Adolescent Literacies Across Contexts: Directions in Contemporary Research

• In Event: Black Excellence: An Exploration of the Literacy and Learning Practices of Black Youth

Abstract

This presentation will explore recent research on the literacy practices of youth, both inside and outside schools. The purpose of this endeavor is to synthesize current research as it relates to different spaces in which youth practice literacy, the multiple literacies they possess and develop, and to identify gaps in the literature in relation to the literacy practices of youth of color in particular. According to Ladson-Billings (2008), standardized testing, lack of adequate funding of schools, and other inequities have been disproportionately affecting poor youth and youth of color, which in turn has contributed to the creation and dissemination of deficit narratives about their literacies. Deficit narratives, such as that of the Black male crisis (George, 1993), notions of underprepared students, and at risk youth, or “struggling” readers (Kinloch, 2011), to name a few, have been circulating in the media and educational discourse. These narratives, however, are often disrupted by literacy research that reflects the ways in which historically marginalized young people engage in literacy practices both inside and outside schools, draw on digital media to communicate complex content, and draw on their ‘funds of knowledge’ (Rios-Aguilar et al., 2011) in creative ways that are rarely recognized by teachers and policy makers.
The move toward viewing literacy through an ideological model--a model that asserts that literacy is not seen as neutral, but as deeply ingrained in social and cultural contexts and practices--has reshaped what counts as literacy. According to Street (2003), an ideological model of literacy “is about knowledge: the ways in which people address reading and writing are themselves rooted in conceptions of knowledge, identity, and being” (pp. 77-78). This (re)-conceptualization has greatly reshaped the ways in which literacy has been researched, particularly with respect to questions of why, when, where, and how young people practice literacy, and how literacy shapes their practices inside and outside school (Paris & Kirkland, 2011). Relatedly, Kinloch (2011) notes that the focus of literacy research has been gradually shifting from an emphasis on schools as the primary unit of study to literacy practices across multiple sociopolitical sites, including families, homes, and other non-school environments. With this in mind, this first presentation will survey work on the literacy practices of Black youth and other youth of color of the past decade, in an effort to show the ways in which these practices present a counter-narrative to deficit oriented thinking about these young people and their literacies.

Author

• Tanja Burkhard, The Ohio State University - Columbus