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Alvermann, Donna E.; Commeyras, MichelleGender, Text, and Discussion: Expanding thePossibilities. Perspectives in Reading Research No.3.

National Reading Research Center, Athens, GA.;National Reading Research Center, College Park,MD.Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED),Washington, DC.94117A2000725p.Viewpoints (Opinion/Position Papers, Essays, etc.)(120)

MF01/PC01 Plus Postage.*Classroom Communication; *Discussion (TeachingTechnique); Elementary Secondary Education; Feminism;Higher Education; Interpersonal Communication;Language Role; *Sex Differences; Teacher Behavior;Teacher Student Relationship

IDENTIFIERS *Communication Behavior; Discourse Communities

ABSTRACTThis paper argues that classroom discussions are

important sites of investigation, not for the purpose of identifyingand prescribing effective discussion strategies, but forunderstanding why particular discursive strategies tend to dominateclassroom talk and what might be done to alter such practices. Thepaper is grounded in feminist postmodernist thinking, which seeks tocontinue the struggle against sexism while developing new paradigmsof social criticism. The paper is divided into three sections. Thefirst section explains what is meant by discursive practices and thenidentifies predominant discursive practices associated with classroomdiscussions of texts. In the second section work on text-basedclassroom discussions is examined for instances of how ingrained,gendered ways of thinking have perpetuated particular discursivepractices. The third section explores ways of expanding possibilitiesso as to uliderstand more fully the complexities of learning from andabout text-based classroom talk. Contains 67 references. (RS)

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Gender, Text, and DiscussionExpanding the Possibilities

Donna E. AlvermannMichelle CommeyrasUniversity of Georgia

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NationalReading ResearchCenter

PERSPECTIVES IN READING RESEARCH NO. 3

Spring 1994

2 BEST c;7`i

NRRCNational Reading Research Center

Gender, Text, and Discussion:Expanding the Possibilities

Donna E. AlvermannMichelle Com meyras

University of Georgia

PERSPECTIVES IN READING RESEARCH NO. 3Spring 1994

The work reported herein was funded in part by the National Reading Research Center of theUniversity of Georgia and University of Maryland. It was supported under the EducationalResearch and Development Centers Program (PR/AWARD NO. I I7A20007) as administeredby the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education. Thefindings and opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the position or policies of theNational Reading Research Center, the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, orthe U.S. Department of Education.

3

NRRC NationalReading ResearchCenter

Executive CommitteeDonna E. Alvermann, Co-DirectorUniversity of Georgia

John T. Guthrie, Co-DirectorUniversity of Maryland College Park

James F. Baumann, Associate DirectorUniversity of Georgia

Patricia S. Koskinen, Associate DirectorUniversity of Maryland College Park

JoBeth AllenUniversity of Georgia

John F. O'FlahavanUniversity of Maryland College Park

James V. HoffmanUniversity of Texas at Austin

Cynthia R. HyndUniversity of Georgia

Robert SerpellUniversity of Maryland Baltimore Coutuy

Publications Editors

Research Reports and PerspectivesDavid Reinking, Receiving EditorUniversity of Georgia

Linda Baker, Tracking EditorUniversity of Maryland Baltimore County

Linda C. DeGroff, Tracking EditorUniversity of Georgia

Instructional ResourcesLee Galda, University of Georgia

Research HighlightsWilliam G. HollidayUniversity of Maryland College Park

Policy BriefsJames V. HoffmanUniversity of Texas at Austin

VideosShawn M. Glynn, University of Georgia

NRRC StaffBarbara F. Howard, Offic:. ManagerMelissa M. Erwin, Senior SecretaryUniversity of Georgia

Barbara A. Neitzey, Administrative AssistantValerie Tyra, AccountantUniversity of Maryland College Park

National Advisory BoardPhyllis W. AldrichSaratoga Warren Board of Cooperative EducationalServices, Saratoga Springs, New York

Arthur N. ApplebeeState University of New York, Albany

Ronald S. BrandtAssociation for Supervision and CurriculumDevelopment

Marsha T. DeLainDelaware Department of Public Instruction

Carl A. GrantUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison

Walter KintschUniversity of Colorado at Boulder

Robert L. LinnUniversity of Colorado at Boulder

Luis C. MollUniversity of Arizona

Carol M. SantaSchool District No. 5Kalispell, Montana

Anne P. SweetOffice of Educational Research and Improvement,U.S. Department qf Education

Louise Cherry WilkinsonRutgers University

Technical Writer and Production EditorSusan L. YarboroughUniversity of Georgia

Text FormatterJordana E. RichUniversity of Georgia

NRRC - University of Georgia318 AderholdUniversity of GeorgiaAthens, Georgia 30602-7125(706) 542-3674 Fax: (706) 542-3678INTERNET: [email protected]

NRRC - University of Maryland College Park2102 J. M. Patterson BuildingUniversity of MarylandCollege Park, Maryland 20742(301) 405-8035 Fax: (301) 314-9625INTERNET: NRRCOumail.umd.edu

About the National Reading Research Center

The National Reading Research Center (NRRC) isfundeAl by the Office of Educational Research andImprovement of the U.S. Department of Education toconduct research on reading and reading instruction.The NRRC is operated by a consortium of the Universi-ty of Georgia and the University of Maryland CollegePark in collaboration with researchers at several institu-tions nationwide.

The NRRC's mission is to discover and documentthose conditions in homes, schools, and communitiesthat encourage children to become skilled, enthusiastic,lifelong readers. NRRC researchers are committed toadvancing the development of instructional programssensitive to the cognitive, sociocultural, and motiva-tional factors that affect children's success in reading.NRRC researchers from a variety of disciplines conductstudies with teachers and students from widely diversecultural and socioeconomic backgrounds in prekinder-garten through grade 12 classrooms. Research projectsdeal with the influence of family and family-schoolinteractions on the development of literacy; the interac-tion of sociocultural factors and motivation to read; theimpact of literature-based reading programs on readingachievement; the effects of reading strategies instructionon comprehension and critical thinking in literature,science, and history; the influence of innovative groupparticipation structures on motivation and learning; thepotential of computer technology to enhance literacy;and the development of methods and standards foralternative literacy assessments.

The NRRC is further committed to the participationof teachers as full partners in its research. A betterunderstanding of how teachers view the development ofliteracy, how they use knowledge from research, andhow they approach change in the classroom is crucial toimproving instruction. To further this understanding,the NRRC conducts school-based research in whichteachers explore their own philosophical and pedagogi-cal orientations and trace their professional growth.

Dissemination is an important feature of NRRC activi-ties. Information on NRRC research appears in severalformats. Research Reports communicate the results oforiginal research or synthesize the findings of severallines of inquiry. They are written primarily for re-searchers studying various areas of reading and readinginstruction. The Perspective Series presents a widerange of publications, from calls for research andcommentary on research and practice to first-personaccounts of experiences in schools. InstructionalResources include curriculum materials, instructionalguides, and materials for professional growth, designedprimarily for teachers.

For more information about the NRRC's researchprojects and other activities, or to have your nameadded to the mailing list, please contact:

Donna E. Alvermann, Co-DirectorNational Reading Research Center318 Aderhold HallUniversity of GeorgiaAthens, GA 30602-7125(706) 542-3674

John T. Guthrie, Co-DirectorNational Reading Research Center2102 J. M. Patterson BuildingUniversity of,MarylandCollege Park, MD 20742(301) 405-8035

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NRRC Editorial Review Board

Patricia AdkinsUniversity of Georgia

Peter AfflerbachUniversity of Maryland College Park

JoBeth AllenUniversity of Georgia

Patty AndersUniversity of Arizona

Tom AndersonUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Irene BlumPine Springs Elementary SchoolFalls Church, Virginia

John BorkowskiNotre Dame University

Cynthia BowenBaltimore County Public SchoolsTowson, Maryland

Martha CarrUniversity of Georgia

Suzanne ClewellMontgomery County Public SchoolsRockville, Maryland

Joan ColeyWestern Maryland College

Mkhelle CommeyrasUniversity of Georgia

Linda CooperShaker Heights City SchoolsShaker Heights, Ohio

Karen CostelloConnecticut Department of EducationHartford, Connecticut

Karin DahlOhio Slate Uniwrsity

Lynne Diaz-RkoCalifornia State University-San

Bernardino

Mariam Jean DreherUniversity of Maryland College Park

Pamela DunstonClemson University

Jim FloodSan Diego State University

Dana FoxUniversity of Arizona

Linda GambrellUniversity of Maryland College Park

Valerie GarfieldChattahoochee Elementary SchoolCumming, Georgia

Sherrie Gibney-ShermanAthens-Clarke County SchoolsAthens, Georgia

Rachel GrantUniversity of Maryland College Park

Barbara GuzzettiArizona State University

Jane HaughCenter for Developing Learning

PotentialsSilver Spring, Maryland

Beth Ann HerrmannUniversity of South Carolina

Kathleen HeubachUniversity of Georgia

Susan It'llUniversby of Maryland College Park

Sally Hudson-RossUniversity of Georgia

Cynthia IlyndUniversity of Georgia

Robert JimenezUniversity of Oregon

Karen JohnsonPennsylvania State University

James KingUniversity of South Florida

Sandra KimbrellWest Hall Middle SchoolOakwood, Georgia

Kate KirbyGwinnett County Public SchoolsLawrenceville, Georgia

Sophie KowzunPrince George S County SchoolsLandover, Maryland

Rosary LalikVirginia Polytechnic Institute

Michael LawUniversity of Georgia

Sarah McCartheyUniversity of Texas at Austin

Lisa McFallsUniversity of Georgia

Mike McKennaGeorgia Southern University

Donna MealeyLouisiana State University

Barbara MkhaloveFowler Drive Elementary SchoolAthens, Georgia

Akintunde MorakinyoUniversity of Maryland College Park

Lesley MorrowRutgers University

Bruce MurrayUniversity of Georgia

Susan NeumanTemple University

Awanna NortonM. E. Lewis Sr. Elementary SchoolSparta, Georgia

Caroline NoyesUniversity of Georgia

John O'FlahavanUniversity of Maryla-xl College Park

Penny OldfatherUniversity of Georgia

Joan PagnuccoUniversity of Georgia

Barbara PalmerMount Saint Mary's College

Mike PickleGeorgia Southern University

Jessie PollackMaryland Department of EducationBaltimore, Maryland

Sally PorterBlair High SchnolSilver Spring, Maryland

Michael PressleyState University of New York

at Albany

John ReadenceUniversity of Nevada-Las Vegas

Tom ReevesUniversity of Georgia

Lenore RinglerNew York University

Mary RoeUniversity of Delaware

Rebecca SammonsUniversity of Maryland College Park

Paula SchwanenflugelUniversity of Georgia

Robert SerpellUniversity of Maryland Baltimore

County

Betty ShockleyFowler Drive Elementary SchoolAthens, Georgia

Susan SonnenscheinUniversity of Maryland Baltimore

County

Steve StahlUniversity of Georgia

Anne SweetOffice of Educational Research

and Improvement

Liging TaoUniversity of Georgia

Ruby ThompsonClark Atlanta University

7

Louise TomlinsonUniversity of Georgia

Sandy TumarkinStrawberry Knolls Elementary SchoolGaithersburg, Maryland

Sheila ValenciaUniversity of Washington

Bruce VanSledrightUniversity of Maryland College Park

Chris WaltonNorthern Territory UniversityAustralia

Louise WaynantPrince George's County SchoolsUpper Marlboro, Maryland

Priscilla WaynantRolling Terrace Elementary SchoolTakoma Park, Maryland

Jane WestUniversity of Georgia

Steve WhiteUniversity of Georgia

Allen WigfieldUniversity of Maryland College Park

Dortha WilsonFort Valley State College

Shelley WongUniversity of Marylan 4 College Park

About the Authors

Donna Alvermann is Research Professor of ReadingEducation at the University of Georgia and Co-Directorof the National Reading Research Center. She receivedher Ph.D. in reading education from SyracuseUniversity after teaching for 12 years in the publicschools of New York and Texas. Her research toi.useson the role of classroom discussion in content readinginstruction. She is past president of the NationalReading Conference and the co-author of Contentreading and literacy: Succeeding in today's diverseclassrooms.

Michelle Commeyras is an Assistant Professor ofReading Education at the University of Georgia. Shereceived her Ph.D. in education from the University ofIllinois in Champaign/Urbana in 1991. Her longtimeinterest has been exploring ways of promoting criticalthinking through text-based discussion. Her emerginginterests are critical literacy and the potential offeminist theories in exploring gender and reading.

National Reading Research CenterUniversities of Georgia and MarylandPerspectives in Reading Research No. 3Spring 1994

Gender, Text, and Discussion:Expanding the Possibilities

Donna E. Alvermann

Michelle Commeyras

University of Georgia

It seems that in these postmodern times, we areexperiencing a renaissance that embraces thepossibilities of new ways of thinking aboutknowing, being, and believing. This renais-sance has the potential to affect profoundly theways of implementing and researching text-based classroom discussions, but it is a renais-sance that extends beyond academic concerns.In Healing and the Mind, Moyers (1993)reported on new insights into mind-body con-nections and ways in which healing is a matterof meaning, not mechanics. The move inmedical circles away from dichotomizing themind and the body echoes Derrida's decon-struction of Western philosophical thought,which has framed our understanding of theworld in two-term oppositions, for example,male/female, rational/irrational (Orr, 1991).

We find this renaissance challenging andcompelling. It is a challenge to read the po-lyphony of texts on postmodernism, post-structuralism, feminisms, critical and feministpedagogies, and more. We feel compelled toaccept the challenge to explore new ways ofthinking that run counter to our own rooted

1

ways of thinking. In particular, we see manywindows of opportunity for moving beyond theingrained dominance of a male Western philo-sophical mode of thinking. Thus, we havebegun a quest to find, construct, and articulatenew ways of thinking about text-based class-room discussions from feminist postmodernistperspectives. This paper provides a forum forsharing the beginnings of our quest. Our goalis to explore possibilities for expanding currentdiscursive practices so as to deal more equita-bly with gender-related issues in classroom talkabout texts.

In this paper, we argue that classroomdiscussions are important sites of investigation,not for the purpose of identifying and prescrib-ing effective discussion strategies, but forunderstanding why particular discursive prac-tices tend to dominate classroom talk and whatmight be done to alter such practices. In

particular, we examine discursive practices thatconstruct one's sense of self and other for thepurpose of exploring ways teachers, students,and researchers can begin to "interrupt" (Broki-key, 1992, p. 310) those practices that are

9

2 Donna E. Alvermann & Michelle Gonvneyras

counterproductive to learning from and abouttext-based classroom talk. We ground ourremarks in feminist postmodernist thinking,which seeks to continue the struggle againstsexism while developing new paradigms ofsocial criticism paradigms that speak topossibilities and not just to givens (Nicholson,1990).

The paper is divided into three majorsections. In the first section, we explain whatwe mean by discursive practices and thenidentify predominant discursive practicescurrently associated with classroom discussionsof texts. In the second section, we examineour own work on text-based classroom discus-sion for instances of how ingrained, genderedways of thinking have perpetuated particulardiscursive practices. In the third section, weexplore ways of expanding possibilities ofmoving beyond currently accepted discursivepractices so as to understand more fully thecomplexities of learning from and about text-based classroom talk.

PREDOMINANT DISCURSIVE PRACTICESIN CLASSROOM DISCUSSION

In laying the groundwork for what we mean bydiscursive practices, it is important to drawdistinctions between what Gee (1990) refers toas discourses with a lowercase d, which in-clude connected stretches of language thatmake sense, like conversations, stories, re-ports, and arguments (p. 142), and Discourseswith an uppercase D, which are:

ways of being in the world, or forms oflife which integrate words, acts, be-

liefs, attitudes, social identities, as wellas gestures, glances, body positions andclothes.... A Discourse is a sort of"identity kit" which comes completewith the appropriate costume and in-structions on how to act, talk, and oftenwrite, so as to take on a particularsocial role that others will recognize."(p. 142)

Still another way to conceive of Discourses,Gee suggests, is as clubs with (tacit) rulesabout who is a member and who is not and(tacit) rules about how members ought tobehave (if they wish to continue being acceptedas members) (Gee, 1990, p. 143).

Thus, it is clear from Gee's use of theterm, a Discourse involves more than just talk.It involves all the discursive practices thatsignal one's membership a particular group.For example, having been educated as teachersmeans we have learned to think, act, and speaklike teachers; it also means we recognize (andare recognized by) others who have beensimilarly educated into the teaching profession.Other Discourses that we have learned include(but are not limited to) how to be graduatestudents, women, daughters, and U.S. citizens.

In the 1960s, Foucault asserted that socialinstitutions construct themselves through theirdiscursive practices (Orr, 1991). Since thattime, discursive practices have been studied inconnection with peace activists (Blain, 1991),academic conferences (Morton, 1987), organi-zational management (Mumby & Stohl, 1991),patient-centered medicine (Silverman & Bloor,1990), honor in an Arab community (Gilsenan,1989), and many other areas. Smith (1987)

NATIONAL READING RESEARCH CENTER, PERSPECTIVES IN READING RESEARCH NO. 3

Gender, Text, and Discussion: Expanding the Possibilities 3

proposed that a closer focus on the discursivepractices of schools would lead to theories thatbetter account for the complexities of school-ing.

Most relevant to our focus on discursivepractices in this paper is the work of BronwynDavies (1989), who has written about thediscursive production of the male/femaledualism in classroom settings and the powerdifferentials this dualism engenders. Davies(1989, 1990a, 1990b) has examined some ofthe ways in which discursive practices positionyoung children, such that beliefs about themale/female dualism embedded in the usualstories that children hear and read become alived reality in the classroom. Based on thisresearch, Davies has written on why primaryschool children have difficulty seeing theprincess, Elizabeth, as a hero in The Paper BagPrincess (Munsch & Marchenko, 1980), de-spite the fact that Elizabeth rescues the prince.Ronald, from the dragon. She suggests that thepredominance of other narratives about malesrescuing females precludes a feminist hearingof the text by even the youngest of children.

Davies' (1990a, 1993) research on howsome texts tend to perpetuate the male/femaledualism ties in with Gilbert's (1989) concernthat privileging the personal in child-centeredpedagogies may encourage the construction ofstzreotypical female subject positions whichlimit [females1 understanding of their textualinscription and encourage them to see suchinscription as "natural" and "normal" (Gilbert,1989, p. 263). One implication to be drawnfrom Gilbert's work is that classroom discus-sions need to include opportunities for studentsto question textual inscriptions that define or

relegate women and men to particular genderedpositions.

The discursive practices that are of interestto us in this paper are those associated with theDiscourse of text-based classroom discussion.Of particular interest is how gendered discur-sive practices are manifested in the language ofthe classroom and the language of the text.

Language of the Classroom

In class discussions, there are tacit languageconventions for holding the floor, interruptingthe discussion, and introducing new topics.These conventions are bound up with powerrelationships among participants in a discus-sion, such as who speaks when and to whom(Fowler, 1985). They are also representativeof discursive practices that reproduce genderinequalities based on power differentials ema-nating from society at large. In illustratinghow tacit language conventions can operate inclassroom discussions to unwittingly perpetuategender inequalities, we draw upon the researchof Alton-Lee, Nuthall, and Patrick (1993) andtheir analyses of sixth-graders' public andprivate statements. In an excerpt from theiranalyses, we learn how a male teacher's per-ceptions of a female student, Ann, are coloredby discursive practices that have become all butinvisible to both teacher and student.

Ann's style of participation in the les-son indicated almost total continuousinvolvement in the tasks or with thecontent. Of all the case-study children,she was most often observed to befocused on the teacher or on a relevant


4 Donna E. Alvermann & Michelle Conuneyras

resource. Ann received no positivefeedback from the teacher for her twopublicly nominated responses, and sheappeared frustrated in her desire toparticipate publicly more frequently.Of the four [case-study] children, shewas least likely to elicit teacher nomina-tion with her hand raises: her fifteenhand raises during the lesson onlyelicited two teacher nominations. Annresponded by calling out her answersfive times and by talking privately at arate of two or three utterances perminute. A third of these utterances in-volved cooperative interactions with herfriend Julia. This private peer interac-tion appeared to play an important,mutually supportive role in both girls'management of the evaluative climateduring the lesson. Julia sought Ann'shelp with strategies to remember thedates presented by the teacher. Annshared her misconceptions with Julia.This talk was hidden, enabling Ann togive and receive peer support duringthe lesson, yet allowing her to avoidbeing seen by the teacher as contraven-ing the rules of order.

Her management (masking) of hercontravention of the rules of order wasso effective that even when the teacherreviewed the video (long after the unit),Ann's private utterances were hidden,and he commented that "Ann doesn'toffer as much as some of the others interms of an active type of learning....She learns just sitting and soaking itup." (Alton-Lee et al., 1993, p. 67)

We believe that certain discursive practicesemanating from differential gender expecta-tions for students may account for why Ann'steacher saw her as a passive learner. One ofthose practices involves allowing boys to talkmore than girls in classroom discussions(American Association of University Women[AAUW], 1992). According to the AAUWreport, titled How Schools Shortchange Girls(1992), females are called on less frequentlythan males, and they are rewarded more oftenfor compliance than for critical thinking. La-France's (1991) review of research suggeststhat teachers believe girls taIk more than boys,when in fact, the reverse has been documented.Ann's teacher may have unconsciously decidedthat Ann's two public responses were suffi-cient. This would fit with La France's (1991)finding that cultural clich6s about females'proclivity for talk influence who is called onand who is ignored. Another discursive prac-tice that may have been operating in Ann'sclass is the expectation that female students arejust naturally good listeners. La France (1991)suggests that verbal participation by femalestudents may be regarded as less valuable thanlistening. Thus, the teacher's comment thatAnn "learns just sitting and soaking it up" mayhave been his way of saying that he values thelistening ability of females.

La France (1991) also reviewed researchthat shows females are interrupted more oftenthan males. Individuals who interrupt others'speech can be viewed as exerting power overor controlling those whom they interrupt. Theextent to which controlling or collaborativelanguage occurs in classroom discussions maybe related to the sex of participants. In a study


t


of five- and seven-year-old children, Leaper(1991) found that seven-year-old girls usedmore collaborative speech acts than did boysand younger girls. Although collaborativespeech increased with age among the girls infemale dyads, this was not the case for girls inmixed dyads.

What constitutes an interruption is a com-plex issue (Murray, 1985). For purposes ofthis paper, however, we use the term to referto those instances when speakers are cut offbefore they have made their points. Interest-ingly, interruptions are not limited to school-age females; even a world leader like MargaretThatcher is known to have been interrupted byinterviewers more frequently than her malecounterparts (Beattie, Cutler, & Pearson,1982).

Language of the Text

Just as there are power differentials present inthe discursive practices found in classroomdiscussion, so too are they manifested in thelanguage of texts. Power differentials relatedto the social and cultural meanings attributed tobeing male or female are evident in the lan-guage used in texts. Attributing meaning to thesex of individuals reveals the social construc-tion of gender. Reading texts where languageis used to constitute gender dichotomies de-mands a certain amount of complicity on thepart of the reader. If readers are not encour-aged to discuss how the language of a textsocially constructs gender, it is likely thatgender stereotypes will go unexamined andthereby be reconstituted in each reading.

In her work on characterizing genderi-zation, Penelope (1988) provides many exam-ples of how the language of a text can legiti-mize stereotypes by assuming complicitousreaders. Notice, for example, the femaleattributions we are asked to call up in compre-hending Stephen King's use of the term wom-anish shriek to characterize the wind in thefollowing excerpt from The Shining:

It snowed every day now,.., sometimes forreal, the low whistle of the wind crankingup to a womanish shriek that made the oldhotel rock and groan alarmingly. (King,1977, p. 212)

In pointing out how the author of a text canreinforce deeply entrenched gender stereotypesthrough the use of sex-biased language, Penel-ope (1988, p. 260) asks us to consider whetheror not Stephen King could just as easily haveused the term mannish shriek to describe thewind.

Christian-Smith's (1991) research on ado-lescent fiction provides an example of how thelanguage of texts can foster complicitous read-ings and lead to young females' construction ofstereotypical femininity. In describing how thelanguage of romance novels shaped femaleadolescent readers' gender subjectivities in herstudy, Christian-Smith (1991) reported:

Through romance reading, readerstransform gender relations so that mencherish and nurture women rather[than] the other way around. This,together with readers' collective rejec-tion of a macho masculinity, representstheir partial overturning of one aspect


!3

6 Donna E. Alvermann & Michelle Commeyras

of current traditional gender sentiments.However, readers' final acceptance of romanticlove and its power structure undercuts thepolitical potential of these insights. Romancereading in no way altered the young women'spresent and future circumstances, but ratherwas deeply implicated in reconciling them totheir place in the world. (p. 207)

The roots of complicity in reading may liein part in our history as readers and the bookswe have read. As Segal (1986) has noted, forgenerations parents and teachers have chan-neled books to or away from children accord-ing to their sex. Education textbooks over theyears have advised teachers to use more "boybooks" than "girl books" based on the notionthat boys are not interested in reading aboutgirls, but girls are interested in reading aboutboys. Gendered experiences in reading athome and in school shape our attitudes towardappropriate gend.'r-role behaviors and influ-ence what we choose to read throughout ourlives.

Concerns regarding sex bias and a male-dominated reading curriculum have producednumerous studies on the portrayal of male andfemale characters in children's literature andother school materials (Barnett, 1986; McDon-ald, 1989). Authors concerned with sex biashave written books where male and femalecharacters are portrayed in ways intended tobreak down stereotypes (Fox, 1993). Takinga somewhat different tack, publishers of com-mercial reading programs have attempted toavoid sex bias by creating neuter characters,such as talking trees and animals, or by featur-

ing both a male and a female as primary char-acters (Hitchcock & Tompkins, 1987).

Efforts to create sex-equitable literature,however, have not seriously challenged stu-dents' gendered views of themselves and theworld. As Purcell-Gates (1993) has noted inher exploration of research related to the com-plexity of gender issues, real-life experiencesseem to be the key to whether or not childrenaccept nontraditional roles in literature. It isreal-life experiences that prepare the complici-tous reader to imagine a wind cranking up to awomanish shriek. Merely changing the lan-guage of texts to include phrases like "mannishshriek" or to create stories about boys whowant to study ballet or girls who are baseballumpires will not change our gendered view ofthe world.

Awakening an awareness in students ofways in which they engage in complicitousreading will depend largely on teachers whosee for themselves a role in altering powerrelations and in challenging the subordinationof women. This role will involve exploringwith students through class discussion howgender is socially constructed in a multiplicityof ways only one of which is the languageof texts.

INFLUENCES OF GENDEREDTHINKING IN OUR OWN RESEARCH

We view the term gendered thinking not as asynonym for stereotyped thinking about genderbut as a cultural artifact that shapes the way weinterpret the world. Each of us experiences theworld through filters that are colored by our



own personal histories. Gender is but one ofthose filters; race, ethnicity, class, and cultureare others. Therefore, it should not be as-sumed that gendered thinking always carries anegative connotation. Only when such think-ing is used to stereotype individuals simply onthe basis of their membership in a group shouldit be viewed as a problem.

Our own work on text-based classroomdiscussion reflects a variety of ways in whichingrained, gendered ways of thinking influ-enced some of the research studies we haveconducted in the past. For example, the incli-nation to cater to boys by avoiding books aboutgirls is something Michelle vividly recallsdoing:

In 1990, while conducting a researchproject on dialogical-thinking readinglessons (Commeyras, 1991), I rewroteone of the stories used in the lessons sothat the main characters were boysinstead of girls. I took the story I WishLaura's Mother Was My Mommy byBarbara Power (1979) and changed thefemale protagonists, Leslie and Laura,into Jack and Bob. My rationale fortaking this liberty was to provide storiesthat I thought might be engaging toseven fifth-grade boys who were con-sidered learning disabled. I assumedthese boys would be more interested inreading about boys than girls, and Ithought it vitally important to pickstories that were easy to read and po-tentially appealing toll- and 12-year-oldboys who had experienced many yearsof academic discouragement. In light

of my recent readings on feminisms,however, I agree with Segal (1986) thatthe boy-book/girl-book dualism depre-ciates the female experience and severe-ly limits boys' reading experiences.Furthermore, this dualism probablyserves to perpetuate the genderizationof human experience. In retrospect, Ithink it would have been far moreinteresting to find out how the sevenboys would have responded to I WishLaura's Mother Was My Mommy.

Like Michelle, Donna also can recall in-stances in her own research that demonstratehow some gendered discursive practices be-come so commonplace that they are accepted as"natural" or "normal" or at the very least,dismissed as being outside a study's purposeand therefore not analyzed. For example, inone study (Alvermann, 1989), Donna remem-bers sitting quietly by as a participant observertaking field notes in an 1 lth-grade Englishclass where the following discussion took placein response to a group worksheet exercise titledWho should survive?

I observed students, working in groupsof four, discuss among themselves thesolution to this problem: The world hasundergone total nuclear destruction.To avoid death from fallout, 16 survi-vors must take refuge in a shelter for anextended period of time. However, dueto limited provisions, only 8 people cansurvive; the others must be left outsideto face certain death. Once you havecompiled your personal list of 8 survi-


15


vors, work toward group consensus inarriving at a final list of 8. Be pre-pared to defend your choices fromamong the 16 people listed on yourworksheet. [Note: The list includedamong others a 30-year-old white Ro-man Catholic priest, a 55-year-oldblack male concert violinist, a 28-year-old black mother on welfare with no jobskills and her 2-year-old son, a 55-year-old white male university profes-sor, a 48-year-old black male Lt. Colo-nel with two purple hearts from theVietnam conflict, and a 28-year-oldwhite female high school English teach-er.]

John: Keep the priest. What you gotKessia? How come you pick the con-cert violinist? (Kessia acts as thoughshe does not hear John's question.)

Marilyn: I picked the violinist, too, butdon't ask me why.

Kessia: (looking toward John) Hecould make money. Why you pick theblack mother on welfare? You want tokeep the child and ditch the mother?

Marilyn: Who gonna take care of herchild while she out prostitutin'?

Kessia: She can have child care.

Marilyn: People on poverty theydon't get child care.

John: (looking toward Kessia) Whyyou pick the university professor?

Kessia: He has a good reputation hea professor, he know a lot.

Marilyn: He could build a school.

Exzavior: Don't we need an Englishteacher?

Kessia: Yeah, we need an Englishteacher if we gonna have schools again.

Marilyn: We got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...weneed 3 more.

Kessia: Why keep the black welfaremother? She ain't got no money.

[Note: This discussion, which was part of athematic unit on survival , lasted the entireclass period. Transcripts of other groupssuggest that the talk represented in this excerptwas also representative of the class at large.]

In retrospect, certainly there is much moregoing on in this discussion than merely thestereotyping of black women on welfare. Theremarks directed toward the woman on welfareby the two females in the group send a strongmessage about what these young women havecome to "accept" about personal worth andwho is at risk in society. Their remarks alsodemonstrate how the language of a text (in thiscase, the worksheet description assigned to a28-year-old black mother) can legitimize ste-



reotypes in class discussions by assumingcomplicitous readers.

I did not find the dialogue between Kessiaand Marilyn particularly informative, nor eventhat disturbing, at the time. I did nothing withthis information in my original analysis of thedata. I was intent on studying 11th-graders'understanding of literacy and what it means tobe labeled "at risk" of dropping out. Perhapslike these two young women, my own historyas a woman has been so inscribed with thestereotypical positioning of females that I notednothing out of the ordinary in their talk apersonally disturbing thought and one of sever-al reasons for my interest in writing this paper.

EXPANDING TRE POSSIBILITIES

As historically and broadly defined, the discur-sive practices commonly associated with class-room discussion have derived from Discoursesof social regulation. At a time in history whencircumstances gave rise to the beginning ofschools as we now know them, pedagogy wasinstitutionalized "out of practical needs to cure[ignorance and moral depravity], to reform, todiscipline, and to educate the social body....The school...became the site of...a discourse ofboth repression and formation" (Luke, 1989,pp. 145-146). At the same time that teachingschool took on more and more socially regula-tive functions, classroom discussions typicallybecame teacher-centered events aimed at legiti-mizing the authority of the text and the teach-er's superior knowledge (Alvermann, O'Brien,& Dillon, 1990; Delamont, 1983; Goodlad,1984). Not surprisingly, as Cohen noted in arecent symposium on classroom discussion

presented at the annual meeting of the Ameri-can Educational Research Association (AERA),"traditional school learning has had no roomfor difference, promoting instead a uni-reading

one text, one reading" (Cohen, 1993, p. 3).Feminist postmodernist theories, however,

offer some different ways of thinking aboutpedagogy and research, particularly as thesetheories relate to text-based classroom discus-sion. In this last section of the paper, weexplore some possibilities for moving beyondcurrently accepted discursive practices in

learning from and learning about classroomtalk.

Learning from Classroom Talk: FeministPedagogies

The power differentials described in the firstpart of this paper are part of the empowermentissue Gore (1992) problematizes in her writingson discursive practices embedded within femi-nist pedagogies. To understand Gore's think-ing, it is necessary to know how she definespedagogy. Drawing on the work of Lusted(1986), Gore views pedagogy as concernedwith the "processes of teaching that demandthat attention be drawn to the politics of thoseprocesses and to the broader political contextswithin which they are situated...that is,...[a]concern for how and in whose interests knowl-edge is produced and reproduced" (Gore,1993, p. 5).

Through her interpretations of Foucault'sanalyses of power and knowledge, Gore (1992)has identified the need to be somewhat cautious(and critical) about engaging in discursivepractices that attempt to empower "others."


1_7


For example, by drawing upon Foucault'sargument that "power is exercised or practiced,rather than possessed," Gore (1993, P. 52)raises questions about power as a commodity,as transferrable property. In Gore's (1992)words:

Theoretically, Foucault's analysis ofpower raises questions about the possi-bility of empowering. First, it refutesthe idea that one can give power to (canempower) another. Thus, to accept aview of one's work as giving power (asproperty) to others...is to overly simpli-fy the operation of power in our soci-ety. Given Foucault's conception ofpower as circulating, "exercised" and"existing only in action," empowermentcannot mean the giving of power. Itcould, however, mean the exercise ofpower in an attempt (that might not besuccessful) to help others to exercisepower. That is, Foucault's analysis ofpower doesn't preclude purposeful orpolitically motivated action; it doespoint out the rather strong possibilitythat our purposes might not be attained.

Second, conceiving of power asexercised points immediately to theneed for empowerment to be context-specific and related to practices....Understanding power as exercised,rather than as possessed, requires moreattention to the microdynamics of theoperation of power as it is exercised inparticular sites. (Gore, 1992, pp. 58-59)

We believe this interpretation of power andthe limitations it spells out for empoweringothers is useful in understanding the precau-tions that must be taken in attempting to deviseways of enabling teachers and students tointerrupt the discursive practices currentlyembedded in text-based classroom discussions.There are several ongoing projects in feministpedagogies for involving teachers and studentsin class discussions that do not violate Gore'sconcerns about empowerment. One of theseprojects is in its fifth year in an urban highschool in Philadelphia (Cohen, 1993).

In presenting her project at the AERAsymposium on classroom discussion, Cohen(1993) focused on describing how "adolescentsconstitute their (multiple) identities by tryingout different positions in relation to others" (p.2). However, we also found in the students'talk (excerpted below) several examples of howthey exercised their authority as readers.These examples, which bear on Foucault'snotion of power being exercised and circulat-ing, are captured in a discussion following thereading of a controversial text.

Cohen (1993, pp. 9-10) sets the scene forthe excerpts and commentaries that follow:'

Cohen: We are in the second year of aschool within-a-school program in aurban high school where %% of thefamilies receive AFDC [Aid to Familiesof Dependent Children]. One set ofEnglish classes has read an article in anews magazine about the alleged rapecommitted by boxing champion Mike7.son. A group of young women de-


1 8


bate the purpose and merit of this reading inthe classroom [during a discussion in which]asswnptions about male aggression and femalevictimization are thrown open.... Nina, whoseclass didn't read the article, questions what isgained by a strategy of taking on serious differ-ences in school.

Nina: I feel as though [the teacher]shouldn't have talked about Mike Ty-son's case because that happened out inthe street and if you bring it into schoolthere's gonna be a lot of conflict . . .

when we was in advisory everybodywas arguing I'm saying this doesn'thave nothing to do with school really,to me.

Pam: [The teacher] trying to make uslearn comprehension with the article. Ithink she wants us to think about it, beinterested.Kimberley: She likes us to arguethough.

Pam: She don't like us to argue, shelike us to learn how to say what wewanna say without arguing.

Kimberley: It's okay to talk about itbut not to get into it too much. Youknow it could start something big,cause we was talking about it in [math]class and it was Lisa Ms. B. threwher out cause she started getting into adiscussion with everybody. Everybodyjust arguing, everybody not worriedabout the math work!

Cohen: When readings invite into theopen radically different perspectives onissas young people care about, mono-lithic, dominant and often unspokennarratives are interrupted.... Still, Paminsists on the value of reading this textin school.

Pam: With our class [the teacher] wasasking, Well y'all read the article, howdo y'all feel about the article? And theway we did it, she would ask me and ifyou had a rebuttal you raised yourhand. And if you ain't had nothing tosay she'll go on and read the next line.She wanted to know what the personwrote on the paper [and] what did youget from what they feel.

Chantelle: And what did people getfrom that article?Pam: What the people got was that thearticle was not about some particularrape; we thought it was about howboxing, how like Mike Tyson he wasbrought up like, go for what you wantand fight for what you believe in.

Cohen: Making accepted meaningsproblematic unleashes unpopular read-ings (Britzman, 1992)..Jand] a set ofasswnptions about race, gender, sexu-ality, and aggression are destabilized.

By entertaining a Discourse of differences,the teacher in the example above made itpossible for students to explore multiple per-spectives on a text that destabilized and blurred


9


their thinking on aggression and victimization.In doing this, she interrupted counterproductivediscourse practices that often serve to silencestudents in the face of teachers' authoritativevoices. She also revealed something of herown epistemology, namely, that students canbe knowers in the fullest sense, and that read-ing the world always precedes reading theword (Freire, 1991).

As Cohen (1993) suggests, discursivepractices for making it safe to share multiplereadings of a controversial text and to negotiaterather than suppress differences related to thetext are rarely found in traditional teacher-centered discussions. "In the talk excerptedhere," Cohen notes, "students from differentclasses [began] to sound like a communityreading a text to read itself asking, Who arewe individually and collectively as we read thistext, what groups do we belong to, ard howcan we negotiate meanings with others ofsame/different affinities?" (Cohen, 1993, p.11). We submit that the teacher in Cohen'sstudy knew it was not enough to create safespaces. She also recognized the need forintentional problematizing (in this instance,problematizing the circumstances surroundingthe Mike Tyson case), for honoring students'voices (Oldfather, 1993) and for really listen-ing to what students say (Newkirk & McLure,1992; Paley, 1986).

One further observation we have on howstudents learned from classroom talk in theproject Cohen (1993) described has to do withGore's (1992) interpretation of Foucault'sthinking on the rhetoric of empowerment. Ifwe read Cohen (1993) correctly, the Englishteacher who assigned the news magazine article

on Mike Tyson did not view herself as empow-ering students; instead, she created sufficientlysafe spaces for students to exercise their ownauthority as readers. Nina exercised thisauthority in her pronouncements on the inap-propriateness of the text the teacher assignedfor class discussion. Pam and others in theclass exercised their authority as readers bycoming up with a collective reading that couldbe seen as broadening traditional views onwhat constitutes male aggression.

Learning About Classroom Talk: FeministPerspectives on Research

As we design and analyze our own research ontext-based classroom discussion, ways ofinterrupting some of the gendered discursivepractices that were invisible in the past arebecoming evident as we continue to read theliterature on feminist research. We see a needto interrupt women's tendencies to take careand make nice. In particular, we see ourselvesgrowing in our understanding of the need tocritique the power and stereotypical positioningthat adversely affect students' participation inclassroom discussions. To choose not tocritique such abuses is to ensure that the dis-cursive practices embedded (and largely invisi-ble) in our research will go unexamined andunchanged.

Fine (1992) has described activist, feministresearch projects as firmly planted in the politi-cal and strongly committed to the study ofchange. In her words:

Activist research projects seek to un-earth, interrupt, and open new framesfor intellectual and political theory and


20


change. Researchers critique whatseems natural, spin images of what'spossible, and engage in questions ofhow to move from here to there. Insuch work, researchers are clearlypositioned within the domain of a politi-cal question or stance, representing aspace within which inquiry is priedopen, inviting intellectual surprises toflourish. (Fine, 1992, p. 220)

Drawing on the work of Lather (1986),Fine (1992) has attempted to capture what shedescribes as some images of activist scholar-ship, all of which share three distinctions. Onedistinction, as suggested previously, is thatfeminist researchers are explicit about theirpolitical and theoretical stances, even thoughsuch stances may be multiple and shifting. Asecond distinction is that research narratives ofactivist projects reflect the current social orderand are openly ideological inasmuch "as thepeople who identify and define scientific prob-lems leave their social fingerprints on theproblems and their favored solutions to them"(Harding, 1987, p. 184). This is not an unusu-al state of affairs, for as Neilsen (1993) hasnoted, we live values first and describe themlater. A third distinction is that the texts ofthese narratives "[unhook] the past, present,and future from traditional, taken-for-grantednotions" (Fine, 1992, p. 227).

By pressing us to imagine the possibilitiesof feminist research, Lather (1990), like Fine,invites us to "begin to understand how we arecaught up in power situations of which we are,ourselves, the bearers" (p. 25). This invitationhas particular meaning for us in relation to how

we plan to design, carry out, and interpret ourresearch on class discussions in the future. Nolonger willing to collude in reproducing thegendered discursive practices that have domi-nated our thinking about research in the past,we now recognize the need to put aside claimsto neutrality (see Alvermann, 1993) and join inthe struggle for what Harding (1987) claims isa necessary condition for generating knowledgeclaims in a postmodern world:

[Feminist politics is not just a tolerablecompanion of feminist research but anecessary condition for generating iesspartial and perverse descriptions andexplanations. In a socially stratifiedsociety, the objectivity of the results ofresearch is increased by political activ-ism by and on behalf of oppressed,exploited and dominated groups. Onlythrough such struggles can we begin tosee beneath the appearances created byan unjust social order to the reality ofhow this social order is in fact con-structed and maintained. (Harding,1987, p. 127).

SUMMARY

We believe Gee's (1990) two metaphors forDiscourses "identity kits" and "clubs"work well, for they underscore how ourthoughts, actions, words, and beliefs are influ-enced by normative social practices that even-tually (through repetition) become all butinvisible to us. When discursive practicesembedded in learning from and about textsthrough discussion become so routine that we



never think to question their existence, we tendto perpetuate givens and risk forfeiting possi-bilities.

In this paper, we have argued for the needto include such possibilities in class discussionthrough opportunities for students to questiontextual inscriptions that define or relegatewomen and men to particular gendered posi-tions. We have also argued for revealingthrough feminist pedagogies and feministresearch the asymmetrical power relationshipsbetween males and females and between adultsand children that serve to perpetuate inequali-ties in classroom talk about texts. Like Brod-key (1992), we are interested in "devising waysfor teachers and students and researchers to'interrupt' those discursive practices that, forone reason or another, appear counterproduc-tive to teaching and learning" (p. 310). Inparticular, we are interested in creating spacesfor students and teachers to explore and discussmultiple perspectives based on multiple read-ings of texts. Finally, we find ourselves agree-ing with Fine (1992) that researchers who arecommitted to feminist inquiry have little choicebut to adopt an activist stance in their work.For us, that involves researching classroomdiscussions in ways that create opportunities toexplore and question textual inscriptions ofgendered positions.

NOTE

'The passage quoted on pp. 10-11 is from "Noweverybody want to dance': Making change in anurban charter" by Judy Cohen. In Michelle Fine(Ed.), Chartering Urban School Reform: Reflections

on High Schools in the Midst of Change, 1994, NewYork: Teachers College Press. Reprinted by permission.

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