Sociolinguistic Fieldwork Assignment 2

Campus Questions

Part A.
Instructions: Complete the chart by interviewing three students who you do not know well and who do not study in the CoE. Your
participants should NOT look up any information before or while you are interviewing them. Write down the first name of each
interviewee and their answers as completely as possible.

S1: Edward S2: Charles S3: Winnie

1. How do you define Culture is what makes Culture is the way you
"culture"? What Culture is a set of up your background and live your life and the
defines your culture? beliefs, traditions, and where you’re from and way you view the
customs that groups of your community. It’s the important parts of your
people follow. ideas and the customs of life and the people in
Hispanic people are your community and your life.
known for being where you come from.
hardworking people, we My family defines my
have fantastic food, are My culture is defined by culture, and spending
very passionate people. strong family time together. My
relationships as well as friends and traditions.
celebrating American
holidays.
2. How do you define Race is the physical, Race is social construct, The color of your skin
"race"? What is your distinguishing features there are not real genetic and the physical
race? between different people differences between connection to your
from around the world. people with white skin ancestors.
and black skin; there is
Hispanic one race. White/Caucasian
White/ Caucasian.
3. How do you define Ethnicity is your The traditions that you
"ethnicity"? Of what A specific place or geographic and cultural have and what connect
ethnicity are you? environment from which background. you to your family tree.
a person is. American; Italian,
Scottish, Irish and German and Irish.
Honduran and English.
Guatemalan.

4. Define "stereotype." Assuming certain things Stereotypes are images A rumor; or something
Describe some or actions of a certain and preconceptions that that is believed as true
stereotypes you have race, gender or ethnicity. people have about and generalizable about
about people from certain things about race, a group of people.
other cultures, races, A woman cant drive, class, and gender. They
or ethnicities. Where Asians can’t drive, black can often be demeaning Italians have good food,
did you learn these people like watermelon, because they put learned that from
stereotypes? Hispanics usually work everyone of a certain movies. African
low paying jobs, Arab group into one specific Americans are good
people are terrorists. identity. athletes, learned that
from sports.
I learned them from Mexican people being
going to school, and my illegal immigrants.
friends. Black families don’t
have fathers or
supportive families.
Learned these
stereotypes in school
and from friends.
Part B.
Instructions: Reflect on the responses you obtained. What patterns do you see? How/why are the responses similar/different? How do
they differ from you own responses? What do these responses imply for teachers? In a page or less, explain what you learned from this
experience and how it might impact your future teaching.

I can find various patterns in the responses that I obtained in my fieldwork interview process with college-aged students. For

example, all three of my interviewee’s had similar responses for all three questions regarding culture, race and ethnicity. I believe that

this is due to their limited knowledge on the subject, meaning that there might be only one definition that they are aware of. Most of

the students asked me for prompting on these questions, because they forgot what the differences between race and ethnicity are. I

believe that these words and their meanings should be addressed more often in schools, so that students and people have a better

understanding of the differences between race and ethnicity. This might be the reason for the patterns and similarities between their

answers. One answer, from Charles, was different, as he said that there is only one race and that is the human race. These responses

also differ from my own responses, as I have a wider range of knowledge than these students have on this topic since we talk about

race and ethnicity, stereotype and culture very often in class, and since they students were put on the spot with questions. These

responses imply for teachers that teachers may have more cut out for them in their duty of educating the youth on important matters of

stereotyping, differences between race and ethnicity, and the importance and depth of culture.