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
(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.
One strategy that has been proven to be successful in and among African-American students is the concept of the group dynamic in the classroom. Whether the dynamic applies to the actual act of learning (cooperative learning), the curriculum as a whole (accelerated programs), or navigating through social waters that are academically unfriendly (peer discussion groups), for the past thirty years, educators and sociologists have looked to the group as a means to ensure academic success for large numbers of African-American students.
References/Work Cited
Horvat, E.M., & Lewis, K.S. (2003). Reassessing the "burden of 'acting white'": The importance of peer groups in managing academic success . Sociology of Education, 76(4), 265-280.
Hubbard, L. (1999). College aspirations among low-income African
American high school students: gendered strategies for success.
Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 30(3), 363-383.
Vaughan, W. (2002). Effects of cooperative learning on achievement and attitude among students of color. The Journal of Educational
Research, 95(6), 359-364.
Horvat, E.M., & Lewis, K.S. (2003). Reassessing the "burden of 'acting white'": The importance of peer groups in managing academic success . Sociology of Education, 76(4), 265-280.
Furthermore, as a result of these conditions there was a general failure of black business and entrepreneurships. "Black businesses failed, crushing the entrepreneurial spirit that had been an essential element of the Negro Renaissance." (the Great Depression: A History in the Key of Jazz) However this did not crush the general spirit of the African-American people and there was a resurgence of black culture and enterprise in area such as
" (Thompson et al., 2000, p. 127) 4. Further research and resources There are many areas of this subject that are in need of more extensive research in order to more adequately deal with the problems involves. One example of this can be seen in the fact that, "Black women are three times more likely than white women to die during pregnancy, and twice as many black babies as white babies die
African-American Academics African-American Students and Success and Failure in the School Setting Do African-American students use different strategies to achieve academic success than other groups? The strategies suggested by African-American students themselves have a lot of merit, in the matter of their own academic achievement. In a research study published by Child Study Journal (Tucker, et al., 2000), 22 elementary and 21 high school students completed an open-ended questionnaire delving into the question
(Archie-Booker, Cervero, and Langone, 1999) This study concludes that: "...power relations manifested themselves concretely through these factors in the social and organizational context, which by defining African-American learners as generic entities, produced undifferentiated educational programs." (Archie-Booker, Cervero, and Langone, 1999) The work of Gilbert and Wright reports a study conducted through collecting a series of articles in which African-American women were interviewed concerning living with AIDS. They write in their
..'Let there be light..." (Genesis 1:3, NKJV) on this dark subject. CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW all Americans are the prisoners of racial prejudice." - Shirley Chisholm (b. 1924), African-American politician (Columbia, 1996) 2.1: All American Affected. Racial prejudice, which frequently leads to unfair acts do not just imprison the race receiving the prejudice. As Chisholm notes at the start of this section, racial prejudice imprisons all Americans. The following three synopsis reflect a sampling
In G. Landsberg, M. Rock, & L. Berg (Eds.), Serving mentally ill offenders and their victims: Challenges and opportunities for social workers and other mental health professionals. New York, NY: Springer. Carroll K.M. (1997). Enhancing retention in clinical trials of psychosocial treatments: Practical strategies. In L. Onken, J. Blaine, & J. Boren, (Eds.), Beyond the therapeutic alliance: Keeping the drug-dependent individual in treatment. [NIDA Research Monograph Series #165, 4-24]. Washington,
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