"Struggling" and "Proficient" Readers in the Same Classrooms: How Contexts Mediate Youths' Perspectives on Reading

• In Event: Roundtable Session 14
  In Roundtable Session: Reading the Word and the World: Research on Literacy, Context, and Identity

Abstract

Static reading labels are problematic because youth demonstrate varying reading skills and identities across classrooms. Little research has investigated how ‘struggling’ and ‘proficient’ readers’ interactions with shared contexts mediate their literacy in similar and different ways. In a school-year-long qualitative study, the first author shadowed 8 ‘struggling’ ninth-graders across classes and compared their literacy experiences to youth not labeled as such. Analysis of 46 interviews and 425 hours of observations showed that interactions with classroom contexts contributed to students’ positioning as ‘struggling’ or ‘proficient,’ regardless at times of demonstrations of skill or struggle. By documenting how contexts mediated youths’ shared and divergent perspectives on reading identities, purposes, and skills, findings have implications for disrupting deficit labels and promoting literacy learning.

Authors

• Julie E. Learned, University at Albany - SUNY

• Angela M. Lui, University at Albany/SUNY

• Mary Jo Morgan, University at Albany - SUNY