Digital Commons Network^™

Understanding African American Teachers' Perceptions Of African American Students Who Are Homeless, Sharhonda Davies

Middle and Secondary Education Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to understand the perceptions of African American in-service teachers and their beliefs about the academic, social and emotional needs of African American students who were homeless. While research supports the importance of teacher perceptions in building the teacher-student relationship at school (Powers-Costello & Swick, 2008), this research has been limited primarily to white female preservice elementary teachers. There has been little research in the area of African American in-service elementary teachers’ perceptions of students who are impacted by homelessness due to systematic racial disparity and poverty.

This study included three African American …

African American Males Pursuing Stem Degrees: A Phenomenological Case Study, Dante Edwards

Middle and Secondary Education Dissertations

A disturbing epidemic in the United States is there are too few African American males that graduate from high school and go on to pursue degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) (Harper, 2012). An explanation as to why this is so may reside in their experiences while in high school. By using attribution theory as a theoretical framework, this study allowed its participants to identify those events that led them to pursue STEM degrees as undergraduates. Applying a phenomenological case study as a methodology uncovered the essence of the phenomenon of four African American males’ lived experiences in …

An Ethnographic Study Of Socio-Emotional Factors In Interpersonal Peer Relationships And Their Impact On The Academic Success Of African American High School Students In Mathematics, Alanna Johnson

Middle and Secondary Education Dissertations

Nationally, the outlook for African Americans in K-12 education is dismal. While gains are being made, African Americans still lag behind their White peers. The latest reports by the National Center for Education Statistics (2009) show a 31 point gap between 8^th grade African Americans and Whites in mathematics. While statistics such as these are in abundance, there are few accounts of stories of success (Berry, 2005; Jett, 2009; Stinson, 2004). Studies directly related to the role of socio-emotional interpersonal relationships and the means by which African American high school students negotiated that space in terms of successful math …