This Post Doctoral Fellowship in the Social and Behavioral Sciences seeks to evaluate whether the basic literacy skills of African American children are enhanced through culture-specific instruction and computer technology. In an after school setting, students will receive reading instruction in one of four distinct instructional contexts that vary in culture-specific materials, software applications; and computer-based learning environments. This study will investigate whether the expected learning enhancement in the culturally congruent learning context for African American children occurs with other another minority group, Latino, and Anglo children. Moreover, students' reading performance after receiving instruction in computer versus non-computer contexts will be determined. Finally, the relationship between all students engagement levels and reading performance in the four instructional contexts will be assessed. Results will contribute to the development of comprehensive culturally responsive learning strategies in other cognitive domains. The Fellow, Dr. Juanita Cole, received her doctorate in psychology from Howard University. During her two year NSF post-doctoral fellowship, she will be under the sponsorship of Dr. Michael Cole at the University of California, San Diego Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition.
