Sociolinguistic Fieldwork Assignment 2

Campus Questions

Part A.
Instructions: Complete the chart by interviewing three students who you do not know well and who do not study in the CoE. Your
participants should NOT look up any information before or while you are interviewing them. Write down the first name of each
interviewee and their answers as completely as possible.

S1: S2: S3: S4: Elementary

Computer Science- Nik Bio Chemistry - Sylena Psychology - Matt Education - Stephanie
1. How do you define Culture is traditions and Culture shapes your Culture is how a group Culture is the attitude
"culture"? What stuff. personal beliefs. of people in a certain and behavior
defines your area or region live or characteristics of a
culture? My racial heritage, My experience that act. It’s different particular social group.
because it’s handed shaped culture is the between different races It differs between races,
down to you so you media, magazines, of people and and locations, as well as
should hold on to it. religion. Probably the geographic location. how people are raised,
education system as There’s how you are values and beliefs.
well. raised also.
My culture is defined by
My culture is defined by my mom, my dad, my
mostly by my mom and family in general.
my dad being in the Where we have lived,
Navy. Different kinds of and my father’s service
food and living different in the US Army.
places, and being a
military brat has
effected that.
2. How do you define Race is a construct but Race is based on Race is the color of your Race is a group of
"race"? What is your biologically it’s alleles. physical appearance and skin and more social people who share
race? has nothing to do or aspects. physical traits and
explain your ethnicity. commonalities.
 Going off social But, people think it I am mixed race. My race is Caucasian
definitions I am does. and Latina.
Caucasian and African
American. My race is white.

3. How do you define Ethnicity is also a Ethnicity is, honestly, Ethnicity is cultural Ethnicity is groups of
"ethnicity"? Of what construct but if you basically where you’re heritage that you people from the same
ethnicity are you? want to get into it, it is from. Or where your identify with the most. culture, sharing
where your heritage lies family is from and can language, and
from. influence your beliefs White, American. nationality.
and behavior.
Well, I was born in the I am Panamanian, as
united states so legally My ethnicity, is well as Caucasian. I was
I’m considered Caucasian, but my dad born from Panama like
American. However, is half Cuban. Where my brother and mother,
ethnically I am a my family is from and get many beliefs,
human. Or you could doesn’t really influence values and traditions
also consider me my values or beliefs. from there. However I
Caucasian and African was raised primarily in
American. the US and my father is
from here as well.

4. Define "stereotype." Stereotypes are what a A stereotype is a Stereotypes are the most Stereotypes are ideas
Describe some large group of people generalization made common discrimination that people have about
stereotypes you have think is socially about a person that or perceptions of people certain people, races,
about people from accurate to a certain predicts their behavior, that may be good or genders, and religions.
other cultures, races, group. beliefs and their bad. Mostly based on looks,
or ethnicities. Where experiences, etc. culture, age, gender, the
 did you learn these Being raised abroad, “Tall white guys can’t medias representation,
stereotypes? you (him personally) I try to question the jump.” and personal
kind of don’t get that. stereotypes I was taught experiences with a
My parents didn’t allow by my family members A movie, the media. person or culture.
that. and peers, but I think I
still generally assume While I try not to
that Asian students will stereotype and keep an
do better in school open mind. When I was
because they are raised in high school I did
to persevere when think that Mormons
school is challenging could be kind of pushy
and value education when it comes to their
more than most religion.
American students.
Where I live currently
there is a large Mormon
population. A lot of
neighbors and kids I
went to school with
would often talk a lot
about their religion and
could be quite insistent
about offering
invitations to their
church.

Part B.
Instructions: Reflect on the responses you obtained. What patterns do you see? How/why are the responses similar/different? How do
they differ from you own responses? What do these responses imply for teachers? In a page or less, explain what you learned from this
experience and how it might impact your future teaching.
I noticed that there were a lot off patterns on how people answered race and ethnicity. There seems to be a confusion or a notion that
they are the same. Since I’ve already taken TCH&LRN 301 and this class I’ve had an advantage to answering these but still had some
difficulties of my own. I also noticed that the stereotypes differ a lot from where people were raised and how they were brought up. I
do think that as a whole we all try to avoid stereotypes because we all recognize they are not correct and usually not positive
generalizations. We are going to have a lot of different students in our classrooms. They will not all have the same definitions,
thoughts or ideas about any one of these words and topics. We must work to give them correct information and help them form their
own opinions and definitions of these things. Also, we must work to prove stereotyping is not something positive or something that we
encourage but recognize that we do it and how to challenge these types of generalizations. As teachers we will have to encourage and
create a very engaged and thoughtful classroom culture that embraces everyone and keeps an open mind as well as challenge any
negative thoughts or generalization with education. It makes me really come back to and reflect upon how different people are. Also,
how much culture really does impact the way we think, act, speak, and form opinions. I will try to model to my students an open mind
and heart. I will always welcome questions and give knowledge, perspective, and hopefully teach understanding so that my achievers
and future adults will have solid definitions and open minds and hearts as well.