Anastasia Zhuravleva will be defending her PhD dissertation proposal at 2pm Pacific Time on Thursday, August 11. The presentation will take place via Zoom:
All are welcome to attend.
Join Zoom Meeting (please arrive 5 minutes early)
Meeting ID: 631 1149 7689
Passcode: 299473
Supervisor: Dr. Candace Galla & Dr. Ryuko Kubota
Committee Members: Dr. Meike Wernicke
Title: Integrating Indigenous and Minority Cultures in Foreign Language Teaching in Russia: A Mixed Methods Study
Abstract:
Knowledge of a foreign language is frequently conceptualized as a skill necessary for socioeconomic mobility as well as international and intercultural communication. Within standardized curricula, it can also be a valuable space for students to affirm and express their cultural identities by virtue of learning how to tell others about themselves and understand others. In Russia, a linguistically and culturally diverse country and home to at least 190 ethnic groups and 117 languages, the question of which identities and cultures to include in the school classroom, when and why becomes an important issue. In this study, I will focus on teachers of foreign languages, mainly English, German, and French, in Russia and explore their experiences and perspectives on integrating civic (i.e., national) and ethnic (ethnocultural) identities – specifically Indigenous and minority cultures – into their teaching. Working from a critical theoretical framework incorporating critical and culturally sustaining pedagogies, I aim to make sense of the place foreign language teaching occupies in Russia as a linguistically and culturally diverse country, and the transformative potential that it may have as an identity-affirming and sustaining space for teachers and students.
Using an explanatory sequential mixed methods design, a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews will be conducted online. In the first phase, a questionnaire will be distributed among foreign language teachers in Russia, with the goal of gathering approximately 100-150 responses. Afterwards, semi-structured interviews will be conducted with 10-12 teachers to expand upon the initial quantitative data with deeper qualitative accounts. Through a descriptive statistical analysis of the quantitative data and a reflexive thematic analysis of the interview data, I hope to provide a rich, multi-faceted description of the overall situation.
While this study is situated in Russia, the issues discussed are relevant to many multicultural countries where the integration of Indigenous and minority cultures in curriculums is an important issue, as well as countries where cultural and language maintenance and revitalization efforts are in process.