UA cloudflare authentication

Browsing by Author "Swindle, Jean"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Blurring lines: Reconstituting the third culture kid identity
    (2016) Swindle, Jean
    Third Cultures Kids (TCKs) are lauded for their international travel, ability to speak multiple languages, and global perspective but have also been identified as plagued by a sense of cultural homelessness, difficulty upon repatriations, and a lack of positive affect (Pollock & Van Reken, 2003; Dewaele & van Oudenhoven, 2009; Peterson & Plamondon, 2009). Research on TCKs has unquestionably used the Pollock and Van Reken definition of a TCK and relied on the characteristics noted in the seminal text to formulate a list TCKs characteristics. This paper challenges these assumptions and use Derridian deconstuctivist and Deleuzian lenses to interrogate the dominant way in which the denominated TCK has been socially- and scholarly-constructed. There is the potential for a broader reading of how international experiences constitute a child's identity. Using data from an ethnographic pilot study, the life stories and descriptive narratives of four TCKs between the ages of 18-40 and survey data from an additional 32 participants are used to explore the TCK identity through the aforementioned theoretical lenses. The findings present titillating possibilities for different sorts of knowledge production on TCK research and lead to asking different sets of questions that expand the TCK dialogue beyond merely understanding context and causality to adding to the growing discourse of identity constitution and multidimensionality.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The force of folk: an analysis of pre-service teacher language beliefs about different child migrants
    (University of Alabama Libraries, 2017) Swindle, Jean; Petrovic, John E.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
    This qualitative research study investigated the language beliefs pre-service teachers (PSTs) in the United States have about different types of child migrants. Specifically, this project focused on the language beliefs that pre-service teachers have about two subgroups of child migrants – Third Culture Kids (TCKs) and child immigrants. The problem guiding this work was the complete absence of empirical research on pre-service teacher beliefs and TCKs, the unchallenged normative constructive of TCKs in scholarly literature as White children principally hailing from the United States or Europe, and the lack of a comparative analysis of pre-service teacher language beliefs about different types of child migrants. The purpose of this study was to add to the extant research on child mobility studies and teacher, specifically pre-service, beliefs about language. The research questions were two fold. One the one hand, the language beliefs PSTs have about TCKs were investigated and differences in language beliefs they voiced about socio-politically constructed White and Black TCKs were examined through folk linguistic and language ideological conceptual lenses. Likewise, how PSTs viewed the language capital of other child migrants, specifically immigrant children, was investigated and analyzed employing the same conceptual lenses. The research methodology used a qualitative inquiry with a modified grounded theory approach to analyze data from narrative vignette questionnaire responses, interviews, and analytic memorandums. The findings in this research project included data analyzed from a total of 92 pre-service teacher research participants. Findings revealed that PSTs, regardless of the identical nature of the linguistic ability of child migrants, viewed child migrants from raced, classed, and linguicist ideological perspectives. Although PSTs spoke of welcoming diversity into their classrooms, as they gave thicker descriptions of how they felt about child migrants, they revealed their preference for White, non-English speakers and diffidence to non-White, non-English speakers. Findings also revealed that PSTs expressed a bent towards abundance assumptions in the case of White TCKs and their parents and deficit assumptions with regard to Black TCKs and immigrant children and their respective parents. Recommendations for future research include more investigation of teacher beliefs through the broader use of narrative vignettes to assess those beliefs. Such knowledge can help address subsequent modifications in the curricular content of teacher education programs aimed at helping PSTs face erroneous folk linguistic and language beliefs with empirical evidence regarding the abilities, capacities, and benefits of multilingualism in all types of child migrants.