(Re)inscribing Meaning: An Examination of the Effective Approaches, Adaptations and Improvisational Elements in Closing the Excellence Gap for Black Students
Genre
Thesis/DissertationDate
2013Author
Yeboah, Amy OppongAdvisor
Abarry, Abu Shardow, 1947-Committee member
Norment, NathanielWonkeryor, Edward Lama
Watkins, Valethia
Department
African American StudiesSubject
African American StudiesEducation
Education, Early Childhood
Achievement Gap
Black Eduction
Black Family
Black Men
Black Women
Excellence Gap
Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12613/3886Metadata
Show full item recordDOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.34944/dspace/3868Abstract
From great African nations like the Ancient Kemites, Akan and Gikuyu, the world witnessed the development of the most powerful social structures, governance systems, ground breaking innovations in science and technology, and systems of thought that still exist today. Hence, in looking at the low performance levels of Black students today, the question becomes, how do the descendants of those who created writing, mathematics, and science; and then in the face of episodic disruptions laid their lives on the line to read, write, and built public schools, Sabbath schools, and Historically Black Colleges and Universities, close the excellence gap between their actual performance and deeply rooted cultural expectations? The present study reviews the essential questions and proposed solutions for closing the excellence gap that have been offered by previous generations of scholars. Africana Studies methodological framing questions were used to examine the long-view experiences of African people as well as a three tier critical ethnographic research methods approach. The study revealed that Black students gained a level of excellence in the face of disruption through: (1) Collective Training, (2) Spiritual and Moral Balance, and (3) Content Mastery. The prerequisite for sustaining educational excellence was found to be in the individual roles female and male representatives play as the primary educators of Black children. Secondly, nurturing a sense of identity through a spiritual understanding of social order and moral responsibility to the collective is also a requirement. Nevertheless, what unites and emerges as the chief element is content mastery. The ability to retain and keep content through listening and reading; and present a level of mastery on that information through speaking, writing and action to solve problems, completes the reciprocal process of educational excellence.ADA compliance
For Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) accommodation, including help with reading this content, please contact scholarshare@temple.eduCollections
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
The Black Manifesto and the Churches: The Struggle for Black Power and Reparations in PhiladelphiaJames Forman's Black Manifesto demanded $500 million in reparations from the nation's white churches and synagogues for their financial, moral, and spiritual complicity in the centuries of injustice carried out upon African Americans. Many African-American ministers in the North embraced the Black Power ideology and supported Forman's call for financial redress. These Northern clergymen had become exasperated with an interracial civil rights movement that neglected to confront the systemic racism that permeated the nation's culture. Black Manifesto activists attempted to compel the white churches into paying reparations by interrupting worship services and occupying church buildings throughout the urban North. While the vast majority of the American public believed that the Black Manifesto was simply an attempt to extort money from the white churches, there was a racially diverse contingent of clergymen who wholeheartedly supported the call for reparations. The primary reason that Philadelphia became one of the key arenas in the struggle for reparations was the presence of Muhammad Kenyatta, the local Black Economic Development Conference leader. Kenyatta implemented myriad confrontational tactics in an attempt to cajole the Philadelphia-area denominations into responding affirmatively to the Black Manifesto's demands. The young activist was able to form an alliance with influential leaders within the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania. Paul Washington, an African-American minister, and Bishop Robert DeWitt, a white clergyman, supported the Black Manifesto and encouraged their fellow Episcopalians to do likewise. The duo's support for the Black Manifesto encouraged the Episcopalians to become the first predominantly white denomination to pay reparations to the Black Economic Development Conference. Although the payment was just $200,000, the concept of supporting a militant African-American organization was more than many conservative Episcopalians could tolerate. The debate over the Black Manifesto at the denomination's 1969 Special General Convention also enabled many African-American ministers to express long-held grievances regarding racism in the Church. A detailed examination of the rancorous debate over the Black Manifesto in Philadelphia complicates any simplistic narrative of the struggle for racial justice in the North. While many historians have blamed Black Power activists for derailing the civil rights movement, this study reveals that the fight against structural racism in the North generated political unity among African Americans that has lasted to the present day. The conflict among Philadelphians over the Black Manifesto was in no way split along racial lines. Many of document's most vehement supporters were white while many of its greatest detractors were conservative African Americans. The dispute over the Black Manifesto in Philadelphia illuminates the intellectual diversity present within the African-American population as well as the Black Power movement itself.
-
Dancing Black Power?: Joan Miller, Carole Johnson and The Black Aesthetic, 1960-1975This dissertation examines the work of two African-American female choreographers, namely Joan Miller and Carole Johnson, and their engagement with the Black Aesthetic during the height of the Black Arts movement in America. The work seeks to examine how these subjects articulated, shaped, responded to, extended, critiqued or otherwise engaged with the notion of the Black aesthetic primarily through the mediums of concert dance and choreography. In consideration of the above, I conducted two, single subject case studies with Joan Miller and Carole Johnson in order to better understand the complexity of the experience of these African-American female dance makers during the selected period and gain a richer understanding of the ways in which they did or did not engage with the notion of the Black Aesthetic through the medium of dance. The subjects for the single case studies were selected because they fit the criteria to answer the research question: each woman is an African-American dance maker who was generating choreography and working actively in the dance field during the identified historical period (1960-1975.). The study employs content analysis of individual semi-structured interviews, cultural documents (including but not limited to playbills, photographs, newspaper clippings, video documentation, and choreographers' notes) and related literature (both revisionist and of the period) to generate a robust portrait of the experiences of the subjects under study. Taken simultaneously, critical race theory and Black feminist thought supply an analytical framework for this project that has allowed me to study the intersecting and mutually constitutive aspects of race, class, gender and economic location from a unique standpoint--that of African-American female choreographers during the Black Power/Black Arts Movement era--in an effort the answer the research question and sub-questions central to this project. The dissertation ultimately posits that both Johnson and Miller did, in fact engage meaningfully with key concepts articulated under the banner of the Black Aesthetic during the height of the U.S.-based Black Arts Movement. Moreover, the project asserts that both women extended their understandings of the Black Aesthetic in order to embrace additional issues of interest; namely, gender and class (on Miller's part) and international human rights (on Johnson's part.) As such, this project ultimately discusses the implications of the inclusion of Miller and Johnson's work within the canon of dance history/studies as a radical shift from the dominant narratives concerning the work of Black female choreographers during the period. Additionally, the dissertation asserts that the inclusion of these narratives in the context of literature and scholarship on the Black Power/Black Arts Movement supports moves in contemporary revisionist scholarship interested in broadening the research on the work of women in the creative arts during the period of interest. Lastly, the project suggests new research trajectories and areas of inquiry but explicating Patricia Hill Collins's work on Black Feminist Thought. By looking at the defining characteristics of Collins scholarship, the project extends the discussion on African-American women's epistemology to include dance performance and creation and complicates the role of who is empowered to make meaning through the lens of Black Feminist Thought and in what form.
-
“Can’t I be Black and smart?”: Examining the experiences of Black high-achieving college women inside and outside the classroomThis study examines the experiences of high-achieving talented undergraduate Black women inside and outside the classroom at a predominantly white urban university. Much of the higher education research studies how college affects students and how they develop psychosocially during their undergraduate experience. Using a series of semi-structured qualitative interviews with undergraduate honors students, this study examines how Black women make meaning around their experiences in their social and academic lives at college. Intersectionality is used as a theoretical framework to analyze participants’ experiences and to consider the salience of their intersecting racial, gender, and academic identities. Results indicated that inside the classroom participants were spotlighted and felt they were the representatives for their identity groups. In campus life, they were isolated and faced microaggressions from peers. Participants described their intersectional race x gender x academic identity as most salient in their experiences at college. Implications discuss strategies for creating more inclusive academic and social environments and future research for high-achieving undergraduate Black women.
