Race, poverty and opportunity to learn in the U.S. context: A cultural and ecological model for literacy learning

Historically policies and practices to address educational needs of low-income African American youth have deficit orientations and focus on either psycho-social or cognitive outcomes. This is a longitudinal study of an ecological-culturally focused intervention in a low-income urban African-American high school addressing racial socialization in the context of rigorous disciplinary literacy instruction. The intervention design hypothesizes that resilience in the face of the dual challenges of poverty and racism during adolescence require a school culture that joins identity development with meaning-making processes afforded by deep literacy. Data include measures of racial socialization and resilience and reading comprehension in literature. Process data include classroom videos, student work, student interviews, and ethnographic observations of school climate.