Black Males Reflection

I was a bright child and able to keep up with the course material. I was an 'A' student for the most part and a 'B' student on my worst day. I was never bright enough to test for the gifted classes; however, by the time I reached the eight grade where honors classes were offered, I was the only Black male in my classes out of approximately 25-30 Black males in my eight grade cohort of approximately 200 students. I recall there being only three Black female students in this same honors course. I never realized it until I was much older, but we were being tracked. There was the gifted, or Spotlight, cohort, honors classes, and regular classes. I recalled wondering why the teachers who taught the regular courses never had a handle on their classrooms, …show more content…
However, as the Black population increases within a school, placement into college prep tracks decreases for all students regardless of race except for Black females. Black females held constant across racially imbalanced White majority schools, racially balanced schools, and racially imbalanced Black majority schools. Black males experienced gradual decreases, but only enrolled into college prep tracks at higher rates than Whites at racially balanced schools and White males and females at racially imbalanced Black majority …show more content…
Although they experience these inequities and many are less likely to succeed, minority students express a high regard for education. In her review of the book Minority Status and Schooling: A Comparative Study of Immigrant and Involuntary Minorities, Mickelson (1993) found that the researchers attributed student success to cultural model schools where schooling is done within the context of the groups social reality. “Cultural models are influenced by two historical forces: (1) the group’s initial terms of incorporation and (2) subsequent discriminationtory treatment” (p. 271). That is, the individuals come to understand their situation of how they came to be socially marginalized and how they may be at a social disadvantage when compared to dominate groups, but they believe that education is still a key factor in their success. Lastly, their social identity is a key factor of the social model school, or moreover, their identities “develop in opposition to opposition to the dominant group’s culture” (p. 272). This may be a model for schooling select groups, but Mickelson (1993) cautions that Black students who associate schooling with “acting White” may be in opposition to the education provided to them, which may inevitably doom their futures. In the second review of Accommodations without Assimilation: Sikh Immigrants in