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Ain't I Cool: Investigating The Lived Experience Of Cool For Black Male Collegians, Kyle Nathaniel Boone

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the lived experiences of cool for Black male college students. Cool, defined as a means to navigate cross-cultural structures, serves as Black men’s acknowledgement of, and response to, the rules of their self-identified cultural group when confronted by dominant racial, gendered, and/or class hegemonies. Results of this study note that cool is a major part of the fabric in the identity development of Black males and is contextualized through environmental factors. For this study, four theoretical frameworks were used to understand Black male cool: Phinney’s (1989) Ethnic Development Model, 2) Performance Theory …