Swimming Upstream E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Serie: J-B ACE Single Issue Adult & Continuing Eeducation
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 215

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Here is an introduction to salient topics and issues affectingBlack males as they engage in adult basic education programs,pursue employment, and obtain higher education. The chaptersinclude academic research as well as program descriptions andpersonal narratives with a concern for the "livedexperiences" and the voices of the men. While not exhaustive, this volumne does hope to challengecommonly held stereotypes, interactions, and policies. It isdesigned to raise questions about the unique experiences of thisspecific population and to explore the sociocultural dynamics thatimpact their education.This is the 144th volume of the Jossey Bass series NewDirections for Adult and Continuing Education. Noted for itsdepth of coverage, it explores issues of common interest toinstructors, administrators, counselors, and policymakers in abroad range of education settings, such as colleges anduniversities, extension programs, businesses, libraries, andmuseums.

Leseprobe

New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education

Susan Imel Jovita M. Ross-Gordon COEDITORS-IN-CHIEF

Swimming Upstream: Black Males in Adult Education

Dionne Rosser-Mims

Joni Schwartz

Brendaly Drayton

Talmadge C. Guy

EDITORS

Number 144 • Winter 2014

Jossey-Bass

San Francisco

SWIMMING UPSTREAM: BLACK MALES IN ADULT EDUCATION Dionne Rosser-Mims, Joni Schwartz, Brendaly Drayton, Talmadge C. Guy (eds) New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, no. 144 Susan Imel, Jovita M. Ross-Gordon, Coeditors‐in‐Chief

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Contents

Editors’ Notes

Introduction

Chapter Summaries

Acknowledgments

References

1: Race, the Black Male, and Heterogeneous Racisms in Education

The Significance of Race in Education

The Relevance of Race to Educational Practice

Conclusion

References

2: The (End)angered Black Male Swimming Against the Current

The Historical Character of Dominant Racial Narratives About Black Men

Imagining Black Men: Endangered, At Risk, Invisible

Black Male Exceptionalism and Postracialism

Swimming Against the Current: The Black Male Counter Narrative

Implications for Practice

Closing Reflections on Gendered Racism and Black Males

References

3: The Good Provider: Missing or Overlooked?

Literature Review

Research Design

Findings of the Study

Implications for Practice

Acknowledgments

References

4: High School Equivalency as Counter-Space

Counter-Space Defined

The Ethnographic Study: The Young Men and Prior Schooling

The GED

®

Program as Counter-Space

Conclusion

References

5: A New Normal: Young Men of Color, Trauma, and Engagement in Learning

Theoretical Framework

Findings

Implications for Practice

References

6: The Reentry Adult College Student: An Exploration of the Black Male Experience

Introduction

Theoretical Framework

Educational Trajectory: Historical and Contemporary Patterns

Method

Findings

Conclusion and Implications for Further Research

References

7: Returning to School After Incarceration: Policy, Prisoners, and the Classroom

Past and Present Policies: A War of Sorts

Culture Shock: Returning to School

A Healthy Classroom Climate

The War Continues: The Battle Can Be Won

References

8: Empty Promise: Black American Veterans and the New GI Bill

The Black Male Returning Serviceman

The GI Bill: Past and Present

Implications for Adult Education

Conclusion

References

9: Black Males and Adult Education: A Call to Action

Understanding Lived Experience

Implications for Future Research

Implications for Adult Educators and Adult Education Practice

References

Advert

Index

Wiley End User License Agreement

List of Table

Chapter 6

Table 6.1

List of Illustration

Chapter 4

Figure 4.1 Dimensions of GED

®

Counter-Space

Guide

Cover

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Editors’ Notes

Introduction

Imagine that you are swimming upstream against the current. What image or feeling comes to mind? The stronger the current, the more difficult it is to make any progress forward. The gentler the current, the less energy you have to exert to move ahead and yet, over time, swimming upstream drains you, exacts a toll on you, not just physically but also mentally, emotionally, and perhaps morally. As a metaphor, “swimming upstream” invokes the feeling of struggle, working harder than you should, and fighting against resistance or pressure to get where you want to be. It conveys the sense that your surroundings are working against you. We have used “swimming upstream” as a way for us to think about the experiences of Black males in American society, broadly, and in adult education, more specifically. The literature on marginalized populations covers a wide range of experiences in the field of adult education. This volume addresses a gap in that literature—that relating to Black males.

Black men are imaged in negative ways historically and contemporaneously. Facing a version of gendered racism, Black men, despite some highly visible examples to the contrary, are often defined by dominant narratives that present them as “at risk,” “endangered,” “pathological,” “dangerous,” and “immoral.” The educational consequence of this stereotyping is that interventions focus on deficit-oriented strategies to “correct” the bad features of Black males rather than to acknowledge the historical and structural nature of gendered racism and its impact on the lives of Black men. Educational interventions that address only the individual conduct of Black men and avoid the structural dimensions of racism are poorly conceived and likely ineffectual.

This volume of New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education titled “Swimming Upstream: Black Males in Adult Education” is an introduction to salient topics and issues affecting Black males as they engage in adult basic education programs, pursue employment, and obtain higher education. It is grounded on the assumption that both the historical and current contexts of learning have a unique impact on the way in which these men participate in adult education. The chapter selections include academic research, theoretical discussions or literature summaries, as well as program descriptions and personal narratives with a concern for the “lived experiences” and the voices of Black men.

The editors are not exhaustive in covering the range of issues facing Black males in adult education. But we hope to challenge commonly held stereotypes, interactions, and polices. The volume is designed to raise questions about the unique experiences of this specific population and to explore the sociocultural dynamics that impact their education. Practitioners will be encouraged to reflect on their own practices as they work to engage Black males and other men of color in learning communities.

Several issues and themes emerged as we prepared this volume. First, early on it became clear to us that in adult education literature, unlike many other disciplines, little has been published to specifically address the Black male. This volume is an attempt to begin addressing this glaring omission. Second, we recognized an opportunity to challenge the “Black male narrative” prevalent in the educational, social, and political spheres, which positions the Black male as inherently deviant and destined for failure (Howard, 2013). Each contributor took deliberate steps to counter these notions by coupling their accounts of the systemic challenges Black males face with recommendations and solutions for support. Lastly, emergent from the chapters was the theme of educational warfare with all its incumbent emotional, physiological, and psychological ramifications. Utilizing this metaphor, the editors became increasingly aware that the struggle of racism in America often erupts in educational settings and that as adult educators, whether knowingly or unknowingly, we are all participants in the battle (Cuyjet, 2006; Hucks, 2011). One important purpose of this volume is to bring awareness to issues specific to Black males in adult education and to offer pedagogical strategies for engagement. From there, the choice falls on the adult educator's shoulders to determine what to do with this knowledge.

As the editors of this volume, we had the distinct pleasure of collaborating not only with each other but also with adult educators and students from a wide variety of experiences and perspectives, with expertise from adult basic education (ABE) to higher education.

Before we proceed to a brief overview of each chapter, one more word on our collaboration as editors of this project: Too infrequently, it seems, do we have the privilege of learning, engaging, and creating with colleagues with whom we share a strong sense of agency as well as deep respect and easy, honest communication. The editors of this volume had this fortunate collaborative opportunity.

Chapter Summaries

The opening chapter by Juanita Johnson-Bailey, Nichole Ray, and Tennille Lasker-Scott highlights the overarching issue of how racism and the intersecting forces in the United States differentially and with partiality affect the educational experiences of Black males by considering such factors as colorism, culture, and gender.

In Chapter 2, Talmadge C. Guy discusses the sociohistorical and deeply embedded myths that have dominated narratives about Black men and how these stereotypes shape the experience of professional Black men.

Brendaly Drayton, in Chapter 3, explores Black men's reasons for participating in an adult literacy program through the lens of gender identity. Chapter 4, by Joni Schwartz, extends the discussion of adult literacy to GED programs and describes how they serve as potential counter-space for African American and young men of color in response and opposition to previous negative school spaces.

Chapter 5 makes a strong argument that the presence and persistence of historical, systemic, and educational trauma is a new normal for young men of color and impacts their learning in all spheres of adult education. Authors Carlyle Van Thompson and Paul J. Schwartz include literary narrative and counterstories from a phenomenological study and documentary.

Dionne Rosser-Mims, Glenn A. Palmer, and Pamela Harroff in Chapter 6 specifically examine the Black male's reentry college experience and identify strategies to support their successful matriculation through college.

In Chapter 7, Brian Miller, Joserichsen Mondesir, Timothy Stater, and Joni Schwartz address the issue of Black males returning to adult education after incarceration. The authors frame the experience as a “war” from a sociopolitical and cultural context and explain what support Black men need to succeed both in and outside the classroom.

Chapter 8 focuses on the Black American vet. Alford H. Ottley offers an engaging discussion on these two fundamental questions: Are there deliberate and sustained institutional efforts to deny access to GI educational benefits to Black vets? Are there situational or societal barriers impeding access to educational benefits for Black vets?

In the closing chapter, the editors discuss implications for educators and areas for further research and writing in the field of adult education. This chapter highlights three key themes that formed the central connection to all chapters: critically reflective practice, culturally relevant pedagogy, and culturally relevant support services. We conclude this chapter with a call to action.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the authors for bringing their expertise, experiences, pain, struggle, and triumphs to their writing. A special thank you to the students who coauthored or informed the writing of the chapters; these men frequently challenged us to feel and think more deeply. Graduate assistant Hsiao-Hui Chen as well as Mardie McIlmoyl assisted in editing—thank you.

Dionne Rosser-MimsJoni SchwartzBrendaly DraytonTalmadge C. GuyEditors

References

Cuyjet, M. (Ed.). (2006).

African American men in college

. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Howard, T. C. (2013).

Black male(d). Perils and promise in the education of African American males

. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Hucks, D. C. (2011). New visions of collective achievement: The cross-generational schooling experiences of African American males.

The Journal of Negro Education

, 80(3), 339–357.

Dionne Rosser-Mims

is an associate professor of adult education and assistant division chair of education at Troy University.

Joni Schwartz

is an associate professor in the Humanities Department at LaGuardia Community College, City University of New York.

Brendaly Drayton

earned her PhD in adult education from Pennsylvania State University.

Talmadge C. Guy

is an associate professor of adult education at The University of Georgia.

1

This chapter explores the effects of historical and current racism on the educational experiences of American Black males. The authors use critical race theory to illustrate how assumptions about culture and gender have subverted the egalitarian ideals of adult education. Teachers and students are urged to use critical reflection and open discussion about racial issues.

Race, the Black Male, and Heterogeneous Racisms in Education

Juanita Johnson-Bailey, Nichole Ray, Tennille Lasker-Scott

The 2008 election of Barack Obama, a Black male, as the 44th president of the United States was a historic first that reignited a national conversation on race. The Chronicle of Higher Education posed in a bold headline, “Are We Living in a Post-Racial, Post-Ethnic America?” However, the national discussion that commenced was not on race, but specifically on the status of the Black American male. Despite the intensity and abundance of the questions around race and Black men, important underlying questions remained unaddressed. This chapter will undertake to answer a major query omitted from the intense race considerations: How do the complexities of race affect the dilemma of racial disparities?

Although race is a social construct that has no basis in biology (Frankenberg, 1993; Gregory & Sanjek, 1994; Omi & Winant, 1994), it consistently shapes lives and experiences. We are “raced” in our society, either consciously or not. Notwithstanding the assurances of anthropologists and biologists that there are no absolute racial categories, the accepted determinations of White, Black, Brown, and Yellow carry with them embedded and permanent stereotypes. Race and the social construct of race determine one's place in society. Racial classification designates a group's rights, privileges, or baggage (Frankenberg, 1993; McIntosh, 1995; Omi & Winant, 1994).

We bring to this discussion both firsthand experience and a theoretical understanding of race. We are mothers of an adult daughter and school-age male children; all of us live the daily reality of being Black in America. We are also researchers who employ a conceptual framework based on critical race theory (CRT), which posits that racism is an undeniable component of American life (Bell, 1992; DuBois, 1903/1953; hooks, 1989; Outlaw, 1993). CRT values personal experience as a legitimate and appropriate basis for examination of racial subordination. Five tenets support the CRT perspective, as asserted by Ladson-Billings and Tate (1995): (a) a central focus on race and racism, (b) a direct and overt challenge to hegemonic discourse, (c) a commitment to social justice, (d) an honoring of the experiential base of marginalized people, and (e) a multifaceted disciplinary viewpoint. Our discussion in this chapter is steeped with an awareness of the diffusive nature of power and positionality (Foucault, 1980).

All areas of education reflect the world in which we live and are part of the systems that reproduce and maintain the whole of American society. Adult education, though founded on principles of leveling the playing field for all adults, especially those lacking a basic education (Cunningham, 1988; Johnson-Bailey, Baumgartner, & Bowles, 2010), does not stand in better stead than other fields. While the stated goal of adult education has been to empower learners so that they might engage in full citizenship, just the opposite often occurs. Adult education, like the other branches of American education, has followed the covert societal guidelines that have disenfranchised learners along racial and ethnic lines.

The Significance of Race in Education

Sixty years after the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education public school desegregation decision, African Americans in the U.S. educational arena are still confined to a lesser existence, a legacy left behind by racist laws that forbade and then restricted their education with Jim Crow practices. Prejudice is not erased by law: Invisible systems and unspoken assumptions have created a hostile education system that still denies Blacks equal access.

At this point, we want to moderate our discussion by stating that any talk of race in America must examine the norm or concept of Whiteness (Keating, 1995). For although race is consistently presented as Black, Hispanic, or Asian, it is done so against the concealed specter of White as the norm. To label Whiteness and maleness as the norms of the culture accords power, against which all “others” are judged. We agree with Patai (1991) and Johnson-Bailey and Cervero (2000), who contend that such actions are intentional. The underlying ideas of Whiteness as superior and non-Whiteness as inferior or deficient are ever-present unless we attach the designation of racism.

In an educational setting, membership in a disenfranchised group translates into direct inequities: substandard education, tracking, and fewer opportunities for the future. Although we describe learners as at-risk or underprivileged, we do not refer to the inevitable and corresponding overprivileged student (Manglitz, Johnson-Bailey, & Cervero, 2005). It is a logical conclusion that the collective losses of the one group create the abundance of another.

Black Men and Education

An assessment of the state of American schooling readily reveals that African American males suffer from higher high school dropout rates and lower college entry and completion rates than any other racial or ethnic group. However, we contend that African American males are the proverbial canary in the educational mines, warning of dangers and pitfalls that are inherent in our educational system. Although race is a central location for the negotiation of power and privilege in education and in society, it is rarely coupled with a discussion of maleness unless the problem of the educational environment being researched is the African American male.

For clarification, let us briefly focus on Black males and the American educational system, looking explicitly at how African American males have fared inside of the compulsory elementary and high school education, and how they have fared in higher education and in adult education. Black males fall at the bottom of most indices regarding school success. Approximately 47–50% of Black male students fail to graduate from high school (Schott Foundation for Public Education, 2012), with urban areas, such as New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, Detroit, Cleveland, and St. Louis, having failure rates as high as 60%. In fact, in all but 12 of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, Black males graduate at a lower percentage than Latino and White males and females, and also lower than Black females (Schott Foundation for Public Education, 2012).

Statistics are similar for higher education. Black college students experience issues that are exacerbated by racism. Sixty percent of Black students encountered racism (overt and covert forms) and routinely feel that there is bias in the ways that they are treated and graded (Allen, 1988; Engberg, 2004; Suarez-Balcazar, Orellana-Damacela, Portillo, Rowan, & Andrews-Guillen, 2003). Overall, undergraduate matriculation for Blacks with high school degrees who entered college in 2000 was 30.3%, with women at 35% of the total and men at 23% (Cose, 2003), making up 8.7% of all college students. However, the college graduation rate for 2000 showed that of the Blacks who completed college, Black women comprised 65.7% and Black men 34.2%, indicating a significant lack of completion for Black college men (NCES, 2002). However, what is lost in the statistics is that the percentage of Black students who attend four-year colleges and universities continues to be significantly smaller than their proportion in the population (Chen, 2005). Overall, Blacks are underrepresented by racial group membership in college. Though Black women are more successful in respect to their incidence in the four-year college participation and completion, it is only in comparison to Black males, who are the more unsuccessful.

The Crossroads of Heterogeneous Racisms

While we center on race for our chapter's discussion, we acknowledge that other important areas of disenfranchisement exist, such as gender, class, and physical ability. Therefore, let us begin this discussion by first troubling or deconstructing (Foucault, 1980) the notion of race, and then offering a gendered discussion of race. Racism is routinely researched as a distinct entity, but it is actually varied, often context-driven, and exists as an across-race and within-race phenomenon. In support of this position, we will offer accounts of how national origin, colorism, and gender all impact race.

An important first illustration is the use of and understanding of the word Black as a descriptor. For example, using the term “Black people” is a collective descriptive that represents persons of the African Diaspora, or anyone of African descent regardless of national origin or habitat. However, in reality, to be a Black African living on the continent of Africa or elsewhere in the world is different from being an African American residing in the United States. This variance is attributed to Africans having a culture connected to a prime homeplace (Okonofua, 2013; Omi & Winant, 1994; Waldinger, 2001). In “‘I Am Blacker Than You’: Theorizing Conflict Between African Immigrants and African Americans in the United States” (Okonofua, 2013), the author posits that Blacks from Africa and the Caribbean who reside in the United States see themselves differently because of their distinct culture and their perspective, which was developed in a homogenous society where they had majority status. This dissimilarity is also recognized by Whites and African Americans.

A second exemplification of this phenomenon is colorism among African Americans, a form of within-group racial discrimination, where lighter skin that is closer to Caucasian skin pigment is considered better, and an indicator of multiple superiorities. Although colorism is generalized as applicable to several disenfranchised groups of color in the United States (Asians, Hispanics, Blacks), there is significant literature only about Latinos and Blacks (Chavez-Dueñas, Adames, & Organista, 2014; Essed, 1996; Glenn, 2011; Russell, Wilson, & Hall, 1992). Skin color preference has been demonstrated in research on job applicants, customer partiality studies by advertisers, and longitudinal studies on socioeconomic measures in the African American population.

The final illustration for contemplation is the index of gendered racism (Essed, 1996), the intersection of two major forms of oppression: sexism and racism. According to Essed (1996), gendered racism is replete with master narratives driven by such forces as colonialism, sexual violence, economics, slavery, and politics, which are also major factors in the experiences of Black people. Gendered racism brings to the discussion of racism complex and separate legacies of inequities for men and women. When gendered racism pertains to Black women, it has been labeled as ethgender (Ransford & Miller, 1983) and also frequently referred to as double jeopardy (Beal, 1969/2008; Evans & Herr, 1991; King, 1988; Smith & Stewart, 1983).

Gendered racism is rarely thought of or acknowledged as affecting Black men. Additionally, members of the White race are set forth in history as the standard, and this depiction is most often accompanied by the phantom of maleness. Historically, when Whiteness and maleness are fused, they are viewed as the highest ideal of colonialism, the master, conqueror, and ruler (Alridge, 2006). In such an interpretation, the Black man and his male privilege are in a lesser position since the Black man's legacy is not one presented