Community-Based Problem-Solving Strategies as an Instrument of Youth Academic and Social Resiliency

• In Event: Roundtable Session 53
  In Roundtable Session: Counternarratives and Assets: Reframing Youth Outcomes Through Strength

Abstract

This presentation draws from research investigating socially situated, transformative pathways to academic problem solving, resiliency and coping. We present findings highlighting the linguistic components of ways of coping, speaking, being, performing and reasoning among students within a community based literacy program among African American students. We identify culturally shared interactional norms, similar to those occurring in the community setting of the hair salon, which promote social and academic resiliency, as well as inform knowledge building across community, classroom and workplace settings. We present how norms for discourse and structures of participation and argumentation that are evident in the community provide participation structures that invite student engagement in the classroom.

Author

• Yolanda J. Majors, The University of Minnesota