Script, Counterscript, and Underlife in the Classroom: James Brown versusBrown v. Board of Education

Kris Gutierrez, Betsy Rymes, Joanne Larson
1995 Harvard Educational Review  
In this article, Kris Gutierrez, Betsy Rymes, and joanne Larson demonstrate how power is constructed between the teacher and students. The authors identify the teacher's monologic script, one that potentially stifles dialogue and interaction and that reflects dominant cultural values. and the students' counterscripts, formed b.~ those who do not comply with the teacher's view of appropriate participation. The authors then offer the possibility of a "third space"-a place where the two scripts
more » ... ersect, creating the potential for authentic interaction to occur. Using an analysis of a specific classroom discourse, the authors demonstrate how, when such potential arises, the teacher and students quickly retreat to more comfortable scripted places. The authors encourage the joint construction of a new sociocultural terrain, creating space for shifts in what counts as knowledge and knowledge representation. Haroard Educational Review Vol. 65 No. 3 Fall 1995 Copyright© bv President and Fellows of Harvard College 0017-R055/95/0R00-44'> $1.25/0 :! Ogbu (1978) has described these as secondary cultural traits. \Ye use the term "discourse" to refer to culturally specific values, as will be discussed later in this article. :~Communities of practice are loosely defined as groups of individuals bounded together by common purposes and goals. Lave and Wenger (1991 ) define it as a set of relations among persons, activity and work. over time and in relation with other tangential and overlapping communities of practice. h implies participation in an activity system about which participants have understandings concerning what they are doing and what that means in their lives and for their communities: A community of practice is an intrinsic condition for the existence of knowledge. (p. 98)
doi:10.17763/haer.65.3.r16146n25h4mh384 fatcat:mgrpkvfh7vfqnkoe3gef7z7z5u