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Constructing Membership Identity through Language and Social Interaction: The Case of African American Children at Faith Missionary Baptist Church
Author(s) -
PeeleEady Tryphenia B.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
anthropology and education quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.531
H-Index - 46
eISSN - 1548-1492
pISSN - 0161-7761
DOI - 10.1111/j.1548-1492.2010.01110.x
Subject(s) - ethnography , faith , sociology , african american , gender studies , identity (music) , black church , competence (human resources) , pedagogy , anthropology , social psychology , theology , psychology , philosophy , physics , acoustics
In this article, the author explores how African American children in a Black church Sunday school community in northern California developed positive membership identity. Focal participants were Sunday school children ages 9 to 12 and their Sunday school teachers. Drawn from a two‐year ethnographic study, data showed that adults prepared children for membership through an interactive framework of instruction, which also formed the base for communicative competence in the setting. The author describes this framework and offers new insight into conditions that give rise to African American student success. [African American children, church, identity, communicative competence]