The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of African American children's oral language skills with the intention of building the understanding of how these skills translate to classroom contexts. The chapter also summarizes the goals of the Common Core that are specifically related to speaking and listening and describes how African…

Children experience toxic stress if there is pronounced activation of their stress-response systems, in situations in which they do not have stable caregiving. Due to their exposure to multiple poverty-related risks, African American children may be more susceptible to exposure to toxic stress. Toxic stress affects young children's brain and…

In this chapter, we dismantle the current educational rhetoric that pervasively characterizes Black children as being "at-risk," "deficient," or "underachievers." Instead, we replace this deficit-oriented rhetoric with one that encapsulates the cultural and educational excellence that inspires Black children to reach…

Black fathers, and specifically fathers who identify as African American, represent a group of parents who are at once not well understood and pervasively stereotyped in negative ways. In this chapter, we describe the risks and resilience of Black fathers and their children, with a special focus on mental health and coping with stress. We…