Posh Talk: Language and Identity in Higher Education

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Posh Talk Language and Identity in Higher Education

Siân Preece

Posh Talk

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Posh Talk Language and Identity in Higher Education Siân Preece Education Initiative Centre, University of Westminster, UK

© Siân Preece 2009 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN-13: 978–0–230–57398–7 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

For Cesario Born in Santas, Galicia in 1882, my grandfather, Cesario Conde, spent his childhood as a cowherd. At the dawn of the twentieth century, he left Spain in search of a better life. At the same age as many of the young people in this book, he worked his passage ﬁrst to Liverpool, then Newfoundland and ﬁnally to Cardiff. On landing in Wales, he found work in Merthyr Tydﬁl, ﬁrst as a navvy, building roads, and then stoking the furnaces in the local Iron Works, where he worked before and after the Great Depression of the 1930s. So he came to settle in South Wales, where he married my grandmother, Florence Dean, a baker’s daughter, and raised two children, my uncle José and my mother, Gloria. Having received no formal education, or English language lessons, my grandfather was limited to the manual labouring jobs available at the time. During the Depression, along with many thousands of workers in South Wales, he was made redundant and was unemployed for eleven years before resuming work at the Iron Works. During these years, he supported the family with produce from his allotments and by picking coal, a life-threatening activity due to the precarious structure of the tunnels that the coal-pickers dug in the mountainside. His experiences gave him the hope that education could improve the prospects of his children and free them from poverty. This book is dedicated to his sacriﬁce and efforts to improve the lot of his family, to the millions of migrants around the world who seek a better life for themselves and their families, and to the power of education to realise some of their dreams.

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Contents

List of Tables

ix

Acknowledgements

x

Transcription Conventions

xi

Introduction Research ethos The structure of the book

1 6 8

1 Widening Participation Introduction Expansion of tertiary education Inequalities in access Black and minority ethnic students Linguistic diversity and widening participation The local context: Millennium University A snapshot of linguistic diversity at Millennium Conclusion

11 11 11 13 14 18 20 22 25

2 Theorising and Analysing Identity Introduction Discourse Discoursing subjects Positioning The theory/practice interface Spoken interactions Communities of practice Conclusion

27 27 28 29 30 33 35 37 38

3 Approaches to Academic Writing Introduction Skills Socialisation Literacies Conclusion

40 40 41 44 49 52

vii

viii

Contents

4 Multilingual Masculinities in the Classroom Introduction Presentations of self and fellow undergraduates Representations of academic language and literacy practices Identiﬁcations with language Conclusion

55 55 56 68 77 82

5 Multilingual Femininities in the Classroom Introduction Presentations of self and fellow undergraduates Representations of academic language and literacy practices Identiﬁcations with language Conclusion

84 84 85 94 99 107

6 Multilingual Masculinities in Lecturer/Student Interactions Introduction Identiﬁcation with language Identiﬁcation with reading Conclusion

109 109 110 123 138

7 Multilingual Femininities in Lecturer/Student Interactions Introduction Identiﬁcation with language Identiﬁcation with reading Conclusion

140 140 141 155 168

8 Towards Inclusion Introduction Performances of gender Orientation to the academic community Towards inclusion Approaches to student writing Attitudes to the perspectives and linguistic repertoires of multilingual learners Final thoughts

170 170 171 173 176 181

Notes

193

Bibliography

196

Index

209

185 191

List of Tables 1 Languages used at home and with peers among British-born males 2 Male students born overseas 3 Languages used at home and with peers among male students born overseas 4 Reading of choice at home for male students 5 Languages used at home and with peers among British-born females 6 Female students born overseas 7 Languages used at home and with peers among females born overseas 8 Reading of choice at home for female students

ix

110 117 118 123 141 144 145 156

Acknowledgements There are many people who have supported me and made this book a reality through their cooperation, efforts and goodwill. My thanks go to the students on the academic writing programme for their willingness to participate in my study and their contributions throughout the research period. I am especially grateful to David Block, who supervised the research on which this book is based and made comments on the draft of this book. David’s encouragement, insights and belief in me were a powerful motivation. I would also like to thank Peter Martin, Adrian Blackledge, Barry Stierer and Joan Swann for reading the draft book and making extremely helpful comments. During the production of this book, Peter died very unexpectedly. So many of us will miss his warm-hearted generosity and his passionate belief in multilingualism, which was such an inspiration. Finally, words are inadequate to express my thanks to Phoebus for cheering me on and supporting me throughout this endeavour, and my family for their pleasure and pride in this achievement.

x

Transcription Conventions A slash / shows the end of a chunk of talk A hyphen - illustrates an incomplete word or utterance A question mark ? indicates question intonation Pauses of less than one second are shown with a full stop inside brackets (.) Pauses of one second and longer are timed to the nearest second and the number of seconds is put in brackets, (3) Square brackets [on top of each other indicates the point where [speakers overlap An equals sign at the end of one utterance = and the start of the next speaker’s utterance shows that there was no audible gap between speakers Double brackets around a word or phrase shows that there is ((doubt about the transcription)) Double brackets around x’s ((xxx)) shows that the speaker’s utterance is inaudible or can’t be made out is an additional comment by myself as the transcriber on what is happening at the time or the way in which something is said Words or syllables in CAPital letters are spoken with extra emphasis words or phrases enclosed by percentage symbols are spoken very %quietly%, almost like an aside A dotted line marks the beginning of a stave --------------------------------Reading the transcription between the dotted lines shows the interplay of the voices at that part of the conversation (like the instruments in a musical score) --------------------------------Staves are used in places where it is not possible to represent overlap clearly using a format based on turn taking.

xi

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Introduction

Three female students discussing their experience of making friends at university (L=Leela, B=Biba, A=Awino): L: when we came [to university] (.) I mean/ if I saw a posh person I actually spoke posh with them/ but if I saw somebody who was (.) happy with their slang/ I spoke slang with them/ and I think that’s how you socialise with them/ A: yeah B: it’s how you adapt to different people [that’s what adapting is about/ A: [yeah/ you’ve got to adapt/ yeah/ L: yeah/ B: adapting to different people an’ their cultures (.) y’know/ an’ their backgrounds/

This book is about language and identity in the context of higher education in the UK. Speciﬁcally it gives an account of the ways in which a group of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) students from widening participation backgrounds negotiate their identities in the academic community. As the interaction above illustrates, the way people talk is central to the assumptions that they make about each other. Based on their encounters at Millennium University, a pseudonym for a post-1992 university in London, Leela, Biba and Awino have categorised their fellow undergraduates into two groups: those who speak ‘posh’ and those who are ‘happy with their slang’. Speaking ‘posh’ indicates a greater level of conformity to Standard English and Received Pronunciation. It is also suggestive of the middle-class positioning associated with university education. In contrast, using ‘slang’ demonstrates afﬁliation to the local variety of vernacular English, which is an integral part of these 1

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students’ linguistic repertoires. As I shall illustrate, ‘slang’ evokes cool and youthful identity positions, embedded in cultural hybridity. Having constructed a ‘slang/posh’ dichotomy to refer to their fellow students, Leela, Biba and Awino go on to talk about diversity, a reference to the wider student body, and perhaps also the diversity encapsulated in their group. In terms of age, for example, Leela and Biba are both young whereas Awino is a mature student. As regards ethnicity, Leela is a British Asian of Gujarati descent, Biba is a British Arab of Moroccan heritage while Awino is a Black African who was born and raised in Kenya. With reference to religion, Leela is Hindu, Biba is Muslim and Awino is Christian. All participate in family and community practices associated with their respective cultural and religious backgrounds. They also embody linguistic diversity, using Gujarati (Leela), Arabic (Biba), and Swahili and Kamba (Awino), with members of their family and heritage communities. All are multilingual in that their linguistic repertoires embrace the heritage languages of their families and standardised and vernacular varieties of English (Martin-Jones and Jones, 2000). Part of the purpose of this book is to explore the linguistic diversity that accompanies ethnic and cultural diversity and to put forward a case for treating the linguistic repertoires and perspectives of multilingual students as a resource. The book is based on a study that I undertook with 93 undergraduates (45 women and 48 men), enrolled on Business and Administration degree programmes (Preece, 2006c). At the time, I was teaching the students on an academic writing programme that Millennium University had established to improve the prospects of its non-traditional undergraduates. I was inspired to undertake my study through my experiences of teaching on this programme. I wanted to gain a deeper understanding of the students’ perceptions and experiences as they seemed ill at ease in the classroom with being viewed as studious or scholarly and with the language and literacy practices of higher education. In the traditions of reﬂective practice, I wanted to examine my impressions and assumptions and think about ways of helping the students settle into university life and fulﬁl their academic potential. As discourses of feminism, critical pedagogy and experiential learning have been inﬂuential in shaping my perspectives of teaching, I view education as having the potential to fulﬁl, transform and empower lives. Having taught for many years, I also recognise that formal education can result in pain, anxiety and shame. Students encounter difﬁculties along the way that for many are not easily resolvable, requiring persistence, tenacity and support to overcome. Students discover that

Introduction

3

learning involves a change in ‘stance and dance’ (Brookﬁeld, 1995), shifts in outlook and understanding about the world that are experienced somewhere along continua of exhilaration/ discomfort and openness /resistance. Taking the view that the ‘whole person’ is involved in learning, I see learning as an emotional as well as a cognitive affair. Jeanne Lave and Etienne Wenger (1991) capture this well in their observation that: as an aspect of social practice, learning involves the whole person; it implies not only a relation to speciﬁc activities, but a relation to social communities – it implies becoming a full participant, a member, a kind of person. In this view, learning only partly – and often incidentally – implies becoming able to be involved in new activities, to perform new tasks and functions, to master new understandings. Activities, tasks, functions, and understandings do not exist in isolation; they are part of broader systems of relations in which they have meaning. These systems of relations arise out of and are reproduced and developed within social communities, which are part systems of relations among persons. The person is deﬁned by as well as deﬁnes these relations. Learning thus implies becoming a different person with respect to the possibilities enabled by these systems of relations. To ignore this aspect of learning is to overlook the fact that learning involves the construction of identities (p. 53). I regard learning as inextricably linked with the way we think and feel about ourselves. As Lave and Wenger comment, this involves shifts in identity positions. In formal education, this is further complicated by the institutional setting. As research in educational institutions consistently illustrates, students need to ﬁnd ways of balancing social and learner, or academic, identities (Benwell and Stokoe, 2002; Frosh, Phoenix and Pattman, 2002; Jackson, 2006; Mac an Ghaill, 1994; Wortham, 2006). For students going through the life stage of adolescence and early adulthood, this can be complicated by peer group demands for displays of ‘coolness’ arising from streetwise and popular culture. In a bid to maintain their social standing with peers, students may be drawn to peer group practices that conﬂict with the practices of the academic community. Students’ social and academic experiences have been constant themes in the discussion on student retention in higher education (Engstrom and Tinto, 2008; Peelo and Wareham, 2002; Tinto, 1975, 1988, 1993, 1997, 2003; Yorke and Longden, 2004). Much of the literature draws on

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Vincent Tinto’s highly inﬂuential work on student retention, particularly his ‘Model of Dropout’. This model, which is rooted in the notion of transition from one (educational) culture to another, views drop out as a longitudinal process, in which an individual’s experiences of interacting in the ‘social’ and ‘academic systems’ of his/ her place of study have a signiﬁcant effect on decisions over whether to persist or not with studies. According to Tinto, academic integration is both ‘structural’, in that students are required to meet certain standards to remain on their courses, and ‘normative’, in that students need to develop identiﬁcation with the norms of the academic system. Social integration, on the other hand, is related to successful encounters with fellow students and staff that help to develop a sense of belonging in, and identiﬁcation with, the institution. While academic integration is regarded as encouraging students to make continuing efforts towards graduation and intellectual development, social integration is viewed as increasing commitment to the place of study. During the transition into higher education, ﬁrst-year undergraduate students need to establish new social networks with their fellow peers while coping with the demands of the academic community and an unfamiliar educational setting. This is not a straightforward process. As Pierre Bourdieu (1977) points out, social relations are not necessarily egalitarian; they frequently involve the exercise of power. In this book, I examine ways in which the students in my study are ‘on speaking terms’ (Bourdieu, 1977: 648) with each other and how students can become marginalised through adopting unpopular positions with their peers. I use Erving Goffman’s notion of ‘face’ (1972), as the ‘positive social value a person effectively claims for [him/herself] by the line others assume [he/she] has taken during a particular contact’ (p. 319; pronoun insertions SP), as a way of understanding how students work to maintain face with each other in spoken interactions in the classroom. I argue that the peer group can offer undergraduate students powerful positions from which to speak, both to counter the relatively powerless positions that ﬁrst-year undergraduates occupy in higher education institutions and to mask feelings of anxiety and vulnerability associated with the process of transition into higher education. Central to my discussion is gender, as from a feminist perspective there are many examples of gendering and gendered activity in the data. Along with gender and language scholars (e.g. Cameron, 1996; Coates, 1997; Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, 2003), I argue that gender is still of particular salience in the social world. At the very least, others ascribe our gender (and have done since our conception) even if we resist or

Introduction

5

pay little attention to doing gender ourselves. I take Cameron’s (1996) view that the majority of people ‘experience gender as an inalienable part of who they are, and the treatment they get reﬂects who others think they are’ (p. 47). This standpoint underpins my approach to the analysis in Chapters 4–7 in which I view gender as constituted discursively, a dimension of identity, and emerging in spoken interactions. In other words, gender is not an attribute or property of an individual but something accomplished through ‘doing’, and experienced as both inhabited and ascribed identity positions, as I shall discuss. Following Judith Butler (1990), I also regard gender as ‘performative’ and ‘performatively constituted’. Gender as a dimension of identity only appears to have a substance through its continual repetition, discussed by Butler as a process of ‘congealing’: gender is the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being (1990: 33). Important here is the interpretation of ‘performance’ as ‘enacting . . . oneself as a culturally recognizable (i.e. gender-normative) subject’ (Bucholtz and Hall, 2004: 491). The notion of making the self ‘culturally recognizable’ suggests the interaction of gender with other dimensions of identity, such as sexuality, ethnicity, social class, life stage, occupation, family roles and so on. While attending to gender, I view it in the local context and shaped by other dimensions of the students’ identities. I also treat gender as a relational term, in which Cameron (1997: 60) argues that the ‘minimal requirement for “being a man” is “not being a woman” ’. I consider ways in which the students both maintain and blur gender differentiation in spoken interactions about fellow peers, language and literacy practices and their language repertoires. To explore the relationship that the students have with the languages in their lives, I draw on a variety of research, including the work of Ben Rampton, Roxy Harris and Constant Leung on ‘language inheritance’, that is, the language(s) inherited from parents; ‘language expertise’, that is, the level of proﬁciency developed in a language or language variety, and ‘language afﬁliation’, which relates to affect, the emotions and feelings associated with a particular language (Leung et al., 1997; Rampton, 1990). Importantly, Rampton and others caution against taking an over-romantic view of the language expertise and afﬁliations of

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bi/multilingual students. They question the assumption that individuals will automatically have high levels of expertise in and afﬁliation to their heritage language(s), a contention that I have borne in mind in the analysis in Chapters 4–7 and in the ﬁnal chapter to this book. Three inﬂuential groupings for the students were their undergraduate peers, the academic community and their families. As the students met regularly in these groups to participate in activities concerned with family and student life, I found it helpful to consider each as a ‘community of practice’ (Lave and Wenger, 1991). Through interactions in these communities, practices and beliefs emerge that are oriented to wider discourses in society. According to Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet (2003), membership of communities of practice not only provides individuals with ways of participating in society, but also ‘a sense of their place and their possibilities in society’ (p. 57). Drawing on this, I view the students as experiencing their everyday lives in peergroup, family and academic communities of practice. I explore how the students negotiate the practices of these communities in the setting of higher education. To do this, I examine spoken interaction among the students in the classroom and with me, in an interview setting. To relate interaction at the micro level to macro concerns related to subject positions and dimensions of identity, three broad questions have guided the analysis in Chapters 4–7: • How is gender invoked as a dimension of identity in the spoken interaction? • How does the students’ positioning among peers and in the institution orient them to the norms and practices of the academic community? • What may this suggest about developing inclusive practice with multilingual students from widening participation backgrounds?

Research ethos In approaching the research, I was inﬂuenced by the notion that we cannot capture meaning and pin it down in the manner of a Victorian butterﬂy collector. Nor can we separate ourselves from the messiness of the social world in the process of research. Foucault discusses this in terms of our ‘will to truth’ (Sheridan, 1980: 123), in which our desire for understanding results in statements about the social world becoming enshrined in discourses as though they were indisputably true, or as ‘common sense’ (Weedon, 1997). In Foucault’s eyes, knowledge is

Introduction

7

intrinsically linked with the ‘politics of truth telling’ (Foucault and Rabinow, 1991). As Chris Weedon (1997) argues, ‘science can only ever produce speciﬁc knowledges, with particular implications’ (p. 28), suggesting that within the social world, including institutions of education, ‘truth’ is located in speciﬁc social-cultural and historical situations. I am also struck by the view that what we research and the way in which we go about it demonstrates that we are ‘socially located persons who inevitably bring our biographies and our subjectivities to every stage of the research process’ (Cameron et al., 1992: 5). This is particularly evident in practitioner-based research in education where practitioners need to negotiate a variety of positions, including teacher and researcher. Elaine Unterhalter (2003) claims that different positions allow different perspectives to emerge through the positions working to inform each other. Reﬂecting on this, I can identify the ‘intrinsic’ nature of my researcher positioning, in that I was interested in researching identity for its own sake. I can also identify a more ‘instrumental’ (Stake, 2000: 437) teacher positioning, in that I wanted to consider what the ﬁndings suggested about practice. Underpinning this are notions of social justice, the idea of documenting marginalised voices and getting these heard in institutional settings. I regard my study as embedded in a ‘world of action’ and aiming at a ‘step to action’ (Adelman, Kemmis and Jenkins, 1980). In reporting the research, this book not only documents experiences and perceptions, termed as a form of ethical research on participants by Cameron et al. (1992), but also takes an ‘advocacy position’, or research on and for the students to ensure that their interests are accounted for in higher education policy and practice. Cameron et al. (1992) point out that this formalises the relationship between the researcher and the researched in which the researcher is called on to act in the role of an ‘expert’ on behalf of the participants (p.15) while Ann Oakley (1981) discusses this as the researcher acting as an ‘instrument for those whose lives are being researched’ (p. 49). I suspect that this is partly motivated by my own fraught experiences as a ﬁrst-year undergraduate. In common with several of the students in this book, I was excluded from higher education at the end of my ﬁrst year of undergraduate studies; in my case, this was as a consequence of failing one of the ﬁrst-year examinations. Despite repeating my ﬁrst year and going on to graduate, this experience has had long-lasting effects. For as Derek Rowntree (1987) comments, the values associated with academic assessment frequently result in those who are unsuccessful feeling as if they ‘have failed as a person’ (p. 42). I do not claim that others who fail their ﬁrst year of studies experience

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this in the same way as me. However, it seems likely that many would grapple with the feelings of humiliation, ‘rejection and shame’ (Hinett, 2002: 172) that can arise from exclusion from higher education. For some students, dropping out may become a more attractive proposition once they get into difﬁculties with their work, particularly as academic failure is dangerously intertwined with perceptions of ability and intelligence as innate (Covington, 1992; Peelo and Wareham, 2002; Rogers, 2002). To be excluded in such situations carries with it the risk of loss of face with family, friends and employers as well as arousing negativity about one’s own self-worth. In designing the study, I was also inﬂuenced by ethnographic perspectives and paid attention to some of the features of ethnographic research. This included investigating and representing the perspectives of the participants, undertaking parts of the study in the classroom – as the natural setting, observing the participants in the classroom, generating theory rather than testing a hypothesis, and acting as a ‘methodological omnivore’, by using a range of methods (LeCompte, Preissle and Tesch, 1993: 232). Drawing on the claim that it is not possible to capture ‘objective reality’ only to comprehend ‘reality’ through representations of it (Richardson, 2000: 5), I also used a combination of methods to extend the range and richness of the data (Flick, 2002). I also departed from some of the norms associated with ethnography. For instance, participant observation usually involves sitting on the sidelines and writing ﬁeld notes and/ or engaging in activities as a participant. Most of my observations are the result of routine teacher observation of classroom events, on which I reﬂected in a notebook following each session.

The structure of the book In the ﬁrst three chapters, my aim is to introduce the main concepts and contextual information that inform the analysis of the data in Chapters 4–7. Chapter 1 sets the scene by discussing widening participation in tertiary education and the research site. Chapter 2 explores identity from a social constructionist perspective by using Michel Foucault’s (1991) concept of the ‘discoursing subject’. Here I follow Foucault’s conceptualisation of the human subject as embodied within discourse and responsible for reproducing, adapting, subverting and resisting discursive practices. The poststructuralist lens means a shift in focus from ‘big stories’ to ‘local explanations’ (Cameron, 2005: 484). Instead

Introduction

9

of searching for universal laws governing human behaviour, I am more concerned with what David Block (2007) describes as ‘nuanced, multilevelled and ultimately, complicated framings of the world around us’ (p. 13). I examine how the students as ‘discoursing subjects’ are both positioned and take up positions in the discourses to which they have access and the ways in which dimensions of identity are continuously interacting and being constituted. Chapter 3 considers how the discoursing subject is constituted in discourses on literacy in higher education. Drawing on Mary Lea and Brian Street (2000), I reﬂect on three common discourses associated with approaches to student writing in higher education: skills, socialisation and literacies. I contend that the ﬁrst two discourses are particularly insensitive to ﬁrst-year undergraduate students. Skills discourses have given rise to a pathological imagining of students who need ‘ﬁxing’ whereas socialisation discourses position undergraduates as needing to be assimilated into academia, a process largely viewed as unidirectional. While discourses on literacies appear more sensitive to student identities, it is difﬁcult to discern how this is realised in practice. In the second part of the book, I turn to the data. Chapter 4 examines the spoken interaction in all-male, or predominantly male, peer groups in the academic writing classroom. I consider how gender is evoked as the male students discuss their identiﬁcations with their fellow undergraduates and academic staff, academic literacy practices and the languages in their lives. I reﬂect on how performances of laddish masculinity (Jackson, 2006; Whelehan, 2000) create an impression of ‘walking a tightrope’ between peers and the academic community. Chapter 5 mirrors Chapter 4 in that it considers similar matters in the spoken interaction in the all-female peer groups in the classroom. I examine whether laddishness is as attractive for the female students or whether they experience the academic community in different ways. Chapters 6 and 7 develop the issues in the previous two chapters by looking at the students’ self-reports in the questionnaire and interviews. I explore whether the students adopt similar or different positions when away from peers and in one-to-one interactions with me as an institutional authority ﬁgure. I reﬂect further on the students’ identiﬁcations with language, reading and writing and the gendered identities that these invoke. In the concluding chapter, I reﬂect on the questions that guided the study and consider some of the implications for practice with

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multilingual students from widening participation backgrounds. I suggest issues for development that may facilitate a greater sense of inclusion and belonging in higher education for students such as the ones in my study. I argue for greater institutional awareness and sensitivity towards these students and for an imagining of higher education as a multilingual space.

1 Widening Participation

Introduction In this chapter, I look at what widening participation (WP) means in practice as universities recruit students from a broader range of social, cultural and linguistic backgrounds. I consider social justice and economic competitiveness as factors in WP and of interest in my study, and argue that there continue to be inequalities in accessing tertiary education. I look at what is known about the experiences of BME students from WP backgrounds in higher education in the UK and note that multilingualism has received little attention to date in the debate on WP. I argue that higher education institutions in the UK have largely ignored the linguistic repertoires of their BME students and there has been little strategic thinking in the sector about linguistic diversity in terms of ‘language-as-resource’; rather, the dominant approach is one of ‘language-as-problem’ (Ruiz, 1984), in which students’ linguistic resources are viewed as in need of remediation and as an obstacle to their progress in higher education. The notion of remediation has tended to inform approaches to student writing and the development of programmes of study skills and academic writing in the sector.

Expansion of tertiary education In the last two to three decades, there has been a mass expansion in the number of tertiary1 students, more or less across the globe. With the exception of Sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia, UNESCO (2006) reports dramatic increases, from 68 million students in 1991 to 132 million in 2004. In many countries, there have been attempts to increase the number of students from groups that have historically been 11

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under-represented in the sector. In the UK, this has resulted in encouraging individuals from state schools and colleges, particularly those with lower socio-economic status, traditionally referred to as working-class, and/or those who live in areas of Britain with a low proportion of 18 to19-year olds in the sector, to enter higher education programmes of study (Higher Education Statistics Agency, 2005). This policy has become widely known as ‘widening participation’. A variety of issues have contributed to WP and the expansion of tertiary education, including globalisation, urbanisation, economic competition, social cohesion, social justice and equal opportunities. Two of these issues appeared to be of particular relevance during the study: social justice and economic competitiveness. Proponents of social justice have focused on redressing inequalities in society through increasing access to the tertiary sector for under-represented groups. Those concerned with economic competitiveness, on the other hand, have concentrated on the needs of industries in the knowledge economy for a highly educated and skilled workforce to compete within the global market. While these agendas are not necessarily mutually exclusive, there is considerable disjuncture between them. In an early report on WP in the UK, for example, Helena Kennedy QC (1997) warned that the demands of the economy were in danger of overwhelming the agenda for social justice: In all the political debates, it is the economic rationale for increasing participation in education which has been paramount. Prosperity depends upon there being a vibrant economy, but an economy which regards its own success as the highest good is a dangerous one. Justice and equity must also have their claim upon the arguments for educational growth. In a social landscape where there is a growing gulf between those who have and those who have not, the importance of social cohesion cannot be ignored (pp. 5–6). This theme was taken up more recently by Monica McLean (2006) in a review of higher education policy. As she comments, the social justice agenda has all but disappeared from ofﬁcial documents on tertiary education while the ‘economizing of universities is taking place across the globe’ (p. 45). Penny Burke (2002) observes how the sector is increasingly regulated in the language of commerce, industry and globalisation. Within the UK context, a partnership has been constructed between the tertiary sector, employers and individuals, in which tertiary institutions not only become providers of a service with externally imposed targets

Widening Participation 13

for access and standards, but are also expected to respond rapidly to the needs of employers. The government’s Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (since June 2009 subsumed in the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills) places great emphasis on the role of universities in providing the workforce with knowledge and skills so that the UK can compete in the global market place. Valerie Walkerdine (2003) comments that the modern economy demands a ‘ﬂexible and autonomous subject . . . able to cope with constant change in work, income and lifestyle and constant insecurity’ (p. 240); it appears that a key role of the tertiary sector is to prepare students for working in this scenario. Students are engaged in a narrative of ‘upward mobility’ in which, Walkerdine argues, success is tied to an individual’s efforts to be a ‘constantly changing successful entrepreneur of oneself’ (p. 241). Academic staff have become caught up in both producing and resisting demands to tie tertiary education ever more closely to the world of work.

Inequalities in access The dominance of economic discourses masks continuing inequalities in the sector, both at global and national levels. At the global level, UNESCO reports make stark reading. In Europe and North America, for every hundred individuals of tertiary age, 69 are enrolled in tertiarylevel programmes of study. This ﬁgure drops dramatically for South and West Asia, where only ten out of every hundred people are enrolled in tertiary education, and Sub-Saharan Africa, where only ﬁve adults out of hundred are studying at tertiary level (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2006). UNESCO (2005) also reports that on average, children in Europe and North America can expect to spend twelve years in compulsory education, followed by three years in the tertiary sector, whereas children in Africa can expect to spend less than eight years in education in total, of which just two months will be in tertiary education. The ﬁgures are bleaker when comparing the ten countries at the extremes. In those with the highest rates of participation in tertiary education, individuals can expect to remain in the sector for thirty times longer than their counterparts living in the ten countries at the opposite end of the scale. Even in countries with high rates of participation in the tertiary sector, inequalities in the system persist, and it is arguable that these are becoming more, rather than less marked. In the US, for instance, students from low-income backgrounds are far more likely to take a two-year

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associate degree programme in a community college than a four-year Bachelor degree, particularly one in a prestigious university. In 2000, only 10% of students categorised as in the bottom income group gained a Bachelor’s degree compared to 60% of those in the top income group (Allen et al., 2005). As Allen et al. (2005) point out, the US situation is also compounded by race and ethnicity with African-Americans and Hispanics more likely to be from poorer families, attending community colleges, and having lower rates of completion than their White and Asian-American counterparts. In the UK, there are similar inequalities. The third Universities UK report on access indicates that access and retention of undergraduates from lower socio-economic groups and ‘Low Participation Neighbourhoods’ remains a ‘persistent challenge’ (Thomas et al., 2005: 6). Government measures have made little headway in addressing the social-class divide, in that students from middle-class families are still three times more likely to enter higher education than their workingclass counterparts (DfES, 2003). As in the US, UK students from WP backgrounds are also disproportionately enrolled at less prestigious institutions. Most are in former polytechnics, which were granted university status in 1992. There are also increasing numbers of students from WP backgrounds studying on degree-level programmes in further education (FE) colleges since the validation of higher education programmes of study in further education institutions (HE in FE). McLean (2006) notes how the ‘old’ (pre-1992) prestigious British universities are not only better resourced but are also populated with many more students from professional and moneyed backgrounds in comparison to the ‘new’ (post-1992), and less prestigious, universities. While these institutions recruit a greater number of students from WP backgrounds, they are also required to educate them with far fewer resources.

Black and minority ethnic students Drawing on the 2001 Census, Thomas et al. (2005) conclude that UK-domiciled undergraduates from BME communities are overrepresented in both applications and acceptances in the higher education sector compared to the size of the BME population nationally. They also suggest that the grouping of BME students in higher education reﬂects patterns of habitation in the UK, in which minority communities have tended to settle in London, other major cities and urbanised areas. Other studies have commented on the grouping of BME students in urban universities (Allen, 1998; Farr, 2001). Marc Farr (2001),

Widening Participation 15

for example, surmises that post-1992 universities in major cities attract applications from local ethnic minority communities. His study found that despite a decline in average distance travelled to university among all students, this was most marked among those from Bangladeshi and Pakistani families and among mature students of all backgrounds. Gender may also be a factor in selecting institutions, as according to Alison Allen (1998), young women from BME communities may be under more family pressure to study in the local vicinity. Given that BME students appear more likely to be studying in institutions closer to home, there appears to be an argument for considering access statistics on a regional basis, comparing the percentage of ﬁrst-degree applications and acceptances with the composition of the population for the region. This may highlight differences, variations and lack of access from certain communities in certain areas, which analysis on a national level obscures. As John Bird (1996) argues, the statistics on under- and over-representation are complex and contested; there is a great need to exercise caution in their interpretation in order to avoid the conclusion amongst policy makers that ‘enough has been done, . . . equity has arrived’ (p. 14). While access statistics are useful for identifying trends in student recruitment and highlighting continued inequalities, they are also limited by the ways in which data are gathered and analysed. These statistics also use social science categories, such as social-economic group and ethnicity, in an unreﬂective manner, treating these not only as ﬁxed and essentialised, but also as separable variables. As Block (2006) points out, categorisations on ofﬁcial documents, such as the Census, are one-dimensional, only tell part of the story and conﬂate ethnicity and ‘race’. Part of my purpose in this book is to show how positions that are ascribed to BME students are only part of the picture. I also aim to illustrate some of the complexities of identity that cannot be accounted for in statistics. As the number of BME students in the sector has risen, there has been a variety of speculation in the literature about the motivations for continuing studies. One factor mentioned is the value placed by the family on education in terms of its perceived status and beneﬁts. Ramindar Singh (1990), for example, discusses the importance of parental expectations and pressure on young people from Asian communities, arguing that: Parents who encourage their children to aspire to achieve the maximum level of education earn recognition, pride, status within their own community . . . for Asian parents university education,

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particularly for boys, is seen as a ‘must’ and that failure to gain some sort of post ‘O’ or ‘A’ level qualiﬁcation lowers their social status within their own community. In the case of Asian girls, higher educational qualiﬁcations are thought to improve considerably their chance in the ‘marriage market’ (p. 349). Elsewhere, Allen (1998), remarking on the results of a survey into the experiences of BME students in higher education, cites the following poignant quote by a Black British student: My parents decided that I had to go to university, otherwise I’d be kicked out of the house, either university or out. All my brothers and sisters have been to university. We have no choice at all (p. 57). Other factors cited include the desire to improve examination grades, the aspiration to be well-qualiﬁed and the opportunity to increase prospects in a job market perceived as covertly, and in some cases overtly, operating discriminatory practices against members of BME communities. As David Drew, John Gray and Nicholas Sime (1992) note: It is the distress associated with unemployment and the insecurity of low status jobs that many black young people are seeking to avoid in working for qualiﬁcations and skilled or non-manual occupations’ (p. 10). There are also a number of studies looking at the experiences of BME students in higher education in the UK (e.g. Allen, 1998; Ball, Reay and David, 2002; Bird, 1996; Bowl, 2003; Law, Phillips and Turney, 2004; Martin, 2008; Osler, 1999; Weill, 1986). Many of these address the experiences of BME students from WP backgrounds and are suggestive of ways in which gender, ethnicity and social class interact within the sector. In a study of working-class and minority ethnic adults entering higher education, Marion Bowl (2003) observes that these students’ perspectives were rarely seen as resources for learning and that lecturers seemed unaware of the contributions that these students could potentially make in many areas of the curriculum. Bowl concludes that despite the rhetoric of ‘inclusion’ in higher education, in many universities there is only the ‘illusion of inclusion’ (p. 133). Peter Martin’s (2008) ﬁndings parallel Bowl’s. In his study of the education trajectories of four minority ethnic university students, he comments that the students often expressed the view that lecturers missed opportunities to

Widening Participation 17

bring multicultural and multilingual perspectives to bear on learning. Importantly, Martin observes the empowering effect on students when lecturers created spaces for their perspectives to be pursued. Overall, these studies suggest that ‘cultural capital’ (Bourdieu, 1986), deﬁned as ‘socially optimal and valued knowledge, taste and know-how’ (Block, 2006: 35), plays an important role in students’ experience of higher education. As BME students from WP backgrounds generally enter higher education with less of the ‘socially optimal’ cultural capital than their counterparts from middle-class and professional backgrounds, they may experience greater feelings of marginalisation in the institution. To contrast the norms and practices with which students are familiar from poorer, possibly immigrant families, and non-selective2 schooling with the norms and practices of the academic community in higher education, Mantz Yorke and Bernard Longden (2004) use the terms ‘non-elite’ and ‘elite’. These are useful terms, inasmuch as they draw attention to the disjuncture that these students are likely to experience on entering higher education, particularly when there is little, if any, ﬁrst-hand experience of university or professional life within the family. Drawing on Bourdieu’s notion of ‘habitus’, as the ‘collectivity of norms and practices of a social group’, Yorke and Longden argue that to navigate higher education successfully, students need to be able to negotiate the practices of an ‘inherently elite’ academic environment (p. 80). They suggest that those entering from ‘non-elite’ backgrounds frequently experience difﬁculties making sense of and coping with higher education during the process of transition into the institution. According to Yorke and Longden, unless the student and the institution can successfully ﬁnd ways of reducing this gap, non-elite students are in danger of failing, which they perceive not as a matter of individual blame, but as covert institutional discrimination. While all undergraduates are likely to have some problems during the process of transition into higher education, the problems that nonelite students encounter are likely to be more serious and more difﬁcult to resolve. They do not have the beneﬁt of university-educated and professional parents to help them make sense of the system. This is compounded for BME students in cases where parents and elders have limited use of English and little ﬁrst-hand experience of study at tertiary level. These students are likely to have access to far fewer material resources than their more elite counterparts and may also have responsibilities for caring for family members. In a study of BME students’ routes into higher education, Stephen Ball et al. (2002) argue that the very act of going to university requires non-elite BME students to ‘[eschew]

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a “normal biography” ’ (p. 352). University disrupts their expected life course, creating difference and distance between them and their family and friends. Their experiences of disjuncture are in contrast to their BME counterparts from more elite backgrounds: as their family, friends and schooling have spent many years preparing them for entry into higher education, they view student life as ‘part of a well-established “normal biography” ’ (p. 353). Feelings of disjuncture are likely to be compounded by educational experiences prior to higher education. Tahir Abbas (2007) discusses this in relation to British South Asians and their pathways into secondary education in the UK. According to Abbas, social networks of professional middle-class South Asians exchange ‘hot knowledge’ about schools and ways of increasing their children’s chances of admission to the most prestigious schools in the area, in preparation for admission to the more elite universities. He points out that working-class South Asian parents lack the ﬁnances and cultural capital to work the British educational system in the same way. Abbas argues that this is creating a divide in the British South Asian community, in which British Asian children at non-selective schools feel less able to ‘speak the language’ of institutions than their counterparts at selective schools (p. 82). Abbas’s account suggests that this divide cuts across ethnic heritage in the UK and is contributing to a situation in which students from disadvantaged backgrounds, whether from BME communities or the white Anglo population, form a perception of the academic community as ‘posh’ and ‘Other’ to themselves.

Linguistic diversity and widening participation As WP has taken effect, many more non-elite BME students have entered higher education. Within the UK context, there has been little documentation of the linguistic repertoires of these students. Jim Cummins (2008) argues that English-medium universities have tended to ignore the multilingualism in their midst, either viewing it as irrelevant to academic work, or as an obstacle to learning. He calls for universities to pay attention to ways in which the learning strategies of bi/multilingual learners could be recognised and used more effectively at university level. Martin (2008) draws on Monica Heller’s (1995) concept of ‘monolingualising’ to point out the way in which higher education institutions have largely disregarded the language resources of their multilingual students and are still operating as if they were ‘monolingual environments’ (p. 5). This assumption has contributed to perceptions of non-elite

Widening Participation 19

multilingual students as in need of ‘remedial English’ and as entering higher education with an ‘educational deﬁcit’ (Bowl, 2003: 139). There is also a growing perception of an English language crisis in British universities. This was recently illustrated by the Royal Literary Fund’s report on student writing (Davies, Swinburne and Williams, 2006), which claimed that students across the UK higher education sector did not possess the ‘basic skills . . . (to) make coherent written work possible’ (p. xi). While it is undoubtedly the case that WP has widened the continuum in the level of student expertise in academic language and literacy practices, such statements vastly exaggerate the situation, contributing to an atmosphere of moral panic and notions of ‘remedial university students’. This position also shows no awareness or respect for the array of linguistic and multimodal resources that undergraduate students bring with them into higher education. One way in which universities have responded to the notion of an English language crisis in their midst is to include some form of academic writing and study skills provision in the curriculum for home or domestic students. This provision has often been modelled on existing English language programmes for international students and provided by English language teachers working in language centres. Within the context of WP, there is clearly merit in courses that seek to improve undergraduate students’ expertise in academic English and literacy practices. It would seem remiss of educational institutions not to assist students in developing their ability to engage with written language, both in terms of ‘writing to learn’ (constructing understanding of the subject through grappling with ideas in writing) and ‘learning to write’ (developing ﬂuency and high levels of expertise in institutional literacy practices). However, many of these programmes have been informed by assumptions based on ‘language-as-problem’ (Ruiz, 1984), in which the prevailing attitude is that linguistic diversity is an obstacle to be overcome and students are in need of language remediation. I argue that programmes need to be more sensitive to the needs and identities of non-elite BME students and, as Martin (2008) points out, ensure that students are not forced into a ‘monolithic cultural and linguistic space’ (p. 4). This requires a shift in orientation from linguistic diversity as a problem to be overcome to linguistic diversity as a ‘resource’ (Ruiz, 1984) for learning. To date, there has been little debate in the sector from this perspective. Underpinning this view are the social justice and critical pedagogy discourses espoused by Henry Giroux (1989) and Paulo Freire (1971),

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in which literacy is seen as a tool of empowerment. Crucial to this is Freire’s assertion that: It is necessary that, in learning the so-called ‘norm’, [students] understand that they are learning it not because their language is ugly and inferior, but because in mastering the ‘norm’ they acquire tools to [use in] the struggle for the necessary reinvention of the world (Freire, 1971, in Apple, Gandin and Hypolito, 2001: 131).3 This principle does not seem to transfer easily into practice. As I shall discuss, in contexts of WP, this can become particularly problematic when student writing is approached primarily in terms of skills or socialisation and little attention is given to the affective and emotional aspects of using language and literacy practices that students view to themselves as ‘posh’ and ‘Other’.

The local context: Millennium University Claiming to contribute to the regeneration of London and to provide Londoners with access to lifelong learning, Millennium University has identiﬁed four key factors that, it argues, contextualises access to higher education for many Londoners: poverty, poor rates of school leavers staying in post-compulsory education, minority ethnic diversity and disability. The University actively pursues a WP agenda, aiming to provide a broad programme of studies to equip Londoners from a diverse range of backgrounds for lifelong learning, to improve retention and graduation of non-elite students, and to ensure that issues related to the employability of its graduates are addressed in curriculum design and the employment practices of London-based employers. There are around 26,000 students at Millennium, nearly 70% of whom are undergraduates. Women account for more than half of the undergraduate population, while there are an equal number of young4 and mature undergraduate entrants. Of the undergraduates, 86% are home or domestic students, with other EU and non-EU students accounting for 4% and 10% of undergraduates respectively. Of the home students, 3% have declared a disability (Higher Education Statistics Agency, 2006). There is also a high intake of students from non-selective schools, with 95% of full-time young undergraduates recruited from state schools and colleges, compared to the UK national average of 87.3% (Higher Education Statistics Agency, 2005). Many entrants are accepted with non-traditional university entry qualiﬁcations5 or with

Widening Participation 21

traditional qualiﬁcations6 with low grades. According to Yorke and Longden (2004), school examination results are adversely affected by deprivation, suggesting that some at least of Millennium’s entrants are from schools serving poorer communities in London. Millennium also attracts more undergraduates classiﬁed as working-class than the UK national average, with 43% of undergraduates for whom social class is recorded classiﬁed as from one of the lower socio-economic groups, compared with a national average of 29.2% (Higher Education Statistics Agency, 2005). Many of Millennium’s students continue to live at home during their studies and most also have some form of paid employment regardless of whether they are enrolled on full-time or part-time programmes of study. Millennium recruits approximately 70% of its students from London, a global city of around seven million inhabitants. Block (2006) points out that London has been the site of ‘multiple and massive migrations of people from all over the world’ for many millennia (p. 44), with BME communities accounting for nearly three million Londoners at the time of the 2001 National Census (ibid.). According to Philip Baker and John Eversley (2000), more than 300 languages are in use among London schoolchildren. Given Millennium’s recruitment practices and London’s ethnic composition, it is unsurprising that visible7 BME students comprise more than 50% of the Millennium student body and that many of these students are from homes where English is used in addition to one or more heritage language(s). Many of the London-based students also share the experience of growing up and being educated in London, or of having settled in London as their long-term abode. Many are also in the ﬁrst generation of their family to study at university and seek professional employment. In common with many post-1992 universities, Millennium faces signiﬁcant challenges with student retention and is concerned to reduce the level of dropout and exclusion. One way in which Millennium has sought to improve the prospects of its students is through the provision of an academic writing programme for students who have received all or the majority of their compulsory education in English-medium schools, either in the UK or overseas. At the time of my study, this programme was largely delivered as a generic academic writing course to which students were referred following the results of an academic literacy screening taken during induction. For my study, I worked with four classes taking the programme, two of which were taught by a colleague and two by me. Research into the proﬁle of the students on the programme (Preece and Godfrey, 2004) indicates that the majority of

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the students had non-traditional university entry qualiﬁcations, had entered Millennium from state schools and colleges, were on full-time ﬁrst degree programmes, and were from working-class BME families.

A snapshot of linguistic diversity at Millennium The students on the academic writing programme represent a snapshot of the linguistic diversity embodied in the student population at Millennium. The list below shows the variety of languages that the students reported using at home: Languages used at home Urdu Bengali Yoruba Tigrinja Swedish Leeward Caribbean Creole Cantonese

Punjabi Gujarati Swahili Albanian Russian Jamaican Creole Vietnamese

Hindi Tamil Kamba Portuguese French Creole Arabic English

Some of the mature students used English as a second language (ESL) in that they had been born and educated overseas in countries in which English was an ofﬁcial language and/ or English was used widely in public domains. Most of these students had settled in Britain as young adults. A few used English as a foreign language (EFL) in that they came from countries in which English was not an ofﬁcial language nor routinely used in public situations; they had learnt English as a foreign language at school, arriving in Britain as young adults for the purposes of study, following which they were likely to return to their home country. The majority of the British-born students used English as an additional language (EAL). Many were Londoners of South Asian descent, with family origins in the Indian sub-continent or Africa. These students were often aged between 18 and 21 and lived at home. Generally they had received all or the majority of their compulsory schooling in the British state system, many in a London comprehensive school. Although some students had attended complementary8 schools, very few had received any sustained formal schooling in their heritage languages and most had little expertise in the literacy practices associated with the languages of their home communities. In most cases, spoken interactions involving heritage languages were mainly with parents and in gatherings of relatives.

Widening Participation 23

Observations of the students during the study suggest that regardless of their ethnolinguistic, cultural or religious background, they were concerned with the norms and trends associated with youthful and streetwise masculinities and femininities. The young men routinely sported baseball caps, hooded tops, sportswear and pieces of chunky gold jewellery while the young women wore the latest high street fashions and make-up and paid close attention to grooming. The young men enacted a cool youthful masculinity through movements and postures that included strolling extremely casually and sitting slouched with legs splayed, movements and postures that I never observed the female students adopting. The ‘soundscape’ (Harris, 2006: 91) evoked a youthful and everyday Londonness. As in Harris’s study of London youth, the students’ speech embodied Londonness in terms of phonology, grammar and attention to ‘slang’. The list below illustrates some of the features of London English that routinely occurred in the spoken interaction: Common features of London English in the Spoken Interaction (a) glottal stops /U/ to replace /t/ e.g. be[U]er instead of be[t]er (b) TH fronting with /f/ used to replace /θ/ and /v/ to replace /ð/ e.g. [f]ing instead of [θ]ing and bo[v]ered instead of bo[ð]ered (c) past participle to replace some irregular past simple tenses e.g. he [done] it instead of he [did] it (d) ‘ain’t’ to replace negative present simple use of the verb ‘be’ e.g. he [ain’t] coming instead of he [isn’t] coming (e) double negatives in an utterance e.g. it doesn’t do [nothing] instead of it doesn’t do [anything] (f) ‘innit’ to replace standard tag questions e.g. it’s difﬁcult, [innit]? instead of it’s difﬁcult, [isn’t it]? See Harris, 2006: 94–101 for a full description of features of London English among adolescent BME youth.

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In common with the youth in Harris’s study, the students repeatedly referred to the way they spoke as ‘slang’. They often portrayed themselves as being at greater ease with this variety of English than the ‘posh’ (i.e. Standard) English of the institution or the heritage language(s) of their families. They seemed to have much in common with the British bilingual school pupils described by Constant Leung and Charlotte Franson (2001) as ‘ﬂuent in vernacular spoken English for everyday spoken purposes and familiar with the local culture . . ., but . . . (less) conversant with academic uses of English’ (p. 200). Many of the British-born students appeared ambivalent about studying the language and literacy practices of the academic community. They commonly put forward the argument that they should be exempted from the academic writing programme on the basis of having GCSE English,9 suggesting a lack of awareness of the disparity between the language demanded for general examinations taken at the end of compulsory schooling and the language required for university study. Many displayed resistance to reading ‘verbal’ texts (Moss, 1999), such as broadsheet newspapers, literature, and academic books, which was problematic for making links between reading and writing in academic work. The dense writing of much of these texts, with their lack of visual clues for decoding meaning, appeared frustrating in that they were laborious to read, taking time and effort. Instead, there was a marked preference for more ‘visual’ texts (ibid.), in which meaning could be constructed quickly through multimodal references. Classroom discussions on the merits of reading a broad range of texts quickly became polarised into arguments concerning ‘cool’ and ‘uncool’ reading material governed by age-appropriate behaviour. Students claimed that texts such as those from the tabloid press and teen magazines were more suited to them as a ‘generation on the move’. They placed these in marked contrast to texts such as broadsheet newspapers and academic books, which they labelled for ‘the elderly’.10 As Alan Wall (2006) comments, many young people entering higher education are ‘children of a multimedia world’ (p. xiii). They have grown up in a technologised world saturated with fast-moving visual imagery. The students in my study appeared to embody this. While many could easily skim and scan large amounts of web-based information, they displayed much less conﬁdence with texts requiring concentrated reading and sustained attention. As Nicholas Murray and Bill Kirton (2006) suggest, the ‘zap . . . zing and bleep’ of information in modern life appears at odds with the ‘meditative’ thinking needed for intellectual work (pp.11-12). Additionally, as many had not become habitual readers of

Widening Participation 25

literature, broadsheet newspapers and serious non-ﬁction, they were often unfamiliar with items of vocabulary with Latin and Greek origins commonly found in these texts. Such vocabulary was often referred to as ‘long words’ – if there are too many of them they not only made academic reading a slow and frustrating process but also make it a potentially face-threatening act should it be discovered that the readers could not understand the words used. Many of the students struggled to ﬁnd a voice in their academic work. They had the idea that academic writing needed not only long words, but also long sentences. Some composed lengthy sentences that were often incomprehensible. Knowing that sentences of differing lengths could add variety to writing, some interspersed their writing with sentence fragments. In an attempt to create interest, some adopted a sensational voice common in popular culture. While blurring popular and academic registers, they also transgressed the boundaries of what was considered legitimate evidence in the academic community, supporting their points, for example, with collages of information from internet sources. This did not appear devious. Instead, as Murray and Kirton (2006) observe, the ‘tick-box’ approach commonly used in an ‘information acquisition culture’ views cutting and pasting bits off the internet not as an act of plagiarism, but as solving the problem of how to ‘ﬁll the space’ (p. 11). I found that teaching these students was not a straightforward matter of providing appropriate input and opportunities for practice. The students appeared ambivalent about the academic writing programme and were sometimes resistant to classroom activities. Reﬂecting on classroom events, it seemed to me that the students’ interactions and behaviour could be understood in relation to their identity. While the institution viewed the writing programme as a way of improving the prospects of non-elite students, through equipping them with the skills needed to succeed in higher education and for employment, it had not considered that the programme could also be a site for the negotiation of identity as the students attempted to make sense of the alien terrain of higher education.

Conclusion Thus far, I have considered WP and the movement to a mass tertiary sector as the backdrop to my study. While there have been dramatic rises in the numbers of tertiary students more or less across the globe, there continue to be inequalities in gaining access to the sector. This

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is particularly pronounced in South and West Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, where obstacles to accessing primary and secondary level education compound the problem (UNESCO, 2005; UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2006). Even in Europe and North America, where there is a much higher rate of progress into the tertiary sector, students from disadvantaged backgrounds are still under-represented, are concentrated in less prestigious institutions, and experience more difﬁculty progressing smoothly through the system. Once in the sector, non-elite students may feel marginalised or excluded, despite an institutional rhetoric of inclusion. Studies of the experiences of BME students from WP backgrounds in the UK suggest that these students have the perception that the knowledge, experience and know-how that they bring from their communities is of little value in higher education. There is little acknowledgement of the cultural perspectives and linguistic repertoires that these students bring into the sector and they are often perceived as ‘remedial’ English language users. I have given a snapshot of the linguistic diversity of the students in my study and noted how many construct English in terms of a ‘posh/slang’ dichotomy. While they identify with ‘slang’, they are more ambivalent about the identity positions invoked by the ‘posh’ language and literacy practices of the academic community. I propose that a better understanding is needed of these identity positions and that this could contribute to developing inclusive practice with BME students from WP backgrounds. The next chapter focuses on the theory that has informed my thinking about identity. I explore how Foucault’s (1991) concept of the ‘discoursing subject’ is helpful for considering how identity is constituted and for the interaction of ‘dimensions’ of identity (Cameron, 2005) such as gender, ethnicity and social class.

2 Theorising and Analysing Identity

Introduction In this chapter, I examine the theories and concepts that have informed my thinking about the notion of identity. My approach is rooted in poststructural discourses and draws on the notion that identity is both ‘contextually situated’ and ‘ideologically informed’ (Bucholtz and Hall, 2005: 605). This underpins a view of identity as located within a particular setting, as emerging in interactions with others, as discursively constituted, as ﬂuid and multifaceted. To relate theory and practice, it involves looking at identity at the levels of the micro and the macro and examining ways in which these are intertwined. I consider how the students’ perspectives and positions emerge from the spoken interaction in the classroom and how these evoke broader dimensions of identity. As discussed in the Introduction, my focus is on gender, which I view as interrelated with other dimensions of identity, such as life stage, occupation, ethnicity and social class. To explore these matters, I draw on Foucault’s (1974, 1991) concept of discourse and the ‘discoursing subject’. This is followed by an examination of ‘subject positions’ (Weedon, 1997) and the notion that while ‘discoursing subjects’ are positioned in discourse they are also able to take up positions in the discourses to which they have access. I consider the issue of ‘identiﬁcation’ and observe how this can be treated as part of adopting an identity position. In the second part of the chapter I examine the theory/practice interface by discussing the data I collected for my study, my approach to the analysis and the use of the ‘communities of practice’ framework (Lave and Wenger, 1991) to relate abstract theories of identity to practice. 27

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Discourse In theorising identity, ‘grand narratives’ (Lyotard, 1984) offer us the possibility of discovering universal truths dislocated from time and place, rather like unknown planets waiting to be discovered. These humanist discourses tempt us with offers of certainty, coherence and fulﬁlment and have traditionally underpinned notions of identity in the language of essentialised biological characteristics. Sociological reworking of these discourses separated the biological from the cultural in a nature/nurture dualism. In Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann’s (1967) seminal text, The Social Construction of Reality, identity was viewed less as a matter of innate characteristics and more as a process involving socialisation in early childhood into socially-constructed ways of being, or learned ‘roles’. These roles were seen in relation to socially constructed categorisations, such as sex, race and social class. According to Berger and Luckmann, primary socialisation radically shapes a child’s sense of self and it is these social inﬂuences, rather than any biological factors, that determine adult identity. In a poststructuralist turn, sociologists such as Stuart Hall (1990, 1992; Hall and Gay, 1996) claim that identity is formed through a person’s positioning in socially constructed discourses. Far from being stable and essentialised, identity is viewed as in a constant state of ﬂux caused by the individual positioning him/herself, and being positioned, within conﬂicting discourses. Underpinning my viewpoint is Foucault’s (1974) concept of discourse as: practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak . . . Discourses are not about objects; they do not identify objects, they constitute them and in the practice of doing so conceal their own invention (p. 49). This conceptualisation goes beyond the standard deﬁnitions given in linguistics of discourse as ‘language above the sentence’ and ‘language in use’ (Cameron, 2001: 15). It moves from a conceptualisation of discourse as ‘descriptive’ to ‘interpretive’ (Sunderland, 2004: 6). The emphasis shifts from a linguistic description of the structure and organisation of texts and the ways in which texts are understood in ‘real-world’ contexts to a social theorist interpretation, or ‘deconstruction’, of how bodies of knowledge, particularly those concerned with human beings and relationships, are constructed, organised and practised. From this latter perspective, Judith Baxter (2003) deﬁnes discourse

Theorising and Analysing Identity 29

as ‘forms of knowledge or powerful sets of assumptions, expectations and explanations, governing mainstream social and cultural practices’ (p. 7). In this sense, discourses can be understood as sets of value-laden statements cohering and binding particular subject matter, providing the basis on which social scientists can make sense of the world (Baxter, 2003; Sunderland, 2004; Weedon, 1997). Foucault claimed that discourses, which he later termed ‘monuments’, emerge at particular moments in time through the exercise of power and exist as ‘what is possible to speak of at a given moment’ (Ramazanoglu, 1993: 19). Discourses are enacted through social practices that act as rules for governing what is and is not considered as ‘normal’ and for constituting the ‘Other’, Georg Hegel’s proposition that we can only deﬁne ourselves through the recognition of others. As a result, there are no neutral discourses, all are politically interested, and we, as subjects of these discourses, act in politically interested ways.

Discoursing subjects In Foucault’s (1991) later work, he develops the concept of a ‘discoursing subject’, which is helpful for considering the relationship between discourse and the individual. Foucault argued that individuals are enmeshed in a web of discourses, or ‘discursive ﬁelds’. These ‘discursive ﬁelds’ consist of discourses related to ﬁelds of enquiry, such as law and medicine, which as Weedon (1997) comments, provide ‘competing ways of giving meaning to the world and of organizing social institutions and processes’ (p. 34). A helpful example of these competitive elements is given by Cameron (2001). She discusses how ‘reality’ on drugs classiﬁed as illegal in the UK is discursively constructed through: a ‘law and order’ discourse, in which drug users are criminalised and deemed to require punishment; a ‘medical’ discourse in which drug users are constituted as suffering from both physical and mental illness and in need of medical treatment; and a ‘recreational’ discourse constructing drug use as pleasurable and relatively harmless, implying that drug users should be freed from the constraints of the law (p. 16). As Cameron argues, while each of these discourses has a particular history and appears distinct, they often become intertwined in public debate and institutional practices (ibid.). The relationship between the discoursing subject and the discursive ﬁeld appears to be symbiotic in that Foucault claimed that human relations primarily reside inside discourse and discourse relies on these relationships to be brought into being and maintained through reproducing

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the practices of the discourse. For Foucault, there was an important connection between ‘practices’ and ‘speaking’. As Cameron (ibid.: 16) comments, in modern societies, social control is frequently exercised through the pronouncements of ‘ “experts” who are licensed to deﬁne, describe and classify things and people’. In the process of undertaking these practices, professionals, such as lawyers, doctors, social workers, police commanders and politicians exercise their institutional power to regulate the behaviour of others and give ‘authority to do things to (people)’ (ibid.). At times, this can result in exceptionally serious consequences. For instance, the Metropolitan Police practice of ‘shoot to kill’ in the case of terrorist threat resulted in the police shooting dead at Stockwell tube station in London, Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian national, who they had mistakenly identiﬁed as a potential suicide bomber. Despite this extreme example, individuals are not completely at the mercy of discourse. Foucault (1991) theorised that the discoursing subject had a ‘place’ and ‘function’ in the discursive ﬁeld together with the ‘possibilities of displacements and functional mutations’. What is important here is that despite not having agency in the Enlightenment sense of being the autonomous author of their worlds, individuals are not simply a product of discourse; they are actively producing themselves through negotiating the ‘ascribed’ or ‘attributed’ identities that they are given by others and the ‘achieved’ or ‘inhabited’ identities with which they perceive themselves (Blommaert, 2006: 238).

Positioning Approaching discourse through an interpretive framework, ‘discoursing subjects’ are viewed as positioned and as positioning themselves in the discourses to which they have access. Weedon (1997) discusses this as a process in which individuals negotiate ‘subject positions’, which she deﬁnes as ‘ways of being an individual’. Rom Harré describes positioning as taking place in interactions between people in which particular positions are adopted to construct stories about the self. The effect of these stories is for individuals to produce a picture of themselves as ‘observably and subjectively coherent participants’ (Davies and Harré, 1999: 37). Context is viewed as crucial for the extent to which others will accept the subject position that an individual adopts. Importantly, individuals can adopt more than one subject position. As Judith Baxter (2003) points out, individuals occupy multiple positions by virtue of access to more than one discourse. This enables individuals to resist,

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subvert and adapt a relatively powerless positioning in one discourse by adopting a more powerful one in another (p. 31). In other words, despite being positioned, individuals can also adopt positions. As I will discuss in Chapters 4–7, the students often countered their positioning in the institution as ‘remedial’ users of English by adopting powerful positions of expert speaker from discourses associated with their peer groups and their family communities. As such, an individual’s positioning is not static and is negotiated on an ongoing basis. According to Foucault, discourses are also notable for their discontinuities and inconsistencies, as is suggested by the etymology of discourse, meaning ‘running in different directions’ (Cavallaro, 2001). This location in worlds ‘running in different directions’ creates a situation in which individuals are often forced to enter the fray of a chaotic social world in which they need to negotiate competing practices and positions. This may not be a particularly comfortable experience, particularly in educational settings, where individuals will encounter exposure to unfamiliar positions and practices that can involve a major change in stance. The potential for discomfort is highlighted in Elinor Ochs’ (1996) deﬁnition of stance as both ‘affective’ and ‘epistemic’. In the former, stance is perceived in relation to ‘a mood, attitude, feeling and disposition, as well as degrees of emotional intensity vis-à-vis some focus of concern’ while in the latter, stance relates to ‘knowledge or belief vis-à-vis some focus of concern, including degrees of certainty of knowledge, degrees of commitment to the truth of propositions, and sources of knowledge’ (p. 410). A change in stance is likely to bring an individual face-to-face with competing subject positions, forcing them to grapple with different ways of thinking and behaving. This process may entail a shift in how an individual imagines themselves in relation to others. While this may be welcomed, it may also be resisted as threatening to a person’s sense of self or as disrupting established social relations. According to Weedon (1997), individuals adopt patterns of behaving and ways of seeing the world through ‘particular ways of thinking, particular discourses’ (p. 25) and through repeatedly performing discursive practices. She comments on the power of these practices to ‘constitute the meaning of the physical body, psychic energy, the emotions and desire as well as conscious subjectivity’ (ibid.: 109). By adopting the term ‘subjectivity’, rather than’ identity’, Weedon draws our attention to affect, the ways in which habitual repetition of discursive practices become bound up with an individual’s psychological state, memories and emotions. A key point here is that individuals are drawn to subject positions and discursive practices which they identify as emotionally

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satisfying and/or fulﬁlling their own interests. These identiﬁcations do not arise in a vacuum but in societies that constitute the world in terms of binary oppositions, in which the most persuasive discourses work by offering discoursing subjects seductive messages of coherence and a meaningful role in life. Deborah Cameron and Don Kulick (2003) elaborate on these psychic dimensions, pointing out their origins in psychoanalysis and their use to discuss the ‘processes through which individuals assimilate an aspect or property of an other, and are, in that process transformed’ (p. 139). In a discussion on language and sexuality, they argue that while identity is still largely conceived of as a conscious ‘claim-staking’ of a particular sociological position, ‘identiﬁcation’ is related to subconscious desires and fears about ourselves in relation to others. Arguing that identiﬁcations are structured by ‘rejections, refusals and disavowals’ as well as ‘afﬁrmations’, Cameron and Kulick comment (ibid.) that: Identiﬁcations are not imagined to constitute a coherent relational system. In other words, the processes that constitute an individual as a certain kind of subject are not harmonious. Rather they are conﬂicting and contradictory, undermining conscious attempts to produce and maintain subjective coherence and consistency. It follows that a person’s claim to a particular identity could be disrupted or contradicted by identiﬁcations s/he is unaware or unconscious of. Drawing on Weedon (1997) and Cameron and Kulick (2003), the constitution of identity does not appear to be a free-for-all, or a trivial and ephemeral affair in which individuals ‘mix and match’ designer identities. Instead, the processes through which identity is constituted appear constrained by the discursive practices to which people have access and are linked to the psychological and emotional feelings that individuals experience, on both a conscious and subconscious level, from constant repetition of these practices. The constitution of identity is also framed within social and historical contexts in which there are substantial material, social and political inequalities. As Weedon (1997) suggests, individuals become the ‘site and subjects of discursive struggle for their identity’ (p. 93), in which subject positions are temporarily inhabited as individuals identify with them. While poststructuralist discourses view the discoursing subject as always in the process of becoming, humanist discourses regard the discoursing subject as possessing an essentialised identity, either through

Theorising and Analysing Identity 33

processes of socialisation or as biological givens. Identity is constructed through endowing individuals with characteristics that enable them to be located in the scheme of things and be made ‘Other’. Reﬂecting on my experiences of schooling in Nottingham in the 1960s and 70s, I am reminded of the difﬁculties for young people of being ‘Other’ and being made to stand out from the crowd. As a result of my Welsh heritage, teachers asked why I couldn’t speak my own language, why my country hadn’t been turned into a ‘car park’, and why I had such a ‘stupid’ name. This ‘Othering’ was a way of negatively emphasising difference in the classroom in a community where most children were from English mining families. I was not. This dichotomising appears highly problematic for the increasingly complex social world in which we live. Consequently, I ﬁnd Foucault’s (1991) concept of the discoursing subject highly persuasive. No single discourse can provide the key to identity. Instead, discourses provide a plurality of frameworks through which Foucault appeals to us to view ourselves as historically variable rather than as essentially the same. Thus far, I have discussed a poststructuralist approach to theorising identity. In order to relate theory to practice, in the following section, I will consider the theory/practice interface and how the theory informed the analysis of the data presented in Chapters 4–7.

The theory/practice interface As discussed in Chapter 1, my study emerged from my experience of teaching multilingual students from WP backgrounds on the academic writing programme. The study was shaped by my desire to relate description to praxis (Stanley, 1990) in that I wanted to reﬂect on practice and to adopt a position of advocacy on behalf of the students. As such, it is informed by models of action research that are common in practitioner research in education (Stringer, 2007). While mindful of the debates, particularly among feminist theorists, concerning the compatibility of poststructuralist research and transformative projects (Balbus, 1987; Fraser and Nicholson, 1990; Moi, 1999; Ramazanoglu, 1993), I am following Baxter’s (2003) argument that it is possible to work for social change through poststructuralist studies provided that these do not become universalising projects and that high levels of reﬂexivity are maintained (p. 36). As Baxter points out, stereotyped notions of poststructuralism as ‘anything goes’ fail to acknowledge its interests in ‘connection, recognition, ﬂexibility, richness, diversity, action and transformation’ within speciﬁc contexts (ibid.). In other

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words, researchers working within poststructuralist paradigms are perfectly able to make value judgements, provided that this is done in the spirit of openness and reﬂexivity. As Baxter argues, to inject feminism into poststructuralist inquiry requires not only ‘deconstructive critique’ but also: a libertarian impulse to release the words of marginalised and minority voices in order to achieve the richness and diversity of textual play that only emerges from the expression of different and competing points of view (p. 40). These principles have guided and shaped my approach to the collection and analysis of the data. I collected data using a variety of methods over a period of two years. During the ﬁrst year of the study, I taught a number of classes on the academic writing programme on a weekly basis. Following each session with the students in my study, I wrote my observations and reﬂections on the classroom proceedings in a notebook. I also audio-recorded interaction among the students when they were engaged in group work, as I considered that this would be helpful for exploring the students’ perceptions of university life, their fellow undergraduates and the language and literacy practices of the academic community. Based on the audiorecordings, I devised a semi-structured questionnaire to explore what seemed to be signiﬁcant issues in more detail. I hoped that the questions would encourage the students to comment further on some of the issues raised during group work. As Louis Cohen, Lawrence Manion and Keith Morrison (2007) point out, open-ended questions can help to illuminate the speciﬁcities of a site-based case study by inviting participants to ‘write what [they want]’ (p. 248). At periodic intervals, I also asked the students to discuss extracts of the data during the classroom sessions, which helped to shape my analysis. After the students had completed the academic writing programme, I conducted two rounds of interviews with willing participants, at the start and end of their second year of studies. I was interested in the representations that would emerge during the interviews and in what ways these would converge and diverge from the classroom data. As Sherryl Kleinman, Barbara Strenross and Marthan McMahon (1994) comment, in qualitative interviews, participants may be more inclined to contradict ‘what everyone thinks’ (p. 43). I wondered whether the participants would make different representations about the language and literacy practices of the academic community and their linguistic repertoires

Theorising and Analysing Identity 35

away from the gaze of their peers and in a one-to-one setting with me. At the end of the students’ second year, I tracked the progress of the students through the institution. As students from WP backgrounds frequently do not make smooth progress, I continued to track until the majority had completed their studies. Throughout, I took a view of the data as constructed in social interactions, which Carolyn Baker (1997) describes as data ‘making’ or ‘generation’ (p. 131). I transcribed the spoken interaction from the classroom following the system of staves used by Coates (1996, 2003) and Cameron (1997). I judged these conventions to be more suitable for the process of analysis, in that I could highlight the interplay between three or more voices and observe the monologues and the infrequent or absent voices. In order to assist readability1 in this book, in most cases I have reproduced extracts of this interaction using a turn-taking format with line numbers. As each interview only involved two people and involved few overlaps, these were transcribed using turn-taking conventions. When quoting the interview data, I have used standardised spelling and punctuation, adding words in square brackets and suspension points where words are omitted. Details of the transcription conventions can be found in the frontmatter of the book. While transcribing spoken interaction from the classroom setting, I noticed that some groups took a more inclusive approach to ensuring that each of its members took part in the proceedings. In contrast, in other groups one or two students dominated the proceedings while other members said little. As my analysis is primarily focused on spoken interaction, I realise that there is a danger of privileging the voices of those who do most of the talking and presenting their experiences and views as representative. One way that I sought to address this at the time was through self-reports in the questionnaire and interviews. This gave students who appeared marginalised in the spoken interaction in the classroom an opportunity to write or talk about themselves. I have also included data from two of these students, Geet and Sita, in Chapters 4–7 to ensure that less popular positions are represented in the analysis.

Spoken interactions In order to apply theoretical concepts of identity to spoken interaction, I start with an examination of the spoken interaction and the written self-reports at the micro level of the classroom to see what the students have to say about their fellow undergraduate peers, academic language and literacy practices and their linguistic repertoires. I do not treat the

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interaction as factual accounts of reality but as representations that the students make to each other and me. I also regard these representations as sensitive to the local setting of the academic writing programme and the individuals involved in the interaction. I adopt an ethnographic perspective to focus on the ‘participants’ categories’, discussed by Benwell and Stokoe (2006) as the preferred practice of ethnomethodology (p. 57), and look for identity categories that are overtly referred to during the interaction. I relate the micro to the macro through interpreting how the spoken interactions imply particular subject positions and suggest what attraction these positions may hold for the students. In making these inferences I draw on Ochs’ (1996) notion of ‘indexical valence’, summarised by Rampton (2006) as: the complex associative networks that underpin our expectations that particular kinds of language will be used by particular kinds of person doing particular kinds of thing in particular types of situation (p. 303). Here I am interested in broader dimensions of identity, particularly gender, and take a performativity perspective. Benwell and Stokoe argue that this depends on ‘analysts’ categories’ and on ‘ analysts’ assumptions about what the speakers are doing rather than on what the speakers display to each other as relevant to their conversational business’ (ibid.). This ‘participant/analyst’ distinction is not as clear-cut as it seems, however, as I occupy both the position of a participant and an analyst in the data. As mentioned, much of the analysis is informed by my participant observations as the teacher and by the students’ observations on extracts of the data during classroom activities. Rampton (2006) points out that speakers give clues to decoding their meaning to their interlocutors. These clues assist in distinguishing between what an interaction ‘potentially indexes’ and what it ‘actually indexes in a particular instance of use’ (Ochs 1996: 418). Relating this to accent stylisation, Rampton notes how adopting a stylised, or ‘exaggerated and non-routine’ (p. 305), accent can be highly evocative of a ‘rather particular scene, social type or persona’ in certain situations but only suggests a ‘subtle social coloration or tincture’ in others (p. 305). In the case of the latter, Rampton warns against heavy-handed interpretations of the interaction. One way I have exercised caution is by adopting a more holistic approach to the analysis, in which I considered the spoken interaction in combination with paralinguistic and nonverbal data. By focusing on language in isolation, which is a tendency

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when analysing transcriptions of audio-recorded data, there is a danger of ‘disembodying’ participants, removing their voices from the setting and treating the voice as a separable feature for analysis, rather than as part of the ‘whole person’ acting within the situation and in relation to others. As Carrie Paechter (2006) argues, ‘bodies matter’ in analysis; she calls for researchers to regard their participants as ‘embodied beings, whose bodies are deeply implicated in their identity, behaviour and gender/race/class understandings and performances’ (pp. 132–3). In practice, this has meant looking at the spoken interaction and written self-reports in combination with my observations of the proceedings as the classroom teacher.

Communities of practice To contextualise the analysis, I have used a community of practice framework. Lave and Wenger (1991) deﬁne a community of practice (CofP) as a ‘set of relations among persons, activity, and world, over time and in relation with other tangential and overlapping communities of practice’ (p. 98). According to Lave and Wenger, CofP are located in particular social and historical contexts and have both established members, referred to as ‘old-timers’, who are experts in community practices, and ‘newcomers’, new entrants to the community who are learning its practices. Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (2003) extend the CofP concept to any group that repeatedly meets to engage in a particular activity and/or pursue common interests. Through participating in common enterprises, shared knowledge, beliefs and ways of talking emerge which are oriented to discourses prevalent in wider society. As Eckert and McConnell-Ginet comment, ‘the community of practice is the level of social organization at which people experience the social order on a personal and day-to-day basis, and at which they jointly make sense of that order’ (p. 58). From an early age, individuals can be regarded as participating in a range of communities of practice, through which they are exposed to a range of perspectives and practices. Through participating in the practices of these communities, individuals repeatedly adopt particular positions from which to speak and view the world. At the very least, this identity work takes place within the immediate and extended community of the family, within communities of schooled adults and within communities of peers, in and out of educational settings. Through participating in a range of CofP over time, I take the view that individuals develop a sense of ‘who they are’, their identity and

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place within the social order; within these sites, dimensions of identity are continuously interacting and being constituted. While Lave and Wenger (1991) focus on the individual’s identity inside a community, Eckert and McConnell-Ginet discuss the way in which identity is constituted both within and across communities. As they argue (2003: 58): some of these (communities of practice) may be more central to her construction of a self, some more peripheral, and she forges an identity in the process of balancing the self she is constructing across these communities of practice. This identity is inseparable from her participation in communities of practice, and each of these communities of practice can be deﬁned only in terms of the interplay of the identities being constructed within it. In considering the construction of identity, the students were experiencing a crucial period of their lives as newcomers to higher education. Despite Lave and Wenger’s (1991) claim that the ‘development of identity is central to the careers of newcomers in communities of practice’ (p. 115), there has been little focus on this on academic writing programmes and approaches to student writing in higher education. Instead, as will be discussed in Chapter 3, much has been made of the skills that newcomers need to acquire. In my study, a CofP framework was helpful for considering ways in which the students attempted to ‘balance the self’ across their peer group, academic and family communities. As the students were in the process of transition into higher education, it also facilitated an account at the micro level of ways in which as ‘newcomers’ to the academic community, they ‘[apprenticed] themselves to [and resisted] the norms of the community “old timers” ’ (Bergvall, 1999: 279). It was less productive for considering the interaction at the macro level and for considering how dimensions of identity, particularly gender, were evoked in the proceedings. As shall be discussed in Chapters 4–7, studies of gender in areas such as cultural studies and sociology (e.g. Benwell, 2003b; Connell, 1995, 2000; Talbot, 1995, 1998; Whelehan, 2000) and education (e.g. Frosh, Phoenix and Pattman, 2002; Jackson, 2006) were helpful for examining broader dimensions of identity.

Conclusion In this chapter I have examined identity through Foucault’s (1991) concept of discourse and the discoursing subject, noting how the

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discoursing subject is always in the process of becoming and does not have a ﬁxed and essentialised identity. I have discussed how discoursing subjects are both positioned and take up subject positions, drawing on Baxter’s (2003) argument that individuals occupy multiple positions in the discourses to which they have access. I have argued that while individuals do not have agency in the Enlightenment sense of the word, neither are they completely at the mercy of discursive rules and regulations. I have noted how individuals are drawn to positions with which they identify, either on an emotional level or as fulﬁlling their interests, and regarded identiﬁcation as tied up with identity. In order to relate theory to practice, I have approached the data as discourse. Here I start by examining the perspectives of the students in the spoken interaction, from which I infer how the students are making themselves ‘culturally recognizable’ (Butler, 1990) as gendered beings. Finally, I have noted how a CofP framework has been a useful tool for contextualising the data.

3 Approaches to Academic Writing

Introduction Undergraduate students need to develop their expertise in the language and literacy practices of the academic community not only for the function of gaining a degree, but also to be able to participate fully in institutional life. If we are serious about enabling non-elite multilingual students to participate in higher education, to make sense of disciplinary knowledge, to take part in debate and critical thinking, it seems crucial that the development of expertise in the language and literacy practices of the academic community is supported. Thought is also needed about the ways in which approaches to the teaching of academic language and literacy practices position students within higher education and whether this positioning is conducive to students adopting more scholarly positions and a sense of belonging in the academic community. To explore this issue, I examine three common discourses – skills, socialisation and literacies – that inform approaches to student writing in higher education. I consider ways in which students are positioned in these discourses and the implications of these ascribed identity positions for ﬁrst-year BME students from WP backgrounds. I draw on the work of Mary Lea and Brian Street (2000) to structure this discussion. Lea and Street categorise approaches to academic writing as ‘study skills’, ‘academic socialization’ and ‘academic literacies’. Their description is suggestive of a Russian doll in that study skills rests inside academic socialisation while both have been encapsulated by academic literacies. Despite this encapsulation, versions of each model can exist independently, although there is likely to be some similarity in teaching and learning activities across the models. According to Lea and Street, 40

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however, activities ‘(take) on an entirely different meaning if the context is solely that of study skills, if the process is seen as part of academic socialization, or if it is viewed more broadly as an aspect of the whole institutional and epistemological context’ (ibid.: 33). Lea and Street put forward ‘academic literacies’ as the preferable approach to academic writing in higher education, commenting that it embraces the others in a ‘more encompassing understanding of the nature of student writing within institutional practices, power relations and identities’ (ibid.). While accepting this, strategies based on academic literacies rarely seem to be adopted as the norm at institutional level. In the context of WP, there has been more of a focus on approaching student writing in terms of skills and socialisation. In this chapter I will explore these approaches in relation to multilingual students from WP backgrounds. Drawing on Lave and Wenger’s (1991) claim that the ‘development of identity is central to the careers of newcomers in communities of practice’ (p. 115, italics added), I argue that approaches to student writing informed by literacies are more sensitive to the identities of these students than those based on skills or socialisation. More thought is needed, however, about how to distinguish practices underpinned by literacies from those of academic socialisation, particularly when working in contexts of linguistic and cultural diversity.

Skills Chapter 1 observed how tertiary education has become increasingly intertwined with the world of business and economics and concerned with educating and training the workforce within a globalised economy. Within this context, there is increasing pressure on academic staff to regard students as consumers of a modularised product providing training for the world of work and much less focus on education as a process that contributes to the development of the ‘intellectual self through learning’ (Burke, 2002). Gordon Graham (2002) explores this issue through Newman’s (1982) conceptualisation of ‘philosophical’ and ‘mechanical’ approaches to education. While an educational approach based in the ‘philosophical’ reﬂects on ideas in an open-ended process, never reaching any absolute conclusions, an approach embedded in the ‘mechanical’ concerns itself with ‘ hard facts’ which can be ‘securely acted upon’ (p. 39). Discourses on skills are closely aligned to the ‘mechanical’ with their emphasis on setting out of a ‘packaged range of “skills” goods’ for students, viewed as consumers, to acquire as ‘facts’ (King, 2001).

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George Ritzer’s (1996, 1998) concept of ‘McDonaldization’ is helpful in understanding skills’ discourses. Ritzer (1996) uses this term to refer to the ‘process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as of the rest of the world’ (p. 1). According to Ritzer (1998), as tertiary institutions undergo ‘McDonaldization’, they come to represent one ‘component of the consumer society’, as opposed to largely self-governing institutions. This ‘component’ is seen as comprising one activity among many within a student’s life, rather than a student’s central or sole focus. This was the case at Millennium, where many students had to balance study, paid employment and family responsibilities, such as caring for children or elderly relatives. Ritzer goes on to argue that as ‘McDonaldization’ progresses, higher education institutions come to represent ‘McUniversities’, in which courses catering for the demands of consumer society replace those based on foundational knowledge determined by scholarly activity. In these situations, there is a heavy emphasis on skills and skilling students for the workforce. When translated into practice, skills-based approaches to student writing are frequently reductive in character. Literacy is regarded as ‘singular and autonomous’ (Street, 2000) and implicitly assumed to be monolingual. It is also presented as ‘naturalised’ (Fairclough, 1992), as a straightforward term that is uncritically accepted. Students are talked about in terms of those who ‘can’ write and those who ‘cannot’ write. This literate/illiterate dualism is not helpful in the undergraduate context, as clearly there are no illiterate students in higher education, despite tales to the contrary. This dichotomy is not able to capture the range of student expertise in literacy practices, particularly in multilingual settings, and it disregards expertise that students have acquired in other CofP, including practices related to family and community life. Abbas (2007) points out the way in which students who have high levels of expertise in academic language are perceived to be more intelligent, commenting that those who are able to ‘ “speak the language” of the educational system’ are frequently perceived as ‘more gifted’ (p. 87) while those who have less expertise in academic language are considered to be ‘less gifted’. Skills-based approaches to academic writing do little to counter these perceptions. For non-elite multilingual students with lower levels of expertise in academic language, there is only the focus on what they cannot do. There is no recognition of the linguistic resources that these students bring with them or how these could be used to build bridges between what is known and what is to be learned. This not only contributes to a climate of low expectations, but

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also obscures, if not hinders, the potential for academic and intellectual development. Skills-based approaches are often problematic as they position students in a success/failure dichotomy. Students who experience difﬁculties with their written work are constructed as ‘failing’ and having a ‘deﬁcit’ that needs to be ‘ﬁxed’. While Lea and Street (2000) remark that on study skills programmes it is problems with learning that are ‘treated as a kind of pathology’ (p. 34), I argue that it is the student positioned in discourse who is pathologised and constructed as ‘Other’. This positioning as ‘incompetent’, ‘remedial’ and ‘failing’ is problematic for students to negotiate and can encourage acts of resistance, as studies in educational settings have consistently illustrated (Mac an Ghaill, 1994). In approaches to student writing informed by skills, literacy tends to be viewed as a ‘set of atomised skills which students have to learn’ (Lea and Street, 2000: 34). This often results in fragmented and de-contextualised pedagogy separating language from its contexts of use. Students receive discrete sessions on compiling a bibliography, referencing conventions, presentation skills and de-contextualised aspects of writing, such as grammar, spelling and punctuation. These sessions not only may bear little relation to each other, but may also be presented in a de-contextualised format with no connection to coursework, the shaping of ideas, or how ideas are commonly articulated in the subject area. This is often exacerbated by the modularised system, which encourages lecturers to work in isolation on the modules that they teach rather than in collaboration across a range of subjects. Related to this atomised view of literacy is the emphasis on transferability rather than ‘discipline-speciﬁcity’ (Baynham, 2000). Students can be given misleading advice concerning the way in which knowledge is constructed in their subjects. A classic example of this is the debate on the use of the ﬁrst person within academic writing. Students are frequently informed that in order to be objective, they should hide themselves within their work through the use of passives, nominalisations and the third person. However, as Phyllis Crème and Mary Lea (2003) note, there are differences in practice over the use of the ﬁrst person, not only between disciplines, but also between the academics within a discipline. The implication of this is that students need to learn to negotiate a diversity of practices rather rely on generic formulas. Skills-based programmes can also encourage students to adopt a ‘surface’ approach to learning (Marton and Saljo, 1976a,b) and do little to assist students with improving their ability to cope with complex language, ideas and arguments. Many of the students in my study

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had received large doses of study skills on vocational courses in tertiary education that seemed to have encouraged the use of texts with a straightforward construction of the world over texts with a more complex view of knowledge. These texts could be read quickly and made frequent use of summaries of key ‘facts’ presented in bullet points. While these text types may be a useful starting place, students also need to be able to work with more linguistically dense literature. Many of the students appeared to have received little exposure prior to higher education either to working with a variety of academic sources, or to developing and elaborating their own ideas and understanding through extended reading and writing. This was illustrated by Tahir, one of the male participants discussed in Chapters 4 and 6, who claimed that he had managed to gain a distinction for his vocational qualiﬁcations with the aid of one introductory textbook on business from which he copied large chunks for each assignment. Tahir was well aware of the barrenness of this form of training for the information society, which, in my view, fosters surface approaches to learning as the norm and offers little support for intellectual development within a formalised educational setting. It seems that skills-based approaches to writing mitigate against the engagement of students in both intensive and extensive reading of a wide variety of texts for the purpose of intellectual development. Instead, reading seems to be reduced to the functional goal of achieving particular tasks. Here, Michael Halliday (1996) seems pertinent. He argues that individuals need not only to be able to engage effectively in the discourses of the information society, but also to be able to resist their ‘anti-semantic, anti-democratic “technologizing” elements through critical awareness of the way in which these elements operate’ (p. 357). One way in which this can be addressed is through curriculum design that facilitates critical reading of a wide range of texts, including those that reﬂect the interests and needs of multilingual students. Approaches to student writing informed by skills rarely, if ever, address critical reading or pay attention to using texts that reﬂect the cultural and linguistic diversity of the students’ lives.

Socialisation While skills-based approaches to student writing have been shaped by the practices of neoliberal discourses, notions of socialisation appear more ﬁrmly embedded in traditional liberal discourses of university education. As Graham (2002) argues, these have focused on ‘vocational training’ for the professional classes, such as the legal and medical

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professions and the civil service, and ‘education for its own sake’, in the form of the liberal arts, which acts as a ‘civilising’ force on society. According to Robert Grant (2002), this traditional form of university education is not simply an ‘ingredient’ of a civilised society, but is ‘what the good society actually consists in’ (pp. 51–2). In these more traditional discourses, universities are constituted as highly specialised and valued institutions, with each attempting to ‘fulﬁl a distinctive purpose’ (Graham, 2002: 90). This narrative paints somewhat romanticised portraits of collegiality, self-governance and independence from political intervention and is underpinned by liberal discourses constituting academic subjects as comprised largely of ‘theoretical, “liberal” or philosophical components’ (Grant, 2002: 58). In this scenario students are positioned as undergoing a form of initiation into an academic discipline in which they are immersed into a more or less closeted world. This world becomes the central focus of their lives while the university, as a social institution, engages in the process of ‘moulding’ the future professional classes, the social elite and intellectuals. Roger Scruton (2002) typiﬁes more extreme versions of this ‘ivory tower’: Conﬁne learning and teaching within a sacred precinct, shut it off from the world, so that it can move by its own force towards futile knowledge, and you will produce the whole and healthy mind, the mind able to adapt, to focus and to comprehend, in all changing circumstances of the world outside. Let that outside world into the classroom, however, and the result is an ossiﬁcation of the mental powers, a blind addiction to relevance, which renders the mind incapable of dealing with any situation that has not appeared in the pages of a textbook. Relevance is the enemy of knowledge, and when universities make relevance their standard, they betray their mission. Then nothing remains, save the new form of community to which they are devoted – the community of equals, which none of us wants (p. 84). I suggest that approaches to student writing informed by socialisation can be seen within this traditional imagining of university education. In socialisation discourses, Lea and Street (2000) point out that academic staff are constructed as ‘[inculcating] students into a new “culture”, that of the academy’ through orienting students in the processes of learning and interpreting learning activities (p. 34). Rather than approaching these learning activities as discrete skills, Lea and Street observe that

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more emphasis is placed on notions of ‘ “deep”, “surface” and “strategic” approaches to learning’ (ibid.: 34–5). Success appears to rest in the capacity of the individual to be socialised into the practices of a discourse community of an academic discipline and to attain membership of an ‘academic club’. In order to apply the discourse of socialisation to higher education, it is necessary to have some conceptions concerning the nature of the academic community and its practices. Within the ﬁeld of English for academic purposes (EAP), John Swales (1990) has been inﬂuential in this respect. He argues that members of academic communities belong to disciplinary ‘discourse communities’ that share common criteria, such as common goals, methods of giving information and feedback, recognisable methods or genres for organising and structuring written and oral communication and specialised vocabulary and terminology (pp. 24–7). There has been a shift from the notion of a uniﬁed discourse community in higher education to the idea that there are a number of disciplinary discourse communities. Some of these communities may overlap but each will have their own specialised language and literacy practices. Critical Discourse Analysis has developed the concept of genre beyond the structure and organisation of texts to a ‘socially ratiﬁed way of using language in connection with a particular type of social activity’ (Fairclough, 1995: 14). As such, genres are regarded as reﬂecting the values of social and ideological discourses, values which Gunter Kress (1994) claims are reproduced through the ‘learning of forms, demands and potentialities of different genres’ (p. 11). As students learn to reproduce genre conventions, they can be regarded as undergoing a process of acculturation into the values of their academic discourse community, including its ways of viewing and representing the world. Within approaches to writing based on socialisation into the academic community, literacy can therefore be thought of as not only ‘having mastery of a written language’ through the effective use of ‘lexicogrammatical patterns . . . associated with written text’ (Halliday 1996: 349), but also the ‘construction of an “objectiﬁed” world through the grammar of the written language’ (ibid.: 353–4). As Halliday remarks, the construction of this world is not viewed as a neutral activity, but is ideologically motivated. While approaches to writing informed by socialisation view literacy as a more complex concept, similar to approaches based on skills, these are still monolingual in outlook, design and delivery. There is a wealth of EAP materials, for example, for teaching academic writing to international students (e.g. Bailey, 2006; Jordan, 1999; Oshima and Hogue,

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2005). However, these pay little attention to the linguistic or cultural resources of bi/multilingual international students, or consider how these could be used as a bridge into academic language and literacy practices. As such, approaches to academic writing informed by socialisation still start with what students lack rather than what they possess. Socialisation-based approaches to student writing also often represent discourse communities as clearly deﬁnable, with ﬁxed sets of practices that can be learned. However, as Paul Prior (1998) and others have suggested, communities are not homogeneous and static but heterogeneous and ﬂuid. Consequently, the academic community norms and practices will depend in large measure on the views of its staff, the interplay between staff and students and the CofP’s position within institutional power relations. Two examples serve to illustrate this. Firstly, my own experience of writing an undergraduate dissertation (Preece, 1982) demonstrates that some academic communities take a much more relaxed attitude than others to the suitability of certain topics and the ways of writing about them. In my case, my choice of subject marginalised me within a traditional department. I was left in no doubt that my choice of topic was considered to be unsuitable. In a bid to ensure conformity, I was told that no one could or would tutor me and that if I persisted I would be required to work unsupervised and be liable to failure. It strikes me that this attitude would now be unthinkable, as the Department has evolved, the academic staff have changed and with them notions of what constitutes legitimate academic knowledge within the ﬁeld. Secondly, the increasing use of reﬂective writing in assessment highlights conﬂicting practices concerning ‘objectivity’. While assessing reﬂective pieces of writing, Molly Bellamy and Carol Costley (2000) note disagreements between those who consider that there is no place for displays of emotion in academic writing and those who regard these displays as part and parcel of reﬂection. As these examples illustrate, the seemingly immutable impression that is given of the practices of discourse communities is open to challenge. Similarly to approaches based on skills, those informed by socialisation are also lacking in sensitivity towards students. Students are expected to adapt to the norms of the host academic community and little attention is given to the affective difﬁculties that may be experienced when switching from heritage and vernacular varieties of language to the standardised language and literacy practices of the academic community. As the process is largely unidirectional, student perspectives and interests are often marginalised and there is little space for these to be explored as part of the curriculum. Burke (2002) discusses this in

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relation to the difﬁculties experienced by Access students.1 She argues that a traditional/ non-traditional student dichotomy positions Access students outside the academic realm and marginalises their ways of seeing the world within higher education. Her research suggests that these students frequently position themselves as ‘practical’ in contrast to ‘intellectual’, and exhibit a high degree of anxiety over participation in activities perceived as ‘intellectual’, which may originate in an internalisation of inferiority and ‘never [getting] it right’. Students who are distanced from the norms and practices of the academic community because of their ethnolinguistic and class backgrounds ﬁnd that their knowledge, experience and know-how are frequently marginalised. It seems likely that the relative accumulation of cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1986) will contribute to students’ identiﬁcation with the language and literacy practices of the academic community and to the experience of marginalisation. Drawing on Bourdieu’s (1977) notion of a ‘legitimate speaker’, students who are marginalised often have greater difﬁculty in adopting ‘subject/speaker positions’ (Baxter, 2003: 33) in institutional settings and in getting their ideas taken seriously. According to Bourdieu, there are a number of conditions for an utterance to be regarded as legitimate in the setting. The utterance must originate from an ‘authorised’ speaker using ‘appropriate’ language in a ‘suitable’ setting with an ‘authorised’ audience. Speakers who break these conventions are regarded as ‘impostors’ and their contributions are frequently ignored. Bourdieu (1984) argues that education reproduces these socially constructed notions of ‘authorised speech’ which helps to reinforce hegemonic power relations: The authorized speech of status-generated competence, a powerful speech which helps to create what it says, is answered by the silence of an equally status-linked incompetence, which is experienced as technical incapacity and leaves no choice but delegation – a misrecognized dispossession of the less competent by the more competent, of women by men, of the less-educated by the more-educated, by those who “do not know to speak” by those who “speak well” (pp. 413–14). Experiences of marginalisation may also be exacerbated by perceptions of socialisation into the academic community as a form of apprenticeship (Berkenkotter and Huckin, 1995; Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998; Horowitz, 1086a,b; Swales, 1990). This concept of apprenticeship has roots in the thirteenth-century Western European craft

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guilds, in which apprentices were trained by master craftsmen (sic). The conceptualisation of learning as a form of apprenticeship, in which novices are guided by expert knowers, positions academic staff and students in an asymmetrical relationship. Lecturers are positioned as the ‘masters’ and ‘pure purveyors’ of the discipline, responsible for moulding students through the transmission of expert and superior knowledge. Their novice students, on the other hand, are positioned as ‘passive’ and ‘compliant’ (Prior, 1998); they are expected to ‘be moulded’ in this unidirectional process. In practice, if there are no or infrequent attempts to build bridges between the language and literacy practices of non-elite multilingual students and those of the academic community, or to explore subject knowledge from these students’ perspectives, it seems likely to contribute to a climate in which non-elite students experience high levels of alienation and anxiety and ﬁnd themselves listening to lecturers ‘talking about people like (them)’(Bowl, 2003). In this situation, approaches to student writing based on socialisation appear reminiscent of Paulo Freire’s (1971) ‘banking’ approach to education in which students receive, ﬁle and store teachers’ ‘deposits’ and are deﬁned as ‘well educated’ if they can reproduce these.

Literacies To encourage feelings of belonging and inclusion, I take the view that the linguistic and cultural diversity of BME students needs to be approached as a resource, rather than a problem. Approaches to student writing informed by literacies seems more likely to assist in this matter than approaches based on skills and socialisation. Literacies contest the notions of homogeneous discourse and academic communities, the transparency of language and the construct of a simple all-encompassing monolingual literacy. This has led to both a pluralising of literacy to literacies and a range of literacies’ descriptors, such as ‘multiple’ (Street, 1984), ‘academic’ (Lea and Street, 2000), ‘local’ (Barton and Hamilton, 1998), ‘multilingual’ (Martin-Jones and Jones, 2000), ‘social’ (Street, 1995), ‘city’ (Gregory and Williams, 2000) and ‘multi’, (Cope and Kalantzis, 2000), in an attempt to deﬁne literacy in a way which illustrates both its heterogeneity and the settings with which it is associated. Two important concepts within this literature are ‘literacy events’ and ‘literacy practices’. Many writers draw on Shirley Brice Heath’s (1982) deﬁnition of a literacy event as ‘any occasion in which a piece of writing is integral to the nature of the participants’ interactions and their

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interpretative processes’ (p. 93), or as David Barton and Mary Hamilton (1998) comment, as activities in which ‘literacy has a role’ through written texts (p. 7). These events are important in the sense that they are situated in particular settings and are usually observable. While events are observable, Barton and Hamilton note that the literacy practices associated with them are more nebulous as they involve ‘values, attitudes, feelings and social relationships’ (p. 6). These practices are broadly deﬁned by Street (2000) as the ‘broader cultural conception of particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing in cultural contexts’ (p. 22). Through this pluralising of literacies and literacy practices, the literacy/illiteracy dualism is contested, while ethnographic studies (e.g. Martin-Jones and Jones, 2000) have also sought to document literacy practices in multilingual settings. Drawing on this literature, literacy practices can be regarded as emerging from literacy events that are situated in a particular CofP. While there may be signiﬁcant overlaps between the language and literacy practices of different communities, there may also be signiﬁcant differences which make identiﬁcation difﬁcult for newcomers to a community. Non-elite multilingual students may face conﬂicts while switching into academic language and literacy practices, particularly when these are in marked contrast to those of their peers and family members. Switching into these elite practices may present dilemmas that are not easily solvable. First-year undergraduate students are also concerned with developing new social networks with their fellow students. For many of the British-born students in my study, this involved displaying afﬁliation to the local variety of vernacular English and showing more ambivalence towards the language practices of their families and the academic community. Rampton (2006) gives an account of ways in which British-born multilingual school pupils use accent stylisations to negotiate their positioning in the ‘high-low class binary’ of the British education system. According to Rampton, the students associated Cockney with ‘vigour, passion and bodily laxity’ whereas ‘posh’ was linked with ‘physical weakness, social distance, constraint and sexual inhibition’ (p. 342). While the adolescents in his study were aware that conforming to Standard English was likely to improve their prospects in the education system, they still viewed this as ‘posh’ and ‘Other’ to the youthful and culturally hybrid identity positions that they associated with ‘slang’. The appearance of the ‘posh/ slang’ dichotomy among university students suggests the transference of peer group practices from school to higher education. As will be discussed in later chapters, it also indicates the

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salience of this dichotomy for non-elite BME students during the process of transition into the academic community. Approaches to student writing inﬂuenced by literacies should recognise the potential of language and literacy practices to raise conﬂicting subjectivities and should take a more sensitive stance towards students. As Lea and Street (2000) argue, students need to develop the capability of ‘(handling) the social meanings and identities’ of conﬂicting literacy practices. Vivian Zamel and Ruth Spack (1998) localise this to the level of individual classrooms and argue that by experiencing classrooms across the curriculum students are required to become ‘ﬂuent in multiple ways of reading and writing . . . to become conversant in a variety of academic literacies’ (pp. ix–x). The view of students as deﬁcient is contested; instead, it is accepted that students may have high levels of expertise in language and literacy practices that are not generally recognised in higher education. Rather than stigmatising students, approaches to writing informed by literacies aim to enlarge students’ linguistic repertoires and support them in switching according to the setting. More attention is focused on diversity, conﬂict and uncertainty, as the student’s world becomes reconstructed through engaging with the discursive practices of higher education. Thus far, I have argued that approaches to student writing informed by discourses on literacies are more sensitive towards learner identities than those based on skills and socialisation. While there is a more positive stance towards the local and everyday language and literacy practices of students, there is less clarity about curriculum content, design and delivery. Indeed, Lea and Street (2000) suggest that teaching and learning activities may be similar regardless of whether an approach is informed by models of skills, socialisation or literacies. They illustrate this with reference to writing introductions and conclusions to an essay, arguing that this activity ‘takes on an entirely different meaning’ dependent on which approach is taken. While the activity may have a different meaning in the mind of the teacher, if s/he is conscious of underlying philosophies of education, it is not clear how this is translated by the teacher to the students. Neither is it clear how the learning experiences for students in writing programmes inﬂuenced by literacies are qualitatively different from those in more traditional English for Academic Purposes classrooms, underpinned by notions of acculturation into the academic community. Catherine Wallace’s (2002) critique of literacies is helpful here. She argues that while literacies studies have been powerful in raising consciousness of the literacy practices of minority communities within

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informal settings, there has been a tendency to take a ‘romantic overcelebratory’ view of these practices. This has resulted in an opposition between local vernacular literacies, viewed as more ‘authentic’ and creative, and schooled literacy, which has become the ‘Other’ through its depiction as ‘autonomous’ (Street, 1984), or ‘technicist and skills-based’ (Wallace, 2002). Wallace challenges this dichotomy, arguing that it is perfectly possible for home-based literacy practices to be skill-based and mechanistic and for school ones to be creative. Following Wallace’s argument, the job of English language educators is therefore to ‘acknowledge the differences, to build bridges between the domains of school and everyday life, but not necessarily by privileging the primary literacies of learners nor by taking a narrow view of school literacy as skills-based’ (p. 103). This would seem to be helpful for developing approaches to student writing in higher education in which thought is given to ways in which the cultural and linguistic resources of non-elite BME students can be used to build bridges with the language and literacy practices of the academic community. Here I include vernacular and world varieties of English as well as heritage and community languages. This is an issue to which I will return in the ﬁnal chapter.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have examined what informs three common approaches to academic writing in higher education. I have argued that on programmes underpinned by skills discourses, students are required to identify with dualisms that position them as ‘Other’. Firstly, they are categorised as ‘deﬁcient’, rather than competent, English language users. Secondly, through separating language from meaningful contexts of use within the discipline, a content/language dualism is established which constructs language in a servicing role. Rather than take a mainstream content module connected with their discipline of study, students are required to take skills modules positioned as both remedial and inferior to the main business of the discipline. Much of the content of skillsbased courses is reductive and does not encourage the development of critical thinking or debate. It is also questionable whether much of what is learned is transferable to other contexts. Within the Australian context, Halliday (1996) discusses the ongoing controversy over the extent to which students should gain mastery of academic literacy practices, portraying these in terms of an enabling/constraining dichotomy. I suggest that this enabling/constraining relationship can also be viewed as symbiotic. In

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other words, the constraints imposed by learning academic language and literacy practices can enable ﬁrst-year undergraduate students by providing frameworks for constructing meaning as they are developing their expertise. As their knowledge and expertise develops, this should increase their prospects of participating more effectively in academic discourse and of positioning themselves/ being positioned as ‘legitimate speakers’ (Bourdieu, 1977) in the academic community. This needs to be undertaken with sensitivity towards the identity positions with which non-elite students are comfortable and with the aim of helping these students to adopt scholarly positions. It is also important to ensure that students are not simply being taught to reproduce the norms of dominant discourses, rather than critique them. While Lea and Street (2000) claim that academic literacies have been informed by Critical Discourse Analysis as well as the New Literacy Studies, there is a need to ensure a ‘critical turn’, particularly in the face of modernising discourses on skills and the growing ‘corporatisation of university life’ (Giroux, 2004: 17). As discussed in Chapter 1, WP has roots in social justice and the critical pedagogy discourses espoused by Giroux (1989) and Freire (1971). These discourses are concerned with education as a site of emancipation of individuals and groups. Drawing on these discourses, the learning of the language and literacy practices of the academic community is not simply a tool for successful progression and retention, or a tool for employability. It is envisaged as assisting students in making the transition into higher education and in adopting the positions of ‘subject/speaker’ (Baxter, 2003) and ‘legitimate speaker’ (Bourdieu, 1977) within an institutional setting. Although expertise in language is not the only factor in claiming an authoritative position, I would argue that it is certainly a signiﬁcant one. Through developing expertise and understanding of the language and literacy practices of higher education, students are better placed to undertake critical reﬂection on the norms of academic communities, subvert their reproduction and effect change. Here, I am following Halliday (1996) in his assertion that it is ‘dangerously quixotic’ to attempt to effect change without some level of expertise in the language of the discourse (p. 367). Finally, we rely on students, such as the BME students in my study, as future graduates, and as society’s future, to be able to participate in wider global discourses, hopefully as ‘critical citizens of the world’ (Giroux, 2004: 17). While English remains hegemonic at institutional level across much of the world, expertise in institutional language and literacy practices will help to facilitate access to institutions and assist multilingual students from WP backgrounds

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in adopting public ‘subject/speaker positions’ (Baxter, 2003) whether in the workplace, in representing their local communities, or more broadly in national and global affairs. In the ﬁrst part of this book, I have been concerned with introducing the main concepts and contextual information for my study. In the second part of the book, I turn to the analysis of the data. In Chapters 4–5, I examine spoken interaction in the classroom and how this evokes gender as a dimension of the students’ identities. In Chapters 6–7, I look at the students’ self-reports in the questionnaire and interview data and compare this with the interactions among peers. In the concluding chapter, I summarise the ﬁndings of the study and suggest ways in which inclusion might be enhanced in contexts of cultural and linguistic diversity in higher education.

4 Multilingual Masculinities in the Classroom

Introduction In the next two chapters my aim is to explore what the spoken interaction among peers in the classroom can tell us about the identity positions that the students both inhabit and are ascribed. In this chapter, I examine the interactions of the male students, analysing their perceptions of their fellow undergraduates, the language and literacy practices of the academic community and their linguistic repertoires in relation to the questions for my study. In this and the next chapter I start with the premise that heritage languages, vernacular and standardised varieties of English invoke different identity positions and that these emerge in interaction. I view the interaction in the classroom as ‘artfully designed’ to project a particular persona with peers (Cameron, 2003). I argue that when subjected to the gaze of their male peers, much of the talk seems concerned with what the male students perceive as ‘ “acceptable” maleness’ (Coates, 2003: 196), or ‘hegemonic masculinity’ (Connell, 1995), which many of them associate with doing being one of the lads. Drawing on Imelda Whelehan (2000), I use ‘laddishness’ to refer to practices that have become widely associated with forms of adolescent male behaviour embedded in discourses of popular culture, particularly practices that value having a laugh, acting cool and appearing tough. As Carolyn Jackson (2006) points out, ‘lad’ is a slippery term and the practices that denote laddishness vary across time and space. Within education contexts, laddishness appears closely interlinked with efforts to develop and maintain popularity with peers and to resist institutional authority, particularly when students are positioned as in need of remediation. Educational studies suggest that laddishness is performed through practices such as ‘hanging out’, effortlessly looking 55

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‘cool’, ‘having a laugh’, ‘being funny’, avoiding displays of bookishness, showing little interest in academic work, giving the appearance of putting little effort into studying, messing about, attempting to get away with bad behaviour in the classroom, acting tough, avoiding looking stupid or incompetent, participating in witty repartee, playing sport, particularly football, and wearing the ‘right’ clothes (Frosh et al., 2002; Jackson, 2006; Mac an Ghaill, 1994). Jackson (2006) comments that some of these practices may be more Prevalent than others in different educational settings. All were evident to some degree in the linguistic and non-linguistic data in my study. For many of the male students, particularly those on the boundaries of late adolescence and early adulthood, the peer group appeared highly inﬂuential. Frosh et al. (2002) argue that adolescent males ﬁnd it easier to reconcile ‘popular’ and ‘unpopular’ masculinities with peers as they move through the education system, particularly as many want to fulﬁl family expectations. It seems reasonable, therefore, to expect that ﬁrstyear undergraduate males, on the boundaries of late adolescence and early adulthood, will be skilled at managing a ‘popular’ social identity with their mates and a more serious learner identity in the classroom. However, the interactions in the classroom suggest that this is not the case. None of the males appeared able to manage a ‘smooth insertion’ (Connell, 1989: 300) into academia. For many, there seemed to be a clash between public ‘social registration’ (Hewitt, 1992: 34) in peer groups embedded in a culturally hybrid urban youth culture, and private desires, usually well-concealed from peers, for membership of the academic community. In the following sections, I examine this by considering how the male students presented themselves in relation to their fellow undergraduates. This is followed by a discussion of the ways in which they represented the language and literacy practices of the academic community. Finally I explore their identiﬁcations with the languages in their lives. Throughout the discussion, I consider how the interaction evokes particular identity positions, paying close attention to gender.

Presentations of self and fellow undergraduates In the classroom interaction, many of the male students display little afﬁliation to their fellow undergraduate students. There are many examples of interactions in which the males explicitly trash students that they position as ‘Other’ to themselves. Many of the interactions suggest that

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the young men are paying close attention to the norms for laddishness as a dominant identity position among their peers. Lads united In extract 1, Lalit (aged 19), Salman (aged 25) and Darvesh (aged 20) are discussing their relationship with students at Millennium. While Lalit and Darvesh are in their ﬁrst year of study, Salman is in his fourth year at Millennium and is in the process of retrieving ﬁrst-year credits to enable him to graduate. His situation is indicative of the more complex nature of progression for students from WP backgrounds in higher education institutions. These three males are all British Asians. Lalit and Darvesh are of Pakistani descent whereas Salman’s family originates from Bangladesh. All use English in the family setting with Lalit and Darvesh also using Punjabi and Salman using Bangla. All are categorised as from working-class families based on occupation. Salman adopts the role of interviewer, perhaps for strategic reasons as I will discuss, and has asked Lalit and Darvesh for their opinion of their fellow undergraduates. Extract 1: ‘all stuck up’ (L= Lalit, S=Salman, D=Darvesh) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

L: I think they’re like/ all stuck up/ all the students and at ﬁrst (.) S: do you think so? L: yeah/ everyone keeps themselves to themselves/ [yeah/ I know/ I know D: [yeah/ that’s true as well (.) and I think these people have erm (.) decided to make thei:r like/ join- an’ they got their own friends already [(.) cos they’ll just stick to their own group of S: [that’s true/ D: friends (.)an’ won’ bother to like/ (1) er: meet up with meet up with other people= L: =they’re just going around in their own groups/ don’t want to meet other people= S: =yeah that’s true

In response to Salman’s question, Lalit and Darvesh collaborate to distance themselves from their fellow undergraduates. They refer to their peers as ‘they’ and’their’, implying a view of their year group in terms of ‘us’ and ‘them’. This is heightened by Lalit’s use of ‘they’ to refer to ‘all the students’ (line 1), suggesting that he does not view himself as fully belonging to this group. This is in spite of the setting in which this interaction occurs, as part of the ongoing activities of an undergraduate classroom in which he is accorded student status. Even the use of ‘everyone’ (line 3) in the following interaction seems ambiguous and again appears to refer to the ‘they’ category established at the outset.

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This ‘us/them’ categorisation is continued in the following utterance in which Darvesh categorises his fellow undergraduates as ‘these people’ (line 5), a pejorative-sounding label suggesting an additional degree of alienation from his year group. Their exclusion from the wider student group suggested by the pronouns is reinforced by the unattractive characteristics and behaviour that Lalit and Darvesh attribute to their fellow undergraduates. They characterise their peers as ‘stuck up’ (line 1), suggesting a snobbish demeanour, ‘[keeping] themselves to themselves’ (line 3), implying lack of sociability and aloofness, and ‘[sticking] together in their own groups’ that cannot be ‘bothered’ to meet others (lines 6–11), suggesting a clannish and unfriendly attitude. At this stage of the interaction, a picture has emerged of Lalit and Darvesh in opposition to their fellow undergraduates, implied in the formation of student in-groups from which they feel excluded. They have also located the difﬁculties for these social relations with students that they portray as snobbish and aloof. By taking the role of interviewer, Salman’s view is less clear. This may have been a tactical move on his part, given Lalit and Darvesh’s close friendship. One way in which this friendship is suggested is by the cooperative features of the interaction talk (Cameron, 1997; Coates, 1996) in which Lalit and Darvesh pay close attention to each other’s utterances through latching, back-channelling, overlaps in which they agree with each other and the supportive way in which they repeat and reformulate each other’s utterances. Additionally, as this recording was made several weeks into the programme, Salman is likely to have noticed that Lalit and Darvesh were an inseparable duo, arriving and leaving class together and always sitting together in the classroom. They may well have spent time together beyond the academic writing sessions, as they were on the same degree programme. Given his situation as a fourth year who was located on another campus, Salman may have felt it expedient to gauge Lalit and Darvesh’s opinions before deciding on how to respond. In the following extract, he appears ready to propose an alternative explanation for their predicament. Extract 2: ‘it’s very restricted’ 13 14 15 16 17 18

L: either/ [either that’sS: [I wen- I went to a college right (.) where you get to meet other people/also (.) L: yeah/ S: here/ it’s very: restricted/ you know/ like for example/ L: yeah/

Multilingual Masculinities in the Classroom 59 19 S: like a handful of people/ ((we’re talking about))/ would have spoken 20 to each [other (.) it’s ((xx)) brought us together really= 21 L: [((we never)) 22 =yeah that’s it/

Salman starts by revealing that he has attended a college prior to Millennium. His use of ‘I’ (line 14) suggests an authorial voice, implying that his experience is salient to understanding the situation. Salman contrasts the atmosphere at his previous college with that at Millennium, implying that the situation at Millennium ‘restricted’ social relations (line 17). His use of ‘we’ (line 19) to refer to the interaction seems to suggest that he is speaking as a member of the group with Lalit and Darvesh, before ﬁnishing his utterance by claiming that ‘it’s brought us together’ (line 20). The meaning of ‘it’ is ambiguous but could refer to classroom events, such as seminars, which seems to be Darvesh’s interpretation in extract 3. Salman’s use of ‘us’ here implies a wider categorisation than the immediate trio. Given the length of time Salman had been at Millennium, his social networks with fellow undergraduates are likely to have been more established than Lalit’s and Darvesh’s, who had only been at the University for a few months. Salman offers an alternative explanation, in which the institution is seen as the problem rather than its students. While this version of events is initially supported by Lalit (line 17), in extract 3, Darvesh returns to the initial ‘us/them’ categorisation, preventing Salman from elaborating on his experience and reframing the talk. Extract 3: ‘a group of lads, innit?’ 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

D: it’s just/ it’s just as I see it/ it’s like the seminars/ it brings students together/ but I mean (.) I think outside/ I think most students are shy/ an’ they don’t wanna approach other students an’ that/ an’ when they SEE like/ students in a (.) BIG GROUP/ L: ((they’re worried)) (.) that’s right/ yeah/ D: they don’t wanna go up= L: =and they don’t/ don’t wanna approach them/ D: how would you like/ go-/ wha- like/ say you’ve got some friends now right/ how would you feel if someone was to come over?/ it’s not like school [is it?/ where someone’s going “can I have your essay?”/ L: [yeah/ D: [it’s not like that L: [it’s like/ no one introduces themselves (.) if you do like/ know them by face/ ((xx)) you might know more about ‘em/ but (.) you ain’t gonna go up (.) right/ there’s this person you remember like/ you

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D: L: D: L: D:

S:

just nod at them/ cos you’ve seen their face/ an’ that’s it (.) and then you think/ “WHO ARE THEY?”/ no it’s true= =that’s like/ when we- we started this uni (.) there was/ how many?/ about six of us int there? yea:h/ and we just (.) knock about/ we ourselves an’ that/ and I mean/ there was a couple of people who used to come up to us/ but other people just used to look/ but they never actually used to come up/ and say “all right” to us cos they DID JUST used to get intimidated/ by (.) a group of lads (.) innit? of course/ naturally

Darvesh quickly returns to the ‘us/them’ categorisation established at the outset. His reformulation of ‘all stuck up’ as ‘most students are shy’ (line 24) suggests that their fellow undergraduates are nervous about approaching each other, particularly when they are in a ‘big group’ (line 26). The raised volume of ‘big group’ draws attention to this as a potential barrier to forming social relations. The ‘big group’ evokes media portrayal of large groups of young people, particularly young men, as potentially dangerous when outside the boundaries of institutional authority and needing to be avoided. This ascription is reproduced by Lalit, who completes Darvesh’s utterance by portraying their peers as ‘worried’ and anxious about approaching groups of unfamiliar students (line 27). The repeated referral to their peers as ‘they’ when attributing this behaviour implies Lalit and Darvesh’s membership in one of these ‘big groups’, and as potentially tough and threatening within the context of Millennium. At this point, there is a shift in focus from the behaviour of others to their own behaviour. Darvesh asks Lalit and Salman to imagine how they would feel if an unfamiliar student approached them (lines 30–32). He suggests that there are different practices in force governing students’ social relations in relation to the institution from those at school, alluding to attempts to get away with ‘bad behaviour’ at school by demanding essays off classmates. Within higher education, this practice is both inappropriate and carries the charge of collusion and plagiarism, of which these students were aware. In the following interaction, Lalit returns to the difﬁculties of establishing relationships with members of their year group (line 35). In a seemingly contradictory section of talk, Lalit depicts himself as sharing the same nervousness and anxiety about making new friends with other students. His utterance

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that ‘you ain’t gonna go up’ to unfamiliar students (line 37) is highly suggestive of the behaviour that he accorded to other students earlier in the extract, including the standofﬁshness accorded to other peers in their year group. This vulnerability is masked, however, by Lalit’s seemingly jocular ﬁnal statement ‘WHO ARE THEY?’ (line 39), which is read as a cue for laughter. Darvesh concludes this section of talk by telling a story (lines 42–49) about their experiences as newcomers to the University. He frames his narrative using a communal ‘we’ to refer to the six members of their peer group, constructing this network as a closeknit ‘group of lads’ (line 49) who participated in peer group practices such as ‘knocking about’ together (line 45). Perhaps in reference to the off-putting ‘big group’, Darvesh constructs this ‘group of lads’ as tough, claiming that the majority of their student peers avoided them because they were ‘intimidated’ (line 48). Salman’s claim that these feelings of intimidation are ‘natural’ (line 50) reproduces the popular discourses on anti-social behaviour that position young men as a threat when hanging out with their mates in a public space. From the outset, Lalit, Darvesh and Salman create an ‘us/them’ opposition to portray their fellow undergraduates as aloof, unsociable, shy, nervous about meeting new people and intimidated by big groups. Despite some utterances implying that they share some of these feelings within the context of the university, their experiences are not explored in any depth, perhaps indicating discomfort with revealing vulnerability to each other (Coates, 2003). The suggestion that other students are conformists, who abide by the rules of the academic community in relation to their studies, implies that they may be less inclined to follow suit. Finally, their overt reference to gender positions them as ‘a group of lads’ paying attention to the norms for laddishness. In this case, possessing the ability to intimidate others, implying toughness and ‘knocking about’, having a laugh with each other, suggesting time spent in laddish pursuits when in each other’s company rather than attending to their academic work. Despite Lalit and Darvesh establishing laddishness as the norm, Salman’s position is less clear. By acting as interviewer and remaining silent for much of the time, he avoids a potentially face-threatening disagreement and maintains the bonhomie and camaraderie of the group. On the one hand, Lalit, Darvesh and Salman construct a laddish masculinity that gives the appearance of a laissez-faire sociability and friendliness associated with the ‘new lad’ of popular cultural discourses (Benwell, 2003b); on the other hand, they also give the impression of an underlying toughness associated with working-class masculinity

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(Connell, 1995; Mac an Ghaill 1994). This laddishness is concerned not to appear overly conformist in relation to the academic community, preferring instead to invest time in hanging around with mates having a laugh. As I discuss (Preece, 2009), while their interactions reproduce laddish positions, they also serve to obscure anxieties that Darvesh and Lalit suggest they are experiencing. The impression of isolation continues in extract 4 in which Lalit is telling a story about a visit to Capital, a pseudonym for another post-1992 university in London: Extract 4: ‘a wicked atmosphere’ ‘it’s like (.) I went to Capital the other day (.) E:veryone knows everyone down there (.) that’s why Capital’s got a wicked atmosphere (.) everyone wants to know each other yeah (.) I went down there to check it out/ an’ like/ you see Everyone’s just knocking about with everyone (.) an’ you get to know so many people/ I know more people in Capital than I do ‘ere no it’s TRUE that (1) yeah/ that is true’ Lalit’s construction of Capital romanticises an alternative higher education space in which ‘everyone knows everyone’ and there is a ‘wicked atmosphere’. This seems a far cry from the realities of these young men’s experience so far of higher education. Lalit’s use of vernacular expressions embedded in street culture, such as ‘wicked atmosphere’, ‘check it out’ and ‘knocking about’ reinforce his laddish positioning, oriented in the youth culture of London. This idealisation of higher education space may also conceal Lalit’s alienation from the actual higher education institution to which he belongs, an impression that is reinforced in the rest of the interaction by recurring references to Capital as a higher education community with which they, as London lads, can identify. Lalit, Darvesh and Salman co-construct themselves as a tight in-group and as ‘legitimate speakers’ (Bourdieu, 1977) of a laddish CofP. While Salman may have some reservations, he largely acts in cooperation with Lalit and Darvesh. Their interactions appear effective in maintaining the group as a site of sociable interaction within the classroom. They work in cooperation with each other to present themselves as lads in opposition to their fellow undergraduates. As I have discussed (Preece, 2009), while the interaction acts to strengthen their friendship, as they validate each other’s experiences and views, it also isolates them within the University in ways that are reminiscent of goldﬁsh in a bowl. Close attention

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to the practices of the peer group contributes to a sense of marginalisation in the wider higher education domain. They display little sense of belonging in higher education or identiﬁcation with Millennium, as their place of study. Their social networks appear restricted to a small group of like-minded lads and there is little to suggest that they have established links with fellow undergraduates from a variety of cultural and social backgrounds. Lone Ranger The difﬁculties of going against the grain of laddish jocularity are illustrated in the following extract. As in the previous extracts, Sanjay (aged 19), Mustafa (aged 20) and Osmaan (aged 25) are discussing their perceptions of fellow undergraduates. Sanjay, Mustafa and Osmaan are all in their ﬁrst year at Millennium and based on their parental occupation are classifed as from working-class families. Sanjay and Osmaan are both British Asians with family roots in the Indian sub continent while Mustafa’s family originates from Iran. In their family CofP, all use English, with Sanjay using Gujarati, Mustafa using Farsi and Osmaan also using Urdu. Osmaan, like Salman, is a mature student; however, unlike Salman, Osmaan decides to go against the grain by expressing an unpopular position. In extract 5, Osmaan responds to the question on how he sees himself in relation to other students. Extract 5: ‘a bit er immature’ (O=Osmaan S=Sanjay, M=Mustafa) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

O: mm (.) um: (.) how do you see yourself in relation to other students I don’t know (.) um (.) because I’m (.) er like (3) two or three years older than the majority of the students who are (.) erm: it’s a bit different (.) but a lot of the students seem immature/ S: ((xx))/ so what do you think of the students? O: er: the students in my year (1) are a bit er immature/ that’s ((xx)) yeah/ S: what are you studying? O: er EBD1 / economics and business development/ M: are you in your ﬁrst year? S: yeah/ (2) M: all right= S: =I thought we’re all ﬁrst year/ M: huh? S: I thought we’re all ﬁrst year/ O: anyway/ okay (.) what are you doing? M: I’m doing EBD as well (.) erm: (1) yeah (.) the friends I’ve made they’re fun to be around but (2) not MUCH ((deﬁnitely)) not much/ S: so it’s boring? ((xx)) M: stuck up (2) S: the students in this uni are (1) they’re all right I’d say/

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Osmaan’s opening utterance displays the use of many hedging devices to soften his portrayal of his fellow undergraduates as ‘immature’, with the inference that he adopts a more mature and ‘conformist’ position (Sewell, 1997) in the academic community. He re-reads the question; he claims he does not know the answer; he pauses for an uncomfortable length of time; he gives an explanation for his upcoming answer and he ﬁnally hedges the answer with ‘seem’. Despite this, his utterance is ignored by Sanjay (line 5). By reformulating the initial question, Sanjay forces Osmaan to choose between repeating what will be regarded as an unpopular position or backtracking. Osmaan restates his position, again characterised by hedging (line 6). Initially, Sanjay and Mustafa appear to ignore Osmaan’s charge of immaturity (lines 7–11) but return to this after establishing that Mustafa and Osmaan are on the same degree programme. By depicting the students on his course as ‘not much fun’ and ‘stuck up’ (lines 17, 19), Mustafa resists a more conformist positioning in the academic community, suggesting that those who claim maturity, such as Osmaan, are both boring and snobbish. Osmaan and Mustafa position their fellow undergraduates as ‘Other’ in contradictory ways. While Osmaan’s characterisation of his peers as immature invokes practices associated with laddishness, Mustafa’s portrayal of them as ‘not much fun’ suggests the opposite, implying that there are insufﬁcient displays of laddishness for his liking. At this stage, Sanjay does not side with either Osmaan or Mustafa, presenting himself as more favourably disposed to his fellow undergraduates (line 20). Following this, in extract 6, Osmaan attempts to change the topic. Osmaan’s move is countered in a latched turn that sets the scene for a collaborative trashing of lecturers: Extract 6: ‘texting half the time’ 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

O: S: M: O: M: O: S:

okay/what do you think about the university in general? the university/ the department= =teachers man/ um? we’ve got to move onto teachers/ have we? all right/ the teachers (.) all right the lecturers don’t know what they’re talking about half the time= M: =mm mm= O: =most of them can’t operate the lecture [equipment/ S: [can’t operate the lecturesyeah you fall asleep in the lectures there/ you’re like texting half the time in lectures= M: =some of them can’t be bothered to turn up (2) S: facilities (.) in the lectures are good yeah/ but (.) lectures (.) are just

Multilingual Masculinities in the Classroom 65 36 boring/ yeah they’re just boring (1) erm (.) the other teachers are 37 [some of the teachers/ some of them are okay/ but the rest are like (.) 38 M: [ 39 S: they don’t know what’s going on/

Following their initial disagreement in extract 5, Mustafa’s utterance (line 23) in this extract facilitates a series of interactions in which all take part in trashing lecturers. They present their lecturers as unprofessional, incompetent and unable to maintain control of the classroom domain. The interaction is in marked contrast to the hesitant and hedged talk that preceded it. Instead there are many similarities with the cooperative talk of Lalit, Darvesh and Salman in the use of repetition, back-channel support, latched and overlapping turns. The interaction also enables Sanjay to position himself as protagonist of his own laddish drama in which he shows no identiﬁcation with academic staff. The interaction implies a tough laddish positioning (Mac an Ghaill, 1994; Willis, 1977) through claims of resistance to lecturers’ classroom authority and by the implication that their bad behaviour goes unchallenged. Sanjay legitimises his lack of conformity to academic community practices with claims of boredom, implying that his lecturers are insufﬁciently entertaining. This suggests resistance to academic community norms that construct university classrooms as a site of seriousness and scholarly activity and a desire for laddish norms that construct the classroom as a site of sociability and fun. This resistance to institutional norms bears some resemblance to Mac an Ghaill’s (1994) ‘Macho Lads’, who were highly resistant to the authority of the school. They constructed their masculinity in opposition to this authority and through peer group practices such as ‘acting tough’ and ‘looking smart’ (p. 56). As the interaction develops, Sanjay’s utterances are highly evocative of this tough laddish positioning as he becomes increasingly daring and confrontational:

Extract 7: ‘a load of shit’ ‘er this uni man/ bloody hell (.) they’re doing it up here but still (3) there are far too many students in here crowding it up (1) there’s no atmosphere (.) there’s no like (1) café/ it’s all a load of shit/ there’s no good facilities around/ you have to like (.) to get to the SU yeah (.) you have to like travel (.) what else? yeah/ the computers are like (.) full/ or they’re like sh- (.) you never get access to them/ or the printers never work/ and what else? the library’s like . . . the library’s

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okay/ but (1) could be better (.) I think the campus is quite small for the students we’ve got’ While Mustafa, Sanjay and Osmaan are not able to co-construct themselves as a tight-knit laddish in-group to the same extent as Lalit, Salman and Darvesh, there are moments in which all cooperate in interactions that evoke laddishness. Sanjay and Mustafa also police the talk to marginalise Osmaan’s alignment with an alternative, more conformist academic position (Sewell, 1997). Osmaan has to negotiate difﬁcult territory as it becomes clear that the others do not validate this positioning. He appears to ﬂuctuate between moments of resistance, cooperation and silence. His attempts to gain respect in the peer group through age are unsuccessful while his concerns as a mature student are not valued by the others. When he resists laddishness, Osmaan appears to be a ‘lone ranger’; only through co-operating with Sanjay and Mustafa can he gain acceptance in the group. In common with Lalit, Salman and Darvesh, the interaction is not suggestive of a smooth transition into higher education and implies the difﬁculties that these male students are experiencing in settling into their year group and developing a sense of belonging in higher education. Lad out on a limb? The ﬁnal extract in this section comes from ﬁve ﬁrst-year students: four males and one female. Khaled (aged 18) and Dilip (aged 25) are both British Asian males of South Asian descent. Ling (aged 20) is the lone female in this group and is British Chinese. Carlos (aged 24) is from Portugal and at the time of the study had been in the UK for under ﬁve years. He is not certain how long he intends to stay in Britain following graduation. Richard (aged 18) is from a working-class family in South London and the only Anglo student in my study. Apart from Richard, all are multilingual. The British-born students use English with Khaled using Bengali, Dilip using Gujarati and Ling using Cantonese in the family setting. Carlos, however, uses only Portuguese at home. Extract 8 starts mid-way through a series of interactions in which Khaled is attempting to persuade the others to reply to the question he has posed. At this stage, Khaled has asked the others how they view themselves in relation to fellow students on six occasions but has not yet received an answer with which he is satisﬁed. The others appear resistant and there have been long pauses and ambiguous answers, such as ‘I see myself as me’ (Ling). At this juncture, Richard attempts to move the interaction forward by putting the question to Khaled.

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Extract 8: ‘most people . . . muck about like idiots’ (R=Richard, K=Khaled, C=Carlos, D=Dilip, L=Ling) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

R: how do you see yourself? K: well/ I see myself/ I se- I see myself as a bit of a lively person/ sometimes (.) sometimes I just like ((beating)) about/ but when I get going I just get going I don’t stop (.) y’know what I mean? (1) so (.) I see myself as a bit of a (1) talkative person/ lively (.) and I/ and I don’t see myself as myself/ [y’know what I mean? R: [you ain’t stopped talking yet/ have you? K: no/ (.) no exactly (.) I told you/ when I get going I don’t stop (.) NEXT (2) R: erm (.) I see myself/ I don’t know (1) kind of quiet (.) until I/ I get to know people an’ then/ so (1) once I get to know people I’m all right K: %yeah (.) ((see it’s)) cool% (1) right/ let’s have another go mate/ Pablo R: C: about? K: try it again/ C: ((xx)) D: same as Richard/ I see myself/ think of myself/ shy/ quiet (.) erm if there’s team work/ group wor- group work/ then obviously you have to work together (.) apart from that (2) R: that’s it/ L: I agree/ (2) R: I think generally/ let’s be clear all right/ most people who’re in this university (.) muck about like idiots yeah/ D: yeah/ (.) that’s true/ R: but most people are friendly an’ that so/ K: but that’s just like (1) by the time you get to like university/ you’re supposed to be like a bit more kind of mature (.) you know/ in school it was like (.) causing trouble an’ all that= R: =((they ﬁght)) [ K: [in class an’ that/ y’know what I mean?

Richard’s response to Khaled, ‘you ain’t stopped talking yet, have you?’ (line 7) sounds sarcastic. Coming after a long section in which Khaled has dominated the proceedings, it appears to be an attempt to move the group on and get Khaled to focus more seriously on the task at hand. This strategy does not appear successful as Khaled reasserts his position through an emphatic response (line 9). In the following utterance, Richard presents himself as ‘quiet’ (line 11), implying an oppositional stance to the jocularity that Khaled has been encouraging. Instead of responding to Richard’s utterance, Khaled nominates Carlos, whom he addresses as ‘mate’ and ‘Pablo’ (line 13). This is the fourth occasion on which Khaled has nominated Carlos to answer this particular question. On the three previous occasions, Khaled has exhorted

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Carlos to ‘say something that’s cool’, suggesting attention to laddishness. As it is clear by this stage that Carlos ﬁnds it difﬁcult to participate in witty repartee, it is questionable why Khaled keeps pursuing him for a response. Khaled’s choice of address is also suggestive of laddish peer-group practices, as the naming of Carlos as ‘mate’ and ‘Pablo’ does not conform to academic community norms for addressing students in the classroom. The use of ‘Pablo’ draws attention to Carlos’s status in the group as the only non-British student and as the ‘Other’ who cannot participate easily in peer-group banter. Following Carlos’s inaudible utterance, Dilip and Ling enter the proceedings and align themselves with Richard (lines 19–23). At this point, Richard challenges Khaled’s seeming laddishness with the accusation that students at Millennium ‘muck about like idiots’ (line 25). He makes his utterance more emphatic through preceding it with ‘let’s be clear’. For a moment, Khaled appears ‘out on a limb’ as the others infer that he is one of the ‘idiots’. Instead of reinforcing this point, Richard’s next utterance (line 27) suggests that he is concerned to save Khaled’s face (Goffman, 1972). Khaled responds with a reference to life stage, contrasting the mature and serious manner in which university students are expected to behave with adolescent bad behaviour at school (lines 28–32). The laughter provoked by ‘causing trouble’ and ‘ﬁghting’ is suggestive of the allure of both a lighthearted and tough laddishness for these young men. This marks the end of Richard, Dilip, Carlos and Ling’s attempts to resist Khaled’s laddish behaviour and adopt a more serious attitude to the task at hand. Although Dilip and Richard initially give the impression that they are more serious-minded, this proves difﬁcult to maintain. Richard becomes ambivalent and realigns himself with Khaled. In the following interactions, Khaled increasingly puts on a laddish performance, talking in an exaggerated Cockney accent, cracking jokes and larking about. While he holds the ﬂoor, it is noticeable that the others are silenced; eventually the discussion is abandoned. The interaction suggests that despite discomfort and perhaps even irritation with laddish practices in the classroom, students ﬁnd persistent performances of laddishness difﬁcult to resist.

Representations of academic language and literacy practices Attending to peer group norms also inﬂuences the male students’ representations of academic literacy practices. Their interactions suggested that they had various strategies for managing talk on academic reading and writing, including portraying themselves as competent users of the

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language and literacy practices of the peer group, avoiding talk about academic literacy practices, and resisting both their positioning in the institution as remedial users of English and disclosures of difﬁculties by individual members of their peer groups. Competence In extract 9, Lalit, Darvesh and Salman are discussing how they regard academic reading and writing. After several hesitant starts, Salman makes an utterance that suggests that he wants to talk about his experience of academic writing and why it ‘takes (him) a while’. As the extract illustrates, Darvesh re-frames the talk by placing academic literacy practices in opposition to the literacy practices of the peer group. Extract 9: ‘you have to do drafts man’ (L=Lalit, S=Salman, D=Darvesh) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

S: L: S: L: D:

I suppose writing (.) takes me a while yeah/ that’s some[thing you something you acquire over time [cosyeah/ because there’s a totally different type of um (.) writing that you have to do/ when you’re writing up (.) um assignments/ compared to= S: =yeah/ exactly D: writing out informal letters to your friends/ or emails or whatever (.) you’re not bothered about [spellin:gs/ or about grammar:/ an’ so on (.) L: [that’s it D: jus’ writing it/ L: yeah/ D: you’re very COMfortable/ when you’re writing letters innit? (.) you’re not pressured [(.) under pressure like (.) that’s it L: [yeah/ (.) you write like (.) messages as well like= D: =whatever you’re thinking (.) whatever you just write it straight out/ innit? L: yeah/ D: an’ (.) the spelling mistakes you did (.) the short hand y’know what I mean?/ they don’t bother you for the simple reason (.) doesn’t matter to you= L: =your friend’s probably made the same mistakes [ANYway (.) they’re D: [exactly L: on your (.) they’re on your mentality (.) yeah= D: =cos when you’re/ when you’re writing essays (.) it’s like you: (.) you have to do [you have to do DRAFTS man/ you have to do DRAFTS= S: [%drafts% L: =yeah/ D: and then you fucking read over what you wrote ALL: [ <8 seconds of hilarious laughter>

By focusing on peer group practices, Lalit, Salman and Darvesh are able to discuss academic literacy practices in an indirect manner and

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implicitly compare them to peer group norms. Darvesh’s construction of writing in the peer group as ‘comfortable’ and ‘not pressured’ (lines 13–14) suggests that he ﬁnds writing in higher education a cause of discomfort and pressure, while his utterances on spelling and ‘short hand’ (line 19) common within the peer group suggest that these have not met with acceptance at Millennium. Lalit comments on a shared ‘mentality’ (line 24) towards what constitutes norms within the peer group and implies that they do not share this ‘mentality’ with their lecturers in higher education. Throughout this section, the literacy practices of the peer group are constructed in opposition to those of higher education. This more serious interaction is concluded with a joke about the common practice in the academic community of writing drafts of essays. The joke is signalled through the raised volume and intonation of ‘drafts’ (line 26) while the ‘punch line’ (line 29) is understood as a cue for extended laughter and a move to more humorous interactions. Through his ability to produce laughter, Darvesh reasserts a light-hearted laddishness in the group, with the laughter dispelling the tension and hiding an underlying sub-text, of which all are aware. This sub-text arises from the requirement for them to take the academic writing programme and the ways in which this contributes to being positioned as ‘remedial’ and ‘deﬁcit’ in the institution. Lalit, Salman and Darvesh manage to laugh their way out of this face-threatening positioning. Laughter in all-male talk has been described as a way of managing vulnerability ‘in a rather tangential way’ (Coates, 2003: 56) and as a ‘multi-faceted implement’ used ‘as a way out of almost anything’ (Willis, 1977: 29). This section of talk highlights the conﬂicting subjectivities engendered by their social and learner identities. It is apparent that they are aware of the demands of the academic community, but to conform openly with these or admit to the need for remediation is potentially face-threatening to social relations with peers. Lalit, Salman and Darvesh deal with these difﬁculties by positioning academic literacy practices as ‘Other’ to the practices of the peer group. They maintain and reinforce the sociability of the group through cracking jokes, laughing for extended periods, swearing, and using features of the local vernacular, as an in-group marker of identity. They co-construct their peer group language and literacy practices in opposition to those of the academic community in interactions that often imply attention to laddishness. They show that they are aware of academic literacy practices but they police the talk to avoid any moments that may reveal vulnerability openly. Difﬁculties are suggested but not tackled in any direct manner. While this strategy maintains

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an atmosphere of laddish bonhomie, it leaves few effective openings for exploring issues surrounding their own academic literacy practices, for easing the switch between peer group and academic norms and practices, or for adopting a more serious and scholarly stance. Avoidance The following extract comes from a group consisting of three males, Tahir (aged 20), Randeep (aged 20) and Geet (aged 19), and one female student, Vritti (aged 19), all of whom are friends. All are British Asians of South Asian heritage from working-class families, with Tahir, Randeep and Vritti using Urdu and Punjabi and Geet using Gujarati with their families. All also use English at home. Randeep is one of the few British– born students in my study to wear items of clothing at Millennium that signal membership of his heritage community. While Tahir, Randeep and Vritti are British–born, Geet came to Britain as a refugee from Kenya with his family when he was a young boy. Vritti, Tahir and Randeep collaborate in the formation of a close-knit in-group. Geet is largely excluded as he ﬁnds it difﬁcult to participate in the frequently fastmoving interaction that is constructed around a series of in-jokes and banter. The interaction between Vritti and Tahir often appears ﬂirtatious. Tahir and Geet are the subject of detailed discussion in Chapter 6. At the start of this extract, Tahir nominates Vritti to do the serious talk about academic reading and writing while he and Randeep construct a light-hearted commentary on the proceedings. This may be a practice developed during schooling, as Frosh et al. (2002) found that schoolboys frequently position their female counterparts as having a greater maturity and commitment to academic work than themselves. At this stage, Geet has yet to speak and continues silent throughout these proceedings. Extract 10: ‘that’s a mad book, innit?’ (V=Vritti, T=Tahir, R=Randeep, G=Geet) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

V: to what extent do you see yourself as a reader and writer of academic texts? T: I think you should ask that one to yourself V: okay ﬁne/ I enjoy reading/ I always HAVE enjoyed reading (.) okay R: what do you like reading? V: I don’t know [I mean Lord of the Rings R: [((xx)) Sugar T: ((xx))= V: =you know my my brother/ he got about half way through it=

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T: =((xx)) it’s keeping one of my tables stable [ R: [ V: I like read- reading whole books again (.) when I was doing English for A: LEVEL (1) yeah (.) I read a very long one for Jane Austen/ ((xx)) also Shakespeare/ and everything/ ‘cos it’s (1) Shakespeare T: have you read Mice and Men? V: yeah/ T: yeah? [ R: [ V: [that was/ that was T: [that’s a mad book/ innit? I know= R: =is that a GCSE book or? T: I think that one’s for GCSE= V: =yeah/ I read To Kill a Mocking Bird ((xx)) as well/ yeah you know T: yeah/ V: we did To Kill a Mocking Bird (1) but I must admit/ that was really good okay (.) Of Mice and Men/ but anyway yeah (.) generally I- I enjoy reading ((xx))/ reading/

Vritti’s response to Tahir (line 4) appears to signal the problematic nature of the subject for discussion within the group. Her use of ‘okay’ to enclose her statement that she enjoys reading in combination with her stress on ‘have’ have a defensive air, suggesting her need to defend an unpopular practice in the peer group. This impression is strengthened by Randeep’s seemingly innocent question (line 5) that enables him to make a joke implying that Vritti reads Sugar,2 a teenage girls’ magazine. This positioning of Vritti infantilises her status with her male peers, suggesting that she is occupied with girlish concerns and that they are not taking her answers seriously. Although Vritti counters this by naming a classic text, Lord of the Rings (line 6), Tahir retorts with a joke suggesting that rather than reading the book, he is using it to prevent a table from moving (line 10). Vritti attempts to reassert her authority by emphasising her knowledge of English literature, referring to both Jane Austen and Shakespeare (lines 13–14), and her expertise, referring to her A-level studies. The length and volume of both ‘A’ and ‘level’, followed by the pause (line 13), not only act to emphasise her claim of expertise, but also her efforts to be taken seriously on the subject at hand. Tahir’s question of whether Vritti has read another classic text, Of Mice and Men (line 15), initially appears supportive. However, Vritti’s positive response generates laughter and in an overlapping turn Tahir characterises Of Mice and Men as ‘mad’ (line 20). Although this section concludes with Vritti once again referring to another classic text to assert her expertise (line 23), her ﬁnal utterance has a confessional quality, suggesting that she recognises that

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discussion of classic literature is not a popular practice within the peer group. Tahir and Randeep mark gender by nominating the only female participant of the group to do serious work on the task at hand, while they use the interaction to construct a light-hearted laddish commentary on the proceedings. This includes categorising Vritti as a reader of a teenage girls’ magazine and ‘having a laugh’ at her expense. Tahir and Randeep position bookish reading as ‘Other’, a strategy that effectively avoids revealing any difﬁculties that they may have with the reading required for their studies. A strategy of avoidance and joking continues in the following section when Geet is nominated to take the ﬂoor. The interactions have a coercive and bullying quality with Vritti repositioning herself within the group. Extract 11: ‘Go on! Answer the question!’ 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

T: hello/ are you going to speak or? R: T: or are you gonna be like a silent partner [((xx))? V: [ R: [ yeah/ he’s just gonna do the notes in the (.) T: [I think we should put the next question to Geet= R: [ V: =okay (.) how do you feel about studying the language used in these texts and using it yourself? ((xx)) G: ((xx))= V: =GO ON (.) ANswer (.) the QUEStion/

Frosh et al. (2002) comment that hegemonic adolescent masculinity necessitates an ‘insouciant sharp-wittedness’, premised on constructions of masculinity as being ‘fast, cool and never a dupe’ (p. 81). It seems, therefore, that prolonged silence for males within the peer group is a dangerous tactic as this may encourage face-threatening attention. In extract 11, Tahir uses Geet’s silence to make a joke and challenge him to speak (line 28), an approach with which Vritti and Randeep collaborate. Randeep feminises Geet’s position through constructing him as a secretary, in the passive role of ‘just (doing) the notes’ (lines 32–33). Vritti uses Tahir’s invitation for someone to question Geet to reposition herself as the interviewer (lines 36–37). Following Geet’s hesitant and inaudible answer (line 38), she demonstrates no sympathy. Instead she hectors Geet, shouting at him to ‘answer the question’ (line 39).

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Despite their friendship, Tahir uses his knowledge of Geet’s English language difﬁculties to his own advantage. Tahir positions Geet in a weak and feminised position, emphasised through his loss of face caused by a female in front of the male members of the group. This tactic appears to enable Tahir to reinforce his status within the peer group and to maintain avoiding serious discussion about academic literacy practices. In common with Salman, Darvesh and Lalit, the focus on ‘having a laugh’ creates few openings for exploring academic literacy practices, for developing their expertise or for easing the switch between the practices of the peer group and those of the academic community. It also creates a situation in which Geet not only appears marginalised, but also receives little support from his peers. Resistance In the ﬁnal extract of this section, Sanjay and Mustafa cooperate to resist Osmaan’s disclosure of difﬁculties with his academic work. Extract 12: ‘all the usual shit’ (O=Osmaan, S=Sanjay, M=Mustafa) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

M: to what extent do you think (.) of yourself as a reader and writer of academic texts? (.) say why/ (4) O: er:: I don’t know/ I’d say that I don’t (.) I sometimes have difﬁculty (.) reading and understanding/ I have to write sometimes/ I have to break it down/ read it again [(.) then I understand it S: [yeah? O: simple man (.) there’s no no shyness about it (1) y’know what I mean?/ just to to make sure that I understand it fully/ I need to break it down sometimes/ and then= S: =okay O: some academic texts can be really like (.) high in (.) grammar/and everything so/ S: that’s why we’re doing this course/ O: exactly/ hopefully by the end of this course that will be gone/ M: erm (2) I think ﬁrst year’s okay/ but (.) we we’ll have to wait and see second year/ (2) S: I think me/ I don’t/ I don’t need to do this class anyway yeah/ I don’t know why I’m in it/ O: yeah? (2) some mistake or something went wrong innit? something went wrong/ S: reading wise I think I understand all the texts/ my English is quite good I’d say (1) I can read (.) all the papers/ and all the usual shit (3) erm (2) work’s okay/ M: it’s just this (shit) S: yeah= M: = S: er: (that’s what I thought) that’s it (4)

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At the outset of this interaction, Mustafa positions himself as the interviewer and poses the question concerning perceptions of academic reading and writing. The four-second pause following his utterance is suggestive of a face-threatening moment as Osmaan and Sanjay decide how to respond. Eventually, Osmaan decides to reveal his difﬁculties. His extensive hedging (line 3) may be an attempt to mitigate what he knows is a potentially face-threatening disclosure. Nevertheless, his admission of difﬁculties is not greeted sympathetically, as the intonation of Sanjay’s ‘yeah’ and his laughter (line 6) appear scornful. Perhaps Sanjay is not only resisting Osmaan’s admission of vulnerability, but also casting aspersions on his intelligence, suggesting that as he is older, Osmaan should know by now. As Osmaan interrupts what he was saying to respond to Sanjay (line 7), he may have felt the need for some tough talk at this juncture. His use of ‘man’ to address Sanjay references peer group practices. Osmaan continues to repair his status with peers by distancing himself from the ‘high’ language of academic texts, thus implying his afﬁliation to the vernacular language practices of his peers (lines 11–12). Osmaan’s strategy seems to be working as Sanjay co-operates with him by using his point about ‘high’ language to justify their participation in the academic writing programme (line 13). Osmaan then conforms to their positioning in the institution as remedial users of English whose language problems will be remedied by taking the academic writing programme (line 14). In the interaction that follows, Mustafa’s ambivalent statement (lines 15–16) marks a return to the earlier resistance to displaying conformity with the academic community and creates an opening for Sanjay’s deﬁant statement in which he resists his placement on the academic writing programme (lines 17–18). Rather than challenge Sanjay’s contradictory utterance, Osmaan saves face by suggesting that there has been an institutional ‘mistake’ (lines 19–20). Sanjay reproduces the idea of a mistake and then adopts a tough stance in which he presents himself as a competent user of English and uses taboo language to trash the texts favoured by the academic community (lines 21–23). His swearing not only degrades his academic work, but also suggests that this is of little value, and it is done solely as a chore. Mustafa collaborates in this tough talk by repeating Sanjay’s trashing utterance while Osmaan remains silent. Sanjay has the ﬁnal word on this issue as neither Mustafa nor Osmaan break the lengthy pause following his ﬁnal pronouncement. Osmaan’s attempt to instigate a discussion about strategies for coping with academic work has effectively been silenced.

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According to Frosh et al. (2002), hegemonic peer-group masculinity among young men does not countenance ‘stupidity’ (p. 81). As I have discussed (Preece, 2006b), in order to maintain laddish bonhomie, young men seem to avoid utterances that can be construed as overt concern about academic work or displays of weakness. By adopting the position of a student with a mature outlook, Osmaan appeared ready to admit the difﬁculties that he was experiencing and to seek assistance from his peers, although his hedging suggests that he was aware of the potentially face-threatening nature of this act. While his initial endeavours appeared to be working, his efforts were frustrated by Mustafa’s ambivalence and Sanjay’s resistance. Sanjay and Mustafa’s collaboration not only made Osmaan feel uncomfortable, but also enabled them to conceal any difﬁculties that they were experiencing through ambiguous statements and tough talk. Sanjay’s utterances imply the adoption of a powerful ‘Macho Lad’ positioning (Mac an Ghaill, 1994), to resist his powerless institutional positioning in which he was categorised as in need of remediation. Resistance was one way in which the male participants reacted to being obliged to take the academic writing programme, which, as previously mentioned, was interpreted as taking ‘remedial’ English. Studies on masculinities in schooling (Connell, 1989; Frosh et al., 2002; Mac an Ghaill, 1994) consistently illustrate ways in which an anti-establishment masculinity is encouraged through the streaming of adolescent males into groups ascribed a label of ‘low ability’. This can exacerbate the performance of a tough ‘Macho Lad’ masculinity as a response to feelings of ‘domination, alienation and infantilism’ (Mac an Ghaill, 1994: 57). It seems likely that Sanjay was also experiencing feelings of alienation and infantilism, to which he was reacting. His resistance appeared to act as an obstacle to full participation in the academic writing programme and reduced opportunities for learning in the classroom. The performance of tough laddish masculinity, which was evoked by swearing, by trashing lecturers, academic practices and students perceived to be conformist, and by other non-linguistic behaviour that was not conducive to scholarly activity in the classroom, was one way in which some male participants resisted their institutional positioning as in need of remediation. Others resisted through presenting themselves as light-hearted and jokey lads who were more interested in ‘having a laugh’ than in high achievement. Both these laddish positions prevented sustained participation in classroom activities. The institutional deﬁcit positioning was a highly sensitive issue among the male participants. This constructed the writing class as a

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troubled site in which the divorcing of the programme from the mainstream curriculum was a source of tension. While there is a danger of over-generalising about talk among men as avoiding the interpersonal (Tannen, 1990), the all-male and predominately male peer groups did seem a problematic space for the discussion of difﬁculties and for overt displays of concern or seriousness about academic work. While some of the male participants were prepared to engage in serious discussion on the issues involved in academic reading and writing, this was a minority position. Attention to laddishness appeared to create a scenario in which it was highly problematic to admit difﬁculties, seek help, adopt an overtly scholarly stance or appear too concerned about academic work. This was exacerbated by institutional practices regarding the academic writing programme and the ascribed identities that were associated with it.

Identiﬁcations with language As discussed in Chapter 1, most of the students were the British-born children of migrants that had spent their formative years in the ‘polycultural’ (Hewitt, 1992) setting of London. They seemed at ease with the ‘interethnic social relationships’ (Haywood and Mac an Ghaill, 2003:74) that are commonly found among young people in culturally hybrid settings. As mentioned, apart from one student, all were multilingual in that they experienced their lives in the heritage language(s) of their families and English. During the transition into higher education, London English, as the local variety of vernacular English, assisted those who were long-term residents of London to locate peers from similar backgrounds to themselves. It may also, as Harris (2006) argues, have helped them to establish a sense of ‘low key Britishness’ in a context of greater student diversity than they had experienced at school. Many of the British-born males had both a high level of expertise in and afﬁliation to vernacular English, which they consistently referred to as ‘slang’. This expertise assisted them in presenting themselves as a ‘legitimate speaker’ (Bourdieu, 1977) in the peer group and evoked a position as ‘one of the lads’. As Bourdieu (1977) points out, language is not simply a tool of communication, but an ‘instrument of power’ (p. 648). Linguistic capital enabled the male students to ‘jockey for position’ (Edley and Wetherell, 1997) with their peers and encouraged some of the males to exercise power over those that they perceived as in a weaker position than themselves. This was particularly noticeable in the cases of Carlos and Geet, who used English as a foreign and second

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language respectively. Both demonstrated difﬁculties in participating in spoken interaction in the peer group. Despite this, the most dominant male in their group nominated them for the ﬂoor in face-threatening moves. Khaled continuously pursued Carlos, drawing attention to his ethnic difference, while Tahir used Geet’s difﬁculties to reinforce his own position as leader of the group. Osmaan and Richard, on the other hand, had much greater expertise in the vernacular language practices of their peers. They were able to use this expertise to assert themselves during potentially face-threatening interactions that arose from aligning themselves with more conformist positions in the academic community. For most of the British-born males, displaying afﬁliation to the local vernacular, or ‘slang’, facilitated a sense of camaraderie with like-minded peers. They also associated the vernacular with freedom of expression for both the topic of conversation and ways of talking. Some of the young men presented themselves as much more constrained when with their families or in the academic community. In their families, they were subject to the power relations of their parents and elders while in the academic community they were enmeshed in asymmetrical lecturer/student relationships in which ﬁrst-year undergraduate students are accorded relatively low status in the student body. These social hierarchies are illustrated in extract 13, in which Lalit is reﬂecting with Salman and Darvesh on the way different domains affect not only how he speaks, but also what he can say. Extract 13: ‘talking above you’ ‘I think with my friends an’ that I’d be like/ I’d talk more to them innit?/ an’ like friends family an’ that/ so I’d use MORE informal language an’ stuff like that . . . right/ most of it I can’t say now cos we’re being recorded an’ that innit?/ . . . it’s ONly when you’re speaking like/ say if you’re speaking to the FA:mily like/ like with my brother I’d be swearing an’ that yeah/ but with my mum an’ dad obviously I wouldn’t innit/ cos they’d like be talking aBOVE you/ an’ with your teachers you’ll be like/ yeah “can you PASS me THIS PLEASE?” <exaggerated ‘posh’ accent> an’ that/ (coming) like extra polite’. Lalit portrays the language he uses with his peers and siblings as ‘more informal’, the raised volume of ‘more’ suggesting the contrast with the way he speaks in other domains. While he does not overtly equate more informal language with vernacular English, this seems implicit from what comes in the next part of the utterance, in which he claims that he

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is censoring his language because of the audio recording and makes a differentiation between his style of speaking with his contemporaries, his parents and academic staff. He draws attention to an asymmetrical parent/son relationship with the claim that he ‘obviously’ does not swear when in the presence of his parents. This suggests that he is attending to his position in the family and that he conforms to some extent with the behaviour expected of a dutiful son in his community. This impression continues in the next part of the utterance in which he portrays his parents as ‘talking above’ him. ‘Talking above’ implies Lalit’s social position in relation to his parents and the way in which he is expected to respect his parents’ wishes. The ‘above’ may also indicate that his parents can express themselves with a greater degree of sophistication than Lalit in Punjabi, the heritage language of his home. In the ﬁnal part of the utterance, Lalit continues to emphasise his social positioning through his switch into ‘stylised posh’ to mimic talking to a teacher. The use of exaggerated ‘posh’ evokes the asymmetrical social relations in the academic community between lecturers and students. It also implies the social class positioning of lecturers and is suggestive of a social gulf between Lalit and academic staff. While the British-born males displayed a great deal of afﬁliation to vernacular English in interactions among peers, they were more ambivalent about their heritage language(s). One way in which they could identify with the languages of home was through appropriating them for peer group practices, such as ‘taking the piss and swearing’ (Sanjay). Several of the British-born males discussed how their heritage languages enabled them to make jokes and swear in front of people who could not understand what they were saying. These interactions indexed the bad behaviour associated with laddishness, and suggested a positioning with peers as streetwise and savvy lads. As has been found in other research among young people in urban areas of the UK (Hewitt, 1986; Rampton, 2005, 2006), heritage languages are often intertwined with vernacular English and languages learned at school to accomplish peer group practices and such intermingling is indicative of the more unconventional ways in which young people use the languages at their disposal. There were also a few instances in which the male students displayed more traditional afﬁliations with their heritage language(s). One example arose in a mixed-sex interaction between Marina (aged 19), an international student from Russia, and Todd (aged 18), a Black British male from a working-class Jamaican family. An important factor in the interaction was Marina’s lack of knowledge of Afro-Caribbean culture and her desire to know. This resulted in her questioning Todd at some

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length, with which Todd appeared willing to co-operate. In this interaction, Todd displays afﬁliation to Jamaican Creole as the language of his family and as a way of maintaining social relations among family members. Extract 14: ‘it’s a better way for us to interrelate’ ‘for me personally I only speak like my language which is Patwa3 when I’m at HOME or when I’m with certain certain certain friends like/ as I said not everybody understands it/ ‘cos I’ve grown up with it around my family and sometimes it’s EAsier for me to speak in that language than it is in English/ [Marina: so- so you ﬁnd it easier to speak?] yeah because I mean I’ve grown up/ I’ve grown up OBviously learning English and obviously learning that language ‘cos my family’s JaMAIcan/ sometimes I ﬁnd it’s easier for me to just speak to ‘em in the language that ((xx)) stuff/ I mean/ yeah/ when I’m at home obviously more time you’ll hear me speaking Patwa rather than English/ and when I’m with my friends/ certain (ones)/ you’ll hear me speaking Patwa/ I mean it’s just that sometimes it’s a better way for us to interrelate/ an:’ it’s a better way for me to communicate with my granddad AND my uncles I ﬁnd.’ Todd displays a strong identiﬁcation with Jamaican Creole, as his heritage language, referring to this as Patwa. He positions himself as a bilingual user of Patwa and English, indicating that Patwa is regularly used in his family and with some of his friends. Todd constructs Patwa as smoothing interactions in the family and implies that he ﬁnds this emotionally satisfying. He also suggests that his heritage language enables him to construct a ‘culturally intelligible’ (Butler, 1990) Jamaican identity with family members, particularly his male elders. In contrast to Lalit, Todd does not have a perception of his elders ‘speaking above him’. Todd was one of the few British-born males who displayed among his peers a positive disposition to his heritage language in relation to family practices. His willingness to elaborate on the language practices of his family may well have been prompted by his partnering with Marina for classroom activities. At the time of the recording, Marina had been in the UK for around six months and had very little knowledge about British people. Her partnering with Todd in the classroom afforded her an opportunity to develop this understanding and the possibility of making a friend with a British student. Throughout the interaction,

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she appeared genuinely interested in what Todd had to say and she facilitated the exchange through a series of questions. The combination of an international female student with a British male student appeared to create greater opportunities for interaction about heritage languages in relation to family rather than peer group practices. These interactions seemed more difﬁcult in all-male groups or in groups dominated by British-born students. Apart from Todd, only the males born overseas routinely displayed identiﬁcation with their heritage language(s) in interactions among peers. These students presented their heritage language as their mother tongue and English as their second language. An example of this arose in the interaction among Geet, Tahir, Randeep and Vritti. As discussed, Geet was regularly the butt of in-jokes and peer group banter. In interactions about languages at home, Geet placed himself in opposition to his peers by positioning Gujarati as his mother tongue. While Tahir, Randeep and Vritti had greater expertise in vernacular English than their heritage languages, Geet was a more accomplished user of Gujarati than the local vernacular. Geet was able to draw on his expertise in Gujarati to stylise himself as a person worthy of respect and to counter his marginalisation in the group. In other groups with more than one male participant born overseas, there were more sustained displays of afﬁliation to heritage languages as the mother tongue. In these cases, students seemed less concerned with the local vernacular favoured by their British-born counterparts. None of the male students expressed afﬁnity with Standard English, the ‘posh’ language of the academic community. They also did not ﬁnd it particularly easy to use the language of the academic community. Switching into ‘posh’ English appeared to be inﬂuenced both by levels of expertise, which made using this variety of English laborious, and by feelings of ambivalence towards the academic community, which made it difﬁcult to maintain a stance that was perceived as overly conformist. As discussed in Chapter 3, switching between language and literacy practices can raise ‘deep affective and ideological conﬂicts’ (Lea and Street, 2000: 35). Ways in which the male students attempted to deal with these competing positions arose in their interactions about the academic writing programme. The participants asserted, for example, that the language ‘is coming back’ (Salman), that ‘you’ve got to learn (this language) again’ (Lalit), that ‘most of this I KNEW but . . . when I studied it again it hit me where I’m going wrong’ (Sanjay) and that on ﬁrst inspection ‘I thought WHY are we doing (this)? . . . I don’t need to be doing this but . . . it helps’

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(Mustafa). By portraying the programme as a refresher course, they were able to subvert their positioning as ‘remedial’ language users and resist being categorised as incompetent. This construction of the academic writing programme was a way in which they were able to maintain face with their peers and be seen to be participating to some degree in the course programme.

Conclusion In the all-male and predominately male discussion groups, the interaction frequently gives the impression of walking a tightrope between competing demands of different CofP. For many of the male participants, this appeared to reduce the potential of the academic writing classroom as a site for adopting more studious positions and participating overtly in scholarly activities. Coates (2003) discusses the way in which the attention to hegemonic masculinity acts as an ‘imperative to avoid vulnerability’ (p. 198). Subjected to the gaze of their peers, many of the males appeared reluctant either to reveal vulnerabilities or to display overt afﬁliation with academic community practices positioned as ‘posh’ and ‘Other’ to themselves. Instead, much of the spoken interaction, particularly among the British-born males, suggests that they were attending to laddishness and practices associated with doing being one of the lads. This resonates with Willis’s (1977) claim that ‘for “the lads” time is something they want to claim for themselves now as an aspect of their immediate identity and self-direction. Time is used for the preservation of a state – being with “the lads” – not for the achievement of a goal – qualiﬁcations’ (p. 29). While the male students in my study may have had reservations about the education system, they were not entirely alienated from it. Instead, laddish positions appeared to offer seductive and powerful positions from which to speak in the peer group, positions which were not available in the academic community. For many, laddish practices seemed to bestow status, expertise, sociability and a sense of well-being. When competing positions arose, individual males aligning themselves with more conformist positions in the academic community appeared to need a thick skin and courage to persist. While some were able to balance laddishness and scholarly activity, many appeared to have difﬁculties in managing this balancing act. This is an issue to which I shall return in the concluding chapter. Thus far, I have considered the interaction among the male students in the classroom setting. In the following chapter, I turn to the

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spoken interaction among the female students on the academic writing programme and examine the positions that the female students adopt in relation to their fellow undergraduates, the language and literacy practices of the academic community and the languages in their lives.

5 Multilingual Femininities in the Classroom

Introduction In this chapter, I examine the spoken interaction of the female students in the classroom to see what they have to say about their fellow undergraduates, the language and literacy practices of the academic community and their language repertoires. Similarly to their male counterparts, much of the interaction suggests a concern with acceptability and how to ﬁt in with their peers. The female participants made more overt references to life stage than the male students. These were suggestive of conﬂicting subjectivities as they negotiated late adolescence and early adulthood. Pam Gilbert and Sandra Taylor (1991) discuss the way in which adolescence has been constructed as a time of youthful rebellion and self-expression, largely associated with teenage males. As they observe, while youthful rebellion is tolerated within certain boundaries as a normal developmental phase for teenage boys, teenage girls are positioned as young women from the onset of menstruation and are often under more pressure to obey norms governing responsibility and respectability. While presenting an adolescent and carefree self, the female participants appeared to orient to girl-power discourses embedded in British popular youth culture. Deﬁned as a ‘self-reliant attitude among girls and young women manifested in ambition, assertiveness and individualism’ (OED, 2001), ‘girl power’ constitutes femininity in terms of sassiness, youth, glamour, consumerism and individualism, enacted through doing being a ‘ladette’. This involves attending to practices associated with laddishness, valuing the interpersonal aspects of female friendships and encouraging young women to have greater aspirations in life. As Whelehan (2000) points out, however, girl power is based on 84

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a consumerist, not feminist, ‘manifesto’ (p. 48) and as such is divorced from social and political movements for change. While emulating laddish bad behaviour, ladettes are expected to maintain the objectiﬁcation of women as a way of ‘having a laugh’. In the interaction among the women in the classroom, it was noticeable that the female students did not attend to laddish practices to the same extent as their male counterparts. Their interactions suggest a greater conformity to traditional femininity, particularly to present an early adult self within the context of HE. There is a large body of literature discussing how femininity is regulated through norms for respectability, reputation, selﬂessness and compliance (Bhatti, 1999; Coates, 1999; Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, 2003; Gilbert and Taylor, 1991; Skeggs, 1997; Walkerdine, Lucey and Melody, 2001). A ladette positioning subverts these norms, carrying the risk of notoriety. Attention to the norms for traditional femininity may have encouraged a level of cooperativeness among the female students towards their peers and the academic community, although a scholarly stance appeared constrained. Overt identiﬁcation with bookishness and academic excellence seemed neither compatible with maintaining the glitzy subject positions of girl power discourses nor the selﬂessness and modesty associated with femininity in culturally traditional discourses. As Walkerdine (1990) points out, these discourses constitute the ‘reasoning woman’ as monstrous and a threat to traditional gender orders (p. 67). In the following sections, I examine this further. Following the structure of the previous chapter, I ﬁrstly consider how the female students presented themselves in relation to their fellow undergraduates. This is followed by a discussion of their representations of the language and literacy practices of the academic community. Finally I explore identiﬁcations with the languages in their lives. Throughout the discussion, I consider how the interaction evokes particular identity positions, paying close attention to gender.

Presentations of self and fellow undergraduates In the classroom interaction, many of the female students display a stronger afﬁliation to fellow peers than their male counterparts although some position themselves in oppositional peer group communities. Similarly to the male students, identiﬁcation is often achieved through cooperative interactions while oppositional positions are accomplished

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through trashing absent students and categorising them as ‘Other’. The following extracts illustrate ways in which the female students presented themselves in relation to each other. Ladettes united The interaction in extract 1 in this chapter bears many similarities to the interaction between Lalit, Darvesh and Salman discussed in the previous chapter. This group consists of Davinder (aged 19), Saba (aged 18), Aisha (aged 18) and Zarina (aged 19). Aisha is the subject of more detailed discussion in Chapter 7. Davinder and Saba assume leadership of the group, with which Aisha and Zarina frequently cooperate. All these young women are British Asians of Pakistani descent, who use Urdu, Punjabi and English at home. Based on employment, their families were positioned as working-class. All were in their ﬁrst year of study at Millennium. In extract 1, they are discussing their relationship with their fellow undergraduates. In common with Lalit, Darvesh and Salman, the interaction begins with an overt ‘Othering’ of the student body that sets the scene for the proceedings. Extract 1: ‘now then girls’ (S=Saba, D=Davinder, A=Aisha, Z=Zarina) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

okay (.) now then/ girls (.) HOW do you SEE YOURSELF in RELATION (.) to a) other students in your year? D: erm (.) okay/ erm there’s like loads of different people/ and it’s completely different/ because (.) they’re not all the same age as us/ because it’s like/ at the end (.) you’re talking about/ same age as us/ [ S: [thank you Davinder (.) Aisha? ALL: (4) A: I think there are a lot of students/ that are mature (.) so that we can’t (.) relate to ‘em/ S: thank you Aisha/ (2) okay/ right in relation to the other (.) member/ I mean= Z: =YEAH/ I agree with the points that are made (.) that’s what I would say as well S: all right (.) I think that erm (.) there’s different type of people around/ and= D: =it’s LOADS of people we hardly (.) [mm/ [we’re only about two S: [yeah/ it’s [difﬁcult/ D: out of the whole university ALL: S: THANK YOU DAVINDER ALL: A: turn it off S:

Saba takes control of the proceedings by adopting the role of the interviewer. At the outset she makes an overt reference to gender,

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categorising them all as ‘girls’ (line 1). Her tone is humorous, suggesting that she is inviting the others to have a laugh. It also seems inclusive; her peers can be included in the light-heartedness if they cooperate. Davinder develops Saba’s utterance through drawing attention to ‘age’ differences in which she ‘Others’ their fellow undergraduates at Millennium (lines 4–5). Her reply appears playful and is collectively responded to with laughter (line 9). At this point, Aisha is nominated to speak. The four-second pause suggests that she is considering her response. Not wishing to take her turn too seriously, perhaps to avoid upsetting group relations, Aisha co-operates with Saba and Davinder. She spells out the previous references to age by categorising their fellow undergraduates as ‘mature’ (line 10). Maturity is portrayed as a barrier to social relations, a positioning with which Zarina concurs (lines 14–15). Saba and Davinder then conclude this topic in further cooperative interactions that reinforce the youthful and ‘sassy’ girl tone. The tone of the interaction, the ‘girl’ identity and the resistance to adopting a mature stance is strongly suggestive of a ladette positioning. As I have discussed (Preece, 2006a), despite not seeming particularly humorous, there is frequent laughter throughout the interaction. This seems to serve several purposes. Besides functioning as a minimal response that serves to signal involvement and agreement in the proceedings (Coates, 1996), the laughter orients them to the norms and practices of girl power. According to Whelehan (2000), girl power is notable for encouraging a frivolous attitude in which ‘normal “girls” like nothing better than a laugh with their mates’ (p. 40). The laughter also signals the power relations in the group. It is questionable whether Aisha and Zarina laugh because they are having fun or because they are working to maintain face with Saba and Davinder. As Cameron (2000) discusses, smiling and other ‘expressive’ sounds and intonation patterns are construed as ‘symbolically feminine behaviours’ (p. 334), which can function as signs of deference and appeasement, or as gestures ‘offered upward in the status hierarchy’ (Henley, 1986: 171). The laughter also suggests that their peer group relations are preferable to those in groups with more ‘mature’, in other words, seriously minded, undergraduates. According to Eckert (1990), the negotiation of femininity among female students in school settings involves accounting for status in relation to popular peers. She argues that one way of dealing with problems in this respect is the creation of an alternative CofP that is portrayed as preferable. It seems plausible that the interaction among these young women is working to achieve this.

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Throughout the interaction, Saba, Davinder, Aisha and Zarina present themselves as playful, stylish and sassy ‘girls’ having a good time. Despite the frequent pejorative naming of women as ‘girls’, these young women embrace this gendered positioning in ways that imply a strong identiﬁcation with a ladette positioning. Whelehan (2000) argues that when women style themselves as ‘girls’, it can be to recall youthful and untroubled times before the ‘travails of womanhood set in’ (p. 39). Within an academic context, this youthful ladette positioning has the potential to disrupt social relations. It seems likely to result in the marginalisation of young women who practise it, as lecturers, and possibly other undergraduate students, are unlikely to be sympathetic towards behaviour they perceive as not conducive to learning. Similarly to their male peers, there is little indication that these young women are undergoing a smooth transition into HE. They do not appear to have developed social networks with many of their fellow peers, who they appear to regard as conformist and ‘Other’ to themselves. Part of the crowd In contrast to the interactions examined so far, the following extract suggests a more positive disposition to fellow undergraduates. As noted in the Introduction to the book, Leela (aged 19), Biba (aged 22) and Awino (aged 32) are making efforts to ﬁt in and adapt to university life. All are in their ﬁrst year at Millennium although Biba and Leela dropped out of their ﬁrst year in other universities before entering Millennium. Leela is a British Asian of Gujarati descent while Biba is a British Arab of Moroccan heritage. Awino is a mature Black African student from Kenya who arrived in the UK in her early twenties. She had worked for around ten years before embarking on a degree programme. Leela and Biba were friends who always sat together at the front of the class, while Awino was a more peripheral group member. In extract 2, Leela, Biba and Awino collaborate to portray themselves as ‘in the same boat’ as their fellow undergraduates. Extract 2: ‘we’re all in the same boat’ (L=Leela, B=Biba, A=Awino) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

L: I think because we’re all new/ we really get on well= B: =yeah L: cos we’re all in the same boat/ as in we didn’t know (.) what to expect when we came here/ [butB: [I think y’know/ that everyone’s on the same level= L: =yeah

Multilingual Femininities in the Classroom 89 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

B: erm/ from past experience (.) of other universities (.) erm (.) I felt that I was a BIT below everyone (.) I had to redo erm/ ten times more to reach a [stageL: [was that here (.) or in B: no (.) that’s at [Town1 / I was at Town University/ I had to do (.) like L: [all right/ B: like (.) I always felt well below everyone there (.) had to do MUCH MORE to be on their level/ L: but here? B: but here I’ve felt we’re more/ more on the same level (.) that I can relate to all the people er much better (.) erm (.) socially and education wise/ I feel that it’s much better here/ than compared to [otherA: [other universities= B: =yeah/ what about you Awino? A: in the beginning I honestly found it VEry VEry difﬁcult/ but the teachers are very approachable/ so I felt at [ease B: [yeah (.) what (.) what about the students here? A: the students are really good [(.) they are easy to study with and they’reB: [why did you ﬁnd it difﬁcult at the beginning? A: because I found the studying quite difﬁcult/ and [I wasn’t sureB: [is it (.) is it been a long time since [you’ve come back to study? A: [yeah/ yeah/ ((xxx)) yeah

Leela sets the tone with a claim of friendly relationships between fellow ﬁrst-years (line 1). According to Leela, these cordial relationships have arisen as a result of their newcomer status, which has thrown them all into ‘the same boat’ (line 3). This metaphor suggests that they are not only facing uncertain prospects, but also feel powerless to act. Within this scenario, it appears necessary to band together to ‘weather the storm’. However, this congregating also appears to facilitate the transition into higher education, illustrated in Leela’s repeated use of ‘we’ to categorise them as part of the student body. Biba mirrors Leela’s point (lines 5–6) and then develops a narrative (lines 8–15), in which she contrasts her inclusion in the mainstream student body at Millennium to her exclusion in Town, the previous university she attended. Biba’s use of ‘I’ and ‘their’ to construct her relationship with the students at Town contrasts with her ‘we’ in relation to Millennium students, with whom she claims to identify both socially and educationally. In conjunction with previous interactions on this subject, this suggests the importance of being able to form social relations with peers. The reference to social and educational

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background, taken with references to ‘posh’ students, implies that social class positioning plays a role in the establishment of peer group networks. In the following interaction, Awino mirrors Biba’s disclosure with her own story of difﬁculties. She rephrases Biba’s utterance (line 8), suggesting initial difﬁculties followed by a change for the better. Awino mirrors Biba’s problems at Town with her own at Millennium (lines 23–24). However, while Biba and Leela rely on peers for support, Awino turns to academic staff, whom she positions as supportive. Awino’s use of ‘they’ to refer to her relationship with Millennium students (line 27) contrasts with Biba and Leela’s inclusive ‘we’, implying more distant social relations with peers. At this stage, Awino’s interests, as a mature African woman, and Biba and Leela’s interests, as young British women, begin to seem more disparate. Awino presents herself as more concerned with her academic work than Biba and Leela while Biba’s closed question (lines 31–32) constructs age differentiation. There are some similarities here with the interaction in other groups in which the younger students repeatedly draw attention to age and maturity in ways which position older students (in age or outlook) as ‘Other’. Differences in outlook become more marked in the following extract in which Leela disputes Awino’s account of the role of academic staff.

Extract 3: ‘a personal relationship’ 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54

L: right (.) okay (.) your teachers/ I feel HERE/ that the teachers (.) they don’t want to get to know you personally (.) they just want to do their lectures/ and ﬁnish (.) I think you have a more personal relationship with your seminar tutor (.) but even then/ when you come to them with coursework problems/ and they don’t say (1) they don’t HELP you/ I don’t feel there’s a personal relationship/ I really feel (.) that they just come in (.) do their bit/ and go= A: =yeah/ but (.) [that is what they’re supposed to do/ they’re not B: [the thing is (1) yeah/ yeah (.) your lecturers/ A: supposed to be per[B: [yeah/ they’re not the seminar tutors/ they B: [shouldA: [be personal with the students= B: =no (.) [not at all/ that’s not the culture of universities= A: [yeah/ because I remember onceL: =but when I was at Northern2 University/ the lecturers THERE/ are really helpful/ they try to be more (.) per- have a personal relationship with their students (.) honestly/ I’ve I’ve seen it/ and I’ve heard it (.) and I think they should do that more here because then (.) y’know/ you DO FEEL/ that you ARE getting SOME SORT of SOME SORT of support

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Leela counters Awino’s positive experience of academic staff at Millennium by expressing dissatisfaction with the nature of staff/ student relationships, which she characterises as impersonal. A traditionally feminised ‘caring’ positioning is invoked through the repetition of ‘personal’, the raised volume of ‘help’ (line 39) and the opposition between the impersonal and personal staff/ student relationships at Millennium and Northern, respectively. Both Awino and Biba initially challenge this view (lines 41–47) by invoking a more traditional positioning of lecturers as attending to the ‘rational’, rather than the personal in their interactions with students. Following a protracted discussion on social relationships, Biba changes her mind and supports Leela’s assertation that Millennium needs a more ‘personal touch’. Overall, Biba, Leela and Awino co-construct an in-group that is favourably disposed to their fellow undergraduates. Their interactions demonstrate many features of cooperative talk argued to be typical of conversation among female friends (Coates, 1996). They collaborate through rephrasing and repeating vocabulary items, offering back-channel support, and paying close attention to each other’s contributions through latching, simultaneous and overlapping speech. As discussed in the previous chapter, cooperative features were also present in the interaction among male peers, particularly when they were attending to a friendly and light-hearted laddishness. Where this collaboration diverges is in the practice of ‘mirroring’ self disclosure, in which each speaker mirrors the content of each other’s disclosures in ways which match and develop the topic under discussion (Coates, 1996). Coates deﬁnes this activity as ‘exchanged vulnerable talking’, in which the speaker expects whatever she discloses to ‘(come) back’ (pp. 88–9). Coates argues that this is a common feature of developing female friendships that both builds emotional ties and functions to establish boundaries of ‘normal’ femininity with peers (ibid.). While there were many examples of ‘exchanged vulnerable talking’ in the spoken interaction of the female students, this feature was absent in the interaction of their male counterparts, suggesting that ‘exchanged vulnerable talking’ is a salient way of marking gender for these students. Unlike many of the students in the study, this group of young women presented themselves as well-disposed to their fellow undergraduates. Their interactions give the impression that they are having some success establishing new social networks and settling into university life. Although Biba and Leela expressed concerns about their relationship with academic staff, Awino expressed satisfaction with her encounters

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with academic staff. This seemed to be related to their expectations of university and the role of academic staff. Miss Popular The ﬁnal extract in this section comes from Seema (aged 19), Maya (aged 19) and Deena (aged 20). Seema and Maya are British Asians of Gujarati descent whereas Deena is a Mauritian student who had been in the UK for less than one year at this stage. Deena attended an English-medium school in Mauritius and generally uses French Creole while at home. Extract 4 comes after a lengthy section of talk in which these young women have been discussing their experiences of making friends at Millennium. While Deena and Maya present themselves as having established friendly relationships with their fellow undergraduates, Seema has disclosed that she has been experiencing difﬁculties and has received a ‘cold reception’. At this stage, Maya is explaining how being ‘chatty’ has helped her to socialise. Extract 4: ‘Miss Popular’ (M= Maya, S= Seema, D= Deena) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

M: every time I walked in they’d be like/ “hi:: come and sit down” < exaggerated posh> and I used to say/ “oh thank you” <exaggerated posh> S: REA:lly? oh my GOD M: yeah/ it’s quite nice actually (.) I think it’s when I started enjoying it (.) I mean even if I went into the library/ an’ I just sat down/ and I’d start talking to the person that was just there (.) but mind you/ I’m pretty chatty anyway so/ S: okay/ maybe I should become a bit more chatty (.) what about (.) you said it was friendly as well [didn’t you? / D: [yes S: o:kay maybe I’m just really STUCK UP/ but (.) [noM: [it is to an extent (.) it IS anyway (.) you get some people like= D: =but some are helpful as well you know (.) you get all types/ you meet different types of people/ S: yeah/ that’s true D: like/ one or two can be cold and rude S: yeah/ that’s true (.) but but I mean um (1) I guess I’m just not used to it like/ from college D: yeah yeah/ S: and being whatever/ but then in college you’re like/ you know/ Miss Popular ((xx)) and then you go to somewhere/ where you don’t know no one (.) and everyone’s just like/ “oh:: ((can’t be bothered))” (.) but I mean/ I don- it’s gettin’ better though

At the opening of this section of interaction, Maya uses an accent stylisation to characterise encounters with peers that she perceives as

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‘posh’ and ‘Other’ to herself. Similarly to the interaction of Biba, Leela and Awino in the Introduction to this book, she suggests that she is talking ‘posh’ in order to make friends. This accent stylisation implies that Maya and Seema are being more routinely exposed to students who are from middle-class and professional families than they encountered during their schooling. This seems likely as although Millennium recruits signiﬁcant numbers of students from WP backgrounds, there are still substantial numbers of ‘traditional’ students at the institution. The use of an exaggerated posh accent here may also that indicate that their fellow undergraduates display a greater degree of conformity to the norms of the academic community. This would accord with the ‘mature’ categorisation used to position much of the student body as ‘Other’ in the interaction. In the following utterance, Maya claims that her success at making friends arises from being ‘chatty’ (line 8). This characterisation implies attention to culturally traditional norms for femininity, which position women as the talkative sex, responsible for facilitating conversation and doing the interpersonal work in relationships. Seema orients to these norms by positioning herself as insufﬁciently talkative (line 9) through which she implies that she could be construed as aloof or snobby (line 12). In the following interactions, Deena’s assertion that they will meet ‘all types’ of people at university (lines 15–16) is suggestive of an attempt to ﬁnd consensus between Maya’s success and Seema’s difﬁculties in establishing new social relations. In the ﬁnal utterance of this section, Seema positions herself as ‘Miss Popular’ in her college prior to Millennium. Implying that she has previously been the centre of attention may be a face-saving move in the light of experiences at Millennium. Seema may also be implying that she is a person worthy of friendship and is hopeful of overcoming her difﬁculties. This section of talk enables Seema, Maya and Deena to explore their relationship with fellow undergraduates. Eventually they appear to reach a consensus in the interaction in which they categorise their peers ranging from ‘cold’ and ‘rude’ to ‘friendly’ and ‘helpful’. Their portrayal of how to succeed in making friends implies attention to the norms for traditional femininity in which it is normal for women to focus on the interpersonal through being chatty and nice. Eckert (1990) discusses this in relation to the ‘likeability’ and ‘status’ issue (p. 97) in which women attempt to make themselves likeable through presenting themselves as individuals worthy of ‘good personhood’. Within the context of higher education, these young women imply that they are more likely to gain and maintain popularity within mainstream social networks if they can talk and act ‘posh’. Maya suggests that she identiﬁes with posh talk for

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the purpose of establishing friendships whereas Seema seems to ﬁnd this more problematic, presenting herself as an outsider who is marginalised among her peers. In common with their male counterparts, establishing social networks with peers was a preoccupation for many of the female students. For many, this involved practices such as chatting and “exchanged vulnerable talking” that indexed more traditional gender positions for these young women. Some also stylised themselves as switching into ‘posh’ in order to accommodate to more conformist peers in higher education, suggesting high levels of adaptability and cooperativeness, characteristics again associated with more traditional femininities. Some had established alternative CofP in opposition to more conformist undergraduates. These appeared oriented to the norms for ‘girl power’ and ladette behaviour. This disposition gave the impression of sustained difﬁculties during the transition into higher education and marginalisation among peers.

Representations of academic language and literacy practices Attending to peer group norms also inﬂuenced the positions that the female participants adopted in relation to academic language and literacy practices. The interaction suggested that many of the women felt the need to negotiate the tension between femininity and cleverness. Walkerdine et al. (2001) contend that academic success, particularly academic excellence, can threaten performances of ‘acceptable’ femininity among peers. They argue that striving for high academic achievement involves young women in performing a ‘balancing act’ in that they need to attain success in a realm strongly oriented to discourses of rationality and masculinity while maintaining conventions associated with traditional femininity. In the interaction, the female students approached this by presenting themselves as experiencing difﬁculties with their academic work and as academically ‘ordinary’ (Brown, 1987). While displays of modesty and disclosures of difﬁculties facilitated friendships among the women, they also constrained overt displays of scholarliness or the expression of a desire to be outstanding. Biba’s narrative in extract 2 of this chapter is suggestive of a wish to blend in academically. Through presenting herself as being ‘ten times’ worse than her counterparts in her previous university, she displays a discomfort with standing out from her peers by being at the ‘bottom’ of the class. It also suggests a sub-text in which she does not want to be ‘ten times’ better than her peers any more than she wants to be ‘ten times’ worse. She desires to ﬁt in academically by being academically successful, but not academically

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exceptional. For some of the female participants, the top and bottom of the class appeared equally undesirable places to occupy. The following extracts illustrate the ways in which female participants manage the talk on academic reading and writing. This appears to revolve around blaming themselves for their difﬁculties, resigning themselves to their institutional deﬁcit positioning and resisting academic literacy practices through attending to laddishness. Blameworthy In extract 5, Biba, Leela and Awino are discussing their difﬁculties with reading academic texts. They cooperate in constructing their problems as their own fault and as arising from their behaviour during schooling. Their interactions suggest an opposition between a carefree adolescence and a serious adulthood. Extract 5: ‘we’ve suffered now’ (L=Leela, B=Biba, A=Awino) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

L: do you think of yourself as a reader (.) and a writer of academic texts? say why (1) I HATE reading B: do you? L: I REALLY hate reading [((xx)) B: [do you read novels or anything? L: no (1) I read the [newspaper now and then/ yeah? B: [I used to be like that/ I used to be like that (.) and I think the reason why my English is not as ((great)) (.) if I compare myself to people/ like my close friends/ who ARE in in the same year as me A: true= B: =who went to school/ went to college together (.) and I look at their English/ and look at my own English= A: =%mm% B: their English is SO much more better than me erm (1) I think to the fact (.) the reason for that is is because (.) when we were a lot younger they did read a lot (.) [but I didn’t tend to= A: [yeah =right B: I- I just didn’t ﬁnd it interested me/ and I think (.) because of that= L: =we’ve [suffered now yeah B: [I’ve suffered for it now A: yeah= B: =suffering from it now (.) erm (1) so that’s why I try to read a bit more [(.) novels and newspapers and things [like that/ A: [yeah (.) yeah/ L: [yeah I think it= A: =yeah I think it helps a lot (.) if you read novels and books

Leela’s opening utterance has a confessional quality, suggesting that she is uncomfortable with not conforming to academic community

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practices. Biba’s response (line 7) is suggestive of adolescent habits. She positions her school and college contemporaries as having much better English than her (lines 8–15), which she relates to their reading practices as adolescents (lines 16–17). She blames herself for her difﬁculties in reading (lines 7–24) and makes no attempt to reﬂect on any other contributing factors. This facilitates a contrast between her ‘irresponsible’ practice during adolescence and her ‘responsible’ practice, whether imaginary or actual, as a young adult. Leela completes Biba’s utterance ‘because of that’ (line 20) (‘that’ indicating a lack of reading when younger) with ‘we’ve suffered now’ (line 21). This positioning is reinforced through repetition of ‘suffering’ and used as a reason for reading texts construed as more bookish and scholarly (lines 24–28). This may serve to mitigate any discomfort they feel about practices viewed as not cool and/ or posh by their peers. In the interaction, Leela, Biba and Awino work to orient themselves towards the norms and practices of the academic community. Leela’s initial statement of hating reading is used as a way of exploring the difﬁculties that they are experiencing. Through co-constructing a world in which they are blameworthy, they evoke the performance of traditional femininity that ‘suffers’ through its own failings and pathology. This ‘suffering’ suggests attention to discourses that constitute femininity as emotional and irrational. The positioning is reproduced in the ensuing interactions in which Biba, Leela and Awino mirror each other’s disclosures of difﬁculties and assesses themselves unfavourably in relation to their peers. Biba, Leela and Awino co-construct higher education as a place in which it is normal to suffer and experience more difﬁculties than their peers. Their interactions reproduce their remedial English language positioning in the University. However, they also serve to facilitate their participation in the academic writing programme, which they discuss in terms of ﬁxing their problems through equipping them with ‘skills’, ‘the basics’ and the ‘foundations’ of writing. The interaction often suggests that they do not have particularly high expectations of their academic potential and imagine themselves as academically ‘ordinary’ (Brown, 1987). While this may simply be a way of balancing conﬂicting norms of the peer group and academic community, it creates a narrowly bounded space for these young women to explore their aspirations in life.

Resistance or desperation? In extract 6, Maya, Seema and Deena are also discussing their perceptions of academic literacy practices. While Deena presents herself as

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conforming to the norms of the academic community, Maya and Seema are more resistant. Extract 6: ‘it just doesn’t DO NOthing’ (D=Deena, S=Seema, M=Maya) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

M: I read what I have to read/ and THAT’S IT S: M: no/ that’s true though (.) I don’t sit there and get a book and just read it/ I read a magazine but only if it’s interesting (.) but yeah S: do you ((xx)) like read books? D: I read a lot yeah= M: =I don’t/ D: OH I thin[kS: [I’ve been trying to read= M: =I don’t read the [newspaper ((xx))/ D: [lately I think I’m a bit lazy S: no/ I read the newspaper in the morning (.) cos I get so bloody bored (.) but it’s only cos I get bored M: yeah/ S: it’s not cos “oh I HAVE to look at this” ((xx)) a day D: with writing/ I don’t have the skill of writing (1) S: you’re done? D: yeah/ S: everyone says “that’s why I’ve been reading/ cos everyone’s English will improve” and I’m just thinking (.) “okay” <sceptical tone> and it just doesn’t DO NOthing

At the outset of the extract, Maya presents reading as a chore and distinguishes between the reading materials favoured by her peers (magazines) and those favoured by the academic community (books and newspapers) (lines 3–4). By emphatically contradicting Deena’s assertion that she reads a lot (line 7), Maya resists the norms of the academic community. In the following interaction, Seema aligns herself with Maya, rather than Deena, with her claim that she only reads newspapers when bored (lines 12–13). Her use of taboo language and ‘only’ act as a way of mitigating this practice. She resists claims by her teachers that extensive reading is of educational value, alleging instead that ‘it just doesn’t DO NOthing’ (lines 19–21). As this contradicts an earlier utterance in which she claims that she has been ‘trying to read’ (line 9), it is suggestive of an underlying frustration of not being able to cope with the demands of reading increasingly complex texts. By this stage in the proceedings, Seema is collaborating with Maya, rather than with Deena and her more conformist position in the academic community. While this may create a sense of camaraderie among Maya and Seema, as extract 7 illustrates, it does little to help Seema cope with her anxiety about academic literacy practices.

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Extract 7: ‘FUCK it’ ‘I had to do a sociology module and the FUcking REAding text was SO HARD (.) even the whole class said “we don’t understand what the hell the book’s going on about (.) we don’t just don’t understand at all” (.) so everyone just pulled out A level books and was doing it (.) but it was sociology/ and he gave us like (1) the chapters were like/ THIS BIG honestly like forty pages/ and he made us do two chapters and (.) everyone got the books (.) and couldn’t understand a WORD it was SAying (.) . . . just thought “FUCK it” just (.) lea- just leave it.’ Seema’s utterance is reminiscent of the interaction among some of her male counterparts, particularly Sanjay (see Chapter 4). She resists academic literacy practices by trashing the reading set by the lecturer. Her use of taboo language and the repeated use of raised volume imply a tough ladette positioning. It is also suggestive of an underlying sense of frustration, and perhaps panic, with the reading task set by the lecturer. She hides behind ‘we’, a communal voice, to present herself as experiencing the same difﬁculties as her peers in making meaning from the text, and also to justify her strategy of resorting to familiar texts studied at school as a communal approach to coping with more complex reading. This is reminiscent of reading practices discussed by Moss (1999), in which weaker girl readers frequently elected to read and re-read familiar texts that were well within or below their capabilities rather than struggle with more difﬁcult texts. As this practice starts during primary schooling, prolonged repetition without teacher intervention during schooling seems to encourage a climate of low expectations, in which teachers do not expect much of weaker girl readers and these girls do not expect much of themselves. This stance seems reproduced in Seema’s ﬁnal utterance ‘just thought “FUCK it” just . . . leave it’, in which she also seems attentive to discourses on popular culture through styling herself as unconcerned about her academic performance. The interaction between Seema and Maya evokes ladette positions. While they disclose difﬁculties with academic work, they make light of these through adopting a lassez-faire attitude and, in common with their male peers, they trash academic literacy practices, which they construct as uncool. Seema’s performance appears to be a bid for Maya’s approval and seems far from representing her daily experience in higher education. It also does little to help Seema develop her ability to switch between the language and literacy practices of her peers and those of the

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academic community. As the interaction progresses, Deena ﬁnds herself increasingly marginalised. She is interrupted, ignored and subjected to potentially face-threatening challenges in relation to her attempts to display a more conformist position in relation to the academic community. Her increasingly sporadic utterances are largely ignored and she ﬁnds little support for her willingness to do serious talk. Similarly to Osmaan (see Chapter 4), Deena gains little support from her peers in the classroom and few opportunities in the peer group to develop her expertise. The female participants were also concerned about their institutional positioning as in need of remediation and their placement on the academic writing programme. However, the competence/incompetence dichotomy did not appear to be as face-threatening for them as for the male students. In fact for some, constructing themselves as incompetent and making disclosures of personal difﬁculties created a space in which there was more potential for interpersonal talk and the creation of social relationships. Much of the talk seemed to generate a resigned acceptance of their positioning. This may have been a way of balancing the tension between cleverness and “acceptable” femininity with their peers (Walkerdine et al., 2001) and/or may have stemmed from feelings of low self-esteem about their own abilities. The acceptance of deﬁcit was one way in which the female students reacted to being positioned by the institution as needing to take the academic writing programme, which they constructed as ﬁxing their problems. Others were more resistant to their institutional positioning, evoking a ladette positioning to portray themselves as unconcerned about academic practices. In these groups, students using English as a second or foreign language could ﬁnd themselves marginalised among peers who paid close attention to norms and practices associated with laddishness.

Identiﬁcations with language Most of the female students were the British-born children of migrants; the majority had also grown up and been educated in London. Similarly to the male students, they routinely referred to their everyday language as ‘slang’, which appeared to function as a way of forging and maintaining friendships with like-minded peers. As with the British-born males, the British-born females were expert users of London English, as the local variety of vernacular English, and aligned themselves to it when attending to laddishness. It was noticeable that afﬁliation to ‘slang’ facilitated powerful duos, in which two females worked closely

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together to establish themselves as ‘legitimate speakers’ (Bourdieu, 1977) in their peer group. This is reminiscent of Jenny Cheshire’s (1982a, b) ﬁndings regarding adolescent female friendships in which female peer groups were organised around intense, but ﬂuid, ‘best friend’ pairings, with other females having secondary group membership. References to ‘slang’ appeared to be a way of establishing and/or maintaining a ‘best friend’ pairing among many of the British-born females. This acted to privilege their views of the world, as they drew on shared experiences of growing up and being educated in the culturally hybrid setting of London. It also marginalised the experiences of female participants born overseas, as they were less conversant with ‘slang’ or with peer group practices aligned to popular culture. There are lengthy interactions between Leela and Biba, for example, in which they seemed to forget about Awino, illustrated in occasional utterances such as ‘oh yeah we haven’t asked you’. While Leela and Biba eventually made efforts to include Awino, Maya and Seema increasingly seemed to exclude Deena through the use of in-jokes and references to popular culture that Deena could not hope to understand. This was reminiscent of Bonny Norton’s (2000) ﬁndings that ESL learners’ opportunities to participate are restricted by power relations, in which those with more status and power control access to the interaction. In common with the males, the peer group also provided a space for the female participants to explore different selves, away from the gaze of their families, with all their expectations of their daughters. As I have noted (Preece, 2008), some of the British Asian women had similar concerns to adolescent Asian females documented in other research (Bhatti, 1999; Dwyer, 1999; Haw, 1998; Pichler, 2001; Shain, 2003; Wade and Souter, 1992). This literature illustrates ways in which young British Asian women negotiate competing femininities. Pia Pichler (2001), for example, examines the construction of bi-cultural ‘good girl/ tough girl’ femininities (p. 34) among British Bangladeshi girls, noting ways in which the girls negotiate the norms of culturally conservative discourses (p. 34), such as ‘Sharam’, in which female members of the family are expected to display modesty, shyness and shame, and the norms of popular discourses in which young women are portrayed as highly oriented to laddishness and ladette behaviour. Ghalaza Bhatti (1999) comments on the way academic achievement can become a way for some young British Asian women to maintain the ‘delicate art of balance’ (p. 164) between home and peers. This was described by one of her female participants as learning to be ‘completely clever’ (p. 167), by appearing to ‘toe the line’, through being both ‘shareef’ (respectable) and academically

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successful (p. 167) while subjected to the gaze of the family community but ‘(doing) what the hell you like’ within the peer group at college (p. 167). Many of these studies show that competing identity positions arise in talk exploring personal issues. This became noticeable for the female students in my study during their discussion of their heritage language(s), as these were often related to their lives at home. As extract 8 illustrates, heritage languages can evoke ‘culturally intelligible’ (Butler, 1990) femininities within the family CofP.

Extract 8: ‘in-laws’ (L=Leela, B=Biba, A=Awino) L: when I was younger/ my mum PUT me in Gujara- Gujarati school/ and ------------------------------------------------------------------------------L: then she goes/ “you’ve GOT to learn your language”/ “because B: yeah yes/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------L: it will be embarrassing when you’re older (.) when [you meet [your inB: [I feel embarrassed (.) A: [yeah (.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------L: laws and that” B: I feel [embarrassed right now/ A: yeah/ [I think my KIDS when they get ((older))/ they must speak my ------------------------------------------------------------------------------L: yeah/ yeah/ [andyou know B: A: language/ they should/ [it’s very important/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------L: WHAT?/ about (.) two months there / I couldn’t stand it/ I said “mum/ I B: A: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------L: don’t want to learn (.) bye bye” and she- (.) I REGRET it (.) to this B: A: %mm% ------------------------------------------------------------------------------L: day/ B: yeah/ A: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Adopting her mother’s voice, Leela suggests that she had to learn Gujarati not only because of ethnicity and culture, but also because of gender. Her gender and sexuality is constituted through a heteronormative discourse, deﬁned by Cameron (2005) as: (the) system which prescribes, enjoins, rewards, and naturalizes a particular kind of heterosexuality – monogamous, reproductive, and based on conventionally complementary gender roles – as the norm on which social arrangements should be based (p. 489). Her mother positions her both as heterosexual and as a future bride, who will ‘naturally’ marry a man symbolising her cultural heritage. In order to be a dutiful daughter and wife, she needs to be able to converse in Gujarati, not only with her parents, but also her future in-laws, who are positioned as non-English speakers. Lack of ﬂuency in Gujarati appears potentially embarrassing, although it is unclear whether for Leela or her mother. In later utterances, Leela reverts to her own voice to resist this positioning with a forceful utterance that she ‘could not stand’ community school and had no desire to learn Gujarati. She immediately counters this by expressing regret for not following her mother’s advice, in which she orients to a dominant discourse of the family in which, as Coates (1996) points out, daughters are dutiful and honour their parents (p. 241). Despite initially subverting this discourse, Leela takes care to present herself as at fault for not following her mother’s wishes. Both Biba and Awino identify with this traditional discourse of family relations. Awino speaks as a mother, reproducing a traditional mother– child discourse in which children honour their mothers by using the ‘mother tongue’. Awino’s desire for her children to speak ‘(her) language’ is a reference to her heritage languages. Perhaps this arises from Awino’s identiﬁcation with her Kenyan ‘imagined community’ (Anderson, 2006), for as discussed elsewhere (Preece, 2004), while Awino is a British citizen, in other sections of the data she presents herself as ‘fully Kenyan’ and resists Britishness. Later, however, she seems to contradict this by presenting her Kenyan accent as embarrassing. Biba’s emphatic statement that she feels ‘embarrassed right now’ appears to refer to her positioning in her family, as later she presents her inexpert use of Arabic as marginalising her in the extended family. While Biba appears to accept her positioning as a ‘dutiful daughter’, ashamed by her lack of expertise in her ‘mother tongue’, she also resists this positioning through presenting herself, later in the talk, as ‘more westernised than . . . Moroccan’, with her own ‘more westernised’ interpretations of

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her ‘morals, religion and culture’. Conﬂicting subjectivities in the family are also alluded to by Seema and Maya, as shown in extract 9: Extract 9: ‘you know how parents are’ (S=Seema, M=Maya, D=Deena) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

S: I speak English (.) [mixed like (.) I don’t know M: [talked with ((xx))/ and I was like (.) half and half= S: =half yeah: (1) but most of the time it’s in English okay (.) now they’ve like (.) changed (1) M: they know it/ S: they think it’s bad though (.) you know how parents are M: it’s very bad we don’t know the language

Maya and Seema are exploring their use of English and Gujarati, their heritage language. This talk prompts covertness through the ambiguous ‘they’ (lines 4–6) to refer to parents and parental reluctance to accept their children’s way of using heritage languages. The impersonal pronoun and pauses suggest a subversive and rather uncomfortable positioning. This is emphasised in the ﬁnal turns in which Seema positions her parents as unhappy with her use of Gujarati. Her statement ‘you know how parents are’ (line 6) shows that she expects Maya to understand her experiences of parent–daughter relations. Maya’s ﬁnal utterance can be read in various ways. She may be enacting a parental disapproving voice with her ‘it’s very bad we don’t know the language’ (line 7). However, the accompanying laughter is suggestive of an in-joke based on a common understanding of parental behaviour. Maya may also feel genuine concern about her expertise in Gujarati and the laughter may mask anxieties about not fulﬁlling parental expectations. The female participants also appear to associate their home language with the domestic sphere, through the way it constituted their early childhood relationships with their mothers and other caregivers. Within the peer group, many of the British-born female participants present themselves as speaking their home language ﬂuently before the start of compulsory schooling, implying that their early childhood was largely within the boundaries of their family communities. They suggest that English was acquired on starting compulsory schooling, an experience which is often presented as responsible for dislocating them from their ‘mother tongue’. In these cases, the British-born female participants disclose feelings of infantilism that arise from use of the home language as young adults, through utterances such as, ‘I ﬁnd . . . my tenses go wrong . . . it’s REAlly embarrassing’ (Leela); ‘I don’t know it (.) I don’t

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want to be shown up’ (Leela) and ‘I sound like a two-year-old when I’m speaking Arabic’ (Biba). Downplaying expertise and afﬁliation to heritage languages among peers in the classroom enabled them to adopt a native-speaker-ofEnglish positioning. This may also have been a way of resisting their institutional deﬁcit positioning as ‘remedial’ English language learners. The English native speaker positioning also allowed them to position themselves in opposition to students and staff that they perceived as foreigners. For instance, Biba positions Awino as using English as a ‘second’ language in contrast to herself and Leela, who she positions as using English as their ‘ﬁrst’ language. Despite her Gujarati heritage, Leela makes comments about lecturers with ‘strong Indian accents’, claiming that she cannot understand them. Adopting the position of an individual ‘born and bred’ in Britain, Biba constitutes Awino’s accent as exotic. Speaking from the position of someone who is English, Seema consistently refers to Deena as a French-speaker, despite Deena’s repeated attempts to adopt a French Creole positioning. These attempts at differentiation between those born in the UK and those born overseas resonate with the ﬁndings of other studies with young people from minority ethnic communities. In a study of ethnic and linguistic identities in complementary schools in the UK, Angela Creese et al. (2006) found that British Gujarati teenagers positioned recent migrants to the UK as ‘freshies’ and ‘outsiders’ (p. 38). The British Gujarati teenagers in their study valued being able to switch between Gujarati and English and used their ability to mix and blend the languages and cultures in their life as a way of differentiating themselves, as British-born youth, from migrant pupils at school. According to Creese et al., being able to switch between languages was a way of marking themselves as sophisticated young people who were able to ‘look down on the freshie’ while in mainstream schooling, as the ‘freshie’ was not proﬁcient in peer group practices (p. 38). It seems, therefore, that issues of language afﬁliation are highly complex and talk about language afﬁliations and expertise can function as a dynamic in negotiating power relations among British-born and migrant multilingual students. As I have discussed, in common with their male counterparts, the British-born females constructed a ‘posh/slang’ dichotomy to contrast the language practices of the academic community and those of the peer group. As the opening extract in the Introduction to the book illustrates, the female students seemed more inclined than many of their male counterparts to switch to ‘posh’, particularly when it was

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likely to facilitate friendships in the academic community. Being able to present different selves, constituted through using different languages and language varieties, did not seem to be viewed as contradictory, or disingenuous. Instead, the female participants seemed to consider this as a practical way of navigating life and social relationships outside the familiar settings of the family and adolescent friends, and as part of adult life. As extract 10 illustrates, the female students were well-aware of the low status of vernacular English in institutional settings. Extract 10: ‘speak properly’ (L=Leela, B=Biba, A=Awino) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

B: at WORK/ I tend not to speak like that/ or at uni in lectures or seminars/ I try not to speak like that A: what do you mean (.) like that? L: [meaningB: [like this (.) “d’you know what I mean?” <exaggerated Cockney> L: [ B: [“know what I [mean?” (.) yeah A: [oh/ you try to speak properly/ [of course/ B: [speak properly (.) erm (.) BUT with your FRIENDS MAINly L: [yeah A: [yeah (.) [yeah/ B: [I speak slang/ it just comes out naturally A: yeah/ B: I try to prevent it but it’s very difﬁcult in that sense

This is a good illustration of the ways in which accent stylisation (Rampton, 2006) can carry wider connotations. In an attempt to explain the meaning of ‘like that’ to Awino, in ‘I try not to speak like that’ (line 2), Biba uses an exaggerated Cockney accent and an expression stereotypically associated with Cockney. Having been raised and educated in London, Biba and Leela have a shared understanding of the values associated with Cockney in British institutions. Biba’s utterance in stylised Cockney (line 5) evokes these values and what it means for these young people when they do not ‘speak properly’ in institutional settings. Despite not arriving in the UK until her early twenties, Awino is able to decode the stereotypes associated with this accent through her experiences of living and working in London. As Rampton (2006) points out, accent is symbolic both of social class and level of education, arguing that ‘ “educated” is often used as a synonym for Received Pronunciation and middle class’ (p. 271). The students were struggling with the connotations associated with the vernacular language practices of their peers and the elite language practices of higher

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education. While the interaction indicates that the students did not perceive their preferred language practices as transferable to institutional settings, as Biba illustrates, for many of the students speaking ‘slang’ was an embodied practice that they regarded as ‘natural’ (line 13). ‘Speaking properly’, on the other hand, not only required effort to maintain, but also seemed unnatural to them. Some of the female participants were prepared to discuss this and disclose attempts to accommodate to the language practices of the academic community. As Janet Holmes (1998) points out, individuals tend to gravitate towards more standard ways of speaking in formal contexts and when they wish to be sensitive towards the face of an interlocutor representing authority. As it is likely that the students viewed lectures and seminars as formal events and their lecturers as ﬁgures of institutional authority, it suggests that Biba was orienting to the language norms of the more powerful group, against which her academic performance would be assessed. As they made the transition into the social milieu of higher education, some of the female participants also associated ‘posh’ talk as a way of constituting themselves as responsible young adults, negotiating their place within public institutions and the world of work. In these circumstances, talking ‘posh’ signiﬁed a transition to early adulthood while talking ‘slang’ referred to late adolescence and the more private world of their peers. In extract 11, this is illustrated by Biba’s reﬂection on the need to move beyond her ‘carefree’ adolescent femininity and take on the responsibilities of adulthood: Extract 11:‘you’re PAST that stage of life’ ‘well I DO feel (.) sometimes I’m- I’m sitting there and I’m just speaking SLANG with my friends/ and I think (1) this just doesn’t (.) you’re PAST that stage of life . . . un- until you get over it (.) COME on GIRL (.) know what I mean?’ For some of the female participants, the peer group became a site to explore the competing demands of their peer groups and the academic community within the asymmetrical power relations of higher education. The female participants appeared to accept the need to accommodate, to some extent, to the elite language practices of the more powerful community if they were to succeed within it. In these circumstances, they could co-construct identiﬁcation with ‘posh’ English as a means to an end. This identiﬁcation appeared less problematic to

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social relations among female students than it was among their male counterparts.

Conclusion In the spoken interactions among female students in the classroom, there is often an impression of working for consensus on the competing demands of different CofP. Unlike the males, the female students made much more use of the peer group as a site in which they could ‘exchange vulnerable talking’ (Coates, 1996: 88–9). Through this talk, some of the female participants were able to explore their experiences of transition, not only of higher education, but also of the tug between late adolescence and early adulthood. Their interactions also facilitated friendships and social support networks that sometimes acted to build identiﬁcation with the mainstream student body and sometimes with alternative groupings. These friendships and social support networks seem vital for the well-being of newcomers, particularly young undergraduates, dealing with increasingly depersonalised staff–student relationships brought about by the mass recruitment of students in higher education. This did not escape the notice of the female participants, the majority of whom remarked on the impersonal quality of the academic community. Traditional femininities were evoked in interactions in which the female students presented themselves as conforming to some extent to the norms and practices of the academic community. Ladette femininity, on the other hand, seemed to be a way of resisting both academic community norms and a positioning as a remedial user of English. However, the females seemed more resigned to this positioning than their male counterparts. While the male participants resisted threats to a competent self-presentation, the females often presented themselves as lacking in conﬁdence and as not overly ambitious or driven. This may have arisen from the tension between cleverness and femininity and the need for the female participants to balance cleverness in the academic community with ‘acceptable’ femininity with peers (Walkerdine et al., 2001). Another factor appeared to be popular discourses on girl power, in which scholarly activity is viewed as uncool and incompatible with the glamorous and sassy femininity associated with doing being a ladette. The female students appeared concerned with how to be ‘ordinary’ (Brown, 1987), how to ﬁt in and not stand out socially or academically. For many of these non-elite females, bookishness may also have run counter to their sense of self not only with their peers but also with

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their families, even though their families were supportive of their efforts to succeed academically. As Walkerdine (1990) points out, new identiﬁcations create not only opportunities but also risk of dislocation from familiar relationships. As she comments, in striving for academic excellence, students from working-class families may come to feel that all is ‘lost in terrible and painful isolation, that nobody understands, neither at home nor (university)’ (p. 47). In this sense, conﬂicting identity positions in girl power and culturally traditional discourses may create a ‘double whammy’ for the female students, as these discourses do not create a discursive subject position in which it is normal for young women to have intellectual aspirations. Nonetheless, the female students appeared more willing to conform more overtly to academic community practices than many of the male students. This may have contributed to a lower rate of drop out and exclusion among the female students. Thus far I have looked at the students’ presentations of self in relation to their fellow undergraduates, their perceptions of academic language and literacy practices and their identiﬁcations with the languages in their lives in the spoken interaction in the classroom. In Chapters 6 and 7, I will examine these matters further in the students’ self-reports, given in the questionnaire and interview data. I consider whether the private responses of the questionnaire and the individual setting of the interview facilitated the adoption of subject positions that more readily conform to the norms and practices of higher education.

6 Multilingual Masculinities in Lecturer/Student Interactions

Introduction While the previous two chapters have focused on interactions between students in the classroom, in the next two chapters, I examine the selfreports the students gave in individual student/lecturer interactions. While these interactions were generated within Millennium, they were not subjected to the gaze of peers. Instead, the participants presented a self in privately written responses and individual interviews in which I adopted the role of lecturer/ researcher. As Frosh et al. (2002) point out, individual interviews of adolescents in school settings may allow for a more serious persona to emerge. In this chapter, I examine what positions are evoked in the questionnaire and interview data and consider whether these are more attuned to the norms and practices of the academic community. I have approached the students’ self reports not as statements of fact but as representations of self when questioned by a member of academic staff. First, I will consider the male students’ identiﬁcation with language. As discussed in Chapter 1, educational literature tends to categorise BME students either as multilingual, in the sense of experiencing life in English and heritage languages, and/or as ‘bilingual’. Harris (1997, 2006) and Block (2008) urge a cautious approach to the assumptions associated with these terms, pointing out that the bilingualism of British-born ethnic minorities has tended to be ‘romanticised’. Bearing this in mind, I consider how the male students negotiate multilingualism and the positions that they adopt in relation to the languages in their lives. As several of the male participants were born and educated overseas, I treat their responses separately and as a point of comparison with their British-born counterparts. 109

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I also examine the male students’ perceptions of reading and academic work in more detail. Young men are frequently portrayed as lacking both interest and expertise in reading, particularly when compared to their female counterparts (Millard, 1997). I intend to explore this positioning through considering the participants’ responses to reading at home, a setting where I assumed most were relatively free to read materials of their own choosing. Through this, I hoped to gain some insight into the male participants’ identiﬁcation with reading, how they viewed themselves as readers and the kinds of texts they were motivated to read. I also consider whether the questionnaire responses facilitated the presentation of a more bookish persona in relation to the materials that they reported reading. Finally, I investigate how the male participants negotiated the reading practices of their peers and the academic community and consider the positions that they adopted in the interview setting to discuss their studies.

Identiﬁcation with language British-born males When asked to report on the languages in their lives, apart from Salim, all the British-born males who responded, presented themselves as multilingual, as Table 1 illustrates. Table 1 Languages used at home and with peers among British-born males Male participants

Age

Language(s) used at home

Language(s) used with peers

Atef Chakresh

18 20

English/Bengali English/Punjabi

English English/Punjabi

Ganesh Gulab Khaled

19 20 19

Gujarati/English Punjabi/English Bengali/English

English English Bengali/English

Manish Nadish Osmaan

20 18 25

English/Gujarati Gujarati/English English/Urdu/Punjabi

English Gujarati/English English

Salim Sanjay Tahir

18 19 22

English Gujarati English/Punjabi

English Urdu/English/Spanish English

Tariq Veer

20 19

Urdu Gujarati/English

English English

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As Salim is of Pakistani descent, it is interesting that he chooses to present himself as an English monolingual; perhaps this was motivated by the institutional setting. When reporting language use at home, Sanjay and Tariq were the only British-born males who reported using heritage languages at home in opposition to English for use with friends, suggesting a more traditional bilingual stance. When with friends, Sanjay also claimed to use Spanish, a language learned at school. This was reminiscent of Rampton’s (2006) ﬁndings concerning the way that adolescents incorporate foreign languages learned at school into peer group language practices. As Sanjay is of Gujarati descent, his claim to use Urdu with friends is also suggestive of the language crossing reported by Rampton (2005), in which adolescents routinely ‘cross’ from English into a language unconnected with their ancestral background. All the other British-born males claimed to use English and their heritage languages at home rather than making clear-cut boundaries between English for outside the home and heritage languages in the home. In common with Rampton et al.’s research, the British-born males largely positioned themselves as using heritage languages with parents and elders and English with siblings, friends and in other everyday settings: Bengali with mum or older relatives, and English with brothers, sisters, friends, work and academically (Atef). When I speak to my parents or elder generation relatives I speak Bengali. However, when I speak to my sisters and friends I speak English unless I cannot explain something without speaking Bengali (Khaled). To communicate with my parents [Punjabi]. To communicate with friends, brothers and sisters [English] (Tahir). Additionally, most claimed not to code-switch between their heritage languages and English, while those that acknowledged this phenomenon tended to position English as more dominant than their home languages: I do not know Urdu and Gujarati properly so I mix it with English when I get stuck (Sanjay). Sometimes cannot ﬁnd appropriate words [in Punjabi] so tend to use English (Tahir).

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These self-reports were indicative of the ways in which heritage languages had become juxtaposed with English in the family CofP for the British-born participants. It seems likely that many of the other British-born male participants also code-switched between their heritage languages and English in family settings despite claims to the contrary. According to Suzanne Romaine (1995), multilingual communities frequently depict code-switching and language-mixing as a sign of language deﬁciency, as highlighting lack of expertise in heritage languages, rather than as a resource for communication. Sanjay and Tahir’s utterances appear to reproduce this positioning. Given the reluctance, as discussed in Chapter 4, among the male participants to admit difﬁculties or to adopt a positioning in which they could be construed as incompetent, this may have inﬂuenced their responses to language use in the questionnaire. Their responses to literacy in home languages suggested that they were paying attention to face when obliged to self-assess their competence in reading and writing in their heritage languages. Many mitigated statements of low levels of expertise by contrasting these with statements of competence, either in speaking heritage languages or in reading and writing English; very few simply presented themselves as inexpert users of their parental languages, as is illustrated in the responses below. Alternatively, some gave ambiguous answers where it was not clear whether their claims of competence extended to the heritage language(s) as well as English: Not able to read Bengali but can speak (Atef). Easy in English. Can’t read and write in Gujarati (Nadish). I cannot read in Punjabi but can actively read in English (Tahir). I can read Arabic but I can’t read Gujarati. I can read Urdu though (Sanjay). [Writing in] English no problem. Punjabi I cannot (Tahir). In contrast to the reported use of heritage languages and English at home, all but four of the British-born males presented themselves as using only English with peers. This suggests some consistency between their stance with peers and the self they presented when self-reporting language use with peers. In common with much of the data discussed in Chapter 4, the young men often reported use of heritage languages for peer-group practices such as making jokes, trashing others and talking privately, which accords with other research with similar school-aged participants (Rampton, 2005). This suggests that it may not only be

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uncool to present a self afﬁliated to languages that could be positioned as ‘archaic’ and/or ‘immigrant’ within peer groups attending to laddishness, but that there may also be some anxiety about displaying afﬁliation to heritage languages with academic staff. To explore these issues further, in the following section, I will discuss how Tahir, one of the British-born participants, elaborated on his use of heritage languages and English in the interview. Tahir After leaving school at sixteen, Tahir went to work for one of the ﬁrst division football clubs, which he discussed in terms of teaching him how to be ‘polite’ and focus on his work without ‘mucking around’. After two years’ full-time employment, he returned to post-compulsory education to study for a GNVQ and then embarked on a ﬁrst degree at Millennium. At the time of the research, Tahir (aged 22) was living at home with his parents, who were from Pakistan, and eight siblings, six younger sisters, one elder and one younger brother. Tahir adopts a multilingual positioning to discuss the languages in his life, reporting the use of English, Urdu and Punjabi with his parents and elders, Arabic in the mosque for religious practices and English with his siblings and friends. However, he frequently presents himself as experiencing difﬁculties in maintaining a conversation in his heritage languages and also seems unfamiliar with these, regularly conﬂating Urdu and Punjabi. He also presents his use of heritage languages as ‘fragmented’ (Harris, 1999), in that Punjabi and Urdu had become intertwined with English for use in the home setting: The thing is I don’t speak very well Punjabi. I tend to mix it with Urdu . . . I don’t know which is which so I just talk. . . . My sisters and brothers, we [speak] mixed, innit? (Interview 1). My mum and dad . . . can understand both Punjabi and Urdu. They can speak Punjabi [and] Urdu and read it whereas we [i.e. siblings] can’t. We just pick up a little bit here, pick up a little bit there [and] just speak as we go along (Interview 1). Tahir not only appeared to have forgone many opportunities to develop expertise in his heritage languages at home, in community settings and on frequent visits to Pakistan, but had also rejected the option of studying these formally at secondary school, citing low ‘quality’ of teachers as a reason. A more likely explanation for this decision

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appeared to be his low levels of identiﬁcation with the more traditional subject positions that these languages would assist him in enacting. As I have discussed (Preece, 2006a), while relating stories connected to his heritage languages, Tahir made frequent reference to the competing positions he faced in doing ‘acceptable’ masculinity (Coates, 2003) as a British Pakistani male. In narrating these stories, he frequently ﬂuctuated between displaying concern for maintaining face in his family and presenting himself as unconcerned with his elders’ opinions. His low levels of expertise in his parental languages frequently resulted in family disapproval and ‘nerve-wracking’ situations in which Tahir reported ‘keeping his mouth shut’. It seems likely, therefore, that the adoption of an English ‘native speaker’ subject position was a way of countering this criticism. The following extract is indicative of this oppositional positioning, in which Tahir presented his lack of afﬁliation with his heritage languages and hegemonic Pakistani masculinity as ﬂowing ‘naturally’ from his life in Britain: Our parents they go, “Oh, I think he’s [another Pakistani family’s son, real or imagined] just come back from Pakistan, they speak BEAUTIFUL Urdu” and it’s like, we speak English, that’s the problem. We don’t see it as a really big thing to tell you the truth. We speak English; we’re in England [but] it causes problems when we go back home. It really DOES cause you a lot of problems [when you go to] Pakistan cos people look at me and they . . . have this perception [that] these guys [i.e. British Pakistani males] they forget their roots . . . but they don’t understand that we’re in England (Interview 1). Tahir also presented himself as having little identiﬁcation with his family’s religious practices or learning Arabic to perform traditional Muslim masculinity at the mosque and on Hadj. Tahir reported going to the mosque to learn Arabic for two hours every day after school for a period of six years, representing this language learning experience as both gendered, in that boys and girls were segregated, and gendering, in that boys and girls were learning how to do traditional Muslim masculinity and femininity respectively. Tahir explained at length how he learned Arabic by rote so he could recite the Koran. He contrasted this ‘manly’ practice with his sisters’ ‘feminine’ religious education, which included learning poetry and stories in Urdu. Tahir displayed little identiﬁcation with performing ‘acceptable’ masculinity (Coates, 2003) within this context, presenting it as a way of fulﬁlling his father’s wishes:

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[In the mosque, my sisters] would read poetry . . . they knew all the poetry . . . I can remember vaguely about 2 birds [that] would come alive . . . it was really exciting. So [they] would sit there singing out all this poetry. It was a good laugh but I never got to do it. My dad made me read the 30 chapters [of the Koran] . . . whilst my sisters got to do all the poetry . . . I’d prefer to do [the poetry] (Interview 1). While Tahir positioned himself as multilingual, he appeared resistant to either an EAL or ESL subject position. Instead, he consistently positioned himself as a native speaker of English, presenting English as his main language and marginalising his parental languages. Perhaps Tahir positioned himself as having difﬁculties in his heritage languages to speak from the position of native speaker of English, and therefore British, within the interview setting, as is suggested in the extract below in which he describes his associations with the languages in his life. While he relates Urdu to his parents, he ‘Others’ his other heritage languages, relating Punjabi to Sikhs and Arabic to the ‘aggressive’ Muslim pilgrims he met while his family were in Saudi Arabia doing Hadj. While much of this distancing appeared related to Tahir’s attraction to laddishness, as this interview took place shortly after the events of September 11th, there could also have been a desire on Tahir’s part to present himself as Westernised, and thus ‘civilised’, in opposition to the demonised Muslim fundamentalist masculinity that was emerging in popular imagination at that time, and in which young Muslim males were seen as potentially threatening: When I speak Urdu I think of my parents . . . when I speak Punjabi for some reason I think of Sikh people, the language belongs to them . . . When I speak English, I don’t think of English people, I think of me. I think of me in England. When I think of Arabic, I think of religion because that’s what I was there for. I went [to] Saudi Arabia and MAN it’s . . . just like 24–7 religion out there . . . they’re really mean people. Boy they’re aggressive out there man! They go mad! (Interview 1). In the interviews, Tahir seemed more prepared to disclose vulnerabilities, discuss some of the competing subject positions that he faced within his family CofP and show identiﬁcation with literacy practices such as reading poetry. This contrasts with his interaction among peers, in which these stances were not revealed. Nevertheless, these alternative identity positions still appeared subordinated to laddishness,

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particularly as Tahir recounted experiences of his life in London. As discussed (Preece, 2006a), when orienting to this world, it was noticeable that Tahir positioned himself as an expert speaker delivering lengthy narratives, in which I often needed to ask him for explanations of vernacular English expressions that he was using. Through these narratives, he was able to present himself as a streetwise ‘lad’, a position that he frequently adopted when talking about himself in relation to absent others. In contrast to the peer-group interactions in the classroom, in which there was sparse discussion on the topic of heritage languages, the questionnaire facilitated more detailed responses from the British-born participants on the languages in their lives, while the interviews with Tahir allowed for elaboration on these responses and also some disclosures on expertise and afﬁliation. This data also suggested that many of the British-born male participants were anxious to present English as the dominant language and force in their lives. This may have been motivated by wanting to adopt a British, rather than immigrant, identity within the institution. It may also have been a method of distinguishing themselves as a cool youthful group of British lads who were distinct from other student groupings at Millennium, such as international and European students temporarily settled in Britain for the purposes of study, and migrants, many of whom were mature students who had settled in Britain later in life. Harris (2006) argues that the dominant identity among British Asians is a ‘low key Britishness’, which he refers to as ‘Brasian’, in which ‘at any given moment both British and South Asian derived elements are always co-present’ (pp. 1–2). He goes on to suggest that which element is more marked will depend on the setting and the activity. Within the context of the academic writing programme and the institution, these young men may well have been more comfortable adopting a low-key Britishness which emphasises ways in which they are similar rather than different and which positions them as native speakers of English in the institutional setting. In the next section, I will consider how the male students born overseas often seemed more comfortable with a bi/multilingual identity, in which they made clearer distinctions between English, as additional or secondary, and heritage language(s) as their mother tongue. Male students born overseas As Table 2 illustrates, most of the male students born overseas arrived in Britain when they were young adults. At the time of my study, some were also relatively recent arrivals.

Masculinities in Lecturer/Student Interactions 117 Table 2 Male students born overseas Male students

Age

Age of arrival in the UK

Place of education prior to arrival

Main medium of schooling prior to arrival

Akinwole

24

Carlos

24

19

Nigeria

English

20

Portugal

Portuguese

Geet

19

8

Kenya

English/Swahili

Gezim

24

23

Kosovo

Albanian

Kavi

21

11

Sri Lanka

Tamil

Ketso

24

22

Sweden

Swedish

Tano

23

21

Ghana

English

Tomas

31

25

Angola

Portuguese

Carlos, Gezim, Ketso and Tomas had not received any of their compulsory schooling in the medium of English and came from countries where English was not an ofﬁcial language. Akinwole and Tano, on the other hand, had been educated in English-medium schools in Africa and came from Commonwealth countries in which English was one of the ofﬁcial languages. In contrast to the others, Geet and Kavi had come to Britain as young boys and had experienced several years of schooling within the British state system. Geet had received part of his primary education in English and Swahili in Kenya before coming to Britain, while Kavi had completed his primary education in Tamil in Sri Lanka before entering the British secondary school system. Table 3 shows the responses to questions concerning the languages in their lives. The male students born overseas reported less use of English at home and more use of their heritage languages with friends. Unlike their British-born counterparts, most positioned their heritage language as their sole language at home, suggesting a greater ease with an ESL subject position. Their responses may partly be explained by the age of arrival in Britain and/or the relatively short length of time some had been in Britain. Geet, Gezim and Kavi’s families were also refugees, which may have encouraged a discourse of ‘imagined homeland’ (Anderson, 2006) in which they and their families associated the mother tongue with the possibility of return and/or the maintenance of heritage customs and therefore paid more attention to language maintenance.

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Table 3 Languages used at home and with peers among male students born overseas Male students

Language(s) used at home

Language(s) used with peers

Akinwole

Yoruba

English/slang/pidgin/Yoruba

Carlos

Portuguese

English

Geet

Gujarati/English

English

Gezim

Albanian

Albanian/English

Kavi

Tamil

English/Tamil

Ketso

Tigrinja/Swedish

Swedish/English

Tano

Ghanaian

English

Tomas

Portuguese/English

English

The adoption of an ESL subject position is illustrated in the following questionnaire responses, in which English was positioned as a language for use outside the home (Carlos), in formal situations (Akinwole) and by language learners (Tano): I use Portuguese at home to communicate with my family. I use English at work and to communicate with my friends at the university (Carlos). I never feel comfortable speaking in English with my family/friends because I always feel that I am in a formal setting/environment (Akinwole). I normally speak in English with my friends so as to improve it but never speak it at home (Tano). The presentation of a persona who was more afﬁliated to their heritage languages continued in responses on the ease of reading and writing in the languages used in the home. With the exception of Kavi, all the males born overseas reported much higher levels of literacy in their heritage languages than their British-born counterparts. The participants who arrived in Britain as young adults had learned to read and write their heritage languages in their home countries while Geet was sent to a complementary school to learn Gujarati after his family emigrated to Britain. Kavi, on the other hand, had only studied in the medium of Tamil until the end of junior schooling in Sri Lanka and had not undertaken any further Tamil language classes since arriving in Britain.

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Some responses to questions concerning ‘how easy’ they found reading and writing in their heritage languages also suggested higher levels of afﬁliation to these languages than their British-born counterparts, with descriptions of their heritage language as their ‘ﬁrst language’ (Carlos), ‘native language’ (Tano), ‘local language’ (Akinwole) and ‘as drinking water’ (Tomas). For the male participants who arrived in Britain as young adults, English appeared to be associated with institutional and public settings and primarily for use outside the home environment. In these cases, an ESL positioning seemed far less problematic than for their British-born counterparts. For Kavi and Geet, who arrived in Britain as young boys, there may have been more strategic reasons for adopting an ESL subject position related to their peer group status. As discussed in Chapter 4, Geet used his expertise in Gujarati as a way of increasing his status and resisting his frequent marginalisation within his peer group. Through adopting a Gujarati native-speaker positioning, he was able to claim greater expertise in his mother tongue than his peers, which was a way he attempted to gain respect when he was the subject of peer-group jokes. To examine these issues in more detail, in the following section I will discuss how Geet elaborated on a Gujarati native speaker position in the interview, despite having lived in Britain since he was a young boy. Geet After leaving school at sixteen, Geet went straight on to further education to study for a GNVQ1 before embarking on a ﬁrst degree at Millennium. Although he had no experience of full-time employment, he had been in part-time work since his mid teens. At the time of the research, Geet (aged 19) lived at home with his mother, younger brother and sister. Like Tahir, he also presented himself as multilingual. As the third child of a Kenyan Asian family, originating from the Indian state of Gujarat, Geet presented himself as using Gujarati with his mother, a mixture of Gujarati and English with his siblings and Gujarati-speaking friends, English with non-Gujarati peers from ‘different religions and continents’ and Hindi for the purposes of watching Bollywood movies. However, Geet appeared to have a relationship with English and his parental language different from that of Tahir, apparently stemming from his birth and early childhood in Kenya, the migration of his family to Britain when he was eight, his transition into British schooling and the social relations of his peer group. As a young boy, Geet had lived in the family home in Kenya and attended an English and Swahili-medium school. However, while he

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could understand English when he arrived in the UK, he still presented his transition into British schooling as a stressful experience: G: So when I came here [from Kenya to London] I could speak English . . . but it was a bit different . . . the accent . . . and the words . . . it was just getting used to it, it was like another level . . . SP: So do you remember when you ﬁrst . . . came to school in England? What was it like? G: Well, it was a bit scary to me because . . . the people here are different people and then just getting used to their English . . . So it was quite . . . difﬁcult (Interview 1). When reﬂecting on this experience of transition, Geet positioned himself as ‘Other’ to the children and teachers in his school in relation to his variety of English and accent and, by implication, in his outlook. In contrast to Tahir, Geet positioned himself as having high levels of expertise in and afﬁliation to his heritage language. While Tahir did not make use of opportunities to study his parental languages, only studying Arabic for religious purposes at the insistence of his father, Geet attended a complementary school throughout his early teens where he learned to read and write Gujarati, and also took Gujarati folk music and dance classes. While talking of this experience, Geet presented himself as a serious and diligent student, who attained merits in his Gujarati language exams and was well-disposed to studying his heritage language and customs. However, despite maintaining oral ﬂuency in Gujarati, Geet did not keep up his formal studies of Gujarati beyond his mid teens. One reason for this was the low value of Gujarati as ‘cultural capital’ (Bourdieu,1986) in British society and institutions: College . . . was basically if you want to do [Gujarati] for A levels or a GCSE, then you can . . . I didn’t do that [because] I didn’t want to get a degree or qualiﬁcation in Gujarati. For me, I didn’t see a step forward in that unless . . . I was going to be a Gujarati teacher . . . I didn’t see any point in actually doing Gujarati at that level (Interview 1). Another reason may have been the lack of social networks connecting Geet’s family in Britain to India, as their heritage culture. For while Tahir’s family were part of a ‘transnational community’ (Block, 2006; Castles and Miller, 2003; Faist, 2000; Fouron and Glick Schiller, 2001) in that they maintained networks ‘across the borders of two nation-states’

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(Fouron and Glick Schiller, 2001: 60), Geet’s family appeared to have little, if any, contact with Gujarat or the Indian sub-continent, beyond watching Bollywood movies. As Block (2006) comments, many Kenyan Asians could trace their roots in Kenya for at least one generation before their forced exodus. It may be, therefore, that Geet’s family had tenuous connections at best with India as their ancestral homeland. In contrast to Tahir, Geet often adopted an ESL positioning in which he presented Gujarati as the language in which he was most comfortable. His frequent self-presentation as an inexpert English-speaker facilitated his adoption of a Gujarati native-speaker positioning: G: I have noticed as well when I am . . . with my friends, say at work, . . . if they speak Gujarati then I will speak Gujarati as well. When I’m talking [in] that, I’m more calm and I’m actually more easy going . . . When I speak with people just with English, I sometimes stutter . . . I might not . . . really have the words to say, they are difﬁcult . . . SP: So sometimes it’s actually more comfortable for you to speak Gujarati than English you think? G: Yeah, I do. SP: What about at university here? . . . Do you have Gujarati friends here that you speak Gujarati to, or do you speak in English most of the time? G: Well [at university] I have Gujarati friends but they don’t usually speak Gujarati that much so . . . I’m always speaking English . . . so I can improve my English [with them] . . . I mean . . . if I always speak to people [in] English, I’m able to improve my English. But at home . . . I have my Gujarati mother tongue language (Interview 1). Despite having been in the British education system from the age of eight, Geet consistently positioned himself as using English as a second language, although he had greater overall expertise in English and used it more widely than Gujarati. As the extract above illustrates, he presented himself as having difﬁculties with expressing himself and maintaining conversations in English and spoke English with peers in order to ‘improve’ it. In contrast to Tahir, Geet frequently appeared to be speaking from the position of a language learner rather than that of an English native speaker. For instance, Geet made concerted efforts to keep abreast of the latest developments in popular culture, particularly

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those involving football, soaps, gadgets and cars, in order to participate in peer group discussions on these topics: I like watching all these different shows and . . . soaps, . . . keeping up to date with your weekly TV news as well [because] if you go somewhere with your mates . . . I’m sure someone will ask you, “What happened on EastEnders?” [and] “Did you watch what happened?” (Interview 2). Michael Byram, Adam Nichols and David Stevens (2001) note how language learners can use the media both as a way of improving language expertise and of enhancing understanding of the target culture. Perhaps one reason for Geet’s adoption of this positioning was to explain his difﬁculties in participating in interactions with his peers oriented to laddishness. As discussed in Chapter 4, this necessitated an ‘insouciant sharp-wittedness’ through verbal displays of being ‘fast, cool and never a dupe’ (Frosh et al., 2002: 81). This positioning also facilitated Geet’s participation in the academic writing programme as a more willing subject than Tahir, and enabled him to draw on his heritage language as a method of acquiring status, not only with his peers, but also in the interview setting. As Baxter (2003) points out, individuals occupy more powerful subject positions in some discourses than others. Geet was able to counter his marginalised positioning, with his peers and institutionally, through speaking from a more powerful position related to Gujarati as his mother tongue. Through presenting himself as a native speaker of Gujarati, of which I had no knowledge, Geet was able to occupy the ﬂoor as an expert speaker and present himself as competent in ways which seemed almost impossible using the vernacular English of the peer group and the Standard English of the academic community. Geet may also have adopted an ESL subject position to save face regarding the difﬁculties that he was experiencing with coursework and exams in some of his subjects. For, as discussed later in this chapter, if Geet could not explain his grades in terms of language issues, he would need to ﬁnd alternative explanations that may have threatened his sense of self-esteem. Thus far I have focused on the male participants’ identiﬁcations with the languages in their lives and the ways in which self-reports evoked gender. In the following sections, I will consider how the male participants present themselves as readers and whether the questionnaire and interview settings encouraged them to adopt more conformist positions

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in relation to academic community practices. I will begin by considering the self-reports in the questionnaire and then elaborate on this with the interview data.

Identiﬁcation with reading Questionnaire responses on reading of choice Apart from one participant, all the males presented themselves as doing some reading at home. Some explanation of the nature of the materials that the students reported reading is given in the commentary that accompanies Table 4. All but two reported reading newspapers and/or magazines while 12 claimed to read textbooks, other non-ﬁction texts, religious materials and/or ﬁction. All presented themselves as reading in English with only four claiming to read in heritage languages. While those born overseas presented themselves as expert readers in their heritage languages, only one, Gezim, gave examples of what he read in these languages. Table 4 Reading of choice at home for male students Male students

Newspapers and magazines

Other texts

Akinwole∗

The Sun, FT (The Financial Times), English magazines

The Bible

Atef

The Evening Standard, The Sun, FHM (For Him Magazine)

Religious articles in Arabic

Carlos∗

The Times, TNT, Sky magazine

I read articles about advanced technology

Chakresh

The Sun, The Times, Loaded, Men’s Health

None

Ganesh

The Sun

None

Geet∗

Textbooks

Gezim∗

The Sun, The Metro, TV/radio magazines The Times, FT, Koha Ditore2

Academic books related to course

Gulab

None

None

Kavi∗

FT, What PC, Superbikes, What Laptop

None

Ketso∗

The Guardian, The Times

Books in English and Swedish

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Table 4 (Continued) Male students

Newspapers and magazines

Other texts

Khaled

Muscle and Fitness, FHM, Flex, The Sun, The Mirror, The Times, FT

None

Manish

The Sun, The Mirror

None

Nadish

The Daily Mail, Max Power

None

Osmaan

None

Religious articles in English and Arabic

Richard

The Mirror, The Times, Sky Guide, The Daily Mail, PC Pro

Textbooks

Salim

The Mirror, The Guardian, Max Power

None

Sanjay

I read loads mainly The Guardian, The Times, computer magazines, FT and The Economist and Newsweek.

I read literature such as JR Tolkein and Harry Potter, which I am currently reading. I also read Jeffrey Archer and John Grisham.

Tahir

Some based on leisure activities

Textbooks

Tano∗

The Evening Standard, The Daily Mail

Story books in English

Tariq

The Evening Standard, The Independent

None

Tomas∗

The Times

Bible

Veer

The Sun

None

∗ indicates

males born overseas

Only three of the male students, Sanjay, Ketso and Gezim, reported selecting a variety of primarily bookish materials and/or popular ﬁction to read at home. Sanjay’s self-report of reading ‘loads’ and his choice of reading materials contrasts with his self-presentation with peers in the classroom, with whom, as discussed in Chapter 4, he trashed academic literacy practices and did not disclose any of his preferred reading. Perhaps Sanjay wished to present a more serious persona in individual lecturer/student interactions. This accords with Frosh et al.’s (2002) ﬁndings that adolescent males are likely to adopt a more conformist position in individual interviews than in interactions with their peers in educational settings, in which they are more concerned with ‘having a laugh’ (p. 35). Sanjay may also have wanted to adopt a position of expertise in order to counter his institutional

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deﬁcit positioning and his placement on the academic writing programme. In all, 12 of the male students, six British-born and six born overseas, reported reading broadsheet3 newspapers, which for some was in addition to reading tabloids4 and/or men’s magazines. As their departments strongly encouraged the reading of broadsheets, particularly The Times and The Financial Times, in relation to their studies, this suggests a willingness to display conformity with this practice in private self-reports to a member of staff. This contrasts with the classroom interaction in which none disclosed to peers that they read broadsheet newspapers. Six of the males also asserted that they read texts associated with study while at home, while two claimed to read ﬁction. The self-reports suggest that for many of the male participants, particularly those who are British-born, there is still discomfort with adopting positions that they perceive to be overly bookish. Gulab, for example, claimed that he did not read anything at home, while Ganesh, Manish and Veer presented tabloid newspapers, primarily The Sun, as their sole reading of choice. Several other males reported reading tabloid newspapers in conjunction with other materials. This accords with classroom data in which the male participants largely positioned themselves as tabloid readers in discussions on newspapers. These discussions quickly became polarised into a tabloid/broadsheet dichotomy, in which tabloids came to represent not only youth, coolness and popular culture, but also invoked the social-class positioning of many of their families in British society. Many of their parents appeared to take tabloid newspapers and their fathers, in particular, were often employed in jobs traditionally categorised as working-class occupations. Their family’s class-positioning often surfaced in heated classroom arguments about these newspapers, with many of the British-born males claiming that the tabloids represented ‘who they were’. While this partly referred to popular culture, it also seemed to denote a working-class masculinity. The broadsheet newspapers, on the other hand, were often trashed in classroom interaction as ‘posh’, middle-class and unmanly. While it was difﬁcult to show interest in reading broadsheets in front of peers in the classroom, some male participants may have used the questionnaire as an opportunity to reconcile competing positions, through presenting themselves as positively disposed to both the tabloid and broadsheet press. Eleven of the male participants, eight British-born and three born overseas, also reported reading men’s magazines, which can be categorised broadly as men’s lifestyle (FHM, Loaded, Men’s Health), body

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building (Muscle and Fitness, Flex, Max Power) and technical/gadget (What PC, What Laptop, PC Pro, Superbikes). All these magazines are aimed at a male audience and work to maintain a discourse of ‘gender differentiation’ (Baxter, 2003). All, for example, publish articles that constitute hegemonic masculinity in ways that are reminiscent of the performance of masculinities in Coates’s (2003) study of talk among male friends; articles are published on stereotypically masculine subject matter, men are generally depicted as protagonists, women are frequently absent, passive and/or objectiﬁed and, in the case of men’s lifestyle magazines, taboo language is often used. In presenting themselves as readers of this material, these male participants appeared to be identifying with the modes of masculinity represented in these publications. For those who reported reading men’s lifestyle magazines in addition to more highbrow material, it could also have been a way of balancing the practices of the peer group and the academic community. Four male participants also reported reading religious material, with Akinwole and Tomas, both Black Africans, stating that they read the Bible, and Atef and Osmaan, both British Asians, reporting that they read Arabic, presumably Islamic, articles. In the questionnaire, it seems that these males felt able to adopt a religious position whereas references to religion, as a dimension of identity, were never overt in the spoken interaction in the classroom. It seems likely that attention to laddishness among peers in the classroom inhibited discussion on religious afﬁliations. Overt verbal displays of religious identiﬁcation among male peers from different ethnic and religious backgrounds may also have been viewed as divisive, through signifying and highlighting difference among ﬁrst-year undergraduates who were in the process of establishing new friendships. Alternatively, adopting a religious position may have been viewed as ‘uncool’ in relation to laddishness. Studies of Muslim adolescents (Archer, 2001, 2003) suggest that religion can become an overt marker of identity when young people are grouped according to their religious heritage and/or asked direct questions concerning religious identiﬁcations. The questionnaire data is clearly limited on the male participants’ reported reading practices at home, giving as it does a snapshot of how they decided to respond to questions on the day. They may do considerably more or less reading of literature, broadsheet newspapers and serious non-ﬁction texts than they reported. However, considered with the spoken interaction and observations of how the male students responded to reading activities in the classroom, their self-reports suggest difﬁculty in adopting more bookish positions, regardless of the

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setting. This seems particularly the case for those who reported reading nothing at home, or whose reading consisted primarily of tabloid newspapers, religious material and/or men’s lifestyles magazines. For these males, it seems highly likely that they will experience a signiﬁcant gap between their reading of choice and the reading required by the academic community. In the following sections, I explore this issue further through considering Tahir and Geet’s perceptions of themselves as readers and their reported strategies for reading and writing academic texts. Tahir on reading of choice In the interviews, Tahir seemed more willing to present himself as someone who was an active reader, claiming that he read ‘a bit of everything’, but particularly technical and gadget magazines on electronics, computer games, hi ﬁ equipment, mobile phones and cars. Besides reading widely available magazines on these topics, he also reported reading industry publications, obtained from his brother’s workplace, to keep up-to-date with the latest news about electronics companies and their products. Through this reading, Tahir was able to position himself as having expert and insider knowledge of the electronics industry: It’s . . . a weekly journal [which] tells you information that’s not for the public. It’s for . . . people that are in the industry so you ﬁnd out information, what’s going [on] through these mergers and . . . which new graphics . . . companies put . . . funding into . . . new technology . . . [for example] there’s a company called ATI and there’s a company called M Video and . . . Hercules usually build with M Video but now they’ve rejected the job . . . so you read up on it and then you can follow who’s doing well, who’s not doing well, whose stock’s gone down, who’s going to merge, who’s got a contract with who. You ﬁnd out where everyone is heading, all the latest news . . . what software . . . is coming out (Interview 2). Tahir explained how he ﬁrst skimmed these magazines to select the most interesting articles. This was followed by ‘sitting down and reading properly’ in his bedroom, as the one place at home where he would not be disturbed. In addition to these industry publications, Tahir also bought and read popular technical/gadget magazines. As Nick Stevenson, Peter Jackson and Kate Brooks (2003) point out, these magazines are concerned with supplying technical details and ‘expert’

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information that encourages a ‘believing’ disposition (pp. 120–1), in that readers are encouraged to accept the text as fact. While Tahir projected this disposition in the interviews, within the interview setting this gadget talk also evoked a ‘New Enterpriser’ masculinity (Mac an Ghaill, 1994) in that he displayed attachment to ‘rationality, instrumentalism, forward planning and careerism’ (ibid.: 63). Tahir’s talk on gadget magazines, with its constant references to names and technical speciﬁcations, is also reminiscent of the attention to detail in discussions of objects and places in Coates’ (2003) research into talk among male friends. As she claims, the ‘detailed naming of objects’, particularly of technical items, was one way in which her male participants enacted ‘acceptable’ masculinity with each other (p. 45). In the interview, Tahir was able to subvert his institutionalised ‘deﬁcit’ positioning through speaking as an expert on a stereotypically masculine topic. This strategy may also have been a way of prolonging talk in which he could present himself as a competent reader, to delay discussions about more bookish reading in which he was less self-assured. Tahir also presented himself as keen on reading magazines such as FHM (For Him Magazine), one of the leading men’s lifestyle magazines,5 described by Stevenson et al. (2003) as a ‘lads’ magazine, written by ‘lads’ for their ‘laddish’ readers (p. 120). While discussing his preference for FHM, Tahir evoked laddishness through describing how FHM was designed to be read and discussed with ‘the boys’, with the intention of subjecting the women in the magazine to an ironic laddish gaze: T: FHM . . . er got some nice women in there, read about them as well, plus they have things like girlfriends of the month and stuff like that. One day I’m going to catch my friend’s girlfriend in there [that] would be funny! . . . I think it’s more of a magazine where . . . you’ve got to have the rest of the boys so they sit there and crack their jokes . . . SP: so there’s some kind of discussion about what you would read in that with friends? T: the good thing about FHM is you’ll read something in there and you’re going to go and discuss it SP: and what about the way in which this is written? Do you think this is written in a . . . professional way? T: it depends . . . when it comes to things like . . . how to satisfy your women in a hundred and one ways then it goes into . . . variousvarious different changes, they do these things on how to impress your girlfriend or . . . stuff like that (Interview 2).

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As the literature on popular culture and men’s lifestyle magazines points out (e.g. Benwell, 2003b; Gill, 2003; Nixon, 2001; Stevenson et al., 2003; Whelehan, 2000), objectiﬁcation of women is particularly evident in men’s lifestyle magazines. Benwell (2003a), for example, argues that there has been a retrogressive turn to ‘traditional masculine values of sexism, exclusive male friendship and homophobia’ (p. 13) while Rosalind Gill (2003) argues that these magazines have been central in constructing a laddish discourse opposed to feminism and the construct of ‘new man’ (p. 49). When talking about FHM, Tahir evoked a laddish positioning, portraying a world in which the ‘boys’ were protagonists and their ‘girlfriends’, real or imagined, were relegated to passive and objectiﬁed roles, in which the ‘lads’ needed to keep them ‘satisﬁed’ and ‘impressed’. Tahir implied that one reason for reading FHM was its advice on how to do this. As the previous extract suggests, Tahir’s allusions to sexuality and ways of objectifying women with his peers broke the norms for the boundaries of ‘appropriate’ talk between older female lecturer/interviewer and younger male student/interviewee in a way which could be read as challenging hierarchical female lecturer/male student power relations. As I have discussed (Preece, 2006a), Tahir frequently drew on asymmetrical gender relations to put women, including his female lecturers, ‘in their place’, in ways suggesting that he was attentive to the norms of hegemonic masculinity. As Coates (2003) comments, these norms require displays of ‘heterosexuality, toughness, power and authority, competitiveness and the subordination of gay men’ (p. 196). While Tahir did not overtly refer to homosexuality, in the interactions he ensured that he portrayed himself as heterosexual. In addition to magazines, Tahir also reported reading science ﬁction, which appeared motivated by his enjoyment of Star Wars movies, and some educational texts, again in the privacy of his bedroom. When discussing these in the interviews, he sometimes adopted a more bookish persona although this seemed difﬁcult to sustain, particularly in relation to his academic work. He also seemed uncomfortable about creating the impression that he valued books. For instance, he mitigated self-presentations of having a ‘bookshelf . . . full of Star Wars books’ and ‘stacks’ of educational textbooks with claims that these had mostly been acquired as special offers or samples and that most had never been read. Nevertheless, in contrast to the interaction with peers in the classroom, Tahir was prepared to discuss his enjoyment of reading science ﬁction in the interview setting.

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T: the good thing about the Star Wars [books] is you read [them] from start to ﬁnish. They’re well written and because it’s something that I enjoy . . . I like reading them because I like the movies, I like . . . the atmosphere. It’s a world that we don’t exist in but it’s fascinating knowing that they . . . ﬂy around in space and stuff and . . . I probably won’t experience [that] in my life ever. It’s nice knowing that . . . the guy . . . Solo . . . he’s free, he’s had no parents that’s why his second name is Solo . . . but the good thing about it is there’s things in that they do [that] obviously you can’t do in real [life] . . . SP: so it’s a . . . kind of escape? T: that’s the way . . . it makes me disappear for a while, disappear into their world and I just read it and then when I’m ready, complete the next chapter . . . it’s good . . . it’s in-depth (Interview 2). Through the ﬁctional character of Hans Solo in the Star Wars movies and books, Tahir gave the impression of living vicariously in a ‘boy’s own’ heroic adventure fantasy that freed him from the constraints of family and academic practices. This evoked a rather endearing and oldfashioned masculinity associated with literary male heroism, in which the male protagonist ﬁghts evil and proves himself worthy of the ‘damsel’. Tahir on reading academic texts In contrast to the interaction with peers, in the interviews Tahir was prepared to discuss reading and writing associated with his studies. Despite this, it often seemed difﬁcult for Tahir to occupy a position in which he could present himself as well-disposed to this reading or as gaining any pleasure from his studies. Instead he was inclined to depict academic reading as a necessary chore. Moss (1999) discusses this approach to reading as ‘procedural’, or ‘reading to get things done’ (p. 510), in which reading is largely used in the production of a ‘second text’, either spoken or written. In Tahir’s case, ‘procedural reading’ appeared to motivate a narrowly focused approach to reading for academic work in which he used internet search engines to ﬁnd summarised and condensed information. Despite the interview setting, when asked about how he selected the articles to use from these searches, Tahir did not portray himself as a diligent student. Instead his utterances suggested continued attention to laddishness in that he presented himself as concerned with doing the minimum amount of work and expending the least amount of effort:

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[I look at] the structure of the writing. If it’s just all writing . . . there’s no pictures, no colour, not a thing probably [I] wouldn’t read it. If [the article has] big letters . . . brilliant points . . . if it has got pictures, it’s nicely colour coordinated . . . but we just want to get the basic points [we] don’t want no long six page thing . . . as students we don’t read six pages innit? We just want to get it the easy way . . . that’s all we do. That’s the best thing to do man is use Ask Jeeves, it’s like everyone’s uncle man, who just ﬁnds all the information for us (Interview 2). This stance seemed resistant to adopting a scholarly positioning. Within the interview setting, it could also be viewed as confrontational, or at least trying to ‘get away with’ bad behaviour. However, it may also have been a way for Tahir to disguise reading difﬁculties. In the extract above, Tahir suggested that he was attracted by texts that were highly visual while discouraged by ‘verbal’ texts in which there was little visual information. As Moss (1999) points out, in highly visual texts, readers can construct meaning, whether accurate or not, through the pictures and headings, denoted by larger type face, while ignoring much of the text in regular-size type face. According to Moss, weaker male readers are frequently attracted to such texts precisely because they can save face by ‘(mustering) their expertise in response to such a text without having to stumble through the print to identify what is going on’ (ibid.: 519). In Tahir’s case, it is not clear whether he searched for visual texts for his studies because he had difﬁculties reading denser verbal texts or because he lacked motivation to read more demanding material, preferring instead to adopt a ‘surface’ approach to learning (Marton and Saljo, 1976a, b). While Moss’s work has been with primary-aged children, it seems that weaker readers can become highly skilled at hiding their reading difﬁculties through adopting this strategy in relation to their studies. While Tahir had adopted this approach with success during his GNVQ studies, it was causing difﬁculties on his degree programme where he was under pressure to read and utilise increasingly complex texts. There were brief moments during the interviews when Tahir alluded to these difﬁculties, framing these as a clash between the ‘slang’ of his peers and the ‘posh’ English of the institution: That [subject] is probably the one that we did the most reading on and . . . it was really good quality English . . . they ain’t using slang, they use proper English so we had to write in [proper] English . . . so we used to spend most of our time trying to revise the way they’ve

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written it and what they’ve written . . . but it was hard, that was proper hard (Interview 2). Disclosures of difﬁculties with ‘posh’ English seemed uncomfortable for Tahir. He generally quickly countered these by trashing academic texts, claiming that they were sufﬁciently ‘boring’ to send him to sleep. In common with the interaction among peers, in the interviews Tahir’s utterances often index laddish positions. There are also moments, however, when Tahir appears drawn, albeit ﬂeetingly, to the possibility of bookishness. He discussed, for example, his membership of an informal study group with his male peers. This group met to work on coursework assignments and Tahir depicts its members as involved in collaborative learning: There’s ﬁve of us so we . . . all sit down and we’re trying to [explain] . . . the good thing is . . . whoever knows in that circle how to do it, he explains to all of us and because we all know each other well, know slang and stuff, we’d explain it in a way we will understand . . . whilst if the teacher explains I might not get [it] . . . So I’d explain it in my terms to make sure they understand it . . . showing the thinking, how I know how to do it (Interview 2). Tahir relates to his studies through a ‘slang/posh’ dichotomy in which he is still invested in the ‘slang’ world of his peers. However, Tahir indicates that outside the classroom, he is using the vernacular as a resource for learning and for making sense of his academic work. He presents ‘slang’ as enabling him to position himself as the teacher and to speak from a position of expertise to articulate ‘the thinking’ to his peers. Using ‘slang and stuff’ also appears to allow Tahir and his peers to deal with their academic work with each other. This resonates with Rampton’s (2006) ‘vernacularisation of school knowledge’ (p. 316) in which adolescents sometimes use posh and Cockney stylisations as a way of mediating school work and getting down to the task at hand. Given the closeness in background and educational experience of Rampton’s participants to those in my study, it seems likely that this strategy has been transferred from London schools into higher education. At moments such as these Tahir stylised himself as a young man invested in his education, although this was a positioning that seemed difﬁcult to maintain.

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Geet on reading of choice As observed in Chapter 4, in the cut and thrust of the peer group, Geet found it difﬁcult to participate and had little to say in the interactions about the practices of the academic community. In the interview setting, he was able to elaborate on his perceptions of these practices. While Tahir presented himself as an ‘active’ reader, seeking out materials which he liked reading, Geet largely presented himself as a ‘passive’ reader, who read what he was given or what happened to be available in the setting. For instance, he reported reading The Metro because his mother brought one home each day, having become a Sun reader through browsing discarded copies at work and reading teletext on the television. One exception was Geet’s monthly subscription to Which, a consumer affairs magazine, reading which appeared related to a desire to keep up-to-date with the latest gadgets and consumer items. In the ﬁrst interview, Geet appeared to have little sense of himself as a reader of other materials: I am not really fussy about reading . . . I wouldn’t read a novel, that is how it is. I wouldn’t do that because . . . that is not my thing. But if it is magazines or . . . newspapers, then I would (Interview 1). Geet claimed that he read The Metro and The Sun on Saturdays, primarily for celebrity news, information on TV soaps and sport, particularly football. He described ‘breezing through’ The Metro starting with the sports news on the back page and then turning to the news headlines on the front page. He appeared to have a greater sense of himself as a Sun reader, depicting this as a pleasurable weekend activity done after he came home from work, and reading in which he ‘took his time’. His motivation for reading The Sun appeared closely tied up with a sense of self in relation to what he saw ‘other people around (him)’ reading: I think the reason [I read The Sun] is because I have seen people around me, they all read the same paper. So I think that is the reason, I have been inﬂuenced as well. So I think he is reading that same paper, so I will read the same paper as well. So I think that is the reason I read The Sun (Interview 1). Interestingly, Geet referred to Sun readers ﬁrstly as ‘people’ and then as ‘he’, suggesting that he was observing other males in his social milieu and trying to act like them. Later he referred to these ‘people’ as his ‘friends’, suggesting that reading The Sun was a peer group practice to which he wanted to conform.

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Within the interviews, Geet was also anxious to show willingness to comply with departmental requests for students to read broadsheet newspapers for study purposes. However, Geet phrased this talk in the conditional, as reading that he would undertake if someone supplied him with a broadsheet rather than as reading he was actually undertaking. It seems likely that Geet, in common with many of his male counterparts, found it difﬁcult to imagine himself as a broadsheet reader, particularly as this would further distance him from his peers, with whom he was frequently marginalised. Despite portraying himself as largely passive in his selection of reading material at home, Geet suggested that he was an active reader of much of this material as a way of maintaining social relations with his peers. Geet worked hard to keep up-to-date with the latest developments in popular culture through reading. He portrayed himself as utilising detailed information gleaned from this reading, about gadgets and football for example, as a way of making bids for the conversational ﬂoor with his laddish peers. As David Jackson (1990) reﬂects, the sports pages in the press provide the ‘raw material for endless non-emotional nonconversations with other men’ (p. 221). Keeping informed about the latest developments in popular gadgets also appeared to be an important way of maintaining face among peers. For as he stated, seeming to be knowledgeable about which gadgets were ‘good’ ensured that he would not be ‘ashamed’ with his peers. Geet on reading academic texts Although Geet’s reading of choice at home largely consisted of The Sun, The Metro and Which, over the period of the interviews he made some progress in adopting a more bookish positioning. In the ﬁrst interview, Geet displayed little identiﬁcation with reading as a scholarly activity. In common with Tahir, he presented reading as a utilitarian activity undertaken to complete coursework assignments and pass exams. Unlike Tahir, however, this did not seem to have motivated a narrowly focused reading strategy, largely reliant on internet search engines. Instead Geet positioned himself as a ‘good’ learner in that he spent considerable amounts of time researching information from course texts, both to ﬁnd the ‘main points’ and to ‘help [his] English’. Like Tahir, Geet appeared to view academic reading as ‘procedural’, presenting reading as a way of obtaining nuggets of information that he reproduced in assignments. This surface approach to learning enabled Geet to position himself as ‘good at reading and writing’ as, like Tahir, he was skilled at skimming and scanning large amounts of information. As the following extract

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illustrates, Geet had adopted this approach to reading for his studies over some time: G: If I have to do an assignment in economics, I will look in every single economics book and then just get the main points . . . or . . . just browse around . . . look at the back page or the front page and see which book has got more details . . . or . . . facts . . . So if this book has got the question I have to answer then I will take that one. There is no point in taking all these books . . . I just take the ones I need. SP: You feel quite conﬁdent about searching for information on particular topics? G: Yeah . . . I have been doing that since high school . . . so I have got used to it . . . looking at all these books and taking the ones I need basically. SP: . . . I remember you telling me that you had done a GNVQ at college . . . how would you compare that [with here]? G: I think it is quite similar actually . . . it was the same thing . . . you had to do coursework . . . you have to look up . . . the answers to the points. So basically you go to a library, you look at all the books . . . you look at . . . what’s it called, the contents page and see if they have got the points in there and then you take that book and if that book doesn’t have it, put that back, take another one out (Interview 1). While this had been a successful strategy prior to higher education, like Tahir, Geet was encountering difﬁculties with this approach to his studies at Millennium. While Geet presented his difﬁculties as stemming from not selecting the ‘right information’ to read, his problems seemed located in academic community demands to read intensively and extensively and demonstrate ‘higher order thinking’ (Biggs and Tang, 2007). When discussing his approach to studying in the ﬁrst interview, Geet often appeared to be balancing the demands of his peers with those of the academic community. This often resulted in contradictory utterances in which Geet claimed to be both ‘dossing around’ and concerned with his work: I admit . . . I didn’t actually pay . . . attention that much [in my ﬁrst year] . . . it was like . . . I don’t know . . . the word, they say “doss”? Is that the word . . . students use? Doss, dossing

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around but I knew when we had to give something in . . . I always make sure that I give [it] in when it is time. For example every Monday with the portfolios I make sure that at least I have got that in on a Monday. The last thing you want is to hand it in late so I make sure of that (Interview 1). Later in the same interview, he positioned himself in opposition to students who ‘dossed around’, claiming that he needed to work hard because he found his studies difﬁcult. It seems likely that these difﬁculties were at least partly related to issues of cultural capital (Bourdieu,1986). As discussed in earlier chapters, as a non-elite undergraduate whose family were refugees, Geet had not had the same access to the ‘socially optimal and valued knowledge, taste and know-how’ (Block, 2006: 35) in higher education as undergraduates from more elite middle-class and professional backgrounds. For students from WP backgrounds, ‘dossing around’ is a high-risk strategy that is more likely to result in failure than for their more elite counterparts, who can rely to a much greater extent on knowledge and expertise of academic practices developed through schooling and family life. As Geet had failed some of his ﬁrst-year exams and obtained low grades for some coursework, talk on ‘dossing around’ may also have been a way of trying to save face. As discussed in previous chapters, a recurring theme in the literature on masculinities and education is the need to avoid looking stupid, Geet may have invoked laddishness, in his portrayal of ‘dossing about’ to counter any negative impressions regarding his academic ability and/or intelligence. Perhaps this situation motivated a stance that appeared more welldisposed to academic practices. For unlike Tahir, who rarely showed identiﬁcation with an academic persona, in the second interview, Geet positioned himself as bookish to discuss his efforts in relation to his studies. Instead of the largely surface approach to learning he displayed in the ﬁrst interview, Geet presented himself as utilising a ‘deep’ approach (Marton and Saljo, 1976a, b) involving intensive reading and study of his academic sources in order to develop his understanding and disciplinary knowledge: With [an academic text] because it’s like one of those things you don’t get everyday . . . basically I take my time . . . if I read it once I know I won’t actually understand it. I’ll go back to it again and again and, you know, write notes and . . . go back to the words I don’t understand (Interview 2).

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Geet depicted his undergraduate textbooks as complex and difﬁcult, frequently referring to this reading as ‘not everyday’, and sometimes expressing the desire for academic authors to ‘make [their texts] more simpler’. Geet suggested that his difﬁculties in working with this material increased when he was required to read and use it on his own and he expressed appreciation for lecturers who helped students with these texts in class. In contrast to the ﬁrst interview, in which Geet appeared to be balancing demands of his laddish peers and those of the academic community, in the second interview Geet consistently positioned himself as a ‘good’ student who followed the advice of his lecturers, attended all his classes and approached his studies diligently. However, despite his efforts, Geet was obtaining mixed results. When his results were poor, he claimed that they resulted from a combination of the complexity of the material and lecturers who were unable to explain concepts in ways that were understandable. Within the interview setting, Geet seemed more able to disclose his emotions and vulnerabilities over this lack of success: G: I found [that subject] really hard. The textbooks didn’t explain it the way it could have been explained to me. Even though I tried my best and did what was required the marks didn’t justify the hard work I did on it, the time I spent . . . so I felt quite bad about it . . . you put so much effort into some work so at least if you have a better grade, at least that would make you happy. If it was at least a satisfactory grade . . . but it wasn’t, it was a scrape pass and you think “My god! So many weeks doing that . . . every day I’ve been going in the library . . . getting all the information and that’s what I get” . . . you just don’t feel pleased SP: So it was a bit demoralising? G: It was, yeah. It just pulls you down (Interview 2). While talk revealing vulnerabilities, emotions and difﬁculties with academic work seemed almost impossible with his male peers in the classroom, the interview appeared to offer a setting in which it was safe to disclose these. Unlike Tahir, who often seemed to use the interview setting as another ‘opportunity for display’ (Coates, 2003: 171), by the second interview, Geet appeared prepared to risk conﬁding in me. As Coates argues, depending on the nature of the relationship between male and female speakers, mixed talk may offer more opportunity for men to explore topics, such as personal and emotional issues, that they

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often conceal from male peers. While it is not clear whether this was principally a matter of gender, in that he may also have conﬁded in a male interviewer/lecturer, it seems possible that the interaction of gender, age and occupational role may have contributed to his greater openness.

Conclusion The questionnaire and interviews appeared to offer more opportunities for the male participants to present a more serious persona that was able to display more conformity to the academic community. At times, the interview setting also facilitated disclosures of vulnerabilities and difﬁculties which were largely absent from the spoken interaction among peers in the classroom. Frosh et al. (2002) comment that interviews demand a different kind of gender work from peer groups. As they argue, individual interviews may encourage some adolescent males to adopt a ‘softer’ and more ‘serious’ persona with an older person (p. 33) because they enjoy an adult taking an interest and the opportunity to talk about self, feelings and relationships, with far less danger of ridicule. While there was more evidence of this more ‘conformist’ masculinity (Sewell, 1997) in the self-reports and one-to-one interactions, the male participants still attended to laddish practices. There seemed to be a desire to maintain the appearance of competence and to avoid appearing overly concerned with scholarly activity. In the questionnaire responses, many of the British-born males mitigated disclosures of low levels of expertise in heritage languages by commenting on what they could do in relation to their linguistic repertoires. Many also denied code-switching between their heritage language(s) and English, perhaps because code-switching was perceived negatively. In the ﬁrst round of interviews, Tahir and Geet appeared concerned to present a competent persona. There were moments, however, where the difﬁculties of maintaining this air of competence surfaced and by the second interview, Geet, at least, seemed much more prepared to discuss the difﬁculties he was encountering with his studies and his feelings about his progress. In their self-reports in the questionnaire and interviews, the male participants continued to make attempts to ‘balance the self’ (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, 2003) across their peer group, academic and family CofP. Many seemed to be juggling bookish and nonchalant

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laddish positions. Even away from the gaze of peers, few seemed comfortable with bookish positions, which they associated with doing being ‘posh’. In the next chapter, I will investigate this further by considering how the self-reports of the female students converge and diverge from those of their male counterparts.

7 Multilingual Femininities in Lecturer/Student Interactions

Introduction In this chapter, I examine how the self-reports of the female students in the questionnaire and interviews evoke particular positions and consider the extent to which these are attuned to the norms and practices of the academic community. This chapter follows the same structure as the previous chapter. I begin by considering the female students’ identiﬁcation with the languages in their lives and compare the responses of the British-born participants with those born overseas. Following this, I discuss the female participants’ responses to reading. As Moss (1999) points out, in quantitative studies on reading, girls are depicted as better readers than boys, reading more than boys and having a greater liking for ﬁction than their male counterparts (p. 507). These generalisations reinforce a discourse of ‘gender differentiation’ (Baxter, 2003) by assuming that girls are ‘naturally’ disposed to reading and they obscure the difﬁculties that some girls experience in developing conﬁdence and expertise in reading ‘verbal’ texts (Moss, 1999). I will therefore examine the female participants’ identiﬁcation with reading, how they view themselves as readers, and the kinds of texts that they are motivated to read. I will also consider the extent to which the women adopt more positions that are closer attuned to the academic community. Similarly to the previous chapter, I give an overview of self-reports in the questionnaire and focus on Aisha’s and Sita’s contributions in the interviews. 140

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Identiﬁcation with language British-born females, questionnaire data When asked to report on the language(s) in their lives, in common with their male counterparts, the British-born females presented themselves as multilingual. In their responses, some of the British-born females adopted a stance more associated with bilingualism, through dichotomising heritage languages and English, for use at home and with friends, respectively. These responses (see Table 5) suggest English was not used at home, depicting English in a secondary relationship to heritage languages in the home setting. This was suggestive of either an afﬁliation to heritage languages and/or a ‘dutiful daughter’ position (Coates, 1996), in which, as observed in Chapter 5, the female participants took care to honour their parents through claims to use their mother tongue in the home setting. However in common with their male counterparts, the British-born females generally reported using English and their heritage languages at home. These participants tended to position English as their main language and reported using heritage languages with relatives who spoke

Table 5 Languages used at home and with peers among British-born females Female students

Age

Aisha Baldeep Bhavini Biba Davinder Eesha Fong Hibba Kanwal Kashmira Ling Maya Saba Sita Trupti Van Zarina

18 18 19 21 19 18 19 22 19 20 20 19 18 19 18 20 19

Language(s) used at home

Language(s) used with peers

Urdu English/Punjabi English/Gujarati/Hindi English/Arabic Punjabi Punjabi/English Cantonese Urdu/Hindi/Arabic/Punjabi Urdu/English Punjabi/English Cantonese/English English/Gujarati Punjabi/Urdu/English Tamil/English English/Punjabi Vietnamese Urdu

English English English/Gujarati English English English English English/Hindi English English Cantonese/English English English Tamil/English English/Punjabi English/Vietnamese English

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little English, although some also reported using heritage languages with siblings and friends: [English] all the time. Punjabi I only speak with my grandparents (Baldeep). Urdu is spoken with my parents only. I use English in almost every situation, in my studies, at work and at home (Kanwal). Uni students, English. Parents, Gujarati and English [but] Gujarati mainly. Friends, majority English [but] Gujarati may be used to explain something. Sisters, English. It also depends upon the language one uses to speak to me with (Bhavini). The positioning of English as the main language of the Britishborn female participants was reinforced by responses to code-switching. Despite recognising its communicative value in family settings, like the males, the British-born females tended to view code-switching negatively: This says that my Cantonese is not very good and I have to include English to get my statement out. English is better than Cantonese because I speak more English (Fong). I sometimes ﬁnd it difﬁcult to explain what I’m trying to say in Punjabi so therefore I mix it with English only because I’m not so ﬂuent (Baldeep). As discussed in the previous chapter, code-switching is often viewed as a result of language deﬁciency (Romaine, 1995). Nevertheless, apart from Zarina, all the British-born females reported using code-switching, in contrast to only four of the British-born males, although it is highly unlikely that code-switching is only a phenomenon among the female students. As observed in previous chapters, the male participants frequently resisted positions in which they could be construed as lacking competence in contrast to the female participants’ frequent adoption of such positions. Perhaps denial of code-switching enabled the males to save face by avoiding a deﬁcit positioning whereas claims to use codeswitching allowed the female participants to style themselves as modest and deferential to parents and elders of their heritage community. As noted, the students often depicted their elders and parents as critical of their heritage language expertise. This seems more likely to impact on the female participants through their positioning as future wives

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and mothers in which roles they would be more likely to be invested with responsibility, as Cameron (1992) points out, for maintaining heritage language and customs with children. The female participants also reported greater difﬁculties in reading and writing in heritage languages. Apart from Aisha and Hibba, all the female participants, including those who claimed not to use English at home, presented themselves as more or less ‘illiterate’ in their heritage languages: [Writing in Punjabi is] not easy at all. I tried to learn to write the language four times but didn’t succeed at all. I ﬁnd it easier to write in German as I had studied it for GCSE (Trupti). I cannot read in Punjabi apart from my name (Davinder) I don’t know how to read or write Gujarati (Bhavini). In common with the British-born males, when reporting language use with friends all the females claimed to use English, with most presenting themselves as using English only. This suggested some consistency between their positioning with peers and in the questionnaire. The questionnaire responses were suggestive at times of competing positions for the British-born female participants regarding English and their heritage languages. Despite an initial dichotomy for some of their heritage language use and English, this opposition was not sustained. In later responses, for example, Fong, Van, Davinder and Aisha reported code-switching at home, Van and Zarina positioned Vietnamese and Urdu, respectively, as a ‘second’ and ‘foreign’ language, while Fong, Van, Davinder and Zarina reported that English was their main/only language for reading and writing in all situations. The questionnaire gave the female participants opportunity for more detailed responses on their levels of expertise in heritage languages, the situations in which they used these languages and their thoughts about code-switching. Unlike the males, none of the British-born female students seemed concerned about revealing difﬁculties, low levels of expertise or about making statements in which they could be construed as lacking in competence. This suggested conformity to traditional ways of doing femininity in which modesty and deferential behaviour are valued. In common with their male peers, the self-reports in the questionnaire also suggested that most of the British-born females positioned English as the dominant language and force in their lives. Perhaps, like their male peers, this was a way of adopting a British identity

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within the institutional setting of Millennium and with one of their lecturers, and as a way of distinguishing themselves from participants on the writing programme who had grown up and been educated in different circumstances from themselves. In the next section, I will consider these issues further with the data of the female participants born overseas. Female students born overseas, questionnaire data Table 6 illustrates the background history of the female students born overseas, Awino and Deena arrived in the UK as young adults whereas Femi arrived in her early teens. Despite not stating age on arrival, Chantrille probably settled in Britain during 1996–7 along with several thousand other Montserratians ﬂeeing the devastation caused by volcanic eruptions. Apart from Deena, all were settled in Britain. In contrast to their male counterparts, the female students either came from Commonwealth countries or from a UK overseas territory; consequently, all had grown up in countries where English was an ofﬁcial language and had attended English-medium schools. All presented the schools in their home countries as places of serious academic study, with Deena reporting studying for University of Cambridge English language exams and Femi remarking on the high standard of teaching. For Deena, this appeared to be an issue of some importance as she had made unsuccessful attempts to display identiﬁcation with the formality of her schooling in peer group interactions, as discussed in the previous chapter. While Deena was newly arrived in Britain for the purposes of study, Femi had completed her compulsory schooling in Britain. Femi and Deena had entered university following school whereas Chantrille and Awino had entered via Access courses (see note 1 of Chapter 3, on page 194). Table 6 Female students born overseas Female students

Age

Age of arrival in the UK

Place of education prior to arrival

Main medium of schooling prior to arrival

Awino Chantrille

32 39

Kenya Montserrat

English English

Deena Femi

20 18

19 Not stated (possibly mid 30s) 20 13

Mauritius Nigeria

English English

Femininities in Lecturer/Student Interactions 145 Table 7 Languages used at home and with peers among females born overseas Female students

Language(s) used at home

Language(s) used with friends

Awino Chantrille Deena

English/Swahili/Kamba English Mauritius: Creole/ English/French London: Creole/English

Femi

English/Yoruba

English/Swahili/Kamba English Mauritius: Creole/ English/French; London: London English/Creole and French among Mauritian friends English

As Table 7 illustrates, apart from Chantrille, all presented themselves as using heritage languages and English at home, with Awino and Deena also reporting using heritage languages with friends. Although it seems likely that Chantrille also used Montserrat Creole, also referred to as Leeward Caribbean Creole (Raymond, 2005), within the context of the research she adopted the position of a monolingual English speaker. As Gordon Raymond (2005) comments, many users of Leeward Caribbean Creole deny its existence, which often relates to its marginalised status. The language usage of these female participants may reﬂect different circumstances to the males discussed in chapter 6. Deena, for example, was newly arrived in Britain and intended to return to Mauritius on completion of her studies. As she suggests, despite her implied preference for French Creole, she was forced to speak more English in London as she was physically separated from French Creole speakers. In Mauritius, her preference was for French Creole: I use English mostly now because I am in London . . . because mostly all the people I come across in England speak English. With my parents I speak Creole, even on the phone, with Mauritian friends as well (Deena). Awino, on the other hand, had arrived in Britain as a young adult and worked for over a decade before entering higher education. As discussed in the previous chapter and elsewhere (Preece, 2004), while she had British citizenship and was settled in Britain, in spoken interactions with peers she adopted a Kenyan identity, arguing that her children should learn ‘her language’, referring to Swahili and Kamba, as their ‘mother

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tongue’. However, in her self-report, Awino suggests that Swahili and Kamba were largely used in telephone interactions with her mother, who still lived in Kenya, rather than in her family home in London with her children. Femi’s family had settled in Britain when she was thirteen but were part of a ‘transnational community’ (Block, 2006; Castles and Miller, 2003; Faist, 2000; Fouron and Glick Schiller, 2001) in that they maintained networks with Nigeria as the ancestral homeland, including regular trips back home. While Femi initially made no reference to Yoruba, she introduced it in later responses to refer to visits ‘abroad’, suggesting a more distant relationship with Nigeria. Femi implied that she used Yoruba to comply with her family’s wishes regarding her African heritage, and perhaps also with ways of doing ‘acceptable’ femininity within her heritage culture: There are several situations where I would be required to use my native language. For example, when abroad, I am expected to speak either English or Yoruba. Yoruba is preferable at this point in time as it illustrates I am aware of my culture and tradition (Femi). Unlike the male students born overseas, when reporting the ease with which they could read and write their heritage languages, only Deena among the female students born overseas presented herself as multiliterate, as having high levels of literacy in French and English as the ofﬁcial languages of Mauritius. Awino, Chantrille and Femi, on the other hand, claimed that they could not read or write in any language other than English, suggesting the dominance of English in their schooling. While the males born overseas appeared comfortable with an ESL positioning, this was resisted by some of their female counterparts. Chantrille consistently adopted the position of a monolingual English speaker while Femi presented English as her main language. Both also interpreted home languages as English when responding to questions on reading and writing in the languages used at home. While this suggested a strong afﬁliation to English, claims of having ‘no problems whatsoever’ in reading and writing home languages may also have been a way of resisting their institutional deﬁcit positioning and placement on the writing programme. Deena and Awino, on the other hand, seemed more at ease with an ESL positioning. Deena positioned ‘[French] Creole’ as her language of choice and her mother tongue whereas English was primarily reserved for institutional and educational use. This is consistent with the position she adopted with peers where she was highly resistant to attempts by her British-born peers to conﬂate French and Creole.

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Awino also appeared to have a more distant relationship with English, presenting English as a ‘foreign’ language that she had learned through her English-medium secondary schooling. Similarly to the interaction with peers, Awino frequently adopted the position of a language learner, who was concerned with improving her ‘communication skills’, ‘pronunciation’ and writing in English. In the following section, I will examine these issues further in the interviews with Aisha and Sita. Aisha, interview data At age 16, Aisha entered sixth form where she studied four A levels, including Urdu as one of her heritage languages, following which she embarked on a ﬁrst degree at Millennium. At the time of the research, Aisha (aged 18) was living at home with her parents, who were from Pakistan, her two younger sisters and an uncle. In the interviews, Aisha adopts a multilingual position, reporting the use of English, Urdu and Punjabi. Aisha presented her relationship with her mother as primarily in Urdu and with her father as in English and Urdu. While visiting the family in Pakistan, she reported primarily using Urdu: My parents are from Pakistan. My dad knows English very well but my mum isn’t . . . too well . . . at speaking English . . . because Urdu is her ﬁrst language. I’ve learnt it from them, it’s my ﬁrst language as well . . . It’s much easier communicating with my parents [and] everyone else in the family. And also my parents want me to speak this language because . . . it’s their culture . . . so . . . they wanted me to learn it (Interview 1). Here, Aisha seems to be negotiating competing positions on Urdu and English. Whilst presenting Urdu as her ‘ﬁrst language’, learnt through growing up in an Urdu-speaking family, Aisha also implies that she was required to learn it to fulﬁl parental wishes. When speaking about this obligation, she refers to Urdu and her heritage culture as ‘their’, rather than ‘my’ or ‘our’, suggesting a more distant relationship. This was a rare example, however, of Aisha distancing herself from her family heritage in the interview setting. Perhaps this arose through Aisha’s attempts to explain her family language practices to me as an outsider to the British Pakistani community and a member of academic staff. In common with many of the British-born participants, Aisha presented her relationship with her siblings as primarily in English. However, Aisha maintained that the setting inﬂuenced her language

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choice, positioning herself as adapting to the ‘environment’ to ensure inclusion in the group: A: [The language] depends on the environment . . . When we’re all in Pakistan we all communicate in Urdu but then here [London] we all communicate in English . . . SP: And when you have family gatherings and . . . there’s lots of people together, do you ﬁnd that you are talking more in Urdu or more in English? A: More in Urdu deﬁnitely because everyone else is speaking Urdu . . . so you don’t want to feel left out . . . you want to be a part of it . . . SP: What about with your friends? . . . Do you speak most of the time in English with your friends? A: Yes, all the time . . . It’s the same thing as my sisters . . . it’s . . . the environment like in uni, it’s English [because] everyone speaks English, so you want to be part of it . . . SP: And is it the same with friends who would speak Urdu? A: Yes . . . but if they come round my house . . . there’s a different environment so then maybe we would speak Urdu sometimes and mix it in more with the English (Interview 1). As I have discussed (Preece, 2006a), Aisha suggested that talk with her family and friends was a way of showing solidarity and intimacy. Having the ability to switch easily between Urdu and English appeared to facilitate participation in interactions whether in London or Pakistan. Aisha presented herself as not wanting to be ‘left out’ and this may have encouraged her to develop her afﬁliation with and expertise in Urdu. According to a large body of literature (Coates, 1996, 1998; Gouldner and Strong, 1987; Hey, 1996; Johnson and Aries, 1998; Rubin, 1985), talk plays a major role in establishing and maintaining friendships and close relationships for women. While there is a danger of overgeneralising about women using talk to establish ‘rapport’ (Tannen, 1990), in the interviews Aisha frequently positioned herself as concerned with ﬁtting into the ‘environment’ and working to maintain cordiality. This persona was highly oriented to traditional discourses that position women as naturally disposed to cooperative relationships. Within the interview, talk on adaptability also enabled Aisha to balance the demands of different communities of practice by displaying identiﬁcation with her cultural heritage and the youth culture popular among her peers.

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The interview setting also allowed Aisha to elaborate on language practices at home and to recall memories of learning Urdu with her mother. She gave accounts of ways in which Urdu facilitated and structured an intimate mother–daughter relationship. As a young child, for example, Aisha recalled her mother reading her children’s stories in Urdu, showing her Urdu story books and teaching her the Urdu alphabet. Her depiction of these literacy practices was reminiscent of Adrian Blackledge’s (2001) ﬁndings with Bangladeshi mothers in Birmingham. In Blackledge’s research, story-telling appears to be both a gendered practice, as mothers took primary responsibility for reading their children stories, and gendering, in that one of its roles was the transmission of heritage cultural and religious customs governing ‘culturally intelligible’ (Butler, 1990) ways of doing gender. The mothers position themselves as bearers and nurturers of the heritage culture with their children. As Blackledge (2001) comments, they believe that ‘to learn to read and write Bengali was to be Bengali’ (p. 66). It seems likely that the literacy practices in Aisha’s home were similarly motivated and that Aisha responded positively to learning Urdu as a way of maintaining the intimacy of her relationship with her mother and of adopting the position of ‘dutiful daughter’ (Coates, 1996). This was further suggested in interactions in which Aisha reconstructed conversations between herself aged 13 and her mother about whether to study Urdu at school, in which she presented herself as seeking her mother’s advice and wanting to please her mother. Aisha frequently presented Urdu and English as ‘equal’, suggesting a form of ‘balanced bilingualism’ (Macnamara, 1967, 1969) in which she was equally at home in both: English I would say is my everyday language, I think in English as well . . . it’s part of my everyday. Urdu is . . . part of my everyday as well . . . I communicate with my parents in Urdu [and] the rest of my family. So English and Urdu are both equal in my mind (Interview 1). However, despite this Urdu/English balance, Aisha distanced herself from Punjabi, her other heritage language: A: My family background is Punjabi so mainly my parents actually speak Punjabi with each other. But with us it is in Urdu because I don’t like Punjabi. SP: You don’t like it?

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A: No . . . I think it just seems like you’re arguing when you’re talking [Punjabi]. . . . Urdu I think is really sweet . . . when you talk it . . . whereas when you speak Punjabi, it seems like you’re ﬁghting. It’s not very formal . . . it’s like slang but I don’t like it . . . My parents [and] my family elders they all speak in Punjabi but with kids it is Urdu. SP: So do you think that your parents are equally ﬂuent in both? A: Yes, deﬁnitely . . . SP: Have they always spoken to you in Urdu? Do you think they spoke to you in Punjabi at any time? A: No, Urdu always. Because I have told them I don’t like Punjabi, so don’t talk to me in Punjabi. SP: Where do you think that you formed that opinion that you didn’t like Punjabi? Do you remember what started that off? A: I think . . . when I went to Pakistan (laughs) because all my family there speak Punjabi there . . . but I didn’t like it much . . . I decided at a very early age that I liked Urdu more. SP: You like the sound better? A: Yeah, Urdu . . . seems . . . more polite whereas Punjabi it sounds as though you’re just being rude. SP: When you go to Pakistan and you’re with your relatives . . . are they speaking . . . to you in Punjabi? A: No, Urdu . . . they speak both [but] with us they speak in Urdu . . . But mostly all my cousins communicate in Urdu. It’s just maybe once or twice that their parents say to speak Punjabi . . . It’s like . . . maybe a generation gap, the older generation speak Punjabi and the younger generation speak Urdu (Interview 1). Here, Aisha dichotomises and genders her heritage languages, positioning Urdu as traditionally ‘feminine’, characterising it as soft, ‘really sweet’ and ‘polite’, and Punjabi as stereotypically ‘masculine’, associating it with aggression, ‘ﬁghting’ and being ‘rude’. Aisha seems to associate Punjabi with visits to the extended family in Pakistan, which as a small child may have been a little unsettling, and perhaps disrupted the intimate mother–daughter relationship, constructed in Urdu in her London home. She also linked Urdu and Punjabi with life stage and age in Pakistan, in which Urdu was presented as the language of her contemporaries in opposition to Punjabi as the language of her elders. Her positioning of Punjabi speakers as using ‘slang’ in contrast to Urdu speakers, who she depicted as using more formal language, was suggestive of a Pakistani rural/urban

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divide in which she associated Punjabi with a more traditional, older, less-educated and village-dwelling generation whereas she regarded Urdu speakers as more youthful, educated and modern city dwellers. This association of Urdu with ‘advancement’ and Punjabi with ‘backwardness’, within the context of Urdu as the national language of Pakistan and Punjabi as a home language, has echoes in the work of Maryon McDonald (1994) on Breton and French usage in Brittany. McDonald found that the Breton mothers in her study initiated language shift by using French with their children in preference to Breton. While they associated French, as the ofﬁcial language of the state, with advancement, urban life, upward mobility and reﬁnement, they characterised Breton, as the local community language, as ‘(smelling) of cow-shit’ (ibid.: 103). Perhaps a similar reasoning, informed by ideologically loaded attitudes to Urdu and Punjabi in Pakistan, had encouraged Aisha’s mother to use Urdu with her children and had come to shape Aisha’s view of her home languages. Additionally, the associations Aisha made between Punjabi and ‘slang’ and Urdu and ‘formality’ provided an interesting contrast with the ‘slang/posh’ English dichotomy observed in previous chapters. As discussed, Aisha, like her peers, identiﬁed strongly with ‘slang’ English but was much more ambivalent about Punjabi as ‘slang’, perhaps because of their age-related associations. In contrast to the peer-group interaction discussed in Chapter 5, where the more powerful members of Aisha’s peer group were strongly oriented to girl power discourses and acted to curtail discussion of heritage languages, the interview setting gave Aisha an opportunity to elaborate on her use of heritage languages and to present herself to me, as a member of staff, as well-disposed to her heritage culture and seriously minded. In the following section, I will explore these issues in relation to Sita. Sita, interview data At age 16, Sita went straight into further education to study for a GNVQ before embarking on a ﬁrst degree at Millennium. At the time of the research, Sita (aged 19) was living at home with her parents and her younger sister. Like Aisha, she also presented herself as multilingual. As the oldest child of a Sri Lankan Tamil family, Sita presented herself as using Tamil and English with her parents and other members of the Tamil community, English with her sister and either English only or English and Tamil with friends, depending on their origins. When

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discussing her language use she remarked on the way Tamil and English had become intertwined: Sometimes my parents . . . talk in Tamil and then suddenly they change into English . . . when I come to university I tend to use a lot of English but then when I’m with my home people . . . they start talking Tamil and . . . I just start talking in Tamil and . . . when they start talking [in] English, I reply . . . in English. It just happens . . . it’s just . . . between [the] two [because] sometimes I don’t know any words in Tamil [so] I tend to use English [and] when I don’t know a thing in English I tend to use Tamil. So it goes . . . on and off (Interview 1). Sita’s attitude to Tamil appeared highly inﬂuenced by the political situation in Sri Lanka and her identiﬁcation with Eelam (Tamil for independent homeland). While Sita shared some similarities with Geet, Sita had been born and raised in Britain whereas Geet had ﬁrst-hand experience of ﬂeeing and seeking asylum in Britain. While Geet had memories of this experience, Sita constructed her knowledge of these events through the stories of her parents, other community members and the media. Like Geet, Sita frequently positioned her heritage language as her mother tongue despite her greater expertise in English. She showed strong identiﬁcation with her heritage culture, positioning this as ‘eastern’ and diametrically opposed to ‘western’ traditions and values. Sita contrasted her attitude towards her heritage language with her sister’s, who she presented as resistant to using Tamil and showing a preference for ‘western’ friends and culture. Through this talk, she depicted herself as complying with her family’s wishes regarding her heritage language and traditions and was able to position herself as dutiful in relation to her parents (Coates, 1996). As discussed (Preece, 2008), Sita’s strong afﬁliation to her heritage language and culture seemed rooted in her family situation, arising from the two decades of civil war1 between the minority Tamils and majority Sinhala in Sri Lanka (Jeyaratnam Wilson, 1988; Rotberg, 1999). Despite living in Britain for many years, Sita depicted her family as active members of the London Tamil community, concerned with the maintenance of heritage language and customs. Like Geet, Sita also attended a complementary school, which her parents had helped to establish. Unlike Geet, Sita was still attending this school where she studied language, music and dance and taught dance to the younger children. In the interaction, she presents this complementary school as essential for

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maintaining and passing on Tamil cultural practices within the multicultural setting of London, and of maintaining the Tamil diaspora as a distinct and separate ethnic group: We have so many different festivals [when] each comes . . . you learn more things . . . and you ﬁnd out more stories . . . why [these customs are] still going on . . . it’s something different and you . . . keep it between yourselves, you . . . keep your culture . . . you’re mixing with so many people, you’re coming to university, you see Indians, Pakistanis, English, everything and I tend to talk with everyone the same way but I have to still keep my part of the world, keep my part of the language, my part of the culture. I can’t actually lose that because if I don’t learn, if I don’t know my culture, eventually it’s going to disappear . . . so we have to carry it forward, keep it with us (Interview 1). Sita constructed the Tamil complementary school as an important CofP that facilitated her strong sense of Tamil identity. While discussing the school, she positioned herself as having strong afﬁliations with Sri Lanka as her ‘imagined’ homeland (Anderson, 2006) and of the Tamil language as an important marker of Tamil identity. She implied that the Tamil-Sinhala civil war had resulted in her separation from indigenous Tamils and the loss of her birthright, in that she was not only dislocated from her homeland, but also her mother tongue: At the moment there’s a war going on in Sri Lanka . . . if the war wasn’t going on, people wouldn’t be coming . . . to this country and I may have been born in Sri Lanka. All our people live there . . . but we’ve moved to . . . a ﬁrst world country [where] people tend to mix . . . westerners [and people from] different . . . parts of the world. Eventually when I have children . . . if I don’t learn my own language, how [are] my children going to carry [the language] forward? . . . If I don’t learn my own language or my culture, you can’t live together later on . . . we need to carry on . . . we need to carry this language [Tamil] through our life . . . if we don’t, we can’t identify ourselves can we? (Interview 1). The interaction also acted as a vehicle for the negotiation of ‘culturally intelligible’ (Butler, 1990) femininity within the Tamil community, in which Sita adopted a traditional subject position in which she imagined herself as a mother, who, like the mothers in Blackledge’s

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(2001) study, would have responsibility for transmitting heritage language and customs to her children. This positioning seemed partly a political stance, as a method of fulﬁlling her duty to maintain the Tamil diaspora, and partly as a way of enacting gender. As much literature comments (e.g. Coates, 1997; Phoenix, Woollett and Lloyd, 1991; Sunderland, 2004; Talbot, 1998; Weedon, 1997), motherhood is still presented as the norm for adult women and as the most effective way for women to gain personal fulﬁlment. Additionally, in families with strong identiﬁcations with discourses of ‘imagined homelands’ (Anderson, 2006), it seems likely that women will be positioned as ‘guardians of the home language’ (Pavlenko and Piller, 2001: 27) with, as Aneta Pavlenko and Ingrid Piller (2001) argue, primary responsibility for maintaining the integrity of the community through transmitting heritage practices. Despite these strong afﬁliations, Sita depicts herself as an inexpert Tamil user, commenting on her problems with understanding written texts and formal spoken language. At these moments, Sita draws on the ‘slang/posh’ dichotomy, primarily used to refer to vernacular and Standard English, to relate her own use of Tamil with her Tamil contemporaries and older and/or more educated Tamil speakers: When I come to Tamil . . . I tend to ask my parents what they’re [Tamil newscasters] actually saying because it’s . . . proper [Tamil] grammar . . . when they’re [broadcasting] the news and everything but when I’m with my friends I tend to talk slang [Tamil] (Interview 1). In common with Geet, Sita often adopts an ESL positioning in which she presents Tamil as her mother tongue and the language with which she has greater afﬁliation, if not expertise. While Geet appears to use this positioning in order to present himself as an expert speaker of Gujarati and as a person worthy of respect, Sita’s adoption of an ESL positioning seems both politically charged and a way of performing femininity. By adopting Tamil as her mother tongue, she is able to demonstrate her allegiance to the struggle for Eelam, in which the Tamil language appears to be the ‘embodiment of (Tamil) culture, ethnicity (and/or) sense of nationality’ (Mills, 2004: 166). Additionally, this positioning appears to be a way of doing acceptable femininity within her community. For by imagining herself as a mother, responsible for maintaining Tamil language and customs with her children, she stylises herself as heterosexual and abiding by the norms of heteronormativity.

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In contrast to the interaction with peers in the classroom, the interviews gave Sita the opportunity for extensive talk on Tamil as her heritage language. In the class, her peer group was dominated by Kavi, a male participant and the group’s self-appointed leader. Like Sita, Kavi is also a Tamil but unlike her, he was born in Sri Lanka and ﬂed to Britain with his family when he was 11 years old. Perhaps because of this experience, he consistently adopted the position of expert speaker on Tamil, framing the talk around his experiences and frequently silencing Sita by ignoring her contributions. Eventually, silence seemed to become a form of resistance, for on the rare occasions when Kavi nominated Sita to speak, her non-response appeared uncooperative. Various writers on language and gender (e.g. Fishman, 1983; Gal, 1991; Lakoff, 1995; Spender, 1980a, b) have discussed ways of interpreting silence in mixed-sex interaction. This literature suggests that a powerful way of silencing a speaker is to ignore consistently his/her contributions to the conversation. Silence can then operate as a form of resistance through the refusal to cooperate when invited to speak. In the interview setting, Sita was able to counter this relatively powerless positioning. Through presenting Tamil as her mother tongue, a language of which I had no knowledge, Sita was able to occupy the ﬂoor as an expert speaker about the political situation in her ‘imagined homeland’ (Anderson, 2006). Within this setting, this talk also enabled Sita to perform ‘culturally intelligible’ (Butler, 1990) femininity in relation to her community, and to style herself as a ‘dutiful daughter’ (Coates, 1996). Thus far I have focused on the female participants’ responses to the languages in their lives. In the following sections, I will consider how they present themselves as readers and whether the questionnaire and interview settings encouraged them to adopt more bookish positions. As in Chapter 6, I will begin by considering the questionnaire data and then explore ways in which the interview data elaborated on the ﬁndings from the questionnaire.

Identiﬁcation with reading Questionnaire responses on reading of choice In the self-reports in the questionnaire, all the female participants presented themselves as doing some reading at home. Table 8 illustrates that all the female students reported reading newspapers and/or magazines while several claimed to read textbooks, other non-ﬁction texts and/or ﬁction.

156 Table 8 Reading of choice at home for female students Female students

Newspapers and magazines usually read

Other reading at home

Aisha

The Evening Standard, The Telegraph, teen magazines Hello!, The Daily Mail, The News of the World More, Bliss, Sugar The Sunday Times and The Metro to pass the time

Urdu newspapers

Awino∗ Baldeep Bhavini

Biba

The Times for my studying

Chantrille∗ The Financial Times, The Evening Standard, The Metro, The Guardian Davinder None Deena∗

Eesha Femi∗

Fong Hibba Kanwal Kashmira Ling Maya Saba Sita Trupti Van

Zarina ∗

In London I read The Sun, The Times, The Metro and English magazines. In Mauritius I read Expresso, L’Express, Scope and French magazines Local newspaper, The Evening Standard, The Daily Mail The Times, The Guardian, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire

The Mirror, The Daily Mail, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire The Nation, Daily Jang 2 The Evening Standard, Looks magazine The Times, The Sun, Sugar, Just 17 Mainly Chinese newspapers and magazines Sometimes, if I do it’s normally Heat magazine Now, Looks magazine Sometimes The Mirror or The Metro The Financial Times, Eastern Eye,4 Asian Eye5 The News of the World, The Sun, The Evening Standard, Marie Claire, More, Cosmopolitan The Herald and The Post 6

Indicates students born overseas

None None Documents, journals, articles related to coursework, anything I ﬁnd appealing I also read books, novels as much as possible to improve my English Academic texts I read the textbooks that are given to us at University Books in English and French

None All other articles and texts read at home, including those obtained from the Internet, are in English I have to read important letters to my dad in English Letters in Urdu I read books before going to sleep, e.g. Child of Sin3 Books in English Novels and comics in Chinese and English Letters None None Module textbooks, novels mainly by Danielle Steele Books, academic articles, textbooks, notes in English and news articles in Vietnamese None

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In common with the males, all the female students presented themselves as reading in English, with ﬁve also claiming to read in heritage languages. Of the participants born overseas, only Deena reported reading in her heritage language while Awino stated, and Femi and Chantrille implied, that they were only able to read in English. More of the British-born female participants reported reading newspapers in English and/or their heritage languages published in their parental homeland or in Britain for a British Asian audience. This suggests that there was interest among some female participants in their heritage culture, perhaps as part of a ‘transnational community’ (Block, 2006; Fouron and Glick Schiller, 2001) in which, as mentioned, they maintain cross-border networks between Britain and their heritage country. Perhaps it was easier to adopt a ‘transnational’ positioning in the self-reporting of the questionnaire than with their peers. As observed in Chapter 5, interactions about heritage languages were often curtailed among peers who were attending to laddishness. The practice of reading heritage language newspapers also suggests a higher level of expertise in family literacy practices among the female participants than their male counterparts and suggests that the female students were inclined to under-report their expertise. In contrast to the male students, more of the female participants reported selecting a variety of bookish materials and/or popular ﬁction to read at home. As in the peer group interaction, Biba continued to present herself as a diligent student, claiming that she read books and novels ‘as much as possible to improve [her] English’. By adopting the position of a ‘good’ language learner (Byram et al., 2001), in that she read to improve her English, she was able to present herself as conforming to the literacy practices of the academic community and as a willing subject of the academic writing programme. On the other hand, fewer female participants than their male counterparts reported reading broadsheet newspapers. As observed in the previous chapter, the students were strongly encouraged to read The Times and The Financial Times for study purposes. In common with likeminded male counterparts, some presented themselves as conforming to this practice when self-reporting in the questionnaire but were less inclined to admit to this activity in the spoken interactions among peers. In the classroom, in common with their male counterparts, many of the British-born females expressed the view that the tabloids represented youth and popular culture. This particularly emerged in classroom interactions in which readers of tabloid newspapers were positioned as a ‘generation on the move’ in opposition to readers of

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broadsheets, who were depicted as ‘the elderly’. Unlike their male counterparts, who reported an interest in reading the sports pages in the tabloids, the female students expressed more interest in reading articles focusing on celebrities, gossip and fashion and the problem pages. These self-reports suggest attention to ‘gender differentiation’ (Baxter, 2003) through stylising themselves as readers of stereotypically male and female subject matter. While fewer females than males reported reading broadsheet newspapers, many more claimed to read ﬁction and/or academic texts at home, again suggesting that the female students were disposed to adopting bookish positions when self-reporting their reading habits. Nonetheless, there were some British-born females who, like their male counterparts, found it difﬁcult to imagine or present themselves in their questionnaire responses as bookish. Several of the female participants also reported reading women’s magazines, which can be categorised broadly as celebrity gossip (Hello! Now), teen and young women’s lifestyle (Bliss, More, Sugar, Looks, Just 17, Heat) and women’s lifestyle glossies (Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan). All these magazines are aimed at a female readership and, similarly to the magazines read by the male participants, work to maintain a discourse of gender differentiation, in that much of the content is focused on stereotypically feminine topics such as gossip and fashion. As observed in Chapter 5, for young women, in particular, academic study often involves a balancing act between doing femininity and cleverness (Walkerdine, 1990; Walkerdine et al., 2001). Perhaps for those who reported reading women’s magazines in addition to more bookish materials, this was a way of attempting to achieve this balance. As noted, the self-reports are limited, representing a snapshot of how the female students responded to the questions on the day. They may do considerably more, or less, reading generally, and of literature, broadsheets and serious non-ﬁction texts, than reported. However, most of the female students seemed willing to present themselves as readers, with more reporting a positive disposition towards identifying with and developing expertise in the texts needed for their studies. There were also a small number of female participants who did not adopt overly bookish positions, stylising themselves as readers of young women’s lifestyle and gossip magazines, the tabloid press and/or local newspapers. These women, in common with their male counterparts, appear to have difﬁculties in developing identiﬁcation with the texts required for their studies. In the following sections, I will explore these issues further through considering Aisha and Sita’s perceptions of themselves

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as readers and their reported strategies for reading and writing academic texts. Aisha on reading of choice The interviews gave Aisha the opportunity to present herself as positively disposed to reading and to elaborate on her reading practices in English and her heritage languages. When presenting herself as a reader, she continued to adopt a ‘balanced bilingual’ (Macnamara, 1967, 1969) positioning, in that she claimed to read in Urdu and English as a matter of course and to be comfortable reading in either language. Aisha described reading a range of materials in her heritage language, including her parents’ daily newspaper, women’s lifestyle magazines and other non-ﬁction texts about life in Pakistan. She commented that she did more reading in Urdu during family trips to Pakistan and maintained regular written correspondence in Urdu with cousins in Pakistan when in London. Through these family literacy practices, Aisha positioned herself as favourably disposed to participating in a ‘transnational community’ (Block, 2006; Fouron and Glick Schiller, 2001). In addition to reading a daily Urdu newspaper, Aisha also reported reading The Telegraph and The Evening Standard, which her uncle bought each day. She discussed sitting down to read these papers in front of the television in the evening, looking through the front page news for major news items about Britain or articles concerning Pakistan. Neither Tahir nor Geet mentioned an interest in current affairs whereas Aisha consistently portrayed herself as well-informed on events in both her host and heritage homes. Besides following current affairs in the British and Pakistani press, Aisha also presented herself as an avid reader of young women’s lifestyle magazines, particularly Sugar and Just 17. In interaction about these magazines, Aisha presented herself as attending to the norms for young women in popular cultural discourses: [I like reading] Sugar magazine, Just 17, even though I’m not 17 . . . [because] they concentrate on the things . . . teenagers . . . go through . . . in life, you know problems and solutions and . . . fashion, I am very much into fashion . . . so all those things (Aisha, Interview 1). There is general agreement among feminist scholars that magazines for teenage girls encourage young women to be life-long consumers of the beauty and fashion industries (e.g. Greer, 1971, 1999; Sunderland,

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2004; Talbot, 1995, 1998; Whelehan, 2000; Wolf, 1991). These magazines present a world in which it is normal for females to be obsessed with their bodies and appearance and to be judged on their appearance and grooming. Talbot (1998), for instance, discusses the ways in which teen and women’s magazines play a key role in regulating conventional notions of feminine appearance. She argues that these publications position women as consumers of the fashion and beauty industries, a ‘consumer femininity’ for which teenage girls are prepared in publications aimed at girls and young women. Conforming to this position requires considerable amounts of ongoing ‘beauty work’, in which, as Talbot argues (1998), it is viewed as ‘natural’ for women to seek ways of ‘feminizing’ themselves, thus inscribing discourses on femininity on the body (p. 171). By presenting herself as an avid follower of fashion, Aisha appeared not only to be orienting to popular culture norms on doing acceptable femininity, but also ﬁnding ways of feminising herself within the setting of higher education, in which, as discussed, young women often feel the need to negotiate the tension between performing femininity and doing cleverness (Walkerdine et al., 2001). Her experience of these competing positions also arose in the second interview, in which Aisha contrasted the friendly mode of address in teen magazines with the formal, impersonal tone of academic texts. Drawing on Norman Fairclough’s (2001) notion of ‘synthetic personalization’ (p. 62), Talbot (1998) analyses the way in which teen and women’s magazines adopt the ‘voice of a friend’ (p. 184) through using an informal chatty style that creates impressions of shared values between addresser and addressee. This positions the reader as sharing the same values and norms as a ‘friend’ whose primary investment is in beauty as a commodity. While Aisha was not a passive recipient of this discursive positioning, throughout the data she frequently presented herself as identifying with ‘consumer femininity’ (ibid.: 188), perhaps as a way of balancing the demands of the academic community and her peers. Aisha on reading academic texts Aisha also discussed, in some detail, reading and writing associated with her studies. While attention to ladette femininity in the interaction among peers in the classroom acted as an obstacle to overt displays of scholarly activity, in the interviews Aisha appeared well-disposed to her studies, presenting herself as a diligent student. Like Geet and Tahir, Aisha suggested that on arrival in higher education she had relied heavily on previous educational experience and her peers to make sense of

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higher education practices. However, while Tahir and Geet’s previous experience appeared to have encouraged strategies based on scanning texts for ‘nuggets’ of information to reproduce in coursework, Aisha seemed more attuned to academic practices requiring intensive and extensive reading of ‘verbal’ texts (Moss, 1999) to construct discursive writing: SP: If you think about [your] A-levels . . . the kind of reading and writing . . . that you had to do . . . when you ﬁrst arrived at Millennium what do you think was similar or different about them? A: I think [the] language was pretty similar because A-level language is quite advanced . . . especially law and sociology is very advanced, so I found that similar and the amounts of reading that you had to do, that was similar as well SP: So you were quite prepared for [the] idea that you have to do lots of reading . . .? A: Especially with law, there was a lot of reading, a lot of reading cases . . . we had to keep track of the reading, so that [A-level law] helped me out in my ﬁrst year SP: Did you think that there were any differences . . . between the things that you had to do [for] course work? A: I think they were very different. Mostly A-level course work was essays and things like that but here [at Millennium], depending on the module, . . . it is . . . questions that you have to answer bit by bit but [for] A-level [it] was . . . one long report or one long . . . essay. But here things are . . . broken down into sections . . . but you do get your long essays and long reports as well so that is what is similar. But the difference is that it can be broken down depending on the module that you are doing SP: and did you think there was more or less the same . . . level . . .? A: Levels . . . I think . . . it was one step harder in level one [ﬁrst-year undergraduate studies], I found it one step harder . . . when I was doing A-levels obviously that was hard for me but then when I went onto uni the ﬁrst year I thought “Oh, I could easily do my A-level coursework now” . . . (Interview 1). Despite her good results, throughout the ﬁrst interview Aisha presented herself as uncomfortable with the language of academic texts, consistently positioning herself as ‘not an expert’. Like some of the females discussed in Chapter 5, she positioned herself as ‘in the same boat’ as her peers, facing uncertain prospects as newcomer

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undergraduates in higher education, whose position of vulnerability was increased by not having a clear understanding of institutional requirements. When discussing these anxieties, she enacted ‘exchanged vulnerable talking’ (Coates, 1996: 88) with imagined peers. This disclosure of difﬁculties appeared to have both therapeutic value, in that Aisha claimed it made her ‘feel better’, and the function of establishing friendships, in that Aisha reported that mutual disclosure had helped her make friends with like-minded peers. As observed in Chapter 5, while the practice of ‘mirroring’ self-disclosure appeared to facilitate friendships among women, it also acted to establish the boundaries of acceptable femininity by restraining displays of academic expertise. By the stage of the second interview, however, Aisha appeared to have developed more conﬁdence. Despite presenting herself as having difﬁculties with subjects involving maths and computer language, she consistently spoke from a position of expertise when discussing the more bookish subjects that she was studying, some of which seemed to engender feelings of personal satisfaction and fulﬁlment. This identiﬁcation appeared to have arisen from the interaction of process and product. While Aisha viewed the process of learning as a creative and generative force, the prospect of high grades for the products of learning appeared to be a motivating factor, perhaps because of the feelings of self-worth gained through lecturer validation and praise for her work: A: I feel much more easy around essay writing so I think I actually enjoyed doing [that] piece of coursework . . . SP: what would make writing an essay more enjoyable? A: I think if you’re more familiar with the subject that makes it enjoyable because sometimes you’re bursting with ideas and you want to write them down so . . . that makes it much more enjoyable and if you’re familiar . . . if you have the right information that you need . . . the right . . . reference books and because I had the website I could understand well . . . I think that makes it much more enjoyable if you can get it done easily and if you understand it. If you understand something you’re much more likely to get high marks on it because you know what you’re writing about whereas if you don’t know what you’re writing about you’re just going to . . . wafﬂe on . . . you don’t understand it so you’re not going to do well on it (Interview 2). When discussing the subjects that she enjoys, she presents herself as taking a deep approach to learning. For these subjects, she describes

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the extensive amount of reading and research she undertakes, ways in which she takes notes of salient points and selected quotations in order to develop a discussion, how she organises and edits the material in an attempt to make the discussion ‘ﬂow’ and the way she tries to imagine her audience. While this talk may have been motivated by the desire to create a good impression, there was evidence from Aisha’s work and grades that she was making considerable progress in her studies. When describing her attitude to her work, she positioned herself as ‘fussy’, in the standards she set and her attention to detail: A: I’m very fussy . . . I’ll always want to make sure everything ﬂows and makes sense because if I don’t understand then how do I expect someone else to understand it SP: so you . . . feel you’re quite a perfectionist? A: yes in essay writing SP: you would like it to be= A: =I would like it to be= SP: =as good as it can possibly be? A: yes . . . sometimes I’ll just look . . . from the other person’s point of view if they [can’t] understand it . . . [I’ll] rewrite it or rearrange it . . . to make it easier SP: so you ﬁnd yourself thinking about the person who is going to read it? A: yes or sometimes I give it to someone else to read it [and ask them] “Does it make sense? . . . Would you understand this if you didn’t know anything about the subject?” (Interview 2). As observed in Chapter 5, interaction among peers made it difﬁcult for Aisha to conform to academic community norms or display identiﬁcation with scholarly activities. In the interviews, she elaborated on her reading practices and academic studies and showed progress in adopting a bookish positioning. It was also heartening that she reported ﬁnding at least some of her studies fulﬁlling and enjoyable as positive feelings were rarely expressed about academic activities in the interaction. Nevertheless, Aisha still had concerns to maintain a balance between bookishness in the academic community and acceptable femininity among peers. In Aisha’s case, this seemed literally to be inscribed through the body, in dress and appearance, and through adopting a position of ‘fashioning the body’ in which she followed dominant conventions governing western notions of beauty and fashion.

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Sita on reading of choice Like Aisha, Sita disclosed very little about the way she viewed reading and herself as a reader when with peers. Over the course of the interviews, she elaborated on her reading practices and her approach to her academic work. However, the data, coupled with Sita’s results, suggested that she was experiencing major difﬁculties with her studies. Like Geet, Sita reported doing very little reading out of choice, presenting herself as a ‘passive’ reader who read what happened to be available. This included The Leader, a local newspaper which was ‘hanging around’ at home, The Metro, because this was freely available and occupied her while commuting, and, on visits to a friend, Smash Hits, a fortnightly pop magazine, describing itself as reporting the ‘gossip, glamour and fun that makes this Planet Pop’ (Smash Hits, 2005). Although she also reported ‘having a nick through’7 her father’s Tamil newspaper, she reported struggling through these articles, having to break words into syllables before she could attempt to construct meaning. One exception to a ‘passive’ reader positioning was Sita’s occasional purchase of the The Mirror or The Sun, which she claimed was motivated by the desire to ‘have a good read’ about ‘dramatic’ events; within this context she mentioned the attacks of September 11th, 2001. During the interviews, she consistently positioned herself as a tabloid reader, claiming that she could not imagine herself ‘handling’ broadsheet newspapers, due to their format (at that time much longer pages). During the interaction, she also implied that she had difﬁculties understanding the language used in broadsheet articles. Sita seemed to have little sense of herself as a reader and showed little identiﬁcation with reading as an activity done out of choice but rather to pass the time when she had nothing else to do. While she reported reading Roald Dahl stories during her schooling, she claimed that she no longer had any interest in reading ﬁction. Despite not seeking out reading material, when browsing through tabloids or Smash Hits, she expressed preferences for reading ‘eye catching’ articles about ‘pop and ﬁlm stars’ and for ‘true’ stories, such as murder cases. Despite her interest in Tamil current affairs, she expressed no interest in keeping abreast of the political situation in Britain or elsewhere, claiming that these articles were ‘boring’. Remarking on women’s magazines, Joke Hermes (1995) claims that through reading articles about the intricacies of celebrities’ lives, readers can include celebrities as ‘imagined’ members of their world through an ‘extended family repertoire’ (p. 126). Hermes argues that the style

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of reporting is frequently designed to facilitate readers in creating imaginary ‘emotional ties’ with celebrity ﬁgures, in which they are encouraged to keep up-to-date with events in these people’s lives in much the same way as with their actual friends and family members. According to Hermes, intertwined with this caring persona is a more indignant self, who uses a ‘repertoire of melodrama’ (p. 127) to take pleasure or feel outrage about the difﬁculties that celebrities encounter in their personal life, in ways that either make the reader feel better about themselves or authorise a ‘good cry’ over life’s injustices (p. 128). Through reading gossip and discussing it, Hermes claims that readers are drawn into a ‘(moral) community of gossip’ (p. 131) in which they not only create a sense of belonging and personal interconnectedness with others but also construct moral standards by which to judge their own and others’ behaviour. Perhaps this motivated Sita’s interest in reading about celebrities, as it gave her a way of attending to ‘acceptable’ femininity with her peers, particularly given her lack of interest in other aspects of British popular culture. Sita on reading academic texts In common with other interview participants, Sita reported relying heavily on prior educational experience and her peers to make sense of her studies at Millennium. She appeared to view academic reading as ‘procedural’ (Moss, 1999), as a way of gaining pieces of information for reproduction in coursework assignments and examinations. Sita presented herself as adopting a surface approach to learning and was more circumspect than Geet and Tahir about her ability to cope with the reading required for her studies at Millennium: If I had to get two books and I had to choose one of them, I tend to get the one that is more eye-catching . . . that I could understand. I mean there is no point in getting the book if you don’t understand at all what they are talking about . . . I try to get the language which is suitable for me in terms of style and for me to understand the things so that I could go back and forwards with it rather then getting a textbook that I don’t know at all what is going on . . . sometimes I look at these thick thick books what other people read “Oh god! I am no good at textbooks!” . . . [on] a course they list a couple of books and what I tend to do is . . . I try to catch these books and compare . . . which is best for me and then leave the rest . . . . at high school I used to get one particular book that I always liked and I always take that book and sometimes when it is overdue I . . . keep

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them all to myself you know I don’t want to give it [back] (Interview 1). In the interaction, Sita presents herself as a weak reader and gives the impression of struggling with the reading required for her studies. She also compares herself unfavourably with students that she observes reading ‘thick’ textbooks. She adopts a similar strategy to Geet through searching for a text which could supply all the information. However, while Geet seemed conﬁdent about skimming large amounts of information across a range of texts, Sita appears to focus on ﬁnding one introductory text on which she can rely exclusively. Her anecdote about keeping overdue library books at school suggested that she was employing similar methods of retaining key texts for her studies at Millennium. This was not without consequences as Millennium practice was to freeze borrowing rights for a number of days following the return of overdue books, which would have prevented Sita from gaining access to materials on all except a reference basis. The strategy of routinely returning to a familiar and easily understood text is again reminiscent of Moss’s (1999) observations of ‘weaker girl readers’, who consistently selected materials that were ‘well within or . . . below’ their capabilities (p. 519). In attempts to keep up with her work, Sita reported that she compensated for lack of reading by seeking help from lecturers and her peers. However, this strategy had not proved successful for Sita had not gained sufﬁcient credits to allow automatic progress into the second year of her studies and was in the process of retaking several ﬁrst-year modules. Despite realising that she needed to do more reading to increase her prospects of success, Sita displayed little enthusiasm about this prospect: SP: how do you feel about [needing to do more reading by yourself]? S: Sometimes I get a bit fed up with it sometimes I come home and . . . look at the book and [think] I don’t want to look at it . . . sometimes you do regret it you know I do just wish it was holidays so that I don’t have to do any books . . . you do wish a bit but then on the other hand if you really do want to get a good qualiﬁcation you have to . . . do it (Interview 1). Out of all the interview participants, Sita was the one who most gave the impression of failing to develop any identiﬁcation with her studies or conﬁdence in tackling her academic work. During the second interview, for example, she presented her studies as a chore, commenting

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that she ‘only touched [her] textbooks when [she] had to’. In common with Tahir, she also trashed academic reading, claiming that much of it was ‘boring’ to the point of causing her to ‘doze off’. While this may be partly be attention to laddishness, it seems more motivated by the demoralising effect of getting poor results despite hours of study. For Sita reported struggling with much of the language in academic texts to the point where she ‘lost control’ of meaning. In these situations she resorted to the strategy of using other semiotic resources to make meaning, using a similar approach to that reported by Tahir in the previous chapter: S: when you actually read [these textbooks] in more detail it tends to be a bit harder and you suddenly lose control of it so what I tend to do . . . if I don’t understand I look at [any] pictures and then I have to make [sense of] it [in] my own words . . . there [are] loads of diagrams . . . to explain what I have to do . . . [so I] look at them [and] put [them] in my own words . . . so that I could understand it rather than looking at the textbook all the time because you can lose . . . control of your work because the ﬁrst few pages are alright but . . . when you come [to the main] part of the book it . . . wears us off [possibly meaning wear out] you know, it wears off [possibly meaning forget] after a while SP: so when you say you lose control of it what exactly do you mean? S: the language tends to go a bit harder and you don’t know the . . . words or the meanings you have to look up with the dictionary all the time so I just pick up . . . the things that I really need and just summarise it into my words or in diagrams SP: . . . why do you think the language seems to be quite difﬁcult? S: because . . . I don’t keep in contact with it if I keep in contact with [it] more often maybe I could [understand] it (Interview 2). This extract suggests that, in common with Tahir, Sita frequently used visuals as a way of avoiding ‘verbal’ text. Moss (1999) suggests that this tactic is primarily used by ‘weaker boy readers’ in the context of ‘reading for choice’. However, in the context of higher education, it may be a strategy that weaker readers employ to do their work, particularly when there is no or little support from lecturers in making sense of texts at the appropriate level. Throughout the interviews, Sita presented herself as a weak reader, positioning herself as experiencing difﬁculties. She also blamed herself for her difﬁculties by claiming that she did not read academic materials on a regular enough basis to develop her expertise. She

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also related her difﬁculties to the ‘slang/posh’ dichotomy in which she views the ‘posh’ language of academic texts as ‘Other’. In the interviews, Sita struggled to present herself as a diligent student. Like Tahir, she found it difﬁcult to adopt a bookish positioning or display any enthusiasm for scholarly activities. While Tahir worked behind the scenes, both on his own and with his peers, to ensure that he kept up with his studies, the interaction suggested that Sita had neither the expertise to manage her work successfully through self-study nor peer networks on whom she could rely. For Sita this was exacerbated by the extensive use of self-directed group projects in her department in which Sita found herself in groups with peers that she characterised as uninterested in studying. These experiences appeared to be largely unproductive in terms of developing Sita’s knowledge and understanding of the subject matter and her ability to articulate this clearly. In Sita’s case, the interview setting allowed her to take the ﬂoor and explore some of the issues that she was facing in higher education and also to disclose her anxieties and difﬁculties.

Conclusion In common with the males, the self-reports in the questionnaire and interviews presented an opportunity for the female participants to elaborate on their heritage languages, to consider their self-presentation as readers, and in the interviews to explore their identiﬁcation with academic reading and writing. While some of the female participants were able to adopt more conformist positions in interactions with their peers, others found this problematic, particularly in mixed-sex groups and in the all-female groups whose core members were invested in ladette femininity. For the female participants involved in these peer groups, the questionnaire and interviews provided an alternative setting in which to explore the languages in their lives and a bookish positioning. Many of the female students also appeared to be negotiating competing positions as they attended to the norms of their peers, their families and higher education. Many seemed concerned with the tension between cleverness and maintaining acceptable femininity with their peers. In the questionnaire responses to reading of choice at home, several appeared to reconcile this tension through positioning themselves as reading more formal texts in addition to gendered materials about romance, fashion and gossip. Much of their reading of choice was heavily oriented to culturally conservative discourses on passive femininity and/or popular discourses on girl power. These positions were

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elaborated on in the interviews by Aisha. While she made progress in adopting a more bookish positioning, this was counterbalanced by her attention to the norms for femininity in popular cultural discourses, in ways which were reminiscent of the teenage girls in Walkerdine et al.’s (2001) research. Despite a seemingly greater circumspection than their male counterparts over the need for adaptability to the language and practices of academic discourses, many of the female participants still seemed largely uncomfortable with this proposition. While a few were able to adopt more conformist positions regarding scholarly activities, others were resistant, presenting themselves as having little or no contact with the type of materials needed to develop their expertise for their studies. Some, such as Sita, seemed alienated and marginalised by their experiences of studying in higher education. Overall, however, the female students appeared willing to participate in activities that they perceived as posh, perhaps because they perceived the beneﬁts in terms of upward mobility for themselves and their families and/or because of a desire to appear cooperative in their responses and talk with me, as another female and one of their lecturers. It was certainly the case that far fewer of the female students dropped out or were excluded than their male counterparts, with many more of them managing to stay the course and graduate.

8 Towards Inclusion

Introduction This study arose from my experiences of teaching primarily Britishborn BME students from WP backgrounds on an academic writing programme. A great deal of identity work appeared to be occurring in the classroom as the students underwent the transition into higher education. Much of the interaction was related to negotiating the practices of their peers, the academic community and their families. I have examined this by considering ways in which the students presented themselves in relation to their fellow undergraduates, their representations of the language and literacy practices of the academic community and their identiﬁcations with the languages in their lives. Throughout, I have considered how the interaction evoked gender as a dimension of identity. In this chapter, I aim to pull the threads of the discussion together by considering what my study might suggest about practice in contexts of linguistic and cultural diversity in higher education. My standpoint for this discussion is an imagining of higher education as a multilingual space. This chapter is structured around the questions for the study. I start by brieﬂy summarising my ﬁndings regarding the performance of gender and the orientation of the students to the academic community. I then focus on three areas for reﬂection on practice that arose out of the study: social relations in the academic community, approaches to student writing and attitudes to the perspectives and linguistic repertoires of multilingual students. I make some suggestions for developing inclusive practice in contexts of linguistic and cultural diversity. I argue that resistance to the academic community is likely to be less prevalent if there is a move away from approaches based on remediation towards 170

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approaches informed by student enquiry, in which students, such as the ones in my study, can draw on the cultural perspectives and linguistic repertoires of peers and heritage communities if they so wish. I suggest ways in which students’ perspectives and linguistic repertoires could be juxtaposed with those of the academic community and argue that this could help to build bridges between ﬁrst-year students’ everyday world and the world of their discipline.

Performances of gender In Chapters 4–7, I examined ways in which identity positions emerged in spoken interactions among peers in the classroom and in individual interviews with me. In Chapter 4, I focused on the performance of masculinities in interactions in the classroom and observed ways in which the male students paid attention to the norms of laddishness (Whelehan, 2000; Jackson, 2006). In cases where all the members of the peer group were positively disposed to laddish masculinity, a cool bonhomie emerged in the interaction that created a sense of harmonious relationships and a ﬂatter social structure. In groups where individual members conformed more overtly to the practices of the academic community, the interaction was less harmonious, suggesting more asymmetrical relationships. In these situations, there were more examples of face-threatening (Goffman, 1972) utterances, such as hostile retorts, interruptions and sarcastic laughter. Those on the receiving end of these utterances sometimes attempted to save face through adopting positions that were evocative of either a tough laddish masculinity (Mac an Ghaill, 1994; Connell, 1995) or the more relaxed and sociable ‘new lad’ (Benwell, 2003) of popular culture. A few also adopted the position of a native speaker of their heritage language in an attempt to present themselves as a person worthy of respect. This was particularly the case for those born overseas, who were less at ease with the witty repartee and banter of their peers. Throughout the interaction, the British-born males displayed afﬁliation to vernacular English, which they consistently referred to as ‘slang’. Their preferred language practices had developed as part of an in-group peer repertoire and evoked a youthful, culturally hybrid laddishness, which also seemed associated with the working-class positioning of their families. In common with several studies of spoken interaction among British-born BME adolescents (Harris, 2006; Hewitt, 1986; Rampton, 2005, 2006), the male students related heritage languages to peer group rather than family practices. The male students were more reticent about

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their use of heritage languages for family practices. This may suggest that within the context of English-medium universities, the peer group was not a particularly comfortable site for them to dwell on the domestic sphere or social relations with parents and elders. In Chapter 5, I looked at the performance of femininities in interactions in the classroom. I observed how some of the young women adopted positions oriented to girl power to stylise themselves as sassy, youthful, fun, glamorous and fashion-conscious ladettes (Whelehan, 2000). While the young British-born women were susceptible to laddish behaviour, this appeared to be less attractive for them than for their male counterparts. The female students frequently adopted positions that were more reminiscent of culturally traditional femininities, through which they presented themselves as cooperative, responsible and disposed to the demands of the academic community. One signiﬁcant difference in the spoken interaction was related to the disclosure of difﬁculties and the sharing of problems. While the male students often avoided presenting themselves as vulnerable, incompetent or stupid in interactions with their male peers, the female students made frequent disclosures of their difﬁculties, in periods of ‘exchanged vulnerable talking’ (Coates, 1996: 88–9). This suggested that disclosure of difﬁculties and discussion of embarrassing episodes was an important way for the female students to negotiate social relationships and develop a sense of self in relation to their fellow students. Similarly to their male peers, the British-born females primarily identiﬁed with vernacular English, which they also referred to as ‘slang’. Presenting a persona that was ‘happy with their slang’ was a way in which best-friend pairings became established in the classroom. This acted to privilege the views and experiences of the British-born women, particularly those who had shared experiences of being born and raised in London. Like their male counterparts, displaying afﬁliation to ‘slang’ was an important way of maintaining face, negotiating social relations and adopting a positioning that was evocative of a youthful and culturally hybrid ladette. However, unlike the males, the female students also overtly associated ‘slang’ with a youthful life stage and ‘posh’ with an upwardly mobile adulthood. As they moved beyond late adolescence into early adulthood, and their expectations of adult life, many of the young women seemed aware of the potential advantages of learning to talk posh. The female participants were also more inclined to discuss their heritage languages in relation to family, rather than peer-group practices. Their interaction on this topic appeared to be a way of exploring ‘culturally intelligible’ femininities (Butler, 1990) in

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relation to their family CofP, particularly with regard to marriage and motherhood (Preece, 2008). In Chapters 6 and 7, I examined the performance of gender in the self-reports given in the questionnaire and interviews. These data illustrated ways in which gender differentiation was salient, particularly in relation to reading. Many of the male students presented themselves as readers of lifestyle magazines that construct masculinity as rational, technical and/or laddish (Benwell, 2003b) whereas the female students consumed literature that presents femininity as emotional, concerned with beauty and maintaining relationships (Talbot, 1995, 1998). Some also read materials, in their family setting, governing ‘culturally intelligible’ gendered identities (Butler, 1990), such as religious texts, lifestyle magazines published in and/or about ‘imagined homelands’ (Anderson, 2006). There were also gender differences in relation to newspapers, with the male students showing a preference for reading the sports pages and the females displaying interest in reading about celebrities, gossip, fashion and personal problems. While the students were not passive recipients of the gendered identities depicted there, these materials provided guidelines and boundaries for the students to assess themselves as gendered beings in relation to each other. The interviews offered opportunities to present different selves away from the gaze of peers. Within this context, all had much more to say about their home life and heritage languages. The interaction suggested that heritage languages were intertwined with performing ‘acceptable’ (Coates, 1996) gender in the home setting and that this was underpinned by a discourse of heteronormativity. The interviews also created opportunities for more serious talk in relation to their studies. Although there was still some discomfort with appearing overly conformist, as the study progressed some of the students displayed more identiﬁcation with scholarly activities and appeared more conﬁdent about adopting more bookish positions.

Orientation to the academic community Throughout the study, I was struck by the students’ characterisation of the academic community as ‘posh’ and ‘Other’ to themselves. It is clear that the ‘posh/slang’ dichotomy which has emerged as a feature in studies with adolescents in school settings, is also highly salient for young ﬁrst-year undergraduates who come into higher education from WP backgrounds. This binary position allows the student to inhabit an identity as a cool youth and to ascribe a middle-aged, middle-class and what

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seems to be a rather feminised ‘middle Englander’ Whiteness to members of the academic community. For the students in my study, it was also a way of resisting their institutional positioning as ‘Other’ in terms of their categorisation both as non-traditional university students and as in need of language remediation. Similarly to the British BME adolescents in Rampton’s (2006) research, the students in my study appeared enmeshed in the social-class fabric of British life, regardless of their ancestral heritage. While for the male students, cool laddish positions enabled them to present themselves as authors of their world, it also required them to mask vulnerabilities and downplay identiﬁcation with the academic community and its practices. The male participants frequently gave the impression that they were ‘walking a tightrope’ which required them to balance conﬂicting demands and desires. This precarious position seemed exacerbated by the practice of screening and referral to the academic writing programme during induction. While these practices were designed to improve the prospects of students from WP backgrounds, they had inadvertently contributed to a perception of these students as in need of language remediation. Despite the best efforts of the programme lecturers, the association of the programme with ‘remedial English’ was difﬁcult to overcome. As noted in Chapters 4 and 6, since the 1970s, studies in secondary schools have consistently shown that an institutional position as deﬁcit or remedial encourages alienation and resistance among adolescent males (Connell, 1989; Frosh et al., 2002; Mac An Ghaill, 2004). The young men in my study were no different in this respect. Many seemed to experience the same feelings as their adolescent counterparts and it seems likely that these feelings contributed to their ambivalence about the academic community. While for the female participants attention to laddishness enabled sassy self-presentations, most were more amenable to adopting a ‘posh’ persona. The interaction suggested that the female students viewed ‘posh’ behaviour as a way of adapting to the environment and coping with it as they moved into early adulthood and imagined their future professional lives. Their more overt references to the marginalised and stigmatised status of ‘slang’ in institutional settings helped them to use the ‘posh’ English that they needed for success in higher education and their future career. It seems likely that career expectations in British institutions were a motivating force for the young women’s more positive disposition to ‘posh’ talk, particularly as it is likely that professional employment had not been an option for many of their female elders. Perhaps the young women in my study had more investment in what

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academic success could bring them in terms of ﬁnancial independence and self-determination and felt that they had more to lose in this respect than their male counterparts. Despite less ambivalence towards the academic community, stylising the self as academic was still not easy to sustain. As traditional subject positions encourage women to display modesty and self-restraint, while ‘girl power’ positions encourage a cool self-styling that is not amenable to scholarly activity, there was often discomfort with being seen to be overly bookish. This was also noticeable in relation to their institutional positioning as in need of remediation. While there was some resistance to this, it was generally accepted, with most blaming themselves for their supposed inadequacies. This was particularly noticeable in episodes of ‘exchanged vulnerable talking’ (Coates, 1996), in which the female students internalised blame and downplayed their abilities. While interaction of this nature appeared helpful for maintaining friendly social relations, it was not conducive to raising expectations of what it was possible for them to achieve in higher education. For all the students, their academic, or learner, identity needed to be balanced with their social identity among peers. One way some managed this was by presenting themselves as readers of texts preferred by their peers and texts favoured by the academic community. For some male participants, this enabled them to balance a laddish and more academically attuned self while for the females, this assisted them in balancing cleverness and ‘acceptable’ femininity (Coates, 1996). None seemed able to sustain a bookish self-presentation, while several continued to present themselves as anti-intellectual. Overall, however, there was no evidence to suggest that the students did not care about their academic progress. As I discovered during the interviews, some of the most resistant young men in class had established informal study groups away from the ofﬁcial gaze, in which they made collaborative attempts to make sense of their academic work. In common with Benwell and Stokoe’s (2002) study of resistance to academic identity among university students, discomfort with inhabiting an academic persona was partly related to popular cultural discourses that represent levity, frivolity and laddishness as desirable behaviour. The students needed to establish and maintain social relations with peers while attending to these norms. At times, this contributed to resistance to conformist positions within the academic community. However, resistance to academic identity also appeared exacerbated by feelings of exclusion, frustration and/or a sense of hopelessness in higher education. Unlike the students in Benwell and

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Stokoe’s study, who appeared able to balance the practices of their peers and those of the academic community, the participants in my study experienced many more difﬁculties. By the end of their ﬁrst year, nearly half of the male students and a ﬁfth of the female students had either dropped out or been excluded after getting into difﬁculties with their academic studies. While there are no simple solutions for addressing this matter, reﬂections on this study lead me to conclude that non-elite BME students, such as the ones in my study, need to be engaged with and included in the academic community from the moment that they arrive in higher education. In the following sections, I outline three areas for reﬂection on practice that may help to reduce the lived experience of ‘Otherness’ for these students. These suggestions are not an exclusive list, nor are they prescriptive. They are presented with the aim of encouraging reﬂection on practice and contributing to the debate on diversity. As Sanjay Sharma (2004: 106) reminds us, there cannot be a ‘blueprint’ for either a multicultural curriculum or pedagogy (p. 106) in higher education. Examples of practice, however, can help us to grapple with developing curricula at the local level that hopefully do more than give the ‘illusion of inclusion’ (Bowl, 2003) for non-elite students from minority ethnic communities.

Towards inclusion Strengthening social relations The discussion in Chapters 4–7 illustrates many of the anxieties that the students in my study had about establishing and maintaining social relations in higher education. Their interaction often suggested that insufﬁcient attention had been paid to developing a community in which they felt included. These feelings were strengthened by the absence of informal meeting spaces for students in their departments, the lack of social activities organised by their departments and poor Student Union facilities. The students had formed the perception that they were attending a ‘commuter’ university, in which they characterised their fellow undergraduates as only being on campus when timetabled and academic staff as indifferent to them. As many of Millennium’s students had jobs and lived at home, while some were also responsible for caring for children or other family members, this is likely to have restricted the amount of time that they could spend on campus. Paula Hixenbaugh et al.(2005) observe how challenging it is for

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institutions to develop a ‘sense of academic and social community’ (p. 13) in circumstances such as these. Class size and approaches to teaching also contribute to the ways in which students experience social relations in the institution. For the students in my study, much of their timetable was delivered in lecture/seminar format, with lectures consisting of 100–300 students and seminar groups of around 25 members. Membership of seminar groups also varied between modules. These arrangements acted as an obstacle to establishing social relations. The learning environment was experienced as remote and anonymous and the students had developed the impression that few people knew who they were and that no one was overly concerned about their welfare. They commented that few lecturers asked them their names or undertook any form of ice-breaking activity. Lectures and seminars were presented as creating feelings of intimidation and stress, caused by the large group sizes, the anonymity of the setting and the difﬁculties associated with learning in such an environment. Students discussed ‘getting lost’ in a sea of information and the feelings of exclusion that this engendered. Hixenbaugh et al. (2005) point out that it is not possible for a sense of community to grow unless this is fostered and developed. Taking steps to strengthen social relationships in the academic community signals that these are important to developing a sense of belonging and that affective, as well as cognitive, factors are involved in learning. In the next section, I suggest three possible areas for reﬂection: classroom practice, personal tutoring and student mentoring, where enhancements in practice could help to strengthen social relations between lecturers and students and among ﬁrst-year undergraduate students. Classroom practice It seems to me that lecturers have a key role in building a learning community that fosters feelings of inclusion for BME students from WP backgrounds. Despite the increased regulation in the UK higher education sector, most academics have considerable autonomy over the design, delivery and assessment of the curriculum. The students in my study would have beneﬁtted from more activities that helped to break the ice and increase cooperation and interaction among peers from different social and cultural backgrounds, ages and nationalities. More time spent on interaction during the sessions, in which the students were required to work with different partners and with peers that they did not know, would have provided opportunities for them to broaden their peer groups at an earlier stage. It might also have fostered stronger social

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relations between those who spoke ‘posh’ and those who were ‘happy with their slang’. Despite the increasing focus on interactive and collaborative learning in undergraduate education in the UK (e.g., Higher Education Academy, 2008; Biggs and Tang, 2007; Ramsden, 2003), the students suggested that there was little evidence of this in many of their lectures and seminars. They were particularly appreciative of academic staff who made spaces for them to participate, were supportive of their efforts and did not make them feel stupid when they did not know an answer or made mistakes. Creating opportunities for interactive and collaborative learning in the classroom and lecture hall should help ﬁrst-year students in forming social networks with their peers. However, in contexts of cultural and linguistic diversity, it may not be sufﬁcient simply to create these opportunities. The ﬁndings of this study suggest that lecturers also need to monitor and support group relations, particularly in cases where individual students regularly experience unsuccessful social encounters with their peers. In my study, there were several students who were marginalised in their peer groups in the classroom. Most commonly, these were students who used English as a second language, who may have been regarded as ‘freshies’ (Creese et al., 2006) by their Britishborn counterparts, and mature students, who were often regarded as overly conformist and serious. A small number of female students working in mixed-sex groups also encountered difﬁculties with male students intent on dominating the proceedings of the group. As social relations involve power, it is not always possible for students to resolve difﬁculties with peers, and in serious cases, this may become detrimental to an individual’s progress and, possibly, their well-being. Ways of fostering supportive social relations that take account of linguistic and cultural diversity need to be considered to ensure that group work is a productive experience for students from a diverse range of backgrounds. Personal tutoring Social relations can also be strengthened via personal tutoring. Robust personal tutoring is particularly needed in contexts of WP, in which there are frequently large numbers of ﬁrst-year students who have little understanding of the academic community and its practices. In these situations, it seems remiss of institutions not to allocate every ﬁrst-year student a personal tutor who is given the time and resources to take a regular and active interest in their tutees’ progress and well-being. The social tie with a personal tutor can help to foster a sense of belonging in the academic community and may also encourage students to persist

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with their studies when difﬁculties arise. The students in my study, however, did not have individual personal tutors. In order to cope with rising student numbers, their departments had replaced personal tutors with a centralised tutorial service, which was staffed on a rota. The students’ experience of education prior to university had not prepared them for the absence of a personal tutor. Students that progress into higher education from further education in the UK come from highly interventionist systems, in which personal tutors closely monitor progress, attendance and submission of coursework, while those entering from school are accustomed to close monitoring by teaching staff. Many ﬁrst-year students are ill-prepared for the large degree of autonomy and self-direction that they experience on entering higher education and the onus that this places on them to seek help in a timely fashion. While some students may not take advantage of personal tutoring, for others the interpersonal relationship that this offers is likely to be of signiﬁcant assistance during the process of transition. As Chapters 6 and 7 illustrate, interactions between lecturers and students on an individual basis provide an opportunity for adopting more scholarly positions in the academic community. A personal tutor might have helped some of the young men in my study to disclose anxieties and explore approaches to their academic work. Some of the women could have been encouraged to raise expectations about what it was possible for them to achieve. In the increasingly impersonal world of higher education, personal tutors can provide opportunities for the ‘personal touch’ so craved by Leela (see Chapter 5), by getting to know something about their tutees as people and helping tutees to network with others in the institution and negotiate institutional practices. This can be done in small group, as well as individual sessions facilitated by the tutor. Group tutorials may also help students from differing cultural and social backgrounds to establish social networks, as the ﬁndings of this study suggest that without intervention, students tend to gravitate to those that they identify as being similar to themselves in some way. As discussed in Chapters 4–7, this had resulted in some students banding together as ‘groups of lads’. These groups remained on the margins, gazing at fellow undergraduates that they perceived as ‘posh’ and ‘Other’ to themselves. While some of the students overcame initial inhibitions, many experienced difﬁculties in establishing networks with their ‘posh’ peers. Those that remained on the fringes were often at a disadvantage, not only because of problems in establishing a sense of belonging in the institution, but also because of limited access to fellow undergraduates

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with a deeper understanding of academic norms and practices than themselves. In these situations, the relatively informal and personal atmosphere of a tutorial group could help to strengthen social relations among students from diverse backgrounds.

Student mentoring Mentoring schemes, in which second- and third-year students mentor ﬁrst-year undergraduates, provide another approach to strengthening social relations in contexts of WP. Mentoring has been deﬁned as ‘offline help by one person to another in making signiﬁcant transitions in knowledge, work or thinking’ (Clutterbuck, 2001: 3) and as a ‘partnership between two people built on trust’ (Sweeney in Clutterbuck, 2001: 4). As successful transition is central to the mentoring relationship, the social encounters provided by mentoring could be of great beneﬁt in WP contexts, as students from non-elite backgrounds are recognised as experiencing greater difﬁculties in the transition into higher education. Compared with the student/lecturer relationship or tutor/tutee relationship, the relationship between mentor/mentee appears more reciprocal, in that the mentor is not in a position of authority over the mentee. As the relationship of ﬁrst- and third-year students is less hierarchical than that of lecturer/student, this may also encourage ﬁrst-year undergraduates to explore observations and reﬂections on the academic community that they may be inhibited from discussing with a personal tutor. Mentoring may also have other beneﬁts in terms of strengthening social relations. It may facilitate interaction among students of different social and cultural backgrounds, thus helping students from non-elite backgrounds gain access to the cultural capital of more experienced and/or more elite counterparts. It could also be a way of providing role models, in which BME students from WP backgrounds who have experienced success in higher education, mentor their ﬁrst-year counterparts. Many of the students in my study, for example, would have beneﬁtted from a mentor who could not only help them settle into university life, but also make sense of the system and act as an inspiration. Importantly for multilingual students, there is also the possibility for the mentor and mentee to conduct their relationship in any language or language variety that they wish. Students such as Geet (see Chapters 4 and 6) who regard English as their second language are likely to beneﬁt from having a mentor with whom they can converse in English and their heritage languages. In Geet’s case, this social relationship would

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have helped him to negotiate obstacles to his progress in higher education, would have increased his conﬁdence and helped him to feel included in the academic community at a much earlier stage. Studies of student mentoring schemes suggest that both mentors and mentees gain beneﬁts, including greater levels of commitment to their institutions, increased self-esteem and satisfaction from the development of support networks (Kram, 1985; Russell and Adams, 1997; Allen, 1997). Several UK universities have introduced student mentoring schemes. At the University of Westminster, for example, the psychology department has established an e-mentoring scheme, in which all ﬁrstyear students are mentored via email by a volunteer third-year mentor. According to Hixenbaugh et al. (2005), this scheme has not only had positive beneﬁts for ﬁrst-year students in terms of social integration and satisfaction with the institution, but has also helped to establish and maintain social networks in cases where the majority of students are only on campus for a limited number of hours each week. Such schemes seem worthy of further attention in relation to the ways in which they could be used to strengthen social relations in contexts of cultural and linguistic diversity. As part of future discussion, consideration needs to be given to the scope of student mentoring schemes and whether to focus these primarily on the practicalities of transition into higher education or to focus on broader developmental issues more traditionally associated with mentoring (Clutterbuck, 2001). Thus far I have outlined some ways of strengthening social relations for non-elite ﬁrst-year undergraduate BME students. I have approached this from the position that stronger social relations in the institution could help to foster a sense of belonging in the academic community and stimulate feelings of inclusion. In the next section, I consider approaches to student writing that could help non-elite BME students to feel more included in the academic community.

Approaches to student writing Written texts are central to academic life. Writing as an activity, however, is often not visible in curriculum design and delivery, perhaps because of the prevailing attitude to academic language, which Bowl (2003) points out ‘is taken as a given’ (p. 139). In taught sessions, the focus is frequently on activities involving speaking and listening. The routine use of PowerPoint in lectures has discouraged many students from taking their own notes, particularly when lecturers supply students with handouts of slides containing a more or less verbatim record of the

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session. In many cases, students undertake the majority of their writing as a self-directed activity, with little, if any, formative feedback before it is necessary to submit written coursework for formal assessment. For students such as the ones in my study, this is a major cause of anxiety. They have little idea of what their lecturers are looking for or how to approach the task at hand. As Geet pointed out (see Chapter 6), it was a demoralising experience to receive low grades for written coursework after many hours of independent work. In institutions with high numbers of students from WP backgrounds, student writing has increasingly come in for scrutiny, as an issue to be addressed. As discussed, this has often resulted in approaches informed by notions of remediation, in which writing tuition is separated from subject content and delivered in discrete sessions by language teachers or support staff. While this approach provides academic writing support for those non-elite students regarded as most in need, it is insensitive to issues of self-esteem. These approaches to student writing tend to ignore the linguistic repertoire of non-elite multilingual students or to view this in terms of a problem that needs to be ﬁxed (Ruiz, 1984). Additionally, an attitude of ‘blame the student’ (Ramsden, 2003) is common in these situations, in which it is assumed that students have not made sufﬁcient effort, are insufﬁciently intelligent to be at university, or are hampered by the language practices of their family. The ethos of remediation creates a number of issues that are difﬁcult to resolve. When institutional practice is to make academic writing provision compulsory for some, but not all, ﬁrst-year students, this invariably stigmatises home or domestic students, who may feel demeaned in front of their peers. This is exacerbated in cases where decisions are made about which students are obliged to take academic writing based on screening or testing on entry to the institution. Alan Wall (2006) points out that academic writing programmes are often perceived as a ‘public admission of failure’ (p. xii). In my study, despite strenuous efforts by the academic writing programme lecturers, the notion of remediation persisted. This increased the attractiveness of laddishness for some of the students, as it offered them a powerful and seductive place among their peers from which to resist the idea that they needed ‘ﬁxing’ in some way. As Wall (2006) states, no learners, let alone university students, want to be thought of as ‘remedial’. To foster a sense of inclusion in WP contexts, it seems essential to take steps to prevent the stigmatisation associated with language remediation. One way of ameliorating the stigma that can be associated with academic writing is to embed writing in the discipline, rather than deliver

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it in generic programmes. This could also encourage interdisciplinary collaboration between subject lecturers and English language staff in both the design and the delivery of academic writing programmes. In these situations, students would have the opportunity of beneﬁtting from different perspectives and expertise on writing while subject lecturers would be assisted in reﬂecting on the language and literacy practices of their discipline. As a ﬁrst stage, collaborative provision could be developed through the amalgamation of any generic academic writing courses with ﬁrst-year skills modules delivered in subject areas. Collaboration between subject and language lecturers could contribute to the development of more ﬁnely tuned skills modules in the disciplines, from which all ﬁrst-year students could beneﬁt. As skills modules often form part of the core curriculum for ﬁrst-year students, the need for screening and testing activities would be removed, which would remove the stigma associated with referral to a compulsory writing programme. It may also help to reduce the amount of curriculum time devoted to discrete skills-based modules. In my study, there was an overload of modules in which skills were divorced from content, with some students taking as many as three discrete skills-based modules in their ﬁrst year of study. This had also contributed to an impression among the students that ‘real’ work in their subject did not begin until the second year of their studies. Amalgamating academic writing with disciplinary skills modules would bring a degree of speciﬁcity. However, it would not necessarily overcome the perception of students as deﬁcient and in need of remediation. To tackle this more fully would require approaches to student writing that are informed by literacies (see Chapter 3), in which writing is viewed in terms of disciplinary practices and learning to handle the identity positions that these evoke, and that embed writing in the mainstream curriculum to a much greater extent. Here I am drawing on work in Writing in the Disciplines (WiD) (Queen Mary College, 2003; Monroe, 2002; Cornell University, 2006), in which writing is viewed both as the product of assessment and as a process for learning. In the former, the focus is on mastering the language and literacy practices of the discipline with a view to achieving higher grades. In the latter, writing is regarded as a means of working out ideas and concepts and as a vehicle for deepening understanding of disciplinary knowledge. As writing is frequently integral to both assessment and learning, WiD encourages subject lecturers to make writing visible in the subject curriculum and to take steps to develop student expertise in the language and literacy practices of the discipline.

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In practice, this means approaches to curriculum design that give much greater emphasis to writing-intensive programmes. These approaches are characterised by the inclusion of a range of writing tasks, non-assessed as well as assessed, awareness-raising activities on the literacy practices of the discipline, frequent formative feedback via peers and lecturers, self-assessment and reﬂection (MacDonald Ross, 2007). Where possible, writing-intensive subject modules are delivered in conjunction with a range of specialised language support, such as individual writing tutorials, writing workshops, writing courses and peer mentoring (see Cornell University, 2006). Such developments may also empower subject lecturers by helping them to reﬂect on writing activities that they could use to support learning of disciplinary content and to develop expertise in written communication. It may also help to overcome the desire for a ‘specialist to relieve them of a difﬁcult “chore” ’ (Evison, 2002: 2). Approaches to student writing that are informed by WiD and literacies also provide opportunities for treating cultural and linguistic diversity as a resource (Ruiz, 1984). When the focus is on ‘writing to learn’, in which students are using writing activities as a means of developing understanding of subject knowledge, and not for formal assessment, there is an argument that multilingual students can be encouraged to use any of the languages or language varieties in their repertoires. At this stage, there is little need for students to conform to the prescribed language norms in higher education. As discussed, when working in informal study groups, several of the students drew on their linguistic repertoires to make sense of their academic work. For Tahir and his peers (see Chapter 6), this involved a process in which the ‘slang’ language practices of the peer group were juxtaposed with the ‘posh’ language practices of the institution. Eventually, this facilitated the production of a piece of writing that was deemed acceptable by their lecturers. Strategies adopted by non-elite multilingual students, such as Tahir, need to be investigated as a way into the academic community. The incorporation of these strategies provides a way of valuing the linguistic repertoires of multilingual students and of using these as a resource in the academic community. This seems more likely to promote feelings of inclusion for non-elite multilingual students than approaches that treat them as in need of remediation. As reading is integral to writing in the academic community, students also need support to make sense of academic texts and to integrate what they are reading with what they are writing. Wallace (2003) points out the need for text-based study and critical reading in the classroom.

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Much of the work she has done in developing critical reading courses with ESL learners provides opportunities for students to work both individually and collaboratively on different interpretations of texts. According to Cummins (2000), bilingual students need plenty of opportunity to discuss reading materials with their peers and teachers in order to ‘ensure higher order thinking processes . . . engage with academic language’ in the construction of meaning (p. 79). The ﬁndings of my study indicate the need for lecturers to assist non-elite students in decoding the meaning of academic texts and in making use of these in developing a discussion in written work. Much of the text-based work that has developed in English language education with adults could be used as the basis for developing a range of teaching and learning materials and activities that could assist multilingual ﬁrst-year students from WP backgrounds in making sense of the knowledge embodied in academic texts and in developing conﬁdence in themselves as readers of bookish materials. In this section, I have discussed ways of approaching student writing that appear more sensitive to the identities of non-elite multilingual students and that increase the sense of inclusion. I have argued that writing needs to be embedded in the discipline, ideally in collaboration between subject lecturers and English language specialists. I have also suggested that thought is given to ways in which the linguistic repertoires of nonelite multilingual learners could be used as a resource when designing and delivering academic writing programmes. In the last section of this chapter, I consider attitudes to the perspectives and linguistic repertoires of multilingual learners in more detail. In order to enhance inclusive practice, I argue that linguistic and cultural diversity needs to be treated as a resource.

Attitudes to the perspectives and linguistic repertoires of multilingual learners To foster the sense of belonging for non-elite BME students in higher education, it seems to me that much more debate is needed on attitudes to cultural and linguistic diversity. As discussed in Chapter 1, the literature on non-traditional BME university students suggests that their experiences are not included in any systematic way in institutional practices, particularly in terms of curriculum design and delivery. Bowl (2003), for example, discusses how curriculum content is often delivered in terms of theoretical concepts and rarely related to the lives of students. In her study, non-elite BME students were of the

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opinion that their perspectives and experiences were not valued and were “no go areas” in the classroom (p. 138). Drawing on Apple (1990), Bowl points out how the desire to maintain ‘liberal notions of consensus’ can stiﬂe discussion of the competing perspectives that arise from the lived experience of class, race and gender. She concludes that: [t]he external doors of academia may have been opened, but the internal doors which might reveal the expectations of the academy remained closed, and the concerns of students’ own lives, experienced through discrimination, poverty and the responsibilities of parenthood, were excluded from discussion, even when they were highly relevant to the taught curriculum (pp. 139–40). Bowl and others have focused primarily on the exclusion of non-elite BME students’ experiences and perspectives from institutional practices. Another aspect of exclusion is the prevalent attitude towards these students’ linguistic repertoires. As discussed, the multilingualism that accompanies BME students is rarely acknowledged in the sector. When language becomes the focus of attention, this is usually in terms of ‘language-as-problem’ (Ruiz, 1984), in which students are viewed as in need of English language remediation. To move towards inclusion requires a shift in attitude in which linguistic diversity is regarded not as a problem to be solved, but as a resource to be used. A central tenet of education is that learning proceeds through the interaction of ‘old’ and ‘new’ knowledge. In other words, individuals make sense of what is to be learned by linking it with what they already know. In the process, understanding is reshaped and deepened. Undergraduate students’ existing knowledge may be derived from formal learning at school, experiential learning, or a combination of both (Bransford, Brown and Cocking, 2000; Tusting and Barton, 2006). In contexts of WP, academic staff may need to pay more attention to students’ experiential knowledge, learned in family and community settings, peer groups and the workplace. For non-elite students, experiential, rather than schooled, knowledge may well be more salient, particularly for students who are mature or whose education has been interrupted or who view English as their second language. Making space for students to air, discuss and critique their experiential understanding shows a commitment to valuing multicultural and multilingual perspectives, even when these perspectives are likely to be in conﬂict with some of the traditional views of the academic community.

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A key point here is that non-elite multilingual students may well be drawing on knowledge that is encoded in heritage languages and/or vernacular varieties of English, as well as Standard English. Rather than view this as an obstacle to progress, it seems more constructive to me to consider how to use this linguistic diversity as a bridge into academic work. Here, I draw on Cummins (2008), who urges academic staff not to view bi- and multilingual students’ language repertoires as the ‘enemy’. Drawing on theoretical models that represent the multilingual mind as a dynamic and integrated cognitive system (Cook, 1995; Jessner, 2006; Herdina, 2002), Cummins questions approaches to pedagogy in which multilingual students are required to keep the linguistic resources at their disposal separate during the processes of learning. Instead he argues for practices that encourage ‘cross-lingual transfer’ on the basis that these will act as a ‘stepping stone to scaffold more accomplished performance’ (p. 1) in schooled varieties of English. Recent studies of heritage-language learning with British-born BME children in the UK are helpful in this matter. A study of complementary schools in four communities (Creese et al., 2008) observed the practice of both ‘separate bilingualism’ and ‘ﬂexible bilingualism’ (p. 15). In the former, the teacher enforced the monolingual use of the heritage language in the classroom and instructed the students not to use English. While this was in accordance with dominant practice in language learning, according to Creese et al. (2008) it also enabled the teacher to construct simpliﬁed and essentialised views of the young people’s heritage culture through a discourse of ‘one-language-one-culture-one-nation’ (p. 15). By contrast, ‘ﬂexible bilingualism’ enabled teachers and students routinely to juxtapose languages, which was found to facilitate classroom proceedings and learning (Martin et al., 2006). The study concluded that the juxtaposition of languages was a ‘perfectly normal’ practice among multilingual individuals that enabled them to ‘engage others, make them laugh, include and exclude them, move between frames, establish new topics, move in and out of ofﬁcial discourses, challenge and sanction authority’ (Creese et al., 2008: 16). Linguistic diversity was used not only as a resource for learning but also as a way of adopting various identity positions that were resistant to stereotyping. Charmian Kenner (2004) came to similar conclusions in her study of British minority ethnic children learning to write in Roman and heritage alphabets and script systems. Her study illustrates ways in which the children integrated and synthesised the languages at their disposal. Kenner argues against viewing this as problematic. Instead, she examines how the children use linguistic resources to create meaning, to engage in ‘semiotic

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play’ and to adopt identity positions in which they could meld heritage and British cultures. Kenner concludes that the British-born children of minority ethnic communities are likely to experience heritage and British cultures simultaneously. These studies of language learning challenge the widespread assumption that only one language or one variety of language should be used at a time. It suggests that multilingual learners readily make use of their linguistic repertoire, both to construct meaning of the material at hand and to negotiate identity positions in the setting. It may therefore be highly beneﬁcial for non-elite multilingual learners in higher education to have opportunities to juxtapose the language and literacy practices of the academic community with those of their peers and their family communities. This does not mean that academic staff need to be multilingual, use vernacular English or force students to use their heritage languages. It is about making space in English-medium universities for the linguistic resources of multilingual students to come into play. It is about encouraging students to use the languages and language varieties that they wish as they go about their studies, and it is about viewing students’ linguistic repertoires as a bridge into academic language and literacy practices. This involves a sensitive approach in which academic staff avoid ascribing identities to students on the basis of their heritage community, or taking a romanticised view of their students’ linguistic repertoires (Harris, 2006; Block, 2008). Cummins (2008) gives some pointers for bi/multilingual learning strategies in English-medium universities. He suggests that students who view English as their second language can be encouraged to use their ﬁrst language, as well as English, to access subject content, to participate in discussion in groups and to draft ideas. To help illustrate these pointers, in the next section I give brief details of practice in which lecturers have approached cultural and linguistic diversity as a resource. The examples come from observations of undergraduate classrooms and discussion with academic staff in the research site following the conclusion of my study. In each example, the majority of students are multilingual learners, who are mostly home students from BME communities. There are also several international students in the second and third example. Examples of practice The ﬁrst example comes from a later cycle of the academic writing programme. It involved providing students with a model of a common conceptual framework on which they could base their own inquiry.

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During the taught session, students examined some examples of texts in which a problem and a potential solution were considered. The lecturer and students discussed ways in which the problem and solution were conceptualised, how the texts were organised and how sources had been used to develop and support particular claims. The students also identiﬁed useful vocabulary and expressions that they could use in their own work. Students were then tasked with identifying a problem that they wanted to research and write about in relation to their discipline. While all the students were from BME communities, their choice of topics was indicative of the range of their interests and the identity positions with which they identiﬁed. For instance, a mature Nigerian student selected the activities of oil companies in Nigeria whereas one of the young British Asian students chose the ﬁnances of struggling clubs in English Premier League football, while another British-born student opted for the Argentine economic collapse. In researching their topics, the students drew on a variety of information from heritage, peer group and academic sources and were asked to pay attention to the interests of their sources. Students could draft ideas in any language or language variety that they wished. They discussed work in progress in subsequent sessions and received formative feedback from their peers and the lecturer. This work was used as a bridge into ﬁnal versions of coursework, which were submitted for assessment. The second example comes from a biosciences module in nutrition and involved the use of case studies. In the session, the students were presented with information on food values and then required to work out the nutritional value of the diets in the case study material. The lecturer and students discussed their answers and then considered what dietary advice would be appropriate in the example cases. Following this, students were asked to develop their own case studies, for which they needed to keep food diaries of their own and of either family members or friends. As the students were collecting material from their family and peers, they were in a position to make use of heritage languages and vernacular English. In subsequent sessions, the students reported on some of their ﬁndings and these were discussed. This made a broader range of cultural perspectives and identity positions concerning diet and nutrition visible in what had been a primarily Eurocentric curriculum. The ﬁnal example comes from linguistics and is based on project work that involves collecting, transcribing and analysing spoken interaction for the purposes of studying the relationship between language and gender. Given the linguistic diversity in the group, students could also collect data in languages other than English. During the sessions, the

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students discussed a variety of language and gender studies to deepen their understanding of subject matter and research methods. There was also regular discussion of the different stages of their projects, in which students received feedback from peers on work in progress. The students showed particular interest in examining the claims made in scholarly literature in relation to their own experience. By examining spoken interaction among their peers, in their families and in the media, the students drew on the linguistic resources at their disposal and brought their cultural perspectives to bear on the curriculum. The variety of the projects was indicative of the varied interests among the students and ways in which they chose to juxtapose heritage and British cultures. Their studies ranged from investigations of spoken interaction among female worshippers in a Muslim prayer room, among British Gujarati friends while they hung out in their car, between mothers and daughters at home, among politicians on BBC TV and radio programmes and among the guests on popular lifestyle TV and radio shows. Common to these examples are views of teaching as facilitating learning and empowering learners. According to Brent Davis (2004), ‘teaching as facilitating’ views education as projects of personal selffulﬁlment in which academic staff support learning through facilitating reﬂection on ‘doing’. Inﬂuenced by the work of Rousseau, Dewey and Piaget, and latterly, by the ‘social turn’ of Vygotsky’s (1994) activity theory and Lave and Wenger’s (1991) notion of ‘situated learning’, teachers are encouraged to focus on experiential learning and reﬂective practice and to create opportunities for collaborative and ‘active’ learning. ‘Teaching as empowering’, on the other hand, views education as a collective project for social justice and has roots in the work of Freire (1971) and critical pedagogy. As various writers point out (Burke, 2002; Ellsworth, 1992; Davis, 2004) the notion of ‘student voice’ is central to this discourse; teachers are charged with ‘giving voice’ to those traditionally excluded or marginalised within educational settings. Instead of focusing on ‘education as banking’, (Freire, 1971), in which students are considered well-educated if they can display disciplinary knowledge, teachers adopt an ‘attitude’ in which they seek to ‘make the familiar strange’ (Davis, 2004: 141). In collaboration with students, there is more focus on uncovering power relations and challenging norms and practices. Practice informed by these discourses is not without difﬁculties, not least adaptability to large classes. However, such practice creates greater opportunities for the perspectives and linguistic repertoires of non-elite multilingual learners to come into play. It starts with a focus on learners

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not content, either as individuals, or in a web of social relations. It views knowledge as socially constructed and learning as arising through socially situated experience. It regards diversity as resource rather than as problem, through valuing experience and alternative ways of viewing the world. Implied in this is a broadening of the base of legitimised disciplinary knowledge as a range of perspectives come into play and are critiqued. It also problematises a simple relationship between what is taught and what is learnt, disrupting the concept of learning as linear or as the accumulation of carefully sequenced nuggets of information. It is also sceptical of the value of the extended exposition of information, in which little use is made of student knowledge, experiences, interests and linguistic repertoires. Practice that treats cultural and linguistic diversity as a resource seems more likely to stimulate identiﬁcation with scholarly activity and bookish positions. If students have the sense that their perceptions, experiences and linguistic repertoires are valuable for their academic work, they may well feel more motivated and more inclined to focus on the task at hand. As Aisha commented (see Chapter 7), ideas are a creative force. When she was free to pursue her ideas in a supported way, she was inspired and motivated to do her best. This not only helped her to improve her grades, but also to gain the emotional satisfaction that can come from scholarly activity.

Final thoughts Widening participation has contributed to social, cultural and linguistic diversity in higher education. This has created both opportunities and challenges for academic staff, particularly for those who teach in less prestigious institutions that attract many more students from WP backgrounds. For universities in urban locations, such as Millennium, it is likely that many incoming undergraduates will continue to be multilingual students. Many of these students will be the children of migrants who live in more deprived urban neighbourhoods. Most will have received all or most of their compulsory education in non-selective schools in these areas. In many cases, they will be the ﬁrst person in their family to enter higher education and, as Bhatti (1999) points out, their families will believe that education and a university degree is the key to their success in life. For many of these students, the approach of their universities and departments will be crucial to whether they can maintain the motivation required to persist with their studies. In situations where they

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are largely regarded as ‘non-standard’ students (Burke, 2002: 148–9) who need ‘ﬁxing’ in order to ﬁt in, it appears likely that more will remain on the fringes gazing at their mainstream counterparts, listening to lecturers discussing ‘people like (them)’ (Bowl, 2003). While some will adapt to the ‘posh talk’ of higher education, many others will not persist. While reasons for non-persistence are complex, it seems likely that feelings of disenfranchisement will have some role to play in affecting decisions that are likely to shape adult life. In situations where academic communities are more malleable, there may be greater possibilities to develop social and academic environments that pay greater attention to students’ needs, interests and identities. I have argued that this will assist non-elite multilingual students, such as the ones in my study, in balancing competing practices and adopting positions more conducive to academic success. I suggest that inclusive practice is likely to be more collaborative and transformatory in nature, characterised by academic staff making spaces for the cultural and linguistic repertoires of multilingual students to come into play.

Notes

1 Widening Participation 1. I use ‘tertiary’ to refer primarily to institutions offering higher education programmes of study, deﬁned in the UK as beyond Advanced Level (A level) examinations or other qualiﬁcations considered equivalent to A-levels (Clark, 2006). While I focus on universities, the boundaries between different institutions within the sector are decidedly blurred, with students studying degree-level programmes in institutions such as community colleges in the USA and Canada and in further education colleges in Australia and the UK. 2. This refers to non-fee-paying schools in the UK that do not have any form of ability or aptitude entrance examinations and that do not select on the basis of religion. Places are offered to children living in the school’s catchment area. 3. Original text in A educação na cidade, São Paulo: Editora Cortez, p. 46. 4. Deﬁned by the Higher Education Funding Council for England as below the age of 21 on entry. 5. These entrants had generally obtained vocational qualiﬁcations or had taken an Access course in colleges of further education prior to entering Millennium. 6. In the UK, universities have traditionally stipulated Advanced-level examinations (A-levels) with high grades as entry requirements for prospective UK-domiciled entrants. 7. Following Roxy Harris (2006), ‘visible’ refers to the tradition of treating white skin pigmentation as the norm (and thus ‘invisible’) and black and brown skin pigmentation as marked (and ‘visible’). 8. These are voluntary schools that serve speciﬁc minority communities. They offer community language classes as a key part of the curriculum. They are also referred to as community or heritage language schools and supplementary schools (Creese et al., 2008). 9. General Certiﬁcates of Secondary Education are taken by school students in the UK in year 11 of schooling, approximate age 16. Practically all students take GCSEs in English, maths and science. 10. From observation notebook.

2 Theorising and Analysing Identity 1. I am grateful to Barry Stierer for raising the readability of transcription conventions for readers without specialised knowledge of sociolinguistics. 193

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Notes

Approaches to Academic Writing

1. Access courses are designed to facilitate access to higher education for mature students without traditional entry qualiﬁcations.

4

Multilingual Masculinities in the Classroom

1. Invented acronym and course title. 2. Sugar is a leading magazine in the UK for 12–16-year-old girls and describes itself as bringing girls ‘more fashion ﬁxes, true stories, beauty news, celeb gossip, amazing giveaways AND gorgeous lads than you can shake a lipgloss at!’ (Sugar Scape, 2009). 3. Also Patois.

5

Multilingual Femininities in the Classroom

1. Pseudonym for a pre-1992 university. 2. Pseudonym for a pre-1992 university.

6 Multilingual Masculinities in Lecturer/Student Interactions 1. GNVQ (General National Vocational Qualiﬁcation): GNVQs are certiﬁcated courses of general vocational education in the UK. Since this research was completed, they have been replaced by National Vocational Qualiﬁcations (NVQs), which are ‘competence-based’ qualiﬁcations based on work-related tasks and skills linked with particular occupations. NVQs can be taken at work and/or at college. Some higher education institutions also accept NVQs as an entry qualiﬁcation. Ref. Directgov, 2009, Education and learning: NVQs. Available at: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/EducationAndLearning/ QualiﬁcationsExplained/DG10039029 [Accessed May 5, 2009]. 2. Albanian newspaper. 3. The terms ‘broadsheet’ and ‘tabloid’, originally describing the physical size of the newspaper pages, have survived the change during the last decade of almost all broadsheet newspapers to tabloid-size. Examples of broadsheet newspapers as given by the male students were: The Financial Times, The Times, The Guardian and The Independent. In the UK, the broadsheets are regarded as taking a more serious approach to news reporting and have middle-class and professional connotations as well as political associations. 4. Examples of tabloid newspapers given by the male students were: The Sun, The Mirror, The Daily Mail, The Evening Standard and The Metro. The Evening Standard and Metro are London newspapers whereas the others are national dailies. In the UK, the national tabloids have a reputation for sensationalist news reporting, with a focus on scandal and celebrity news items. They have working-class and popular cultural connotations. 5. FHM had a monthly circulation of 775,000 copies at its peak (Crewe, 2003).

Notes

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7 Multilingual Femininities in Lecturer/Student Interactions 1. The BBC (BBC, 2009) reports that since 1983 an estimated 70,000 people have been killed in the civil war in Sri Lanka and around one million people displaced. 2. English-medium and Urdu-medium newspapers respectively, published in Pakistan. 3. Popular novel by Meg Hutchinson. 4. Weekly newspaper published in English covering British and Asian (Indian) news with an emphasis on Bollywood, fashion and music. 5. English-medium newspaper published in India. 6. Local newspapers for particular London boroughs. 7. Sita frequently used ‘have a nick through’ in relation to her reading practices. I have interpreted this as a ‘ﬂick through’ or skim read.

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Index

Abbas, Tahir 18, 42 academic community, orientation 173–6 academic integration, structural/normative 4 academic literacies practice(s) Australia 52–3 competence 69–71 femininities 94–9 masculinities 68–77 resistance/desperation 96–9 writing 40, 41, 51–3 see also Lea and Street academic writing skills academic literacies 40, 41, 51–3 ambivalence 25 approaches 40–54 atomised 43 communities of practice (CofP) 82 competence 69–71 literacy 40, 41, 49–52 provision 19, 21, 188–93 reﬂective writing 47 resistance 24 skills-based approaches 41–4 socialisation 44–9 see also writing access inequalities 13–14 marginalisation 48 statistics 15 working class 12 afﬁliation heritage languages 6, 79–81, 104, 113–14, 119–20, 141, 148, 151–2, 154 language expertise 5–6, 116, 120 peer groups 85 power relations 104 religion 126 vernacular English 1–2, 47, 50, 75, 77–9, 99–100, 146, 171–2

agency 30, 39 Allen, Alison 14, 15, 16, 181 Australia, academic literacies 52–3 Baxter, Judith 28–9, 33–4, 39, 48, 53–4, 122, 126, 140, 158 black and minority ethnic (BME) life course disjuncture 17–18 motivation 15–16 residence 14–15, 21 widening participation (WP) 1, 11, 14–18 Bourdieu, Pierre 4, 17, 48, 53, 62, 77, 100, 120, 136 Butler, Judith 5 Cameron, Deborah 4–5, 7–8, 26, 28–30, 32, 35, 55, 58, 87, 102, 143 ‘Capital University’ 62 classroom multilingual femininities 84–108 multilingual masculinities 55–83 practice 177–8 code-switching 111, 112, 138, 142, 143 communities of practice (CofP) academic writing 82 alternatives 87, 94 analysis 27, 37–8 cultural practice 148 expertise 42 families 63, 101, 112, 115, 138, 173 identity 41, 153 laddishness 62 literacy 50 membership 6 power relations 47 spoken interactions 6, 107 209

210

Index

consumerism McDonaldization 42 coolness girl power 175 identity 2, 116, 173 masculinity/laddish 23, 55–6, 68, 73, 122, 126, 171, 174 popular culture 3 reading 24, 125 scholarly activity 98, 107, 175 slang 2 uncool 24, 96, 98, 107, 113, 126 culture academy 45 communities of practice (CofP) 148 cultural capital 17, 18, 48, 120, 136, 180 linguistic diversity 2, 49 popular culture 3 data collection 34–5 interview data 147–55 discourse communities 46, 47 Critical Discourse Analysis 46, 53 deﬁnition 28–9 girl power 84, 85, 107, 108, 151 identiﬁcation 31–2 identity 28–9 power 31 practices/speaking 30 skills discourses 9 socialisation 9, 44–9 subjectivity 31 see also Foucault discoursing subject discursive ﬁelds 29 identity 26 positioning 27, 30–3 social constructionism 8 diversity linguistic see linguistic diversity student body 2 dropout academic failure 8 model 4

emotions, learning 3, 31 English for academic purposes (EAP) 46 accent stylisations 50 as additional language (EAL) 22 English language crisis 19 as foreign language (EFL) 22 hegemony 53 lack of afﬁnity 81 London English 23 remedial English 19 as second language (ESL) 22 vernacular English 1–2, 47, 50, 75, 77–9, 99–100, 146, 171–2 see also posh talk, slang ethnography 8, 36 face academic failure 8 positive social value 4 threatening attention 73, 74 see also Goffman families communities of practice (CofP) 63, 101, 112, 115, 138, 173 language see heritage languages femininities academic language/literacy practices 94–9 having a laugh 85, 87, 103 identiﬁcations with language 110–23, 141–55 lecturer/student interactions 140–69 Miss Popular 92–4 multilingual classroom femininities 84–108 part of the crowd 88–92 preferred reading 155–9, 164–5 presentations of self/fellow students 85–94 reading academic texts 160–3, 165–8 sassiness 84, 87, 88, 107, 172, 174 see also ladettes feminism consumerism 85, 159–60 critical pedagogy 2 gender 4

Index 211 laddish discourse 129 postructuralism 33–4 ﬁrst-year undergraduates skills discourses 9 social registration 56 socialisation discourses 9 see also widening participation, transition, drop out, retention Foucault, Michel 6–8, 26–31, 33, 38 Freire, Paulo 19–20, 49, 53, 190 Gender identities feminine see femininities feminism 4 ladettes see ladettes lads see laddishness masculine see masculinities performances 171–3 spoken interactions 4–6, 9, 39, 54 girl power coolness 175 discourse 84, 85, 107, 108, 151 ladettes 84, 94, 172 laughter 87 norms 87, 94 Goffman, Erving 4 hegemony English 53 masculinities 55, 73, 76, 82, 114, 126, 129 power relations 48 heritage languages afﬁliation 6, 79–81, 104, 113–14, 119–20, 141, 148, 151–2, 154 ambivalence 79 diversity 2, 21 identiﬁcation 80–1 higher education elite 17 English language crisis 19 monolingualism 18 non-elite 17, 18–19, 42, 50–1 transition 4, 17 see also tertiary education identiﬁcation discourse 31–2 heritage languages 80–1

language 77–82, 99–107, 110–23, 141–55 the Other 85 reading 123–8, 155–68 identity: gender and multilingual needs communities of practice (CofP) 41, 153 complexities 15 coolness 2, 116, 173 discourse 28–9 discoursing subject 26 Other 33 socialisation 28 spoken interactions 6, 35–7, 55, 126 theory and analysis 27–39 inclusion illusion 16 towards inclusion 170–92 inequalities, access 13–14 Kennedy, Helena 12 lads/laddishness communities of practice (CofP) 62 coolness 23, 55–6, 68, 73, 122, 126, 171, 174 discourse 129 lad out on a limb 66–8 lads united 57–63 lone ranger 63–6 popularity 55 positioning 55, 57, 59, 60–3, 65, 76 practices 55–6 see also masculinities ladettes discourse 100 femininities 107, 160, 168, 172 girl power 84, 94, 172 hybrid 172 ladettes united 86–8 norm resistence 107 objectiﬁcation of women 85 positioning 85, 87, 88, 98, 99

212

Index

language afﬁliation see afﬁliation British-born females 141–4 British-born males 110–16 diversity see linguistic diversity English see English expertise 5–6 females born overseas 144–7 genre 46 heritage see heritage languages identiﬁcation 77–82, 99–107, 110–23, 141–55 inheritance 5 interview data 147–55 males born overseas 116–23 Lave, Jeanne 3, 6, 27, 37, 38, 41, 190 Lea, Mary R. and Street, Brian V. 9, 40, 41, 43, 45, 49, 51, 53, 81 learning emotions 3, 31 multilingualism 18 writing 19 Leung, Constant 5, 24 linguistic diversity cultural diversity 2 educational deﬁcit 19 ‘Millennium University’ 22–5 resource 19, 49 widening participation (WP) 18–20 literacy academic see academic literacies academic writing see academic writing skills communities of practice (CofP) 50 conﬂicting practices 51 deﬁnition 49–50 discoursing subject 9 empowerment 20 monolingualism 42 pluralism 50 transferability 43 McDonaldization 42 Martin, Peter 16–17, 18, 19, 187

masculinities academic language/literacy practices 68–77 avoidance 71–4 coolness 23, 55–6, 68, 73, 122, 126, 171, 174 having a laugh 55–6, 61, 62, 68, 70, 73, 74, 76, 124 hegemony 55, 73, 76, 82, 114, 126, 129 identiﬁcations with language 77–82, 110–23 lecturer/student interactions 109–39 multilingual classroom masculinities 55–83 popular/unpopular 56 preferred reading 123–30, 133–4 presentations of self/fellow students 56–68 reading academic texts 130–2, 134–8 spoken interactions 9 see also lads/laddishness mentoring 180–1 ‘Millennium University’ dropout 21 linguistic diversity 22–5 local context 20–5 pseudonym 1 student body 20–1 monolingualism higher education 18 literacy 42 Moss, G. 24, 98, 130, 131, 140, 161, 165, 166, 167 multilingual classroom femininities 84–108 classroom masculinities 55–83 heritage see heritage languages learning 18 perspectives/linguisitic repertoires 185–91 see also languages newspapers broadsheet 24–5, 125, 126, 134, 157, 158, 164 heritage languages 157, 159, 164

Index 213 preferred reading 97, 123–4, 133, 155–6, 164, 173 tabloid 125, 127, 157, 158 Ochs, Elinor 31, 36 Other, the academic literacies 70 age differences 87, 90 avoidance 73 discourse 29 heritage languages 115 identiﬁcation 85 identity 33 interactions 56 non-British 68 othering 33, 86 otherness 176 pathologised 43 posh talk 18, 20, 50, 82, 93, 168, 173, 179 positioning 64, 174 schooled literacy 52, 120 social networks 88 participation, WP see widening participation personal tutoring 178–80 posh talk meaning 1 the Other 18, 20, 50, 82, 93, 168, 173, 179 slang/posh talk dichotomy 24, 26, 104, 131–2, 154, 168, 173 Standard English 81 talking above you 78–80 positioning discoursing subject 27, 30–3 ladettes 85, 87, 88, 98, 99 lads 55, 57, 59, 60–3, 65, 76 the Other 64, 174 poststructuralism 8, 27, 28, 32, 33, 34 power relations communities of practice (CofP) 47 discourse 31 social relations 4 speaking 48

Rampton, Ben 3, 36, 50, 79, 105, 111, 112, 132, 171, 174 reading blameworthy 95–6 coolness 24, 125 identiﬁcation 123–8, 155–68 papers see newspapers preferred media 24 preferred reading 123–30, 133–4, 155–9, 164–5 texts see texts research ethos 6–8 Ritzer, George 42 Scruton, Roger 45 skills academic writing see academic writing skills skills discourses 9 study skills 41–4 success/failure 43 slang accent stylisations 50, 105 cool, youthful identity 2, 50, 106, 172 Londonness 23 meaning 1–2 ‘natural’ practice 106, 132 slang/posh dichotomy 24, 26, 104, 131–2,154, 168, 173 socialisation 1, 78, 99–100, 132 see also English/vernacular English, London English social constructionism 8 social integration, commitment 4 social justice, tertiary education 12 social relations power 4 strengthening 176–81 socialisation academic writing skills 44–9 discourses 9, 44–9 identity 28 speaking legitimate speakers 48, 53 power relations 48 practices 30

214

Index

spoken interactions communities of practice (CofP) 6, 107 face 4 gender 4–6, 9, 39, 54 heritage languages 22, 145, 171 identity 6, 35–7, 55, 126 London English 23 masculinities 9 methodology 35, 189 problem-sharing 138, 172 religion 190 students diverse student body 2 dropout see dropout ﬁrst-year see ﬁrst-year undergraduates lecturer/student interactions 109–39, 140–69 mentoring 180–1 ‘Millennium University’ 20–1 presentations of self/fellow students 56–68, 85–94 retention 3–4, 21 working-class student perspectives 16 tertiary education access inequalities 13–14 expansion 11–13 social justice 12 workforce needs 12–13 see also higher education texts reading academic texts 130–2, 134–8, 160–3, 165–8 verbal texts 24 visual texts 24 theory identity 27–39 practice interface 33–5 Tinto, Vincent 4

United States, access inequalities 13–14 universities ‘Capital University’ 62 ivory towers 45 ‘Millennium’ see ‘Millennium University’ see also higher education, tertiary education verbal texts 24 visual texts 24 vocabulary, intellectual work 24–5 Weedon, Chris 6–7, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 154 Wenger, Etienne 3, 6, 27, 37, 38, 41, 190 Whelehan, Imelda 9, 38, 55, 84, 87, 88, 139, 160, 171, 172 widening participation (WP) black and minority ethnic (BME) 1, 11, 14–18 less prestigious institutions 14 linguistic diversity 18–20 practice 11–26 working class access 12 national average 21 student perspectives 16 writing academic writing programme 2, 21–2, 24–5, 38, 70, 75–4, 81–3, 96, 99, 116, 174, 182, 183, 185, 188 approaches 181–5 learning 19 literacy see literacy skills see academic writing skills ‘voice’ 25

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