Maisha T. Winn’s research spans a wide variety of understudied settings including her earlier work on the literate practices extant in bookstores and community organizations in the African American community to her most recent work in settings where adolescent girls are incarcerated. Her work is multidisciplinary in that she examines the cognitive dimensions of the literate practices, the micro-level/interactional processes through which knowledge is constructed in these settings, and the socialization functions that take place through both peer relation and adult-youth relations as they emerge in these various institutions. And the substance of Winn’s investigations further illuminate the roles that these institutions play within the larger cultural-historical development of racially diverse and low income communities—including populations of Dominican, Puerto Rican, Columbian and African American descent.