other students with African-American males resisting out-of-class chats with teachers nearly two to four times as often as other students. African-American males were also less attentive to the teachers, which led to teachers' feeling that the students were unready for the work.
Peer interaction observations revealed an interesting pattern. Specifically, it was found that African-American males' peer interactions were, in comparison to other students, more central to their schooling experience. As a group, African-American males were said to be more insular. Gaining status among peers was more important to them than school achievement; further, their peer group unity was greater than that of other peer groups and this caused tension with the teachers.
In an effort to better understand the scope of discipline problems among African-American males, Caesar (1985) examined for relationships between behavior problems and ethnicity using the Behavior Problem Checklist (BPC). Subjects were grouped homogeneously (by race, age, sex, and socioeconomic status) rather than heterogeneously. Four hundred sixty-nine Black and White children (in first through sixth grades) attending school in a medium sized southern city (Charleston, SC) were rated on the BPC by their teachers.
These ratings were then intercorrelated and factor analyzed. Cross-ethnic comparisons of these factor structures were made and race, sex, age, social class, and parental marital status differences were assessed. Results indicated that males and blacks exhibited more poor conduct than females and Anglos, respectively.
For personality ratings, males received more extreme scores than females. Ratings were found to be dependent upon a combination of teacher's race, children's race, and children's sex.
Age was found to influence personality scores but not conduct scores. Marital status of parents influenced both conduct and personality scores while ...