[Edling] Why Boosting Poor Children¹s Vocabulary Is Important for Public Health

Crissa Stephens crissa.stephens at gmail.com
Fri Sep 18 18:19:09 UTC 2015 

Francis-

You raise some good questions, to which I would answer yes, yes, yes, yes
and yes.

Also, I'd like to add that from my perspective as a sociolinguistics PhD
student in a US-based education program, we need to work harder on getting
this message out to other applied linguists (outside of sociolinguistics),
and to colleagues who work with sociology, language and literacy education
in general. I've encountered these myths being taught in general education
classes (e.g. uncritical presentation of the work of Lareau in* Unequal
Childhoods) *and in applied linguistics classes in general. Sharing our
message "across the hall" may be a good starting place to gain some
traction.

It is helpful to point out the shortcomings of past research, but  I also
think we need to form a strong, short answer to the question of "So what?"
In other words, we could do better by articulating the role that language
does play (in a digestible sound-byte version) in addition to debunking
current myths about it.

Thanks for posting on this important topic.

Crissa



On Fri, Sep 18, 2015 at 8:29 AM, Francis Hult <francis.hult at englund.lu.se>
wrote:

> These are great pieces that summarize a substantial body of work.  Yet,
> the public discourse continues to be dominated by one perspective.  Are we
> missing something about making findings like the ones discussed in these
> forum pieces part of public and political consciousness?  Is it because
> we're talking to each other in journals instead of to citizens and
> politicians in accessible books and magazine articles?  Is it because Hart
> & Risley suggest an easy answer while we focus on nuances and complexity?
> Is it because we haven't succeeded in making findings  easy for citizens,
> politicians, and educational leaders to latch onto and translate into
> programs?
>
>
>
> This just seems like one of those issues on which we have a very strong
> foundation, but people are still choosing to build somewhere swampier.
> Shouldn't we be able to attract more attention?
>
>
>
> Francis
>
>
> --
> Francis M. Hult, PhD
> Associate Professor
> Centre for Languages and Literature
> Lund University
>
> Web: http://www.sol.lu.se/en/sol/staff/FrancisHult/
>
> Editor, Educational Linguistics book series
> http://www.springer.com/series/5894
>
> Co-editor, Contributions to the Sociology of Language book series
> http://www.degruyter.com/view/serial/16644
>
> *New Book:* *Research Methods in Language Policy and Planning: A
> Practical Guide*
> http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1118308395.html
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* edling-bounces at bunner.geol.lu.se [edling-bounces at bunner.geol.lu.se]
> on behalf of Peter Sayer [peter.sayer at utsa.edu]
> *Sent:* Thursday, September 17, 2015 20:37
>
> *To:* The Educational Linguistics List
> *Subject:* Re: [Edling] Why Boosting Poor Children¹s Vocabulary Is
> Important for Public Health
>
> Yeah I saw that forum piece when it came out – very cool!
>
> - peter.-
>
> From: <edling-bounces at bunner.geol.lu.se> on behalf of Eric Johnson <
> ejj at tricity.wsu.edu>
> Reply-To: The Educational Linguistics List <edling at bunner.geol.lu.se>
> Date: Wednesday, September 16, 2015 at 2:05 PM
> To: The Educational Linguistics List <edling at bunner.geol.lu.se>
> Subject: Re: [Edling] Why Boosting Poor Children’s Vocabulary Is
> Important for Public Health
>
> You might also like this piece (attached) that was recently published in
> the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology.  Here’s the cite in case the
> attachment doesn’t go through:
>
>
>
>
>
> Avineri, N., et al. (2015). Invited forum: Bridging the "language gap." *Journal
> of Linguistic Anthropology*, *25*(1), 66-86.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *--------------------------------------------- **Eric J. Johnson, Ph.D.*
> Associate Professor of Bilingual/ESL Education
> Director of Outreach
> Washington State University Tri-Cities
> College of Education
> 2710 Crimson Way
> Office 207W
> Richland, WA 99354
> (509) 372-7304
> ejj at tricity.wsu.edu
> https://education.wsu.edu/ejj/
>
> Se habla español.
>
> *¡Vamos Cougs!*
>
>
>
> *From:* edling-bounces at bunner.geol.lu.se [
> mailto:edling-bounces at bunner.geol.lu.se <edling-bounces at bunner.geol.lu.se>]
> *On Behalf Of *Daniel Ginsberg
> *Sent:* Wednesday, September 16, 2015 7:42 AM
> *To:* The Educational Linguistics List
> *Subject:* Re: [Edling] Why Boosting Poor Children’s Vocabulary Is
> Important for Public Health
>
>
>
> I think they'd question the empirical basis for that claim. It's usually
> cited to Hart & Risley 1995, which as I mentioned is a highly flawed piece
> of work. Here's a thorough critical response to it:
> http://academic.evergreen.edu/curricular/med/LangPoor.pdf
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v1/url?u=http://academic.evergreen.edu/curricular/med/LangPoor.pdf&k=EWEYHnIvm0nsSxnW5y9VIw%3D%3D%0A&r=Cvavyy6y5l8AwEV%2BI2FsI3lqVU2gAbIkqBNSweUx9jU%3D%0A&m=z2Yv9e8aOdpgvZm0L6QjO7wKGfwkm2N5D8amr4pwK%2FA%3D%0A&s=60b6bd5fe85fbe058acfd3586d018d3b7a9f36a2f2da17a7fdd6266510df592b>
> There's a lot there in a relatively short article, but here's a key quote
> for this discussion:
>
>
>
> Many educational researchers and policy makers have generalized the
> findings about the language and culture of the 6 welfare families in Hart
> and Risley’s study to all poor families. Yet, Hart and Risley offer no
> compelling reason to believe that the poor families they studied have much
> in common with poor families in other communities, or even in Kansas City
> for that matter. The primary selection criterion for participation in this
> study was socioeconomic status; therefore, all the 6 welfare families had
> in common was income, a willingness to participate in the study, race (all
> the welfare families were Black), and geography (all lived in the Kansas
> City area). Families living in poverty are, however, an ethnically,
> linguistically, and racially diverse group (US Census Bureau, 2003). Strong
> claims about the language and culture of families living in poverty based
> on a sample of 6 Black welfare families living in Kansas City are
> unwarranted. (p. 364)
>
>
> --
> Daniel Ginsberg
> Doctoral candidate, Linguistics
> Georgetown University
>
> http://georgetown.academia.edu/DanielGinsberg
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v1/url?u=http://georgetown.academia.edu/DanielGinsberg&k=EWEYHnIvm0nsSxnW5y9VIw%3D%3D%0A&r=Cvavyy6y5l8AwEV%2BI2FsI3lqVU2gAbIkqBNSweUx9jU%3D%0A&m=z2Yv9e8aOdpgvZm0L6QjO7wKGfwkm2N5D8amr4pwK%2FA%3D%0A&s=1ff97f56be6bf9247eda6836b39dc9b3c30af044993fa63deb374c3c376879f5>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 4:22 AM, Richard Hudson <r.hudson at ucl.ac.uk>
> wrote:
>
> Hello again Daniel. Thanks for the interesting link. Would you agree that
> even these researchers accept that poor children reach school with fewer
> words than rich children?
>
> Dick Hudson
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 15/09/2015 21:51, Daniel Ginsberg wrote:
>
> There was an invited forum in Jnl Ling Anth earlier this year that
> debunked a lot of this "word gap" discourse. I would love to see more
> public awareness of this, and less uncritical citation of the highly flawed
> Hart & Risley study.
>
> http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jola.12071/full
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v1/url?u=http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jola.12071/full&k=EWEYHnIvm0nsSxnW5y9VIw%3D%3D%0A&r=Cvavyy6y5l8AwEV%2BI2FsI3lqVU2gAbIkqBNSweUx9jU%3D%0A&m=z2Yv9e8aOdpgvZm0L6QjO7wKGfwkm2N5D8amr4pwK%2FA%3D%0A&s=f08703c53fd54481f4b0a4375d0eba099baa74cc70b93b2f22ef28242547dff7>
>
>
> --
> Daniel Ginsberg
> Doctoral candidate, Linguistics
> Georgetown University
>
> http://georgetown.academia.edu/DanielGinsberg
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v1/url?u=http://georgetown.academia.edu/DanielGinsberg&k=EWEYHnIvm0nsSxnW5y9VIw%3D%3D%0A&r=Cvavyy6y5l8AwEV%2BI2FsI3lqVU2gAbIkqBNSweUx9jU%3D%0A&m=z2Yv9e8aOdpgvZm0L6QjO7wKGfwkm2N5D8amr4pwK%2FA%3D%0A&s=1ff97f56be6bf9247eda6836b39dc9b3c30af044993fa63deb374c3c376879f5>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 15, 2015 at 7:27 AM, Francis Hult <francis.hult at englund.lu.se>
> wrote:
>
> [Moderator's note: I post this story because it relates to a discourse
> that is gaining public traction.  I am reminded of an article that was
> recently posted to Edling:
>
>
>
> Johnson, E.J. (2015) Debunking the “language gap”. *Journal for
> Multicultural Education, 9*(1), 42-50.
>
>
>
> I wonder what perspectives list members working in different research
> traditions have on this topic.  What additional research findings and ideas
> should we be getting out to the public and how?  FMH]
>
>
>
>
>
> The Atlantic
>
>
>
> Why Boosting Poor Children’s Vocabulary Is Important for Public Health
>
>
>
> Re­search sug­gests that poor chil­dren hear about 600 words per hour,
> while af­flu­ent chil­dren hear 2,000. By age 4, a poor child has a
> listen­ing vocab­u­lary of about 3,000 words, while a wealth­i­er child
> wields a 20,000-word listen­ing vocab­u­lary. So it’s no sur­prise that
> poor chil­dren tend to enter kinder­garten already be­hind their
> wealth­i­er peers.
>
>
>
> But it’s not just the poverty that holds them back—it’s the lack of words.
> In fact, the single-best pre­dict­or of a child’s aca­dem­ic suc­cess is
> not par­ent­al edu­ca­tion or so­cioeco­nom­ic status, but rather the
> qual­ity and quantity of the words that a baby hears dur­ing his or her
> first three years.
>
>
>
> Full story:
>
> http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/09/georgias-plan-to-close-the-30-million-word-gap-for-kids/403903/
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v1/url?u=http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/09/georgias-plan-to-close-the-30-million-word-gap-for-kids/403903/&k=EWEYHnIvm0nsSxnW5y9VIw%3D%3D%0A&r=Cvavyy6y5l8AwEV%2BI2FsI3lqVU2gAbIkqBNSweUx9jU%3D%0A&m=z2Yv9e8aOdpgvZm0L6QjO7wKGfwkm2N5D8amr4pwK%2FA%3D%0A&s=0153ee7d02cb6a4baaba3d07c409f88e8045c29d9599d31e8d9eac8296f92518>
>
>
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> --
>
> Richard Hudson (dickhudson.com <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v1/url?u=http://dickhudson.com&k=EWEYHnIvm0nsSxnW5y9VIw%3D%3D%0A&r=Cvavyy6y5l8AwEV%2BI2FsI3lqVU2gAbIkqBNSweUx9jU%3D%0A&m=z2Yv9e8aOdpgvZm0L6QjO7wKGfwkm2N5D8amr4pwK%2FA%3D%0A&s=ae4cf348db31864aa08ba4fa2a19e43ec0770d70497adce6b32f63976874fbf5>)
>
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