Black Education Research Articles

Cross-Talkin’: Black parents and youths’ resistance, education, and action

In this three-part article, we present two studies of Black political education and resistance to archive and document examples of the ongoing struggle for educational equity. In the first portion of the article, Goss’s study uses an analysis of race, power, and policy to map the evolution of school discipline reform legislation, and advocacy efforts enacted by members of a particular parent community organization. Using archival and life history interview data, Patel presents a cross-generational examination of the internal political education and external public pedagogies that Black youth engaged in during the 1960s and how that echoes into various contemporary social movements for Black and brown young peoples’ rights. The article closes with a duoethnographic discussion in which both authors contribute what is contextually salient across both studies in the interest of what readers might consider about education, resistance, and freedom struggles in their own spaces.

Centering blackness as freedom scholarship: case studies from freedom scholars

We center and unpack the American Educational Research Association’s (AERA) Commission on Research in Black Education’s (CORIBE) research validity principle, which emphasizes that the highest priority must be placed on studies of: (A) African tradition (history, culture and language); (B) Hegemony (e.g. uses of schooling/socialization and incarceration); (C) Equity (funding, teacher quality, content and access to technology); and (D) Beneficial practice (at all levels of education, from childhood to elderhood). We present four interrelated and overlapping critical case studies/stories which demonstrate the application, elasticity, and validity of Black emancipatory scholarship frameworks.

“We Have Emerged Better Equipped to Fight Greater Battles”: Black Education and the Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933–1942

Between 1933 and 1942, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) enrolled 2.5 million young men, putting them to work on public lands in relief projects meant to combat the economic and social devastation of the Great Depression. African Americans accounted for roughly 10 percent of these enrollees; however, their experiences were often defined by discrimination in selection and segregation throughout their service. Nevertheless, Black enrollees continuously looked for ways to gain more than the food, lodging, and dollar a day in salary that the corps offered to recruits. A crucial means to this end was the educational program in the camps. One of few facets of the corps in which African Americans had the chance to lead, the educational programs in segregated CCC camps were shaped by Black educational advisers who worked with their enrollees to build programs that reflected a commitment to racial pride and uplift. This article draws on federal records, camp newspapers, photographs, and personal correspondence to elucidate the educational impact of the CCC on Black Americans.

How do we progress racial justice in education?

How do we progress racial justice in education?

This Ain’t What I’m Used to: Reflections of a Black Educator in Rural Black America an Autoethnography

This autoethnography highlights reflections of a Black woman social studies educator, from a predominantly White, southern Appalachian area, teaching in a Southern, predominantly Black, rural area. The study reflects on practices utilized while teaching in southern Appalachia and the pedagogical transformation undergone as a result of migrating and teaching in a Southern, predominantly Black, rural area. Using Critical Race Theory, this autoethnography explores the impact of race in the development of pedagogical practices of a Black woman teacher. The author asserts Black teachers need to learn about and utilize culturally relevant pedagogical practices in their preservice programs and that teachers should engage in self-reflection as a means to navigate personal biases and confront the perpetuation of hegemonic culture in their classroom practices.

Why They Struggle to Stay: Black Women Educators Reflect on the State of Teachers

This paper conceptually explores the lived experiences of three Black women classroom instructors who endeavor to change and improve how teachers are prepared to work in diverse K-20 learning environments. Given Black women are often poised to play multiple roles in the classrooms, such as nurturers, mother-like figures (othermothers), as well as teachers, their reflections are vital to the systemic improvement of K-20 education. The question often arises regarding how the system of education might attract and retain Black women teachers, specifically. Thus, it is important that the experiences of Black educators are robustly researched. In this manuscript, the writers critically incorporate reflections of their own classroom experiences and positionality regarding preparation. Relatedly, the researchers believe such reflections are the missing component of the professional development of teachers and its perceived impact could reveal why there are few Black teachers staying in the classroom. They also provide recommendations which reflect the coordination of work by teachers and teacher educators that address researched-based practices for long-term systemic change. The researchers explore the concept of sensemaking as it relates to understanding how it shapes them into who they are today.

The effect of Black educators on Black students’ beliefs towards mathematics

The effect of Black educators on Black students’ beliefs towards mathematics

Abstract P449: The Impact of Race and Social Determinants of Health on Imaging Biomarkers in Intracerebral Hemorrhage

Introduction: The association between race and white matter hyperintensities (WMH) and cerebral microbleeds in patients with intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is controversial. We examined the relationship between race and social determinants of health with WMH and microbleeds in ICH. Methods: We performed a retrospective study of patients at a tertiary care hospital between 2013 and 2020 who presented with ICH and underwent MRI of the brain. MRIs were evaluated for the presence of microbleeds and WMH severity (defined by the Fazekas scale; severe WMH defined as Fazekas 3). We assessed for an association of sex, race, ethnicity, employment status, median household income by zip code, education level, and insurance status with the severity of WMH or presence of microbleeds. Results: We identified 105 patients (median age 65.5 (IQR 53-76); 51% females; 13.2% Black) with ICH who had an MRI of the brain. Median ICH score was 1 [IQR 0-2] and median hematoma size was 15.9 ml (SD 19.7). High school graduation was the highest education level in 13.2%, and 57.5% had private insurance. Median income by zip code was $87,667 (IQR $65,900-$117,923). Severe WMH was observed in 19.8% and 52.8% of patients had microbleeds. There was no significant difference in sex, insurance status or median income for patients with or without severe WMH nor those with or without microbleeds. Severe WMH was more common among older patients (p=0.001), Black patients (p=0.03), patients with hypertension (p=0.03), and those with lower levels of education (p=0.03). In multivariable analyses, Black race was associated with severe WMH when adjusting for age and history of hypertension (OR 6.13 95% CI 1.14-25.98, p=0.01) but the effect size attenuated and the association disappears when adding education level to the model (OR 3.38 95% CI 0.48-23.76, p = 0.2). Age and history of hypertension were associated with presence of microbleeds (p<0.01 for both), but there was no association between presence of microbleeds and Black race or education level. Conclusion: Although Black race was associated with severe WMH, this association did not remain after adjusting for level of education. Our findings suggest that social determinants of health can modify the association between race and imaging biomarkers of ICH.

“Dissed”: The Removal of Black Educators from the American Schoolhouse

For almost a decade, the teaching profession has seen a drastic shortage of black educators. The closing of many schools in urban areas has helped reduce the number of black educators. Also, evaluative protocols and rubrics applied to measure effective teaching practices harbor biased lenses that impact how black educators maintain their employment status to succeed in the profession. Without promoting recruitment and retention interventions and culturally applied methods to assess teacher effectiveness, fewer students will have an opportunity to experience black educators in their lifetime. The research paper used a critical race and culturally responsive theoretical framing to review the research literature to determine how black educators receive evaluations and become dismissed from public schools.

The Provision of school library resources in a changing environment

Before 1994 education in South Africa was divided along racial lines. There were separate departments of education for whites, coloureds (people of mixed decent), Indians (people of East Indian decent), and blacks (black Africans). Education for white children was much better funded than any of the others. The quality of the education that white children enjoyed was also much better as schools were better equipped, teachers were better qualified and classes were smaller. This inequality also applied to school library provision. All white schools had well-equipped libraries and full-time teacher-librarians. A start was made with libraries in the other departments, but , for example, only secondary schools for black learners had libraries. Black primary schools were just provided with classroom collections.

When Black Is [Queen]: Towards an Endarkened Equity and Excellence in Education

ABSTRACT Education elders must engage next generation Black thinkers and doers in addressing the complex global and spiritual issues in education today. Deep listening to the young is absolutely essential to imagining a future that is worthy of Black engagement and brilliance. In this article, I bear witness and honor the righteous version of endarkened feminisms being created by young sister artists and thought leaders. As an Elder in education, I believe that is an important and relevant role in Black struggle, excellence, and education that connects our past to our today and our possible futures. In this article, I put my own recent theorizing of (re)membering into conversation with Beyoncé’s film, Black is King. My goal is to illuminate and articulate what Beyoncé helps us understand about the meanings of equity and excellence in Black education when placed within the historical and contemporary Black creative and cultural spaces of Africa and the Black African diaspora.

A Pedagogy for Black People: Why Naming Race Matters

ABSTRACT This article suggests pedagogical naming matters to the education of Black people. It refuses the idea of a universalist pedagogy for all, and thereby unmasks that which has been rendered invisible in teaching and learning, i.e., the Black self—so as to recover it so that it might be nurtured. In doing so, the article illuminates an important set of elements that a pedagogy for Black people must possess—such as a rootedness in a freedom that goes beyond justice; the development of critical consciousness, or “wokeness”; and a value for Black life and Black lives—answering Dumas“s(2010) question, what is ‘Black” in Black education? It concludes by suggesting that Black education must hold in placethe possibility for Black futures without clinging to ”an organic Black conservativism” that mythologizes and tragically over–romanticizes a fictive Black past. Thus, even when looking back, a pedagogy for Black people must always peer forward while simultaneously resisting the impulse for erasure, where race gets lost in the muddling stew of pluralism, or what is considered here to be false collectivism. By this, a pedagogy for Black people is about Black people, useful for the social, emotional, intellectual, physical, and political emancipation of not only the bruised Black body but also thetethered Black souls.

From Morning to Mourning: A Meditation on Possibility in Black Education

ABSTRACT This article insists on a reframe of mourning, away from a period of sadness or weeping alone, to a vision of its merits for discovering and unlocking possibility in Black Education. For example, mourning might be understood as involuntarily surrendered time necessary to properly grieve, concede, and embrace Black people’s subject position in the US sociopolitical context. Turning towards mourning, the dark moments that urge it and the dark(er) moments that it may produce, is argued as a launch pad to more fully understanding the depth and reach of Black people’s possibility. To make such an argument the author contemplates how mourning, and subsequent meditations on possibility, might have informed the activism of leaders in the Black radical tradition who urgently insisted that Black people’s human dignity be recognized and properly acknowledged. The article concludes with discussion of the significance of possibility to advance equity and excellence in education.

Pollution, Global Diseases, Government, and Inequality

Minorities and poor people have higher rates of mortality due to various causes of deaths. Part of this phenomenon is due their higher exposure to unhealthy environments. In this paper we show that the onset of Covid-19 was associated with higher death rates among the disadvantaged population. Specifically, we document that the environmental air quality can affect the spread of the novel coronavirus and that this effect is more pronounced in low-income neighborhoods and for counties with lower average education and higher share of blacks. The fact that environment is more impactful among the disadvantaged population calls for policies that protect the poor and minorities during a global disease.

"No Women Involved": Settler Colonial Racial Grammars in Black and Indigenous Education

"No Women Involved": Settler Colonial Racial Grammars in Black and Indigenous Education

Anti-Black Racism in Canadian education: A call to action to support the next generation

The systematic brutalization of Black people has persisted since colonization, but police murder, global anti-racism protests, and a pandemic that has disproportionately impacted racialized communities have brought anti-Black racism to the attention of the global community. The insidious nature of White supremacy has given birth to anti-Black racism, which has shaped institutions of public and post-secondary education across Canada. Institutional racism is harmful and continues to negatively impact the trajectories of Black lives. For example, Black children are more likely to be enrolled in under-resourced schools, receive harsher punishments, and be streamed into non-academic programming regardless of academic potential and capability. Moreover, Black students are less likely to attend university, despite wishing to, and Black educators remain under-represented and undervalued, despite their immeasurable contributions to academia and the Black community. These examples represent a concerted effort to guard White spaces and keep Black people from accessing equal opportunity through basic access to education. This paper is a call to action for all educators, allies, and institutions to begin to make reparations and end the racial hierarchy and systematic anti-Black oppression across Canada because Black Lives Matter.

Educated for Freedom: The Incredible Story of Two Fugitive Schoolboys Who Grew Up to Change a Nation by Anna Mae Duane

Reviewed by: Educated for Freedom: The Incredible Story of Two Fugitive Schoolboys Who Grew Up to Change a Nation by Anna Mae Duane Alan Singer (bio) Educated for Freedom: The Incredible Story of Two Fugitive Schoolboys Who Grew Up to Change a Nation By Anna Mae Duane. New York: New York University Press, 2020. 241 pages, $30.00 cloth, $16.50 ebook. The subtitle of Educated for Freedom: The Incredible Story of Two Fugitive Schoolboys Who Grew Up to Change a Nation is actually misleading. This book is much more than a joint biography documenting the decades' long and frequently contentious relationship between James McCune Smith and Henry Highland Garnet. Anna Mae Duane, an associate professor of English at the University of Connecticut, uses their stories to explore the history of the African Free School, the broader story of black education and social possibilities in the antebellum North, white racism, and the African American abolitionist and equal rights movements. Because of the central role Smith and Garnet played in these movements, Duane's "biography" is a valuable historical contribution to our understanding of the role race and racism played in the past and continue to play in American society. The New York African Free School was established in 1787 by prominent New Yorkers, including Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and Aaron Burr (who Duane does not mention) working through the New-York Manumission Society. The book opens with a commencement address by student Margaret Odle in 1822 where Duane establishes the crucial role of the school in preparing black leaders for the struggle to end slavery in the United States. James McCune Smith (1813–65) and Henry Highland Garnet (1815–82) first met when they attended the African Free School on Mulberry Street in New York City. Smith was two years older than Garnet, who attended from 1826 until 1833, so it is unclear whether they were in the same classes. During their lives they sometimes worked together, but more frequently held conflicting positions in the African American freedom struggle. Yet, in 1865, James McCune Smith wrote the preface, "Sketch of the Life and Labors of Rev. Henry Highland Garnet," as an introduction to the published version of Garnet's "Memorial Discourse" that he delivered in the U.S. House of Representatives on February 12, 1865. In the "Sketch," Smith described Garnet as a schoolboy as "quite the opposite of the nice, good, quiet little fellow in whose mouth 'butter wouldn't melt'" (43). As Duane notes, the "men disagreed about the possibility of progress and the best way to achieve it in the United States" (6). Duane effectively roots their ideological and political conflicts in the conditions of their lives. Smith, who was born enslaved and appears to have not been emancipated until slavery ended in New York in 1827, became the first African American medical doctor. He believed advancement and eventual equality was possible in the United States, not abandoning this position even after the 1863 assault on New York's [End Page 208] Colored Orphan Asylum, where he was the head physician, during the July 1863 Draft Riot. Garnet was born enslaved in Maryland. His family escaped when he was nine, but they always risked reenslavement as fugitives. Throughout his life, Garnet championed resistance to slavery, a position Smith finally embraced after passage of the 1850 federal Fugitive Slave law. While Garnet openly challenged what he considered Frederick Douglass's unwillingness to actively confront slavery, Douglass and Smith were close friends who frequently collaborated. Smith had had positive relationships with whites while a student in Scotland and France. Garnet, who attended the Noyes Academy in Canaan, New Hampshire, when it was destroyed by a white mob, was skeptical about the African American's future in the United States, and as a Presbyterian minister he explored possible resettlement in the Caribbean and West Africa, a position that had been endorsed by the leadership of the African Free School and Abraham Lincoln, but was antithetical to Douglass and Smith. During the Civil War, Garnet, pastor of the Shiloh Presbyterian Church in what is now Soho, recruited African Americans to enlist in the Union Army. Smith, who died of heart failure...

Friendship, Philosophy, and the History of Black Education

Friendship, Philosophy, and the History of Black Education

I Brought Him Here to Be My Friend Hope, DuBois & Friendship in Historically Black Education

I Brought Him Here to Be My Friend Hope, DuBois & Friendship in Historically Black Education

Challenging Anti-Black Racism in Everyday Teaching, Learning, and Leading: From Theory to Practice

Anti-Black racism and White supremacy continue to have dire impact on the lives and educational outcomes of Black people and students in educational spaces. Examining ways in which this form of racism is disrupted, confronted, and challenged in education and schooling is important not only to Black students, scholars, practitioners, and staff, but to all People of Color. Drawing on research conducted with educators in, Canada, the United States and our lived experiences as Black educators this article examines how antiblackness and anti-Black racism is manifested in schooling spaces through teaching, learning, and leadership, and offers actions that educators can take in everyday practice to confront and disrupt. In so doing connect theory to practice, and offer possibilities that school leaders and others can act on.