Education Commons^™

Panoply: Haitian And Haitian-American Youth Crafting Identities In U.S. Schools, Fabienne Doucet

Trotter Review

In the United States, where race is a powerful factor for social stratification (Appiah & Gutmann, 1998; Glick-Schiller & Fouron, 1990a; Omni & Winant, 1986), foreign-born Blacks find themselves battling the demoralizing impacts of discrimination, racism, and xenophobia on a daily basis. In the school context, racist assumptions have been shown to predispose teachers to have lower expectations of immigrant students and other students of color, to view them more often as behavioral problems, and to assume that their parents do not value education (Doucet, 2008, 2011b; Suárez-Orozco, Suárez-Orozco, & Todorova, 2008). At the same time, the powerful influence of …

Toward Democratic Education: The Importance Of Culturally Responsive Leadership In 21st Century Schools, Donna M. Davis

Trotter Review

The author defines culturally responsive leadership as "essentially a process" by which communities create systems that support democratic education. The author explores relevant education scholarship and literary texts to better define "democratic freedom," and the essay examines issues related to democratic education and the role of educators and community members in creating democratic schools. The author argues that humanistic, child-centered, democratic schools are not only essential for the development of the sense of self that enables one to experience true freedom, but democratic schools are also necessary to the goal of changing the conditions that create inequities. Davis outlines barriers …

Introduction, Philip Hart

Trotter Review

We are pleased to share with our readers this issue of the Trotter Review. The events of September 11, 2001, will forever reshape our world as we know it. In addition to the far-reaching effects of this tragedy, it has revealed our general lack of knowledge about Islam and places in the world where religion and faith shape governmental and civic engagement. In crisis often comes opportunity. This opportunity to learn more about other religions and cultural pluralism is positive. It underscores the continuing importance of education and learning in today's world. So I think it particularly appropriate that …

Over-Representation Of African-American Students In Special Education: The Role Of A Developmental Framework In Shaping Teachers' Interpretations Of African-American Students' Behavior, Valerie Maholmes, Fay E. Brown

Trotter Review

The authors draw on the findings of gestalt psychology to demonstrate how teachers' views of African American learning styles and behavior can determine whether these will be pathologized or supported by the educational system. The disproportionately large numbers of African American youth incorrectly assigned to special education courses indicate a lack of clarity in disability criteria and indicate also the use of a "deficit model" or perceptual lens through which teachers assign negative meanings to the behavior of African American students. Case examples of language used by teachers in describing randomly selected students illustrate teachers' deficit-based focus on student behavior …

Alternative School Administrators "At Risk": What Does It Mean For Children?, Christopher Dunbar Jr.

Trotter Review

Alternative public schools have evolved from their origins in school choice and the progressive education movement of the 1920's into a system of schools that have become the assigned "dumping ground" for a population of ill-prepared, behaviorally disruptive youth, a population that is also disproportionately composed of minority students. Research suggests these schools fall short of providing an optimal educational opportunity for their students. There are multiple factors that place alternative school administrators "at risk" of failing in their charge to educate. Using a case study from a Midwestern alternative school, the author focuses on policy and the role of …

Race, Ethnicity, Class, And School Dropouts: A Policy Perspective, Richard C. Verdugo

Trotter Review

The author presents a review of literature on conditions and circumstances that cause youth to drop out before finishing high school. The essay explains the key features of both cultural and structural theories of low academic performance, and the author argues these theories might profitably be fused in order to formulate effective dropout prevention/intervention policies. The author recommends use of the public health model for prevention and intervention and synthesizes the findings of three recent reports on effective dropout programs.

Improving The Selection Process For Identifying Gifted Ethnic Minority Children, John Dillard, Nettye R. Brazil

Trotter Review

Poor and ethnic minority students are underrepresented in programs for the talented and gifted. As the number of public school students from ethnically diverse and low income backgrounds steadily increases, schools need to revise assessment tools that cannot effectively evaluate the academic potential of these populations. The authors examine the definition of giftedness, outline the limitations of current testing methods, and explore the role played by teachers' perceptions of ethnic minority children. The authors explore as well the range of social pressures on gifted African American students which may lead them to adopt behaviors that camouflage their giftedness. Dillard and …

The Impact Of A Culturally Responsive School Environment On Pre-Service Teachers' Willingness To Teach In A School, Delois Maxwell

Trotter Review

In a climate that acknowledges the need for teacher educators to prepare new teachers for culturally diverse student bodies, the study examines the extent to which selected features of an urban school environment affect a preservice teacher's willingness to teach in the school. A survey was administered to 48 preservice teachers after they completed a 7-week student teaching experience in a large urban school district. The survey sample was drawn from a northeastern university which enrolls 90% Caucasian education students. The study pursues the following research questions: does race/ethnicity, gender, program level, school location and major relate to the preservice …

Why Makik Can "Do" Math: Race And Status In Integrated Classrooms, Jacqueline Leonard, Scott Jackson Dantley

Trotter Review

This case study reports on the small group interactions and achievements of Malik, an African American sixth grader, who attended a Maryland elementary school in 1997. Student achievement was measured by the Maryland Functional Mathematics Test (MFMT-I), which was given on a pre/post basis. Students' scores on the MFMT-I were analyzed using the ANOVA. The analysis revealed a significant difference (F = 3-330, p < .05) between the scores of Caucasian (M = 342.12) and African American students (M = 323-56). However, Malik's MFMT-I score rose from 293 to 353. A passing score is 340. This study examines Malik's interactions to ascertain what factors influenced his achievement. The findings are that Malik had a positive attitude about mathematics and a strong command of mathematical and scientific language. Recommendations are that teachers become cultural brokers to help all children learn the "language" of mathematics and encourage all students to become self-advocates to overcome negative social dynamics in small groups.

Commentary, Tammy Hart

Trotter Review

This interview of Dr. Philip Hart was conducted by his wife, Tanya Hart, an award-winning journalist. Tanya Hart is a graduate of the Michigan State University College of Communications Arts and Sciences. The university honored her as an Outstanding Alumnus in 1982. She also has a Master of Education degree from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education.

High-Stakes Tests Require High-Stakes Pedagogy, Randy Lattimore

Trotter Review

High-stakes mathematics tests continue to gain popularity in the United States, with an increasing number of states setting the passing of such tests as a high school graduation requirement. Consequently, instruction and instructional content have changed, with teachers emphasizing materials on the test while neglecting other important aspects of learning. The tests have become all-consuming, taking over many students' lives. Yet students are often ill prepared for these tests. This is even more true for African-American students whose cultural and social circumstances make their preparation for high-stakes tests inadequate and ineffective. The author examines six such students - their hopes …

Leadership For Diversity: Effectively Managing For A Transformation, Adrian K. Haugabrook

Trotter Review

Diversity has become a contentious theme woven throughout many different aspects of higher education. Multiculturalism, ethnic studies, women's studies, curriculum reform, strategies for increasing access and opportunity to the under-represented and under-served and improving campus climate have all been vehicles to promote and further diversity initiatives. Diversity stands to challenge much of what has been the traditional views of higher education. The efforts to promote multiculturalism and diversity have caused the academy and the enterprise of higher learning to introspectively examine and reexamine its values, beliefs and relationships to a much larger society. American higher education now sees itself in …

Enhancing Multicultural Education Through Higher Education Initiatives, Porter L. Troutman Jr.

Trotter Review

This paper describes a comprehensive initiative intended to increase multicultural education and the amount of ethnic diversity among college of education faculty and undergraduate teacher education students at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). The paper details six components of the on-going initiative: 1) staff development: to enhance the sensitivity of college of education faculty regarding cultural issues, 2) a minority mentoring program: to provide a stronger support system for under-represented populations enrolled in the teacher education program, 3) the multicultural education project (MCE): a collaborative effort with the public school district in multicultural education, 4) the College of …

Faculty Diversity: Effective Strategies For The Recruitment And Retention Of Faculty Of Color, Sheila T. Gregory

Trotter Review

By the year 2000 one-third or more of the nation's population will be composed of African Americans, Hispanics, American Indians, Asians, and other minority and immigrant groups. It is expected that two-thirds of the nation's aging professorate will have to be replaced by the year 2000, and in the next century or two, women and minorities will out number non-minority men across the board. Unless more effective methods of recruitment and retention arc developed, few persons of color will be likely to assume faculty positions in American colleges and universities.

Help Wanted: Building Coalitions Between African-American Student Athletes, High Schools, And The Ncaa, Patiste M. Gilmore

Trotter Review

This essay focuses on a topic of intense debate emerging over the last several years: strategies to improve the academic preparedness of collegiate student athletes. The issue should have been resolved with the passage of Proposition 48 in 1986. This measure stipulated that first-year students who wanted to compete in intercollegiate athletics Division I institutions must meet three requirements: 1) Completion of high school core curriculum; 2) Achieve a minimum grade point average of 2.0 (on a 4.0 scale); and 3) Earn a combined score of 700 on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), or score 15 or better on the …

Executive Summary: Prepared By Institute Of Medicine, Marion Ein Lewin, Barbara Rice

Trotter Review

The underrepresentation of minorities in the health and other professions has long cast a shadow over our nation's efforts to develop a more representative and productive society. Many laudable and durable programs nave been developed over the past 20 years to enlarge the presence of minorities in health careers, but these efforts have been unable to develop the infrastructure and momentum to produce and sustain an adequate number of minority professionals among the ranks of America's clinicians, researchers, and teachers. While there has been an increase in the numbers of African Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans enrolled in professional schools …

Retaining Students Of Color: The Office Of Ahana Student Programs At Boston College, Donald Brown

Trotter Review

On September 1, 1978, I assumed responsibility for what was then known as the Office of Minority Student Programs at Boston College. The charge given to me was to alter an embarrassingly high attrition rate of 83 percent for a target group of black and Latino students who had been identified by the university's Admissions Office as having high levels of motivation and potential, but who would require assistance if they were to succeed at the university.

Over the course of the past sixteen years, a great deal has transpired at Boston College. An important change was made in the …

Role Models And Mentors For Blacks At Predominantly White Campuses, Clarence G. Williams

Trotter Review

Educators must begin to revisit the topic of mentoring and role models in higher education, especially as it relates to blacks at predominantly white college campuses. There are two major facets of this topic; namely, the existence of role models and mentors for young black administrators, faculty members, and students at predominantly white campuses; and, the objectives and goals of providing role models and mentors for these individuals.

An Interview With Gloria Bonilla-Santiago, Director Of The Center For Strategic Urban Community Leadership, Rutgers University, Harold Horton

Trotter Review

This article is an interview with Gloria Bonilla-Santiago, who was the Director of the Center for Strategic Urban Community Leadership at Rutgers University at the time.

Educational Opportunity Programs For Students Of Color In Graduate And Professional Schools, Sheila Gregory, Harold Horton

Trotter Review

The significant underrepresentation of people of color in all occupational fields is clearly indicative of the exceptionally low percent of people of color in graduate and professional schools in America. Unless drastic actions are taken by universities across the nation to identify and recruit a significant number of students of color in undergraduate colleges it is unlikely that significant numbers of people of color will be available in the near future for potential employment.

Expanding The Pool Of Women And Minority Students Pursuing Graduate Study: The Development Of A National Model, Bernard W. Harleston

Trotter Review

The underrepresentation of women and minority students in certain disciplines in the graduate schools of American colleges and universities is a matter of great national concern. This concern has been intensified by the decline during the last fifteen years, especially from 1978 to 1988, in graduate school enrollments of all categories of American students. But, even before this most recent period of decline and during a time when the enrollment of women and minority students was at its highest (between 1968 and 1974, as a consequence, primarily, of the civil rights movement), the representation of women and minorities in the …

Introduction, James Jennings

Trotter Review

This issue of the Trotter Institute Review is devoted to a two-part proposition. The first is that institutions, agencies, businesses, and schools must begin to reflect the increasingly diverse ethnic and racial characteristics of American society. America is in the midst of a demographic revolution. It is unfortunate that some educators have chosen to ignore the social, economic, and intellectual implications of this change and that others have even become angry and attacked efforts to create an appreciation of multiculturalism.

This unfortunate resistance to the implications of America's unfolding demography leads to the second proposition reflected in this issue of …

Are Today's Teachers Being Prepared For Diversity? An Analysis Of School Catalogues, James Jennings, Illene Carver

Trotter Review

A recent content analysis study shows that while leading educators in Massachusetts stress the importance of preparing teachers for an increasingly diverse world, most teacher preparation schools virtually ignore the issue of racial and ethnic diversity in catalogues recruiting new students. This not only discourages people from diverse backgrounds from becoming teachers, but could also create a lack of understanding in the classroom of the black, Latino, and Asian students being taught.

A summary of A Content Analysis of Racial and Ethnic Themes in Catalogues Distributed by Teacher Preparation Schools in Massachusetts, 1989 and 1990, a report issued by …

Black Underrepresentation In Science And Technology, Robert C. Johnson

Trotter Review

The United States is experiencing a crisis in the training of scientific and technical personnel. A recent report from the National Science Foundation (NSF) indicates that the number of U.S. citizens earning science and engineering doctorates has decreased nearly 5% since 1980. The National Research Council's study of the adequacy of research support for the mathematical sciences in the United States reveals that not only has the production of Ph.D.s in mathematics declined since 1969-70, but the percentage of U.S. citizens receiving those degrees fell during the last decade from 78% of all mathematics Ph.D.s to only 61% of all …

The Faculty Of The Sixties: A Reappraisal, Monroe H. Little

Trotter Review

Between 1967 and 1969 the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education initiated and substantially funded several national surveys of U.S. higher education. One such study of faculty employed a questionnaire that was mailed to approximately 100,000 full-time college and university faculty at 303 schools nationwide. The results of this survey, which solicited more than 300 items of information from each respondent and enjoyed an unusually high response rate of over 60%, contain a wealth of data on a variety of political and social issues that has rarely been subjected to careful analysis by scholars.

This is especially unfortunate in retrospect. The …

Race And Excellence In American Higher Education, James Jennings

Trotter Review

W,E.B. DuBois’ assessment of American higher education’s posture toward black students in 1926 — “The attitude of the northern institution toward the Negro student is one which varies from tolerance to active hostility” — could have been written today based on several investigations. The American Council on Education reported recently that “the higher education community must continue to address the issues of losses in participation at all levels for blacks; the segregation of Hispanics; the retention and graduation of minority students, both undergraduate and graduate; the lack of growth for minorities in faculty and staff ranks.” The College Board reports …

Dynamics Of Minority Education: An Index To The Status Of Race And Ethnic Relations In The United States, James E. Blackwell

Trotter Review

Throughout this century scholars and legal experts have devoted special attention to the issue of race and ethnicity as a determinant of life chances in the United States. Some of the more influential treatises in the social and behavioral sciences, many of which have become classics, addressed fundamental, derivative (and often more compelling) extensions of race and ethnicity. They focused on such topics as race-based group dominance, ethnic stratification, structural inequality based upon racial or ethnic identification, beliefs in inherent racial superiority and status privilege, class exploitation, the nature of prejudice, and the maintenance of power over groups defined as …