An Evaluation of a Literacy Program on Minority Children's Resiliency and Academic Achievement

Background and Purpose: Racial socialization is an important mechanism to raise children’ awareness of their racial identity and pride. Prior studies have shown that teaching racial minority students about their culture and involving them in culturally relevant activities can promote their home, school, and peer self-esteem (Constantine & Blackmon, 2002) and protect them against discrimination (Miller, 1999; Wang & Huguley, 2012). However, little is known about the effect of racial socialization on racial minority children’s resiliency and academic achievement. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the effect of a literacy program on minority children’s racial identity, resiliency, and academic achievement through the evaluation of a community-based literacy program.

Methods: A quasi-experimental design, the pretest-posttest comparison group design was used to evaluate the program effects. The survey collected demographic information, students’ racial identity, resiliency, and academic performance of a sample of 125 third- and fourth-grade racial minority students in a large U.S. city in 2017. Students reported their racial identity on 12 items that were scored on a 4-point Likert scale. Responses were combined to create a continuous score (mean=20.3, SD=2.6). Resiliency was measured using 26 items that were rated on a 3-point Likert scale. Responses were summed to a composite score (mean=58.1, SD=3.5). School teachers reported students’ academic performance and class attendance on 4 items that were rated on a 5-point Likert scale (mean=10.8, SD=2.4). Intention-to-treat (ITT) analyses were conducted to examine the effect of the literacy program on students’ racial identity, resiliency, and academic performance.

Results: The average age of the students was 8.6 years (SD = 2.3) and almost half of them (46.7%) were female. Most of them (80.4%) were African American and a few of them (18.6%) were non-white Hispanic. Over half of them (69.9%) live in the two-parent household and the average number of siblings was 2. The intervention and comparison group were statistically equivalent in child’s age, gender, grade level, household composition, and family income. Multivariate analyses showed that those assigned to the literacy program had significantly higher racial identity score than those not assigned to the program (β = .23, p < .01). In addition, those in the intervention group had higher resiliency score than those in the comparison group (β = .13, p < .01). However, the two groups were not significantly different in the academic performance and school attendance.

Conclusions and Implications: The current study adds to the literature by demonstrating the effect of a literacy program on racial minority students’ racial identity, resiliency, and academic achievement. Current studies regarding the effect of culturally relevant literature intervention on developmental outcomes for racial minority students who have had high levels of exposure of trauma are very minimal (Hughes, 2003). This study showed that teaching racial pride can have a significant effect on boosting students’ racial identity and resiliency. The findings suggest school curriculum should consider incorporate culturally relevant literature instructional materials. Future research should explore the mechanism how the literacy intervention made an impact on students’ racial identity and resiliency.