African American Studies Commons^™

Through The Heart Of The City: Interstates And Black Geographies In Urban America, Airic Hughes

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Federal urban renewal projects changed the landscape of numerous American cities throughoutthe twentieth century. Many of these projects worked cohesively in tandem with discriminatory urban planning policies such as redlining. The conclusions of this project demonstrate how U.S. Interstate 630 (I-630) intentionally re-segregated Arkansas' capital city, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 national desegregation order and the infamous desegregation of Little Rock Central High School in 1957. I further contend that I-630 was constructed using the racialized language and tactics of urban renewal and was fundamental to improving Little Rock’s national reputation by purging the city's social memory and legacy …

Racial And Cultural Competence Through The Eyes Of Public-School Educators, Laquita Mcmillion

Dissertations

The discussion of racial and cultural competence in public schools today is necessary. The student population of public schools across the United States has significantly grown racially and culturally diverse. Through the use of a narrative inquiry and a critical lens, this study explored the perception and experiences of public-school educators focused on the topic of racial and cultural competence as it relates to their classroom practice and educational policies. The focus of this research (1) describes and analyzes my personal experiences through the use of qualitative approaches, (2) shares the experiences and perceptions of three public-school educators, and (3) …

Black Girls Matter: The Impact Of Historical Representation On Contemporary Education, Carolyn Strong

Dissertations

A long history of misogynoir and negative stereotypes about Black
girls and women can be found throughout the literature and popular
culture of the United States. These stereotypes inform the lived
experience of Black girls and women, and in particular interfere with
African American girls’ ability to thrive in a school environment. An
autoethnographic research approach shows that various strategies, in
particular, Black girl-centric spaces, have proven to be helpful in
supporting Black girls who have to negotiate varying degrees of
hostility in general environments. These could be applied more broadly
to improve Black girls’ mental, psychological, physical, and
educational …

Brokering Access, Belief And Opportunities: A Phenomenology Of Black Principals’ Leadership Through A Racialized Lens, Natalie Denise Lewis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The educational landscape of the twenty-first century currently faces several significant challenges, including widening academic opportunity gaps. These gaps suggest that there is need to examine the perspectives of leaders in the role of principals more deeply. However, as leadership theories continue to develop, there has been limited research conducted on the impact of principals’ racialized experiences and their approach to leadership. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to center race by exploring the essence of Black principals’ understanding of their racialized experiences and its meaning to their leadership and school communities. Findings indicate that Black principals’ (a) understanding …

Positionality Matters: School Choice Decisions Based On Ethnographic Accounts Of African American Parents, Dr. Stacy L. Thomas

Dissertations

This research delves into experiences with reasoning and selected criteria for choosing the right school for their children. Beginning with a series of vignettes that assist with recognition of parental empowerment, this research archives acknowledgement of their own positionality when it comes to making life changing decisions. As selected parents of African American children grapple with the strategic balance and possibilities of educational outlets, family and finances, they offer ethnographic accounts of their successes and failures with school choice. Individual accounts of parental school choice decisions posing as data ascertained from interviews provided research that explored the critical frequencies and …

Interview Of Brian Henderson, F.S.C., M.A., Brian Henderson F.S.C., Rebecca Oviedo

All Oral Histories

Brother Brian Henderson was born in 1959 and grew up in Southwest Philadelphia. He graduated from West Catholic High School for Boys in 1977 and La Salle University with a B.A. in Religion and Psychology in 1981, and later earned a Masters Degree in Pastoral Studies in 1992. He has been a De La Salle Christian Brother since 1979, taking final vows in 1987. All of Brother Brian’s apostolic assignments have placed him serving inner city youth. His first assignment was as a youth care worker and religion teacher at Saint Gabriel’s Hall in Audubon, PA, a residential treatment facility …

Last Of The Bronx Giants: Mayoral Control, School Reform, And The Fate Of Bronx High Schools, Ben Delikat

African & African American Studies Senior Theses

No abstract provided.

Disaster From Above: New York City Teachers' Perceptions Of School Reform, Elizabeth Baker

African & African American Studies Senior Theses

No abstract provided.

Effect Of Racial Socialization And Racial Identity In Adolescent African American Males On Academic Achievement, Rasheema Pitt

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study examined possible influences of racial socialization and racial identity in minority’s academic achievement. Qualitative data sources (in-depth, personal interviews, focus groups, and a survey) were collected from 10 minority students and 8 administrators. In addition, a quantitative survey was used to supplement qualitative data. The researcher established her own set of questions for the interviews and focus groups. The pre-established measures used were the Does Your School Have High Expectations for All Students survey and the School Climate survey.

Thematic and theoretical analyses procedures were used to identify emerging themes and patterns, with particular attention to what minority …

Women Of African Descent: Persistence In Completing A Doctorate, Vannetta L. Bailey-Iddrisu

Vannetta L. Bailey-Iddrisu

This study examines the educational persistence of women of African descent (WOAD) in pursuit of a doctorate degree at universities in the southeastern United States. WOAD are women of African ancestry born outside the African continent. These women are heirs to an inner dogged determination and spirit to survive despite all odds (Pulliam, 2003, p. 337).This study used Ellis’s (1997) Three Stages for Graduate Student Development as the conceptual framework to examine the persistent strategies used by these women to persist to the completion of their studies.

“Holla If You Hear Me”: A Conversation With Black, Inner-City Youth On Career Preparedness Programs, Theressa N. Cooper

Doctoral Dissertations

This research study specifically addressed; how vocational preparedness programs effect the career aspirations of Black youth, within the context of the Middle Tennessee Council Boy Scouts of America’s Exploring program. The goal of this research is to represent Black youth participating in a vocational preparedness program. Interviews, journals, and rich, thick descriptions are utilized in this work.

Using the lens of narrative inquiry and cultural studies, I hoped to further the field of career development through the experiences of some of its key players, African American youth. Within the context of their stories five major themes surfaced around the ideas: …

Women Of African Descent: Persistence In Completing A Doctorate, Vannetta L. Bailey-Iddrisu

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the educational persistence of women of African descent (WOAD) in pursuit of a doctorate degree at universities in the southeastern United States. WOAD are women of African ancestry born outside the African continent. These women are heirs to an inner dogged determination and spirit to survive despite all odds (Pulliam, 2003, p. 337).This study used Ellis’s (1997) Three Stages for Graduate Student Development as the conceptual framework to examine the persistent strategies used by these women to persist to the completion of their studies.

Attempts At Reforming Haiti's Education System: The Challenges Of Mending The Tapestry, 1979-2004, Marc Prou

Marc E. Prou

For well over a quarter of a century, Haiti's education system has been at a critical juncture. In 1982, Haiti embarked on a major educational reform, known as La Reforme Bernard. To date, there has been no comprehensive, longitudinal study of the nationwide impact of the Bernard Reform on the social, economic, and political institutions. Why was such a dramatic education reform proposed? What went wrong during the implementation of the reform? Was Bernard education Reform a success or a failure? These are some of the questions addressed in the article. the school system had become a perennial challenge for …

Sitting On A Tinderbox': Racial Conflict, Teacher Discretion And The Centralization Of Disciplinary Authority, Judith R. Kafka

Publications and Research

The centralization of school discipline in the second half of the twentieth century is widely understood to be the inevitable result of court decisions granting students certain civil rights in school. This study examines the process by which school discipline became centralized in the Los Angeles City School District in the late 1960s and early 1970s, however, and finds that the locus of control over student discipline shifted from the school site to the centralized district largely in response to local pressures. Indeed, during a period of large-scale student unrest, and in an environment of widespread racial and cultural tensions, …

Haitian Creole, Marc E. Prou

Marc E. Prou

Haitian Creole, also known as Kreyòl, is a member of the French-based creole language groups with a considerable part of its lexicon coming directly from seventeenth century French. Its grammar differs from French, however, and reflects closely the West African languages, such as Ewe, Fon, Yoruba, and Ibo. Kreyòl is similar to the creoles spoken in the French overseas departments of Martinique and Guadeloupe, as well as in Dominica, Saint Lucia, and parts of Trinidad.

“Minimizing Risks In Study Abroad Programs: Who Is Responsible?”, Marc Prou

Marc E. Prou

This presentation focuses on the possibilities of minimizing potential risks involved in education abroad programs in the Caribbean. Dealing with the existing literature, the procedures of past and existing programs, and the testimonies and experiences of former students and administrators, we aim to achieve a better understanding of the relationships between responsibilities, accountability, and the possibility of minimizing foreseeable risks. From the standpoint of the students, the faculty, and the institution, we will attempt to gauge the possible risks based on their likelihood, preventability, and severity, and will examine ways in which a standardized procedure for allocating responsibility and accountability …

“Haitian-Americans”, Marc Prou

Marc E. Prou

The indisputable massive presence of haitian Americans in the last three decades has changed the way scholarship on black immigrants from the Caribbean and the African Diasporas has taken shape. Haitian Americans' presence has serious implications for U.S society, its institutions and public policies. The existing body of literature dealing with ethnic Haitian Americans, although not as voliminous as that of other recent ethnic groups in the United States, reflects a vast array of perspectives. Much of the literature centers on the history of immigration and the adaptation process of Haitian immigrants and Haitian Americans in many urban areas of …

Black, Mulatto And Light Skin: Reinterpreting Race, Ethnicity And Class In Caribbean Diasporic Communities, Marc E. Prou

Marc E. Prou

In recent years, Caribbeanists of different academic specialization and intellectual orientation have demonstrated a renewed interest in the unholy trinity of race, class and ethnic matters. the renewed interest has reflected a continued, but rather an unsystematic attempt to account for the social characteristics of race, ethnicity, gender and class among Caribbean people, both at home and abroad. The current ethnic power relationships manisfested by the unequal distribution of wealth in Caribbean diasporic communities is the direct result of colonialist influence on race through exploitative practices of the plantocracy and selective immigration to create a Caribbean middle class.

El Significado De La Muerte En El Vodu Haitiano, Marc E. Prou

Marc E. Prou

No abstract provided.

Haitian Creole Ideophones: An Exploratory Analysis, Marc Prou

Marc E. Prou

This article is an exploratory attempt to analyze the status of Creole ideophones through distinctive repetition, reduplication and onomatopoeic features of Haitian Creole, commonly known as Kreyol. It examines barious types of ideophones in Kreyol with the aim of understanding the processes of change in lexical categories, which involve the principles these processes manifest-- thereby showing, on the one hand, why these diverse types of ideophones should be classed together and referred to with a single term, 'ideophonization'; and, on the other hand, how this category of lexical items is to be distinguished from others.

The Implementation Of Radical Constructivism Within The Urban Mathematics Classroom, Randy Lattimore

Trotter Review

One of the most serious problems in mathematics education continues to be the dismal statewide mathematics proficiency test performance of African-American students in urban schools. It has been argued that one of the best ways to improve performance is by connecting the pedagogy of mathematics to the lives and experiences of these students. Although many theories have been implemented in the urban mathematics classroom to assist African-American students in developing and increasing conceptual understanding, members of the urban mathematics education community should take a closer, more serious look at the implementation of radical constructivism within urban mathematics classrooms.

A number …

Leçons Tirées Dans L’Elaboration Du Projet D’Education Et De Développement Local À Thomonde, Haiti, Marc Prou

Marc E. Prou

No abstract provided.

The Need And Justifcation For All-Black Male Academies In Urban Areas, Nimrod Malik Shabazz

McCabe Thesis Collection

During the 1980's, the concept of an all-Black male academy was strongly pushed as a panacea for the seemingly systematic, scholastic downfall of Black males in secondary institutions. Though said academies have received strong community support, opposition against them has also been equally staunch. All-Black male academies have also fallen under question because of their supposed discrimination against females and the belief that their existence would return the system of education in the United States to segregation.

The purpose of this study is to analyze historical factors which have affected Black male academic achievement on the secondary level in urban …

The Development Of A Program For Minority Dropout Prevention In The Decatur, Illinois Public School District #61, Priscilla Marjorie Palmer

Masters Theses

The purpose of this field study was to identify the need and present a workable model designed to address minority dropout prevention for the Decatur, Illinois, Public School District #61. The overall district dropout rate at the time this field study commenced was 26.6 percent. However, the dropout rate for minority (Black) males was 43.1 percent and 24.9 percent for minority (Black) females. The data shows that a problem of minority dropouts did exist in Decatur School District #61 and that a preventive program was needed to address this problem.The Program to Improve Student Attendance (PISA), was designed for use …