Democratic Pluralism: Placing African-American Student-Athletes in the Context of a New Agenda for Higher Education

Abstract

Harry Edwards delivered the NACADA Journal symposium lecture at the 1990 NACADA National Conference. He was invited by the Journal's editors to expand the ideas he presented into an article to give the entire membership an opportunity to examine these ideas. We have also included responses from several professionals who are actively involved in exploring the issues that Edwards deals with. The editors welcome further responses to this article.The character and dynamics of developments at the interface of intergroup relations, education, and sport are shown to be deeply embedded in the historical evolution and intertwined with the contemporary complexities and contradictions of race and ethnic relations more generally in American society. The proposition is developed that African-American student-athletes' patterned negative outcomes can be reliably understood and effectively addressed only if due consideration is given social, cultural, and political forces that serious-impact but that emanate far beyond the institutional functioning of academia and sport. Established and broadly accepted African-American advancement strategies and goals are critiqued and evaluated relative to their past viability and future remedial potential as adjunctive influences upon the content, contours, and direction of African-American education. Competing educational philosophies and methods are analysed and assessed as to the appropriateness and promise of each in a postindustrial, ever more ethnically diverse America. Democratic pluralism is posed as an alternative to both established Black liberal and incipient Black neoconservative integration/assimilation dispositions and change regimens, as well as to various Black separatist and separate development strategems relative to African-American individual and collective advancement in sport, education, and society. Broad perspectives and guidelines pertaining to the role responsibilities and realms of accountability of educational administrators (particularly college presidents and chancellors), counselling supervisors and academic advisors, teachers, African-American communities and families, and African-American student-athletes are discussed against a background of longstanding and ongoing Black/White intergroup tensions and heightened athletic and academic pressures upon the student-athlete.