Third ISA Forum of Sociology (July 10-14, 2016)

JS-27

Language in Children's Socialization

RC25 Language and Society (host committee)
RC53 Sociology of Childhood

Language: English

The relationships between socialization and language are the object of different areas of enquiry, including the organization of classroom interaction (Mehan, 1979), intercultural pragmatics (Dervin and Liddicoat, 2013), the relation between children’s language and their educational success (Stubbs, 2012), language policies in education (Cooper, 1989). Another strand of research which has been developing in the last years concerns the role of language in identifying, manipulating, and changing power relations between people in educational institutions, in particular in multicultural settings, with obvious impact on the quality of children’s social participation. 
Parallel to this, since the early 1990s research on language and socialization has pioneered the theorization of identity as negotiated in public discourse and interaction, in which it becomes more fluid and mixed, enhancing intercultural dialogue (Baraldi, 2013). By theorizing and researching at the intersection of language and socialization, sociology claims a role in the public debate,  challenging the individual and social construction of essentialist narratives in which cultural identities are considered fixed and separated. This session welcomes contributions:

• analyzing the interconnections between children’s socialization and adult-children interactions, both inside and outside formal education settings;
• theorizing on the negotiation of cultures and identity in the discourse on education and childhood;
• exploring forms of socialization alternative to hierarchical and traditional forms of teaching, where interaction underpins a concept of socialization where children are not passive receivers of information but active participants of their constructions of meanings and social practices, influencing the cultural and social situations in which they are involved.

Posters: