The idea of what constitutes literacy in the classroom is mostly determined by middle-class school officials and state and federal administrators. The discourse of minority populations is marginalized and not readily recognized or incorporated into mainstream instruction. This impacts not only the ability of these students to be accountable…

While the phenomenon of sexual coercion has been studied extensively, little is known about African-American college students' perceptions about verbal sexual coercion. Using a phenomenological approach, the researchers conducted five focus group interviews with 39 African-American students (20 females, 19 males) at a large Midwestern university…

This article proposes a multidimensional framework that takes into account multiple categories of difference and forms of oppression to understand and suggest interventions for gay and gender nonconforming Black male students in urban schools. The author builds the case for educators to develop these kinds of frameworks by describing two…

C. M. Steele and J. Aronson (1995) showed that making race salient when taking a difficult test affected the performance of high-ability African American students, a phenomenon they termed stereotype threat. The authors document that this research is widely misinterpreted in both popular and scholarly publications as showing that eliminating…

This article reflects upon changes in U.S. education since the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The authors reject both the naively hopeful and the bitterly cynical interpretations of the efficacy of Brown in favor of a more moderate assessment: Brown has had many positive effects, they…

Interviews with African American and White American elders capture the immediate power of the Brown v. Board of Education (1954) decision and the biography of its impact over time. This article reviews the lived experience of the decision and theorizes 3 threats to sustainability that ruthlessly undermined the decision over time: (a) the…

The road to Brown v. Board of Education (1954) was a slow and circuitous climb, whereas the retreat down from Brown has been swift and direct. This article reviews 4 distinct U.S. Supreme Court eras of racial decisions: the segregation, preparatory, desegregation, and resegregation eras. It notes both the strengths and weaknesses of Brown and…

The fact that an achievement gap between White and African-American students exists is undisputed. The reasons for this gap are many and complex. Evidence does exist, though, that this gap can be narrowed and potentially eliminated. Evidence also exists that demonstrates that when the gap in academic achievement becomes equal African-Americans are…