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Research illustrates that African American students are not successful in a Eurocentric model of education. Thus, an Afrocentric model has been created; however, there remains a lack of usage of this pedagogy in schools and educational institutions. This study analyzes the levels of Intercultural Sensitivity of individuals in a graduate student class in Multicultural Education to Afrocentric Pedagogy in order to understand the likelihood of usage post-graduation. The perceptions of graduate students in an eight-week course on Afrocentric Pedagogy were examined through the lens of Bennett's (1993) Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity. Quantitative and Qualitative data was collected in order to track students' perceptions through their progression in the course through pre and post survey, and web journal postings. A significant number of participants illustrated a lack of Intercultural Sensitivity to Afrocentric pedagogy. Themes of Intercultural Sensitivity were evident based upon the racial and sexual background of students. (Contains 2 tables.)

The purpose of this study is to examine an Africentric rite of passage program's impact on African-American male high school students. It is intended to determine whether a rite of passage program will affect attendance, discipline and achievement. The study also investigates the development of a school-based Africentric program as well as its outcomes. This intervention utilizes the principles of the rites of passage movement within African-American communities to focus on developing the participants' sense of self as a precursor to academic performance. It is proposed that the variables of school culture, extra curricular activities, teen culture and the rites of passage program are correlated to the African-American males academic performance, discipline, attendance, and teacher opinions. The dependent variables will be impacted by the African-American males' individual self-esteem as well as their attainment of self-actualization via the rites of passage program. The use of qualitative and quantitative methodology for this research was deemed essential. All mixed method designs use triangulation techniques. Surveys, observations, quasi-experimental techniques and hard data collection gave a clear view of the results. Demographic data attained from the surveys gave insights into the lives of the participants and teachers surveyed. The quasi-experimental technique also adds some validity to the research. Overall, a higher percentage of students in the experimental group rated themselves as "not having discipline problems" and improving in attendance as compared to the control group. In other respects the control group reported higher percentages as compared to the experimental in terms of class grades, completing assignments on time, team members working equally hard for success. The analysis of the percentages of teachers' responses to the Mighty Men of Valor program indicated that a majority of the teachers did not perceive the program as achieving the objectives. The following are appended: (1) Mighty Men of Valor Constitution; (2) Lithonia High School's Mighty Men of Valor; (3) Activities for Promoting Skill Components; and (4) Initial Participants in Study.

Various disciplinary perspectives can help in understanding relationships among cultural identity, spirituality, and sociopolitical development and their role in teaching for transformation. Educators must consider how the spirituality omnipresent in the learning environment informs emancipatory education. Cultural identity development is coming to know self as expression of Spirit; oppression causes limited perceptions of self; as people remember their spiritual essence, they can withstand oppression and be motivated to support social transformation. Adult education discourses on social transformation have a potential connection to spirituality issues; those on transformative learning attend to spirituality's role and connection to culture. Discourses on challenging power relations of interest in social transformation are feminist and critical pedagogy, critical multiculturalism, resistance postmodernism, and African-centered perspectives. Liberation theology and spiritual and religious pluralism are movements in religious and spiritual traditions concerned with social justice and transformation issues challenging power systems. Emancipatory spirituality deals with justice issues challenging systems of oppression grounded in spiritual commitment. Encompassing critical thinking and psychological empowerment, sociopolitical development is transformational, with spirituality critical to liberation activity. By exploring work of these disciplinary fields and integrating it with their field, adult educators may be able to further develop existing theory resulting in more relevant, effective practice for social change. (41 references) (YLB)

Student development theories and student-support programs should be designed to meet the special needs of culturally diverse populations. Specifically, those responsible for teaching and helping black students must create models of human and student development that take into account the unique needs and experiences that black students bring to the college campus. Various issues specific to African-American adult development are not inclusive in traditional adult development theories. This literature review suggests that most traditional theories fail to define factors that promote black adult students overall psychosocial development. Results reveal that most traditional theorists presumed that all adult students experience developmental tasks in a similar manner, failing to acknowledge the culture-race aspects of development. In contrast to theorists who proposed the utilization of traditional models of psychosocial development, nontraditional theorists suggested the conceptualization of different models to identify the unique characteristics if psychosocial development for culturally diverse black adults. A review of nontraditional theories suggests that analysis of black adult development should be based on three development and socialization areas: enhanced psychosocial concepts, bicultural factors, and the Afrocentric paradigm. (Contains 41 references and 2 tables.) (GCP)

The extent to which African American faculty provide support and mentoring to African American students determines the ease of students' transition to predominantly white colleges. This paper examines the role of both white and African American faculty in responding to the needs of African American students. Two ways that white institutions responded to African American students following the civil rights movement was to develop Afrocentric courses and to establish African American social clubs. Currently, African American students need to participate in a wide array of activities within their academic institutions in order to prepare for success beyond college, and they need to learn how to present their view of academic material from Afrocentric and Eurocentric perspectives. African American students require social and academic support in order to make the necessary adjustments to the white campus environment, with African American administrators, faculty, and staff involved in this effort. All members of the African American college community should meet and develop a campus organization that can respond to faculty, staff, and student needs within the organizational structure. This organization can also relate to the city's social and political organizations in which the college resides so that information, support, and expertise can be transmitted back and forth. (SM)

This study used participant observation, student interviews, reflective journals, and discussions with faculty members and administrators to examine multicultural aspects at an historically black college. It reviews three theoretical approaches: (1) the theory of John Ogbu, which classifies minority groups in the United States as either voluntary or involuntary, with African Americans an involuntary minority group; (2) the theory of A. Wade Boykin, which distinguishes the different cultural perspectives of African American students from the traditional educational perspective; and (3) the Harrington-Austin and Dibona theory that holds that many historically black colleges tend to replace the Eurocentric culture for an Afrocentric one instead of exposing students to multicultural perspectives. It notes the need for African American students to achieve bicultural competence and suggests a variety of teaching approaches to this end, including presenting historical information to provide context and models, implementing cooperative rather than individualistic goal structures, emphasizing active rather than passive activities, promoting oral and creative alternatives to written assignments, and exposing students to the experiences of other minorities. (DB)

Social Skills Training (SST) has become a popular and effective means of prevention and intervention with adolescent populations exhibiting behavioral difficulties. Early in their development many African-American youth are exposed to homicide, crime, and interpersonal violence. The acquisition of social skills is critical to the development of mediational techniques in combating these stressors. Standard SST programs, which are not culturally specific, are thought to be less effective in producing durable gains with African-American youth. This study examines the effects of an Afrocentric SST curriculum, in comparison to a standard SST curriculum, in promoting social skills development with 89 inner-city African-American youth (ages 10-15). Each 12-session curriculum teaches these skills as part of a community-based summer youth program involving problem solving, anger management, and conflict resolution. In addition, the Afrocentric curriculum incorporates discussion of relevant cultural experiences as they relate to the ancient and recent history of African Americans based on the Nguzo Saba cultural value system principles of: Umoja (unity); Kujichagulia (self-determination); Ujima (collective work and responsibility); Ujamma (cooperative economics); Nia (purpose); Kuumba (creativity); and Imani (father). Both curricula use manuals with intervention protocols that feature didactic and process-based training in a small group format. Monitoring and evaluation procedures are used to ensure treatment integrity. Results support the hypothesis that social skills training can produce significant gains in interpersonal skills and anger management for inner-city African American adolescents. (Contains 3 tables and 36 references.) (Author/SLD)

According to Knowles (1980), adults come to the learning environment when they are ready. His concept of andragogy is based on these assumptions: changes in self-concept, the role of experience, readiness to learn, and orientation to learning. Increasing concern has been placed upon the need to address the multiple cultural needs of learners and workers in all settings. Hill-Collins (1990) describes a research methodology aimed at collecting and analyzing data from marginalized persons. This Africentric feminist epistemology attempts to provide a medium through which one's interpretation of behavior and thought is grounded in the history, culture, economics, race, gender, language, and religion of those involved in the research. This perspective emphasizes the intersection of multiple, polyrhythmic realities. Polyrhythms are the multiple rhythms that flow and course through one's being. A model has been developed that represents the intersecting polyrhythmic realities based upon the Africentric feminist deconstruction of an individual's world view. Four assumptions formulate the bases for acknowledging one's polyrhythmic realities within the learning environment: concrete experience as the criterion of meaning, dialogue as the basis for assessing knowledge claims, an ethic of caring, and an ethic of personal accountability. These assumptions provide the framework for giving voice. The teacher moves from the center into the margin and gives students an opportunity to share their understandings through dialogue. (Contains 12 references.) (YLB)

This paper reports on the development of a school-based Afrocentric intervention for middle school male adolescents who are at risk for academic failure or underachievement. The intervention combined the principles of the rites of passage movement within African American communities and current thinking on the process of second culture acquisition to focus on developing the participants' sense of ethnic self as a precursor to academic performance. The Afrocentric rites of passages movement is designed to provide African American males with the grounding in their culture of origin that they need to negotiate the challenges facing them in Eurocentric environments. Six African American males in the sixth grade of a predominantly European American urban middle school participated. The results of this intervention suggest that this is an approach to at-risk adolescent African American males that warrants further attention. An appendix describes the intervention, which began with four months of participation in the "Kwanzaa" group which was primarily social but dedicated to learning Afrocentric principles. The second phase of the program, the Sphinx Club, emphasized applying the principles learned earlier in the year. (Contains 1 table and 22 references.) (Author/SLD)

This paper describes a literature review that searched for afrocentric perspectives on human communication theory. The search described in the paper was focused on the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University, reportedly one of the largest collections of African-American literature in the United States. The search described in the paper was done by researching key words in the subject card catalog and then studying entries relevant to communication arts. The search described in the paper reveals a rich abundance of material suitable for analysis in case study assignments, but the search did not reveal any theoretical frameworks unique to the African-American perspective. Contains 61 references. (Author/RS)

The cultural compatibility hypothesis suggests that black children attending an Afrocentric school (the culturally compatible condition) should have more positive outcomes, as indicated by ethnic identity, future expectations, and optimism, than black adolescents in a mainstream school (cultural incompatibility condition). Adolescents from an Afrocentric middle school with a predominantly black faculty and a student body that was 85% African American and a mainstream middle school were compared through their responses in structured interviews. The sample was 71% female and 57% from middle-class homes. Only 6% of the sample from both schools was from impoverished backgrounds. Students in the two schools did not differ in ethnic identity or ethnic disaffiliation, but those in the Afrocentric school anticipated more future events than the mainstream students. They also anticipated more career-related events and were more optimistic about the future. Results support the hypothesis that culturally compatible schools transmit implicit and explicit expectations of success. (Contains one table and five figures.) (SLD)

Findings of a 3-year study of the experiences of Black and African-Canadian students in the Ontario public school system are presented. The paper focuses on urban students in four schools and on their parents' perceptions of public schooling. Interviews were held with nearly 150 African Canadian students, including 22 dropouts, some of whom returned to school. Surveys were completed by 145 of these students. It is argued that a critical interrogation of individual narratives provides alternative and disturbing insights into how schooling and education in Euro-Canadian and American contexts function to engage some students, while disengaging others. African-centered schools are also discussed as an alternative educational strategy to address the fundamental concerns of student disengagement and underachievement in mainstream schools. Canadian schools need to be more inclusive and to be governed by principles that stress power sharing with all stakeholders in the educational system. (Contains 47 references.) (SLD)

This paper explores a facet of the organizational implications of an Afrocentric perspective in American education, primarily in public schools. It also explores, through two focus groups, the perceptions of 10 African-American school administrators and 10 teachers in a graduate education supervision class. The focus groups made it clear that the Afrocentric perspective in American education is an issue that has come of age; however, the data identified a few critical distinctions between administrators' and teachers' perceptions. Because of these differences in perspective, the argument arises that there is a need for Afrocentric resource centers within schools and educational systems and that the Afrocentric idea is an essential step toward progress and greater inclusion of Blacks into the American dream. (Contains four references.) (GLR)

One new approach to the needs of at-risk African American male students that is being implemented in several urban school districts throughout the nation is the immersion school approach. This is the establishment of schools that provide a curriculum and related experiences for African American male students that are distinct from the curriculum and experiences provided for other students. This paper examines the Milwaukee (Wisconsin) Public Schools African American Immersion Academy, a program specifically designed to increase the academic performance and overall success of African American male students. There are seven programs designed by the immersion school to address the concerns of this population. Responses of participants on measures of intellectual achievement responsibility, attitudes toward school, and self-esteem were compared using a nonrandomized pretest-posttest control group design with 90 students from the immersion program and 63 students from a traditional school. There was little evidence from student responses to indicate that students in grades 3, 4, and 5 in the immersion school differed significantly from their counterparts in the traditional school, although students in grade 5 did demonstrate some change in the desired direction in terms of responsibility for their own achievement. The study did generate baseline data that can be used in future investigations, although no conclusions are appropriate at this time. (Contains 1 table and 67 references.) (Author/SLD)

This paper considers fundamental questions raised in the current debate about Afrocentric research methods in the social sciences. The discussion covers feminist, critical theory, radical humanist, radical structuralist, ethnographic, naturalistic inquiry, constructivism, and phenomenological inquiry approaches to research. The working definition of Afrocentric research methodology is primarily derived from the work of Molefi K. Asante. The paper offers a chronology of the developing dialogue among intellectuals about Afrocentric research methods. It also looks at Afrocentrism in terms of Eurocentrism, Afrocentric social theory, and Afrocentric social science. Further discussion treats ontology, epistemology, and physics. An exploration of methods, location, the role of the researcher, validity and integrity, and ethics culminates in a list of 10 important concepts and ideas to describe the emerging principles of Afrocentric research methodology including the following: (1) Afrocentricity offers a new paradigm of social theory and social science which represents a major departure; (2) it provides a unique lens for analyzing all forms of oppression at the same time and with the same degree of commitment, among them race, gender, and class; and (3) knowledge which is inherently Eurocentric is abandoned, and all knowledge is scrutinized for Eurocentric bias. (Contains 31 references.) (JB)

Educational reform efforts to date in the United States have not been germane or responsive to the social problems of African American children. The reform efforts advanced to date have only been exercises in tinkering around the educational edges. Our educational focus, the origin of which is outlined, must shift in at least two major ways. First, we must turn from preoccupation with talent assessment and its trappings to a commitment to talent development. Second, we must as a nation move away from an obsession with social homogenization and social control to a system based on racial and cultural diversity. This paper discusses the traditional assumptions for psychological and pedagogical processes that underlie the present focus on talent assessment and compares them with alternative assumptions that underlie a focus on talent development. A second section makes a case for deep cultural structure and the incorporation of Afrocultural ethos into the pedagogical process at the deepest levels of schooling. Overdetermination is proposed as an explanatory framework for the educational process and a structural guide for reform. A table lists implications of cultural deep structure analyses. (Contains 46 references.) (SLD)

This review examines African American students' access to science and mathematics education, their status and achievement in these fields, factors influencing achievement, and strategies to address the current situation. African Americans are highly underrepresented in the scientific and technical fields. This situation should be corrected because the nation will need increasing numbers of citizens in these areas, because it is in the interest of the African American community to have their community represented in these important fields, and because greater representation will address social inequity. Statistics on black students' performance in mathematics indicate that they are the poorest performers of any group. This situation may be influenced by historical, psychosocial, institutional, behavioral, cognitive, and cultural factors. Proposed solutions to the problems of minority underrepresentation in science and engineering include structural reform of the public school system; Afrocentric education; intervention programs; increased roles for black colleges and universities; black self-help and community programs; and collaborative models involving the government, business, education, and community. Seven graphs are included. (Contains 36 references.) (JB)

This paper reports on the third year of a longitudinal evaluation of the Visions for Children preschool program. An early childhood education demonstration program, the Visions program aims to facilitate the intellectual development and academic achievement of African American preschool children while strengthening their self-esteem and identity as Afro-Americans. Children in the control group attended a high quality day care center with a highly trained staff. Evaluation data indicated that program participants scored higher than control group children on eight tests. In addition, program participants in the two cohorts of the Visions group scored higher than control subjects on subtests of the Metropolitan Reading Readiness Test, taken before kindergarten entry, and the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT), taken before entrance into the first grade. Visions program participants scored significantly higher on the visual recognition and vocabulary subtests of the SAT. It is noted that control group children had less of a Caucasian orientation than did program participants. This is surprising, because a major thrust of the program is its Afrocentric perspective. Explanations for this outcome are explored. (RH)