Situated Language and Learning: A Critique of Traditional Schooling

by Gee,James Paul

• ISBN13: 9780415317771
• ISBN10: 0415317770
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-09-01
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Why do poor and minority students under-perform in school? Do computer games help or hinder learning? What can new research in psychology teach educational policy-makers? In this major new book, James Gee tackles the 'big ideas' about language, literacy and learning, applying his findings to real problems facing educationalists today. He tackles controversial debates such as the New Literacy Studies, and the idea that the academic language required to study, for example, Mathematics and the Sciences, is exclusionary and places unfair demands on poor and minority students. Gee also explores learning outside the classroom, looking at computer and video games and comparing the way a child interacts with others and technology to learn and play, with school-based learning in science classrooms. Bringing together the latest research from a number of disciplines,Language, Literacy and Learningis a bold, ambitious book by a leading figure in the field. It is essential reading for anyone interestedin education and language.

Table of Contents

1 Introduction	1	(6)
2 A strange fact about not learning to read	7	(14)
A strange fact	7	(3)
Learning to read	10	(4)
Deep cause of reading failure	14	(2)
Language ability	16	(5)
3 Language and identity at home	21	(18)
Early prototypes of academic language	21	(7)
Good language that doesn't pay off in school	28	(7)
Reading and identity	35	(4)
4 Simulations and bodies	39	(18)
A paradox	39	(2)
Learning to read as an embodied process	41	(5)
Identity and decoding	46	(3)
Meaning, perceiving, and acting	49	(3)
Language and perspective-taking	52	(2)
Perspective-taking and moral reasoning	54	(3)
5 Learning and gaming	57	(20)
Introduction	57	(2)
Preparation for learning: bore RoN	59	(2)
RoN 's tutorials: fish tanks	61	(5)
RoN's tutorials: supervised sandboxes	66	(4)
RoN: unsupervised sandboxes	70	(1)
Learning and playing	70	(3)
Conclusion	73	(4)
6 Affinity spaces	77	(14)
Introduction: from groups to spaces	77	(2)
Semiotic social spaces: AoM	79	(4)
Affinity spaces	83	(8)
7 Shape-shifting portfolio people	91	(26)
Old literacies	91	(4)
The old and the new capitalism	95	(2)
Identities	97	(1)
Affinity spaces	98	(1)
Networks	99	(1)
Millennials	99	(4)
Boomers vs. Millennials	103	(2)
Shape-shifting portfolio people	105	(1)
Diverse Millennials	106	(1)
A note on learning in the new capitalist world	107	(2)
Schools and schooling in the new capitalism	109	(1)
Bakhtinian thoughts	110	(7)
8 A final word: the content fetish	117	(2)
References	119	(8)
Index	127