Poverty, Urbanicity, and U.S. History Achievement on Reading and Writing Assessment Items

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 3
  In Roundtable Session: Challenges and Opportunities in the Social Studies Classroom

Abstract

States are restructuring their U.S. history state assessments to include reading and writing assessment items, including document-based questions and extended-response items. These items are designed to evaluate students’ historical literacy skills, such as sourcing, contextualizing, corroboration, and using multiple documents to construct an argumentative essay, as well as students’ abilities to demonstrate their historical content knowledge through their historical literacy skills. This study investigates this occurrence for one state by isolating the effect that a U.S. history extended-response item had on the income achievement gap. This study finds that low-income students are disproportionately underperforming on this assessment item, which highlights the importance of historical literacy and culturally and linguistically responsive instruction for low-income students, especially in urban schools.

Author

• Jason Michael Miller, Eastern Kentucky University