Gender Risks and Education: The Particular Classroom Challenges for Urban Low-Income African American Boys

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A fundamental consideration in discourses on risk and schooling for primary and ^LjLsecondary school-age students focuses on gender inequalities in the classroom. Gender equity in education debates have raged for several decades and so remain an enduring concern of educators and researchers across the nation (Klein, Kramarae, & Richardson, 2007). Gender politics in classrooms, in teaching, and in teacher training have been accorded minimal to no attention by No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation and other educational policies. The blindness of NCLB, toward an approach best characterized by its devil and/or god in the details, still sends parents, educators, and researchers battling over how much gender matters and how much these issues go unaddressed throughout the school day. A recent report by the American Association of University Women found no disadvantage toward boys in American education, and it discredited the niyth that boys are receiving less attention and less schooling as compared to that of girls (Corbett, Hill, & St. Rose, 2008). This report was in response to a pendulum swing in the field from the earlier position that girls were disadvantaged, particularly in math and science skills development. Gender war debates have used individual studies to document disadvantage on both ends. However, a consistent review of the literature tends to point to one challenging reality namely, that gender may be too broad a category in critically examining the more challenging problems of educational equity or in developing future training, programs, and policies to ameliorate educational risk for students in primary and secondary schools (Dee, 2005). We take issue with a broad definition of risk within the context of gender because it tends to focus on a universalism that masks subgroups of students at greatest risk