Browsing by Author "Wilburn, Shelly"

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    The social regulation of literacy through teacher expectations
    (2012) Wilburn, Shelly; Hoadley, Ursula; Muller, Johan
    This study is motivated by the problematic of underdeveloped literacy skills, particularly the reading and writing skills of at-risk learners, and draws theoretical support from Basil Bernstein’s sociology of education linked with the ‘school effectiveness’ theory of teacher expectations. I suggest a relation between the social context or community of a school, the culture and order of the school, and forms of teacher expectations, to propose a school-level expectation orientation that suggests a particular theory of instruction. For my investigation of teacher expectations, I select two contrasting, relatively high-performing, primary schools in working-class contexts in the Western Cape Province of South Africa, and I interview grade 3 and grade 6 language teachers. Interview questions are based upon a novel conceptualization of expectations.