School failure among African American high school

School failure among African American high school males is a complex issue. These students often drop out of school, not because of learning problems, but because of the consequences of behavior problems. For many African American students, high school represents an institution where unequal opportunity prevails.

Lawrence (1997) contends that white teachers who have more fully developed racial identities can help multicultural students to empower themselves, and thus stay in school. The author studied the experiences of teacher education students before and after they had received antiracist training. Before the training, the teacher education students were reluctant to learn about racism, their white privilege, and their participation in the ideology of Whiteness. When these teachers had wide latitude of choice, they chose to teach in monocultural settings, rarely incorporated Afrocentric instruction into the curriculum, and rejected addressing issues of race in the classroom. After the training, the majority of the teachers grew more comfortable when confronted with racial issues. Lawrence (1997) expressed hope that antiracist training would translate into improved teacher attitudes in the classroom, "Although teacher education students initially resist learning about racism and their own racial privilege, in time they become more willing to talk about race and begin to accept the challenge of taking responsibility for racism" (p. 11).

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than for their female counterparts. This conclusion was reached by Fordham (1996) who studied African American male high achievers. The author found that these students undergo an intense struggle between the collective view of success in the black community and the individualistic view of success in schools. To succeed in school, African American students are often prompted to adopt an attitude or racelessness: "school officials appear to disapprove of a strong ethnic identity among Black adolescents" (Fordham, 1996, p. 210). The conflict and ambivalence resulting from schools' attitudes is especially hard on black males, who tend to derive their social identity through interaction with the community. Teachers must be aware of these competing loyalties. Teachers must also be aware that African American students often exhibit different learning styles than their white counterparts. Shade (1992) sampled African American and European American ninth grade students who attended the same schools and lived in the same general neighborhoods, and found differences in the cognitive styles of each. The African American students were more perceptive whereas the European American students were more judging. The African American st

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