Insiders and Outsiders: The Yin-Yang Approach to Understanding

The title of this editorial was inspired by recent conversations with a few colleagues and spirited exchanges with energetic students in my classes and individual meetings. And, oh yeah, it also reflects my interest in Daoism—but that’s another story. I provide some background for the insider-outsider construct by appealing to the work of a scholar, Kenneth Lee Pike (e.g., Headland, 2004). After relating this construct to my own work, I apply it to the tenor of a few mathematics articles in this issue of the Annals. The intent is to show that the insider-outsider construct is important for further dialogue on the acquisition of language, literacy, mathematics—indeed, any area of inquiry—for children and adolescents who are d/Deaf and hard of hearing (d/Dhh). Much as in previous discussions of prominent themes in my professional (and, perhaps, personal) life, there will be “something old . . . something new . . . something borrowed. . . something blue.” (There is an Elvis song for just about anything in life.)

In my view, the insider-outsider construct is an outgrowth or a version of the emic-etic construct, which was coined by Kenneth Lee Pike. I ran across Pike when I was discussing the emic and etic concepts in my scholarly works:

Dr. Kenneth Lee Pike was the consummate scholar. His pioneer work in descriptive linguistics clearly identified him as an adventurous and penetrating thinker.

But Pike was more. As president of the Summer Institute of Linguistics (now SIL International) from 1942–1979, his task was to train and equip hundreds of linguistics students to analyze and put into writing any unwritten language in the world. He expanded SIL’s work to more than 50 countries and helped to establish SIL’s academic integrity. An author of more than 20 books and 200 articles, Pike was an internationally recognized linguistics scholar.

(“About SIL: Kenneth L. Pike,” 2021)

I admit being enthralled by Pike’s scholarship (move over, Steven Pinker); he is definitely my kind of scholar, given the range of his influence:

Pike wrote, “As I developed my linguistic principles, I discovered they extended far beyond language and linguistics. They spilled over into areas like anthropology, religion, sociology and philosophy. In fact, they turned out to be general principles about human nature itself.”

(“About SIL: Kenneth L. Pike,” 2021)

In any case, scholars who ascribe to an emic view describe the workings of a culture from the “inside”—that is, ethno-graphically within the culture, interacting with individuals and participating in the typical events and conversations. A richer and more complete description is possible if scholars are actually members of the culture, adhering to the customs and speaking the language—however, this is not the only avenue for adequate accounts. In addition, there is a potential for extreme bias. In short, the emic stance is often considered the insider’s perspective.

The etic view can be labeled a cross-cultural perspective because it aims for a general or objective rendition. Essentially, it is a view from the “outside,” undertaken by scholars—for example, psychologists, anthropologists, and linguists, who are not members of the specific culture in question. Whether the etic view is actually objective or even completely authentic is certainly debatable. However, in my view, one of the more serious accusations is that the etic view might be blatantly ethnocentric—not to mention racist, sexist, and so on—depending on the topic of discussion. In essence, the etic construct is part of the outsider’s perspective.

A few of my students and colleagues have argued that the insider’s view is more accurate, as well as more sensitive to the customs, beliefs, habits, mores, etc., of individuals within a particular culture, using a particular language. They seem to think that this is the best way to understand, among other entities, the acquisition of knowledge by these individuals. In fact, this view seems to support the construct of multiple epistemologies such as African American, feminist, Queer, and, in our field, depending on how one defines it, Deaf Epistemology.

On the other hand, per this perspective, the outsider...