Teachers typically underutilize the home knowledge and sociocultural strengths students bring to school with them. Ethnographic home visits provide a mechanism by which teachers can learn to mediate between students' spontaneous home knowledge and formal school concepts. This is a teacher-researcher study in which I assumed both roles. I discuss transformation of the teaching and learning context resulting from ethnographic home visits conducted by me in the homes of five U.S. Mexican¹ students. Methods of investigation included ethnographic interviews and participant observation. Data sources were field notes, student journal entries, anecdotal data, video tape recordings, and a research journal. Chapter six presents mediation theory as it relates to classroom instruction. Teachers mediate between actual zones of development (AZD) and the proximal zones of development (PZD) in the zone of proximal development (ZPD) through use of tools including concrete objects, pictures, written and oral language, and other human beings. The principal finding in this work is that ethnographic research conducted by teachers has a transformative effect on teachers and students while informing pedagogy. ¹Although the subjects in this study were born in Mexico, the term U.S. Mexican is used to distinguish Mexicans residing in the U.S. from Mexicans residing in Mexico. This designation is consistent with other literature referring to persons currently residing in the U.S. who are either native born in Mexico or of Mexican parentage born in the U.S., regardless of generation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/186549 |
| Date | January 1993 |
| Creators | Floyd Tenery, Martha. |
| Contributors | Ruiz, Richard, Moll, Luis C., McCarty, Teresa, Adamson, H. Douglas |
| Publisher | The University of Arizona. |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text, Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic) |
| Rights | Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. |
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