Brokering: A sensitising concept for understanding learning
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Brokering occurs when an intermediary, the broker, assists in the transfer or exchange of goods, services, information, opportunities and/or knowledge, where the recipients of such assistance would have had difficulty deriving the benefits of this exchange otherwise. In the context of EAL (English as an additional language) international students at a university, brokering can be understood as receiving informal assistance with understanding unfamiliar texts, interactions, artefacts, and social and cultural practices encountered in the context of the host academic community. I explore the concept of brokering as facilitating learning, drawing on the various ways brokering has been used in both educational and non-educational contexts, that is, understanding brokering as a social phenomenon in communities, as knowledge transfer, and as mediating the translation of linguistic and/or cultural aspects of a new culture. These different applications of brokering contribute to an understanding of brokering as a sensitizing concept. Approaching brokering as a sensitizing concept allows alternative ways of viewing academic learning interactions among students, instead of viewing the phenomenon as having fixed features. Presentation at the 2015 Te Kura Toi Tangata Faculty of Education Doctoral Symposium (Hamilton, New Zealand) on 24 November 2015. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.1236.6324
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Brokering: A sensitising concept for understanding learning
- 1. Brokering: A sensitizing concept for understanding learning Sherrie Lee Te Whiringa School of Educational Leadership and Policy Te Kura Toi Tangata Faculty of Education
- 2. Overview 1 Research context 2 What is brokering? 3 Brokering in a social network 4 Knowledge brokering 5 Brokering in communities 6 Language brokering 7 What is brokering? 1
- 3. 2 International students in higher education Rapidly increasing enrolments in universities Mostly Asian students (e.g. China, India, South Korea) 20% of student population at University of Waikato Benefits Financial contributions Enhanced reputation Intercultural exchange Issues Cultural Social Educational Research on international students Adjustment studies mostly quantitative Academic challenges in classroom contexts Stereotyped view of EAL students as poor learners 1 Research context
- 4. To explore brokering practices among EAL international students at a New Zealand university. 3 Aim of research Informal and social but academically-oriented experiences that EAL international students have with others.
- 5. Trader InterpreterMediator 4 Brokering takes place when an intermediary (the broker) assists others in the transfer or exchange of goods, services, information, opportunities and/or knowledge; those who receive such assistance (the brokees) would have had great difficulty accessing these things otherwise (Stovel et al., 2011). 2 What is brokering?
- 6. Brokering in different forms 5 Sociological concept Literacy brokering Knowledge brokering Learning in communities Cultural brokering Language brokering
- 7. 6 Grannovetter (1973) Strength of weak ties Acquaintances, compared with friends, provide wider and better range of information to job changers. Gould & Fernandez (1989) Five kinds of brokers Coordinator: Broker among similar/local organisations. Cosmopolitan: Broker is an outsider. Gatekeeper: Decides whether or not to grant access to an outsider. Representative: Attempts to establish contact with an outsider. Liaison: Outsider/agent who links distinct groups without prior allegiance to either. Burt (2004) Structural holes and good ideas Connections with dissimilar others leads to good ideas. 3 Brokering in a social network
- 8. 7 Knowledge transfer from researchers to practitioners “Brokered knowledge is knowledge made more robust, more accountable, more usable; knowledge that ‘serves locally’ at a given time; knowledge that has been de- and reassembled.” (Meyer, 2010, p. 123) Cultivate trusting relationships between players Involving decision makers in the research process is the best predictor for seeing it used. (Lomas, 2000; Ward et al., 2009) Credibility issues may arise when …. User does not know if broker is transferring the full range of research knowledge available. Broker does not know what problems need to be solved. Broker does not know the research. (Jackson-Bowers et al., 2006) 4 Knowledge brokering
- 9. 5 Brokering in communities 8 Wenger (1998): Brokering across communities of practice “… connections provided by people who can introduce elements of one practice into another.” (Wenger, 1998, p. 105) Translation, coordination, and alignment between perspectives. Legitimacy to influence others. Cause learning by introducing into a practice elements of another. Lillis & Curry (2006): Literacy brokering for multilingual scholars in an academic discourse community Brokers were academic, language, and non- professionals. Interventions varied from sentence-level corrections to minor and major shifts in content and knowledge claims. Large amount of brokering carried out by academic professionals; although scholars tend to frame these interventions in terms of language or discourse, in fact, they tend to be related to content.
- 10. 9 Definition Interpreting and translating between linguistically and culturally different parties; performed by bilinguals in daily situations without special training. (Tse, 1995) Context: Immigrant families Child brokers are the middlemen between their family members, and people and artefacts in their adopted culture. They translate and interpret a range of documents such as notes and letters from school, bank statements, immigration forms and job applications. (Eksner & Orellana, 2012; Morales et al., 2012; Tse, 1995) Related terms – literacy brokering (Perry, 2009), cultural brokering (Hall & Sham, 2007; Martinez et al., 2008) 6 Language brokering
- 11. 10 Context: Bilingual classrooms Dual language (English and Spanish) programmes in the US English-dominant students broker for Spanish-dominant students and vice versa. Brokering (teaching) strategies: scaffolding, clarifying, and providing non-verbal cues. (Angelova et al., 2006; Gort, 2008) Brokering directionality (unidirectional or reciprocal) and points of initiation (brokee-initiated or broker-initiated) “[B]rokering … is a complex, interactional social phenomenon that gets negotiated moment to moment.” (Coyoca & Lee, 2009, p. 266) Coyoca & Lee (2009): Use of positioning theory (Harré & Langenhove (1999) Language brokering
- 12. 11 Providing informal assistance to students to help them understand unfamiliar texts, interactions, artefacts, and social and cultural practices encountered in the context of the host academic community, beyond the instructional gaze of the teacher. 7 What is brokering?
- 13. References Angelova, M., Gunawardena, D., & Volk, D. (2006). Peer teaching and learning: Co- constructing language in a dual language first grade. Language and Education, 20(3), 173–190. http://doi.org/10.1080/09500780608668722 Burt, R. S. (2004). Structural holes and good ideas. American Journal of Sociology, 110(2), 349–399. Coyoca, A. M. A. M., & Lee, J. S. (2009). A typology of language-brokering events in dual-language immersion classrooms. Bilingual Research Journal, 32(3), 260–279. http://doi.org/10.1080/15235880903372837 Eksner, H. J., & Orellana, M. F. (2012). Shifting in the zone: Latina/o child language brokers and the co-construction of knowledge. Ethos, 40(2), 196–220. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1352.2012.01246.x Gort, M. (2008). “You give me idea!”: Collaborative strides toward bilingualism, biliteracy, and cross-cultural understanding in a two-way partial immersion program. Multicultural Perspectives, 10(4), 192–200. http://doi.org/10.1080/15210960802526086 Gould, R. V, & Fernandez, R. M. (1989). Structures of mediation: A formal approach to brokerage in transaction networks. Sociological Methodology, 19(1989), 89–126. http://doi.org/10.2307/270949 12
- 14. References Grannovetter, M. S. (1973). The strength of weak ties. The American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360–1380. Hall, N., & Sham, S. (2007). Language brokering as young people’s work: Evidence from Chinese adolescents in England. Language and Education, 21(1), 16–30. http://doi.org/10.2167/le645.0 Harré, R., & van Langenhove, L. (1999). The dynamics of social episodes. In R. Harré & L. van Langenhove (Eds.), Positioning theory: Moral contexts of intentional action (pp. 1–14). Oxford, United Kingdom: Blackwell. Jackson-Bowers, E., Kalucy, L., & McIntyre, E. (2006). Focus on knowledge brokering. Primary Health Care Research & Information Service, 2006(4), 1–16. http://doi.org/10.1517/14712598.2011.582463 Lillis, T., & Curry, M. J. (2006). Professional academic writing by multilingual scholars: Interactions with literacy brokers in the production of English-medium texts. Written Communication, 23(1), 3–35. http://doi.org/10.1177/0741088305283754 Lomas, J. (2007). The in-between world of knowledge brokering. British Medical Journal, 334(7585), 129–132. http://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.39038.593380.AE Martinez-Cosio, M., & Iannacone, R. M. (2007). The Tenuous Role of Institutional Agents: Parent Liaisons as Cultural Brokers. Education and Urban Society, 39(3), 349–369. http://doi.org/10.1177/0013124506298165 13
- 15. References Meyer, M. (2010). The Rise of the Knowledge Broker. Science Communication, 32(1), 118–127. http://doi.org/10.1177/1075547009359797 Morales, A., Yakushko, O. F., & Castro, A. J. (2012). Language brokering among Mexican- immigrant families in the Midwest: A multiple case study. The Counseling Psychologist, 40(4), 520–553. http://doi.org/10.1177/0011000011417312 Perry, K. H. (2009). Genres, contexts, and literacy practices: Literacy brokering among Sudanese refugee families. Reading Research Quarterly, 44(3), 256–276. Stovel, K., Golub, B., & Milgrom, E. M. M. (2011). Stabilizing brokerage. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(Supplement_4), 21326–21332. http://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1100920108 Tse, L. (1995). Language brokering among Latino adolescents: prevalence, attitudes, and school performance. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 17(2), 180–193. http://doi.org/10.1177/07399863950172003 Ward, V., House, A., & Hamer, S. (2009). Knowledge brokering: The missing link in the evidence to action chain? Evidence & Policy: A Journal of Research, Debate and Practice, 5(3), 267–279. http://doi.org/10.1332/174426409X463811 Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. 14
Editor's Notes
- Opener: Imagine you had to spend a considerable length of time in a foreign country, for work or study, how would you go about knowing what to do and how to do things in a different culture? Like preparing documents? Or how to interact with locals? Or joining a sports club? You could read guide books and trawl the internet, but the most likely thing you’d do is to ask someone else. Someone who’s been there, done that, or is there, doing that. These are the people I refer to as brokers; people who help you understand some aspect of a foreign language or culture. In my research on brokering practices among international students, I want to find out who the students’ brokers are, what kind of help students need from them, and how students maintain these brokering relationships. Treating brokering as a sensitizing concept in my research provides “a general sense of reference and guidance in approaching empirical instances” (Blumer, 1954, p. 7). Today, I’’ll be sharing the various manifestations of brokering and hope to start a conversation on how these various understandings of brokering help us understand learning among students.
- Overview Research context What is brokering? Brokering as social phenomenon Knowledge brokering Language and literacy brokering Literature review on brokering What is brokering?
- Research context Increasing enrolments of international students in universities Mostly Asian students International students account for 20% of the student population at the University of Waikato Benefits of international students Often cited benefit is financial contribution Presence of international students also contribute to university reputations and rankings There is also the potential for intercultural exchange between international and domestic students and staff Research has also highlighted cultural, social and educational issues, or broadly categorised as adjustment challenges among international students These challenges are related to students having English as a non-native language or English as an additional language – and I will subsequently refer to these students as EAL students Many studies on adjustment challenges are quantitative Qualitative studies that explore academic challenges are often done in classroom contexts The result of such research is a stereotyped view of EAL students as poor learners EAL international students at University of Waikato
- My response to current research is to reframe how we approach research on international students. I would like to look at their broader learning experiences which I believe include informal and social interactions they have with others. These informal and social interactions are part of what I refer to as brokering practices. So the aim of my research is to explore brokering practices among EAL international students at a New Zealand university.
- Brokering – a sociological definition Brokering takes place when an intermediary, the broker, assists others in the transfer or exchange of goods, services, information, opportunities and/or knowledge; those who receive such assistance, the brokees, would have had great difficulty accessing the goods, services, information, etc. otherwise (Stovel, Golub, & Milgrom, 2011). Oxford English Dictionary Financial / commercial meaning broker = dealer, agent one who buys on behalf of someone; E.g. stock trader Making connections broker= middleman, intermediary; E.g. interpreter, messenger, negotiator
- To illustrate how we can understand brokering among EAL students, I refer to Kristen Perry’s (2009) research on literacy brokering among Sudanese refugee families in the US. She documented how family members sought or provided informal assistance about certain aspects of unfamiliar texts and practices. For example, family members helped one another understand and interpret a range of written genres such as unsolicited mail, texts from school, as well as webpages and online forms. Similarly, EAL students may seek help with understanding different types of academic writing and the expectations of assignments.
- Brokering is a rich concept which helps us understand informal learning interactions among students. Notions of information, knowledge, language, literacy and cultural brokering can help us understand how EAL international students learn about academic literacy in a new social/cultural environment. My definition of brokering in the research is: providing informal assistance with understanding unfamiliar texts, interactions, artefacts (e.g. computer terminals, directories), and social and cultural practices encountered in the context of the host academic community, beyond the instructional gaze of the teacher.