Corporalidad del «buen estudiante»: representaciones de género, «raza», etnia y clase social en la escuela española

Abstract

El presente artículo es una aproximación socio-antropológica a la construcción del «buen estudiante» en la escuela española a partir de cómo son percibidos los alumnos en función de las clasificaciones realizadas por el profesorado sobre marcadores de género, raciales, étnicos y sociales. Para ello abordamos las condiciones del cuerpo escolarizado que son problematizadas versus las representaciones del mismo consideradas ventajosas para un itinerario educativo de éxito. A partir de la realización del trabajo de campo etnográfico, en el marco de una investigación sobre trayectorias de éxito y fracaso escolar de alumnado inmigrado de nacionalidad extranjera en España, proponemos un análisis interseccional de los marcadores mencionados para conocer cómo son construidos los cuerpos de quienes se adecuan a las demandas de la institución educativa frente a quienes no lo hacen.

Exploring Discourses About Race/Ethnicity in a Spanish TV Football Program

“…Our results showed that commentators used the "Psychological/Cognitive" theme to construct racial/ethnic difference in relation to players of North African origin. Contrary to our expectations based on previous literature (Chakour & Portillo Fernández, 2018;Olmos Alcaraz & Rubio Gómez, 2013), players we categorized as "North African" were often described in a positive manner, especially in relation to their psychological/cognitive skills, with comments such as "veo un hombre que quiere renovarse, que se está preparando mentalmente" (I see a man who wants to reinvent himself, who is getting ready mentally) or "Brahím ve muy bien a Isco en el segundo palo" (Brahim sees very well Isco at the far post). The numbers also confirmed this trend: they received 16% of the positive commentary in the Psychological/Cognitive theme, with this being a clearly higher percentage than their share in the overall commentary (9%).…”

“…It is worth noting that while the pattern that shows how North-African players were portrayed in a positive light referred to several players, the positive comments on the specific theme Psychological/Cognitive referred only to two successful Real Madrid players, Brahim and Benzema, who were described, for instance as “ha sido muy generoso de ceder el balón” (he has been very generous to concede the goal to his colleague), and “tiene madera de lider” (he’s got enough to be a leader), respectively. These findings differ considerably from the everyday discourse about those of North African origin in Spain where they are often described in a negative light and associated with negative cognitive/psychological traits (Cea d’Ancona & Valles Martínez, 2013; Olmos Alcaraz & Rubio Gómez, 2013), which seems to indicate that televised football is able to challenge (instead of reproduce) dominant discourses surrounding racial/ethnic groups. We will return to this in our Discussion.…”

“…Our results showed that players of North African origin were often portrayed positively, and specially within the theme Psychological/Cognitive, by being described relatively often as team players, leaders and intelligent, characteristics that contrast sharply with the negative depiction of people of North African origin in Spanish everyday discourse (Chakour & Portillo Fernández, 2018; Olmos Alcaraz & Rubio Gómez, 2013). This result is even more striking, considering that, in general, the comments on the theme Psychological/Cognitive were equally distributed within the positive and negative categories.…”

“…For example, Moroccans, a category that is often conflated with the category "Muslim" (Rodríguez-García et al, 2019), are often linked to criminality and described in negative psychological/cognitive terms (Cea d'Ancona & Valles Martínez, 2013;Chakour & Portillo Fernández, 2018), while Latin Americans, despite being denominated as the "preferred immigrants" because of the shared language (Izquierdo Escribano et al, 2003), are also negatively described as uneducated and lazy (Enesco et al, 2005). Other studies have also shown how Black people are associated with natural physicality and often "othered" in Spanish films and series (Olmos Alcaraz & Rubio Gómez, 2013;Santaolalla, 2005;Solà et al, 2016). All in all, what the research on discourses about race/ethnicity in Spain shows is a tendency to stereotype categories that are seen as the "Other", while the categories "Spanish" or "White" are rendered invisible or superior to that "Other" (Enesco et al, 2005).…”

“…So, for example, in Spanish everyday discourse, people of Moroccan origin are more likely to be labelled "Moroccan" rather than "Spanish-Moroccan". A second layer of racial/ethnic categorization was based on what we call here "wider geographical region" (also van Sterkenburg et al, 2012), as literature also points out that Spanish everyday discourse surrounding race/ethnicity uses this layer of categorization (Olmos Alcaraz & Rubio Gómez, 2013). Relevant categories within this second layer that are commonly used in Spain are "Asian", "Black African", "Latin American", "European", "East European" and "North African".…”