Literacy artifacts and the semiotic landscape of a Spanish secondary school
Entity
UAM. Departamento de Psicología Evolutiva y de la EducaciónPublisher
International Reading AssociationDate
2012-01-06Citation
10.1002/RRQ.010
Reading Research Quarterly 47.1 (2012): 61–88
ISSN
0034-0553 (print); 1936-2722 (online)DOI
10.1002/RRQ.010Editor's Version
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/RRQ.010Subjects
Immigrants; Anthropological Linguistics; Secondary Education; Language Styles; Socioeconomic Status; Psicología; SociologíaNote
This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Poveda, David. Literacy artifacts and the semiotic landscape of a Spanish secondary school. Reading Research Quarterly 47.1 (2012): 61-88, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/RRQ.010. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.Rights
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.Abstract
In this article, I examine literacy artifacts placed by students in different locations of a state-run secondary school in the city of Madrid, Spain. The data were gathered as part of a two-year long multilevel ethnography focused on the social and academic trajectories of immigrant students in Spanish compulsory secondary education. The analysis draws from concepts developed in semiotics, linguistic anthropology, literacy studies, and social geography. Two broad types of literacy artifacts configured the school’s semiotic landscape: political texts and graffiti. In turn, these artifacts were tied to two youth expressive styles present in the school: left-wing anarkas and Latino reggaetoneros. Students associated with these expressive styles tended to have different ethnic backgrounds and followed different socioacademic trajectories: anarkas tended to be of Spanish origin and often moved on to preuniversity education while reggaetoneros were predominantly Latin American and were geared towards vocational/remedial forms of secondary education. Drawing from concepts in social geography, the analysis suggests that anarka texts occupied official spaces in the school and were construed as “in place” while reggaetonero artifacts occupied unofficial spaces and were construed as “out of place.” I argue that this distribution, along side other institutional practices and discourses, contributed to the construction of Latin American origin immigrant students’ less favorable academic trajectories.
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Google Scholar:Poveda Bicknell, David Patrick
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