Social Organizational Factors in Learning to Read: The Balance of Rights Hypothesis

• Published in: Reading research quarterly 1981-01, Vol.17 (1), p.115-152
• Main Authors: Au, Kathryn Hu-Pei, Mason, Jana M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Academic achievement; Children; Childrens rights; Classroom interaction; Learning; Reading research; Reading tables; Silent reading; Teachers; Volunteerism
• ISSN: 0034-0553
• DOI: 10.2307/747251

This study provides a preliminary test of the social organizational hypothesis, that poor school achievement by many minority children is related to the nature of teacher-pupil classroom interaction. The specific focus was on the relationships between different patterns of interaction and learning to read. A total of four videotaped reading lessons, given by two teachers to the same group of disadvantaged 7 year-old Hawaiian students, were analyzed. One teacher (LC) had had little contact with Hawaiian children, while the other (HC) had worked successfully with Hawaiian students for five years. Consistent with their backgrounds, it was found that the two teachers managed interaction in their lessons very differently. Teacher LC used participation structures which are commonly used with children from the mainstream culture; the major structure requires them to wait to be called on and to speak one at a time. On the other hand, Teacher HC conducted much of her lessons in a different participation structure, one which allowed the children to share turns in joint performance. This structure follows interactional rules much like those in talk story, a common non-classroom speech event for Hawaiian children. The results supported a social organizational hypothesis. The lessons of Teacher HC displayed much higher levels of achievement-related student behavior than those of Teacher LC. Furthermore, student productivity appeared to vary as a function of specific characteristics of participation structures, within and across the lessons of the two teachers. A new construct, the balance of rights in speaking and turntaking between teacher and students, was formulated to explain the relationship between classroom social structure and student productivity./// [French] Cette étude fournit un test préliminaire à l'hypothèse sociale d'organisation qui propose que l'accomplissement scolaire médiocre de plusieurs enfants de groupes minoritaires, est relié à la nature de l'échange entre enseignant et éléves en classe. Le point central spécifique était basé sur le rapport entre différents modèles d'échange et l'apprentissage de la lecture. On a analysé un total de quatre leçons de lecture en bande vidéo données par deux enseignants au même groupe d'éléves hawaïens désavantagés agés de sept ans. Un enseignant (LC)1 avait eu un contact minime avec les étudiants hawaïens, tandis que l'autre (HC)2 avait travaillé avec les étudiants hawaïens pendant cinq ans avec grand succès. Se