Packer and Goicoechea (2000) and Wortham (2006) propose that academic learning is both personal and social transformation. This transformation is continuously negotiated through classroom interaction and curricular choices. The current ethnographic study of an urban southwestern charter high school investigates academic learning in two contexts: a Spanish heritage-language (SHL) class and a humanities class.The study examines Mexican-origin students' resistance to studying their ancestral language. From the first day of their SHL class, students refused to speak Spanish (despite their proficiency), rejected published Spanish-language materials, and acted out. Student resistance was rooted in their perceived lack of relevant tasks and materials, teacher-respect for their home language and culture, and student belief that learning "proper Spanish" could threaten social and familial relationships (see also Fordham & Ogbu, 1986; Labov, 1972a; Mehan, Hubbard, & Villanueva, 1994).The resistance of the heritage language learners contrasts sharply with the engagement of the same students in their Humanities course in which students connect enthusiastically with subject matter and instructor. Findings suggest that engagement was fostered through the teacher's strict adherence to the principles of place-based learning (Gruenewald, 2003a, 2003b), critical democratic pedagogy (Shor, 1992), and the instructor's teacher ethos.Latinos have the greatest high school dropout rate in the United States while simultaneously being the largest growing demographic group (Carreira, 2003; "US Census Report," 2004; Waggoner, 2000). The pairing of these two statistics should draw alarm. Thus the study of Latino student engagement and resistance to academic learning is crucial for understanding this problem as well as exploring what pedagogies hold most promise. In terms of HL instruction, analyses reveal that a critical place-based approach to heritage-language instruction holds such promise.

[pt] A presente tese tem por objetivo estudar a construção discursiva de um lugar-escola no contexto de uma instituição municipal de ensino localizada na região metropolitana do Rio de Janeiro. Paralelamente, são realizadas discussões sobre os conceitos de identidade, lugar e ficção a fim de evidenciar como sua imbricação pode contribuir para avanços na pesquisa qualitativa. O trabalho de inspiração etnográfica conta com dados gerados ao longo dos anos de 2015 e 2016 com a participação de estudantes com idades entre 14 e 17 anos. A análise encontra-se dividida em três seções contemplando três tipos de dados. A primeira compreende textos de inspiração etnográfica escritos pelos alunos e analisados segundo a noção antropológica de lugar; a segunda traz fotografias etnográficas e trechos de conversas com os alunos-fotógrafos com foco em questões identitárias emergentes; por fim, narrativas ficcionais autorais ambientadas na escola são analisadas visando a evidenciar as possíveis contribuições desse tipo de produção imaginativa para a pesquisa qualitativa. Todo embasamento teórico e análise foram interdisciplinarmente construídos à luz de teorias pós-estruturalistas dos estudos da linguagem, da filosofia e da antropologia. A análise evidenciou a concretude pragmática da construção discursiva do lugar-escola e sua influência nas relações do cotidiano escolar. Além disso, esta tese, em conteúdo e forma, traz o discurso como profícua arena apaziguadora da dicotomia real (lido como verdade) e ficção (lida como farsa). As observações realizadas neste trabalho indicam que, entendida como lugar antropológico complexo, a escola ganha contornos e revela nuances caras ao trabalho em educação, tanto do ponto de vista pedagógico quanto político. Finalmente, apontam para a necessidade de um maior investimento em um real diálogo entre diferentes áreas das ciências humanas como meio para fortalecer e democratizar o conhecimento produzido nas pesquisas qualitativas. / [en] The present thesis studies the discursive construction of a school-place in a municipal teaching institution located in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro. At the same time, a discussion is held about the concepts of identity, place and fiction to show how their overlap may contribute to advances in qualitative research. The ethnographically inspired study works on data generated in 2015 and 2016 with students aged between 14 and 17 years old. The analysis is divided into three sections related to three types of data. The first one comprises texts of ethnographic inspiration written by the students and analyzed according to the anthropological notion of place; the second brings ethnographic photographs and excerpts from conversations with the student-photographers focusing on their emerging identity issues. Finally, fictional narratives set in the school are analyzed in order to highlight the possible contributions of this type of imaginative production to qualitative research. All the theoretical bases and analyses were interdisciplinarily constructed using poststructuralist theories of language, philosophy and anthropology. The analysis evidenced the pragmatic concreteness of the discursive construction of the school-place and its influence in the everyday relations at school. Moreover, this thesis, in content and form, brings the discourse as a profitable arena appeasing the real dichotomy (understood as truth) and fiction (understood as farce). The observations made in this work indicate that, understood as a complex anthropological place, the school gains contours and reveals nuances important to the work in education, both from a pedagogical and a political point of view. Finally, they point to the need for greater investment in a real dialogue between different areas of the human sciences as a means to strengthen and democratize the knowledge produced in qualitative research.