Black Elementary School Research Articles

Developing teachers’ cultural competencies through co-design of robot-coding mathematics activities for Latinx and Black elementary school students

This year-long case study involved the professional development of teachers in New York City elementary schools, who co-designed with researchers culturally relevant robot-coding mathematics activities to advance teachers’ understanding of culturally responsive mathematics pedagogy. Study findings indicated that co-designing culturally relevant robot-coding mathematics activities led to the development of teachers’ cultural competencies, deeper understanding of culturally responsive mathematics pedagogy and their students’ cultures, stronger agency, and ability to integrate culturally responsive pedagogy into their mathematics curriculum. Teachers also began to perceive the robot as a mathematical tool rather than a motivational add-on, and started to develop their own cultural lens while focusing less on school structure constraints. The study emphasises the importance of engaging teachers as active co-designers of culturally relevant coding curriculum in professional development programmes.

Visualizing Hope Through Black Children’s Multimodal Messages Reflecting the Multiple Pandemics

We are still dealing with multiple pandemics including COVID-19, which disproportionately affects minoritized people, as well as significant incidents of police brutality directed toward Black people. The purposes of this study are to visually document these multiple pandemics from our Black children’s perspectives as well as elevate their visual texts to advocate for hope and change. This article highlights the ways 13 Black elementary school children drew out their ideas to depict this critical time. We believe studying how children witness crises is essential for documenting history, especially when Black children’s voices do not rise above white mainstream messaging. The research question guiding our study asks, how do elementary-aged Black children visually represent this critical time in history? Findings suggest that our Black elementary-aged students not only were successful at creating visual texts that document this historical time but also that their drawings reflected hope and social change.

Preparing teacher candidates to address anti-blackness and see the assets of black students in clinical practice

PurposeThis article shares how providing teacher candidates with experiences in a predominantly black elementary school for their clinical experiences highlighted a need to recognize, acknowledge and address anti-blackness in teacher candidates’ clinical courses. As well as, a need to emphasize the brilliance and assets of black students. Additionally, this article shares ways in which those involved in the work of school-university or professional development school (PDS) partnerships can incorporate practices that address anti-blackness in clinical practice.Design/methodology/approachConceptual paper sharing experiences addressing anti-blackness in school-university partnerships.FindingsNational Association of Professional Development Schools (NAPDS) recently revised their Nine Essentials to include this revised version of Essential 1: A comprehensive mission which calls for the advancement of equity, antiracism and social justice within and among schools, colleges/universities and their respective community and professional partners. The work that the author presents in this article around preparing teacher candidates to address anti-blackness fits into the call of Essential 1 because when anti-blackness is addressed equity, antiracism and social justice can be part of the educational experiences of black children. This article shares how providing teacher candidates experiences in a predominantly black elementary school for their clinical experiences highlighted a need to recognize, acknowledge and address anti-blackness in teacher candidates’ clinical practice. As well as, a need to emphasize the brilliance and assets of black students. Additionally, this article shares ways in which those involved in the work of school-university or PDS partnerships can incorporate practices that address anti-blackness in clinical courses.Originality/valueThe author believes that this manuscript is appropriate for publication because it addresses a necessary shift that must happen in clinical practice by recognizing, acknowledging and addressing anti-blackness, as well as making sure teacher candidates are prepared to teach black students. This manuscript has not been published and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. The author has no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Painting the Experience of Black Elementary School Teachers: A Portraiture Perspective Case Study

This case study uses a conceptual framework that pieces together Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, and Black Feminist Theory to elevate the voices of Black elementary school teachers allowing for their lived experiences to be seen through a portraiture perspective. The words of the participants have been woven together to create art/poetry that depicts what it means to be a Black educator presented through their individual perspectives. Eight themes were uncovered that act as unifying ties connecting the lived truths of each educator to one another. Through sharing the lived stories of these individuals this study aims to shine light on what it means to be a Black educator moving through a predominantly White working environment. This study stands as a platform to assist with uplifting the voices of the participants and vitalizing the voices of Black female educators giving them a seat at the table so they can be heard.

Toward a pedagogy of Black livingness: Black students’ creative multimodal renderings of resistance to anti-Blackness

PurposeHistorically, literacy education and research have been dominated by white supremacist narratives that marginalize and deficitize the literate practices of Black students. As anti-Blackness proliferates in US schools, Black youth suffer social, psychological, intellectual, and physical traumas. Despite relentless attacks of anti-Blackness, Black youth fight valiantly through a range of creative outlets, including multimodal compositions, that enable them to move beyond negative stereotypes, maintain their creativity, and manifest the present and future lives they desire and so deeply deserve.Design/methodology/approachThis study aims to answer the question “How do Black students' multimodal renderings demonstrate creativity and love in ways that disrupt anti-Blackness?” The authors critically examine four multimodal compositions created by Black elementary and middle school students to understand how Black youth author a more racially just society and envision self-determined, joyful futures. The authors take up Black Livingness as a theoretical framework and use visual methodologies to analyze themes of Black life, love and hope in the young people’s multimodal renderings.FindingsThe findings suggest that Black youth creatively compose multimodal renderings that are humanizing, allowing their thoughts, feelings and experiences to guide their critiques of the present world and envision new personal and societal futures. The authors conclude with a theorization of a Black Livingness Pedagogy that centers care for Black youth.Originality/valueRecognizing that “the creation and use of images [is] a practice of decolonizing methodology” (Brown, 2013, loc. 2323), the authors examine Black student-created multimodal compositional practices to understand how Black youth author a more racially just society and envision self-determined, joyful futures.

O PAPEL DA EDUCAÇÃO FÍSICA NO COMBATE À DISCRIMINAÇÃO RACIAL NA ESCOLA COM A PARCERIA DO PSICÓLOGO

The main theme of this article is the role of Physical Education as one of the possible instruments to be used in tackling racial discrimination in the school environment. For this, we conducted a bibliographic research and through such readings and research, we found ways to reinforce our theme, as well as identifying aspects that provide a reflection on the discriminatory process, its possible psychological consequences and some strategies to minimize it. As an illustration, we present an example that occurred in the municipality in which we operate, describing the trajectory of a black elementary school student who became a professional athlete. Our objective was to demonstrate that the practice of sport, through Physical Education and psychological assistance, presents itself as possible ways to be used by the school and by society to discuss discrimination in the school environment, which can also be a form of valorization discriminated student. The results of the research point out that Physical Education and the psychologist's partnership can be valuable instruments in the fight against racial discrimination, when directed to actions that generate reflections and taking anti-racist attitudes.

Differences Between Black and White Elementary School Children's Orientations Toward Alcohol and Cocaine

To trace the origins of race differences in substance use, this study examined differences between Black and White elementary school children's knowledge of alcohol and cocaine, beliefs about their short-and long-term effects, and attitudes toward and intentions to use them across three independent samples (N = 181, N = 287, N = 234). Black children were more negatively oriented toward alcohol and cocaine than White children from an early age. Most notably, in all samples Black children had less positive attitudes toward adult alcohol use and lower intentions to use alcohol. Black children were also more likely to attribute negative long-term health and social effects to alcohol and cocaine use, but there were few significant race differences in knowledge or in expectancies regarding short-term effects of use. Since race differences in beliefs, exposure to alcohol, and socioeconomic factors could not explain race differences in attitudes toward substance use, other cultural differences must be considered.

"He Said He Wouldn't Help Me Get a Jim Crow Bus": The Shifting Terms of the Challenge to Segregated Public Education, 1950-1954

The task of getting Shirley Bulah back and forth from Hockessin School No. 107, the local black elementary school, about seven miles west of Wilmington, Delaware, was arduous for her parents. Unlike the services provided local white children who attended School No. 29 and who were provided a bus by the state, there were no transportation services for black children in the community. On the eve of Shirley's third grade year in the fall of 1950, her father Fred Bulah protested what he believed was the arbitrary nature of the state's policy and complained to his wife Sarah that he did not see why there was not a bus for black children. She agreed and in her husband's name began a letter-writing campaign requesting transportation. (1) Unbowed by repeated denials from school officials, Bulah offered her own counter-proposal to the local supervisor of school transportation: since the bus passed her home twice on its daily rounds, it could pick Shirley up at the house and drop her off at the post office which was only two blocks from No. 107. To take my child to school would not reroute the bus at all, she asserted. Put her off at the post office and pick her up at the post office and bring her right back to my door. The bus is not full. So that isn't an excuse. (2) Still, school officials would not relent citing the state constitution which mandated segregation in education. (3) Undaunted by the negative responses, Bulah then approached Louis Redding, local attorney for the NAACP, and discussed the matter. He said he wouldn't help me get a Jim Crow bus to take my girl to any Jim Crow School, reporter Carl Rowan recorded Bulah saying, but if I was interested in sending her to an integrated school, why, then maybe he'd help. (4) She agreed to his terms and the letter writing continued. But this time with Redding's support, Bulah broadened her appeal, seeking admission to the all-white school and a bus for Shirley. In letters to the Board of Trustees for Hockessin School No. 29 and the State Board of Education, Bulah asserted: We believe that our citizenship entitles us to have for our child everything that the State Board of Education considers an integral part of a school program. Moreover, all the facilities at School No. 29 are better than those at School No. 107 at Hockessin. Therefore ..., we are requesting that our seven year old daughter Shirley Bulah be admitted as a pupil at Hockessin School No. 29. (5) Her request denied once again, she filed suit on behalf of Shirley against the Delaware Board of Education with the support of her counsel. At the same time that Sarah Bulah was mounting her charge against segregation in Hockessin, four other groups of black parents from neighboring communities in Wilmington, Claymont, Newark, and New Castle were beginning their own challenges to the state's system of segregated secondary education with Redding's assistance. (6) There was only one free, four-year high school for black students in the state at the time, and students seeking a high school degree often had to make very long commutes or board in Wilmington. In each case, citing the burdens of travel imposed upon their children, the parents wrote school officials in their local communities seeking their children's admission to the schools for white children. (7) And in each case, school officials denied their requests, again citing the state constitution that mandated separate schools for black and white students. (8) They, too, filed suit against the Delaware Board of Education with Redding's assistance. This essay examines the activism of local people and the NAACP-sponsored litigation campaign to desegregate primary and secondary education in Delaware that became one of the companion cases to Brown v. Board of Education. My focus is on a competition of interests, as revealed through the complexities of the litigation process, that occurred between local people, civil rights attorneys, and jurists as local demands for equal services were translated into the language of law. …

Introduction: Cultural Capital and African American Education

This Special Issue of The Journal of African American History examines the role of African Americans in providing financial and other material resources for the support of public and private schools established in black communities in the United States from the antebellum era to the 1960s. Over the last three decades there have been regular reports in books, magazines, and newspaper articles describing the precarious financial conditions for urban public school systems with a majority of African American and other nonwhite student populations. Urban public school systems are dependent upon state legislators and local politicians for their funding, and as these school systems became majority black, there has been a greater unwillingness to make sure that the educational expenditures are equalized for students in urban and suburban, rich and poor school districts. The failure of state and local judges and other officials to mandate the equalization of funding for urban and suburban public school districts has m eant that public school administrators in financially strapped urban school systems, many of whom are African Americans, have eliminated many academic programs, such as art, music, science, and math programs, and most extracurricular activities; have been unable to introduce the latest forms of educational technology into the classrooms, and have been forced to hire large numbers of uncertified and underqualified teachers. This has resulted in extremely high levels of academic failure, as measured by newly mandated standardized tests, and consistently high dropout rates, particularly among African Americans and other children of color in financially depressed urban public school systems. (1) The failure of state and local officials to provide equal or even adequate funding for all-black or predominantly black public schools is not a new development in the history of African American education in the United States. In the period from the end of the Civil War to the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954 outlawing legal segregation in public education, white legislators in most of the southern states (and many northern states) also refused to utilize public expenditures to insure the equalization of funding for black and white public schooling. In fact, scholar and educator W. E. B. Du Bois, in the famous Atlanta University Studies devoted to The Negro Common School (1901) and The Common School and the Negro American (1911), pointed out that African Americans in most southern states were paying more in public taxation than they were receiving in state and local funding for separate black public schools. As a result of this situation, in the period from 1890 to 1910, southern b lack taxpayers were in effect providing the funds for the public schooling of white children. Southern white school officials consistently refused to supply adequate funding for black public education until they felt threatened by the possibility of court-mandated public school desegregation in the late 1940s and 1950s. (2) As a result of the discriminatory funding practices of white state officials, African American children throughout the country attended inadequately funded public schools from the Reconstruction era to the 1960s. Many times the resources needed for basic instruction, including blackboards, pencils, books, chairs, desks, even land and buildings, had to be supplied by members of the local black communities. In many instances, southern white public school officials were only willing to provide funds for the salary of the black elementary school teachers, who were paid much less than similarly qualified white teachers. Everything else needed for the instruction of black children had to be supplied by African Americans in the local black communities. In 1988 historian James D. Anderson in The Education of Blacks in the South, 1861-1935 pointed out that since the end of the Reconstruction era, black southerners had adapted to a structure of oppressive education by practicing double taxation. …

Teacher and Parent Assessments of the Social Competence of Inner-City Children: Issues of Gender within Race

Teachers and parents assume major responsibility in shaping children's social behaviors. To determine their relative perspectives, teachers and parents rated the social skills of inner-city Black elementary school students. Consistent with national findings, teachers perceived students as having more social skills and fewer problem behaviors than did parents, and viewed girls as more socially appropriate than boys. Teachers and parents differed most on their social skill assessments of female students; parents gave their daughters significantly less favorable evaluations than did teachers on four of six subscales. The adults agreed most on their assessments of male students. The discussion highlights parents' social skill perceptions according to gender and the implications for social development and intervention for male and female students. Behavioral problems continue to be a major concern for teachers at every level of public education. Recognizing the key role of parents in the social development of their children, educators and other professionals understandably look to the home for possible answers. Social learning and cognitive theorists have documented family influences relative to social modeling (Bandura, 1973), coercive interactions (Patterson, 1982), child-rearing practices (Eron, Huesmann, & Zelli, 1991), and parental beliefs and behaviors (Okagaki & Frensch, 1998) as factors contributing to aggression, antisocial behaviors, school achievement, and other developmental concerns in children. A natural outgrowth of these understandings is the importance of the parent-teacher alliance in fostering overall school success for children. The beneficial effects of parental education involvement on improvements on student attitudes, attendance, and achievement have been well documented (Chavkin, 1989; Epstein, 1987). Poor and minority parents are commonly portrayed as being underinvolved in their children's schooling processes (Chavkin & Williams, 1993; Marion, 1980; Shea & Bauer, 1985). Parental involvement is an important issue given that their children, especially their male children, are disproportionately referred for disciplinary actions (Irvine, 1990) and for placement in programs for students with serious emotional disabilities (SED) (Executive Committee of the Council for Children with Behavior Disorders, 1989; Maheady, Algozzine, & Ysseldyke, 1985; McIntyre, 1993). Lack of involvement, however, should not be equated with lack of interest (Chavkin, 1989). Most parents, regardless of background, care about their children's school adjustment and progress. There is good evidence to suggest that schools can be instrumental in increasing parent participation among urban populations (Epstein,1987); however, it is important to note that this collaboration requires mutual home-school understanding and purpose. The importance parents place on the development of social behaviors in their children is an issue that has not been extensively investigated. Mize (1995) reports that the most common request of parents of preschool children pertains to social skills; yet Baumgart, Filler, and Askvig (1991) found that parents of children with disabilities placed less priority on social skills than did the children's teachers. Although the parents in the Baumgart et al. study tended to place more importance on social skills for older students with mild or moderate disabilities, they gave significantly lower ratings overall to social skills than did teachers and other educators. Due to their close associations with children and their abilities to compare students across groups, teachers are most often requested to be respondents on children's assessment measures (Cartledge & Milburn, 1995). Teacher ratings have been shown to be good initial evaluations of children's social behaviors (Greenwood, Walker, Todd, & Hops, 1979; Walker et al., 1988). Parents are another frequent source of childhood social assessments. …

Five Black Women Teachers Critique Child-Centered Pedagogy: Possibilities and Limitations of Oppositional Standpoints

The data presented illuminate a pedagogical stance held by five African-Caribbean Canadian women teachers who teach in a predominantly black elementary school. The author examines their standpoint on teaching literacy as they critique what is commonly called “child-centered” pedagogy. She uses their engaged vision as a means to discuss the limitations and possibilities of oppositional “minority” teacher standpoints in the mainstream. The author links their conceptual orientation to emergent work on feminist standpoint epistemology and discusses the teachers' positions as peripheral subjects both in research and in teacher practice.

Counseling Disruptive Black Elementary School Boys

The assignment was to counsel the 10 worst behaved boys at an inner‐city elementary school. This case study illuminates the interplay between theory, practice, and values by describing effective techniques of intervention in a situation that reflects social pathology. Traditional African values and certain principles of character provide a set of reliable standards for improving behavior.

Differences in mothers' and children's perceptions of urban black children's life stress

Differences between mothers' and childrens' perceptions of the children's life Stressors were evaluated among 380 urban black elementary school children and their mothers. Fifty-eight life Stressors were rated for frequency of occurrence to the children over the last year and the degree of negative affect associated with Stressors that occurred. Fifty-one items were classified into seven specific contextual categories. Predicted mother-child differences were noted for total frequency and subjective weight ratings and in mulnvariate comparisons of frequency and subjective weight ratings across the seven categories, confirming mothers' tendency to underreport in comparison with their children. Gender differences were not evident for total frequency or subjective weight ratings, but multivariate analyses support gender differences across categories. Mothers showed no consistent pattern of differences between reports for sons and daughters. Development of population-appropriate stress measures, use of stress categories, and implications for the interpretation of stress reports are discussed.

A Process Evaluation of the District of Columbia “Know Your Body” Project

A process evaluation was conducted of the effectiveness of the "Know Your Body" curriculum in reducing coronary heart disease risk factors among black elementary and junior high school students. The evaluation, part of a five-year longitudinal study, linked effectiveness of teachers' implementation with student outcomes and identified program weaknesses during implementation. Teachers with higher effectiveness scores had significantly more favorable student outcomes in systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, HDL cholesterol, HDL/cholesterol ratio, serum thiocyanate, and fitness. Of 82 teachers, 38 (46%) had scores reflecting effective teaching. Lack of time and commitment and inadequate use of the behavioral teaching approach demanded by the curriculum contributed most to implementation failure. Teachers as insufficient role models emerged as an important factor. Future research needs appropriate reinforcement of teacher participation and measurement of the environmental factors and personal teacher characteristics that may affect program implementation. School health education programs need an intensive training component that will enable teachers to adopt behavioral teaching approaches, promote teacher's examination and change of their personal risk factors, and stress the classroom dynamic of teachers as role models.

A drug abuse prevention program aimed at teaching seventh grade students problem-solving strategies

The present study involved an eight week drug-abuse prevention program for seventh grade students from an all Black inner-city elementary school. Those provided the program showed greater drug knowledge and better problem-solving skills in drug related situations over time than the controls. The present study suggests that the combination of information, decision-making and problem-solving strategies is a promising approach in the prevention of substance abuse among children.

On Equality, Visibility, and the Fine Arts Program in a Black Elementary School

ABSTRACTBecause of the relative dearth of examples of educational criticism, proponents and critics of this controversial inquiry genre are often forced to speculate on its merits and demerits in the abstract, without benefit of particular referents. This article contains such an example and is presented as an invitation to a dialogue concerning the educative and miseducative potentials of educational criticism.The criticism emphasizes the portion of an elementary school arts program presided over by the arts and music specialists. Portraits of the activities show they largely avoid two hazards in teaching the arts to elementary black children: a monocultural curriculum that neglects the Black artistic heritages and a mechanicism that disconnects skill mastery from personal content. This portion of the arts program suggests a tentative solution to a central dilemma of the modern Black American experience by fostering tendencies toward both racial equality and individual visibility. The program made studen...

Research in the Shadows: A Critique of “On Equality, Visibility, and the Fine Arts Program in a Black Elementary School”

I must share immediately that I undertake this critique with considerable trepidation for I have the distinct impression that what I am trying to assess here lives in the shadows.* All will not be as it may appear. To wit, when I indicate my concerns about multiple methodological shortcomings in the piece, I anticipate hearing back that the focus is not on data produced from a methodological straightjacket, but on that which emerges from inference, interpretation, and impression. Alternatively, if I ask, Is this all there is to educational criticism?, I suspect to hear back that, no, this is but one early example and there is much more to come. Still again, when I question the supporting evidence for the conclusions drawn in the article, I may well be told that it is not appropriate to hold educational criticism to the standards of traditional research practice when this new approach relies on intuitive analysis. And, finally, when I question whether those using educational criticism do so in order to garb personal ideological views in the respectable cloak of academic research, I will be assured that such is not the case, regardless of the rhetorical flights of ideological musings in the present article. I have considerable problems with the article. But I also must admit my problems arise because my framework for evaluating this work arises from a perspective on how to view research in general, and qualitative work in particular, that does not include criteria for something like educational criticism which stands so completely away from established qualitative practice. Consequently, if the countercharge is one of traditionalism, research myopia, and an unwillingness to accept this article as an avant-garde example of qualitative research for the 1990s, then there is little or no common ground between the author and myself. If educational criticism

Research in the Shadows: A Critique of "On Equality, Visibility, and the Fine Arts Program in a Black Elementary School"

Research in the Shadows: A Critique of "On Equality, Visibility, and the Fine Arts Program in a Black Elementary School"

On Equality, Visibility, and the Fine Arts Program in a Black Elementary School: An Example of Educational Criticism

On Equality, Visibility, and the Fine Arts Program in a Black Elementary School: An Example of Educational Criticism

Home Environment and School Performance among Black Elementary School Children

It is generally acknowledged that children's behavioral development is affected by the environments in which they live. Evidence supporting such a relationship has accumulated across a variety of settings, in a variety of cultures, and across most of the childhood years. Some twenty years ago, we began designing a technique, the HOME Inventory, to assess the quality and quantity of support for behavioral development available to children in their home environments. Since then, the HOME Inventory has been used in a series of investigations involving black and white children.' The proportion of blacks in these studies has ranged from 50 percent to 100 percent. Evidence from these studies suggests that the specific transactions between parents and child, routine experiences and events in the family, and the objects available in the home are related to a wide array of developmental outcomes (intelligence, language, health and growth, social competence, locus of control, behavior at home and school, and school achievement) in the first seven years of life for both black and white children. Moreover these patterns appear to be affected by an array of factors, including the child's own characteristics, structural features of the family, social support,