Language Self-Identification in the International Reading Literacy of Black American and Immigrant Youth

• In Event: 67.067 - MTCC Roundtable Session 31
  In Roundtable Session: 67.067-1 - Language, Identity, and Self Across Educational Contexts

Abstract

In this study, we clarify discussions regarding ‘underperformance’ and ‘outperformance’ among Black immigrant and American youth, particularly in the area of international reading literacy, by focusing primarily on the influence of language across these Black sub-populations. We show that despite being predominantly bidialectal and multidialectal English-speaking, Black American and immigrant students tend to identify ‘standardized (and not dialectal) English(es)’ as their first language on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) when this may not necessarily be their intended English dialect of classification. In turn, this questionable identification forms the basis for which the statistically significant ‘outperformance’ of Black immigrant ‘native’ English speaking youth is determined in relation to the corresponding ‘underperformance’ of their Black American English-speaking counterparts.

Authors

• Patriann Smith, University of South Florida

• Jaehoon Lee, Texas Tech University

• Rong Chang, University of Houston

• Tressia Venessell Thompson, Texas Tech University

• Alex Kumi-Yeboah, University at Albany - SUNY