African American Males and Literacy Development in Contexts That are Characteristically Urban

Abstract

Advancing the literacy development of African American males in contexts that are characteristically urban has been a challenging task for educators across the P-12 spectrum. Frames that have been traditionally used to improve the reading achievement of African American males have not reversed trends in reading achievement that find many of these young males underperforming on traditional reading assessments. The purpose of this article is to reframe the discussion on the literacy development of African American males based on a review of several bodies of literature. Attention is given to evidence-based reading research: three historical frames of the literacy development of African American males and a literacy model for advancing the literacy development of African American male youth in urban schools. Finally, a research agenda is proposed for advancing the literacy development of African American male youth with the goal of offering guidance to teachers, teacher educators, researchers, and policymakers.

Critical Influences That Encourage Adolescent Boys to Engage in Leisure Reading

“…While white male dropouts may still enter the workforce in labor jobs, black teen dropouts tend to move toward juvenile delinquency and petty crime (Boone et al, 2010). And while motivating factors for reading may be the same for adolescent males of all strata, urban teens have the additional obstacle of socio-economic status (SES) factors, mainly poverty, or the attitude that being smart is "acting white" (Tatum & Muhammad, 2012). Acting white is "set of social interactions in which minority adolescents who get good grades in school enjoy less social popularity than white students who do well academically" (Fryer, 2006) In certain cases, minorities who succeed in school suffer a social cost to do so through negative peer pressure.…”

“…In the early 1800s, young African American men created literary societies in which they would engage all manner of great texts for the purpose of not only educating themselves, but to impact history with scholarly contributions and effect change in the African American community (Tatum & Muhammad, 2012). Language is a central tenet of African American culture (Haddix, 2009).…”

“…Language is a central tenet of African American culture (Haddix, 2009). Not just written language, as this study of literacy emphasizes, but a complete package of spoken and written expression utilizing specific vocabulary and themes and delivered with creative presentation (Haddix, 2009) language to "reclaim authority over themselves" and for "liberation, protection, and security" (Tatum & Muhammad, 2012). The reasons why the state of African American literacy has changed were not specifically found in the research and are outside the scope of this study.…”

Reading achievement in a large urban school district : an analysis of the effects of four reading programs on the reading growth of four reading ability groups.

“…School districts implement reading programs and interventions that fail to acknowledge the social dimensions of African-American males' patterns of literacy learning (Tatum 2002(Tatum , 2009Tatum & Muhammad, 2012;Tillman, 2009;Toldson;) By far and large, these programs are situated around social practices that are unfamiliar to AfricanAmerican males and literally exclude their way of learning from the learning context (Tatum, 2002(Tatum, , 2008b(Tatum, , 2009Tatum & Muhammad, 2012;Tillman, 2009). …”

“…Students also need explicit strategy instruction coupled with culturally relevant literature (Tatum, 2000;Tatum & Muhammad, 2012). African-American males need culturally relevant literature to help them understand the changes in history, substantiate their existence, and critically examine the present as a mechanism for political, social, and cultural undertakings that may arise in the future (Tatum, 2000, p. 60).…”