This article provides a synthesis that delineates the scope and context that give meaning, purpose, and setting to the exercise of effective educational leadership and to the attainment of meaningful student achievement within schools that serve large numbers of African American students. Historical, theoretical, and empirical frames of inquiry…

This postscript challenges researchers to address the fundamental question, how do we define Black women? Changes in various aspects of Blackness--the Black family, the Black community, the Black experience--are highlighted. Taking into consideration these changes, clarification of how the intersection of gender and ethnicity together with other…

This study examines how charter school advocates and district administrators in a suburban US school district work in concert, although not in unison, to create a public charter school that reinforces the interests of White, economically advantaged families. Drawing on ethnographic data, interviews, census data and charter school documents, we…

Background/Context: The current era of educational reform targets teacher education and aims to improve the performance of children who have traditionally underperformed and are underserved in public schools. Although educational policy has tried to address the ways in which "good teaching" contributes to improved student educational outcomes,…

Dr. Shiriki K. Kumanyika, an authority in culturally specific weight-control and dietary change research, is taking an activist role in designing research to reduce the rates of obesity and its associated health risks in the Black community. She has convened AACORN--the African American Collaborative Obesity Research Network, all of whose members…

Objective: This article provides an evaluation of a federally funded faith-based program that serves African Americans who use heroin and cocaine and are at risk for HIV/AIDS in Nashville, Tennessee. Methods: Data were collected from 163 individuals at baseline and 6- and 12-month follow-up interviews. A subset of participants (n = 51) completed…

The author introduces a reflective model of racial, cultural and spiritual engagement for researchers and research participants in an attempt to guide them in the development of perhaps more empowering research about African-Americans. The model focuses on three essential areas to help guide researchers and participants: the cultural self, the…

This study investigated father involvement among African American feminist fathers. Five interrelated parenting themes emerged from a narrative analysis of individual semistructured interviews that each father deemed important: (a) nurturance and emotional intimacy with children, (b) politically conscious parenting, (c) nonviolent discipline, (d)…

Many conceptualizations of optimal human functioning are based on Western European notions of healthy and unhealthy development and daily living. When applied to people of color in the United States, however, these conceptualizations may prove inapplicable because of their Western culture--bound nature. The authors explore the role that cultural…

Working with communities of color to find solutions to the problems they face is a complex and challenging task. The "It Takes a Village" concept and the Transtheoretical Model of Change (Prochaska, Norcross, and DiClemente 1994) were used by the authors of this article in their work to empower clients of color to effect in their…

Societal barriers to the successful education of Black children were identified by the noted historian Carter G. Woodson more than 70 years ago in his classic text "The Mis-Education of the Negro." Woodson argued that there were serious problems with inaccurate, ill-planned, depoliticized curriculum content and lack of resources, as well…

Many organizations that conduct statistical analyses of demographic information indicate that the United States is rapidly becoming a more diverse place (e.g. U.S. Census, 2000). Many of the major newspapers such as the Washington Post on March 7, 2003, seemed eager to print stories about Hispanics "overtaking" Blacks as the nation's…

Seventy-eight years ago, Negro History Week, the precursor to Black History Month, was created to allow for the identification and celebration of the contributions of African Americans in history and the present. While Black History Month promotes African American cultural empowerment and understanding, it also inspires learning for all age groups…

The author discusses several culturally sensitive qualitative research approaches, revisits the Culturally Sensitive Research Framework, a theoretical framework for conducting culturally sensitive research in African-American communities and provides examples of research that has employed culturally sensitive approaches. The discussion then shifts…

This study looks at preservice teachers' attitudes toward children and teaching in an urban high-poverty community in relation to their involvement in two different literacy education experiences: one literacy course sequence addressed issues of cultural diversity with respect to this community, and the other did not explicitly address these…