Abstract
This article examines how students’ ascribed and claimed identities can converge and diverge over the course of a single interaction in a linguistically and culturally diverse Italian middle school, as well as solidify over time. An analysis of keying (Goffman 1974) and of explicit metapragmatic commentary (Rymes 2014)—including peer language policing and accusations of racism—shows how students draw on pervasive ideologies about race, language, education, and belonging in making sense of themselves and others. Monitoring peer language policing provides a means of monitoring the ways in which students’ notions of institutionalized categories and lived practice co-constitute each other, as well as how this can be redirected and guided. This article proposes methodological possibilities for including pre- and in-service teachers in reflection about the impact of language policing and racial ostracism on students’ trajectories (Wortham 2004).