Ethics and Education in Linguistically Diverse Classrooms

This ethnography of language and education considers the ethics of pedagogy for linguistically and culturally diverse students. It does so by drawing on the existentialist ethics of the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. Following the Levinasian connection between ethics and language, the study explores the ethical challenges and possibilities confronting teachers of junior school students (ages 6-10) who speak languages in addition to or other than the dominant language which, in this study's Canadian context, is English.

In particular, the study looks at images of self and other as they manifest themselves in pedagogical practices, and it elaborates relations of responsibility between teachers and students. The data include in-depth interviews with and extended observations of teachers in their publicly-funded, mainstream Anglophone school in Mississauga, Canada. The findings suggest that teachers with flexible linguistic identities are more amenable to pedagogical practices supportive of linguistic diversity during the regular school day while teachers with less equivocal linguistic identities are more sympathetic to a monolingual mandate.

CHAPTER ONE.
PROBLEMATIC: ETHICAL PRACTICE IN LINGUISTICALLY DIVERSE CLASSROOMS 6

CHAPTER TWO.
PEDAGOGICAL RESPONSIBILITY AS ETHICAL ENGENDERMENT: EMMANUEL LEVINAS

CHAPTER THREE.
AN EMPIRICAL INQUIRY INTO IMAGES OF SELF AND OTHER IN LINGUISTICALLY DIVERSE CLASSROOMS

CHAPTER FOUR..
TEACHING LINGUISTICALLY DIVERSE STUDENTS: IMAGES OF SELF AND OTHER IN LANGUAGE

CHAPTER FIVE.
TEACHING LINGUISTICALLY DIVERSE STUDENTS: IMAGES OF SELF AND OTHER IN PEDAGOGY

CHAPTER SIX.
THE INTERPLAY OF SELF AND OTHER

Works Cited

Notes