A Study of Working Intelligence

Yolanda Majors

This study proposes to continue a line of research that closely examines the skilled practices of working participants within a high-tech, multifaceted, urban African American hair salon and spa. I look to consider how cultural funds of knowledge correspond with domain specific skills to achieve work-task related goals. My central concern is how speakers of African American English (AAE) grapple with work related tasks by making use of related knowledge, skills and culturally situated norms for talk. I intend to identify the skilled, manual performances on multiple tasks within one workplace and their systematic characteristics as they contribute to teaching and learning within that context. I will analyze audio and videotapes, field notes, focus group interviews and transcripts of recorded activity. Analysis will focus on task related skills, interaction patterns, the role and structure of discourse, and the nature of task related problem solving. Based on the questions addressed in this study, I will then be able to take this knowledge and inform curriculum design.

About Yolanda Majors

My name is Yolanda J. Majors and I am an Assistant Professor in the College of Education at The University of Illinois at Chicago. My recent distinctions and honors include the 2002 Promising Researcher Award from the National Council of Teachers of English. My work is a part of recent efforts of literacy research to examine how users of African American English (AAE) fare in the unique, yet under explored contexts of community settings. My work is characterized by two interwoven themes, one of teacher development and the other of community literacy in academic contexts. The goal of my research is twofold: 1) to identify teacher beliefs in order to understand the multiple dynamics of Secondary Language Arts teachers’ resistant responses to specific components of a culturally responsive Language Arts curriculum; and 2) to locate culturally situated mediational tools to aid in teacher’s understandings of community based discourse practices. I have found that during the implementation of this curriculum, teachers demonstrate kinds of resistance to the curriculum and the culturally relevant texts that support it. This work suggests that major contextual barriers to change should be identified and support should be provided to help teachers interpret and rethink their practice. Despite collaborative efforts, participants were found to maintain their entry-level fundamental beliefs about the nature of Literature, Language Arts content knowledge, teaching, and assessment practices. These themes appear throughout my research, teaching and service and my aim to broaden the landscape of culturally situated teaching and learning.