Talking College: A Community Based Language and Racial Identity Development Model for Black College Student Justice

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• Prof. Anne Charity Hudley (Stanford University)
• Thursday 17 February 2022, 16:30-18:00
• Online.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Javier Moreno.

Registration link: https://cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIodumurzMiHt0GFH_favvQFlpd7fSOdp3a

Critical knowledge about language and culture is an integral part of the quest for educational equity and empowerment, not only in PreK-12 but also in higher education. As Black students transition from high school to college, they seek to add their voices and perspectives to academic discourse and to the scholarly community in a way that is both advantageous and authentic.

The Talking College Project is a Black student and Black studies centered way to learn more about the particular linguistic choices of Black students while empowering them to be proud of their cultural and linguistic heritage. Black students took introductory educational linguistics courses that examined the role of language in the Black college experience and collected information from college students through both interviews and ethnography. We valued the perspectives of undergraduates from a range of disciplinary backgrounds as researchers, and we had a special focus on how our findings can immediately improve their own educational and linguistic experiences.

One key question of The Talking College Project was: how does the acquisition of different varieties of Black language and culture overlap with identity development, particularly intersectional racial identity development? To answer this question, we used a community-based participatory research methodology to conduct over 100 interviews with Black students at numerous Minority-Serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges, and Predominantly White Universities across the U.S. We also conducted ethnographic research on over 10 college campuses. Based on information collected from the interviews and our ethnographies, it is evident that Black students often face linguistic bias and may need additional support and guidance as they navigate the linguistic terrain of higher education. In this presentation, I present themes and examples from the interviews that illustrate the linguistic pathways that students choose, largely without direct sociolinguistic support that could help guide their decisions.

To address the greater need to share information about Black language with students, I highlight our findings from interviews with Black students who have taken courses in educational linguistics to demonstrate the impact of education about Black language and culture on Black students’ academic opportunities and social lives. We have a focus on how this information particularly influenced those who went on to be educators. These findings serve to help us create an equity-based model of assessment for what educational linguistic information Black students need in order to be successful in higher education and how faculty can help to establish opportunities for students to access content about language, culture, and education within the college curriculum. I address the work we need to do as educators and linguists to provide more Black college students with information that both empowers them raciolinguistically AND respects their developing identity choices.

This talk is part of the Cambridge Linguistics Forum series.

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