Purpose: In this study, the authors explored alternative gold standards to validate an innovative, dialect-neutral language assessment. Method: Participants were 78 African American children, ages 5;0 (years;months) to 6;11. Twenty participants had previously been identified as having language impairment. The Diagnostic Evaluation of Language…

Background: The reported prevalence of depression and anxiety among African American children and adolescents and their negative sequalae suggest a need to further explore factors that may be protective of depression and anxiety among this population. Objective: The aim of this review was to examine empirical studies that focus on the association…

This book is designed to challenge dominant educational discourses on the underachievement of Black children and to engender new understandings in initial teacher education (ITE) about Black children's education and achievement. Based in empirical case study work and theoretical insights drawn from Bourdieu, hooks, Freire, and Giroux, Maylor calls…

The purpose of this study was to explore the differential effects of access to gifted education on the mathematics and science achievement of fourth-grade Black girls. This study utilized mean difference effect sizes to examine the magnitude of differences between groups. By convention, White girls were included as a comparison group. Girls…

This article offers examples of valiant efforts to develop meaningful instructional implications from learning styles scholarship. Additionally, an example is given of an advance in the public policy arena that merges the efforts of psychological scholars with that of lawmakers to apply their research to effect change for children. The…

Given the empirical links between familial characteristics and children's academic performance, this study examined associations between stress, relationship quality, and young children's school readiness (i.e., academic, psychosocial, and socioemotional characteristics) for economically impoverished Black families (N = 127). Parents reported low…

This article resurrects the perspectives of Black educators using the Georgia Teachers Education Association (GTEA) as a case study to explore the issues these educators sought to have engaged by the nation and other public educational advocates during the desegregation period from 1968 to 1970. It utilizes an historical ethnographic lens applied…

Objective: Using the Head Start Impact Study data, this study examines Head Start's impacts on social-emotional outcomes for children with disabilities. Method: Among 4,442 children, 570 children were reported to have disabilities. Ordinary least squares regression was used to determine whether the number of disabilities, having an individualized…

This article describes a theory of how culture enables literary interpretations of texts. We begin with a brief overview of the reader response field. From there, we introduce the theory and provide illustrative participant data examples. These data examples illustrate the four cultural positions middle grade students in our research assumed when…

Purpose: This study was designed to examine the relationships among minority dialect use, language ability, and young African American English (AAE)-speaking children's understanding and awareness of Mainstream American English (MAE). Method: Eighty-three 4- to 8-year-old AAE-speaking children participated in 2 experimental tasks. One task…

Literacy is one of the strongest predictors of adult success, yet one in four children are illiterate and 50% of adults cannot read a book that is written on an eighth grade level. Although African American children from low-income homes are three times more likely than White children to be poor, and at greater risk for illiteracy, this author is…

This study provides qualitative and quantitative evidence of how an emotion explanation task can reflect African American preschoolers' pragmatic skills. We used an emotion explanation task to assess pragmatic skills among 19 children (aged 3-5 years) related to (1) engaging in conversational turn-taking, (2) answering "Wh-" questions,…

Purpose: To report preliminary comparisons of developing structural and dialectal characteristics associated with fictional and personal narratives in school-age African American children. Method: Forty-three children, Grades 2-5, generated a fictional narrative and a personal narrative in response to a wordless-book elicitation task and a…

The legacy of slavery in the United States has impacted generations of African Americans, especially parents who must prepare their children to face the challenges associated with being a person of color in this country. The authors explore aspects of racism, White privilege, racial socialization, and African American parents' fears as they equip…

Research documents that African American children, relative to White peers, are disproportionally at-risk for being unready for kindergarten. However, research finds that parental involvement can promote positive educational outcomes, and that parental involvement is influenced by parents' own histories of involvement. The authors use qualitative…