Facilitating Racial-Cultural Identity Development and High Academic Achievement for Black Boys

Updated: Jul 1

Despite long-standing efforts to improve academic achievement for Black students, assessment reports continue to demonstrate persistent underachievement among these students. High school graduation rates for Black students are overall lower than those of all other cultural and ethnic groups. This is also true for reading proficiency at fourth, eighth, and 12th grade levels. In previous essays, I have concentrated on adolescent girls, highlighting their unique social positioning and its relationship to their educational advancements. Here, I’d like to focus on Black boys as they also have some unique challenges.

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The Socio-emotional Well-being of Black Boys

Due to a long history of racism in colonialism, Black boys may express trust toward White teachers, mental health professionals, and other community workers. Black boys may exhibit signs of psychological distress due to exposure to racism, oppression, and a period of environmental stressors. Some Black school children from more affluent families may need to adapt to bicultural behaviors to navigate both the mainstream and their primary culture.

Deficit-Oriented Approaches to Addressing Achievement

Programs to address academic underachievement have been largely deficit-oriented. Deficit-oriented programs have been ineffective and may actually exacerbate the problem. However, there has been an increasing call to use strength-based approaches that rely on environmental factors. Black males not only enroll in college at lower rates but also graduate at lower rates than their black female peers (Harper, 2012; Wood & Palmer, 2014). This may be due to: (a) limited, collegiate, academic preparedness during their K-12 years, (b) limited access to gifted programs and advanced placement courses, and (c) hostile school climates in K-12 and higher education settings.

Racial/Cultural Identity Development

Racial/Cultural identity development has been shown to correlate positively with Black students’ overall sense of well-being and academic achievement. For instance, Afrocentric values are significant predictors of drug knowledge. Further, positive group identity is a predictor of drug use and drug attitudes. Among African American adolescents, racial socialization can have a positive effect on the negative influences of various neighborhood factors, such as crime and poverty. Studies have shown that individualism (a Eurocentric notion) is harmful to African Americans due to the congruence between the cultural values of collectivism and an individualistic mentality. Therefore, recognizing racism in the everyday lives of Black children as a positive element and preserving their sense of self-worth. Finally, studies have shown a positive relationship between the number of days in school and academic achievement (Reid-Marks, West-Olatunji, & Goodman, 2016).

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Systemic Oppression and Traumatic Stress

Research has shown that systemic oppression has deleterious physical and mental health effects. Moreover, traumatic stress related to systemic oppression is transgenerational. It is contextualized by the history of enslavement and the resulting discriminatory legislation in the United States and elsewhere. Current systemic oppression and trauma may be additive to the historical trauma experienced by previous generations. (Dass-Brailsford, 2007; Goodman & West-Olatunji, 2008).

Trauma in Black boys is often misunderstood. Underachieving boys in school settings frequently demonstrate aggressive behaviors, low self-esteem, lack of attention, and elevated activity levels (Arnold et al., 1999). Not surprisingly, cultural encapsulation may increase the likelihood that educators and school counselors misconceptualize these behaviors among Black boys who are at greater risk for trauma (Breslau, Kessler, Chilcoat, Schultz, Davis & Andreski, 1998; West-Olatunji, 2008).

Ore Ire: Realigning African Heads

Systemic oppression, educational hegemony (Eurocentrism or the “Pan European Academy” [Asante, 2019]), and historical trauma continue to erode the mental health, emotional stability, and cognitive functioning of Black youth. Yet, some students (and their families) possess residual African-centered coping strategies passed down from generation to generation (transgenerational resilience).

African-centered teaching practices, counseling interventions, parenting behaviors, community involvement, and curricula can facilitate high academic achievement, socio-emotional & moral development, and humanistic life skills. Ore Ire refers to an individual's spiritual, inner head, and divine destiny, which can be manifested through unified cultural activities and socio-cultural actions.

Ore Ire results in both spiritual transformation and concrete action in the real world.