Rethinking “(Under) Performance” for Black English Speakers: Beyond Achievement to Opportunity

Abstract

We draw on the concept of the opportunity gap explanatory framework in this study to problematize the notion of “(under)performance” of Black American (i.e., African American) and Black immigrant youth. Examining reading literacy achievement results of Black American and Black immigrant youth using a corpus of data from the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), we demonstrate the ways in which these youth self-identified as language speakers on the PISA reading literacy assessment measure, the influence of this self-identification on interpretations of their reading literacy, and the influence of other demographic factors on this achievement across subgroups. We suggest that the disaggregation of data for Black subpopulations can allow for a better understanding of the ways in which demographic, social, and cultural factors impact achievement within specific Black subgroups. We also highlight the need for reframing examinations of Black students’ literacies in ways that are humanizing. Implications for research, practice, and policy are provided.

If “Black Lives Matter in Literacy Research,” Then Take This Racial Turn: Developing Racial Literacies

“…Muhammad, 2020; Parker, 2020; Tatum, 2009), literary and literacies traditions (Belt-Beyan, 2004; Fisher, 2009; Harris, 1992; McHenry, 2002; Ntiri, 2014; Power-Carter et al, 2019; Richardson, 2003; Willis, 2002), digital tool uses (Lewis Ellison, 2017; Lewis Ellison & Solomon, 2019; Tichavakunda & Tierney, 2018), reading and writing practices (Asher, 1978; Austin, 1972; Guillory & Gifford, 1980; Guthrie et al, 2009; McHenry & Heath, 1994; G. E. Muhammad et al, 2017; Tatum, 2009), gifts, talents and high-achievement (Ford, 1995; Ford et al, 2018; Grantham et al, 2011), assessment data indicators (Anderson, 2007; Cohen et al, 2012; Ferguson, 2003; Flowers, 2016; Irvine, 1990; Smith et al, 2019; Thompson & Shamberger, 2015; Willis, 2019), family and community literacies (Edwards, 1993; Gadsden, 1992; Heath, 1983/2008, especially the often overlooked “Black townspeople”; Johnson, 2010; Lewis, 2013), youth literacies (Carter, 2007; Kinloch et al, 2017; Kirkland & Jackson, 2009; Morrell, 2008), or racial literacies (Croom, in press) of Black children and adults without accounting for and examining the historical and current practices and consequences of race? For that matter, in the United States (and other racially Westernized contexts), how does “literacy” of any kind, for any racially classified group, make sense without accounting for the ongoing racialization of human beings that began in Western Europe?…”

The Case for Translanguaging in Black Immigrant Literacies

“…For instance, despite the academic success often said to characterize Black immigrant youth, much like their Black American counterparts, many bidialectal Black immigrant students have been found to lack proficiency in the academic English language of the United States based on differences in language structure, pronunciation, and vocabulary (Pratt-Johnson, 2006). Moreover, in situations where academic reading literacy has been evaluated by international measures such as Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA; Smith et al, 2019), students were not allowed to identify as bilingual or bidialectal despite many of these Black English-speaking immigrant students being bi-/multilingual and bi-/multidialectal (De Kleine, 2006; Nero, 2006; Ukpokodu & Ojiambo, 2017; Winer, 1993, 2006). As a result, information about the academic reading literacy of these youth has tended to be drawn from assessment results that do not always reflect their ability to draw from the literacy practices through which they serve as architects of the home languages or dialects with which they are most familiar (Flores, 2019; Smith et al, 2018).…”

“…Emerging research concerning Black immigrant youth’s literacies on the PISA partially supports and extends this notion, indicating that despite outperforming their African American (i.e., Black American) counterparts, Black immigrants as a group did not meet the average reading literacy standard set by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development on multiple iterations of this international large-scale assessment in the United States (Smith et al, 2019). The authors questioned the current assumption that Black immigrant youth are readily presumed to be academically successful even while their African American peers are considered underperformers .…”

“…Yet, it can be argued that African American students also have this advantage (i.e., English as official language). Moreover, such an argument comes under further scrutiny given recent indications showing that even the standardized Englishes of Black immigrant youth tend not to be accepted in schools and academic circles and that their ways of using these standardized Englishes often create challenges for legitimizing Black immigrants’ literacy practices (Smith et al, 2018, 2019). Furthermore, it is increasingly shown that the linguicism (Agyepong, 2013; Awokoya, 2009; Skutnabb-Kangas, 1988), often ascribed to Black immigrants’ Englishes, tends to be further influenced by the race of Black immigrants (Smith, 2019), which can, in turn, affect their literacies.…”

“…Yet, Black immigrant youth face challenges with their academic, and specifically, literacy performance that often go unnoticed by teachers in schools (Kumi-Yeboah, 2018; Smith, 2019; Ukpokodu, 2018). These nuanced and complex challenges of literacy performance often occur because (a) race becomes central to their literacy practices when they migrate to the United States (Smith, 2020b); (b) they are required to (re)position themselves in relation to race when using literacies to interact with others in the new environment of the United States and to perform academically in classrooms (Smith, 2019; Smith et al, 2019); and (c) they are expected to negotiate how they will use and re-appropriate literacies as they “become Black” (Ibrahim, 1999) in this context. Smith (2019), for example, illustrated how a Black immigrant youth, Jaeda, used a transraciolinguistic approach to leverage her metaracial, metacultural, and metalingual understanding, which developed as she navigated linguistic racism (Baker-Bell, 2017), linguicism (Skutnabb-Kangas, 1988), and raciolinguistic ideology (Rosa & Flores, 2017).…”