), the type of feedback they provided, and their speech styles. As expected, Pam’s strategies were generally more supportive than Ian’s were. She selected familiar and personal topics and elicited mainly description, which lowered the challenge so that one might expect Esther to perform better. Pam introduced her topical sequences with one or two closed questions that elicited background information, which she then followed with explicit requests for elaborated responses (“Tell me about . . .”). Pam also provided newsmarkers, echoes, assessments, and formulations, forms of feedback that indicate interest and understanding. She spoke slowly and clearly with little reformulation, using exaggerated pitch and intonation reminiscent of caretaker talk. In contrast to Pam, Ian chose less personal topics, and he posed greater functional challenges; along with description, he elicited speculation, argument, and opinion from Esther. Ian’s questioning technique was less explicit than Pam’s; he tended to use closed questions, statements, echoes, and tokens such as “Yeah?” to elicit talk from Esther even though this strategy often failed to elicit more than a minimal response. He was also much less likely to acknowledge or otherwise respond to Esther’s talk. Because of these differences, it is not surprising that Esther achieved a higher score with Pam, the more supportive and “teacherly” (Brown, 2003b, p. 17) female interviewer than with Ian. Researchers generally perceive her strategies as likely to enhance candidate performance. (For examples of Pam’s and Ian’s interactional styles with Esther, see Appendix.) 530 TESOL QUARTERLY However, all is not quite as it seems. In this study, the ratings were not given by interviewers (as they are in operational IELTS) but by independent raters, who also provided verbal reports justifying their ratings. Analysing these verbal reports revealed a more complex picture. Rather than rating Esther’s performance as reflecting her competence, the raters saw her performance as part of her interaction with the interviewer. Paradoxically, they saw Pam’s strategies as inhibiting Esther’s performance rather than supporting it. They perceived Pam’s lowering of the functional and topical challenge as preventing Esther from demonstrating what she could do (Extract 1), and they perceived Pam’s frequent expressions of interest and her tone of voice, which she presumably intended to set apparently young Esther at ease, as exaggerated, condescending, and, hence, inhibiting (Extract 2): Extract 1 I don’t think this interviewer challenges very much. She’s asking for a lot of description. She doesn’t ask for much speculation, so the girl doesn’t even have the chance to try and speculate. Extract 2 I found it, her tone, extremely condescending, like she was talking to a small child. . . . You know how it is with people if you sort of strike a rapport, you can jabber away, and with other people you just don’t want to talk to them. . . . My feeling is she’s a bit of a chatterbox, just gut feeling is that she’s a lively person and a bit of a chatterbox, and this didn’t bring it out of her. In contrast, the raters essentially ignored Ian’s role in eliciting Esther’s performance or they perceived it as uncontroversial, and they marked Esther down based solely on what they perceived as the quality of her performance. Thus, Esther scored higher with the female interviewer, Pam, not because Pam’s interview style enabled her to perform better but because the raters score compensated her for aspects of Pam’s style that they did not like. Although they rated Esther somewhere between 5 and 6 on the rating scale in both interviews, their negative perceptions of Pam led them to give Esther the benefit of the doubt and award her the higher score in that interview. This result confirms McNamara and Lumley’s (1997) quantitative finding that raters sometimes compensate for perceived features of the interaction when they score the candidate. Although gendered interviewer behaviour makes the candidate rating more than a simple reflection of the candidate’s performance, the data so far might still support the accepted wisdom that males and females provide differing degrees of support to candidates. However, Brown (2003a, 2004) reveals that the picture is yet more complex. In further THE FORUM 531 studies Brown found that two female interviewers, Cath and Jean, presented different challenge levels and employed distinct interviewing styles. Candidates tended to score higher with Cath, who demonstrated supportive behaviours similar to Pam’s. Jean, the more challenging interviewer, used a strategy more typically associated with male interactional behaviour, namely, interrupting and talking over the candidate, a strategy that, whatever its motivation, not surprisingly appeared to inhibit the candidate. She also asked closed questions so rapidly that the candidate had little time to respond (Extract 3, Appendix). As in the previous example, the raters’ perceptions acted as a kind of filter, mediating the impact of the interviewers’ behaviour on scores, but the raters in this study scored the candidate differently. One rater, for example, noticed Jean’s more challenging behaviour and evaluated it negatively (Extract 3), but, unlike the previous example, the rater chose not to compensate and simply scored the candidate’s performance. Another rater, in contrast, interpreted Jean’s behaviour as supportive (Extract 4). Extract 3 We didn’t really get a chance to find out what that guy could do on that interview . . . maybe he was difficult, but she dominated the interview absolutely and, you know, my gut feeling was that he could have been a 6, actually, if he’d had a chance to do a bit more talking, but on what I got out of him there I gave him 5. Extract 4 He wasn’t coming out with enough, and I think that’s why she’s saying so much because she’s not getting him to talk. He’s just, he’s just not making generalisations and then moving into more specific information or anything, he’s just answering her questions. It’s like an interrogation almost, and so she’s working hard. You can hear she’s not finding this interview easy. She’s asking some really offbeat questions because she’s getting desperate for something to say to him. It’s not flowing at all. Overall, Brown’s data reveal that expecting stereotypical behaviours from males and females is too simplistic. Her study presents four distinct interviewers with distinctive styles, and both males and females exhibit features typically ascribed to the other gender. Her study also challenges assumptions about how to characterise the impact of these styles: Supposedly masculine behaviours such as interruption or domination, for example, need not be interpreted negatively because interviewers can use them supportively, as Jean did to encourage the candidate to speak, a point that also emerges in O’Loughlin’s (2002) analysis of similar moves. 532 TESOL QUARTERLY It is interesting that if we read Jean’s behaviour in this way, then these data show that all three females behave supportively but in different ways. Ian, the male, is the only one who does not behave supportively. Does this finding reflect the elusive gender effect? Obviously, a single swallow does not a summer make; before reaching any firm conclusion, another study would have to observe more male raters to find the range of variation in the support they offer. Finally, to whatever degree that gender and other interactional features affect the interviewers’ supportive behaviour, raters mediate the impact of such features because they often compensate for those behaviours in the scores they give. Although raters clearly orient to features of the interviewers’ interactional style, however, they do not agree on which features are helpful or not. Thus, raters might not agree with researchers who label certain strategies supportive in the conventional literature on gendered communication. Moreover, raters do not always use the score to compensate for interlocutor behaviour that they read as unhelpful; though they note such behaviour, they might simply ignore it. CONCLUSION Current research on how gender influences language assessment is both frustrating and exciting. Although analysing score data can help test developers identify and remove biased items in multiple choice tests, researchers who have attempted to detect systematic gender effects in performance assessment contexts have found mixed and even contradictory results. More finely grained statistical analyses, involving, for example, Rasch-based bias analysis, have helped to illustrate the complexity of the issues involved, but it is also fair to say that discourse-based studies have proved as, if not more, revealing. The most productive discoursebased approaches have been in-depth qualitative studies of the test discourse processes, complemented by introspective accounts from raters. These studies often produce an extremely complex description of the assessment process. Certainly, they do not support any simple, deterministic idea that gender categories will have a direct and predictable impact on test processes and test outcomes, especially given the rater’s (potentially gendered) mediating influence on test scores. O’Loughlin (2002) provides one possible explanation for the complexity in the data. The finding that “gendered differences are not inevitable in the testing context,” he notes, is “consistent with recent thinking in the field of gender studies . . . suggesting that [in particular contexts] gender competes with other aspects of an individual’s social identity” (p. 190). He refers to more recent communication studies of THE FORUM 533 gender effects that emphasize the “shifting, unstable nature of gender in spoken interaction” (p. 171). Oral proficiency interviewers, including those discussed in this article, are typically ESL teachers, whose professional identity may be more salient in the proficiency interview than their gender. Such teachers’ experience communicating with second language speakers might lead them to readily adopt a facilitative, supportive role that could override potential gender differences. Multiple social factors, many of them more important than gender in certain contexts, can also affect assessment outcomes. Certainly, current thinking on social identity and subjectivity emphasises the plural and contextsensitive nature of social identity (Hall, 1996; Mansfield, 2000; McNamara, 1997). Such thinking should inform future work on gender issues in language assessment. Methodologically, newer, discourse-based methods have complemented traditional psychometric methods. We support Young and Milanovic’s (1992) call for attention to the unfolding process of interaction, for which CA techniques in particular, when supported by microethnography and other qualitative research approaches, are ideally suited. Qualitative approaches are also attractive from an epistemological point of view: The hypothesised effects of gender as a macrocategory have so far eluded researchers; microanalysis, however, investigates the contingent and immediate face-to-face context within which gender and other overlapping and competing social categories are deployed. Thus, research on the apparently rather limited issue of gender in language assessment might, in fact, have a broader relevance: It is a potentially important site for applied linguists to investigate how the macro and the micro function in discourse. THE AUTHORS Annie Brown is a senior research fellow and deputy director in the Language Testing Research Centre at the University of Melbourne. Her research interests include the assessment of second language oral proficiency, language testing for specific purposes, and research methods in language testing research. She is coauthor of the Dictionary of Language Testing. Tim McNamara holds a personal chair in applied linguistics at the University of Melbourne, where he has taught since 1987. His research interests include language testing, language and identity, and the history of applied linguistics. He is the author of Language Testing and co-editor of the Routledge Applied Linguistics Reader (in press). REFERENCES Atkinson, J. M., & Heritage, J. (1984). Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. 534 TESOL QUARTERLY Berry, V. (1997, March). Gender and personality as factors of interlocutor variability in oral performance tests. Paper presented at the 19th Language Testing Research Colloquium, Orlando, Florida. Brown, A. (2003a). Discourse analysis in language testing. In D. Boxer & A. Cohen (Eds.), Studying speaking to inform second language learning (pp. 340–381). Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters. Brown, A. (2003b). Interviewer variation and the co-construction of speaking proficiency. Language Testing 20, 1–25. Brown, A. (2004). Interviewer variation in oral proficiency interviews. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Brown, A., & Hill, K. (1998). Interviewer style and candidate performance in the IELTS oral interview. In S. Woods (Ed.), IELTS Research Reports 1997, Vol. 1 (pp. 1– 19). Sydney, Australia: ELICOS. Buckingham, A. (1997). Oral language testing: Do the age, status, and gender of the interlocutor make a difference? Unpublished master’s thesis, University of Reading, Reading, England. Carroll, B. J. (1991). Response to Don Porter’s paper: “Affective factors in language testing.” In J. C. Alderson & B. North (Eds.), Language testing in the 1990s: The communicative legacy (pp. 41–45). London: Modern English Publications/British Council. Cicourel, A. (1992). The interpenetration of communicative contexts: Examples from medical encounters. In A. Duranti & C. Goodwin (Eds.), Rethinking context: Language as an interactive phenomenon (pp. 291–310). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Coates, J. (1993). Women, men, and language (2nd ed.). London: Longman. Davies, A. (Ed.). (1997). Ethics in language testing [Special issue]. Language Testing, 14(3). Drew, P., & Heritage, J. (1992). Talk at work: Interaction in institutional settings. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Educational Testing Service. (2003). ETS fairness review guidelines 2003. Princeton, NJ: Author. Elder, C., McNamara, T. F., & Congdon, P. (2003). Rasch techniques for detecting bias in performance assessments: An example comparing the performance of native and nonnative speakers on a test of academic English. Journal of Applied Measurement, 4(2), 181–197. Fairclough, N. (2000). Language and power (2nd ed.). New York: Longman. Glaser, R. (1949). A methodological analysis of the inconsistency of response to test items. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 9, 721–739. Glaser, R. (1952). The reliability of inconsistency. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 12, 60–64. Hall, S. (1996). Introduction: Who needs “identity”? In S. Hall & P. du Gay, Questions of cultural identity (pp. 1–17). London: Sage. Jacoby, S. (1998). Science as performance: Socializing scientific discourse through conference talk rehearsals. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles. Kunnan, A. (1990). DIF in native language and gender groups in an ESL placement test. TESOL Quarterly, 24, 741–746. Locke, C. (1984). The influence of the interviewer on student performance in tests of foreign language oral/aural skills. Unpublished master’s thesis, University of Reading, Reading, England. Lumley, T., & O’Sullivan, B. (2001). The effect of test-taker sex, audience, and topic on task performance in tape-mediated assessment of speaking. Melbourne Papers in Language Testing, 10(2), 59–74. THE FORUM 535 Mansfield, N. (2000). Subjectivity: Theories of the self from Freud to Hathaway. St Leonards, Australia: Allen & Unwin. Masters, G. N. (1988). Item discrimination: when more is worse. Journal of Educational Measurement, 24, 15–29. McNamara, T. F. (1996). Measuring second language performance. London: Longman. McNamara, T. F. (1997). What do we mean by social identity? Competing frameworks, competing discourses. TESOL Quarterly, 31, 561–567. McNamara, T. F. (1998). Policy and social considerations in language assessment. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 18, 304–319. McNamara, T. F., Hill, K., & May, L. (2002). Discourse and assessment. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 22, 221–242. McNamara, T. F., & Lumley, T. (1997). The effect of interlocutor and assessment mode variables in overseas assessments of speaking skills in occupational settings. Language Testing, 14, 140–156. Messick, S. (1989). Validity. In R. L. Linn (Ed.), Educational measurement (3rd ed., pp. 13–103). New York: Macmillan. O’Loughlin, K. (2001). The equivalence of direct and semi-direct speaking tests (Studies in Language Testing No. 13). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. O’Loughlin, K. (2002). The impact of gender in oral proficiency testing. Language Testing, 19, 169–192. O’Sullivan, B. (2000). Exploring gender and oral proficiency interview performance. System, 28, 373–386. O’Sullivan, B. (2002). Learner acquaintanceship and oral proficiency test pair-task performance. Language Testing, 19, 277–295. Porter, D. (1991a). Affective factors in language testing. In J. C. Alderson & B. North (Eds.), Language testing in the 1990s: The communicative legacy (pp. 32–40). London: Modern English Publications/British Council. Porter, D. (1991b). Affective factors in the assessment of oral interaction: Gender and status. In S. Anivan (Ed.), Current developments in language testing (Anthology Series No. 25, pp. 92–102). Singapore: SEAMEO Regional Language Centre. Porter, D., & Shen, S. H. (1991). Sex, status, and style in the interview. The Dolphin, 21, 117–128. Psathas, G. (1995). Conversation analysis: The study of talk-in-interaction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Roberts, C., & Sarangi, S. (1999). Introduction: Revisiting different analytic frameworks. In S. Sarangi & C. Roberts (Eds.), Talk, work, and institutional order (pp. 389–400). Berlin, Germany: Mouton de Gruyter. Ross, S., & Okabe, J. (2002, December). The subjective and objective interface of item bias diagnosis on language tests. Paper presented at the 24th Language Testing Research Colloquium, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, China. Sacks, H. (1992). Lectures on conversation (Vols. 1–2). Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Sarangi, S., & Roberts, C. (1999). The dynamics of interactional and institutional orders in work-related settings. In S. Sarangi & C. Roberts (Eds.), Talk, work, and institutional order (pp. 1–57). Berlin, Germany: Mouton de Gruyter. Schegloff, E. A. (1992). In another context. In A. Duranti & C. Goodwin (Eds.), Rethinking context: Language as an interactive phenomenon (pp. 191–227). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Schegloff, E. A., Koshik, I., Jacoby, S., & Olsher, D. (2002). Conversation analysis and applied linguistics. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 22, 3–31. Shohamy, E. (2001). The power of tests: A critical perspective on the uses of language tests. London: Pearson. Skehan, P. (1998). A cognitive approach to language learning. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. 536 TESOL QUARTERLY Smith, R. M. (1992). Applications of Rasch measurement. Chicago: MESA. Sunderland, J. (1995). Gender and language testing. Language Testing Update, 17, 24– 35. Thurstone, L. L., & Chave, E. J. (1929). Measurement of attitude. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Weiss, G., & Wodak, R. (2003). Critical discourse analysis: Theory and disciplinarity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Young, R., & Milanovic, M. (1992). Discourse variation in oral proficiency interviews. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 14, 403–424. Appendix Extract 1. Pam and Esther P E P E P E E P E P P E P E E P E ... do you live in a fla:t? er no hostel in a hostel. Carlton College. is it? [(.) tell me about the hostel, (.) I haven’t seen that one. [°mm° (1.6) oh um: it’s aum: international college, = = mm, (0.8) er >I mean a hostel,< er: (1.0) and I knew- (.) I- (1.0) knew: that (.) hostel: by: (0.9) a counselling centre, (1.2) and: (1.9) and it’s: (0.5) er: quite good for: (0.8) u:m: (.) >suitable for me;< [to live there. [is it? what do you like about it Esther? um: (3.0) er >the food< (0.8) yeah is: >quite good< er: but it’s (.) everyday f- western food. is it? [(.) what do they give you: to eat. [yeah er (.) potatoes, oh yes. yeah (.) everday potatoes, er: a:nd (0.6) sometimes got er:(.) beef (0.8) lamb chops (.) and: (.) others (.) like noodles ... Extract 2. Ian and Esther I E I E I E I I E I E I ... >in Kelang is it- is it many Malay or there a lot of Chinese or (.) or what is it (.) in Kelang (.) [the population.< [yeah more Malay. >more Malay is it.< °°mm°° °right.° (1.2) erm (.) >what about the< foods there. (1.2) er: they are Indian food (.) Chinese food (.) a:nd Malay food [(.) th]ey are a:ll (0.8) mix. [ mhm] (1.0) they’re mixed are they. yea:h (0.4) all mix (0.6) e:verything (xxxxx) hhnhhn yeah? (.) >is it good that way is it.< yeah hhh. (1.2) ah- which is the spiciest food. THE FORUM 537 Extract 3. Jean and Lim J L J L J L J L J L J L J 538 wha- what’s the distribution of income what I mean by that is that .hh are there some very poor people and some very rich or a lot of middle class people (.) how- how is it based. e:r middle class (.) I think middle class er a lot of [middle class? [a lot of middle class. okay are there some very poor? (.) or [m[poor erm [I (.) I don’t think so it [just (.) a small [amount (.) of them very poor [no [oh right .hh and what about very rich (.) are there some very rich people? yah [>quite a lot of very< [yeah so: SO: quite a big middle class (.) [mainly. (.) probably a = [yeah middle (.) °middle = = [bit like Australia? [you know a large middle [class? .hhh okay = = [class° [yeah [middle class = .hh [(.) ^what about if somebody erm (1.0) somebody <is poor and = TESOL QUARTERLY REVIEWS TESOL Quarterly welcomes evaluative reviews of publications relevant to TESOL professionals. Edited by KATHRYN A. DAVIS University of Hawai‘i ELLEN SKILTON-SYLVESTER Arcadia University A Comparative Review of Four Books on Language and Gender Gender in the Language Classroom. Monika Chavez. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2001. Pp. xviii + 243. Language and Gender. Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. xi + 366. Gender Identity and Discourse Analysis. Lita Litosseliti and Jane Sunderland (Eds.). Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2002. Pp. vii + 335. Communicating Gender. Suzanne Romaine. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1999. Pp. xiv + 406. In recent years, the (overlapping) fields of linguistics, applied linguistics, second language learning, and TESOL have begun paying more attention to gender, as well as to social aspects of gender such as the role of power and power relations. This attention to gender began sooner in linguistics than in TESOL, and there are more publications on gender in the field of linguistics than in TESOL specifically, a fact that is reflected in the books that I review here. Three of the four books fall mainly under the tent of linguistics, with some attention to language learning, but less attention to second language learning. Chavez’s Gender in the Language Classroom is the only one of the four that focuses on second language ■ TESOL QUARTERLY Vol. 38, No. 3, Autumn 2004 539 learning and second language pedagogy, but even this volume does not focus on TESOL. Although it is unfortunate that more volumes do not focus specifically on gender and second language learning, and even more specifically on TESOL, it is important for TESOL professionals to be aware of the more general literature on gender and language. Thus, I welcome this opportunity to bring these four volumes to the attention of TESOL Quarterly readers, whether they teach and do research in applied linguistics, teacher education, or English language learning. My choice of volumes to review does not imply that others books on gender and second language learning, or even gender and ESL, do not exist. Three that I do not consider here because they have already been reviewed in the pages of TESOL Quarterly are Sunderland (1994), Norton (2000), and Pavlenko, Blackledge, Piller, and Teutsch-Dwyer (2001). I briefly describe them here to provide a wider context of gender and language. The first book to focus specifically on gender and TESOL to my knowledge, Sunderland’s pioneering edited collection, Exploring Gender: Questions and Implications for English Language Education (reviewed by Vandrick, 1994) addressed such salient issues as female learners, female teachers, teaching materials, and classroom processes. Norton’s volume, Identity and Language Learning: Gender, Ethnicity, and Educational Change (reviewed by Yim, 2001) describes her in-depth study of five immigrant women in Canada and focuses on gender as it interacts with ethnicity and class, with particular attention to power relations and how they affect these women’s attitudes, others’ perceptions of them, and their progress in learning English. Pavlenko et al.’s Multilingualism, Second Language Learning, and Gender (reviewed by Vandrick, 2003), in the editors’ words, investigates “the relationship between gender, ideology, and linguistic practices in bi- and multilingual communities” (p. 2); the book provides a very useful theoretical context, grounded in poststructuralist and feminist theory, and includes several innovative research studies. A fourth volume, Norton and Pavlenko’s co-edited Gender and English Language Learners, which has just been published, will appeal to those interested in gender and language learning, particularly ESL. Very few books beyond these four address gender and ESL. Of the books reviewed here, the broadest in scope are Eckert and McConnell-Ginet’s Language and Gender and Romaine’s Communicating Gender. Both of these books provide excellent overviews of language and gender. Both would serve well as introductions to the topic for undergraduate or graduate students or practicing professionals interested in exploring the subject, and they will likely become standard textbooks. Romaine’s book is explicitly constructed for classroom use, containing such apparatuses as exercises and annotated resource lists. Scholars doing research on language and gender will also read and use these books. 540 TESOL QUARTERLY Although the Romaine and the Eckert and McConnell-Ginet books both offer comprehensive overviews and cover most of the standard bases, they differ in focus. Eckert and McConnell-Ginet’s subject matter is explicitly linguistic; Romaine sets her analysis in the broader field of communication. However, both books examine gender and language through a social lens. Eckert and McConnell-Ginet organize their book around social concepts and, for example, draw on Lave and Wenger’s (1991) notion of community of practice. Romaine also subdivides her book using social concepts. The authors of both books are laudably careful to move beyond English and the West to include analysis of, and examples from, various languages and national settings. Eckert and McConnell-Ginet’s division headings in Language and Gender show the topics that they cover: Constructing, Deconstructing, and Reconstructing Gender; Linking the Linguistic to the Social; Organizing Talk; Making Social Moves; Positioning Ideas and Subjects; Saying and Implying; Mapping the World; Working the Market: Use of Varieties; and Fashioning Selves. Each topic provides good coverage of the necessary theoretical context, some historical background, and very specific real world examples that both instruct and draw the reader’s interest. The authors take care to explain linguistic and other terminology, seldom assuming readers’ prior knowledge (though not diluting the subject matter). The last chapter—Fashioning Selves—brings together many of the strands in the book by examining style and performativity (building on Judith Butler’s work), including examples of some gender performances that challenge the traditional and would be considered transgressive by many. The authors show how the concept of style reveals the interconnections between social/ideological and individual factors as language and gender play out in real people’s lives. In comparison, Romaine’s Communicating Gender covers an overlapping but broader range of topics, which is reflected in her use of the word communicating rather than language in the title. The author draws on research in linguistics and various other fields, including anthropology, psychology, sociology, education, history, and literature. Topics include doing and displaying gender, sex and gender and the implications of the two, the different upbringing and education that boys and girls receive, gender and grammar, sexism in language, the significance of names, gossip, silence, language in work and social settings, language in advertising, and the question of language reform. The book concludes with an intriguing chapter on science fiction and feminist utopias. Romaine, like Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, provides a wealth of useful and often vividly described examples from extensive research studies, as well as from more anecdotal sources and from literature. Litosseliti and Sunderland’s Gender Identity and Discourse Analysis is also not about language learning specifically, but it differs from the Eckert REVIEWS 541 and McConnell-Ginet and the Romaine volumes in that its focus is narrower and it is the only edited collection among the four books reviewed. Although the other books attend to discourse, this volume focuses on it, with an emphasis on critical discourse analysis. This book also requires the most prior knowledge among the four of the subject matter and the current research and debates about language and gender. As a collection, it reports on specific research studies set in theoretical contexts, rather than attempting comprehensive coverage of a broad field, as do the two previously mentioned books. Like those two, this volume moves beyond Western contexts. And like Communicating Gender (and to a lesser extent Language and Gender), it draws on several disciplines, such as education, media studies, and psychology. After an excellent introduction to theoretical and empirical considerations regarding gender identity and discourse analysis, Litosseliti and Sunderland organize the other 12 chapters into five categories: Theorizing Gender and Discourse; Discourse and Gendered Identities in the Media; Discourse, Sexuality, and Gender Identities; Discourse and Gender Identities in Education; and Gendered Discourses of Parenthood. Although the contributions cover a wide variety of thought-provoking and well-explicated research, TESOL Quarterly readers will likely be most interested in the section on education. Of particular interest is the chapter “From Representation Towards Discursive Practices: Gender in the Foreign Language Textbook Revisited,” where Sunderland, Cowley, Rahim, Leontzakou, and Shattuck address the topic of language textbooks. Sunderland has for the past decade been a leading scholar in gender and language education, and her research and publications are indispensable to any scholar in this area. Her work is notable for frequently questioning and challenging received notions, even at times her own earlier work. In this chapter, she and her coauthors argue that although it is laudable that language textbooks have become less sexist in recent years, the more important factor may be how teachers actually use textbooks. The authors provide examples of teachers who employ sexist passages as opportunities to teach nonsexism, either explicitly or not. They also provide examples of teachers who, consciously or not, use textbooks in a way that undercuts their carefully prepared gender equality. Chavez’s Gender in the Language Classroom speaks most directly to the work of ESL teachers, future teachers, and teacher educators. As part of the McGraw-Hill Second Language Professional Series, it is listed as “primarily for students of second language acquisition and teaching, curriculum developers, and teacher educators” (p. ii). The author touches on many of the same topics as the other three books, but in less detail and with more attention to how the topics play out in the second language classroom. Although Chavez herself teaches German and draws 542 TESOL QUARTERLY most of her research and examples from the literature on teaching foreign languages (i.e., languages other than English), she does discuss the work of several ESL-related and/or SLA scholars who have written on gender, including such pioneers as Ehrlich, Judd, Kerekes, Losey, Oxford, Pica, Porreca, Sunderland, and Willett. A slim volume with a welcoming, accessible format, this book is clearly intended for classroom use, with substantial prereading and postreading activities and discussion questions provided for each chapter, as well as such useful features as chapter summaries. In a welcome emphasis, the author encourages readers—teachers in particular—to carry out their own classroom research on some of the gender issues discussed, and she provides suggestions and advice that will assist them in doing so. All four of these books have, to a greater or lesser extent, and with greater or lesser explicitness, an ideological leaning toward feminist theory. This leaning is almost inevitable because the recent rise of the gender study was largely inspired by the rise of feminism and feminist scholarship and because the very assertion that gender makes a difference is ideological. Probably the most explicitly feminist among these four books is the Sunderland and Litosseliti collection. Although Sunderland pointedly challenges earlier feminist ideas about language teaching, she points out that her challenges build on that earlier work, to which she gives much credit. Probably the least obviously feminist is the Chavez volume; Chavez clearly supports feminist research, and she herself has done such research, but in this book she reports on theories and research studies rather straightforwardly and neutrally. This less explicitly feminist approach may result partly from the book’s intended use as a textbook. In all four cases, though, the books have the “dual functions” that good textbooks should have, according to McElhinny and her coauthors (McElhinny, Hols, Holtzkener, Unger, & Hicks, 2003): “describing the field and also directing it” (p. 316). At recent TESOL, AAAL, and other conferences and professional meetings, increasing numbers of panels and papers have focused on gender and ESL. Professional journals have also been publishing more gender-related articles. Beyond the actual numbers of papers and articles, scholars working in the area are developing a sense of a core (and expanding) community. The TESOL 2003 convention in Baltimore, for example, hosted at least three well-attended, informal gatherings of gender researchers. A still larger group of classroom teachers are very interested in such research, even though they may not publish, and they provide an eager audience for relevant papers and publications. Especially needed are books on gender and language pedagogy. Classroom teachers need books and articles that give them not only the social and theoretical contexts of language and gender, but also accessible discussion of how gender makes a difference in the classroom and how REVIEWS 543 they can use this knowledge in their own teaching. I hope that this supportive community of researchers and classroom teachers will encourage further research on gender and language learning and, in particular, on gender and ESL, and that soon, many new volumes will arrive to expand this still too small shelf of gender-related books. REFERENCES Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. McElhinny, B., Hols, M., Holtzkener, J., Unger, S., & Hicks, H. (2003). Gender, publication and citation in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology: The construction of a scholarly canon. Language in Society, 32, 299–328. Norton, B. (2000). Identity and language learning: Gender, ethnicity, and educational change. Harlow, England: Longman/Pearson. Norton, B., & Pavlenko, A. (Eds). (2004). Gender and English language learners. Alexandria, VA: TESOL. Pavlenko, A., Blackledge, A., Piller, I., & Teutsch-Dwyer, M. (Eds.). (2001). Multilingualism, second language learning, and gender. Berlin, Germany: Mouton de Gruyter. Sunderland, J. (Ed.). (1994). Exploring gender: Questions and implications for English language education. New York: Prentice Hall. Vandrick, S. (1994). [Review of the book Exploring gender: Questions and implications for English language education]. TESOL Quarterly, 28, 825–826. Vandrick, S. (2003). [Review of the book Multilingualism, second language learning, and gender]. TESOL Quarterly, 37, 366–367. Yim, Y. K. (2001). [Review of the book Identity and language learning: Gender, ethnicity, and educational change]. TESOL Quarterly, 35, 504–505. STEPHANIE VANDRICK University of San Francisco San Francisco, California, United States 544 TESOL QUARTERLY INFORMATION FOR CONTRIBUTORS EDITORIAL POLICY TESOL Quarterly, a professional, refereed journal, encourages submission of previously unpublished articles on topics of significance to individuals concerned with the teaching of English as a second or foreign language and of standard English as a second dialect. As a publication that represents a variety of cross-disciplinary interests, both theoretical and practical, the Quarterly invites manuscripts on a wide range of topics, especially in the following areas: 1. psychology and sociology of language learning and teaching; issues in research and research methodology 2. curriculum design and development; instructional methods, materials, and techniques 3. testing and evaluation 4. professional preparation 5. language planning 6. professional standards Because the Quarterly is committed to publishing manuscripts that contribute to bridging theory and practice in our profession, it particularly welcomes submissions drawing on relevant research (e.g., in anthropology, applied and theoretical linguistics, communication, education, English education [including reading and writing theory], psycholinguistics, psychology, first and second language acquisition, sociolinguistics, and sociology) and addressing implications and applications of this research to issues in our profession. The Quarterly prefers that all submissions be written so that their content is accessible to a broad readership, including those individuals who may not have familiarity with the subject matter addressed. TESOL Quarterly is an international journal. It welcomes submissions from English language contexts around the world. GENERAL INFORMATION FOR AUTHORS Submission Categories TESOL Quarterly invites submissions in five categories: Full-length articles. Contributors are strongly encouraged to submit manuscripts of no more than 20–25 double-spaced pages or 8,500 words (including references, notes, and tables). Submit three copies plus three copies of an informative abstract of not more than 200 words. If possible, indicate the number of words at the end of the article. To facilitate the blind review process, authors’ names should appear only on a cover sheet, not on the title page; do not use running heads. Submit manuscripts to the Editor of TESOL Quarterly: INFORMATION FOR TESOL QUARTERLY Vol. CONTRIBUTORS 38, No. 3, Autumn 2004 545 A. Suresh Canagarajah Editor, TESOL Quarterly Box B6–247 Baruch College of the City University of New York One Bernard Baruch Way New York, NY 10010 USA The following factors are considered when evaluating the suitability of a manuscript for publication in TESOL Quarterly: • The manuscript appeals to the general interests of TESOL Quarterly’s readership. • The manuscript strengthens the relationship between theory and practice: Practical articles must be anchored in theory, and theoretical articles and reports of research must contain a discussion of implications or applications for practice. • The content of the manuscript is accessible to the broad readership of the Quarterly, not only to specialists in the area addressed. • The manuscript offers a new, original insight or interpretation and not just a restatement of others’ ideas and views. • The manuscript makes a significant (practical, useful, plausible) contribution to the field. • The manuscript is likely to arouse readers’ interest. • The manuscript reflects sound scholarship and research design with appropriate, correctly interpreted references to other authors and works. • The manuscript is well written and organized and conforms to the specifications of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (4th ed.). Reviews. TESOL Quarterly invites succinct, evaluative reviews of professional books. Reviews should provide a descriptive and evaluative summary and a brief discussion of the work’s significance in the context of current theory and practice. Reviewers are encouraged to query the Reviews Editor concerning their book of interest before writing the review. Submissions should comprise no more than 1,000 words. Send one copy by e-mail to the Reviews Editor: Dr. Adrian Holliday Professor of Applied Linguistics Department of Language Studies Canterbury Christ Church University College Canterbury CT1 1QU, UK Phone: 00 44 1227 782700 E-mail: arh1@canterbury.ac.uk Review Articles. TESOL Quarterly also welcomes review articles, that is, comparative discussions of several publications that fall into a topical category (e.g., pronunciation, literacy training, teaching methodology). 546 TESOL QUARTERLY Review articles should provide a description and evaluative comparison of the materials and discuss the relative significance of the works in the context of current theory and practice. Reviewers are encouraged to query the Reviews Editor, Adrian Holliday, concerning their books of interest before writing the review. Submissions should comprise no more than 2,500 words. Submit two copies of the review article to the Reviews Editor at the address given above. Brief Reports and Summaries. TESOL Quarterly also invites short reports on any aspect of theory and practice in our profession. We encourage manuscripts that either present preliminary findings or focus on some aspect of a larger study. In all cases, the discussion of issues should be supported by empirical evidence, collected through qualitative or quantitative investigations. Reports or summaries should present key concepts and results in a manner that will make the research accessible to our diverse readership. Submissions to this section should be 7–10 double-spaced pages, or 3,400 words (including references, notes, and tables). If possible, indicate the number of words at the end of the report. Longer articles do not appear in this section and should be submitted to the Editor of TESOL Quarterly for review. Send one copy of the manuscript each to: Catherine Elder Paula Golombek Faculty of Education 305 Sparks Building P.O. Box 6 Pennsylvania State University Monash University University Park, PA 16802 USA Victoria 3800 Australia The Forum. TESOL Quarterly welcomes comments and reactions from readers regarding specific aspects or practices of our profession. Responses to published articles and reviews are also welcome; unfortunately, we are not able to publish responses to previous exchanges. Contributions to The Forum should generally be no longer than 7–10 double-spaced pages or 3,400 words. If possible, indicate the number of words at the end of the contribution. Submit three copies to the Editor of TESOL Quarterly at the address given above. Brief discussions of qualitative and quantitative Research Issues and of Teaching Issues are also published in The Forum. Although these contributions are typically solicited, readers may send topic suggestions or make known their availability as contributors by writing directly to the Editors of these subsections. Research Issues: Teaching Issues: Patricia A. Duff Bonny Norton Department of Language Department of Language and Literacy Education and Literacy Education University of British Columbia University of British Columbia 2125 Main Mall 2125 Main Mall Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4 Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4 Canada Canada INFORMATION FOR CONTRIBUTORS 547 Special-Topic Issues. Typically, one issue per volume will be devoted to a special topic. Topics are approved by the Editorial Advisory Board of the Quarterly. Those wishing to suggest topics or make known their availability as guest editors should contact the Editor of TESOL Quarterly. Issues will generally contain both invited articles designed to survey and illuminate central themes as well as articles solicited through a call for papers. General Submission Guidelines 1. All submissions to the Quarterly should conform to the requirements of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (4th ed.), which can be obtained from the American Psychological Association, Book Order Department, Dept. KK, P.O. Box 92984, Washington, DC 20090-2984 USA. Orders from the United Kingdom, Europe, Africa, or the Middle East should be sent to American Psychological Association, Dept. KK, 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2E 8LU, England. For more information, e-mail order@apa.org or consult http:// www.apa.org/books/ordering.html. 2. All submissions to TESOL Quarterly should be accompanied by a cover letter that includes a full mailing address and both a daytime and an evening telephone number. Where available, authors should include an electronic mail address and fax number. 3. Authors of full-length articles, Brief Reports and Summaries, and Forum contributions should include two copies of a very brief biographical statement (in sentence form, maximum 50 words), plus any special notations or acknowledgments that they would like to have included. Double spacing should be used throughout. 4. TESOL Quarterly provides 25 free reprints of published full-length articles and 10 reprints of material published in the Reviews, Brief Reports and Summaries, and The Forum sections. 5. Manuscripts submitted to TESOL Quarterly cannot be returned to authors. Authors should be sure to keep a copy for themselves. 6. It is understood that manuscripts submitted to TESOL Quarterly have not been previously published and are not under consideration for publication elsewhere. 7. It is the responsibility of the author(s) of a manuscript submitted to TESOL Quarterly to indicate to the Editor the existence of any work already published (or under consideration for publication elsewhere) by the author(s) that is similar in content to that of the manuscript. 8. The Editor of TESOL Quarterly reserves the right to make editorial changes in any manuscript accepted for publication to enhance clarity or style. The author will be consulted only if the editing has been substantial. 9. The Editor’s decisions are final. 548 TESOL QUARTERLY 10. The views expressed by contributors to TESOL Quarterly do not necessarily reflect those of the Editor, the Editorial Advisory Board, or TESOL. Material published in the Quarterly should not be construed to have the endorsement of TESOL. Informed Consent Guidelines TESOL Quarterly expects authors to adhere to ethical and legal standards for work with human subjects. Although we are aware that such standards vary among institutions and countries, we require authors and contributors to meet, as a minimum, the conditions detailed below before submitting a manuscript for review. TESOL recognizes that some institutions may require research proposals to satisfy additional requirements. If you wish to discuss whether or how your study met these guidelines, you may e-mail the managing editor of TESOL publications at tq@tesol.org or call 703-535-7852. As an author, you will be asked to sign a statement indicating that you have complied with Option A or Option B before TESOL will publish your work. A. You have followed the human subjects review procedure established by your institution. B. If you are not bound by an institutional review process, or if it does not meet the requirements outlined below, you have complied with the following conditions. Participation in the Research 1. You have informed participants in your study, sample, class, group, or program that you will be conducting research in which they will be the participants or that you would like to write about them for publication. 2. You have given each participant a clear statement of the purpose of your research or the basic outline of what you would like to explore in writing, making it clear that research and writing are dynamic activities that may shift in focus as they occur. 3. You have explained the procedure you will follow in the research project or the types of information you will be collecting for your writing. 4. You have explained that participation is voluntary, that there is no penalty for refusing to participate, and that the participants may withdraw at any time without penalty. 5. You have explained to participants if and how their confidentiality will be protected. 6. You have given participants sufficient contact information that they can reach you for answers to questions regarding the research. 7. You have explained to participants any foreseeable risks and discomforts involved in agreeing to cooperate (e.g., seeing work with errors in print). INFORMATION FOR CONTRIBUTORS 549 8. You have explained to participants any possible direct benefits of participating (e.g., receiving a copy of the article or chapter). 9. You have obtained from each participant (or from the participant’s parent or guardian) a signed consent form that sets out the terms of your agreement with the participants and have kept these forms on file (TESOL will not ask to see them). Consent to Publish Student Work 10. If you will be collecting samples of student work with the intention of publishing them, either anonymously or with attribution, you have made that clear to the participants in writing. 11. If the sample of student work (e.g., a signed drawing or signed piece of writing) will be published with the student’s real name visible, you have obtained a signed consent form and will include that form when you submit your manuscript for review and editing (see http://www.tesol.org /pubs/author/consent.html for samples). 12. If your research or writing involves minors (persons under age 18), you have supplied and obtained signed separate informed consent forms from the parent or guardian and from the minor, if he or she is old enough to read, understand, and sign the form. 13. If you are working with participants who do not speak English well or are intellectually disabled, you have written the consent forms in a language that the participant or the participant’s guardian can understand. GUIDELINES FOR QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE RESEARCH Because of the importance of substantive findings reported in TESOL Quarterly, in addition to the role that the Quarterly plays in modeling research in the field, articles must meet high standards in reporting research. To support this goal, the Spring 2003 issue of TESOL Quarterly (Vol. 37, No. 1) contains guidelines for reporting quantitative research and three types of qualitative research: case studies, conversation analysis, and (critical) ethnography. Each set of guidelines contains an explanation of the expectations for research articles within a particular tradition and provides references for additional guidance. The guidelines are also published on TESOL’s Web site (http://www.tesol.org/pubs/author/serials/tqguides.html). 550 TESOL QUARTERLY

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