SUMMARY OF PART 3: PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES

Chapter 10

To begin Part 3, the final section of Lazere's book, Chapter 10, “Why Does All This Still Matter?” attempted to “make a historical-revisionist case for reversing the prejudices of recent theory and re-evaluating, within the political and pedagogical framework” established in the text (p. 185); Lazere claimed that because of their limited interaction with other views, students can demonstrate “restricted cognitive development” that often results in writing that demonstrates racist and sexist tendencies, as well as a favor for the rich and scorn for the poor (p. 187).


Chapter 11

While most of Part 3 primarily focuses on the applications of Lazere’s findings, Chapter 11, “Orality, Literacy, and Political Consciousness” returned to critiquing the values of localism held by pluralists. This chapter, though, shifted focus from scholars like David Bartholomae to Walter Ong, who greatly unpacks the relevancy of orality in modern composition. Lazere did this mostly to ground his critique on Students' Right to Their Own Language. By first arguing definitions (specifically that the term “language” should be replaced with “dialect”), he wrote that dialect applies to orality, but should not apply to written discourse (p. 201).


Chapter 12

Chapter 12, "Sociolinguistics, Political Socialization, and Mass Culture" moves slightly away from Lazere's earlier patterns of unpacking and assessing the shortcomings of his academic contemporaries to more directly situate and confront mass cultures’ understanding and treatment of class. Turning his critiques to conservative ideologies, Lazere quoted John Dean, who found that “people become or remain political conservatives because they have a ‘heightened psychological need to manage uncertainty and threat’” (p. 239). As this often emerges as resistance to more progressive ideas, Lazere used this notion to further his advocacy for establishing a more universal, progressive knowledge base in writing classrooms.


Chapter 13

In Chapter 13, “Shifting Critical Perspectives on Language and Class” (the final chapter), Lazere heavily cited the theories of Basil Bernstein and Pierre Bourdieu to emphasize the importance his pedagogy has on reconstructing more conservative understandings of class. Further stressing an earlier argument, Lazere overall argued that “neither exclusively abstract nor concrete thinking and language is desirable; the key element of critical discourse/critical thinking is to connect the two” (p. 252). Looking to the future, Lazere concluded that perhaps his suggested curriculum does not have a place within first-year composition, yet should still reside within a more advanced composition and research course.