Advancing an Equity-Oriented, Sociocultural Account of Reading Comprehension

The fundamental argument in this chapter is that a sociocultural account of reading comprehension promotes greater equity for all students. More specifically, a sociocultural account ensures that the reading comprehension research, instruction, assessment, and policy are fairer and more relevant when they emanate from an understanding that reading comprehension is an inherently contextualized process centered on students’ multidimensional experiences. The authors draw on landmark studies and interdisciplinary research to show how gradually accumulating research documented that readers’ knowledge, social practices, and culture inform their understandings and interpretations of all forms of text. The authors argue further that the shift to a sociocultural account is required because purely cognitive models have not adequately explained the range of current findings. They delineate how research, instruction, assessment, and policy practices that foreground readers’ cultural and linguistic assets are more likely to promote fairer outcomes. They describe supportive approaches that include culturally relevant, responsive pedagogies, dialogic reading comprehension instruction, ecologically valid assessments, and policies that promote the use of wide-ranging texts and reading comprehension practices that both recognize and extend all students’ perspectives.