The Role of Academic Discourse in Minority Students' Academic Assimilation.

AbstractMany minority students enter the university without the discursive "codes of power" that they need both to find academic success and to self-identify as scholars. High schools and college preparatory programs too often ignore the role that academic language and literacy play in success at the college level. Even when academic language is specifically taught, it is often resisted by minority students. Because language is so strongly rooted to culture and identity, many minority students see the adoption of academic discourse as "selling out" or "acting White" rather than as a temporary code-switching practice. This paper presents four case studies of first-generation minority college students and how academic discourse (also referred to as academic literacy) played a part in their respective success or failure academically and socially. The paper also suggests research-based solutions for high school teachers, college counselors, and others interested in helping students adapt to the discourse community of the university.In recent decades, major economic and sociological shifts have made a college degree an ever-more important stepping stone for reaching and maintaining a middle- or upper-class lifestyle (Dinwiddie & Allen, 2003; Murray, Tanner, & Graves, 1990; The College Board, 2005). Consequently, enrollment rates at colleges and universities continue to grow at staggering rates (U.S. Department of Education, 2012). Concurrently, demographic shifts in the national population have brought changes in the makeup of the national collegiate student body. Students entering college over the last decade are increasingly diverse in culture, religion, ethnicity, native language, physical ability, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and family background as well as levels of academic preparation, (Ishler, 2005; Pryor, Hurtado, Sharkness, & Korn, 2007; U.S. Census Bureau, 2005). The steadily increasing numbers of minority students entering colleges and universities suggests that high school college preparatory programs and university-based attempts to recruit and retain minority students (among other factors) have succeeded in diversifying the national collegiate student body, but high minority attrition in college continues to counteract many of these successes. Attrition rates for minority students continue to outpace those for White students (White, 2011 a; Daempfle, 2004) with much, if not most, of this attrition occurring during or immediately after the freshman year (http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/CollegeForAll/ completion.html). This paper first focuses on the role of language practices in minority student attrition and then offers secondary practitioners suggestions on how to help their students understand and be able to "code-switch" into academic discourse. We describe four case studies that highlight how an initial lack of academic literacy affected minority freshmen's ability to succeed and feel welcomed in the academy. More specifically, this research highlights the importance of language practices to academic performance in college classes and to students' sense of themselves as budding scholars; it also explores the theory that language use is intricately tied both to social contexts (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and to individual and cultural identity (Vygotsky, 1986). Review of LiteratureResearchers over the past two decades have posited myriad theories to explain disproportionate college failure among minority students. Tinto (1987, 1996, 1998, 1999) has focused his entire career on these issues, and the factors he has outlined have been examined in greater detail by other researchers. This literature has focused on three theories: The first is that minority students' academic preparation for college is inadequate. (Anyon, 1990; Crawford, 2010; Delpit, 1995; Heath, 1983; Kozol, 1991; Oakes 1982, 1986, 1990, 2005; Oakes & Keating, 1988; Slavin, 1987; Solorzano, Ledesma, Perez, Burciaga, & Ornelas, 2002; Zarate & Gallimore, 2005). …