Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, Student Connectedness to School and Reading Achievement: A Study of the Children’s Defense Fund Kansas City Freedom Schools Initiative

Abstract

This quantitative study applies Social Development Model and Social Control Theory to understand the relationship between culturally relevant education and reading improvement for African American children attending a summer reading program for three years. Secondary data from the Kansas City Freedom School Initiative was used to assess the impact of Freedom Schools to mitigate summer learning loss and if any gains in reading ability were influenced by domains created from the parent survey. Linear Regressions were used to test three research questions: (1) Does culturally relevant pedagogy as utilized in Kansas City Freedom Schools have a significant impact on student literacy outcomes (over the summer) for African American children that participated? How do Freedom School students’ reading scores compare to students who did not attend Freedom School but were engaged in a variety of summer activities? (2) Are any of the parent survey domains that measure students’ cultural appreciation, love of learning, acceptance of responsibility, community involvement, social adjustment, and conflict resolution related to growth in reading score as measured by GRADE reading assessment? (3) Finally, is family income a significant predictor for reading growth over the summer, and does this effect vary by income levels? Findings suggest that participation in Freedom School was significantly associated with reading score growth over the three program years. Freedom School participants with lower initial reading scores, and whose parent household’s income ranged between $20,000–$30,000 and $75,000–$100,000, were significantly associated with the growth in GRADE reading scores for students who participated consecutively for two years (2005–2006). When analyzing growth in GRADE reading scores for three consecutive years, love of learning and participation in Freedom School mitigated the income effects. However, Freedom School participants whose parent household’s income ranged between $20,000–$30,000 performed significantly lower on the GRADE reading assessment than higher income Freedom School students and students who did not attend Freedom school with similar household income between $20,000- $30,000.