Gossip has mainly been investigated as an oral discourse practice, one that serves as a mechanism to reaffirm relationships and to construct, monitor and maintain social norms and values within communities. This study investigates how a group of Aboriginal English speaking teenage girls constructed norms, values and identities in their email gossip. Adopting a communities of practice perspective and a social constructionist understanding of identity, the study draws on ethnographic data collected on the writing practices of a group of Indigenous girls in a high school program for educationally ‘at risk’ students. The findings indicate that the girls used email gossip to do friendship while constructing multifaceted identities and negotiating social norms and values relating to four themes: 1) the social practices of girls in friendship circles; 2) the physical attributes, characters and social practices of boys; 3) the relationships between girls and boys; and 4) risk-taking practices. By creating spaces in the curriculum for email writing (and gossip), teachers can make school a more personally meaningful place for ‘disaffected’ students. It can also enhance students’ writing, computer and analytical skills and raise their language awareness with respect to constructing identities needed to participate in the workplace and wider community.
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Cited by (5)
Cited by five other publications
González Ybarra, Mónica & Grace D. Player
2024. Chismosas Against White Hetero-patriarchy: Chisme as a Literacy Pedagogy of Resistant Girlhood/Womanhood. Equity & Excellence in Education► pp. 1 ff.
2023. Identifying factors for poorer educational outcomes that may be exacerbated by COVID‐19: A systematic review focussing on at‐risk school children and adolescents. Australian Journal of Social Issues 58:1 ► pp. 13 ff.
Eckhaus, Eyal & Batia Ben-Hador
2019. Gossip and gender differences: a content analysis approach. Journal of Gender Studies 28:1 ► pp. 97 ff.
Miczo, Nathan, Theresa Mariani & Crystal Donahue
2011. The Strength of Strong Ties: Media Multiplexity, Communication Motives, and the Maintenance of Geographically Close Friendships. Communication Reports 24:1 ► pp. 12 ff.
Grote, Ellen
2006. Challenging the Boundaries between School-sponsored and Vernacular Literacies: Urban Indigenous Teenage Girls Writing in an ‘At Risk’ Programme. Language and Education 20:6 ► pp. 478 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
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