Peripherality or marginality: Socialization of English learners into a high school community of practice

• Main Author: Boylan, Heather Moody
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01-01-2002
• Subjects: Educational sociology; Multicultural Education; Secondary education
• ISBN: 0493573135; 9780493573137

Activity theorists forward the idea that learning is a social phenomenon and must be studied using a theoretical tool that sees education socially. Because this study endeavored to show how action and social structure emerged and interacted to determine the school trajectories (inbound or outbound) upon which English learners traveled in one high school, it employed two forms of activity theory: the concept of legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1999); and the concept of activity setting (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988) as the site in which students experienced LPP. It utilized qualitative methods, including interviews and participant observations of both newly arrived students and the adults in the school with whom they worked. The study concludes that newly arrived English learners in the studied community of practice experienced both engaging and marginalizing operations and scripts in that school community. Engaging operations and scripts granted students legitimacy and provided them with peripheral opportunities to participate in their classrooms and schools. Over time, as students were seen as legitimate members of their community of practice, and as they were given those peripheral opportunities to engage, they moved from newcomer to old-timer status within their community. Conversely, students were marginalized from their community of practice when they were denied a legitimate place in the community, and/or they were not provided with opportunities to engage in the community peripherally. While students' travel along inbound and outbound trajectories was not attributed to single operations and scripts they experienced in their school, the sum of students' experiences had a dramatic cumulative affect on the trajectories along which students eventually traveled. This study offers researchers a model for examining a school community utilizing the concepts of legitimate peripheral participation and activity setting. It also offers educators suggestions for assuring that English learners are granted legitimacy and are provided with engaging opportunities for peripheral participation in their school communities.