Teaching in a Materials' World: An Ethnographic Study of Graduate Teaching Assistants' Use of Texts for Teaching Culture in the Spanish Classroom
Title of Dissertation: Teaching in a Materials' World: An Ethnographic Study of Graduate Teaching Assistants' Use of Texts for Teaching Culture in the Spanish Classroom
Dissertation Committee: Dr. Suzanne Panferov Reese (Chair), Dr. Beatrice Dupuy, Dr. Nick Ferdinandt
Dissertation Abstract: Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) play a pivotal role in U.S. university foreign language programs, particularly in lower-division courses. Despite this centrality, GTAs work within institutional structures with curricular and pedagogical constraints, including standardized syllabi and prescriptive assessments tied to a published textbook. While these structures aim for consistency, they often position GTAs as textbook implementers rather than curriculum thinkers. Textbooks themselves are not neutral; they carry ideological assumptions and frequently present language and culture as disconnected, complicating efforts to foster meaningful cultural learning. Yet, research has rarely examined how GTAs enact and adapt these materials in practice.
This ethnographic study explores how four GTAs teaching second-semester Spanish (102) at a large Hispanic-Serving Institution use texts for teaching culture. Specifically, it investigates what texts GTAs use, how they use them, and how they make sense of their practices. Data sources include video-recorded classroom observations, semi-structured and stimulated-recall interviews, field notes, and instructional artifacts. Guided by critical pedagogy, poststructuralist teacher identity perspectives, and multiliteracies approaches, the analysis of case studies highlights the complex interplay between institutional demands, GTAs’ knowledge, investment, and identity development in shaping textual practices.
Findings indicate that text use is a primary site where teacher identity is enacted and negotiated. GTAs engage in dynamic negotiations with texts, adapting, supplementing, and resisting textbook content to align with pedagogical goals, personal knowledge, and identity. All participants demonstrated a strong willingness to deviate from textbooks, regardless of prior experience, positioning themselves as risk-takers in an unfamiliar realm of adaptation. Their practices reflect a co-construction of cultural knowledge, blending official and unscripted materials to introduce new narratives and sociocultural perspectives interwoven with the “human experience.” These strategies fostered student engagement, teacher-student connection, and critical cultural inquiry while supporting GTAs’ identity development as educators.
This study underscores the need for GTA training models that foster reflective, critical engagement with materials and recognize GTAs as active participants in curricular innovation. By centering GTAs’ experiences in the classroom, the research advocates for bottom-up approaches to teacher education that support teacher identity development and empower teachers to create culturally responsive learning environments.
