Still Searching: Understanding Black Males in (Literacy) Education

• In Event: A Nation at Promise: Challenging Deficit Constructions of Male Youth Labeled "At-Risk"

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: PURPOSE

Deficit assumptions of Black males persist in literacy education because relatively little is known about the literacies Black males practice. The paper asks: How are Black male literacies practiced across various stages of social development, and for what purposes? By addressing this question, this paper examines literacy, in relation to ideology—a specific theory of beliefs informing practice. It is guided by nuanced understandings of race, gender, and geography–e.g., post-feminist conceptions of intersectionality and complex masculinities (hooks, 2004), neo-formulations of Blackness (Coates, 2015), and critical geographic understandings of space (Kinloch, 2009).

THEORETICAL FRAMING

This paper uses Bakhtin’s (1978) concept of ideological to frame the literate practices of Black males in what Bakhtin calls an “ideological self”—the totality of the surrounding ideological spaces that make up an individual’s pool of interests (Bakhtin & Medvedev, 1978). Here, the self—the motives and the drives that influence who we are—is constituted ontologically (e.g., in the mind, heart, and existential belief structure). These spaces connect to and through other ideological domains (e.g., homes, schools, faith communities, etc.), where “language use and literate abilities provide ways for people to establish a social place and ways for others to judge them” (Ball & Freedman, 2004, p. 5). In this light, Black male literacies can be viewed as ideological acts that motivate young Black men to read, write, and engage particular texts.

DATA SOURCES/METHOD

Data for this paper consist of transcripts and literacy artifacts collected from 26 published studies of Black males and literacy. Data were analyzed using interpretive (Erickson, 2005; Fenstermacher, 2002; Hultgren, 1989) and critical discourse approaches (Rogers, Malancharuvil-Berkes, Mosley, Hui, & Joseph, 2005; Wodak, 2008), and guided by a “grounded theory” approach to allow for the development of theories as to how young Black men practice literacy across multiple centers and at various developmental stages (Strauss & Corbin, 1994).

FINDINGS

Findings suggest that Black males have used literacy to navigate a life beyond various forms of plight—the most recognizable being physical incarceration and chronic un(der)employment (Muth & Kiser, 2008). Such findings give rise to a new logic on Black males as highly literate consumers and creators of symbolic culture. Hence, negative associations of Black males, as projected in the media as well as a variety of literacy research studies, this study concludes, mischaracterize young Black men by ignoring the rich and resilient practice of literacy in their lives.

SCHOLARLY SIGNIFICANCE

The paper makes a significant contribution to educational research by reframing how we understand literacy among Black males and by scientifically documenting their ways with words (as opposed to their ways without them). In this way, the paper reverses a deeply ingrained yet problematic logic in educational research—the idea of Black male literacy practices as deviations from some social norm instead of what we might consider as normal and/or desirable.

Author

• David E. Kirkland, New York University