Predicting African American Parents' and Guardians' Satisfaction With Teachers and Public Schools

Abstract

The author used regression analyses to examine variables that predicted how African American parents and guardians rated their children's teachers and the public school system. The results indicated that although several variables were significant, parents' and guardians' satisfaction with their children's elementary school teachers was the strongest predictor of how they rated high school teachers and the public school system. The need for educators and policy-makers to improve their relations with African American parents and guardians is underscored.     

Getting recognised: Teachers negotiating professional identities as learners through talk

This paper presents findings from a qualitative study on teachers' negotiation of professional identity through talk with colleagues at an urban, public, Midwestern school in the United States. The purpose of the research was to identify discourse strategies the teachers used to negotiate local significances for their professional identities. Analysis and findings demonstrate that the teachers made and recognised identity bids to accomplish the professional identity of teacher as learner, using a range of discourse strategies, including two genres of reflective talk. Implications for our understanding of teachers as knowledge-producers and how this can inform teacher education and education policy are considered.     

How African American Parents Understand Their and Teachers' Roles in Children's Schooling and What this Means for Preparing Preservice Teachers

Preservice teachers are socialized by their own raced, classed, and gendered experiences to expect “caring parents” to behave and contribute in certain ways to their children's schooling. Preservice teachers who come from widely divergent backgrounds from the communities in which they serve can sometimes be skeptical of parents who are not involved in children's schooling in ways that are familiar from their own upbringing. Moreover, much of the existing scholarship on parent involvement and the transition to school takes a top-down approach that discounts the important knowledge parents bring to the table. This is a study of African American parents of young children who were preparing to transition to kindergarten or first grade that proposes an alternate conversation about what we can learn from parents when we examine their ways of framing and enacting “involvement” in their children's school lives. African American parents and caregivers (N?=?25) participated in qualitative interviews. Thematic analyses of the interviews revealed that participants constructed preparation for the transition to school broadly, as preparation for the “real world.” I will discuss the implications of the study for teaching, teacher education, and future research, so that preservice teachers and teacher educators can begin to build a greater imagination for parent involvement.     

Exploring women faculty's experiences and perceptions in higher education: the effects of feminism?

This study analyses women faculty's discourse about feminism, themselves, and their professional experiences as scholars in the North American university context. This case study pushes at the boundaries of what we believe we know about ‘the gender question' in the academy, opening a discursive space for scholars to examine university policies and practices. Poststructuralist emphasis on the complexity and changing nature of power relations offer a framework that makes sense of the ways in which women are simultaneously affected by power relations and engage in power relations. I use feminist poststructuralist discourse analysis to analyse women's talk about their experiences in order to carve a path for moving beyond the deconstruction of discourse in order to unpack how it marginalises and silences women, even within and to themselves.     

Longitudinal inter-relations between school cultural socialization and school engagement: The mediating role of school climate

The question of whether schools should promote cultural pride and engage students in ethnic traditions is hotly contested. To contribute to this debate, this longitudinal study examined whether school cultural socialization predicted adolescents' engagement in school over time and whether this relation was mediated by school climate. Data were collected in four waves during a two-year period from 254 African American fifth-graders (53.9% males; M_age = 10.95 at Wave 1) enrolled in three public middle schools. Results revealed that African American youth who reported more school cultural socialization also had greater school engagement over time. This longitudinal relation was fully mediated by youth's perceptions of school climate. Implications for how to promote African American youth's perceptions of schools as culturally sensitive and supportive environments are discussed.     

“Acting as Freemen”: Rhetoric,Race, and Reform in the Debate over Colonization in Freedom's Journal, 1827–1828

This essay features a debate in Freedom's Journal, the first African-American newspaper, in 1827 and 1828, concerning the proposals of the American Colonization Society. Arguments favoring colonization illuminate the ways in which whiteness informs and constrains the discourse of white self-professed reformers about race, nation, and public rhetoric. As constitutive rhetoric, the anti-colonization arguments of contributors to Freedom's Journal construct African Americans as agents, citizens, and empowered public rhetors. The exchange reveals key, often hidden aspects of the discourses of whites and of people of color about race and reform in the antebellum period and in the contemporary public sphere.     

Developing exploratory language in the classroom: moving beyond teacher as expert

In this article the author describes the collaborative research undertaken by a group of high school teachers and an English adviser. The teachers were keen to find ways of breaking the teacher-dominated discourse pattern within their classrooms. They wanted to see whether, when offered a variety of teacher audiences beyond that of ‘expert-examiner’, students would engage in the kind of exploratory talk, described by the National Curriculum Council (1987-93), as a feature of investigative learning. Teachers' belief that discourse patterns are affected by students' understanding of contextual conditions is examined. The author illustrates the importance of students' shared understanding of collaborative discourse, and discusses how their conception of learning contexts is influenced by the kinds of audiences teachers project     

Negotiating multiple identities between school and the outside world: a critical discourse analysis

This article examines interview talk of three students in an Australian high school to show how they negotiate their young adult identities between school and the outside world. It draws on Bakhtin's concepts of dialogism and heteroglossia to argue that identities are linguistically and corporeally constituted. A critical discourse analysis of segments of transcribed interviews and student-related public documents finds a mismatch between a social justice curriculum at school and its transfer into students' accounts of outside school lived realities. The article concludes that a productive social justice pedagogy must use its key principles of (con)textual interrogation to engage students in reflexive practice about their positioning within and against discourses of social justice in their student and civic lives. An impending national curriculum must decide whether or not it negotiates the discursive divide any better.     

From the Parlor to the Barnyard: Obama and Holder on Race

This essay explores Barack Obama's “A More Perfect Union” speech and Eric Holder's speech marking African American History Month as a case study of contemporary public discourse on race. This article argues that in these speeches, Obama and Holder perform the social drama of race relations in profoundly different ways. Drawing on the Burkean parlor and barnyard as metaphors of rhetorical form, the analysis demonstrates the interplay of these dialogic and agonistic forms in motivating democratic deliberation on race. Implications of these rhetorical forms for healthy democratic practice are discussed.     

Design,technology, and science: Sites for learning,resistance, and social reproduction in urban schools

The teaching of science through activities that emphasize design and technology has been advocated as a vehicle for accomplishing science for all students. This study was situated in an inner7‐city neighborhood school populated mainly by African American students from life worlds characterized by poverty. The article explores the discourse and practices of students and three coteachers as a curriculum was enacted to provide opportunities for students to learn about the physics of motion through designing, building, and testing a model car. Some students participated in ways that led to their building viable model cars and interacting with one another in ways that suggest design and technological competence. However, there also was evidence of resistance from students who participated sporadically and refused to cooperate with teachers as they endeavored to structure the environment in ways that would lead to a deeper understanding of science. Analysis of in‐class interactions reveals an untapped potential for the emergence of a sciencelike discourse and diverse outcomes. Among the challenges explored in this article is a struggle for respect that permeates the students' lives on the street and bleeds into the classroom environment. Whereas teachers enacted the curriculum as if learning was the chief goal for students, it is apparent that students used the class opportunistically to maintain and earn the respect of peers. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 38: 746–767, 2001     

Promoting group talk and higher‐order thinking in pupils by ‘coaching’ secondary English trainee teachers

One hundred and eighty British secondary school pupils aged 11–12 and their six trainee teachers in five schools participated in an action research project, designed to improve the quality of children's group talk in English lessons, particularly their engagement in higher‐order thinking through ‘exploratory’ talk. The programme, supported by the Teacher Training Agency (TTA), now Training and Development Agency, was devised by a team of mentors and an Initial Teacher Educator from Sussex University. It aimed to develop the trainees' skills both in planning challenging tasks for, and sustaining effective group talk, using ‘ground rules’ and varied teacher discourse strategies. The data include qualitative comparative analysis of discourse audiotaped before and after the intervention, taken from 66 pupils. Findings indicate a clear improvement in the quality of talk, in terms of pupils' collaborative engagement in higher‐order thinking. Further evidence from observations and interviews with all participants suggests confirmation of the programme's effectiveness in improving trainees' and pupils' skills in, and understanding of how to use group talk to reason.     

That Child Is a Yellow: New Immigrant Children's Conceptions of English Language,Literacy, and Learners' Identities in the NCLB Era

In this article, we utilize the concepts of conceptual metaphors, cultural models, and master myths to discuss the ways by which three new immigrant children, native speakers of Spanish, were developing conceptions of English language, literacy, and learner's identities. Our findings point to 3 main metaphors that were often implicit in the school environment: (a) writing as procedures, (b) English as success, and (c) learners as test scoring categories. These metaphorical conceptualizations appear to be a reflection of the discourse around No Child Left Behind (NCLB) policies that permeate American school contexts. We argue that this discourse can serve to promote reduced conceptions of literacy (and writing in particular), to essentialize learners' identities, and to preserve the hegemony of English. We suggest that a focus on meaning during literacy instruction can be helpful in providing opportunities to counteract these conceptions and to foster the development of more robust ones.     

African American Students in Private, Independent Schools: Parents and School Influences on Racial Identity Development

Although much research has focused on the public school experiences of African American students, few studies exist that explore their race-related experiences within an independent, private school context. Studies have suggested that, while private, independent schools may elevate the quality of African American students’ education, many of these students experience social isolation from their peers. Using a qualitative methodology, the current study explores the experiences of African American students attending a private, independent school. Moreover, this investigation explores how schools as well as parental contexts contribute to racial identity development. Results indicated the importance of parents, schools and other significant institutions as racial socialization agents as well as their influence on specific identity-related processes. Educational implications for findings are also discussed.     

Student use of narrative and paradigmatic forms of talk in elementary science conversations

The purpose of this work was to examine and characterize student use of narrative and paradigmatic expression in elementary science discourse. This interpretive study occurred over a 2‐year period in a professional development school with a largely international population. This analysis focused on the narrative and paradigmatic modes of expression used by combined first–second‐ and second‐grade students in a semistructured, fairly autonomous, whole‐class conversational format. Students demonstrated competence with both modes of talk at the beginning of the year. Over time, students moved toward more paradigmatic talk, but narrative examples continued to be key components of the science conversations. Topically, students used narrative more often for life sciences and paradigmatic talk for physical sciences. For gender there were no qualitative differences in narrative or paradigmatic expression. However, boys obtained more opportunities to practice their use of both discourse forms by either receiving more speaking turns or expressing more language features per turn. These conversations show that narrative and paradigmatic modes in science need not be in opposition but can, in fact, be used together in complementary ways that are mutually enhancing. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 39: 793–818, 2002     

More ways than one: Federal strategies to equalize access in education and health care

This article examines the responses of school principals from an urban school district to Michigan's zero-tolerance policy. We specifically seek to understand how school leaders interpret and implement the policy and how their administrative discussions subsequently affect the educational experience of children in urban schools. Given that a disproportionately high number of African American and Latino students are negatively affected by this policy, how do school leaders in predominantly African American districts implement it? The findings in this study reveal that the disparate interpretation of the zero-tolerance policy among school leaders and its implementation negatively affects the educational experience of urban students.     

“In A Position I See Myself in:” (Re)Positioning Identities and Culturally-Responsive Pedagogies

Culturally-responsive pedagogies require moving beyond blanket assumptions about learners to focus deeply on local meaning-makings. This narrative analysis case study examines the ways a 20-year-old African American man challenges the negative educational identity with which he is forced to contend as he navigates a large and complex urban public school system. The ways in which Jamahl, a seeker of a High School Equivalency, refuses interpellation as an uneducated learner destined to be “nothin'” provides insight as to how formal education might be more responsive to learners' negotiation of deficiency discourses. Embracing agency, specifically through awareness of the ways Jamahl employs (re)positioning practices, this narrative analysis case study highlights paths for researchers and practitioners to tap into learners' resources to recognize and foster powerful learning identities.     

The experiences of parents of gifted African American children: A phenomenological study

This study documents the experiences of parents raising African American children who have been identified as gifted. There is a small but growing body of research exploring the experiences and issues of gifted African American children. Parents play the most significant role in a child's development; however, parents of gifted African American children are not currently represented in the literature. This study utilized semi‐structured interviews with the parent or parents from 12 families to explore their experiences of rearing their gifted African American children. Particular attention was addressed to issues surrounding their children's academic and social experiences, including interactions with school, family, and community. Implications are elucidated for individuals working with this population, and suggestions for future research are provided.     

‘The world must stop when I’m talking’: gender and power relations in primary teachers’ classroom talk

The present paper examines male and female teachers’ language practices in relation to ‘censuring’ talk in the primary classroom, in the context of the debate around boys’ ‘underachievement’ and the ‘feminisation’ of primary school culture. Through an analysis of classroom observations with 51 men and women teachers, it looks to see whether gender differences could be found in the ways individual men and women teachers communicated in terms of their ‘censuring’ comments of pupils’ work or behaviour. Secondly, the paper takes issue with the notion that teachers operate within a ‘feminised’ educational culture, by looking at the ways in which teachers’ classroom talk can be seen to be constrained by two contrasting discourses relating to the power relation between teacher and pupil: a ‘traditional’ disciplinarian discourse, and a more ‘progressive’ liberal discourse. Both discourses have complex gendered and class dimensions, challenging the conception of a ‘feminised’ primary school culture.     

Professions and their Identities: How to explore professional development among (semi‐)professions

This article explores conditions for discussing what it means to be professional among teachers, pre‐school teachers, nurses, and social workers. From an epistemological point of view it explores how analytical strategies can frame in sufficiently complex ways what it means to be a professional today. It is assumed that at least four main issues must be dealt with in order to conduct a satisfactory analysis of professions and their identities. Firstly, it is of fundamental strategic importance that one makes explicit the epistemological point of departure from which one's analyses frame and describe the surrounding world. Secondly, one must qualify one's stance in relation to the sociology of professions. Thirdly, one must reflect a discourse on professions in the light of the extensive processes of individualisation in society. And, lastly, one must reflect a discourse on professions in light of the new administrative practices within the public sector.