Is anybody listening? Black fathers' historical learning experiences and their impact on the development of children's learning life

Abstract

This study sought to understand the motivating factors that influence Black fathers' engagement in their 5- to 11 year-old children's academic learning experiences within an urban context. Employing identity theory as its theoretical framework and interpretative phenomenological analysis approach, the researcher conducted ten in-depth semi-structured interviews with Black fathers living in Newark, New Jersey. The data revealed fathering values, academic worldview, and forms of learning engagement as themes, which informed their function in the learning lives of their children. These themes were found to have their origin in the communicated expectations and behaviors modeled by individual participants identified as significantly influential to their K-16 educational journey. This study suggests when Black males have had someone they regarded as influential in their lives during their formative years setting clear expectations for their academic progress and holding them accountable to meet those expectations, that their academic parenting behaviors were reflective of the impact of those relationships. Participants early experiences and negative social biases held about them as Black men and fathers collectively forged the academic worldview they enacted with their own children. This study introduced process coaching and strategic involvement as new terms and paradigms to codify the behaviors commonly exhibited across participants. Recommendations for practice include the re-examining of legislation, policy, and judicial practices that have disproportionally separated Black males from the lives of children, and thus fractured the developmental learning experiences of children as a result of the absence of fathers, surrogate fathers and other influential male figures. Targeted recruitment of Black men as elementary school teachers to serve as models who contribute positively to the budding academic worldview of Black children and especially boys is also strongly recommended. Increasing fathers' direct access to curriculum which enables them to facilitate strategic involvement and process coaching more deliberately is also to be considered. Recommendations for research include the replication of this study examining the role that a father's level of education plays in his ability to exhibit strategic involvement and process coaching, as well as examining the role that trauma and personal academic failures play in informing the specific learning habits Black fathers emphasize in the lives of their own children. Keywords: father, Black father, elementary-aged child, perception, engagement, academic worldview, expectations, school level interactions, strategic involvement, process coaching