Do I really have to Teach them to Read and Write? Education Equity Mindset and Teaching Literacy across the College Curriculum


  •  Louis S. Nadelson    
  •  Amy Baldwin    
  •  Amanda Martin    
  •  Ron Novy    
  •  Keith Pachlhofer    
  •  Kevin Powell    
  •  Erin Shaw    
  •  Amy Thompson    
  •  Jeff Whittingham    

Abstract

Reading and writing are fundamental skills students need to succeed in college, making literacy development an issue of education equity. The literacy skills can be content-specific, indicating faculty members across disciplines need to support student development of appropriate literacy skills. The extent to which faculty members support student literacy development is likely associated with their literacy-focused education equity mindset. The goal of our research was to document the mindset of faculty members across multiple disciplines. We gathered a combination of quantitative and qualitative data from 345 college faculty members using a survey. We found variations in the mindset strength between disciplines by the number of students taught, gender, and age. Overall, the faculty members held a moderate literacy-focused education equity mindset. The findings have implications for student inclusion, retention, and completion.



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