Classism, Academic Self-concept, and African American College Students' Academic Performance
Classism, Academic Self-concept, and African American College Students' Academic Performance

Author: Simone Roby

Publisher:

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13:

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The "Black-White" achievement gap, in which some African American students show lower academic achievement than their White American counterparts, has received increased empirical attention. Classism has rarely been explored in psychological research as a significant contextual factor for understanding African American college students' academic performance. Previous research shows that academic self-concept (ASC) is an attitudinal construct which consistently predicts African American college students' grade point averages (GPA). A wealth of previous research also suggests that college student's social class background and experiences with classism significantly influence students' academic attitudes and performance. With this empirical and theoretical backing, a hierarchal regression analysis was run to test experiences with classism (EWC) as a moderator of the effects of academic self-concept on GPA for a sample of 124 cisgender, heterosexual African American students at SIUC, a predominantly white institution (PWI). Thus, the present study was conducted to test the hypothesis that African American college students' levels of experience with classism would significantly moderate the effects of students' ASC on their GPA. Results of the regression analysis showed that EWC did not significantly moderate the effects of ASC on GPA. An alternative mediation model was also tested, and showed that EWC did not mediate the relationship between ASC and GPA. Potential explanations for the results are provided, as well as limitations, and implications. Although the findings were not significant, the results of the present study call for future research to explicitly explore the influence of social class on psychological experiences, especially as it intersects with marginalized identities in the U.S. Overall, as African Americans' and college students' academic experiences are both greatly influenced by social class and classism, the academic achievement of African American and White American students should be discussed in the context of systems of oppression in which their achievements occur.

The Evolving Challenges of Black College Students
The Evolving Challenges of Black College Students

Author: Terrell L. Strayhorn

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-07-03

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 1000980146

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Presenting new empirical evidence and employing fresh theoretical perspectives, this book sheds new light on the challenges that Black Students face from the time they apply to college through their lives on campus.The contributors make the case that the new generation of Black students differ in attitudes and backgrounds from earlier generations, and demonstrate the importance of understanding the diversity of Black identity.Successive chapters address the nature and importance of Black spirituality for reducing isolation and race-related stress, and as a source of meaning making; students’ college selection and decision process and the expectations it fosters; first-generation Black women’s motivations for attending college; the social-psychological determinants of academic achievement, and how resiliency can be developed and nurtured; institutional climate and the role of cultural centers; as well as identity development; and mentoring. The book includes a new research study of African American male undergraduates who identify as gay or bisexual; discusses the impact of student-to-student interactions in intellectual development and leadership building; describes the successful strategies used by historically Black institutions with at-risk men; considers the role of parents in Black male students’ lives, and the applicability of the “millennial” label to the new cohort of African American students.The book offers new insights and concrete recommendations for policies and practices to provide the social and academic support for African American students to persist and fully benefit from their collegiate experience. It will be of value to student affairs personnel and faculty; constitutes a textbook for courses on student populations and their development; and provides a springboard for future research.

The Correlation Between Academic Self-concept, Student-faculty Interactions, and Class Status Among African American and Caucasian Students at Humboldt State University
The Correlation Between Academic Self-concept, Student-faculty Interactions, and Class Status Among African American and Caucasian Students at Humboldt State University

Author: Autumn Sharice Fannin

Publisher:

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 134

ISBN-13:

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African American college students continue to experience challenges both academically and personally at predominantly White colleges and universities. Predominantly White Colleges and Historically Black Colleges and have been the focus of prior research to examine various factors relating to academic self-concept. However, results consistently elucidate that African American college students have a lower academic self-concept when compared with their White counterparts (Cokley, 2000). Using a sample of African American and Caucasian college students at Humboldt State University, the current study will examine academic self-concept, student-faculty interactions, and class status among these students. Students will complete the Academic Self-Concept Scale (Reynolds, 1988), Campus Connectedness Scale (Lee & Davis, 2000), and specific questions relating to the quality and frequency of student-faculty interactions. The results of this study may provide information for predominantly White universities to reform their approaches to education and personal development in order to effectively assist African American students and other minority students with achieving academic success.

Black Students
Black Students

Author: Gordon L. Berry

Publisher: Corwin

Published: 1989-11

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13:

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Why are so many Black students prematurely leaving school? What factors can be attributed toward academic achievement of Black students? Should teachers be less concerned with curriculum content and more sensitive to the social and psychological needs during child development? The authors argue that academic achievement for Black students is influenced not only by circumstances found in the individual or family and school settings, but by a whole host of factors. Social and economic environments, the development of the self-concept, peer pressure, personal attributes such as resources, skills and motivation--these are a few of the many factors contributing towards a person's ability to achieve academically. Black Students brings together current research to address these factors from a variety of perspectives and covers the full educational cycle from kindergarten through the college years. The majority of past research on academic achievement of Black students has placed blame on the individual or credited failure toward an incapability to succeed. Berry and Asamen's mission is to shift away from this narrow perspective and to look more holistically at the issues. In addition the book provides some specific programmatic directions for enhancing the academic experiences of Black students. "The editors conceptualized and produced an important, informative, issue-oriented book with contributions by prestigious, involved scholars in education, the social sciences, and mental health. . . . Recommendations for policy and programmatic changes are included, along with directions for future research." --Choice "All in all, this book was well conceived and succeeds in its high ideals of offering a useful, womanlike contribution to the riddle of the causes of under achievement of black Americans and ultimately of all black people of the diaspora; intuitively understood by all who know anything of the history of their experience, but yet to be coherently deciphered." --Education Today "Informative and thought provoking. Berry and Asamen make the reader painfully aware of the many casualties and losses of black youth, particularly low income black youth within today's educational system. . . . [It] explores the societal factors that inhibit or can enhance the academic achievement of low income black students. Black Students affirmed some of my own beliefs and provided new information." --Association for Women in Psychology Newsletter "A book written by people who obviously care about Black education. Moreover, it is difficult to take exception to Berry's conclusion that Blacks need an educational system which offers equity and excellence." --British Educational Research Journal.

Blacked Out
Blacked Out

Author: Signithia Fordham

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 1996-03-13

Total Pages: 426

ISBN-13: 022622998X

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This innovative portrait of student life in an urban high school focuses on the academic success of African-American students, exploring the symbolic role of academic achievement within the Black community and investigating the price students pay for attaining it. Signithia Fordham's richly detailed ethnography reveals a deeply rooted cultural system that favors egalitarianism and group cohesion over the individualistic, competitive demands of academic success and sheds new light on the sources of academic performance. She also details the ways in which the achievements of sucessful African-Americans are "blacked out" of the public imagination and negative images are reflected onto black adolescents. A self-proclaimed "native" anthropologist, she chronicles the struggle of African-American students to construct an identity suitable to themselves, their peers, and their families within an arena of colliding ideals. This long-overdue contribution is of crucial importance to educators, policymakers, and ethnographers.

The Myth of Black Anti-Intellectualism
The Myth of Black Anti-Intellectualism

Author: Kevin O. Cokley

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2014-11-11

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13:

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Why do students who belong to racial minority groups—particularly black students—fall short in school performance? This book provides a comprehensive and critical examination of black identity and its implications for black academic achievement and intellectualism. No other group of students has been more studied, more misunderstood, and more maligned than African American students. The racial gap between White and African American students does exist: a difference of roughly 20 percent in college graduation rates has persisted for more than the past two decades; and since 1988, the racial gap on the reading and mathematics sections of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) has increased from 189 points to 201 points. What are the true sources of these differences? In this book, psychology professor and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Black Psychology Kevin Cokley, PhD, delves into and challenges the dominant narrative regarding black student achievement by examining the themes of black identity, the role of self-esteem, the hurdles that result in academic difficulties, and the root sources of academic motivation. He proposes a bold alternate narrative that uses black identity as the theoretical framework to examine factors in academic achievement and challenge the widely accepted notion of black anti-intellectualism. This book will be valuable to all educators, especially those at the high school through undergraduate college/university level, as well as counselors associated with academic and community institutions, social service providers, policy makers, clergy and lay staff within the faith-based community, and parents.

Examining Stereotype Threat, Academic Self Concept, and College Class Status Among African Americans at Historically Black Universities and Predominately White Universities
Examining Stereotype Threat, Academic Self Concept, and College Class Status Among African Americans at Historically Black Universities and Predominately White Universities

Author: Arlana Dodson-Sims

Publisher:

Published: 2005

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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The purpose of this study was to understand the impact of stereotype threat and academic self concept among African American college students. The participants were 217 African American college students attending a historically black university and a predominately white university. While there were no significant interactions among the variables, the results indicated: (1) students attending the predominately white university felt more alienated and less supported than students attending the historically black university; (2) students at the predominately white university experienced stereotype threat at a higher degree than students at the historically black university; (3) undergraduate students experienced more anxiety than graduate students; and (4) graduate students felt more alienated and less supported than undergraduate students. A major implication of the study is that educators and counselors at predominately white universities need to be sensitive to the impact stereotype threat among African American students.

The Source of the River
The Source of the River

Author: Douglas S. Massey

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2011-06-27

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 1400840767

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African Americans and Latinos earn lower grades and drop out of college more often than whites or Asians. Yet thirty years after deliberate minority recruitment efforts began, we still don't know why. In The Shape of the River, William Bowen and Derek Bok documented the benefits of affirmative action for minority students, their communities, and the nation at large. But they also found that too many failed to achieve academic success. In The Source of the River, Douglas Massey and his colleagues investigate the roots of minority underperformance in selective colleges and universities. They explain how such factors as neighborhood, family, peer group, and early schooling influence the academic performance of students from differing racial and ethnic origins and differing social classes. Drawing on a major new source of data--the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen--the authors undertake a comprehensive analysis of the diverse pathways by which whites, African Americans, Latinos, and Asians enter American higher education. Theirs is the first study to document the different characteristics that students bring to campus and to trace out the influence of these differences on later academic performance. They show that black and Latino students do not enter college disadvantaged by a lack of self-esteem. In fact, overconfidence is more common than low self-confidence among some minority students. Despite this, minority students are adversely affected by racist stereotypes of intellectual inferiority. Although academic preparation is the strongest predictor of college performance, shortfalls in academic preparation are themselves largely a matter of socioeconomic disadvantage and racial segregation. Presenting important new findings, The Source of the River documents the ongoing power of race to shape the life chances of America's young people, even among the most talented and able.