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“We’re Friends, We Have to be in This Together”: Examining the Role of Culturally Relevant Peer Interactions in Urban Youth’s College Readiness and Access

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Abstract

This paper analyzes how and why ten Black and Latina/o youth attending an urban public high school engage culturally relevant peer interactions (Knight and Marciano in College ready: preparing Black and Latina/o youth for higher education—a culturally relevant approach. Teachers College Press, New York, 2013) in preparing for, applying to, and/or enrolling in college. The study reconsiders culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings in The dreamkeepers: successful teachers of African American children. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 1994) as an analytic tool for exploring youth’s culturally relevant peer interactions as supportive of their college-going processes (Tierney and Colyar in Preparing for college: nine elements of effective outreach. SUNY Press, Albany, 2005) and new media literacy practices (Ito et al. in Living and learning with new media: summary of findings from the Digital Youth Project. The MacArthur Foundation, Chicago, 2008. http://www.macfound.org/media/article_pdfs/DML_ETHNOG_WHITEPAPER.PDF). Research findings include: new understandings of the reciprocal nature of youth’s culturally relevant peer interactions; and new enactments of youth’s college-going new media literacy practices. Recommendations for educational policy, practice, and research supportive of students’ college readiness and access are discussed.

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  1. Department of Teacher Education, College of Education, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA

    Joanne E. Marciano

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  1. Joanne E. Marciano
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Correspondence to Joanne E. Marciano.

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Marciano, J.E. “We’re Friends, We Have to be in This Together”: Examining the Role of Culturally Relevant Peer Interactions in Urban Youth’s College Readiness and Access. Urban Rev 49, 169–187 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-016-0387-4

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