An Examination of the Social and Cultural Influences on Adolescent Literacy Development

Elizabeth Birr Moje Jacquelynne EcclesHelen Watt Paul RichardsonOksana Malunchuk Melanie OverbyPamela Davis-Kean

University of Michigan

Preparation of this manuscript was supported by a grant to: Elizabeth B. Moje from the National Institute of Children’s Health and Human Development (NICHD)/Office of Vocational Education (OVAE)/Office of Special Education Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), Grant #1 R01 HD046115-01.

Examination ofSocial and Cultural Influences onAdolescent Literacy Development

Literacy Skills in Context

Motivations&

Expectancies

Out-of-SchoolEngagements

Transfer Across Contexts

Assessments

Observation

Surveys

Interviews

Diary studies

Observation

Observation

Textual Analyses

Interviews

Interviews

Assessments

ObservationInterviews

Experimental Tasks

Literacy ModelLiteracy Model

Text Reader

Context

Broader Context

Broader

Context

Text structure, vocabulary, print style and font, discourse, genre, register

Word knowledge, vocabulary knowledge, background knowledge, linguistic/textual knowledge, strategy use, inference-making abilities, motivation

Environment, purpose, social relations, cultural norms (e.g., schools, families peer groups; academic content areas)

SamplesSecondary Analyses

Michigan Study of Adolescent and Adult Life Transitions (MSALT)

Childhood and Beyond (CAB) Maryland Adolescent Development in Context Study

(MADICS) Panel Study on Income Dynamics-Child Development

Supplement (PSID-CDS)Primary Analyses

Southwest Detroit Study (SDS)• Approx. 1,000 6, 8, and 9th grade students (followed each

year for 4 years) in 3 public schools and 1 private school• Subsamples studied via daily diaries, semi-structured

interviews, and on-going ethnography

Data collection/analyses to date

Mixed-methods secondary data analyses of the stability and role of voluntary reading through adolescence in relation to post-secondary educational participation (Prince Georges County MD: MADICS study)

Surveyed ~500 6th & 8th –graders; 55 9th –graders in southwest Detroit

Ethnographic primary data collection and initial analyses of southwest Detroit data

Findings PGC: Voluntary Reading and Post-Secondary Educational Participation

Voluntary reading in early adolescence has benefits (over and above reading ability) for level of postsecondary educational participation 7 years later

Girls read more than boys in early adolescence (but not later)

European Americans (EA) read more than African Americans (AA), although this difference was fully mediated by higher reading scores for EA (as measured by CAT reading in grade 5)

Voluntary reading serves a variety of purposes

Findings: Detroit Ethnographic Analyses*Participants’ responses to reading reflect an

intersection of ethnicity, experiences as urban dwellers, and relationships When asked explicitly about their reading choices, the

youth talk overwhelmingly about the books being “real” or “teaching you things.”

The young women in the sample tend to read books, particularly literary texts, and the young men tend to read informational text, particularly Internet texts and/or print magazines.

The young women have increased book reading over time/development.

**These data build on Moje’s on-going, seven-year ethnography of this community and of youth reading and writing practices from age 12.

Findings: Ethnographic Primary Analyses

**These data build on Moje’s on-going, seven-year ethnography of this community and of youth reading and writing practices from age 12.

E: Yolanda just said that she bought the most, what word did you use, interesting? Interesting book. She bought it on Saturday and she finished reading it on . . . ?

Y: Tuesday.E: Tell us about the book.She gives a lengthy description of the book.

When probed for more information about the book, Y responds~~

Y: that’s why it’s [a book she’s reading outside of school] so interesting. . . . because it doesn’t give you, like, it’s not going, “Aha!” they let you use your imagination. . . . And it has words in Spanish sooo big like, I go, “Mom, what is this? And she explains. Okay, that’s cool.

Y: School books are really boring. They don’t make sense. Like the biology book. You read the whole section and you’re like, okay, you gotta read it four times just to understand it a little bit. It’s confusing.

E: You can imagine everything and just fill in the blanks when you read those novels. But why can’t you imagine what’s going on when you’re reading a school text?

Y: . . . It’s just written the way adults read it. . . . And they have the knowledge to do that . . . And they write it in their own little language. Like you said, there’s different ways to write a sentence. . . . Well, they write it in their language that only them can understand because they graduated they have a diploma and everything. And we don’t get that. The words are big that you’re like, “Okay.” You gotta go look it up. . . . You read the word and you try to translate it in Spanish . . . And you try to translate it and you can’t. . . . It’s like, oh, it gives you a head ache . . . So it gets you brain dead.”

Conclusions and Next Steps:Young people in the community are reading, but

how much, how often, in what depth?What do they “get” from what they read?Increased book reading among girls needs to be

studied in a normative sample: Is this a trend among a small number of girls?

Boys reading informational texts; again, is this normative?

What are students learning from these texts?How difficult are these texts? (e.g., vocabulary

load, linguistic structures, etc.)