African American history and identity

African-American Education

One strategy for promoting academic achievement and well-being within the classroom among African-American students is to create a collective environment in which the students are achieving together. There are various ways of implementing this strategy that have already proven to be successful, including cooperative learning groups, accelerated programs and peer discussion groups. This paper examines this strategy in its various forms and explains how they help promote social and emotional well being among African-American students in the classroom.

Winston Vaughan (Effects of Cooperative Learning on Achievement and Attitude among Students of Color) discusses the positive impact that cooperative learning groups can have for African-American students. In this model, students learn together in a manner where each individual student commits to progress and success of every other member of the group. Citing studies which indicate that group learning proves more beneficial to students of color than individual learning does, Vaughan theorizes that this may be due the fact that students of color have values, behaviors, cognitive styles and language patterns that differ from the dominant culture in their school. (Vaughan, 2002).

Vaughan conducted his own studies in Bermuda to test the effect of cooperative learning on students of color. His results indicate that cooperative learning has a definite positive impact on black student's attitude towards learning. His results also back earlier research from the 1980s and 1990s with similar findings. (Vaughan, 2002). Vaughan further concludes that his study of the purported benefits of cooperative learning for black students demonstrates a significant relationship with cooperative learning and improved achievement.

Lea Hubbard in College Aspirations among Low-Income African-American High School Students: Gendered Strategies for Success, examines the successful strategies used by 30 African-American high school students to prepare themselves for acceptance and attendance at college. Hubbard's study focused on boys and girls who were selected for an advanced academic program at the recommendations of their teachers based on academic potential. These students were previously taking regular or vocational classes.

Hubbard's initial observations indicated a strong gender-based variance in the strategies used by the students. (Hubbard, 1999). For boys, the reason for attending college and the means by which to do so, both centered on playing sports. For girls, obtaining a degree and a career was the incentive. Hubbard determines that girls had far less impediments and competitive barriers interfering with their goals than the boys did. Her conclusion is that the girls saw their plight as so limited in terms of hope that for the future, that going to college seems the only alternative to a life of destitution and dead-end service labor. (Hubbard, 1999). From this conclusion, Hubbard examines the strategies the girls used to stay the course to college.

The strategy girls used was to seek out and thrive in programs like the AVID program. These programs not only offered superior education with many college level classes, they also helped the students stay competitive within the world of college admissions and scholarships. In many cases, AVID on the transcripts impresses by itself, as does the college and advance placement courses in the program. The other significant benefit in the advanced programs is that it tends to foster better decision making outside of the classroom, as the students have a more clear picture of their future and are travelling on the road with like-minded peers. (Hubbard, 1999).

Erin McNamara Horvat and Kristine S. Lewis, in Reassessing the "Burden of 'Acting White'": The Importance of Peer Groups in Managing Academic Success, examine the phenomenon of negative peer pressure associated with academic success among African-American students and strategies to combat it. Horvat and Lewis restate a relatively well-known trend among black students to feel that excelling in school can lead to an image of them being considered not African-American, or certainly in not having 'street cred.' Being able to withstand these pressures to 'conform' can have a profound emotional impact on a student's desire to excel (Horvat & Lewis, 2003).

Peer discussion groups offer a great outlet valve for African-American students caught in the emotional chess match of succeeding in school and maintaining their image with friends. The authors' study revealed that students would manage their success with unsupportive peers and that they would share their success with supportive peers within their group. (Horvat & Lewis, 2003). The students in the peer groups often develop long-term relationships, allowing them to chart their progress through school against their 'peers,' develop extracurricular activities together (such as charity drives and peer counseling) and to form a new atmosphere in their daily lives where the constant chatter is about going to college, not about shopping or sports. (Horvat & Lewis, 2003). Members of the peer group need not 'camouflage' their academic achievement or goals, rather they have created a new society for themselves which does not devalue their experiences.