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Some Lessons Learned About Teaching, Research, and Academic Disputation Frederick Erickson
Some Lessons Learned About Teaching, Research, and Academic Disputation Frederick Erickson
Some Lessons Learned About Teaching, Research, and Academic Disputation Frederick Erickson
Erickson, F. (2017, September 13). Some lessons learned about teaching, research, and academic
disputation. Acquired Wisdom Series, edited by S. Tobias, D. F. Fletcher, & D. Berliner. Education Review,
24. http://dx.doi.org/10.14507/er.v24.2290
Acquired Wisdom/Education Review 2
reading, my parents would have been very YMCA.) From a pay phone in the main
unlikely to be able to advocate successfully Music Building on campus I telephoned
for me to the school superintendent, and I Stone at cocktail hour at his North Shore
would most likely have been flushed down home. The butler answered, and I said “This
the drain at the beginning of my school is Frederick Erickson calling from
career. Another “school failure.” (I now Northwestern University (literally true). I
think of “school failure” as a school would like to speak to Mr. Stone about an
problem, rather than as a student problem idea for an after-school education program
or a parent problem—schools failing to for teenagers in Lawndale.”
teach.)
The butler said he would ask if Mr.
In 1959 as a college freshman I was Stone was available to talk with me. A few
a music student at Northwestern University, moments later Stone’s voice came on the
with a double major in composition and phone and I sketched the proposed
music history. Halfway through program. He said, “Send a proposal letter
undergraduate school I helped to organize to my personal secretary at company
fellow music students to give free music headquarters,” and gave me her name.
lessons on Saturdays in North Lawndale, an (Lesson learned: A certain amount of gall—
African American inner city neighborhood chutzpah—doesn’t hurt when you are
on Chicago’s West Side. We taught at a asking for funding.) I also did youth work
YMCA, and as time went on I became more with older teenagers, some of whom were
and more engaged with what was happening members of local street gangs. I met parents
in that neighborhood and less engaged with of those young people. For six months I
music school, even as I continued for a fifth taught a basic education class in a steel
year and received a master’s degree in music plant, with employment trainees who were
history. Along the way I took courses in the high school dropouts. It was a heady time—
anthropology department, in Dr. Martin Luther King came to that
ethnomusicology (the study of world music) neighborhood, with the Southern Christian
and in folklore, as well as Anthro 101 and a Leadership Conference’s “Northern
course on psychological anthropology, in Initiative.” I was a volunteer in that effort,
which I was introduced to the child rearing as well as helping with a newly established
research of John and Beatrice Whiting at local community organization modeled on
Harvard. Saul Alinsky’s approach.
After graduating I got a small grant I was assigned as the Y staff liaison
from a local foundation, the W. Clement for a program of musical and dance
Stone Foundation, to develop an after- performance called “Teens with Talent.” It
school informal education program for early was organized by a volunteer youth leader,
teens in Lawndale, titled “Afro-American Al Johnson, who was at that time a janitor at
History in Music.” the Hawthorne Electric plant
(Stone was an eccentric on Cicero Avenue, then
Lessons learned: For
self-made insurance owned by Illinois Bell
magnate who wrote on succeeding in school it’s an Telephone Company. (Al later
positive thinking and advantage not to be became a public and
gave generous support stigmatized by race and community relations man for
to Chicago youth class, and to have credibility Illinois Bell and even later set
agencies, principally the and connections. up his own public relations
Boy’s Clubs and also the consulting business. Among
Some Lessons Learned About Teaching, Research, and Academic Disputation 3
his clients for help in a mayoralty race was That department was founded by and
Richard Hatcher, who became the first guided in its development by a student of
African American mayor of a major U.S. Franz Boas, Melville Herskovits, who had
city, Gary, Indiana.) Singers and dancers in specialized in study of the “African
“Teens with Talent” developed their own Diaspora”— tracing the lives of slaves who
songs and choreography, in the “Soul” style had been taken to the New World, and their
of the Motown Sound. One of my jobs with descendants—from West Africa, through
the program was to write out the words, the Caribbean and the American South.
melody, and chord changes for the songs Herkovits and his colleagues were interested
that were created by singing groups, since in African survival in New World
the young performers, who were mostly situations—a notion that was then
school dropouts, did not read and write controversial but since has been more and
words well, nor did they read musical more seriously considered.
notation. I was a scribe for the groups,
My idea was to trace West African
producing the written text for applications
patterns in musical style and in sociocultural
for copyright for their songs. I sat in on the
purposes of music in everyday life, as
composition process, watching as the young
musical practices traveled and were
men produced initial snatches of melodies
transformed in New World contexts, from
and some lyrics, and then—usually over the
the Caribbean to the rural American south,
space of two days of continuous, careful
and eventually to the urban American north
effort—crafted a whole song with complete
(ultimately showing up as African roots in
lyrics, melody, and accompaniment by two
the “Motown Sound” that was currently
guitars and drums, with dance steps for the
popular among the teenagers). Rather than
singers.
the then-typical curricula in “Negro
I remember being in the YMCA History,” which emphasized heroes and
Boy’s Section on weekday afternoons as kids holidays [in those days Booker T.
came in from school. They walked slowly, Washington (vocational education), George
with heads down, like zombies. After about Washington Carver (peanuts) and Charles
20 minutes it was as if they’d had oxygen— Drew (blood plasma and blood banks) were
they became more animated—the talkative, prominent, “safe” heroes] “Afro-American
curious, energetic kids I knew them to be. History in Music” would be about the
But their entry behavior was so consistent, I anonymous musicians and their audiences
wondered, “Why are they so shut down? Is who flourished, albeit within circumstances
it something about school?” I also listened of oppression, across the full
to older youth in a job training program, temporal/spatial scope of the West African
after they had come back from job Diaspora. I created teaching materials for
interviews. Quite often they would say eight sessions, for groups meeting once a
something like, “I talked to ‘the Man’ and he week after school. The sequence of topics
acted like I was stupid—like I didn’t know was chronological—starting with West
anything.” I wondered what was going on in Africa and then covering the Caribbean, the
those interviews. southern US, and culminating with the
urban north.
In the after-school program I
learned something fundamental about The very first meeting was held on a
curriculum and teaching. I had gotten the Wednesday afternoon at Project House, a
idea for the program from study in the community center in East Garfield Park
anthropology department at Northwestern. sponsored by the American Friends’ Service
Acquired Wisdom/Education Review 4
Committee, and then directed by Bernard began to explain the purposes of the
Lafayette, one of the original Freedom sessions—we listened to a few of the
Riders, who was working as an advance man musical clips, as she pointed out the skill
for Dr. King’s upcoming Northern involved in the polyrhythms of Yoruba and
Initiative. The group of about 10 middle Akan drum music from Nigeria, Ghana, and
school age boys and girls was taught by a Ivory Coast .
very experienced leader, Ella Jenkins, an
The next Wednesday all the young
African American folk singer and youth
people came back, and we went on with the
worker who had begun her career with the
sessions. Along the way we found that not
YWCA and who had made a series of
only was Africa an image of shame—so was
recordings of southern Negro children’s
the American South. It was “country.” This
songs on the Folklore label that were quite
in spite of—indeed because of the fact that
popular then among early childhood
all the African American young people
educators (and are still in use today).
whose families had recently arrived on
I had prepared slides, audiotape clips Chicago’s West Side had come from the
of music, and examples of musical South—mostly from the Mississippi Delta
instruments for each session, and I was and western Tennessee. But now they lived
present in the first session to run the in the “city” and for teenagers and even
projector and audio recorder so Ella could grade-schoolers, “country” was an epithet—
concentrate on leading group discussion. fights got started by calling somebody
The lights came down and the first slide “country.”
image came up on the projection screen. It
As a well-meaning white liberal
was an outline map of the African continent
ethnomusicologist/curriculum developer,
(the curriculum was organized
I’d prepared slides and musical examples of
chronologically). There was an awkward
unamplified (“box”)
silence as half the kids
guitar playing and blues
looked down from the
Lesson learned: good teaching singing by famous early
screen and actually slid
and subject matter doesn’t just blues artists and of rural
off their chairs to the
consist in logical organization church singing (“linin’
ground in
of content and clarity in its out”—“old Dr. Watts”)
embarrassment. In that
presentation (“I taught ‘em— and these were just as
moment Ella and I
embarrassing for the
realized that the put it out there--but they didn’t
kids, at first hearing, as
chronological sequence learn it.”) Good teaching and
had been the music
of topics, however subject matter have to take into from West Africa. They
logical it might have account the perspectives, even heard as “country”
been from a scholarly feelings, and identity the “urban blues” (with
point of view, was not commitments of learners.) amplified guitar) of
going to work with
Muddy Waters and B.B.
these kids, without
King. Never mind that
major interpretive framing. She asked them
there were lots of similarities in chord
to talk about it—one boy mumbled
progressions, rhythms, and vocal qualities
“Tarzan,” and the other kids laughed.
between urban blues and the “Motown
Africa, and its outline map, was a deeply felt
Sound”—what the kids heard was not
stigma for them. Ella—so skilled with
similarity but difference. Smoky Robinson
kids—listened, got the kids to say more
was “city”—B.B. King was “country.” (For
about their feelings of shame, and gently
Some Lessons Learned About Teaching, Research, and Academic Disputation 5
that matter, so was Dr. Martin Luther King appearing suddenly on the projection
seen as “country” by Lawndale teenagers. screen), bad breath is toxic for learning.
That was a problem with his and SCLC’s Teaching and curriculum, if it is to be
attempts at organizing.) We figured out ways effective, must take this into account. One
to get the kids to talk about their feelings, size does not fit all. That was a
and to some extent we could reframe with fundamentally important lesson I began to
them a less embarrassing look at the music learn as I watched kids slide off their chairs
of the American South, but the reframing in embarrassment at the beginning of the
had to be done—on the spot. Otherwise, no first “lesson” I had designed to be taught.
deal.
I decided to switch fields and work
Lesson learned: good teaching and in urban education, returning to
subject matter doesn’t just consist in logical Northwestern in the fall of 1966 with B. J.
organization of content and clarity in its Chandler, the dean of the school of
presentation (“I taught ‘em—put it out education, as my advisor. (Lesson learned: it
there—but they didn’t learn it.”) Good helps to have the dean as your advisor.)
teaching and subject matter have to take There were new kinds of studies forming—
into account the perspectives, feelings, and anthropology of education, ethnographic
identity commitments of learners. Learners studies of communication, sociolinguistics. I
“vote” on what they are being taught, as the started reading the recently published child
teaching is happening in real time. They can development literature on inner city children
vote “yes”—this feels like me—or they can and their families—and I was appalled. The
vote “no”—this is not me. (“You can bring children were described as cognitively and
a horse to water but you can’t make it linguistically deprived—yet I had met kids in
drink.”) In later years I developed this idea Lawndale who were curious, insightful,
as a notion of student learning what is being adept practitioners of verbal art, and good at
taught as a matter of political assent, and I argumentation. The literature said the kids
argued for the importance of identifying were incapable of sustained effort and
students’ lived experience of everyday life in attention, but I knew young men who
school (Erickson, 1987; Erickson et al., worked for months to buy a leather jacket,
2007). We don’t all occupy the same some of them who also played chess avidly
meaning-space, we inhabit differing and skillfully, and as already noted, others
lifeworlds, and that’s fundamental for who would craft songs carefully even as they
pedagogy. had trouble reading and writing. (Lesson
learned: don’t believe everything you see in
Certain learning environments can
print.)
have “bad breath” for students—that’s an
apt metaphor, since bad breath is not One of my teachers, the
necessarily intended but it’s a fact as anthropologist Edward T. Hall, was a
experienced with others in interaction. specialist in intercultural communication—
Whether the bad breath comes from a social and he showed us that what he called
arrangement in instruction (e.g. for me in “informal culture” can be especially
first grade reading instruction in the face troublesome in inter-ethnic
threat of “flash cards” about which I didn’t communication—patterns of thought,
know the right answer--so excruciating and action, and feeling we’re not consciously
overwhelming as a public display of my aware of as we learn and practice them.
incompetence), or from the subject matter Things go wrong in interaction with others
content (e.g. the outline map of Africa and we don’t know why it feels so awkward
Acquired Wisdom/Education Review 6
and alienating. [Years later my colleague cultural and community strengths rather
Susan Philips, studying Native American than deficits. About 10 years later I
kids at home and in school, would call this consulted some widely read introductory
“invisible culture” (Philips, 1983).] texts in educational psychology and found
the same early studies from the 1960s that
Two sociologists, Aaron Cicourel
I’d encountered as they were first appearing
and John Kitsuse, had recently published a
in print, cited now without critical
study of academic advising at Evanston high
commentary. (I’ve done this twice since, for
school, right up the street from
the 1990s and for the early years past 2000,
Northwestern. They reported that advisors,
with similar results.) Since the 1990s Luis
talking with Black and White students with
Moll and his colleagues have been studying
very similar academic records, tended to
families’ “funds of knowledge”—what they
discourage the educational aspirations of
know rather than what they don’t know
Black students and tended to encourage
(Moll et al., 1992), yet the deficit narratives
those of White students (Cicourel &
persist, coming out of the box again and
Kitsuse, 1963). I wondered if what Ned Hall
again, like Dracula.
had been thinking of as informal cultural
communication style had anything to do Why is this? First, the silo/bubble
with what Cicourel and Kitsuse had found filter situation in educational research. Child
with the academic advisors—how was development researchers and others weren’t
encouragement or discouragement being reading my work, and that of my colleagues,
done, interactionally? If I could get a tape or they were just dismissing it as
recorder in there—or better, a sound “qualitative” and “anecdotal.” Second, no
cinema camera or video camera—maybe I one would want to argue that poverty and
could find out. racial ethnic and language discrimination
don’t have negative effects. To grow up in
Fast forward to more lessons
Lawndale was not easy. That was evident,
learned. First lesson: the endurance of
even though as an outsider I was only
“deficit” perspectives on inner city children
partially able to recognize and understand
and their parents. I got my Ph.D. in 1969
everyday life there. And it’s not to say that I
and began life as a full time university
never met a teenager or adult there who was
professor—teaching first at the new campus
lazy, self-destructive, or violent—of course I
of the University of Illinois in Chicago, then
did. One can always find instances of
Harvard, Michigan State, Penn and finally
ignorance and moral turpitude in
UCLA, across 43 years, until 2011. At each
neighborhoods where poor people of non-
university I went to (and in each public
dominant backgrounds live—as well as in
school as I began to study early grades
neighborhoods where rich White people
classrooms using video and long term
live. The majority of people I met in
participant observation) I would find
Lawndale were working hard, living
versions of the “deficit” image of inner city
reasonable, orderly lives, albeit in difficult
kids (or Native American kids).
circumstances. (My friend Ray McDermott
Descriptions of what they didn’t have,
says that “everybody’s busy” and
rather than what they had. In the early 1970s
“everybody’s making sense.” Some of this
my own cohort of young scholars (many of
agency and sense-making may be taking
us inspired by Ed Gordon [2017), for a
place in conditions of oppression, but it’s
recent summary of his views], among
still agency and sense.)
others—he was one of my heroes then, and
he still is) did a variety of studies showing
Some Lessons Learned About Teaching, Research, and Academic Disputation 7
classes in introductory qualitative research expressed doubts about the task, “If you
methods. That was the easy part. write this chapter you will become the
‘Donald Campbell’ of qualitative research
Jere called me to his office to have a
on teaching.” (Lee was referring to the wide
discussion of my chapter draft. He said that
influence of Campbell’s chapter on
he thought the second half of my chapter
experimental methods, co-authored with
was the clearest explication of qualitative
Julian Stanley, which had appeared in the
methods that he’d ever seen (and he noted
first edition of the Handbook of Research on
that he had started out preparing to be a
Teaching, whose editor was Nathaniel Gage.)
clinical psychologist, so he had a certain feel
I thought that Lee was exaggerating. (He
for qualitative work). BUT, he said, the first
was very persuasive in urging people
half of the chapter was “just politics. It will
forward—behind his back we called him the
make a lot of people angry, and that’s not
“Pied Piper of research on teaching.”) As it
necessary and not in your interest.” So his
played out, the chapter I wrote was indeed
advice was to delete the first half of the
very timely. It was widely read and
chapter. I thought the first half was more
influential, and it continues to be cited still
than “just politics”—it was the most
today.
important part of the chapter—an attempt
to raise and discuss issues that hadn’t been In the year the Handbook appeared in
yet addressed by previous writing on print I was invited to speak on methods of
qualitative methods for educational research. research on teaching in a dialogue session at
Consequently I insisted that the first half be the annual meeting of the American
left in the chapter, and that is how it was Educational Research Association. The
eventually published. (Lesson learned—if you other presenter was to be David Berliner, a
believe in your work, don’t let it be silenced. process-product researcher who had been a
More on that later, on sticking to your student of Gage. I approached this “battle
guns.) of the bands” session with trepidation, but
only wrote out a few notes because I had no
At the time I undertook that essay I
idea what would happen in the encounter. I
couldn’t anticipate its consequences as they
came early to the session, with a slight
unfolded in later years. Lee Shulman had
hangover from convention celebration the
said to me, by way of encouragement as I
night before. It was a big room and already
100 people were there. At least 150 more
entered and settled. (“Oh-oh,” I thought—
“This is going to be a big deal. I’m in real
trouble, and I didn’t even prepare.”) As I
remember it, Berliner spoke first and he was
very reasonable. He even said some
complimentary things about ethnography.
Instead of the dog-fight I was expecting, the
session turned into a relatively ecumenical
discussion of differing points of view—and
some similarities. (It reminded me of my
earlier experience at the YMCA, where I
met Republican businessmen who were
members of our board and some of whom
seemed genuinely concerned about the
conditions of poverty and racism found in
Acquired Wisdom/Education Review 10
in a friendly way he gave me sage advice. He introduced myself and my wife and this time
said that as I’d dug in my heels in the board Nate was cordial. He told me what he was
meeting I was fighting a battle that was there for and I told him about my cellulitis,
impossible to win. It wasn’t worth dying in a which I thought was pretty much resolved
ditch over. I said, “But much of what the at that point. He said that before we left the
IRT is producing is pedestrian, or just plain Center he’d like to invite us to dinner. We
wrong!” David smiled and said, “You know, exchanged email addresses, and sure enough
you and I are lucky when anything we do is in about a week an invitation came from
even half right— in other words, at best all him. We joined Nate and his
of us are usually half wrong.” (And so, caretaker/assistant at an outdoor table at a
“Fred—lighten up, pick your fights more local restaurant and had a very enjoyable
carefully, and don’t assume that anyone is evening. He said he was working on a book
absolutely right, including you.”) That was on teaching that would argue for more
wise counsel. whole group direct instruction in
classrooms. I didn’t think that was a good
A few years later I discovered that
idea, but the combination of David Cohen’s
Nate Gage had named me as a poster boy in
advice and the passage of time since then
the paradigm wars over qualitative versus
had helped me contain the impulse to argue
quantitative research (Gage, 1989). I met
with Nate. He died two years later, at the
him for the first time in the fall of 1998
end of the summer. Nate’s graciousness was
when I became a Spencer Fellow at the
another lesson for me in not “othering”
Center for Advanced Study in the
those with whom you disagree.
Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. The
director of the Center, Neil Smelser, hosted I think that the positive frame for
a reception for new fellows at his house, and our meeting in the doctor’s office had to do
former fellows, including Gage and Lee with lessons from experience I learned
Shulman were there. Lee introduced me to during the course of research—lessons
Gage, who did a double take at the about what we came to call “co-
introduction—I may have been membership” (more on co-membership
oversensitive but I thought he looked at me later). Various lessons came from a line of
with a startle response, as if I were research I began soon after completing my
dangerous. My next encounter with Nate Ph.D. My dissertation research had been on
came in May 2006, near the end of a argumentation in small groups of early
subsequent year of residence at the Center. teens, using audio recording. Ned Hall
I’d gone to a doctor’s office for a checkup advised me to apply for funds from the
on a cellulitis infection I’d contracted in my Center for Metropolitan Problems at NIMH
left leg on a return flight from a brief for a study of inter-racial and inter-ethnic
speaking relations in urban job-
engagement in interviews and academic
Lesson learned—find peers
Sweden. As I advising interviews. (Lesson
who really understand what
entered the waiting learned: tips about funding can
room, accompanied you are trying to do, and create be very helpful.) This was a
by my wife I your own “invisible college” on chance to follow up on the
recognized Nate, a small scale. Then stay with it issues that Cicourel and
who was for the rest of your career. Kitsuse had raised in their
accompanied by a study of advising. I was able
caretaker/assistant. He was there for to make sound cinema films of “gatekeeping
monitoring a chronic condition. I interviews” with simultaneous video
Acquired Wisdom/Education Review 12
recording to see what was going on in trying to do, and create your own “invisible
“talking to the Man.” The interviews were college” on a small scale. Then stay with it
filmed in Chicago in 1970-71 and I spent for the rest of your career.
the next four years intensively analyzing the
During the mid-1970s I was
films, having moved by then to teach at
encouraged also by some senior scholars,
Harvard.
including a well-known linguistic
It was lonely work—almost no one anthropologist, John Gumperz from UC
was doing it then. I met fellow junior Berkeley, as well as by Courtney Cazden and
scholars who thought I was only a little Beatrice Whiting and Laurence Wylie at
crazy, Ray McDermott (a student of George Harvard (Lesson learned: Find at least a few
Spindler) and Bud Mehan (a student of more advanced colleagues as mentors. Also
Aaron Cicourel). Together with my first lesson learned—stick to your guns; don’t
doctoral student Jeffrey Shultz we started to give up or compromise on innovative work.
present together at academic meetings, Take a chance.)
hanging out together on afternoons and
Over the years my research interest
evenings in our hotel rooms, showing each
in gatekeeping encounters continued—
other video and film footage as work in
situations of face to face interaction
progress. This wasn’t just encouragement—
between an institutional officer and
it was brainstorming and criticism, albeit
someone whose performance is being
criticism of a friendly sort. As peers we
judged. The first kinds of gatekeeping I
could have competed (and inevitably there
studied were, as noted, job interviews and
was a little of that among us) but
academic advising. In later research I
overwhelmingly what we were doing was
considered school classroom gatekeeping in
collaborating, developing new approaches to
studies of elementary school teachers, and
close analysis and transcription of social
medical service provision gatekeeping in
interaction, using audiovisual records as a
studies of physicians with patients.
primary data source. Because the equipment
we carried through airports on the way to One lesson learned was that
academic meetings was so cumbersome (reel gatekeeping situations are not only
to reel video playback decks, slow motion ubiquitous in modern life, but that life
16 mm cinema projectors, and big speakers chances are directly affected by the ways
for sound) Jeff Shultz came up with a interaction takes place there—felicitously or
whimsical name for our group—the infelicitously. These are sites in which, to
“SHLEPPERS.” (This was deliberately use more recent language, social
spelled differently from the Yiddish term reproduction or transformation happens,
“schlep”—it stood for “The society for the right on the ground. Domination doesn’t
hermeneutic location of everyday practices, occur automatically, or anonymously, just as
primarily in educational research settings.) a result of abstract, impersonal social forces.
Over the years a few more members were The wider social order may influence the
inducted—we had become a tiny “invisible local order, constraining choices there, but
college” (the term is Francis Bacon’s) who domination, or resistance, or transformation
shared specialized skills and interests, ultimately happen in what Goffman called
gathering as opportunities arose. The the “interaction order” as people deal with
original SHLEPPERS are still in touch one another face to face. (Goffman, 1983;
today, continuing to provide advice and see also Mehan, 1978) When things go sour
support to each other. Lesson learned—find in those encounters, those who are gatekept
peers who really understand what you are experience what my UCLA colleague Daniel
Some Lessons Learned About Teaching, Research, and Academic Disputation 13
Solorzano and other colleagues have come there with me, all the way. What resulted
to call “micro-aggressions”—micro in that was a new insight—yes, cultural differences
they happen over and over, not in that they in communication style could make for
are necessarily tiny (Yosso, Smith, Ceja, & misunderstanding and negative treatment in
Solórzano 2009). institutional encounters—and that’s what
happened quite often, all other things being
Another lesson learned came as a
equal. But all wasn’t equal—there was an
group of graduate students and I began data
intervening factor. Looking at the positive
analysis at Harvard. Jeff Shultz had a key
instances of inter-racial and inter-ethnic
role in this as a doctoral student--he had a
interaction we realized that as they talked
wonderful nose for evidence and patterns.
the advisor and student had revealed
(He had been “given” to me by Bea
similarities in background—that they were
Whiting—the famous anthropologist who
both knowledgeable
was now my senior
Deficit views and othering are about Catholic high
colleague and who
powerful, but not totally powerful. school league sports
had been Jeff’s
scores, or that they had
advisor. She said, That is perhaps the most
both gotten traffic tickets
“You should have a important lesson I have learned.
without having done
really good research
anything wrong, or that
assistant.”) As we carefully transcribed
they were both the youngest children in
speech and nonverbal behavior on the films
their families. We coined a term for this—
and read transcripts of comments made by
situational co-membership. What invoking
the advisor and the student as they reviewed
co-membership does is to humanize the
video of their interview in separate “viewing
person you are talking to—it’s grounds for
sessions” something odd was happening. I
solidarity in an “us” relationship rather than
had expected that the more culturally and
a “them” relationship. (See Erickson, 1975;
socially “different” were the interlocutors in
Erickson & Shultz 1982) Lessons learned:
the interviews, the more interactional
always pay attention to discrepant cases, and
stumbling would occur—behaviorally
try to learn with and from your students.
evident discomfort—and more negative
interpersonal attributions. Conversely, if the Conclusion. I’ve recounted here some
advisor and the student were ethnically and things learned from experience concerning
racially similar I expected things to go more teaching, research, and academic
smoothly and positively. disputation. In teaching I learned the
importance of student assent to learn, and
Overall that was the case, but there
the power of students to withhold that
were exceptions—some intra-racial
assent. In research I learned the importance
interviews did not go smoothly at all, and
of being open to surprises and changes of
some inter-racial interviews seemed to go
mind, looking closely at all your evidence
well, with advisor and student both
and not sweeping any of it under the rug. In
expressing positive reactions to each other.
academic disputation I learned about tribal
For a while I was tempted to take the
isolation and siloing across disciplines in the
discrepant cases out of the analysis—but
field of education, and the difficult but
Jeff insisted that we keep thinking about
important matter of trying to avoid
it—and he was thus supporting the better
“othering” those with whom you disagree. I
angels of my nature as a researcher—
also learned a great deal from my early
actually deep down I too really wanted to
experience in Lawndale, recognizing over
struggle with this conundrum. Jeff stayed
time that in trying to help kids and adults
Acquired Wisdom/Education Review 14
actual human beings in Lawndale as well as and myself in the doctor’s office in Palo
by marching in the streets of Chicago with Alto—we shared co-membership in being ill
Dr. King, I had learned to distrust the and in seeing the same physician.) Academic
deficit narratives. Since then I’ve tried advisors, job interviewers, police, physicians,
through my teaching and research to can establish co-membership in their
produce counter-narratives that challenge interaction with clients, citizens, patients.
deficit assumptions, while not Teachers can foster co-membership with
underestimating their persuasive power as and among students in their classrooms.
uncritically accepted common sense. This is to say that default patterns in social
reproduction—domination and repression,
And in studying gatekeeping in
micro-aggressions—are not inevitable—they
social interaction, my students and
can be interrupted. (For more extensive
colleagues and I discovered that co-
discussion on determinism and its
membership changes the frame of routine
discontents, the “free will and necessity”
institutional encounters—it humanizes—
argument, see Erickson, 2004) Deficit views
providing ground for empathy and
and othering are powerful, but not totally
solidarity, an antidote for “othering.” (That’s
powerful. That is perhaps the most
what had been going on with Nate Gage
important lesson I have learned.
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Some Lessons Learned About Teaching, Research, and Academic Disputation 17
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