".This is an important and ambitious book, which should appeal to a wide range of readers interested in what goes on in classrooms and how to study them. It balances original theoretical explorations of identity and learning with rich ethnographic accounts of classroom activity (including numerous transcripts).Learning Identity makes a significant contribution to the study of classroom interaction, both by putting the issue of the interrelationship of learning and identity - and, more generally, pedagogy and sociology - on the research agenda, and by providing a robust set of tools for its investigation." --Adam Lefstein, Institute of education, University of London, Linguistics and Education ".convincing and thought-provoking.Wortham is to be applauded for his detailed and engrossing response to key contemporary questions for educational researchers about how we can conceptualise the intertwining of cognitive and social dimensions within classroom learning, how we can document ongoing social processes and how we can link up micro- and macro-level analysis." --Janet Maybin, Open University, United Kingdom, Linguistics and Education ".

For those of us who have followed Stanton Wortham's work, the appearance of Learning Identity synthesizes and culminates a fruitful line of inquiry that began well over 10 years ago. The book shows a leading anthropologist at the top of his game, deeply knowledgeable about school-based language practices, passionate about challenging facile educational truisms, and determined to apply the tools of his trade to illuminating how social and academic processes are necessarily intertwined.impressively detailed analysis of language-in-use.Wortham has given us a book worthy of close study, again and again and again." --Bradley Levinson, Indiana University, Linguistics and Education.