review of shoptalk: lessons in teaching from an african...

JournalofLanguageandLiteracyEducationVol.11Issue2—Fall2015http://jolle.coe.uga.edu

ReviewofShoptalk:LessonsinTeachingfromanAfricanAmericanHairSalon

Reviewer:PeterSmagorinsky,DistinguishedResearchProfessor

TheUniversityofGeorgia,Athens,GA

Majors,Y.J.(2015).Shoptalk:LessonsinteachingfromanAfrican Americanhairsalon.NewYork,NY:TeachersCollegePress. ISBN 978-0-8077-5661-4(paperback) ISBN 978-0-8077-5662-1(hardcover) ISBN 978-0-8077-7383-3(ebook) Pages: 192

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In Shoptalk: Lessons in Teaching from an AfricanAmericanHairSalon,YolandaJ.Majorssynthesizesresearch, teaching, a lot of hard thinking, andreflection following six years of research sheconducted in four hair salons in the Midwesternand the SouthernU.S. Based onwhat she learnedabouthowargumentativediscourse is constructedduring informal conversations among AfricanAmerican women as they gathered in the socialsetting of the salon, she developed a shoptalkpedagogy for teaching literary analysis andargumentation in the Chicago neighborhood inwhichshehadgrownup,theWestsideareaknownas North Lawndale. This book thus both seeks todocument the discourse practices found in a keysiteforgatheringamongAfricanAmericanwomen,andtoapplythatknowledgetoinstructionofurbanAfricanAmericanstudents.

Carol D. Lee’s Foreword to the book locates thisstudyinthetraditionofHeath’s(1983)communityethnography, Goodwin’s (1990) study of children’sstreetgames,andRose’s(2004)studyofworkplacecognition.IwouldaddMoll’s(e.g.,González,Moll,& Amanti, 2005) studies of Tucson-area Latin@immigrant community literacy and its disjuncturewith school-based learning assessments, andCushman’s (1998) ethnography of indigent BlackCherokeefamilies’navigationofthepublichousingbureaucracy to thebodyofwork towhichMajors’research is related. In all of these studies, theresearchers begin with the cultural practices ofpeopleconsideredtobedisenfranchised,andinsodoing, detail the sophisticated uses of speech,performance, collaborative argumentation, andother facets of local literacy practices throughwhich individuals and collectives make sense oftheir worlds, construct empowered identities, andtalkbacktotheiroppressors.What these studies share is an ethnographicapproach to understanding how minoritizedcommunity members engage in both speech andothersocialpracticesintraversingthecomplexitiesof their challenging worlds—challenging, I say,because the minoritized people are oftenconstructed fromwithout as abject, impoverished,pathologized,andindeficittothenormsofmiddleclass society as defined by affluent Whites. Thisfield of ethnographic studies has documented in

greatdetail the literate livesof thosepresumedbysocietyatlargetolackintelligenceandsocialvalue.

Kirkland (2014) has convincingly demonstratedhow using invalid research methods tends topathologize Black youth, finding that two verydifferent paradigms—standardized schoolassessments of literacy, and community-basedethnographies—come to polar oppositeconclusionsabouttheirachievementandpotential.Schoolachievementgetsmeasuredinsingle-sittingexaminations based on problems posed by test-makers, with scores computed for statisticalmanipulationandstudentsmeasuredagainsteithercriteria (oftenbasedonmiddle-class assumptions)or norms derived from the whole testingpopulation,whichisskewedinfavorofthemiddleclass.

In contrast, community ethnographies providedetailed documentation of social, emotional, andcognitive processes through which self-chosenliteracy goals are pursued over time by smallsubsets of people with the assistance of feedback,affirmation, critique, and other forms of responseand encouragement. Such ethnographic studies ofBlack students’ literacy activities focus onauthentic, meaningful processes and products—e.g., their participation in spoken wordperformances—and find that literacy achievementishigh, sustained, andof great social value.Theseliteracy practices are characterized by social,performative dimensions and the collaborativeconstructionofmeaning.

School assessment, in contrast, requires a solitary,detached approach to answering a battery ofquestions with correct answers as determined bythepsychometricianwhodesignedthem,undertheassumption that such factors as poverty areirrelevant. In shoptalk, however, the issue ofpoverty is often foregrounded as a problem to beunderstood and solved, not assumed to beirrelevant. As Kirkland’s (2014) review ofethnographicstudiesthattakecontextintoaccountdemonstrate, literacy practices and tasks aresituated and constructed and not amenable tostandardized treatment.Majors’swork fallswithinthis ethnographic tradition, seeking tounderstandthe discourse practices in which Black women

Majors,Y.J.(2015)./Shoptalk

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engageasawaytoconsiderpedagogiesthatmightengagestudentswhosharetheirbackgrounds.The African American Hair Salon asEthnographicResearchSite

The hair salon is one site of gathering in whichresistance to bias is asserted. The filmBarbershop(Story, 2002) and its sequel, televised spinoff, andplanned third filmhavehelped thebroaderpublicto see themanner inwhich theAfricanAmericanhaircuttingandstylingshopprovidestheforuminwhich politics, culture, romance, racial matters,and other issues are discussed in urbanneighborhoods. The spinoff film Beauty Shop(Woodruff,2005)furthersituatesBlackdiscourseinthe setting of the women’s salon. As one whoherselfhadaccompaniedhermotheronhertripstothe salon during childhood, Majors had becomeacculturated early in life to the role that salonshoptalk plays in the lives of both stylists andcustomersintheirsocialconstructionoftheirlives.

In Shoptalk, Majors returns to a variety of hairsalons to study in detail how the women engagewithoneanotherinconsideringtheissuestheyfaceandtheirresponsetoaworldthatapproachesthemwarily and with misunderstanding. As Majorsframesherproject,

Thisbook,inpart,isabouthowpeople. . .talktooneanotherintheAfricanAmericanhair salon. It documents the encountersthey share, the identities they resist andcreate, the literate skills they display indoingso,andthelessonslearnedfromtheircollective and complex social readings ofthe world. It is about talk as performativediscourse, where clients, beauticians, andother communitymembers act out skillful,culturallyscriptedrolesfortheirandothers’benefit.(pp.2-3)

She continues, referring to the salon as anintellectual arena in which problem-posing andproblem-solvingareundertakenastheparticipantsproduce “an interpretive narrative critical of theworld and the group” that provides the textthroughwhichfurtheractionbecomesavailable(p.

3). Shoptalk thus has a sharply political edge,drawing on immediate life challenges formaterialand, as detailed next, relying on conventions ofAfrican American English (AAE) for force andemphasis.ShoptalkasAfricanAmericanDiscourseGenre Early on in the volume, Majorscharacterizes shoptalk as “a specific genre ofconversational discourse through which teachingandlearningaremediatedinthecontextofthehairsalon” (p. 24; emphasis in original). She then liststhe major features of shoptalk, which may alsoemergeinotherpublicspacespopulatedbyAfricanAmericans.Shoptalkinvolves

• Publicly performed, privateconversations occurring in culturallysharedsituatedsitesoflabor

• A sharing of personal experience ofteninnarrativeform

• Speakers evoking a certain image andassumingrolesbeforeanaudience

• Talk functioning as a prescriptive tool,allowing the stylists to treat theirclients’ psychological and aestheticneeds

• Engaging forms of talk beingcommunicated through AAE discoursenorms (call and response, signifying,narrativeargumentation)[linksadded]

• Oral narratives of personal experienceand storytelling produced andinterpreted through “acting”participants, generally for the purposeofprovidingresources,problemsolving,and/orbuildingknowledge

• Participantsholdingparticipationstatusas speakers and hearers within theparticipationframework(p.24)

Shoptalk is thus “the process by which speakersengagewith one another in problem-solving tasksand transform in/through their participation” (p.24).Thiscriticalapproach involves theproductionofimprovised,socially-reconstructedoraltextsthatoffer participants “alternative, sometimes-competing mechanisms for a kind of cultural


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consciousness, resiliency, and task-based problemsolving” (p. 88). These processes often serve as ameansofresistancetotheconstructionsofAfricanAmericans in White society.Majors identifies two goals for her volume: “(1) toillustrate, through empirical data, a kind of talkthat occurs in the culturally shared spaces thatAfrican Americans occupy, and (2) to detail how,within such talk, teaching, learning, and identityworkoccur and the strategies that are involved indoingso”(p.5).Thisshoptalkinvolves

(1)Aparticipatoryrolewithinthatdiscoursethat includescollaboration,culturalnorms,and values; (2) a process of reasoningthrough goal-oriented tasks that involvecollaboration and an examination ofmultiple and often divergent perspectives;and (3) an interactive form of reasonedargumentation andproblem solving that isbothsociallyandcognitivelybeneficial.(p.5)

Shoptalk is thus not simply gabbing away whilehair gets treated, shaped, and shorn. Rather, itinvolvesaformofargumentationinagenrethatisquite distinctive in form and participationpractices. As Majors documents, argumentationabout social issues occurs in a performative,interactional way in which the audienceparticipatesfreelyandactively,contributingtothelinesofargumentationundertakenbytheprincipalspeaker.BazermanandParadis’s(1991)collectionofessays on the ways in which argument is locallyshaped is relevant to the unique ways in whichdifferentcommunitiesadaptToulmin's(1958)basicargumentative form to foreground particularaspectsofhowpointsaremadeandsubstantiated,andtoinfusethemwithspecificformsofemphasis.Just as literary critics and lawyers argue indistinctiveways,sodowomeninAfricanAmericanhairsalons.

AsMajors demonstrates, shoptalk’s argumentativeprocesses do not resemble those found in theessayisttradition(Farr,1993)uponwhichacademicargumentation is founded. Rather, it derives frominteractional styles commonly found amongAfrican Americans. Think of the Black church, in

which the preacher continually implores thecongregation to participate with greater energywithappealssuchas“Ican’theary’all!”shouldthepews become too quiet at any point. In manyWhite churches (with some exceptions), thecongregation only speaks when a formal openingappears in the script; the call-and-responsecharacterofBlackchurcheswouldbeinappropriateand a violation of form, even as it is woventhroughout many forms of African Americanartistic expression. Shoptalk thus might appearloud, rambunctious, and confrontational tooutsiders accustomed to more muted approachesto public demeanor. For those whose lives haveacculturated them to shoptalk as an establishedform of interaction, however, it provides themediumthroughwhichtheirrealityisconstructed,contested,andimaginedinlightoftheirvisionofasatisfyingsocialfuture.Shoptalkthereforeisnotsomuchaunique,locallysituated genre as an instance of AfricanAmericandiscoursegenresthatareinpracticeacrossarangeof settings. As such, it represents a form of racialsocialization that includes “divine, affective-symbolic, and phenomenological strategies thatprotect youth from discriminatory andpsychological antagonistic environments; thatmediateracismstress;andthatarerelatedtocloserand more protective family relationships” (p. 29),both within families and in centers of the localcommunity.Majorsemphasizesthatforshoptalktooccur, participants “transform space for thepurposeofenactingaroleandconstructingandorsuspending an identity and conveying a message”(p. 32; emphasis in original). This notion of theimportanceofidentity,intheuniquesettingofthehair salon, involves gaining an understanding of aclient’spersonalityandinternalprofilesinordertoconstructanappropriateappearance,perhapsevenshapingthehairstyle toprojectan identitynotyetdeveloped.Within shoptalk the narrative takes on specificcultural traits. It is not a story told to a quietaudience. Rather, it is part of a dialogic groupdynamic,onethat,whenundertakingresistancetodiscrimination, fosters self-affirmation andperforms a contested identity. Audienceparticipationgrowsinrelationtocuesprovidedby


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the speaker, which may be verbal or signaledthrough body language, and resembles the call-and-response exchanges of the Black churchservice. In this fashion, a shoptalk narrativerequires sophisticated intersubjectivity betweenindividuals, and thus is a profoundly relationalform of storytelling. It is collaboratively producedand relies on a sense of kinship that provides themeans of affiliation for people who identify asAfrican American. Furthermore, the narrativeinvolvesverbalplayfulnessandinventiveness,oftenrelying on ironic poses and speech to convey amessage.One such form is signifying, the verbal reparteethat in some contexts may be viewed asinappropriateandevenasaformofbullying(Rivers& Espelage, 2013). In the context of AfricanAmerican hair salons—and signifying’s impact onothers is a function of context and relationshipsratherthanastaticeffect—thisformofinteractionis neither bullying nor passing time (the optionsofferedbyRivers&Espelage).Rather,itservesasameans of making critical points about society atlarge by those who in many ways have beendisenfranchised within its confines. This form ofnarrative thus requires not just listening, butunderstanding how to read cues from the speakerandwhen and how to participate appropriately intheconstructionofthestory.Italsorequiresafluidorientation to narration and the ability to shift inand out of roles as the circumstances suggest. AsMajors phrases it, participation in this form ofnarrative requires cultural knowledge about “thereceptive dimensions of engagement in literatepractice:howpeopleobserve,listen,read,andtakeup social texts. Such readings shape acts ofauthorship: the close link between reading andwriting,boththeworldandtheworld”(p.80).Thisvalueonsophisticatedusesofperformativespeechis a hallmark of shoptalk and reflects the intense,well-rehearsed cognitive demands it places on itsparticipants.TheoreticalSources

Majorssynthesizesasetofinterrelatedframeworksthrough which to pose her notion of shoptalk.

From sociolinguistics, she sees speech as acontributing factor in one’s cultural identity kit(Gee, 1992), with identities being both performedand constructed through engagement in situateddiscourse genres. From critical race theory (e.g.,Ladson-Billings, 1998), she adopts a perspectiveoriented to challenging inequitable powerstructuresofthesortoftencontestedbywomeninthesalonsshestudied,particularlytheinstitutionalstructures so deeply embedded in a culture’sconsciousness that they appear natural andinevitable.

Together, these approaches allow her to viewshoptalk asmore than just conversationoccurringin a benign setting while hair is styled. Rather,through their discussions, thewomen deconstructtheir experiences, often with racism, and positionthemselvesashavingagencyinbreakingdowntheinstitutions and those who populate them as ameans of asserting their own societal authority.This transformative-equity-based framework, asMajors calls it,provides shoptalkwitha substanceand urgency that transcend idle conversation andmovethediscoursetoalevelofpoliticalpower.Assuch, it representsahybrid formofdiscourse thatthesalonsettingprovidesamediumforeliciting.ShoptalkinoneUrbanClassroomSettingMajors hopes to understand “how the classroomcan be transformed into a robust space wherestudents may apply such [shoptalk] practices totheiracademicandlivedlives”bydrawingonhomeand community discourse conventions (p. 102).Doingso involvesaccepting riskanddisruptionasvaluableaspectsofsociallearning,andmaximizingthe experiences and knowledge from home andcommunity.Thisemphasis stands incontrastwiththe tendency to wash out personal, livedunderstandingsoftheworldinschoolandtotreatstudents’ first-ordermeansofworldly engagementasdeficits tobeovercome.Shoptalk thusworks inoppositiontothevaluesoftheCommonCoreStateStandards and their emphasis on reading “withinthe four corners of the text” and treating texts asautonomous and magisterial. Rather, it valuesthinkingthatiscollaborative,historical,contextual,


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emergent, exploratory, performative, ironic, witty,andparticipatory.Intheclassroom,thestudentroletendstobemorethatof the spectator than theparticipant, and theBlack child who participates out of turn isconstructed as boisterous and disobedient. Forshoptalktobepracticedwithintheformalconfinesof the school classroom, border crossing becomesnecessary.Inparticular,ashoptalkpedagogywouldencourage cultural border crossing such thatmultiple students could participate in the co-construction of ideas rather than having onespeaker formally recognized tooccupy the flooratone time, with classmates quiet and attentive (or,at least,quiet).Majorsemphasizesbordercrossingofmanysortsinthisstudy,withtheintroductionofa form of speech typically considered to lackpropriety in school to be introduced as a primaryvehicle of speech for urban students whounderstand its dimensions. Majors discussesteachers’ (and others’) tendency to refer to theirvision of people as “color blind,” as if they see allpeople as the same, regardless of skin color.Although this stance may be admirable from thestandpointofequity,ithastheperniciouseffectofbeingblindtothewaysinwhichthekinshipgroupof the African American community affiliatesaroundasetofculturalpractices.On this matter I am informed by another recentstudy, Hobbs’s (2015) research on raciallyambiguous people of partial African heritage whoengage inthepracticeof “passing”asWhite,oftenleaving behind their families in the process, withtheconsequenceofgreatfeelingsoflossandregret.In considering the complex issue of race, Hobbsattends to the problem of race as a socialconstruction,withraciallyambiguouspeopleoftenrequiredtodeclaretheirbelongingtoonegrouporanother, but not both. Even those like poet andnovelist Jean Toomer, whose White appearancebelied the presence of Black blood, and whoresistedracialcategorization,wasultimatelyforcedtobeclassifiedasBlackbya societydrivenby thebeliefthatsuchadeterminationmattersaboveall.Hobbs, in considering the problem of racialclassification, concludes that people affiliatearound feelings of kinship, often racial in basis.

Eurocentric values require that any non-Europeanracialheritagewill spoil aWhite identityand leadonetobeassignedtoaracialgroupoflowerstatus,prestige,andopportunity.ThenotionofanAfricanAmerican discourse, thus, may be seen as thatwhich is developed among those whose primarykinshipgroupistheAfricanAmericancommunity,oftenasaconsequenceofhavingsomepercentageof African blood in one’s family lineage. Althoughthis affiliation may be treated as a choice, it is achoicethatisshapedbypowerfulforcesfromthoseintheenvironmentforwhomitmatterswhatcolorapersonshouldbetreatedas.Shoptalk,therefore,embodiestheculturalpracticesand perspective of those whose primary kinshipgroupiscomposedofthosewhoidentifyasAfricanAmerican, and who embrace its conventions asvalid and of great practical value. One benefit ofdrawing on the qualities of shoptalk in urbanclassrooms is that it may reduce the number ofadaptations that African American youth mustmake in order to cross the cultural border fromneighborhood to school and its conception ofacademicsuccess.Learningawholenewacademicvocabulary and speech genre may require a greatadaptive effort that may inhibit rather thanpromote engagementwith the curriculum. As Lee(1993,2000,2007)hasfoundinherseriesofstudiesof African American speech genres and theirappropriatenessinschool,groundinginstructioninstudents’ home languages may give them quickeraccesstoacademicmaterialthanrequiringthemtolearnanacademicsociallanguageasprerequisitetoengagement. As a former student and ongoingcollaborator with Lee, Majors endorses thisprinciple as a fundamental reason for promotingshoptalkintheurbanclassroom.Shifting from the salon to the school,Majors seesthis framework serving as a means of liberatingstudents from the roles available to them in theireveryday lives. That is, rather than seeingthemselves as pathologized urban youth destinedfor the prison cell andwelfare line, they have theopportunity to assert for themselves a morepowerfulroleinconstructingpositivesocialfuturesfor themselves. Here, according to Majors,“Shoptalk may provide an alternative space thatstructures opportunities for students to sort


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through the real-life dilemmas that they areexpected to take up, as well as work throughacademic tasks, like identifying and solvingproblemsinliterature”(p.26).At the risk of hijackingMajors’ work formy ownpurposes, I suggest that these hybrid classroomspaces allow for theavailabilityof apositive socialupdraft (Cook & Smagorinsky, 2014; Smagorinsky,in press), a process through which people—particularly those who are disenfranchised ordisadvantaged—may be swept “upward” throughparticipation in legitimateculturalpractice. Ihaveused this phrase primarily in relation to mentalhealth and how productive lives may becomepossible when those with diagnoses andclassifications suggesting their deficient status intheworldareviewed in lightof theirassets ratherthan their points of difference. Being treated asable, intelligent, resourceful peoplewith strengthsand social value, and being viewed asknowledgeablepeoplewith legitimateperspectivesand ideas,givesyouth frombackgrounds inwhichincarceration is common a way to challenge thisfate and, perhapsmore importantly, challenge thesystem in which their skin color paints them ashostile and criminal in the eyes of socialinstitutions and their representatives, fromcommunities and theirpolice forces to classroomsandtheirteachers.ToMajors,thenotionofnarrativeargumentationisakeyaspectofshoptalkthatisofparticularlyvaluein the salon, but tends to be prohibited in schooland its essayist tradition. In particular, sheemphasizes the role of cultural counter-narrativesthat “invoke narrative knowledge and storytellingto challenge the social construction of identity,race, and power, eschewing the experiences ofWhite, European Americans as the normativestandard,andgroundingitsconceptualframework,instead,inthedistinctivecontextualexperiencesofpeopleofcolor”(p.40).Shiftedfromthesalon,thisvalue “invites the design of instructionalconversations that enables individuals to enacttheir roles as problem-solvers from a criticalstandpointanddrawsoncommunity-basednormsfortalkandproblemsolvingasthemediumforthe

generation of coping strategies that are hybrid innature”(p.41).The shoptalk pedagogy that Majors outlines isbased on a scaffolding process that involvesapprenticeship, guided participation, andparticipatory appropriation. In the tradition ofGates (1989) andLee (1993),Majors finds that thequalities of shoptalk—its ironic, interpretive,indirect, imaginative, performative manner ofconveying meaning—provide it with a logicalbridge to the literacyclassroom.She identifiesLeeand Lee’s doctoral studies mentor, Hillocks (e.g.,1995),asparticularlyinfluentialinheradaptationofshoptalktoclassroomliteracyinstruction.Lee’s (2007)CulturalModeling framework includesa set of design principles that are indebted toHillocks’s pedagogy for teaching writing andliterature.Ateacherinthistraditionfirstconductsa task analysis that identifies the key skills that ataskinvolvesandsuggestsactivitiesthroughwhichtheymightbetaught.Althoughtheultimategoalisforstudentstoworktowardlearningprocessesthatexperienced readers and writers have developed,the pedagogy begins with students’ immediate,familiar knowledge as they engagewith accessiblematerialsknowninthisapproachasdatasets,andknown in teacher education as the materialrepresenting students’ prior knowledge. Theprocess is thus inductive; rather than having theteacher explain the procedures, the studentsgenerate them through an activity designed toinvolve them in a specific form of inquiry andproblem-solving. For example, I’ve developed anactivitytodemonstratehowsuchinstructionworksfor teachers with whom I’ve encouraged thisapproach:Organize students in groups of 3-4 andhave them take out their cellphones, whichseemingly everyone owns these days regardless ofcircumstances.Most people love their phones andlove their gadgets and affordances. The task issimple:Whohasthecoolestcellphone?Inmostcases,eachgroupmemberwouldargueonbehalf of his, her, or zir own beloved phone. Indoingso,theyareengaginginprocessescentraltoavariety of tasks: argumentation (making claims,providing and warranting evidence, addressing


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counter-arguments), extended definition(elaborating criteria for phone coolness andillustrating them with examples and contrastingexamples), comparing and contrasting (comparingand contrasting features and affordances ofdifferent phones), narration (illustrating qualitywith stories of the phone’s amazing role in apersonal experience). From this introductory orgateway activity, tasks of the given sort may beundertaken with more advanced, complex, anddistantmaterials,suchasthecanonicaltextsoftheschoolliteraturecurriculum.Lee’s (2007) application of this approach toracialized learning involves drawing on AfricanAmericandiscourseconventionsduringtheprocessof argumentation, and using data sets that areimmediately familiar to African American youth.These social texts ought to provoke students toengage with problems from their environmentsthat are similar to the issues aired out in AfricanAmerican hair salons, often concerningdiscrimination,misunderstanding,andconflictdueto racial bias. Through their analysis as culturaldata sets, they should promote inquiry thatdeconstructs social institutions and theirrepresentatives and draws on their emotional andintellectualresponsetogeneratecounterargumentsthat involve the qualities of shoptalk inconstruction and presentation. For themost part,theculturaldatasetwouldappearto includetextsthatthestudentscantalkbackto,makeinferencesabout theassumptionsof, andargueagainst: textsthatpresumethatthestudents’ownstatusinlifeisblighted and deficient. Through the inductiveprocessofchallengingthesetexts,studentsengageinwhatLee(2007)callsmetacognitiveinstructionalconversations that provide them with tools forundertaking social critique in relation to othertexts.NorthLawndale, the siteofMajors’s teaching, is aChicagoneighborhood inwhich 70%ofmen aged18-45hadcriminalrecordsasof2001(Street,2002),a problem that may follow as much fromassumptionsmadebypoliceaboutwhoconstitutesthe criminal class as it does about the conduct ofmen in the area. The key text that Majors usedwhenteaching inNorthLawndalewas formerU.S.Secretary of Education (among many key policy

positions) William Bennett’s infamous publicstatementthat“Ifyouwantedtoreducecrime,youcould—if that were your sole purpose—you couldabort every Black baby in this country and yourcrime rate would go down. That would be animpossibly ridiculous and morally reprehensiblething to do, but your crime ratewould go down.”Ofcourse,youcouldalsoreducethecrimeratebyaborting every White baby, but as phrased byBennett, the problem of crime is one largelyconfined to the African American population.Bennett also elides attention to his conservativeparty’s rejectionof abortionas a solution to socialproblems,but Idigress.Within thisbroadcontextof prejudicial stereotype and oppression,minoritized Americans work discursively toconstruct more reality-grounded, generous, andappreciativeself-constructions thatbuildonassetsandresourcesandregardaberrationsasanomalousandunrepresentativeofthewhole.William Bennett’s serious statement aboutreducing crime by aborting Black babies—horrificallyreminiscentofSwift’ssatiricalAModestProposalinwhichhesuggestedthatwealthypeopleeat the babies of the poor to address poverty andeliminate food shortages—provided Majors withsucha text.Majors reportsonhowheruseof thistext in her North Lawndale classroom worked,offeringthissummaryofhowherstudentsengagedwiththetext:

For thisstudent, thiscomplexconstructionof self, with the interrelated identities ofcapable student, member of society, andengager of Bennett, is to the student’sbenefit as she moves across similar texts.The tools she draws upon include ways ofspeaking, performing, and reasons, andconstitute transformations within theclassroom—notjustoftalk,butalsoofself.In other words, as she participates in theactivity within the classroom through theuse of such tools and resources, shetransforms, taking on roles, identities, andparticipantstatuseswithintheparticipationframework of the classroom and Bennett’sargument.(p.145)


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As teacher research, her report of her instructioncannot possibly attend to the experiences of eachstudent in the classroom, and so we must acceptherdescriptionofthisstudentasperhapstheidealoutcomeofher instruction.Herpoint,however, isto offer an exemplar to demonstrate the potentialof this pedagogy and give other teachers anopportunitytoseehow,inonedistinctivesetting,itworked under her own implementation. Thatlimitation does not provide the sort of “taken toscale” research that infatuates policymakers, butthat’s not her goal. Rather, it’s to illustrate onededicatedteacher’sapplicationofwhatshelearnedthroughtheextendedstudyofinformaldiscussionstakingplaceinthehairsalon,asiteofgatheringforAfricanAmericanwomen,anddemonstratehowitmight work as a pedagogical innovation. Thatillustrationisofconsiderablevaluetotheteachingprofession, if not the policy world in whichethnographies are considered too narrow, local,and idiosyncratic a data set on which to basenationalstandardsandpractices.Ethnography,however, isnevermeant tobetakento scale. Its great achievement is to show, incontrast, why nothing can be taken to scale in alarge,culturallydiversenationalpopulationsuchasthat in the U.S. Indeed, the claims offered byMajors are a form of counterargument againstnationalpoliciesthatelidedifference.Furthermore,by claiming to be color-blind and culture-blind,nationalpoliciesbecomeblindtohumandiversity,assuming that one curriculum and assessmentvehicleisfairandequallyaccessibletoall,thatthesame test item is identical to each test-takerregardlessofhowtheirbackgroundprepares themfor the content and phrasing of the questions(Newman,Griffin,&Cole,1989;Smagorinsky,2011).That assumption takesquite abeating throughoutthis book as Majors explains the socially situatednature of shoptalk and in turn argues againststandardization based on White middle classvalues. Although Iwould not expect policymakersto be impressed by a volume that details in suchclarity and lays out so abundantly why theirapproach is wrongminded and pernicious inconsequence to the population that serves as thefocus ofMajors’s research, our educational systemwouldbemoresensitivetoculturalvariationifthey

weretopayattentiontothelessonsavailableinthisbook.Challenges in Implementing Shoptalk inClassroomsPerhaps the greatest challenge of extrapolatingfrom Majors’ work to classrooms concerns thedifficultythatmanyWhiteteachersmayhavewithdrawing respectfully and fruitfully on AAE andshoptalk to ground students’ schoolwork. Amongthekeyhairsaloneventsshereportsisastorytoldbyawomanwho,asateacher,attendedameetingat which aWhite teacher confessed that, becauseher family heritage included slave ownership, shewasuncomfortable teachingaboutslavery inclass.Majors also reports aWhite hair stylist in a Blacksalon who struggled to maintain a client basebecause of her difficulties establishingintersubjectivity with many patrons of the salon.Intersubjectivity refers to the degree to whichdifferentpeopleshareaconstructionofthesettingandunderstandingofthebasisforhowthesettingis interpreted by others. The notion ofintersubjectivity is particularly important inunderstandingcross-culturalcommunicationofthesort analyzed by Majors, in which differentinterpretations of the samematerial and ideas arepotentially at work when urban students enterschoolclassrooms.GiventhatWhitewomenmakeupbyfarthelargestdemographic in the teaching profession, withWhite teachers comprising 83.5 percent of theteaching force (National Center of EducationStatistics, 2007-2008) andwomencomprising84%of the profession (Feistritzer, 2011), questions ofintersubjectivity and one’s comfort levels ofteaching students from other cultures become ofparamount importance (see Delpit, 1995). AsMajors demonstrates extensively in this book,African American students must cross multipleborderstofit inwiththediscourseexpectationsofschool, while teachers are required to make few.Majors’ proposal that shoptalkmay serve as a keybridge between urban students and schooldiscourse conventions is primarily illustrated byher own return to her community of origin toundertakeapedagogyinwhichshoptalkplaysakey


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instructionalandacademicrole.However,herownhigh levels of intersubjectivitywith these studentsundoubtedlygivesheragreaterchancetosucceedthan would the undoubtedly awkward and likelyinappropriateeffortsofaWhiteteacherconsumedby guilt over her ancestors’ ownership of herstudents’ ancestors. Majors describes “the teacherwhoreadsherstudentsandattemptstoteachthembasedonher interpretations,whichare shapedbylocal and distal factors” (p. 67)—in Freire’s (1985)phrase, the teacher who reads the world in theword. And yet it’s a daily occurrence for Whitepeople to “read” Black people wrong, as theexamples thatMajors provide from salon shoptalkexchangesdemonstrate.Majorsoutlinesasetofskillsthatonemusthaveinorder to adapt shoptalk to classroom settings.Theseinclude

• An understanding of the rules of Blackmodes [of] discourse and the roles of theparticipantswithinit

• Anunderstandingof thepositioningof thespeakerasitshapesauthorialintent

• Abilitytoidentifyimpliedaudience• Theunderlyingmeaningorintentofatext• An understanding of coherence within

inferencegeneration• Abilitytogenerateresponsetoclaimwithin

anarrative• Ability to takeonroles (andtostep inand

out of themwithin the discourse) throughthe appropriation of contextualized termsin order to construct an expert knowledgeandenactanepistemicstance.(p.86)

Adapting shoptalk to school instruction mightprovidequiteachallengeforthesortofpersonwhomost typically enters the teaching profession.Traditionally, schools have expected students toundertake the majority of adaptations; therelatively recent field of culturally appropriateinstruction represents a fraction ofwhat has beenproposed, and has tended to be the province ofminoritized teachers, researchers, and theoristswho are challenging the status quo. Yet amongBlackteachers,thereisalsoatraditionofthestrictteacherwho takes a fairlymilitaristic approach toparticipation and discipline, as personified by Joe

Louis Clark,the formerprincipalofEastside HighSchoolinPaterson, NJ, an urban school where heinstituted draconian disciplinary policies, a careerbroughttopublicattentioninthefilmLeanonMe(Avildsen, 1989) in which he was played by animperiousMorganFreeman.Morerecently,KeeganMichael Key has played this authoritarian role tocomic effect in his portrayal of urban teacherMr.Garvey,layingdownthelawwhilesubstitutinginaclassofsuburbanWhitestudents.Harriet Ball, the Texas teacher who became themodelfortheKnowledgeisPowerProgram(KIPP)charter school network and its no-nonsenseapproach to education, perhaps represents amedium between the authoritarian and theculturally relevant teacher. Ball drew on AAEconventionsforhermethods,particularlytheuseofrhythm and meter in devising chants throughwhichtoteachherstudentsmaterial,yetdidsoinaclosed-endedmanner inwhich reciting the chantsverbatim demonstrated learning. In contrast,shoptalk’s adaptation to the classroom wouldproduceanopen-ended,collaborative,spontaneousmeans of narrative argumentation through whichmultipleidentitiesarenegotiated,asopposedtoallstudents following the teacher’s lead faithfully.KIPP’s use of Ball as amodel appears to draw onherauthoritarianstancemorethanherremarkablecharisma, intelligence, inventiveness, andunderstandingofAfricanAmerican speechgenres,as evidenced by the anomalously high KIPPexpulsion rates that suggest that conformity andobedience,more than culturally relevant teaching,haveservedastheirmodelforschooling.It thus appears that shoptalk’s application to theclassroom should be undertaken with care. I canimaginemanyWhiteteachersfindingitdifficulttopull off, and many authoritarian Black teachersfinding it counterproductive to their value on lawandorder.Yetinthehandsofteachersacculturatedtothepracticesofshoptalk,itcouldindeedserveasa compelling pedagogy that engages AfricanAmerican youth both with schoolwork and thebroader project of asserting a legitimate role insociety without sacrificing the potential availablethroughtheexpressionofAfricanAmericanspeechgenres.Andforotherteachers,itisacalltoactiontobeginseekingwaysoflearningtounderstandthe


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nature of shoptalk so as to better serve theirstudentsandtheirprofession.ConclusionIn this last section I have raised some concernsabout the broad applicability of shoptalk as aclassroom pedagogy. Those caveats should not betakenasanythingmorethanthesortof limitationthat characterizes all research. Even without thepedagogicalextension, thisbookachievesmuch indocumenting the role of shoptalk in the lives ofthose for whom it serves as a principal means ofnarrative argumentation. Majors documents theways in which shoptalk serves its speakersadmirably, just as other situated forms ofargumentation—conducted among biologists,theologians, sports commentators, and virtuallyany other community of practice with its ownvocabulary and terms of engagement—allow theirparticipantstoachievetheirends.

As part of a relatively new line of inquiryundertaken by minoritized scholars who studytheir communities’ interactional patterns, thisstudy makes a strong contribution to work thatdemonstrates the legitimacy and opportunities fortheadaptationofspeechgenres fromtheirsitesoforiginacrossborderstonewsettingsinwhichtheymayhavenewapplication.Thevalueofsuchworkisimmense,andthevalueofthisstudywithinthatfield is great. I highly recommend this volume toclassroomteacherswhoseektodrawonthespeechconventions of shoptalk and other aspects ofAAEto provide more culturally relevant learningopportunities,andtoanyoneinterestedinrhetoric,argumentation, narration, cultural practice,cultural psychology, education, and anywhere elsewhere it matters how ideas are generated andextended within the parameters of genres ofdiscourse.

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AbouttheReviewer PeterSmagorinskygrewupinsegregatedVirginiainthe1950sand1960s,onlyattendingschoolwithBlack

studentswhenintegrationbecamelawwhenhewasin7thgrade,whenoneBlackmalewasenrolledinhis

juniorhighschool.Tosavemoneyforafamilyof5kidsonagovernmentscientist’ssalary,hismothercuthis

hairuntilhewasoutofcollege;andincollege,hegothishaircutaboutonceayear.Atthispointinlife,he

getshishaircutatSupercutsandsimplyasksthestylisttousethe#2bladeandshearhimlikeasheep.

19742014HeisthusnotBlack,notaWoman,andnotafrequenterofhairsalons.Andyet,hewasdelightedtohavethe

opportunitytoreadandreviewthisterrificbook.

review of shoptalk: lessons in teaching from an african...

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