The Invisible Culture

Using four classrooms for comparison purposes (grades 1 and 6 at Warm Springs Reservation which contained 95% Indian students and similar grades in two classrooms at a nearby off-reservation town of Madras, Oregon, which contained 95% Anglo students), the book contends that the children of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation are enculturated in their preschool years into modes of organizing the transmission of verbal messages that are culturally different from those of Anglo middle-class children. It further maintains that this difference makes it more difficult for them to then comprehend verbal messges conveyed through the American school's Anglo middle-class modes of organizing classroom interaction. Part I covers verbal and nonverbal communication in the socialization of children (anthropological approach to language socialization, relation between verbal and nonverbal behavior in human communication, behavioral means for securing and conveying attention, and the plan of the book) and research methodology (purpose of the study, participant observation, classroom research, and community research). Part ii discusses communication in the Warm Springs Indian Community and use of auditory and visual channels of communication among Warm Springs Indians. The last section outlines communication in the classroom--structure of classrooom interaction, comparison of Indian and Anglo communicative behavior in classroom, and conclusion.