Language, culture, gender, and academic socialization

Abstract

Recent research has explored the complex, situated process by which students from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds become socialized into academic discourses and practices.As part of a multiple case study involving seven international students, this study provides an in-depth analysis of the academic discourse socialization experience of a doctoral student, Kota, at a Canadian university. The data, collected over an entire academic year, mainly comes from Kota's weekly reports on his classroom participation, interviews with Kota and with his course instructors, and classroom observations. Being informed by a 'community-of-practice' perspective and a social constructivist notion of identity and gender, findings suggest that differences in language, culture, and gender that were constructed within local academic communities impacted Kota's participation and socialization in significant ways. In particular, the kinds of identities Kota developed as well as the roles ascribed to him by others based on these differences contributed to his limited participation both inside and outside the classroom. At the same time, Kota dealt with his challenges proactively by employing various strategies. This study discusses these findings by triangulating multiple viewpoints. Implications for classroom practices and for meeting the needs of diverse learners will also be discussed. © 2009 Taylor & Francis.