Black American Students in An Affluent Suburb

Black American Students in An Affluent Suburb PDF Author: John U. Ogbu
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135625530
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
John Ogbu has studied minority education from a comparative perspective for over 30 years. The study reported in this book--jointly sponsored by the community and the school district in Shaker Heights, Ohio--focuses on the academic performance of Black American students. Not only do these students perform less well than White students at every social class level, but also less well than immigrant minority students, including Black immigrant students. Furthermore, both middle-class Black students in suburban school districts, as well as poor Black students in inner-city schools are not doing well. Ogbu's analysis draws on data from observations, formal and informal interviews, and statistical and other data. He offers strong empirical evidence to support the cross-class existence of the problem. The book is organized in four parts: *Part I provides a description of the twin problems the study addresses--the gap between Black and White students in school performance and the low academic engagement of Black students; a review of conventional explanations; an alternative perspective; and the framework for the study. *Part II is an analysis of societal and school factors contributing to the problem, including race relations, Pygmalion or internalized White beliefs and expectations, levelling or tracking, the roles of teachers, counselors, and discipline. *Community factors--the focus of this study--are discussed in Part III. These include the educational impact of opportunity structure, collective identity, cultural and language or dialect frame of reference in schooling, peer pressures, and the role of the family. This research focus does not mean exonerating the system and blaming minorities, nor does it mean neglecting school and society factors. Rather, Ogbu argues, the role of community forces should be incorporated into the discussion of the academic achievement gap by researchers, theoreticians, policymakers, educators, and minorities themselves who genuinely want to improve the academic achievement of African American children and other minorities. *In Part IV, Ogbu presents a summary of the study's findings on community forces and offers recommendations--some of which are for the school system and some for the Black community. Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disengagement is an important book for a wide range of researchers, professionals, and students, particularly in the areas of Black education, minority education, comparative and international education, sociology of education, educational anthropology, educational policy, teacher education, and applied anthropology.

Black American Students in An Affluent Suburb

Black American Students in An Affluent Suburb PDF Author: John U. Ogbu
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135625530
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 330

Get Book Here

Book Description
John Ogbu has studied minority education from a comparative perspective for over 30 years. The study reported in this book--jointly sponsored by the community and the school district in Shaker Heights, Ohio--focuses on the academic performance of Black American students. Not only do these students perform less well than White students at every social class level, but also less well than immigrant minority students, including Black immigrant students. Furthermore, both middle-class Black students in suburban school districts, as well as poor Black students in inner-city schools are not doing well. Ogbu's analysis draws on data from observations, formal and informal interviews, and statistical and other data. He offers strong empirical evidence to support the cross-class existence of the problem. The book is organized in four parts: *Part I provides a description of the twin problems the study addresses--the gap between Black and White students in school performance and the low academic engagement of Black students; a review of conventional explanations; an alternative perspective; and the framework for the study. *Part II is an analysis of societal and school factors contributing to the problem, including race relations, Pygmalion or internalized White beliefs and expectations, levelling or tracking, the roles of teachers, counselors, and discipline. *Community factors--the focus of this study--are discussed in Part III. These include the educational impact of opportunity structure, collective identity, cultural and language or dialect frame of reference in schooling, peer pressures, and the role of the family. This research focus does not mean exonerating the system and blaming minorities, nor does it mean neglecting school and society factors. Rather, Ogbu argues, the role of community forces should be incorporated into the discussion of the academic achievement gap by researchers, theoreticians, policymakers, educators, and minorities themselves who genuinely want to improve the academic achievement of African American children and other minorities. *In Part IV, Ogbu presents a summary of the study's findings on community forces and offers recommendations--some of which are for the school system and some for the Black community. Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disengagement is an important book for a wide range of researchers, professionals, and students, particularly in the areas of Black education, minority education, comparative and international education, sociology of education, educational anthropology, educational policy, teacher education, and applied anthropology.

Black American Students in An Affluent Suburb

Black American Students in An Affluent Suburb PDF Author: John U. Ogbu
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135625549
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 341

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Book Description
Focuses on the role of community forces in academic disengagement among Black American Students at every social class level; the study extends Ogbu's ongoing research on minority education.

Family Engagement in Black Students’ Academic Success

Family Engagement in Black Students’ Academic Success PDF Author: Vilma Seeberg
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000361969
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
This timely volume presents powerful stories told by Black families and students who have successfully negotiated a racially fraught, affluent, and diverse suburban school district in America, to illustrate how they have strategically contested sanctioned racist practices and forged a path for students to achieve a high-quality education. Drawing on rich qualitative data collected through interviews and interactions with parents and kin, students, community activists, and educators, Family Engagement in Black Students’ Academic Success chronicles how pride in Black American family history and values, students’ personal capabilities, and their often collective, proactive challenges to systemic and personal racism shape students’ academic engagement. Familial and collective cultural wealth of the Black community emerges as a central driver in students’ successful achievement. Finally, the text puts forward key recommendations to demonstrate how incorporating the knowledge and voices of Black families in school decision making, remaining critically conscious of race and racial history in everyday actions and longer term policy, and pursuing collective strategies for social justice in education, will help eliminate current opportunity gaps, and will counteract the master narrative of underachievement ever-present in America. This volume will be of interest to students, scholars, and academics with an interest in matters of social justice, equity, and equality of opportunity in education for Black Americans. In addition, the text offers key insights for school authorities in building effective working relationships with Black American families to support the high achievement of Black students in K-12 education.

Black American Students Achievement in the Suburbs

Black American Students Achievement in the Suburbs PDF Author: Vilma Seeberg
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781138860209
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
This volume reframes the negative national conversation around educational deficits and academic achievement of Black American students. Echoing John Ogbu s "Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb "(2003)," " this volume provides positive counterstories of Black students and parents engagement and negotiation through elite suburban public school systems in the face of structural and personal marginalization. These stories bring to light the importance of academic achievement and cultural identity, supportive social networks, managing peer socialization, and working with caring, engaging teachers. The volume then offers practical strategies for addressing racial inequalities that can be used by families and school staff to produce lasting positive changes in equity and opportunity, and close the achievement gaps in growing racially and socio-economically diverse school districts. "

Stepping over the Color Line

Stepping over the Color Line PDF Author: Amy Stuart Wells
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300174304
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
This important book takes the discussion of racial inequality in America beyond simplistic arguments of white racism and black victimization to a more complex conversation about the separate but unequal situation in many schools today. Amy Stuart Wells and Robert Crain investigate the St. Louis, Missouri, school desegregation plan, a unique agreement that since 1983 has given black inner-city students the right to choose to attend predominantly white suburban schools. After five years of research and hundreds of interviews with policymakers, administrators, teachers, students, and parents, Wells and Crain conclude that when school desegregation is examined from these many perspectives, more strengths than weaknesses emerge. They call for a reexamination of now-popular school choice policies across the country so that these policies may help to bring about more racial and social-class integration. Stepping over the Color Line intertwines data on student achievement and racial isolation with stories of the people who participated in the St. Louis program. The authors set these individuals within a broad historical and social context and demonstrate how important linkages between the past and present help explain why efforts to overcome racial inequality—in St. Louis and in the larger society—are so difficult. "The authors do a superb job of explaining how this innovative program came about, placing it in a broad context that takes it beyond its immediate and local implications. The book is at times heartbreaking and at times uplifting."—Richard Zweigenhaft, co-author of Blacks in the White Establishment? A Study of Race and Class in America

No Excuses

No Excuses PDF Author: Stephan Thernstrom
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439127042
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
Black and Hispanic students are not learning enough in our public schools, and their typically poor performance is the most important source of ongoing racial inequality in America today—thus, say Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom, the racial gap in school achievement is the nation's most critical civil rights issue and an educational crisis; it's no wonder that "No Child Left Behind," the 2001 revision of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, made closing the racial gap in education its central goal. An employer hiring the typical Black high school graduate or the college that admits the average Black student is choosing a youngster who has only an eighth-grade education. In most subjects, the majority of twelfth-grade Black students do not have even a "partial mastery" of the skills and knowledge that the authoritative National Assessment of Educational Progress calls "fundamental for proficient work" at their grade. No Excuses marshals facts to examine the depth of the problem, the inadequacy of conventional explanations, and the limited impact of Title I, Head Start, and other familiar reforms. Its message, however, is one of hope: Scattered across the country are excellent schools getting terrific results with high-needs kids. These rare schools share a distinctive vision of what great schooling looks like and are free of many of the constraints that compromise education in traditional public schools. In a society that espouses equal opportunity we still have a racially identifiable group of educational have-nots—young African Americans and Latinos whose opportunities in life will almost inevitably be limited by their inadequate education. When students leave high school without high school skills, their futures—and that of the nation—are in jeopardy. With successful schools already showing the way, no decent society can continue to turn a blind eye to such racial and ethnic inequality.

Black Power in the Suburbs

Black Power in the Suburbs PDF Author: Valerie C. Johnson
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791487792
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
The country's largest concentration of African American suburban affluence represents a unique laboratory to study the internal factors associated with African American political ascendancy and the convergence of race and class. Black Power in the Suburbs chronicles Prince George's County, Maryland, and the twenty-three year quest by African Americans to influence educational policy and become equal partners in the county's governing coalition. Johnson challenges conventional notions of a monolithic community by addressing the manner in which class cleavages among African Americans affect their representation and policy interests in suburbia. She also documents white resistance to power sharing and the impact of school desegregation on white population trends.

Stepping Over the Color Line

Stepping Over the Color Line PDF Author: Amy Stuart Wells
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300081336
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 398

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Book Description
This important book takes the discussion of racial inequality in America beyond simplistic arguments of white racism and black victimization to a more complex conversation about the separate but unequal situation in many schools today. Amy Stuart Wells and Robert Crain investigate the St. Louis, Missouri, school desegregation plan, a unique agreement that since 1983 has given black inner-city students the right to choose to attend predominantly white suburban schools. After five years of research and hundreds of interviews with policymakers, administrators, teachers, students, and parents, Wells and Crain conclude that when school desegregation is examined from these many perspectives, more strengths than weaknesses emerge. They call for a reexamination of now-popular school choice policies across the country so that these policies may help to bring about more racial and social-class integration. Stepping over the Color Line intertwines data on student achievement and racial isolation with stories of the people who participated in the St. Louis program. The authors set these individuals within a broad historical and social context and demonstrate how important linkages between the past and present help explain why efforts to overcome racial inequality--in St. Louis and in the larger society--are so difficult. "The authors do a superb job of explaining how this innovative program came about, placing it in a broad context that takes it beyond its immediate and local implications. The book is at times heartbreaking and at times uplifting."--Richard Zweigenhaft, co-author of Blacks in the White Establishment? A Study of Race and Class in America

Closing the Opportunity Gap

Closing the Opportunity Gap PDF Author: Prudence L. Carter
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199983003
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
While the achievement gap has dominated policy discussions over the past two decades, relatively little attention has been paid to a gap even more at odds with American ideals: the opportunity gap. Opportunity and achievement, while inextricably connected, are very different goals. Every American will not go to college, but every American should be given a fair chance to be prepared for college. In communities across the U.S., children lack the crucial resources and opportunities, inside and outside of schools that they need if they are to reach their potential. Closing the Opportunity Gap offers accessible, research-based essays written by top experts who highlight the discrepancies that exist in our public schools, focusing on how policy decisions and life circumstances conspire to create the "opportunity gap" that leads inexorably to stark achievement gaps. They also describe sensible policies grounded in evidence that can restore and enhance opportunities. Moving beyond conventional academic discourse, Closing the Opportunity Gap will spark vital new conversations about what schools, parents, educators, and policymakers can and should do to give all children a fair chance to thrive.

Understanding the Experience of High-achieving Black-American Students who Migrated from Disadvantaged Inner-city Areas to an Affluent Suburb

Understanding the Experience of High-achieving Black-American Students who Migrated from Disadvantaged Inner-city Areas to an Affluent Suburb PDF Author: Xiaoqi Yu
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Academic achievement
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
Minority suburbanization has been a fast growing demographic shift in the United States during the first decade of the 21st century. The increasing influx of Black students to the suburbs presents new challenges to the schools in improving the academic performance of Black students. Considering the deep inequalities in institutions, family circumstances, and societal conditions between the inner city areas and affluent suburbs, an urban to suburban transition imposes serious challenges to Black students and their academic performance specifically. Departing from the more common, deficit orientation in studying Black academic performance, this study takes an anti-deficit approach using an interpretive qualitative methodology to examine the tapestry of the cultural and socio-economic translocation experience and its impact on high-achieving Black students. Using a combination of socio-cognitive acculturation theory, critical race theory (CRT), and ecological framework as the theoretical grounding, this study recognized Black students as experts on their experiential realities and capable to offer counter narratives concerning their translocation experience and success. The findings revealed contextual details of conditions and adjustments involved in these high-achieving Black students' journey to achievement, and thereby contribute meaningfully to the enduring discourse on Black academic achievement. Explicitly, the combined importance of cultural competence and awareness, individual agency and accountability, parental support and discipline, caring teachers and engaging instructions appeared to offset the challenges induced by social location and social location change.