Research has shown that students with oppositional identity must employ “border crossing strategies” in order to pursue academic success. These strategies allow the student to succeed in school without jeopardizing his or her social status. Border crossing strategies, have only been found to be used by individuals, furthermore these individuals generally hide their efforts to do well in school from their peers. An examination of classroom discourse in a California continuation school, however, shows how a class of students used code-switching during class time as a border crossing strategy.
When I began my research, I intended to study the effect that a multi-cultural social studies curriculum was having on students in a junior high continuation school. As I observed the class, I noticed that the students spent very little time engaged with the content of the curriculum and much more time disrupting the teacher’s efforts to teach. Consequently, I decided to try and understand the academic and behavioral choices the students were making. It was interesting to me that the students openly resisted participating in class events despite their consistent attendance and clearly expressed desire to return to a mainstream campus. The focus of this study became an attempt to understand how and why the students were negotiating that contradictory behavior.

Keywords

• At-risk
• Dual identity
• Border-crossing
• Latinos
• Minorities
• Conintuation school

(30 min. Conference Paper, English)