Urban Issues
Diverse Patterns of Urban Religiosity in Pune, India
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mugdha Yeolekar
Religion provides an anchoring point to people to make their spatial identity in the society where they live. During religious practices, people form their identities and a sense of belongingness to a community. In this paper, I analyze how locals and immigrants in the city of Pune, India associate with space during reading a religious text (parayana) called the Gurucaritra. There are diverse ways of conducting religious reading of the Gurucaritra in Pune. I came across three distinctive patterns: home-based individualized reading, home-based group reading, and communal reading at temples. Readers assert their choices of space for religious reading based on several factors. Some readers prefer reading in communal setting over personal spaces. The reasons for the preference for communal reading at temples were limitations of space at their apartment home, to avoid affecting schedules of other family members during the reading session, possibility of making more merit by reading with other committed readers, and professional networking. The reasons for preference for reading in home-based setting were reading in home-space makes home pure, the merit of reading should be kept secret if it must be effective, the purity of mind and body can be attained with a greater integrity at home. Although not as popular as the other two, the choice of home-based group reading is also becoming quite popular. This paper analyzes the connection between diversity in religious practices related to reading and identity formation and belongingness in an urban setting.
Practice and Beliefs of Early Childhood Pre-service Teachers in Urban Settings: Tool for Inclusion and Equity for Young Second Language Learners and Refugees
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Lea Ann Christenson
As the United States grows more diverse in ethnically and culturally the early childhood teacher workforce for the most part has remained unchanged; most teachers are white, middle class women (Warren, 2015). Potentially, the dissimilarities between teacher and student, particularly English Language learners and refugee students, could negatively influence the effectiveness of learning environments. In addition, in the United States the effects of standards-based, high-stakes education policy and practice are increasingly felt within teacher education programs (Cochran-Smith et al., 2016; Wepner, 2006; Whitenack & Swanson, 2013). Many pre-service teachers spent the entire course of their Pre-Kindergarten-12th grade careers in schools influences by this policy (Brown, 2010). Often their idea of best practice is didactic and formulaic in nature, focusing on isolated math and English language arts skills, with an absence of authentic, hands-on experiences with social studies focusing on multiculturalism and diversity (Darling-Hammond, 2004). As a result in many cases, pre-service teachers did not experience developmentally appropriate practice themselves and at times lack critical thinking skills to understand how to create these optimal learning experiences. This paper describes specific strategies early childhood teacher educators need to be strategic in the planning and delivery of their methods courses to insure pre-service teachers learn the theory and observe developmentally appropriate culturally relevant instruction for all young children from all background in order to yield young learners who are well adjusted and who possess the critical thinking skills they need to meet with success in school settings (Cunningham, 2014; Pierce, Smith Mowry, 2015).
Belonging in New York City: Immigrants and Their Languages
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Sue Dicker
The United States, particularly in its big cities, is known as an immigrant magnet. However, the way immigrants are expected to become societal members has always been contentious. Many Americans think of their country as welcoming to outsiders. The inviting metaphor of America as a "melting pot" has survived, from eighteenth-century French nobleman de Crevecoeur (1904) to twentieth-century historian Schlesinger (1992). New York is often depicted as a melting pot as well (e.g. Crouse 2013). However, what best describes how immigrants are expected to fit into society is "Anglo-conformity" (Gordon 1964), a one-way assimilation process in which immigrants adopt the dominant group's traits. In New York, this applies to the expectation that immigrants should speak English. This paper focuses on two sources of evidence of the conflict between those who wish to speak their native/heritage languages in public and those who favor Anglo-conformity. One source is the New York City Commission on Human Rights. It has seen a recent increase in unlawful discrimination, including language. (While language is not legally protected against discrimination, the commission places it under the categories of "immigrant status" and "heritage"). A second source is an online survey of bilingual New Yorkers (Dicker 2019). One question asks respondents to describe incidents in which they received negative reactions from others when they chose to speak their native/heritage languages. The evidence shows that as immigrants find their ways of belonging in New York, the languages they use in public often determine their degree of acceptance.
Local Urban Exclusions: Gentrification and Displacement of Latino Immigrants and African-Americans in Chicago's Pilsen, Humboldt Park, and Garfield Park
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Carolina Sternberg
Our study contributes to the existing debates surrounding gentrification and displacement of Latino immigrants and African-Americans in two critical ways. First, current work on gentrification widely peripheralizes the study of race and ethnicity as active and semiotic tools in mediating these processes. Second, the extant literature on gentrification in Chicago recognizes racialized discourses, histories of racial disinvestment, and racial income disparities, but has not directly addressed how race and ethnicity fuel the valuation regimes that enable gentrification. Our study fills this lacuna by mapping racial and ethnic change, property parcel values, and visual scan data on material improvement in relation to ethnographic observations and interviews. Finally, we examine the interrelations of race, ethnicity and gentrification by using a comparative focus on three distinct areas in Chicago—Garfield Park, Humboldt Park, and Pilsen—communities of historical significance to African-American residents, and Puerto Rican, and Mexican immigrants respectively, that have suffered significant displacements over the last fifteen years.
