Afrocentric Education for Liberation in the Classroom: It Takes a Village to Raise a Child

Abstract

Racist and inequitable schools in the United States espouse an anti-Black and color blind curriculum that negatively impacts Black students’ lives. Black schools, including homeschools, are a strategic response to racist public and private schools and a viable option to address the academic and cultural needs of Black students. This paper explores Afrocentric practices, including familial relationships through culturally responsive instructional practices: an African time orientation, a personalized learning plan, authoritative teaching, OurStory, and Rising Meeting. This paper provides evidence that these practices benefit Black students. I draw upon an Afrocentric theoretical framework in this qualitative study to analyze and interpret data collected at the Black Scholars Academy (BSA), a pre-kindergarten (Pre-K) through 12th-grade Black homeschool collective in the U.S. The data consist of classroom observations, individual interviews with current and former teachers and students, and textual artifacts collected between July and November 2019. Familial relationships helped students develop cultural pride, agency, self-determination, independence, and liberation through education. The employment of Afrocentricity as a best practice in a homeschool collective is considered advisable across every educational context. There is a need for more research on Afrocentric practices as one of many culturally responsive techniques to best teach culturally diverse students, especially Black students, in educational settings.