Patriann Smith
Dr. Patriann Smith hails from the beautiful island country of Saint Lucia. She serves as Professor at the University of South Florida with a transdisciplinary research agenda which considers how literacy teaching, research, assessment, and policy are influenced by the intersection of race, language and immigration.
Dr. Smith examines specifically, how differences in languages, Englishes, and English language ideologies affect Black Caribbean students’ immigrant literacy practices as they cross cultures and languages between their home countries and the United States. She draws from the Black Englishes and Black literacies of Afro-Caribbean immigrants, other Black immigrants in the United States (i.e., African), and Black American students (i.e., African-American) to propose solutions that advance ‘transraciolinguistic justice’.
Through her transnationally focused scholarship, Dr. Smith has proposed ‘a transraciolinguistic approach’ to explain how Englishes and the language ideologies that inform the use of these Englishes, both challenge and create affordances for cross-cultural, cross-racial, and cross-linguistic literacy instruction. She has also proposed the framework for ‘Black immigrant literacies’, the concept of ‘translanguaging with Englishes while Black,’ and the notion of ‘raciosemiotic architecture’ to clarify the elements involved in Black youth literacies as their translanguaging is transracialized across borders.
Dr. Smith has disseminated her research broadly via books, book chapters and in via journals such as the American Educational Research Journal (AERJ), Reading Research Quarterly (RRQ), Teachers College Record (TCR), Journal of Education and Development in the Caribbean (JEDIC) and International Multilingual Research Journal (IMRJ).
She continues to extend her scholarship by comparing insights about Black immigrant Englishes and Black immigrant literacy practices in international literacy assessment and transcultural teacher education to that of other native Black populations in the United States, Africa, and the Caribbean.
Dr. Smith has served as an elected member of the Board of Directors of the Literacy Research Association (2020-2023) and as USF Principal Investigator of the $3.6 million USAID funded Caribbean Educational Research Initiative: RISE Caribbean (2021-2024). She is a Co-Founder of the Caribbean Educational Research Center (CERC).
Dr. Smith is author of the book “Black Immigrant Literacies: Intersections of Race, Language, and Culture in the Classroom” (2023) and co-author of the book “Affirming Black Students’ Lives and Literacies: Bearing Witness” published by Teachers College Press (2022). She has just co-edited the book “Educating African Immigrant Youth” (2024) published by Teachers College Press and the completed the authored book “Literacies of Migration: Translanguaging Imaginaries of Innocence” (2024) published by Cambridge University Press.
Dr. Smith was recently elected as Vice-President of the Literacy Research Association (2024).
An overview of Dr. Smith’s research is available on Google Scholar and ResearchGate. Her description of a transraciolinguistic approach is available in the Classroom Caffeine podcast and the voicEd Radio podcast.
Learn more about Dr. Smith here: https://patriannsmith.com
Supervisors: Dr. Jenifer Jasinski Schneider (Dissertation Chair), Dr. James (Jim) R. King, Dr. Kofi Marfo, and Dr. Deoksoon Kim
Dr. Smith examines specifically, how differences in languages, Englishes, and English language ideologies affect Black Caribbean students’ immigrant literacy practices as they cross cultures and languages between their home countries and the United States. She draws from the Black Englishes and Black literacies of Afro-Caribbean immigrants, other Black immigrants in the United States (i.e., African), and Black American students (i.e., African-American) to propose solutions that advance ‘transraciolinguistic justice’.
Through her transnationally focused scholarship, Dr. Smith has proposed ‘a transraciolinguistic approach’ to explain how Englishes and the language ideologies that inform the use of these Englishes, both challenge and create affordances for cross-cultural, cross-racial, and cross-linguistic literacy instruction. She has also proposed the framework for ‘Black immigrant literacies’, the concept of ‘translanguaging with Englishes while Black,’ and the notion of ‘raciosemiotic architecture’ to clarify the elements involved in Black youth literacies as their translanguaging is transracialized across borders.
Dr. Smith has disseminated her research broadly via books, book chapters and in via journals such as the American Educational Research Journal (AERJ), Reading Research Quarterly (RRQ), Teachers College Record (TCR), Journal of Education and Development in the Caribbean (JEDIC) and International Multilingual Research Journal (IMRJ).
She continues to extend her scholarship by comparing insights about Black immigrant Englishes and Black immigrant literacy practices in international literacy assessment and transcultural teacher education to that of other native Black populations in the United States, Africa, and the Caribbean.
Dr. Smith has served as an elected member of the Board of Directors of the Literacy Research Association (2020-2023) and as USF Principal Investigator of the $3.6 million USAID funded Caribbean Educational Research Initiative: RISE Caribbean (2021-2024). She is a Co-Founder of the Caribbean Educational Research Center (CERC).
Dr. Smith is author of the book “Black Immigrant Literacies: Intersections of Race, Language, and Culture in the Classroom” (2023) and co-author of the book “Affirming Black Students’ Lives and Literacies: Bearing Witness” published by Teachers College Press (2022). She has just co-edited the book “Educating African Immigrant Youth” (2024) published by Teachers College Press and the completed the authored book “Literacies of Migration: Translanguaging Imaginaries of Innocence” (2024) published by Cambridge University Press.
Dr. Smith was recently elected as Vice-President of the Literacy Research Association (2024).
An overview of Dr. Smith’s research is available on Google Scholar and ResearchGate. Her description of a transraciolinguistic approach is available in the Classroom Caffeine podcast and the voicEd Radio podcast.
Learn more about Dr. Smith here: https://patriannsmith.com
Supervisors: Dr. Jenifer Jasinski Schneider (Dissertation Chair), Dr. James (Jim) R. King, Dr. Kofi Marfo, and Dr. Deoksoon Kim
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Videos by Patriann Smith
Persohn about the solutions she advances such as ‘a transraciolinguistic approach’ and the framework for ‘Black immigrant literacies’ for racial justice in literacy classrooms. At the end of the conversation, Dr. Smith is asked to share a nugget with white teachers who want to be a part of racial reckoning and don't know how to start or to begin that journey without doing the wrong thing or who feel paralyzed about addressing race. This Classroom Caffeine podcast provides resources for all teachers, nationally and globally who wish to advance the work on racial justice in literacy. https://www.classroomcaffeine.com/guests/patriann-smith
Refereed Journal Articles by Patriann Smith
Persohn about the solutions she advances such as ‘a transraciolinguistic approach’ and the framework for ‘Black immigrant literacies’ for racial justice in literacy classrooms. At the end of the conversation, Dr. Smith is asked to share a nugget with white teachers who want to be a part of racial reckoning and don't know how to start or to begin that journey without doing the wrong thing or who feel paralyzed about addressing race. This Classroom Caffeine podcast provides resources for all teachers, nationally and globally who wish to advance the work on racial justice in literacy. https://www.classroomcaffeine.com/guests/patriann-smith
Results from this study indicating that Black immigrants, like their Black American peers, were unable to indicate their dialectal language status on PISA reinforce the need for mechanisms of literate success that extend beyond prescriptive literate practices based on standardized language and monoglossic ideologies, while creating opportunities for Black immigrants such as D’Arcy to examine, negotiate, and reconcile tensions arising from racialized language, a subduing of nonstandardized languages, and a rejection of personhood that coincides with such indications. Schizophrenic institutional norms that sanctioned D’Arcy’s supposed academic literate success allowed her to eventually gain access to a university, even while inadvertently reifying ideologies and their corresponding delegitimized perceptions of her literacies. These norms created, through the white gaze, a repeated and persistent rejection of her authentic literacies when she attempted to comply with acceptable linguistic norms as a racialized subject. In turn, D’Arcy’s experience highlights the need for further examination of institutional norms that adversely affect students such as herself and the urgency of addressing these norms if we are to dismantle competing tensions in the literacies of D’Arcy and other Black immigrant youth. Overall, the quantitative evidence presented regarding the supposed underperformance of Black immigrant youth as related to the PISA reading literacy average and the accompanying qualitative insights suggests that teachers cannot afford to overlook the literacy needs of Black (and other underserved) youth based on assumptions about model-minority academic literacy success.
This study is poised to disrupt practical notions of what it means for youth, Black immigrant or not, to reflect success in literacy by problematizing the ways in which Black immigrant students seemingly escape the label of underperformer (ascribed to their African American and certain immigrant peers) even while being subjected to raciolinguistic and monoglossic ideologies based on institutional norms that delegitimize their personhood, linguistic repertoires, and literacies, creating potential challenges for their wellbeing. As shown in the case of D’Arcy, she remained racialized, and her authentic literacy practices, overlooked and excluded from literacy classrooms and in social spaces beyond schools, even while institutional systems eventually rewarded her with acceptance to a university as an indicator of literate success. We ask, "How valuable is it for D’Arcy to be successful with literacy if she is isolated and feels unable to find a sense of belonging in academic and social spaces of a university (and by extension, the society)?" https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/rrq.375
When the world learned, in 2018, of the banning of citizens in five majority-Muslim nations [Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen] from entry to the US, there was shock, outrage and outcry. On January 31, 2020, the world saw another ban from the US, evoking similar reactions. This time, Nigeria, among other nations [Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Sudan and Tanzania], was targeted. A third ban was enacted on April 22, 2020, barring immigrants whose migration, it was thought, would be "detrimental to the interests of the United States" (The White House, 2020a). And as we write this essay, The Wall Street Journal reports an emerging order against aliens (yes, that's what we are called!) that "temporarily bar[s] new immigrants on a slate of employment-based visas, including the H-1B for high-skilled workers," citing the need to "protect unemployed Americans from the threat of competition for scarce jobs from new lawful permanent residents" (The White House, 2020b). Meanwhile, construction of the US-Mexico multibillion-dollar southern border wall continues, unaffected by COVID-19 (Lakhani, 2020). Historically and contemporarily, immigration laws have disproportionately affected immigrant faculty and students of color because such laws often inadvertently function as racial policy. (Critical) legal literacy enacted via a bottom-up approach can help to address such laws. In this paper, we argue that higher education institutions are uniquely positioned to use critical legal literacy as a tool of advocacy for immigrant faculty and students of color amidst the adverse effects of COVID-19. https://www.ojed.org/index.php/jimphe/article/view/2546
The ways in which we have researched Englishes at the K-12 elementary (e.g., Apel, Thomas, & Tate, 2009; Patton, Terry, & Connor, 2010; Godley & Escher, 2012), college (Sanchez, 2010) and teacher preparation (e.g., (Fogel & Ehri, 2006; Newkirk-Turner, Williams, Harris, & McDaniels, 2013) levels in the United States support the pluralistic notion of English. While we have examined Englishes at the aforementioned levels, studies that focus on teacher educators primarily examine their experiences with standardized languages (e.g., French and Spanish) and are less concerned with how they experience variations of English, i.e., Englishes. As a result, we continue to increasingly prepare teachers to work with students who speak a variety of Englishes but know little about how teacher educators understand and use these Englishes.
To this end, this study aligns with LRA’s emphasis on “meaningfulness”, serving as a modest attempt to examine the ways in which four Afro-Caribbean immigrant teacher educators used standardized and non-standardized Englishes in their preparation of teachers upon their migration to the United States. The study focused on immigrant teacher educators because they originated from a different social and geographic context, utilized distinct Englishes in their home countries and schools unpopular across U.S. academic settings, and were largely unfamiliar with the linguistic and cultural biases towards using certain variations of English in the U.S. context at the time of the study. This study is both timely and relevant, during a period when Black (including Afro-Caribbean) faculty within academia constitute 6% of the total full-time instructional faculty (U.S. Department of Education, 2014) and immigrant faculty constitute 9% of those who prepare teachers for English-dominated K-12 schools (Kim, Twombly, & Wolf-Wendel, 2012).
their oppositional characteristics but also by way of the overlaps that constitute these differences. In doing so, we drew from the notion of ideoscapes (Appadurai, 2006) to identify the ways in which in-service teachers related to K-12 learners when they were taught to approach diversity based on differences between teachers and students as opposed to differences within certain student populations.
The study took place within the context of a course where an immigrant, multilingual teacher educator brought her perspectives about using ideoscapes to address diversity into contact with the perspectives of American in-service teachers. Findings indicated that in-service teachers (a) were more likely to approach diversity in their instruction and assessment based on differences between themselves and students by establishing a pattern of communication between themselves and students, and (b) seemed to reflect silence when approaching diversity through inclusion of all populations and through empowerment of dominant and minoritized populations. Implications for teaching and research are identified.
student population, coupled with the need to reduce educational costs, has led to a high demand for virtual instruction (Watson, 2010). One strongly supported method is blended learning (Watson, 2010). Blended learning is a hybrid of traditional face-to-face and online learning in which instruction occurs through both classroom and online formats, with the online component being a natural extension of traditional classroom learning (Colis & Moonen, 2001). As such, the process may involve a combination
of instructional technology formats (e.g., videotape, CD-ROM, Web-based training, film) and face-toface instructor-led instruction (Driscoll, 2002). Despite its hybrid nature and the potential it holds for transforming classroom instruction, to date, little research exists that examines trends in blended learning and the challenges and possibilities of utilizing this method of instructional delivery at the K-12 level. Further, even less is known about best practices in K-12 blended learning and instruction (Ferdig, et al.,
2009). Given these considerations, in this chapter, the authors first explore trends in blended learning in K-12 schools. Subsequently, they examine the benefits and challenges of K-12 blended learning. In the final phases of the chapter, the authors highlight possible solutions to the challenges, discuss recommendation,
and identify directions for future research.
The Handbook of Research on Cross-Cultural Approaches to Language and Literacy Development provides an authoritative exploration of cross-cultural approaches to language learning through extensive research that illuminates the theoretical frameworks behind multicultural pedagogy and its myriad applications for a globalized society. With its comprehensive coverage of transnational case studies, trends in literacy teaching, and emerging instructive technologies, this handbook is an essential reference source for K-20 educators, administrators in school districts, English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers, and researchers in the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA).
This diverse publication features comprehensive and accessible articles on the latest instructional pedagogies and strategies, current empirical research on cross-cultural language development, and the unique challenges faced by teachers, researchers, and policymakers who promote cross-cultural perspectives.
Many believe that if a Black person simply speaks 'properly', 'sounds like a native English speaker', or uses 'Standard English', their language will be accepted in the academic spaces of universities and schools. But new research from Patriann Smith shows that using 'Standard English' in such spaces within the US when a speaker is a Black immigrant may not always translate into acceptance. She argues that Black speakers would do well to reject the myth that trying to speak 'Standard English' will result in acceptance and success. The recent events across the globe that have erupted following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in May caused ripple effects across many spaces where racialization occurs daily against Black and brown bodies. One of these often-overlooked spaces is in academic context of universities and schools. Black and brown speakers in this space who wish to advance must illustrate that they can use language and use it well. To use language well in the US context, more often than not, means to write and speak English in ways that are acceptable in academic spaces. These academic spaces have dictated for a very long time how speakers must use 'Standard English' if they are to be accepted. And for those speakers who are Black, academic spaces have repeatedly suggested to them that if only they will adjust what is often considered their 'broken English' speaking, they will be able to benefit from the privilege of advancement that academia provides.
education in the Caribbean context. This premise allows them to move beyond limited notions of inclusive education, such as those that focus exclusively on special education in the region (e.g., Johnstone, 2010). Their comprehensive approach to inclusiveness across countries within the English-speaking Caribbean, emphasis on the complexity of exclusivity as a force that instantiates inclusivity, and explicit focus on special education as an inclusive practice are all elements that allow this book to move discussions of inclusive education forward in ways that reflect a “broad equity agenda for all students” (Waitoller & Artiles, 2013, p. 321).
phenomenon in education across the globe. An extensive body of research has explored bidialectalism, yet there remains a deeply entrenched resistance to speakers of non-standardized languages and to the dialects that they speak in and beyond the educational arena. Despite the extensive body of research regarding standardized and non-standardized languages, racialized speakers of non-standardized languages (i.e., often perceived as dialects and as inferior) are often regarded as illegitimate. The prescribed illegitimacy ascribed by the White subject and the equally and inadvertently accepted inferiority on the part of the racialized object in dialectal production largely fails to be associated with White speakers, many of whom are applauded for their simultaneous leveraging of standardized and non-standardized languages alike. Meanwhile, the personhood of racialized speakers who leverage non-standardized languages (i.e., dialects) remains delegitimized. In the conceptual essay that constitutes this chapter, we challenge the use of terms such as dialect, bidialectal, bidialectalism in the labelling of non-standardized and other languages that has persisted in delegitimizing individuals as racialized objects. We argue that such speakers be allowed to enjoy the privilege afforded to bilingualism, multilingualism, trilingualism as natural language categories, all of which are associated with, and ascribed privilege when deployed by the supposedly adept White subject. To make this argument, we draw from positioning theory, (trans)languaging and (trans)raciolinguistics, all illustrating how a Black Caribbean English-speaking immigrant youth described his own use of English dialects as languages. We then explain how ascribing the label dialectal to the Englishes leveraged by this youth reifies raciolinguistic ideologies at both the individual and contextual (i.e., societal or global) levels. We invite the field to instead use the label, translanguaging with Englishes (TWE) as a term for specifying how languaging functions for speakers of multiple Englishes, and TWE (e.g., while Black) to reflect the agency embedded in the language practices of (racialized) youth who speak these Englishes. Implications for research, theory, policy and practice are provided.