Making Sense of Time as Context: Theoretical Affordances of Chronotopes in the Study of Schooling and School Success

WCER Working Paper No. 2010-11

Catherine Compton-Lilly

September 2010, 38 pp.

ABSTRACT: This theoretical essay argues that time is a critical dimension of the contexts in which people make sense of their worlds and themselves. Drawing from the work of Bakhtin, the theoretical construct of chronotope is used to examine how students are situated within time in terms of the amount, degree, and types of changes that are expected or conceivable; the degree to which students can affect or are affected by schooling; the effect of actual and historicized worlds on schooling; and the role of critique and humor in making sense of literacy, schooling, and selves. Drawing on interviews, student assessments, writing samples, and teacher/researcher reflections, meanings related to literacy, retention, compensatory education, and the pace of instruction are explored. Theoretical affordances of chronotope highlight how time operates as a constitutive dimension of experience that informs the ways students make sense of literacy, schooling, and themselves. A case study approach is used to explore time as a context in which one low-income, African American boy defined himself as a particular type of student and literate person and was ultimately relegated to a particular school trajectory.

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keywords: Chronotopes; Time; Longitudinal