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Online Notes
Interaction and
Identity in a
New York City
Asian Cram
School
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Typically viewed
as a staple of
childhood life
in East Asia,
cram schools are
private
educational
institutions
offering
additional
academic
instruction
during
non-school
hours. Over the
past few
decades,
hundreds if not
thousands of
Asian
American-run
cram schools
have been
established
throughout the
United States,
proliferating
across urban
areas
particularly in
Asian American
enclaves.
Despite this
recent boom of
Asian American
cram schools,
there has been
very little
research that
examines how
these
educational
sites affect the
academic and
identity
development of
youth.
This
paper draws on
ethnographic
data collected
over a period of
one year in a
fifth grade
English language
arts class in a
Korean
American-run
cram school in
Queens. I
examine how
social
relationships
emerge among
participants and
how participants
come to socially
identify one
another. I
explore the ways
in which these
phenomena relate
to learning and
identity in the
classroom.
Methods of data
collection
include
participant
observation, field notes,
audio-recorded
interviews with
teachers,
students and
administrators,
and
video-recorded
classroom
interaction.
Central to this
investigation is
the analysis of
social
interaction.
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