Vygotsky and the Blues: Re-Reading Cultural Connections and Conceptual Development

search, the factor of cultural diversity has been traditionally associated with various forms of achievement deficit and academic failure. In particular, research on African American, Latino, and Native American students tends to focus on dropouts, literacy gaps, and educational delinquency (Garcia, 1994; Lee & Slaughter-Defoe, 1994; Lomawaima, 1994). The focus on reading education in our national discourse is accompanied by substantial attention on achievement gaps between Blacks and Whites (Schrag, 2000) and efforts to eliminate bilingual education (Porter, 1998). This history and the present discourse maintain a tradition where diversity, while increasingly celebrated, remains synonymous with deficit (Wilson, 1999). A consistent characteristic of the discourse is