African American Cultural Values Research Articles

Results of a mindfulness intervention feasibility study among elder African American women: A qualitative analysis

Objectives. Older African Americans have a significantly higher risk than older white Americans for cognitive decline and other health problems. Much of this may be due to the unique stressors, both historically and in-the-moment, that African Americans face in contrast to whites, such as gentrification and health disparities. Gender further exacerbates this effect. This study aims to understand stressors unique to older African American women, as well as coping strengths that have emerged organically over time for use in tailoring stress-reduction mindfulness classes in this community Design and setting. A four-week mindfulness training class adapted from mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) was implemented in a historically black, gentrifying neighborhood in Portland, Oregon with 10 older African American women aged 50–89. Main outcome measures. Focus groups discussed stressors, coping, responses to mindfulness classes, and preferences to better reflect older African American cultural values and norms. Results. Stressors reflected participants’ intersectionality as older black women, including neighborhood and workplace race-based microagressions, and gentrification-related cultural and generational incongruences. Coping strategies included self-care, remembering core-self amidst stress, and drawing strength from family and faith. Participants found mindfulness classes appropriate for addressing stress and felt that classes provided a forum for connecting on issues of race and community. Conclusion. Tailoring classes to older African American women should consider integrating biblical teachings, African American instructors who understand socio-historical contexts of older black women’s stressors and strengths, and time for group-reflection to support community building.

Linking Racial-Ethnic Socialization to Culture and Race-Specific Coping Among African American College Students

In addition to the use of coping strategies generally shared by all Americans, research has shown that African Americans tend to make use of culture and race-specific coping styles that distinguish them from other racial/ethnic group populations. These coping styles are important for the negotiation of multiple types of stressors. Little has been written on the antecedents of culture and race-specific coping (i.e., Africultural coping and John Henryism). This exploratory online investigation sought to determine if childhood racial-ethnic socialization (i.e., a cultural practice and protective factor) experiences predicted present self-reported culture and race-specific coping among a group of African American college students ( N = 191). Results indicated that past racial socialization messages encouraging participants to engage in positive cross-racial interactions (i.e., cross-racial relationship messages) were positively predictive of spiritual-centered and collective coping. Racial socialization messages that prescribed how participants should cope with racism were negatively associated with prolonged, active high-effort coping (i.e., John Henryism). Ethnic socialization messages emphasizing participation in African American cultural activities (i.e., African American heritage messages) positively predicted spiritual-centered, collective, and ritual-centered coping. Finally, ethnic socialization messages encouraging participants to have respect for authority figures, retain close relationships with family members, and maintain a collectivistic orientation (i.e., African American cultural values messages) were negatively predictive of John Henryism. Taken together, childhood racial-ethnic socialization experiences are an important resource for coping during college.

Gay Families: Challenging Racial and Sexual/Gender Minority Stressors through Social Support

In the Southern United States, gay family is a term given to constructed social networks formed by mostly African American gay and transgender adolescents and adults in the face of marginalization and rejection from their biological families and religious communities. The current research initiates the study of these fictive kinship structures, in which older members assume parental roles to somewhat younger members. The current grounded theory qualitative study examined the experience of gay family members in the Mid-South region, with a focus on how these families are structured and serve to support their members. Results revealed that, overall, these networks used methods of coping consistent with African American cultural values to find acceptance and guidance and bolster resilience in the face of racism, heterosexism, and transphobia. Community norms tended to support and celebrate gender flexibility in family roles as well as creative gendered performances in family competitions. Methods of coping within gay families could result in unhealthy coping strategies (e.g., drug use) to withstand extreme social and economic stressors but also in a sense of personal growth, interpersonal responsibility, and both personal and community pride. The implications of these findings for minority stress theory and for gender theory are discussed.

The Cultural Historical Complexity of Human Personality Adaptation

Research on implicit intelligence has conceptualized students’ beliefs about the nature of intelligence as either fixed or malleable. This research has largely not included African American adolescents, a group for whom beliefs about intelligence have a cultural historical complexity related to both scientific racism and master narratives of race and intelligence. The purpose of this study was to investigate the nature of implicit theories of intelligence for 63 African American adolescents who are seventh and eighth graders in a public charter school. The two-way ANOVA revealed that these adolescents held a malleable view of intelligence, which did not vary by gender or grade. Exploratory correlation analysis showed some consistent relationships with achievement motivation variables found in other studies. These findings may be explained by African American cultural values and the personality characteristic adaptations that they make living within a racialized society.

Psychosocial Factors Associated With Weight Control Expectancies in Treatment-Seeking African American Smokers

African Americans are disproportionately affected by tobacco smoking and obesity. As weight control expectancies can reinforce smoking maintenance, the purpose of this study was to explore psychosocial factors related to expectancies for weight control among African Americans seeking cessation treatment. African American smokers (N = 117) provided information on demographics, family medical history, personal risk factors, smoking, weight control expectancies and concerns, perceived stress, and acculturation. Multivariate analyses examined hypotheses regarding determinants of weight control expectancies. Fifty-one percent of participants were concerned about gaining weight upon cessation. Positive expectations for weight control through smoking were associated with older age, a family history of heart disease, greater perceived stress, and a lower level of acculturation. In conclusion, many African American smokers are concerned about postcessation weight gain: expectations for weight control through smoking are most evident those with elevated perceived stress, traditional African American cultural values, and a family history of chronic illness. Needed are culturally specific smoking cessation interventions that include weight management strategies as an adjunct to smoking cessation treatments.

African–American Parents’ Racial and Ethnic Socialization and Adolescent Academic Grades: Teasing Out the Role of Gender

This study examined the relationship of racial and ethnic socialization and academic achievement in a sample of 218 African American adolescents (grades 9-12; 52% girls) attending a public high school in the northeastern United States. Researchers were particularly interested in whether adolescent gender moderated the relationship between racial and ethnic socialization and academic grades. Results indicated that aspects of ethnic socialization, African American cultural values and African American heritage were linked to adolescent grades. Additionally, adolescent gender was found to moderate the association between these socialization variables and grades. The findings also suggest that socialization provided by paternal caregivers around African American cultural values and African American heritage may have differential effects for academic grades than the socialization messages provided by maternal caregivers. Information generated from this study broadens the understanding of socialization factors that can facilitate positive academic outcomes in African American youth and has practical implications for parents and educators.

Project Eban: A Giant Step Forward

Substantial progress has been made in the United States since the 1980s in the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS, but socially disadvantaged racial/ethnic populations are increasingly bearing a disproportionate share of the burden of this disease. The black or African American population, in particular, is losing ground in the battle against the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Blacks currently have the highest HIV/AIDS infection rate —a rate 8.5 times higher than that of whites. The problem is particularly salient among African American women among whom AIDS is one of the leading causes of death and where the majority have acquired their infection through heterosexual contact. Among persons diagnosed with AIDS, blacks have poorer survival than whites, Hispanics, or Asian Pacific Islanders. Although African Americans are only 13% of the US population, they are 51% of newly diagnosed cases, 65% of infants perinatally infected, 68% of children under 13 with an AIDS diagnosis, and 66% of all 13–19 year olds with AIDS. African Americans are similarly overrepresented in infections rates from other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) where they have the highest rates of Chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis, and in 2008, nearly one half of all African American teenage girls aged 14–19 years were infected by an STI. More research is needed to fully elucidate the determinants of excess risk among African Americans. Although it is clear that the patterns of HIV risk among African Americans are distinctive, much is yet to be understood regarding the ways in which the economic context of the black population combines with psychological, cultural, historical, and social factors to affect patterns of HIV transmission and risk. However, even more urgently, we need a new generation of HIV prevention interventions that are designed to reduce HIV/AIDS risks for African Americans. The prevention and intervention approaches that have led to reducing the spread of HIV among white homosexual males have been less successful among African Americans and Hispanics. There is thus an urgent need for HIV prevention interventions that are grounded in our current knowledge base and seek, in a more comprehensive and innovative fashion than most prior efforts, to effectively address HIV/AIDS prevention in the black community. This is exactly what Project Eban has attempted to do. There are several aspects of this study that are noteworthy and relevant for the design of future interventions with socially stigmatized and disadvantaged populations across multiple racial/ethnic populations and health conditions. First, the Eban project was successfully implemented in a hard-to-reach population group that is difficult to follow over time. In general, serodiscordant couples’ studies are difficult to conduct, and given issues related to social marginalization, generally low income and education, and limited connections to health care and employment, conducting such a study among African Americans (the first of its kind) was particularly challenging. This population tends to be characterized by high levels of comorbidity of other illnesses and/or substance abuse and elevated exposure to a broad range of social stressors including being in and out of jail or prison. This is the type of target population that some researchers fail to study precisely because the task seems too difficult. The challenge of identifying and tracking participants despite their fragile living circumstances and social adversity is a difficult one, which taxed the organizational and financial resources of the study team. Nonetheless, the successful implementation of the intervention demonstrates that it is not an impossible task when both funders and researchers are committed and allocate the needed resources.

Strong Teens: A School-Based Small Group Experience for African American Males

This article describes the school-based, small group adaptation of the existing Strong Teens Curriculum (STC) for African American male adolescents in high schools. The STC was created to equip adolescents with skills that promote more effective social interaction and enhance personal emotional and psychological wellness. The authors present a twelve-session small group school counseling experience based on the STC for use with African American adolescent males in a high school. Within the small group sessions, attention was given to the unique African American male experience in adolescence and in schools. Based on African American cultural values, historical figures were used as role models in helping to illustrate session concepts, and activities were modified to better connect group members with one another for social support in and outside of the school environment.

Cultural Sensitivity and Health Promotion: Assessing Breast Cancer Education Pamphlets Designed for African American Women

This study discusses the implications for cultural sensitivity of the rhetorical choices in breast cancer education materials developed specifically for African American audiences by national organizations. Using the PEN–3 model of cultural sensitivity as an analytic framework for a generative rhetorical criticism, this study revealed that adaptations have been made in some pamphlets to acknowledge African American cultural values related to community, self-reliance, spirituality, and distrust of the Western medical establishment, but many messages could be revised to achieve a more comprehensive, balanced, accurate, and audience-specific discussion of the breast cancer issue. Achieving cultural sensitivity in health promotion materials necessitates attention to nuanced meanings in messages, revision of questionable arguments and evidence, and avoidance of ambiguity.

When the “Amen Corner” Comes to Class: An Examination of the Pedagogical and Cultural Impact of Call–Response Communication in the Black College Classroom

This research sought to examine the communicative impact of the Black English speech pattern, known as call–response, on African Americans within an educational environment. An ethnographic study of an Historically Black College and University (HBCU) classroom was conducted to ascertain the pedagogical and cultural meanings this speech event held for an African American instructor and her African American students. Detailed fieldnotes, videotapes of classroom interactions, participant observation, and in-depth interviews comprised the primary means of data collection for this study. Results of the study indicate that call–response did occur in the university classroom. Particularly, the study yielded data which revealed that call–response is initiated in the classroom through a variety of speaker techniques which are interpreted by the class members as “calls.” It was also found that the performance of Black speech acts in the classroom did not serve as a detriment to students, but that by engaging in call–response, the students and the instructor together forwarded deeply embedded African American cultural values of sharing and uniqueness.

Motivating Illegal Drug Use Recovery: Evidence for a Culturally Congruent Intervention

Public health interventions may be more effective if they are congruent with cultural values of the target community. To test this possibility, the authors conducted a randomized field trial of a motivational intervention to promote recovery from illegal drug use among a sample of 269 African Americans. The intervention, based on transtheoretical stage-of-change concepts, featured a needs assessment and service referrals and was congruent with relevant African American cultural values. Participants were randomly assigned to this intervention or to a standard assessment-referral protocol. Motivational intervention participants were significantly less likely to be using illegal drugs 1 year later. This finding suggests that motivational intervention congruent with cultural values of the target population can be effective in promoting recovery from drug use..

BRER RABBIT, A PLAY OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT: RECREATING BLACK CULTURE THROUGH BRER RABBIT STORIES

For centuries, Brer Rabbit stories have communicated the values and experiences of enslaved Africans and of indigenous African American culture (Abrahams, 1985; Brewer, 1968; Levine, 1977). According to Blassingame (1972, p. 127), Brer Rabbit stories are “a projection of the slave's personal experiences, dreams and hopes.” Dunn (1979, p.183) explained that the stories are “paradigms dictating how to act and how to live,” and Stuckey (1977, p.xuii) observed that they “revealed more about slave culture than… whole books on slavery by experts. Levine (1977) maintaned that Brer Rabbit stories survived the experiences of slavery and urban poverty because they were a vehicle by which African American cultural values could be shared by the masses of African American people, and Leslie (forthcoming) observed that urban Black mothers continue to share in these values by teaching their children that Brer Rabbit's tricks demonstrate the importance of “protecting the physically small and weak against the physically big and powerful.”