Skip to main content
Log in

Self-Determination and Cultural Empowerment: Reader Histories Reveal Learning and Adaptation Strategies

  • Published:
The Urban Review Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This article explores the issues of cultural transmission and discontinuity, as well as the implications of culturally based assumptions and attitudes and their potential influence in schools. Through interviews based upon questions specifically related to literacy and literacy acquisition conducted with five seventh-grade students and one eighth-grade student who were perceived to have achieved various levels of success or failure in school-related tasks, insights about student learning and adaptation strategies are revealed which may have pedagogical implications for educators. Arguments are made that adjustments in culturally based assumptions and attitudes by members of the community and the school may influence the academic success or failure of our children.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

REFERENCES

  • Au, K. H. (1980). Participation structures in a reading lesson with Hawaiian children: Analysis of a culturally appropriate instructional event. Anthropology and Education Quarterly 11(2): 91–115.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P., and Passeron, J. C. (1977). Reproduction: In Education, Society, and Culture. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cummins, J. (1986). Empowering minority students: A framework for intervention. Harvard Educational Review, 56(1): 18–35.

    Google Scholar 

  • Delpit, L. D. (1988). The silenced dialogue: Power and pedagogy in educating other people' children. Harvard Educational Review 58(3): 280–298.

    Google Scholar 

  • Erickson, F. (1984). School literacy, reasoning, and civility: An anthropologists perspective. Review of Educational Research 54(4): 525–544.

    Google Scholar 

  • Erickson, F. (1987). Transformation and school success: The politics and culture of educational achievement. Anthropology and Education Quarterly 18(4): 335–356.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freire, P. (1988). Cultural Action for Freedom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Educational Review.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, M. A. (1991). Ethnicity, gender and social class: The school adaptation patterns of West Indian youths. In M. Gibson and J. Ogbu, Minority Status and Schooling: A Comparative Study of Immigrant and Involuntary Minorities (pp. 169–203). New York: Garland.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hart, C. W. M. (1997). Contrasts between prepubertal and postpubertal education. In G. D. Spindler (ed.), Education and Cultural Process: Anthropological Approaches (3rd ed.) (pp. 362–382). Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heath, S. B. (1994). Ways with Words: Language, Life, and Work in Communities and Classrooms. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Macionis, J. J. (1987). Sociology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mahiri, J. (1994). Reading rites and sports: Motivation for adaptive literacy of young African-American males. In B. J. Moss (ed.), Literacy Across Communities (pp. 121–146). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Merriam-Webster' Collegiate Dictionary. (10th ed.). (1993). Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster.

  • Ogbu, J. (1981). Origins of human competence: A cultural-ecological perspective. Child Development 52, 413–429.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ogbu, J. (1982). Cultural discontinuities and schooling. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 13(4): 290–307.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ogbu, J. (1991). Low school performance as an adaptation: The case of blacks in Stockton, California. In M. Gibson and J. Ogbu (eds.), Minority Status and Schooling: A Comparative Study of Immigrant and Involuntary Minorities (pp. 249–285). New York: Garland.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ogbu, J. (1992). Understanding cultural diversity and learning. Educational Researcher, 21(8): 5–14.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pettitt, G. (1946). Primitive education in North America. American Archeology and Ethnology 43(1), University of California Publications.

  • Rogers, C. (1983). Freedom to learn for the 80'. Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spindler, G. D. (1997). The transmission of culture. In G. D. Spindler (ed.), Education and Cultural Process: Anthropological Approaches (3rd ed.) (pp. 275–309). Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trueba, H. T. (1990). Mainstream and minority cultures: A Chicano perspective. In G. and L. Spindler, The American Cultural Dialogue and Its Transmission (pp. 122–143). Bristol, PA: Falmer Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trueba, H. T. (1998). Challenges in the education of Mexican immigrant children: Adaptive strategies of families in a binational world. In M. M. Suarez-Orozco (ed.), Crossings: Mexican Immigration in Interdisciplinary Perspectives (pp. 249–277). Cambridge: Harvard University Press and the D. Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.

    Google Scholar 

  • Varenne, H., Goldman, S., and McDermott, R. P. (1997). Racing in place: Middle class work in success/failure. In G. D. Spindler (ed.), Education and Cultural Process: Anthropological Approaches (3rd ed.) (pp. 136–157). Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Van Horn, L. Self-Determination and Cultural Empowerment: Reader Histories Reveal Learning and Adaptation Strategies. The Urban Review 32, 177–195 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005185832607

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005185832607

Navigation