Enhancing critical consciousness in young African American men: A psychoeducational approach.

Abstract

Critical thinking has long been a goal of schooling, but for young African American men critical thinking skills can also aid their sociopolitical development and the analysis of the everyday economic, social, and cultural challenges they face. Thus, critical thinking has the potential to be critical consciousness—a powerful strategy for understanding social forces and the dynamics of oppression. This article describes the Young Warriors program, which cultivates critical consciousness in young African American men through the use of the movies and rap videos about contemporary urban culture. The program shows how the thoughtful use of hip-hop can help young men to critically analyze their world and the messages in popular culture on gender, culture, race, and social class. This article describes the Young Warriors intervention and its effort to cultivate critical consciousness and sociopolitical development in young African American men residing in low-income urban neighborhoods. It is multidisciplinary, drawing on several related topics: critical thinking, media literacy, political socialization, and psychosocial development. Over the years, we have conducted the Young Warriors program weekly and semiweekly in several midwestern schools and youth development settings. These schools have acute problems with violence, maintenance of an effective learning environment, disruptive gang activity, and low academic performance. All participants were young African American males, ranging in age from 11 to 21 years. Sometimes students were part of specially selected “manhood” groups that required participants to maintain a “B” average, whereas other students were from groups labeled as management problems by staff and were referred in an effort to make them more tractable. The curriculum varied depending on these factors, age, and type of organization.