Doctoral Dissertations

Sally M. Oran

Date of Award

8-1995

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Education

Major Professor

Kathleen B. DeMarrais, Lester N. Knight

Committee Members

J. Estill Alexander, Bethany Dumas

Abstract

This is an ethnographic study in which I describe the communications in an urban classroom of predominantly African American students and their white female teacher. Research in urban schools, language variations and socialization, culturally congruent instruction, and minority students' academic achievement provide the framework for this study. I focused on six instructional contexts the students and teacher used to construct understanding about the curriculum. I used participant observation, audiotaping, and informal interviews during the school day to collect data about communications between the participants. The teacher encouraged the students to voice their ideas and thoughts about the curriculum in authentic, conversational language. Through an inductive analysis of the data, I found three categories of interruptions intrusions, distractions, and confusions that impact instructional contexts so that communication is halted, halted briefly, or changed. I describe the types, directions, and outcomes of these interruptions as well as their rates of occurrence in each instructional context. An analysis of the actual words which confused the participants provides data for understanding why the students and teacher had difficulty understanding one another, or failed to communicate altogether. I also describe students who were regular interrupters and who displayed different interruption styles, and chains of interruptions that compounded the effects of single interruptions. A model is provided to illustrate the relationships between the interruptions and the instructional contexts, with particular emphasis on direct instruction and class discussion. I offer implications for classroom practice, teacher education, and research.

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