Cognition and Misrecognition: A Bourdieuian Analysis of Cognitive Strategy Instruction in a Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Classroom

This study reports data from a year-long ethnographic case study of a third-grade teacher's literacy instruction for her linguistically and culturally diverse students. Specifically, we use Bourdieu's social practice theory (1991, 1998) to examine the teacher's linguistic and literate habitus and the discourses of the field converge in her use of cognitive strategy instruction (CSI). In doing so, we spotlight CSI as a site of “struggle for the monopoly of legitimate discourse” (Bourdieu, 1983, p. 317) of the field of reading instruction and the potential effects for linguistically and culturally diverse students. We adapt Bourdieu's theories, however, by situating both habitus and field as performative (Butler, 1993) “as if” spaces (Holland, et al., 1998). Counter to the intentions of many who have developed and advocated the teaching of cognitive reading strategies, we found that CSI was performed in ways that may legitimize narrow conceptions of what “counts” as reading, and even thinking, or cognizing, about texts. At the same time, we identified a small number of instances in which the teacher's instruction challenged those conceptualizations. While we argue that CSI can benefit students, particularly those who struggle with reading, we are concerned that it may be implemented in ways that support current standardizing efforts in language and literacy education. We end with a discussion of how CSI might be employed in less prescriptive ways that are more closely attuned to the socially, historically, and politically situated literacy practices students may engage with in their daily lives.