My work is part of efforts of literacy research to examine how users of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) fare in the unique, yet under-explored contexts of community workplace settings. In much of my research I explore the cultural and academic underpinnings of how people come to make meaning and problem in task related activities. I explore culturally situated meaning making processes within and across African American community and classroom contexts. My aim is to make the case for culturally responsive processes for reasoning and problem solving, as these processes operate within and across contexts, like the classroom. Three interwoven strands characterize my empirical line of research.
This line of research involves a deep attention to contextual details and cognitive processes involved in reasoning. My research focuses on an in-depth examination of the relationship between individual development and social interaction with concern for the cultural norms and activity in which personal and interpersonal actions take place. Using qualitative methods and a range of data collection techniques (including, participant-observation, video-data collection, curriculum design, work-task performance, interviews, participants’ reflective journaling). I have worked tirelessly to understand how African American men, women, and adolescents, who are Speakers of African American Vernacular English (AAVE), grapple with complex problem solving tasks, make use of related skills, and create means within culturally-situated discourse.
This complex framework enables me to deeply consider learning, language and labor through the cognitive and linguistic resources that ethno-linguistically and socioeconomically diverse students find familiar. In that it involves an integration of community, classroom, and culture, this complex and interdisciplinary line of research has been challenging to conceive, execute, and disseminate. These challenges derive from the close connection between research activities and practical questions that emerge in ongoing discussions with teachers, educational administrators, and work place professionals. Furthermore, the tensions inherent in such work, and in using qualitative approaches in pursuit of understanding teaching and learning across community and classroom environments, make it exciting and worthwhile. It is gratifying to be working at a time when the fields of education and communication are becoming progressively more receptive of such forms of scholarship, and more possibilities to publish and receive funding for this kind of work become available.
My future plans for research include: 1) investigation of the structures of cultural socialization through argumentation; 2) developing a framework for mapping structural and content-related parallels for argumentation across contexts; and, 3) guiding the design of culturally responsive curriculum, while utilizing this framework for mapping such parallels.
Qualitative research analysis, adult/adolescent literacy, teacher development, teacher education, curriculum instruction multicultural education, African and African American literature.
Principle Investigator
Project Shoptalk
The University of Georgia, Department of Language Education
Summer 2002 – Present
Project Coordinator and Research Analyst
Cultural Modeling Project; Dr. Carol D. Lee, Principle Investigator
Northwestern University School of Education and Social Policy
November 1998 – Present
Literacy & Workplace Development Consultant, Phyllis Wheatley Community Center, Minneapolis, MN. (2011-2012).
Language Arts Consultant, North Lawndale College Prep High School. (1999-2000).
Language Arts Consultant, National Council of Teachers of English Reading Initiative. Benito Juarez High School, Chicago, IL. (1999-2000).
Editor, Salish Research Consortium, Salish Communiqué, University of Iowa Science Education Center (1994-1996).
Editor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Griot Newsletter, African-American Cultural Program (1991-1992).
Section Editor, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, Daily Illini Newspaper (1990-1992).
American Anthropological Association
American Anthropological Association, Council on Anthropology and Education
American Educational Research Association, Division C, Division K
National Conference on Research in Language in Literacy
National Council of Teachers of English
National Council of Teachers of English Standing Committee on Research
National Council of Teachers of English Council of English Education