Afrocentric Approach Research Articles

Pan-Africanism Versus Pan-African Nationalism

It is the contention of this writer that the historical struggle of African peoples has heretofore been analyzed within a Eurocentric, dysfunctional, ahistorical, and divisive context, thus culminating in the use of the concept of Pan-Africanism. This article suggests that in analyzing the struggle of African peoples from its proper historical, unifying, and holistic perspective, we must speak in terms of Pan-African Nationalism and not Pan-Africanism. This is the Afrocentric approach.

Afrocentric tokens: Afrocentric methodology in rhetorical analysis

Popular and academic debates on Afrocentricity have been prevalent for the past 16 years. What is significantly absent from the debates on Afrocentricity is the methodological aspect that should assist scholars in using Afrocentric approaches in the analysis of rhetorical communication. This article provides Afrocentric methodological tools for the rhetorical analysis of African American and diaspora discourse in the forms of Afrocentric tokens. Two schools of thought—nativistic and emigrationist—are introduced as the most suitable contexts for the analysis of African American and diaspora public address applying the tokens as yardstick. Concrete examples in both schools of thought on how the function of tokens in rhetorical discourses are provided.

African american children and behavior therapy: Considering the Afrocentric approach

Scant literature exists on behavior therapy with African American children. Whereas Black children are missing from the behavior therapy literature, behavior therapy is not missing from the literature on Black children. In this article, we attempt to disseminate information about an Afrocentric approach to behavior therapy. We begin with a discussion of Radical Black Behaviorism. The concept of Afrocentrism is defined and misperceptions about the concept are addressed. Examples are given of an Afrocentric approach to behavioral assessment and parent training. Behavior therapists are encouraged to increase their knowledge about African American children and the Afrocentric approach to behavior therapy.

An Afrocentric Approach to Group Social Skills Training with Inner-City African American Adolescents

This study compared the effectiveness for inner-city African American youth (N = 64) of two social skills training (SST) curricula focusing on problem solving, anger management, and conflict resolution. One curriculum was Afrocentric, incorporating discussion of Black history and cultural experiences and emphasizing an Afrocentric value system; the other was culturally relevant but not Afrocentric. It was hypothesized that social skills acquisition would be better facilitated by Afrocentric curricula and that exposure to Afrocentric values would enhance the benefits of SST for Black youth. Neither hypothesis was confirmed; both curricula yielded similar decreases in trait anger and increases in assertiveness and self-control. However, results support the effectiveness of Afrocentric SST as a preventive intervention and the need for further study. INTRODUCTION Violence-encompassing a variety of intentional or unintentional acts of harm such as stabbings, shootings, rapes, assaults, physical abuse, and homicide-is a critical social problem confronting American society. Since the early 1990s, violent crime rates in the United States have been the highest seen in decades, with the latest upswing in violence largely accounted for by youth under age 18 (Guerra, Huesmann, Tolan, Van Acker, & Eron, 1995). This trend disproportionately affects African American and other racial/ ethnic minority youth, who populate the urban neighborhoods in which much of this violence is concentrated, and who experience more violence than youth living in nonurban areas (Cooley, Turner, & Beidel, 1995). As Bell and Jenkins (1991) maintain, exposure to violence has become commonplace for inner-city African American adolescents. For example, in a study conducted in predominantly Black central Baltimore (Maryland), Garbarino, Durbow, and Pardo (1991) note that 24% of their adolescent sample (N= 168) indicated having witnessed a murder, while 72% maintained that they knew someone who had been shot. The homicide rate for African American adolescents is reportedly six to nine times higher than that for White adolescents (Cotten, Resnick, Brown, & Martin, 1994; Durant, Cadenhead, Pendergrast, & Slavens, 1994). Between 1978 and 1988, homicide was the leading cause of death for African American male and female youth, and often these crimes were perpetrated by other African American youth (Hammond & Yung, 1993). Family disruption, poverty, unemployment, and racism are environmental risk factors that contribute to violence in urban communities (McLoyd,1990). Complex urban environmental stressors such as family and community violence, victimization, and poverty contribute to feelings of low self-worth, anger, hopelessness, and aggression among the youth who live in these communities (Oliver, 1989). These constant stressors can prevent the development and use of socially acceptable ways to mediate violence. As a result, urban youth are placed at high risk of neither developing nor maintaining healthy social interaction skills, which Reed (1994) defines as (a) the ability to organize cognitions and behaviors toward an action that is culturally and socially acceptable, and (b) the ability to assess, modify, and maximize or reach particular goals. With regard to violence prevention and intervention particularly, these skills involve problem solving, conflict resolution, and anger management (Bulkeley & Cramer, 1990). Social skills training (SST) is a popular and effective means of prevention and intervention with adolescent populations (Reed, 1994; Waksman, 1985). It is frequently used as a preventive intervention to remediate problematic social behaviors while encouraging positive social interactions (Gresham & Elliott, 1990). Most SST programs involve formal teaching of the problem-solving and interpersonal skills required for surviving, living with others, and succeeding in a complex society. As such, they provide a broad base of prosocial skills training that includes awareness building, and development of situationspecific skills that foster interpersonal competency. …

Kujichagulia-Uncovering the Secrets of the Heart: Group Work With African American Women on Predominantly White Campuses

Abstract Group counseling with female African American university students on a predominantly White campus is examined. An Afrocentric group approach and practical opportunities for counselor trainees and facilitators are presented.

The Afrocentric-Eurocentric Debate in Africa

The “Afrocentric-Eurocentric approaches” dichotomy is strangely out-of-place in an African context and is curiously out-of-touch with the issues that are significant in library and information work. In its predominant perception of itself as a “counter-offensive” to Eurocentrism, the Afrocentric approach is drawn into a struggle that can only entrench contrary positions and serve divisive interests. More importantly, and as a challenge to information science theorists, Afrocentrism requires an examination of both its overt Pan-Africanist overtones and its covert potentially racist undercurrents. It is proposed that the Afrocentrism vs Eurocentrism duality needs to be deconstructed. The debate is better-suited as a vehicle to sharpen concepts in the design of library and information services that recognize universal continuities.

The afrocentric-eurocentric debate in Africa: From a fruitless dichotomy to critical dialogue (Brief Communication)

The “Afrocentric-Eurocentric approaches” dichotomy is strangely out-of-place in an African context and is curiously out-of-touch with the issues that are significant in library and information work. In its predominant perception of itself as a “counter-offensive” to Eurocentrism, the Afrocentric approach is drawn into a struggle that can only entrench contrary positions and serve divisive interests. More importantly, and as a challenge to information science theorists, Afrocentrism requires an examination of both its overt Pan-Africanist overtones and its covert potentially racist undercurrents. It is proposed that the Afrocentrism vs Eurocentrism duality needs to be deconstructed. The debate is better-suited as a vehicle to sharpen concepts in the design of library and information services that recognize universal continuities.

Culture Keepers:

Adapted from a presentation at the First National Conference of African-American Librarians sponsored by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, September 1992, this paper will explore what the theories of Afrocentricity can mean to the arrangement of knowledge and the dissemination of information. The basic premise of Afrocentricity is to study and examine phenomena from the standpoint of Africans as subjects rather than obejcts. It emphasizes an alaysis footed in the historical and contemporary realities of African peopel without negating or minimizing the epxeriences of other groups. The paper speculates on the implications of an Afrocentric approach to such technical facets fo cataloging as a controlled vocabulary, computer applications and classification schemes. The inconsistencies of classification and indexing vocabulary deny patron access to materials on Africa and her Diaspora. While this criticism about various system inadequacies if often voiced by other area and group subject specialists, the evolving methodologies of Afrocentricity prompt discussion of the traditional systems in regard to Black Studies. It is important for reference librarians to participate in this reappraisal because we are often the strongest mediators between the various classification and subject heading systems, the new Black Studies scholarship, and the broader research community.

The Afrocentric Idea in Education

Many of the principles that govern the development of the Afrocentric idea in education were first established by Carter G. Woodson in The Mis-education of the Negro (1933). Indeed, Woodson's classic reveals the fundamental problems pertaining to the education of the African person in America. As Woodson contends, African Americans have been educated away from their own culture and traditions and attached to the fringes of European culture; thus dislocated from themselves, Woodson asserts that African Americans often valorize European culture to the detriment of their own heritage (p. 7). Although Woodson does not advocate rejection of American citizenship or nationality, he believed that assuming African Americans hold the same position as European Americans vis-a-vis the realities of America would lead to the psychological and cultural death of the African American population. Furthermore, if education is ever to be substantive and meaningful within the context of American society, Woodson argues, it must first address the African's historical experiences, both in Africa and America (p. 7). That is why he places on education, and particularly on the traditionally African American colleges, the burden of teaching the African American to be responsive to the long traditions and history of Africa as well as America. Woodson's alert recognition, more than 50 years ago, that something is severely wrong with the way African Americans are educated provides the principal impetus for the Afrocentric approach to American education. In this article I will examine the nature and scope of this approach, establish its necessity, and suggest ways to develop and disseminate it throughout all levels of education. Two propositions stand in the background of the theoretical and philosophical issues I will present. These ideas represent the core presuppositions on which I have based most of my work in the field of education, and they suggest the direction of my own thinking about what education is capable of doing to and for an already politically and economically marginalized people-African Americans: (1) Education is fundamentally a social phenomenon whose ultimate purpose is to socialize the learner; to send a child to school is to prepare that child to become part of a social group. (2) Schools are reflective of the societies that develop them (i.e., a White supremacist-dominated society will develop a White supremacist educational system).