Patriann Smith

Dr. Patriann Smith's transdisciplinary research agenda has focused on the cross-cultural, cross-linguistic and cross-racial challenges faced by Black immigrants in literacy instruction, assessment, and transcultural teacher education. Dr. Smith examines how differences in Englishes and English language ideologies affect Black immigrant literacy practices as they cross cultures and languages across their home countries and the United States. Through her transdisciplinary scholarship, she explains how standardized Englishes, non-standardized 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 and international literacy assessment in transcultural teacher education. Her propositions for doing so are described in the framework for “Black immigrant literacies”, “a transraciolinguistic approach”, and “literacy for transraciolinguistic justice”. Dr. Smith continues to extend her research by comparing insights about Black immigrant Englishes and Black immigrant literacies to that of other native Black populations in the United States, Africa, and the Caribbean. Through this transdisciplinary scholarship, she enhances cross-racial, cross-cultural and cross-linguistic approaches to literacy assessment and instruction.