The Unites States’ Declaration of Independence (US, 1776) proudly declares, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable
The Unites States’ Declaration of Independence (US, 1776) proudly declares, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” And while Americans certainly have such liberties and rights, most notably the rights of free speech and assembly to protest social injustice, nearly 17 million of America’s children live in abject poverty and with families whose income are below the federal poverty line (Owens, 2010). Furthermore, this poverty is empirically and emphatically linked to ever-increasing rates of illiteracy among youths nation-wide (Evans, Harris, Sethuraman, Thiruvaiyaru, Penderfraft, Cliett, & Cato, 2016). The rate of illiteracy has reached the point of crisis in the United States as the achievement gap between social class and ethnicities create the tragic and severe consequences of poorer health, greater rates of incarceration, and lower annual wage earnings (“Education,” 2018). What is even more interesting is the growing gap in literacy among White and middle-class children and that African American and low-income children (Jarrett, Hamilton, & Rodriguez, 2015).
Literacy is defined as the ability to utilized written and/or printed material to achieve goal-oriented tasks, make a living, and to function in life (Chaney, 2014). African American children, statistically, are less proficient in literacy and disproportionately unready to enter kindergarten at the age of five or six (Jarrett et al., 2015). Although it is generally known among researchers and social workers alike that early literacy skills and impoverishment are associated with risks for reading disabilities (Tichnor-Wagner, Garwood, Bratsch-Hines, & Vernon-Feagans, 2016), more research is still needed to fully understand the linked relationship of literacy and poverty as they relate to African Americans. Insight into this phenomenon may very well lead to not only the advancement of all children regardless of race, socioeconomic status, neighborhood, etc., but may advance the entire country as a whole on account of all combined intelligence being maximized (Barusch, 2018). To this effect, with more solution-based research, the widening gap of literacy between African Americans and that of White/European Americans may finally lessen (Evans et al., 2016).
The subsequent literature review sections that follow examines previous research and findings in an effort to, firstly, provide the reader with reputable work that shows the strongly linked correlational relationship of poverty and illiteracy and their effect on African American people to date. Strengths-based research and deficit-based research will be presented to expose the reader to different approaches concerning the matter of literacy, poverty, and African Americans. Secondly, the reader will be presented with solution-based research in an effort to galvanize those interested in creating programs that diminish the literacy gap between people of color 