Discourses of Student Success：Language, Class, and Social Personae in Italian Secondary Schools

This book offers a linguistic ethnographic account of secondary schooling in Umbria, Italy, examining the complex intersection of language, socioeconomic class, social persona, and school choice to provide a holistic portrait of the situatedness of student "success."The book explores the everyday sociolinguistic practices at the three types of Italian secondary schools in Umbria-lyceum, technical institute, and vocational school-and the language ideologies and de facto language policies associated with them. Leone-Pizzighella unpacks the ways in which students are socialized by both peers and teachers into specific academic discourses and specialized forms of knowledge throughout their school careers. In its close analysis of the microinteractional contexts of these classrooms, drawing on a corpus of naturally occurring classroom discourse, the volume illuminates the ways in which certain forms of talk are exalted while others policed and how students either submit to or resist the social labels ascribed to them.

This account provides deeper insights into the ways in which educational institutions are constructed and maintained via talk. This book will be of interest to students and scholars interested in educational linguistics, linguistic anthropology, classroom discourse, language-in-education policy, and education policy.