Can the Achievement Gap Be Linked to Differences in the Development of Naming Strategies? A Comparison of African American and European American Children’s Responses on a Picture-Labeling Task

Abstract

In this study, working- and middle-class African American and European American adults and children aged two through six were shown a series of pictures including “normal” referents and unfamiliar combinations which they were asked to identify. There were both age- and class-dependent differences in terms of naming behaviors but there were none according to ethnicity. When these results are interpreted in consideration of the still-widening achievement gap, it is clear that linguists and educators continue to face the same issue: there remains a societal insistence on furthering the primacy of middle class linguistic structures and language behaviors which serves to maintain a cycle of educational failure for African American working-class children.