Cazden, Courtney, Pioneers

Abstract

Courtney Cazden (b. 1925) has been a central figure in conceptualizing and synthesizing research on how children from linguistically, socially, and culturally diverse backgrounds are supported in developing and extending their understandings and capacities for engaging in and with language, literacy, and communicative processes in classrooms across levels of schooling and other social spaces. Since the 1960s, Cazden has laid a foundation for educators and others seeking to understand the potential contributions of advances in the fields of psychology, linguistics, anthropology, and sociology to the study of child language, discourse processes, and social perspectives in and for education. This entry begins by highlighting Cazden’s impetus for studying the intersection of language, social knowledge, and education. A brief biography is then presented, followed by a section examining the development of Cazden’s theoretical and methodological ideas. The following sections explore the development of her bifocal perspective, and how she pointed to areas in need of further development of research.