Our research group is guided by principles that are influenced by sociocultural and critical theory including:
- identities are negotiated and constructed in social and discursive practices from a limited range of possible identity positions;
- knowledge and identity construction is inseparable and research on learning and teaching must include this couplet; and
- learning is engagement and participation in social practices with the potential to transform them.
We recognize the following authors and works as central to the conceptual and methodological grounding for our research:
- Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
- Bakhtin, M. M. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
- Bakhtin, M. M. (1993). Toward a philosophy of the act. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
- deMarrais, K. B. & LeCompte, M. D. (1999). The way schools work: A sociological analysis of education (3rd ed). New York: Longman.
- Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language. New York: Longman.
- Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- LeCompte, M. D. & Dworkin, A. G. (1991). Giving up on school: Student dropouts and teacher burnouts. Newbury Park, CA: Corwin Press.
- Voloshinov, V. N. (1929/1986). Marxism and the philosophy of language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
- Wertsch, J. V. (1985). Vygotsky and the social formation of mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Wertsch, J. V. (1991). Voices of the mind: A sociocultural approach to mediated action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Wertsch, J. V. (1998). Mind as action. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
