Black youth, identity, and ethics (original) (raw)
Related papers
2002
This Article critiques Fordham and Ogbu's (1986) "acting White" hypothesis of Black academic underachievement and provides a reinterpretation of the "acting White" phenomenon. After reviewing the "acting White" hypothesis, the Article considers several recent empirical refutations of Fordham and Ogbu's (1986) article. It then presents a conceptual critique of the hypothesis, employing Cross's (1971, 1991) Nigrescence framework and Spencer's (1995) Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory. In the process, the Article reframes the issue of "acting White" from a developmental perspective; and it highlights the question of what "acting White" actually means to African American adolescents--as they engage normative developmental tasks within the context of American racism in all of its manifestations.
Understanding African American Adolescents’ Identity Development
This article examines the development of African American adolescents’ identity using a relational developmental systems theory framework, which led to the expectation that identity development is linked to both the reduction of risk behaviors and the promotion of African American adolescents’ healthy development. Different personological theories of identity development were discussed, including Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development and Marcia’s theory of identity statuses. Developmental systems theory was used to further the literature on African American adolescents’ identity development, by integrating various views of identity development as they pertain to these youth. Furthermore, the formation of many aspects of identity may be an important coping and resilience process for such youth. In addition, directions for future research are discussed, including a consideration of the complexity of diversity that exists within the African American adolescent population, and a call for more longitudinal assessments of identity development is presented.
Sociology of Education
Studies of when youth classify academic achievement in racial terms have focused on the racial classification of behaviors and individuals. However, institutions-including schools-may also be racially classified. Drawing on a comparative interview study, we examine the school contexts that prompt urban black students to classify schools in racial terms. Through Diversify, a busing program, one group of black students attended affluent suburban schools with white-dominated achievement hierarchies (n = 38). Diversify students assigned schools to categories of whiteness or blackness that equated whiteness with achievement and blackness with academic deficiency. Students waitlisted for Diversify (n = 16) attended urban schools without white-dominated achievement hierarchies. These students did not classify schools as white or black, based on academic quality. We assert that scholars may productively conceive of schools, not just individual students, as sites of potential racial classification. Furthermore, the racial classification of schools reinforces antagonism between black students attending ''white'' and ''black'' schools and perpetuates harmful racial stereotypes.
Disrupting and dismantling the dominant vision of youth of color
English Journal, 2015
It is certainly a good time to rethink adolescence/ts. The murders of Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Renisha McBride, Trayvon Martin, and Jordan Davis-and too many others-make it quite clear: certain social constructs of adolescence/ts get certain adolescents killed. As English language arts (ELA) educators, we despair over the loss of young lives-both literally, through their physical deaths, but also figuratively, as we know that too many youth of color1 experience symbolic deaths through miseducation and dispossession in today's public schools. The work of contemporary researchers focused on adolescence reminds us that those privileged in definitions of adolescence are also privileged in frameworks of education; those who are ignored in those definitions are also ignored in school. But who gets to be an adolescent and who doesn't? Whose adolescence matters in school and in life? Perhaps more importantly, who gets to live? Who gets to be human?These are questions we began to a...
Racial and Gender Identity Among Black Adolescent Males: An Intersectionality Perspective
Child development, 2014
A considerable amount of social identity research has focused on race and racial identity, while gender identity, particularly among Black adolescents, remains underexamined. The current study used survey data from 183 Black adolescent males (13-16 years old) to investigate the development and relation between racial and gender identity centrality and private regard, and how these identities impact adjustment over time. It was found that dimensions of racial and gender identity were strongly correlated. Levels of racial centrality increased over time while gender centrality, and racial and gender private regard declined. In addition, racial and gender identity uniquely contributed to higher levels of psychological well-being and academic adjustment. These findings are discussed within the context of existing identity theories and intersectionality theory.
American Educational Research Journal, 2009
In this article, the authors explore variation in the meanings of racial identity for African American students in a predominantly African American urban high school. They view racial identity as both related to membership in a racial group and as fluid and reconstructed in the local school setting. They draw on both survey data and observational data to examine the nature of racial identity meanings for African American students, their relation to academic engagement and achievement, and how they were fostered by the school context. Findings show that students embraced (and were offered differential access to) different meanings of African American racial identity and that these meanings were differentially related to achievement and engagement.
Identity and School Adjustment: Revisiting the "Acting White" Assumption
Educational Psychologist, 2001
It has long been offered as an explanation for the achievement gap between White and African American students, that African American youth would do better if they adopted a Eurocentric cultural values system. Unfortunately, this theory, along with a great amount of the established literature on minority youth identity development, depends on a deficit-oriented perspective to explain the discrepancy between African American and White students. This is problematic because the perspective denies minority youth a culturally specific normative developmental perspective of their own, and instead, compares their experience to the normative developmental processes observed in White children. This article invalidates that perspective with a Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory (Spencer, 1995) approach to a study of African American secondary school students. These students, contrary to the traditionally offered "acting White" assumption, show high self-esteem and achievement goals in conjunction with high Afrocentricity. Further discussion of the study stresses the importance of considering the undeniable influence of culture and context. It makes obvious the need for researchers and policymakers to focus on the contextual challenges facing these youths to have a better understanding of and to institute better teaching strategies for African American youth and minority youth in general.