Lessons From College Students and Instructors to Inform the Teaching of African American Language Content

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable Session 3:05 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Race, Language, and Justice Across Pedagogical Contexts (Table 15)

Abstract

African American Language (AAL) plays an important role in U.S. culture and in academic disciplines such as Education, Linguistics, and English. Unfortunately, AAL is still widely stigmatized due to anti-Black racism. College classrooms provide a useful forum for challenging this stigmatization, yet surprisingly little research has explored the teaching and learning of AAL content at the college level. In the present study, we conducted a qualitative analysis of survey and interview data from students across multiple U.S. colleges as well as survey data from over 130 college instructors. We examine the challenges and concerns that both students and instructors face when engaging with this important content, and use these data to develop recommendations for college instructors and researchers.

Authors

• Quentin Sedlacek, Southern Methodist University

• Anne Harper Charity-Hudley, Stanford University

• Christine L. Mallinson, University of Maryland - Baltimore County

• Maricela Leon, The University of Texas System

• Ian Grey, Southern Methodist University

• Lamisa Ali, Southern Methodist University

• Jordan McLarty, Southern Methodist University