Historical Conceptualizations of Literacy Among 19th-Century Black Communities to Inform University Pedagogy

• In Event: Tales of Two Institutions: Social Justice Teaching Confronts Contradictions of “Student Success” in Higher Education

Abstract

Objective: The objective of this paper is to engage an audience of researchers and educators in a critical discussion of a historical orientation to the literacy development of Black in the United States and discuss ways how to connect history to current pedagogical practices in at the university level. In this study, I sought to understand the ways in which members of Black literary societies conceptualized literacy from the 19th century onward. I examined the purpose of literacy development and the practices that supported them toward educational excellence with aims of understanding how educational courses can be reframed at the university level toward similar ends.
Theoretical Framework: Informed by a socio-historical perspective, this study is framed by scholarship that views literacy as being socially, culturally, and historically situated (Harris, 1992; Willis, 1997).
Methods & Data Sources: Attending to both etic and emic interpretations and engaging in thick descriptions (Geertz, 1975) of historical artifacts, I examined primary source documents to understand how literacy was defined among nineteenth century Black communities, namely Black literary societies. I took cultural anthropological (Bernard, 2000; Brettell, 2000) and grounded theory approaches (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) when analyzing archives to respond to the following research questions:
1. How was literacy defined and conceptualized within literary societies?
2. What were the essential pillars that helped to improve and elevate the literacy development of Black Americans?
These questions were asked with the intention of understanding how these pillars can inform the ways in which professors engage students at the university level today.
Findings: Findings show that literacy was defined beyond a set of skills to possess but was also the means to cultivate identity development, intellect, and criticality. Engaging in criticality meant that they did not wait or seek permission from others to use language in ways to infuse their own voices, ideals, stances, and truths. Criticality is more than deep thinking but analyzing text and the world to interrogate power, oppression and privilege. Thus, literacy was a socio-political tool that invoked multiple literate practices such as reading, writing, public speaking, and debate. These ways of conceptualizing literacy adheres to both cognitive and critical sociocultural views of literacy development.
Significance: This research is timely because the nation currently wrestles with tensions for advancing the achievement for university students and the ways professors should engage them academically in educational courses. All awhile, a Black studies interpretive historical frame is often absent from the discussion, pedagogical decisions and research inquires. In response to this ahistorical nature, I present a framework that can be used for teaching social justice in higher education with examples of developed courses utilizing this framework. Engaging in archival research aimed at reconstructing literacy education with Black Americans at the center of the analysis can be helpful for considering innovative pedagogical methods and improved teaching practices in college courses.

Author

• Gholnecsar E. Muhammad, Georgia State University