Objective: Psychometric properties of the Family Resilience Assessment Scale and its utility for use with African American college students were examined. Participants: Subjects were 440 university students (M age = 21.65, SD = 6.17) who were enrolled during the 2018-2019 academic year and recruited during the fall and spring semesters. Methods: A…

There is a paucity of counselling scholarship investigating the trends in writing about Black life and experiences in the US. The purpose of this study was to explore the topics and themes of the articles related to Black Americans, published in American Counseling Association (ACA)-affiliated journals over a span of 24 years. Accordingly, we…

Black families and White families are affected by autism in different ways. Little scholarship acknowledges these differences, especially those communicated by Black fathers of students with autism. In this article, I share an evocative autoethnography which highlights how my cultural, familial, and occupational identities intersect and confound…

In order to promote effective learning, individuals must feel fully appreciated within their own unique identities (i.e., ethnicities, language differences, socioeconomic status, gender, religions). Culturally competent educators employ practices that acknowledge and build on cultural diversity and that identify students themselves as resources…

Large disparities exist among African Americans and other cultural groups in doctoral degree enrollment and degree attainment. To address this concern, scholars have focused on why African Americans do not pursue doctoral degrees. Although informative, this deficit perspective does not explain the factors that encourage African Americans to enroll…

Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Harvard professor and cultural critic, has been so prolific as a writer that the idea of fitting his essential works into a single volume of a manageable size seems preposterous. It has been done, however, in the recently published "The Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Reader." The Gates reader contains his favorite stories which…

Together, Samuel L. Myers Sr. and Jr. prove that the apple tree, when properly nurtured in the rich intellectual orchards of academia, will bear prime fruit that lands close to its roots. The Doctors Myers both earned bachelor's degrees from Morgan State University and then ventured to Boston for their Ph.D.s in economics. Though their specialties…

In this article Puchner and Markowitz illustrate a major problem in education and in teacher education, the underlying dynamics of which are a national problem. The problem of negative beliefs about African American families in schools is not a new idea but actually stems from unfounded and untested assumptions about the way the world works and…

Diverse education professionals learned about African cultures in a workshop experience by making African masks using authentic symbolism. Analysis of reflections to evaluate the workshop for applicability to participants with and without African heritage showed that both groups expanded their cultural knowledge of traditional African ethnic…

From 1959 to 1964, approximately 1,700 Black children in Prince Edward County, Virginia were denied schooling, due to the county leaders' decision to close schools--a defiant response to federal racial desegregation mandates stemming from "Brown v. Board of Education" (1954, 1955). Yet from one of the most extreme cases of injustice in…

Robert Hill (1972) identified strengths of Black families: strong kinship bonds, strong work orientation, adaptability of family roles, high achievement orientation, and religious orientation. Some suggest these strengths sustain the physical, emotional, social, and spiritual needs of Blacks. This study used narratives and survey data from a…

Given lingering racism in this country, one would not be surprised to learn this: African-American students are much less likely than white students to have the most qualified teachers--the ones with the most experience and greatest expertise in the subject matter. Many African-American students go to schools that do not even offer some of the…

As the number of people choosing to marry has plunged during recent decades, the tally of children living with one parent and having limited or no contact with the other has soared. Attuned to the hazards that such separations impose upon children but also upon parents who, studies show, fare physically and emotionally better in a thriving…

This dissertation utilized a qualitative narrative case study method to explore the unknown factors and elements of perseverance in spite of adversity and crisis. The study documented the lives of five African American women in order to describe, understand, and explain the central research question of how and why some first-generation learners…

The theme for the 58th annual conference of the Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers (ALER) was Bridging Cultures Through Literacy. In the first section of the Yearbook, Parker Fawson's presidential address captures the unique nature of ALER and its role in his professional development, and then moved beyond to capture the changing…