At the Intersection Between Corporate Transnationalism and Educational Processes
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The Social Organization of High School Sojourner Experiences: At the Intersection between Corporate Transnationalism and Educational Processes DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Mariko Mizuno Alexander, M.A. Graduate Program in Education and Human Ecology The Ohio State University 2014 Dissertation Committee: Jan Nespor, Advisor Keiko Samimy, Advisor Antoinette Errante Mari Haneda Copyrighted by Mariko Mizuno Alexander 2014 Abstract Despite the urgent need to improve US education for the ever-increasing population of recently-arrived secondary English language learners (ELLs) (Gándara & Baca, 2008; Lazarín, 2006), relatively little attention has been paid to the unique challenges and struggles these ELLs encounter. This three-paper dissertation aims to contribute to the development of scholarly knowledge of transnationalism and secondary ESL education by investigating how the everyday experience of Japanese high school sojourner students—a group of late-entrant transnational ELLs—is socially and institutionally organized. This research uses a sociological method of inquiry known as institutional ethnography (Smith, 1987, 2005). The first paper examines strategies that Japanese sojourners use to negotiate the institutional demands of US high school life while also calculating how their choices and performance will promote access to higher education in Japan. Despite the temporo- spatial constraints imposed by corporate transnationalism, Japanese sojourners actively carve out their future educational paths across borders through the effective but high- stakes strategy of graduating a year early from US high schools. I call this early graduation scheme a gambit because the sojourners sacrifice beneficial opportunities and even risk their graduation itself in the hope of securing a positional advantage upon their return to Japan. This paper addresses the sojourners’ distinctive educational experiences ii and needs characterized by the involuntary, transient, and precarious nature of their stay in the US. The second paper examines the realities of high-stakes testing experienced by Japanese sojourners, particularly late-entrant ELLs, focusing on one big risk factor in early graduation gambit—state-mandated high school exit exams—and the sojourners’ strategies for maneuvering the academic and linguistic challenges posed by the exams. These Japanese ELLs deliberately flunk the state English language proficiency tests and maintain the ESL status in order to avoid losing ESL accommodations, without which they would have little hope of passing the high school exit exams. This paper highlights the underlying issue of test validity and fairness and the importance of ensuring equitable treatment for transnational ELLs. The third paper examines how the organizational structure of US public high school education regulates late-entrant Japanese sojourners’ second language (L2) interactional opportunities, opportunities which the second language acquisition (SLA) and L2 learning literature has found necessary for successful L2 development (e.g., Long, 1996; Lantolf, 2000). Findings show that late-entrant Japanese sojourners’ peer interactions and social lives differ markedly from those of long-term sojourners who came to the US as elementary students, and that American high schools’ structural constraints draw social boundaries, and limit interaction, between ELLs and American students. Intertwined with the school organizational structure are ideological discourse on limited English proficiency, marginalizing ELLs and imposing different academic expectations on sojourners who stay in versus those who test out of the ESL program. iii The three papers together show how the actualities of Japanese high school sojourners’ lives in a local setting are translocally coordinated at the intersection of corporate transnationalism and educational policies and practices. iv Dedicated to My beloved daughter Emily Hazel Alexander & My caring and hard-working mom Haruko Mizuno v Acknowledgments First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my advisor, Dr. Jan Nespor, who has provided excellent guidance and extremely helpful advice throughout my time as his student. Dr. Nespor’s profound wisdom, knowledge, and commitment to the highest standards have inspired and motivated me. I am very lucky to have an advisor who cared so much about my work and gave me insightful, critical, and constructive comments on my writing, which always resulted in so much improvement of the drafts. Without his guidance and help, this research would not have been possible. I would also like to thank my program advisor, Dr. Keiko Samimy, for being so caring and supportive during this long and difficult, but rewarding journey. I am particularly thankful to her for the valuable opportunity to present my research and discuss it with her students in her class. Her comments and her students’ feedback were very helpful. I am very grateful to Dr. Mari Haneda (Penn State) for guiding me through the first half of my doctoral study and candidacy exam as my advisor, staying in my committee and giving invaluable suggestions about research and informative career advice. She has been a great mentor and role model. I greatly appreciate every opportunity to work with her, from assisting in her research project to co-authoring papers. I have developed so vi much from the professional development opportunities she gave me to serve as a journal and conference reviewer. I would not be the emerging researcher I am without Dr. Haneda. I thank Dr. Antoinette Errante for giving me book suggestions and for her thoughtful comments in my proposal defense. Her course introduced me to qualitative research methods, and her lectures and assignments helped me develop a foundation for educational research. I would like to express special thanks to my loving husband Sam for his patience, support, encouragement, and constant faith in me. I gratefully acknowledge those countless late nights he spent proofreading my drafts and his perceptive comments on a number of points in this dissertation. Gratitude goes to my family in Japan—my parents Haruko Mizuno and Takuo Mizuno, my sister Emi Mizuno, my aunt Dr. Yoriko Nishitani, and my “brother” Dr. Yoshifumi Nakamura—who have always supported me in so many ways, encouraged me, and believed in me. Finally, I wish to thank the Kōnosuke Matsushita Memorial Foundation for their generous financial assistance (grant number: 11-004), which allowed me to conduct this research. vii Vita March 1991 ....................................................Kōka Gakuen High School, Tokyo, Japan March 1995 ....................................................B.A. English Language and Literature, Tsuda College, Tokyo, Japan April 1995 to March 2008..............................Full-time English (EFL) Teacher Fujimi Junior and Senior High School Tokyo, Japan August 2000 ...................................................Awarded M.A. Scholarship by Fujimi Junior and Senior High School, Tokyo, Japan August 2001 ...................................................M.A. Gender and Cultural Studies, Simmons College, Boston, Massachusetts August 2009 to December 2009 ....................Full-time Japanese Teacher Columbus Japanese Language School Columbus, Ohio January 2010 to June 2013 .............................Graduate Administrative Associate Cataloging Department, University Libraries The Ohio State University viii July 2011 ........................................................Awarded Dissertation Grant The Kōnosuke Matsushita Memorial Foundation, Japan May 2013 .......................................................M.A. Foreign, Second, and Multilingual Language Education, The Ohio State University Publications Alexander, M. M. (in press). The early graduation gambit of Japanese high-school sojourners in the US: Organizing educational paths across borders. Asia Pacific Journal of Education. Mizuno, M., Cheng, Y. & Lee, Y. (2010 April 20). Review of Reading and Language Learning by Keiko Koda. Educational Review, 13. http://edrev.asu.edu/reviews/rev908.pdf Fields of Study Major Field: Education and Human Ecology Specialization: Foreign, Second, and Multilingual Language Education ix Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. vi Vita ................................................................................................................................... viii List of Tables .................................................................................................................... xv List of Figures .................................................................................................................. xvi Chapter 1: Introduction ...................................................................................................... 1 Statement of the Problem ................................................................................................ 5 Objectives of the Study ................................................................................................. 10 Research Questions ......................................................................................................