When educators lack the knowledge, understanding and acceptance of their students' language and culture, especially when it differs from their own, a huge mismatch can and often does occur between school and home. What happens to African American children who are raised speaking Black English but schooled in standard English? How do teachers help…

The text of an essay submitted to Western Electric in New York to accompany a disc recording entitled "The Dialect of the Black American," produced and recently released by their Community Relations Division. (JM)

Does not support the hypothesis that "sounding Black" predisposes White listeners to respond more negatively than "sounding White," regardless of content. Partially supports the hypothesis that "sounding Black" predisposes White listeners (1) to describe the speaker in stereotypic terms and (2) to respond negatively…

Some of the consequences of not incorporating Ebonics into educational programs for Black children are discussed. (Author/MC)

Shares the perspectives of a black parent, herself a teacher at a school founded by the Black Panthers, whose daughter was educated in the public schools of Oakland (California) and Kalamazoo (Michigan) between 1986 and 1996. Many negative experiences, some centered around language, are described. (SLD)

Discusses the controversy over the use of Ebonics in the Oakland (California) schools and presents two schools of thought about the origin of Ebonics, the pidgin/Creole and the African retention theories. Three research studies are described that support the use of Ebonics in the classroom as a bridge to standard English. (SLD)

Discusses an 18-month effort by Homes for Black Children and the Wayne County (Detroit) Department of Social Services to train child welfare workers concerning the extended kinship network of the African-American family; the role of African-American men in the family and child welfare; and African-American child rearing methods, language and…

Language samples were elicited from 17 African American preschoolers by 3 examiners; a white female using standard English and 2 African American females using either standard English or black English. Samples elicited by the African American examiners contained more different Black English features, with examiner usage of Black English eliciting…

Argues that too little attention to the history of learning and literacy among African Americans has led to the perpetuation of distortions and misconceptions about their value in the Black community. Misunderstanding of Black children's educational problems is a consequence of ignoring historical evidence and the effects of caste membership. (AF)

The relationship between the frequency of African-American English (AAE) features used by African-American adolescent males (n = 16) and their performance on the seven clusters comprising the "Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery-Revised" (WLPB-R) was investigated. All participants were between the ages of 15 and 19 years who had a…

Despite American schools administrators' refusal to accept the language of African-American students and their overzealousness to frame language and literacy skills in terms of an "achievement gap," African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) is the language of African-American imagination and reality. This article discusses the characteristics of…

Many U.S. students speak nonstandard forms of English, yet dialect issues are slighted in teacher education programs and literacy courses. In this study, classroom teachers who spoke Standard American English (SE) were familiarized with seven syntactic features characterizing African American English (AAE). Three approaches to instruction based on…

A study examined the personal linguistic range of registers held by low socioeconomic black students to see if they differed from those of middle income children and to what degree this correlated to school achievement. The study used a modified version of both analytic induction and constant comparison. Subjects attended a Title 1 magnet school…

Materials concerning dialects and language variation are presented here as background information for a workshop on English dialect differences in elementary and secondary schools. Articles and essays include: "Grammatical, Phonological and Language Use Differences across Cultures" (Walt Wolfram); "A Linguistic Description of Social Dialects"…

To determine the effects of race and dialect in communication effectiveness, a study integrated research in referential communication with work on standard and black English, creating three hypotheses: that decoding within-race or within-dialect would be more effective than decoding across race or dialect, that decoding within any dialect would be…