Turning Away from Anti‐Blackness: A Critical Review of Adolescent Reading Motivation Research

Abstract

Responding to calls for centering Black lives in our collective consciousness, this review uses Critical Race Theory to analyze researchers’ inclusion of race in conceptualizing and operationalizing adolescent reading motivation. Two questions guide this review: (1) How do researchers include race in theories of adolescent reading motivation? and (2) What assumptions do researchers make about race in studying adolescent reading motivation? What conclusions do they draw based on these assumptions? Through a systematic search, articles addressing adolescent reading motivation’s conceptual/theoretical foundations, measurement, and study as it relates to reading behaviors and outcomes were identified and analyzed using deductive thematic analysis. Findings emerged across three categories: (1) color‐evasiveness, demonstrating reading motivation was not conceptualized with Black readers in mind, (2) modus operandi, showing business‐as‐usual approaches to studying reading motivation, and (3) difference and deficit, illustrating how researchers have positioned Black readers in comparison to their white counterparts. Recommendations are made for how adolescent reading motivation can be reimagined to center Black readers’ histories, experiences, and brilliance.

Black Girls’ Reading Motivations: Centering Their Perspectives and Experiences to Redefine a Hegemonic Construct

“…This study, which showed the instrument was not capable of capturing the girls' motivations, led me to question how adolescent reading motivation has been theorized. Critically reviewing adolescent reading motivation literature (Jones, 2022a) better enables me to design research that affirms participants. However, this criticality poses "unseen" and "unforeseen" dangers.…”

“…Reading motivation research reflects a problematic cycle: researchers have theorized reading motivation with white readers in mind, designed instruments using predominantly white samples, used those instruments empirically to compare racial groups, and drawn racialized conclusions when Black readers do not perform like their white peers (Jones, 2022a). There are a limited number of studies that specifically attend to the reading motivations of Black readers.…”

“…Although cognitive perspectives dominate reading motivation research, (Conradi et al, 2014;Jones, 2022a), some researchers have taken a sociocultural, situated perspective (e.g., Moje et al, 2008;Nolen, 2007), which alters the research goals, shifts the unit of analysis, focuses on the role of identity, and accounts for differences in meaning (Nolen et al, 2015). Researchers working from these perspectives are more likely to focus on understanding Black readers' motivations rather than comparing them to their white counterparts or narrow achievement outcomes (e.g., Jones, 2022b;Moje et al, 2008;Nolen, 2007).…”

“…Historically, Black readers maintained intellectual, social, and cultural motivations for reading. However, researchers investigating adolescent reading motivation have taken color-evasive approaches (Jones, 2022a), avoiding discussions of race (Annamma et al, 2017). Much like literacy classrooms center the voices, knowledge, and experiences of white people (DeBlase, 2003), reading motivation research has prioritized perspectives, participants, and measures that assume white as "normal" (Jones, 2022a).…”

“…However, researchers investigating adolescent reading motivation have taken color-evasive approaches (Jones, 2022a), avoiding discussions of race (Annamma et al, 2017). Much like literacy classrooms center the voices, knowledge, and experiences of white people (DeBlase, 2003), reading motivation research has prioritized perspectives, participants, and measures that assume white as "normal" (Jones, 2022a). Exploring other students' reading motivations (e.g., Castillo, 2020) through this framing inadvertently centers whiteness and limits our understanding of reading motivation for the increasingly diverse students (de Brey et al, 2019) in urban and urban characteristic (Milner, 2012) classrooms.…”